Jennie by Douglas Preston Page B

head around in a Bavarian lake, believing it was their dear lovely mother. The idea occurred to me right away that Jennie had been, in a more sophisticated way, imprinted by Hugo. Not only did Jennie believe she was human, but she had probably been imprinted to believe that Hugo was her mother.
    I explained all this to Hugo. Might that, I suggested, be cause for concern? The idea seemed to irritate him further. He said he thought anyone who tried to extrapolate the behavior of a goose to a chimpanzee was an idiot. He was quite defensive about this chimpanzee and why he had brought it back.
    â€œHarold,” he told me, “this is purely an informal little experiment in primate behavior. An
experiment
. Let’s not get all worried about this thing. She’s like a pet, only I’m curious to see what will happen to a chimpanzee that is raised like a human child. That’s all. An informal, anecdotal experiment. I can’t see any harm in that, can you?”
    I pointed out that in no way could this be called an experiment. What were the objectives? Where was the control? What was the hypothesis? And I said he was naive to think there might not be any harm in it. This was not like raising a puppy. But all he did was start shaking his head and smiling. “Harold, Harold, Harold,” he said. “Okay, Harold, you win. You’re right. It’s not an experiment. It’s just for laughs. Strictly for laughs.”
    Ah, but you see—Now who was it that said: “The joker loses everything when he laughs at his own joke”? Hmmmm. Well, it isn’t important. Schiller, maybe.
    At any rate, what even
I
did not realize at the time, although it is painfully clear to me now, is that imprinting can sometimes work both ways.
    [F ROM
Recollecting a Life
by Hugo Archibald.]
    In his old age, my father, Henry S. Archibald, became interested in death. As he was an avowed atheist, this interest took a rather peculiar form. Instead of worrying about the ultimate disposition of his soul, he became obsessed with the family burial grounds. He had a brush with death when I was away at college—a minor bout with phlebitis—and by the time I returned for the summer his new interest had blossomed. He insisted on involving me. My father’s family was originally from Newburyport, Massachusetts, and we made many trips to obscure and overgrown cemeteries there.
    There were six graveyards in Newburyport and four of them contained the precious remains of an Archibald. There was a graveyard on Plum Island that had two Archibald graves. During the last years of my father’s life I came to know all these graves and more.
    My father took it upon himself to tend these graves. He waded in among the wild tea roses wielding a fearsome brush hook, carving a swath around each of the Archibald headstones. He scrubbed off the lichen, weeded and trimmed the grass, and laid down fresh flowers. I found the concept as strange as Japanese ancestor worship. But I was young then, and I found my father’s excessive concern with death amusing.
    My father had become increasingly cranky in his old age, and accompanying him on these trips was the only way I found to maintain a relationship with him. He complained frequently. “Your brother,” he would say, “has no interest in the family graves. I’m glad that at least one of my sons has taken an interest in the family history. Tending the Archibald graves is hard work,and when I’m gone it’s going to take quite a bit of your time. I hope you realize how much of a responsibility you have taken on.”
    I did not recollect taking on any responsibility, and I certainly had no intention of carrying on my father’s work after he was gone. I did not, however, have the heart to set him straight.
    During World War I, my father was an engineer first class aboard a ship in the U.S. Navy. During that time he had a small idea relating to an improvement