yellow circle: query
white square: Dinah
purple circle with hole: hurt
She left his arms and studied the symbols apathetically. All of a sudden she became animated, chattered at Maj where he was working by the cheetah’s cage, found a black square and rearranged the symbols.
black square: person other than Morris, Dinah or Sultan
purple circle with hole: hurt
white square: Dinah
Morris clicked sympathetically and made her sit still while he felt carefully along her ribs. Nothing seemed to be broken, but the shock of being hit by a human was for some reason greater than her reactions to Sparrow’s bullying. Perhaps she was instinctually conditioned to her role as a female chimpanzee, among chimpanzees, whereas her relationship with mankind was an entirely learnt set of responses, a flimsy network that once broken could not repair itself by natural growth, but would have to be carefully re-knitted by some outside agent. Morris decided that he would have to speak to the slaves about their treatment of Dinah. It was the sort of job he hated, being conscious of how likely he was to make a mess of it, and simply put their backs up. But he was determined to try to keep them. They were jewels. Jillad, in particular, was a good example of the weird interweaving of civilisations in the desert—a man competent to cope with a fairly sophisticated gadget like the water-filter, and still a slave, because his father had been one.
They worked fast, too, now that Dinah was no longer distracting them. They were just finishing clearing the litter out of the chimpanzee grove when the special signal that heralded the Sultan fluted faintly down from the zoo doors.
“Finish and go,” said Morris. “You have worked well.”
Maj smiled and bowed, a portly salute with something of the absurd dignity that invests an orang.
“I will leave the reeds,” he said. “They are tidy, Lord. You will not let your ape touch them?”
“Good,” said Morris, and hurried away. Dinah loped beside him.
“Ah, there you are, old fellow,” said the Sultan. “You’ll be glad to learn I’m becoming quite scientific in my old age. I’ve brought a control group. I thought we might play hide-and-seek for a change.”
Anne, leaning on the Sultan’s arm, laughed. Today she was wearing an extraordinary get-up; basically it was riding-kit—glossy brown boots, white kid breeches moulded tight to buttock and thigh, taut blouse—but over this she wore a scarlet silk cloak ankle length and buckled at the throat. She also carried a little silver-handled hunting-crop, and looked altogether as though she were starring in a camp re-make of The Sheikh.
“A control group?” he said, gaping at her. “You’ve got some funny ideas about control.”
The Sultan chose to be not amused, an act he did very well. He waved an impatient hand towards where Dyal and Gaur stood, a little further along the upper gallery.
“It struck me that Dinah might simply be using my symbol for any big man who happened not to be Dyal,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Morris. “You’ve got to remember that it’s natural for her to think in terms of any group having a dominant male. Sparrow’s that down there. You’re it up here. In fact I get the impression that she’s fascinated by you, but she’s scared of you too.”
“You have a peculiar line in flattery, Morris.”
“Oh, come off it. I’m just telling you Dinah knows perfectly well who you are, and there’s no chance of her muddling you up with anyone else.”
“Good, good. Now, this game. My idea is that a couple of us hide and Dinah is told which one to find. You’ve got a symbol for find, haven’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“‘I suppose so!’ Morris, in some ways you’re a lout. Just because it’s not your own idea, you go out of your way to make it sound impractical.”
This was a perfectly fair criticism, and in fact the game went beautifully. Dinah coped with commands such as “Dinah: find: man: big: new sentence: Dinah: find: negative: Sultan.” As soon as she discovered that there were grapes for her at the end of each hunt if she got it right she applied her wits to the task. When it was Gaur’s turn to be the one discovered he needed some cajoling.
“Come thou,” said Dyal, “it is not a witch finding. There is no duck, no poison.”
“What’s the trouble?” said Anne, in English.
“He’s got it into his head that I’m a witch and Dinah is my familiar.”
“How sweet,” said Anne, smiling at the young savage. He rolled his eyes, clutched his amulet and went. The Sultan looked at her sidelong but said nothing before he too moved heavily out of sight. Morris counted his fifty, spelt out the message for Dinah and let her go. She scampered off, chuckling. He looked up to see Anne standing face to face with the gorilla, imitating its grimace.
“It doesn’t suit you,” he said.
She understood before he did what he really meant, and ran a calm hand down her ribs and over her hip.
“There’s a law of diminishing returns,” she said. “When my grandfather was getting on, he used to complain that my grandmother was cheating him over his curries—he couldn’t taste them any more, because he must have burnt his taste-buds pretty well clean off with trying.”
“That looks a fairly strong curry,” said Morris.
She shrugged.
“The fantasies of male domination . . . oh hell. Time I got out of here.”
She swung back and stared at the gorilla.
“Get stuffed,” she whispered.
But in fact, Morris thought, she was living the fantasy with every bit as much gusto as the Sultan, and even had enough spare sexual drive to flash bright glances towards poor Gaur. Perhaps she got a kick out of the risk; or perhaps she only wanted to spice up the Sultan’s curry with the sharp tang of jealousy. Mercifully it was none of his business. He turned to watch through the window where Cecil was examining with intense interest the incipient sexual swelling on Starkie’s rump.
When the hide-and-seek was over the usual shooting-match began; Dinah ate her last grapes with slow absorption and then Morris took her down to the cage. He came back to find that the Sultan’s tortuous processes of revenge were in action; if your mistress flirts with a handsome young man, what more natural than to humiliate him in her presence, fondling as you do so, before his eyes, the forbidden flesh. The Sultan was speaking in slow Arabic.
“Let the boy guard the door for a while,” he said. “Let him learn his duties. It is not good for the young to have no work to do, eh, my dear?”
The last three words were in English, but they would have sounded insulting in any language. Dyal was visibly put out—startled more than angry—and led Gaur away with a puzzled expression. The Sultan laughed.
“May I borrow your office for a bit, old boy?” he said.
“Make yourself at home,” said Morris.
He began to load oranges and cabbage into the chutes, and then he and Dyal watched in silence for twenty minutes while the chimpanzees had their lunch-time threshabout. For one who was not emotionally involved it was amusing to watch. Dyal laughed aloud—a deep and strangely solemn sound—several times. Morris watched Dinah work a sort of three-card trick on Sparrow, confusing him for the moment with a piece of orange-peel while she scuffled a real orange under the fresh bedding and then allowed herself to be harried round the grove until Sparrow forgot his grievance and she could retire, whimpering, to the reeds and eat the orange under cover of her sulks. Yes, Sparrow was thick all right, but so were they all by comparison with Dinah. Dinah was civilised. No. Westernised? Urbanised? Humanised?