The Immortalists(87)
Varya is not deluded. Of course, the monkeys would rather be outdoors. Behind the vivarium is a larger caged area where the monkeys can play with tires or ropes and swing on netting, though in truth it should be larger, and each monkey receives only a couple of hours there each week. But the point is that her study seeks not to test new drugs or research SIV but to keep the animals alive for as long as possible. Where is the fault in that?
She turns to Luke and shares the talking points that Annie prepared. Without primate research, countless viruses would not have been discovered. Countless vaccines would not have been developed, and countless therapies would not have been proven safe for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and AIDS. Then there is the fact that life in the outside world is no picnic, full of predators and potential starvation. Nobody but a sadist, and perhaps Harry Harlow, likes the sight of a monkey in a cage, but at least, at the Drake, they are cared for and protected.
Still, she can see how a visitor could get the wrong impression. The cages are stacked against the walls, leaving a narrow center aisle for Varya and Luke. The animals face them, splayed against the mesh like geckos. Their pink bellies are stretched long, fingers hooked through the open squares. The dominant monkeys stare silently with their mouths open and their long, yellow teeth bared; the less dominant ones grimace and scream. They do the same thing to the Drake’s new CEO, a man who visits the lab once or twice a year for as little time as possible.
In her first year, the monkeys also reacted this way to Varya. It took all her self-control not to flee. But she did not flee, and though the former CEO had been right – most of Varya’s time is spent at her desk – she forces herself to visit the vivarium once daily, usually to administer breakfast. She does not touch the animals, but she likes to know how they are doing, likes to see the evidence of her success. She brings Luke’s attention to the calorie-restricted monkeys and then to the control monkeys, who eat as much as they please. Luke takes photos of each group. The flash makes them scream louder. Some of the monkeys have begun to shake the bars of their cages, so Varya shouts to explain that the controls are more prone to early-onset diabetes and that their risk of disease is almost three times higher than that of the restricted group. The restricted group even looks younger: their oldest members have lush, auburn fur while the controls are wrinkled and balding, their red rumps showing through.
This is the midpoint of the study, so it’s too soon to assess total life span. Still, it’s clear that the results are promising, that they suggest Varya’s thesis is likely to be proven, and in sharing this she feels such pride that she can ignore the screaming, the scrabbling, the scent, and face the monkeys, her subjects, with pleasure.
When Luke has left, she retrieves Frida.
Earlier today, she asked Annie to move her into the isolation chamber. Frida is her favorite monkey, but Frida is bad PR – Frida of the broad, flat brow, her golden eyes rimmed in black as if by kohl. As a baby, her ears were overlarge, her fingers long and pink. She arrived in California one week after Varya herself. That morning, Annie had received a shipment of new monkeys, but there was one held up due to a snowstorm, a baby who had been bred at a research center in Georgia. Annie had to leave, so Varya stayed. At nine thirty p.m. an unmarked white van trundled up the hill and stopped outside of the primate lab. Out climbed an unshaven boy who couldn’t have been more than twenty and who had Varya sign a receipt, as if for a pizza. He seemed to have no interest in his cargo, or perhaps he had grown sick of it: when he retrieved the cage, which was covered by a blanket, it emitted such horrible screeching that Varya instinctively backed away.
But the animal was her responsibility now. She wore full protective clothing, though this did nothing to dim the sounds that came from the cage as the driver handed it over. He wiped his face with relief and jogged back to the van. Then he drove down the hill far faster than he had driven up, leaving Varya and the screaming cage alone.
The cage was the size of a microwave. They would not introduce Frida to the other animals until tomorrow, so Varya brought the cage to an isolated room the size of a janitor’s closet, and set it down. Her arms were already aching and her heartbeat flapped with terror. Why had she ever agreed to this? She had not even done the hardest part, which was the physical transition from old cage to new, and which required Varya to touch the animal inside.
The cage was still covered by what Varya now saw was a baby blanket, patterned with yellow rattles. She peeled back a corner of the blanket, and the animal’s cries grew louder. Varya sat back on her heels. Her anxiety was ballooning – she knew she had to do the transition now or she would not be able to do it at all – so she hefted the small transport cage until its opening aligned with the door of the lab cage. Inhaling she removed the blanket. The carrier was barely bigger than the monkey itself, but the animal began to revolve, turning circles while grasping the bars. Varya reached for the lock as Annie had shown her, but her hands shook – the monkey’s confusion and fear were unbearable – and before she could steady herself, the carrier slid to one side.
Out shot the baby, as if from a cannon. It did not land in the larger cage but on Varya’s chest. She could not help it: she screamed, too, and fell back from her knees to her rear. She thought the monkey meant to hurt her, but it wrapped its slender arms around her back and clung, pressing its face to her breast.
Who was more terrified? Varya had images of amebiasis and hepatitis B, all the diseases of which she dreamed nightly and feared she would die, all the reasons she had not wanted to take this job in the first place. But pressing back against that fear was another living creature. The baby’s body was heavy, so much denser than a human baby’s that it made the latter seem hollow. She did not know how long they stayed that way, Varya rocking back on her heels as the monkey cried. It was three weeks old. Varya knew it had been taken from its mother at two weeks, that it was the mother’s first child, and that the mother, whose name was Songlin – she had been transported from a breeding center in Guangxi, China – had been so distressed that she was tranquilized in the midst of that process.