And she was getting worked up, beginning what the Project Amy staff called "sequencing." Just as human beings first became red-faced, and then tensed their bodies, and then shouted and threw things before they finally resorted to direct physical aggression, so gorillas passed through a stereotyped behavioral sequence on the way to physical aggression. Tearing up paper, or grass, would be followed by lateral crablike movements and grunts. Then she would slap the ground, making as much noise as possible.
And then Amy would charge, if he didn't interrupt the sequence.
"Amy," he said sternly. "Karen button woman."
Amy stopped shredding. In her world, "button" was the acknowledged term for a person of high status.
Amy was extremely sensitive to individual moods and behavior, and she had no difficulty observing the staff and deciding who was superior to whom. But among strangers, Amy as a gorilla was utterly impervious to formal human status cues; the principal indicators - clothing, bearing, and speech - had no meaning to her.
As a young animal, she had inexplicably attacked policemen. After several biting episodes and threatened lawsuits,
they finally learned that Amy found police uniforms with their shiny buttons clown like and ridiculous; she assumed that anyone so foolishly dressed must be of inferior status and safe to attack. After they had taught her the concept of "button," she treated anyone in uniform with deference.
Amy now stared at "button" Ross with new respect. Surrounded by the torn paper, she seemed suddenly embarrassed, as if she had made a social error. Without being told, she went and stood in the corner, facing the wall.
"What's that about?" Ross said.
"She knows she's been bad."
"You make her stand in the corner, like a child? She didn't mean any harm." Before Elliot could warn against it, she went over to Amy. Amy stared steadfastly at the corner.
Ross unshouldered her purse and set it on the floor within Amy's reach. Nothing happened for a moment. Then Amy took the purse, looked at Karen, then looked at Peter.
Peter said, "She'll wreck whatever's inside."
"That's all right."
Amy immediately opened the brass clasp, and dumped the contents on the floor. She began sifting through, signing, Lipstick lipstick, Amy like Amy want lipstick want.
"She wants lipstick."
Ross bent over and found it for her. Amy removed the cap and smeared a red circle on Karen's face. She then smiled and grunted happily, and crossed the room to her mirror, which was mounted on the floor. She applied lipstick.
"I think we're doing better," Karen Ross said.
Across the room, Amy squatted by the mirror, happily making a mess of her face. She grinned at her smart image, then applied lipstick to her teeth. It seemed a good time to ask her the question. "Amy want take trip?" Peter said.
Amy loved trips, and regarded them as special treats. After an especially good day, Elliot often took her for a ride to a nearby drive-in, where she would have an orange drink, sucking it through the straw and enjoying the commotion she caused among the other people there. Lipstick and an offer of a trip was almost too much pleasure for one morning. She signed, Car trip?
"No, not in the car. A long trip. Many days."
Leave house?
"Yes, leave house. Many days."
This made her suspicious. The only times she had left the house for many days had been during hospitalizations for pneumonia and urinary-tract infections; they had not been pleasant trips. She signed, Where go trip?
"To the jungle, Amy."
There was a long pause. At first he thought she had not understood, but she knew the word for jungle, and she should be able to put it all together. Amy signed thoughtfully to herself, repetitively as she always did when she was mulling things over: Jungle trip trip jungle go trip jungle go. She set aside her lipstick. She stared at the bits of paper on the floor, and then she began to pick them up and put them in the wastebasket.
"What does that mean?" Karen Ross asked.
"That means Amy wants to take a trip," Peter Elliot said.
6. Departure
THE HINGED NOSE OF THE BOEING 747 CARGO JET lay open like a jaw, exposing the cavernous, brightly lit interior. The plane had been flown up from Houston to San Francisco that afternoon; it was now nine o'clock at night, and puzzled workers were loading on the large aluminum travel cage, boxes of vitamin pills, a portable potty, and cartons of toys. One workman pulled out a Mickey Mouse drinking cup and stared at it, shaking his head.
Outside on the concrete, Elliot stood with Amy, who covered her ears against the whine of the jet engines. She signed to Peter, Birds noisy.
"We fly bird, Amy," he said.
Amy had never flown before, and had never seen an airplane at close hand. We go car, she decided, looking at the plane.
"We can't go by car. We fly." Fly where fly? Amy signed.
"Fly jungle."
This seemed to perplex her, but he did not want to explain further. Like all gorillas, Amy had an aversion to water, refusing to cross even small streams. He knew she would be distressed to hear that they would be flying over large bodies of water. Changing the subject, he suggested they board the plane and look around. As they climbed the sloping ramp up the nose, Amy signed, Where button woman?
He had not seen Ross. for the last five hours, and was surprised to discover that she was already on board, talking on a telephone mounted on a wall of the cargo hold, one hand cupped over her free ear to block the noise. Elliot overheard her say, "Well, Irving seems to think it's enough.
Yes, we have four nine-oh-seven units and we are prepared to match and absorb. Two micro HUDs, that's all. . . Yes, why not?" She finished the call, turned to Elliot and Amy.