"Pat Murphy - Rachel In Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

RACHEL IN LOVE
By Pat Murphy

[17 jan 2001 – scanned for #bookz, proofread and released – v1]

Animals have minds and selfidentities, but they are strictly limited by the necessities of their
struggle to eat, survive and reproduce. What need then does an animal of the wild have for the
heavy and contemplative brain of a human who must live in a highly complex and devious
society? This is the story of an experiment in that directionand a vivid exposition of the conflict
between natural emotion and unnatural intelligence.

It is a Sunday morning in summer and a small brown chimpanzee named Rachel sits on the living room
floor of a remote ranch house on the edge of the Painted Desert. She is watching a Tarzan movie on
television. Her hairy arms are wrapped around her knees and she rocks back and forth with suppressed
excitement. She knows that her father would say that she's too old for such childish amusements-but
since Aaron is still sleeping, he can't chastise her.

On the television, Tarzan has been trapped in a bamboo cage by a band of wicked Pygmies. Rachel is
afraid that he won't escape in time to save Jane from the ivory smugglers who hold her captive. The
movie cuts to Jane, who is tied up in the back of a jeep, and Rachel whimpers softly to herself. She
knows better than to howl: she peeked into her father's bedroom earlier, and he was still in bed. Aaron
doesn't like her to howl when he is sleeping.

When the movie breaks for a commercial, Rachel goes to her father's room. She is ready for breakfast
and she wants him to get up. She tiptoes to the bed to see if he is awake.

His eyes are open and he is staring at nothing. His face is pale and his lips are a purplish color. Dr. Aaron
Jacobs, the man Rachel calls father, is not asleep. He is dead, having died in the night of a heart attack.

When Rachel shakes him, his head rocks back and forth in time with her shaking, but his eyes do not
blink and he does not breathe. She places his hand on her head, nudging him so that he will waken and
stroke her. He does not move. When she leans toward him, his hand falls limply to dangle over the edge
of the bed.

In the breeze from the open bedroom window, the fine wisps of gray hair that he had carefully combed
over his bald spot each morning shift and flutter, exposing the naked scalp. In the other room, elephants
trumpet as they stampede across the jungle to rescue Tarzan. Rachel whimpers softly, but her father does
not move.

Rachel backs away from her father's body. In the living room, Tarzan is swinging across the jungle on
vines, going to save Jane. Rachel ignores the television. She prowls through the house as if searching for
comfort--stepping into her own small bedroom, wandering through her father's laboratory. From the
cages that line the walls, white rats stare at her with hot red eyes. A rabbit hops across its cage, making a
series of slow dull thumps, like a feather pillow tumbling down a flight of stairs.

She thinks that perhaps she made a mistake. Perhaps her father is just sleeping. She returns to the
bedroom, but nothing has changed. Her father lies openeyed on the bed. For a long time, she huddles
beside his body, clinging to his hand.

He is the only person she has ever known. He is her father, her teacher, her friend. She cannot leave him