Still the Same Man Read Free Page A

strip of road full of rubble and trash and barely a foot and a half wide, which was all the distance that existed between the road and the nearby undergrowth. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. He thought about what would happen if his offer was rejected. It wasn’t just months of negotiations at stake but the entire future of his company.
    He stayed there for a long time, not caring that his family was waiting for him to go to the shelter. Double-trailer trucks and pickups filled with laborers drove past, just inches from the car. Not even their honking made him open his eyes.
    “Don’t panic,” he said out loud. “You’re going to work it out. Go back to the hotel.”
    And he repeated, “Don’t panic.”
    And again, “Don’t panic.”
    He checked to make sure there weren’t any vehicles approaching and made a U-turn, driving right over the median, when a figure appeared from the undergrowth and hurled itself onto the highway in front of the car. For a second he thought it was a kid, a black kid. It appeared at the edge his field of vision then stumbled onto the highway, walking strangely, swaying with its arms up in the air, as if trying to catch someone’s attention to get them to stop. But Joanes was too close, and the car was going too fast. The bumper hit the figure hard, slamming it forward and sending it rolling several yards over the asphalt.
    Joanes slammed on the brakes and looked in shock at the sorry figure. The fact that it was covered in hair did little to calm him down. It wasn’t a kid but a monkey.
    He got out of the car and walked toward it cautiously. It was a chimpanzee. He asked himself what in God’s name a chimpanzee was doing there. He thought they only existed in equatorial Africa. It began to sidle off, and Joanes stopped in his tracks.
    The monkey got to its feet slowly, threw a pained look at Joanes, and hobbled off the highway. It disappeared back into the thicket from which it had emerged.
    He had no idea what to do. A few vehicles drove by, but they didn’t pay him any attention. Nobody had witnessed the accident.
    He decided to go after the chimpanzee.
    He imagined it would leave some sort of trail—footprints, a path crushed through the vegetation or something—but as soon as he entered the undergrowth, it was impossible to make out anything. He went on anyhow, battling his way through the low branches and vines, changing tack every now and then and retracing his steps various times. He shooed away some iguanas resting among the roots of the trees; they moved off, making a crunching sound in the leaves. He only found the monkey because it hadn’t had the strength to get far. Joanes pushed aside a curtain of hanging vines and was suddenly face to face with it.
    It was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree and cradling the arm the car had hit. It was a female, and she was wearing a collar with a metal jump ring hanging off it. When she saw Joanes, she held out her other hand to him pitifully, opening and closing her fingers, entreating him to come closer. Her chest rose and fell in a painful motion. Joanes hesitated. He knew chimpanzees to be capable of a degree of ferocity totally at odds with their cuddly image. But this one didn’t seem to be in a state to hurt anyone, and the collar suggested that she was used to human company.
    Joanes knelt down and took her hand. With her eyes half closed, the chimpanzee looked at him and moved her lips as if she wanted to say something or give him a kiss. She seemed well advanced in age. Her forehead was bald, and the hair on her shoulders and back was gray, as were the hairs on her chin and the ends of her fingers. More than pain, her eyes—deep-set and wrinkly—revealed immense exhaustion.
    The chimpanzee held Joanes’s hand to her chest, as if she wanted to feel him closer, and he didn’t resist. The animal held on to his hand as her breathing slowed. Not long after, she closed her eyes, and her head