August 12 - Dr. Procacelli and Sam

Dr. Suzanne (Susie) Procacelli never would have thought she would meet the love of her life in the rain forests of Borneo, but she did.
His name was Sam, and he was one of several orangutan that were being studied by Dr. Procacelli and the two other zoologists that had accompanied her to Borneo more than two years ago.
They were focusing on interspecies communication; more specifically, gestures and other body language between humans and orangutan. Dr. Procacelli and her team found that the orangutan would mimic the zoologists, moving their heads and using hand gestures to accompany their grunts and hollers. Sam in particular showed an astounding capacity for mimicry. During communication sessions with Dr. Procacelli and her team, Sam would sometimes become distracted by the calculator he always had in his hands. Very often he would tap keys on it at random, a behavior that Dr. Procacelli theorized was meant to mimic the scientists' use of cell phones.
Over the course of their two years together, Dr. Procacelli succeeded in teaching Sam and the other orangutans the meanings of basic gestures, such as thumbs up, thumbs down, OK, etc. This rudimentary education provided a sometimes unwelcome window into the orangutans' true feelings about her cooking which she regularly shared with them. Clearly, the orangutans did not have a notion of white lies.
But knowing that Sam and the others didn't care for her cooking gave Dr. Procacelli a more specific communicative goal for their language project. Through gestures and simple sign language, she would learn what kind of cooking Sam and the others did enjoy and cater to it as much as possible.
This project led to her spending a lot more time working one on one with Sam, who by then had emerged far and away as the star of their class. As they became more comfortable with each other, Sam began joining Dr. Procacelli in the kitchen, and together they developed a cooking style that drew equally from the traditions of Dr. Procacelli's ancestral Tosca and the typical orangutan diet. They called their unique Eurasian fusion "orangtosca cooking"--and it put smiles on the faces of zoologists and orangutans alike.
The more time they spent in the kitchen together, the more Sam and Dr. Procacelli developed their ability to cook, communicate, and--to the giddy shock of both of them--flirt. They always seemed to know what the other was going to say before he/she said it. They often finished each other's sentences. And no matter how many times they teased each other about their mutual lack of rhythm (they usually listened--and danced--to Toots and the Maytalls while they were cooking), they always ended up laughing about it and then looking into each other's eyes for a second or two before breaking off and getting back to work. It was exhilarating to both of them.
Yes, Dr. Procacelli would admit to herself in her journal after several glasses of pinot, Sam is an orangutan. But he's also the kindest, gentlest, brightest and handsomest (in his own unconventional way) male I've been around for ages. And this is not just the wine speaking. And it's not just the fact that I've been in the jungle for more than two years. I like Sam. I mean I like him like him. And I think he likes me, too.
He did.
She was kind, intelligent, and funny, and he was happy when he was with her.
But Dr. Procacelli had mixed feelings about the whole thing for so many reasons. For one thing, there was the ethical can of worms of a scientist developing personal feelings for one of her subjects. For another, there was the fact that they were from different species. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew any relationship they had would be doomed. The world wasn't ready for it.
And so Dr. Procacelli took the lead as she often did. She decided that Sam needed a mate, a female from his own species, and she worked with the other zoologists in her team to select the most suitable prospect.
Sam showed up the next day to find that his cooking partner had been replaced with a rambunctious female orangutan named Roberta. Dr. Procacelli and her colleagues watched the live video feed in the lab.
Sam tried to engage her with gestures, but Roberta ignored him. Instead, she picked through the raw ingredients that had been set out for them, ate her favorites, and discarded the rest.
They tried again the next night and every night for a week, but the results were the same. After a week, Sam stopped trying to communicate with Roberta. After another few nights, he stopped eating.
Dr. Procacelli and the others tried different females with him, but nothing took. None of them had the linguistic capacity that Sam had. Nor had any of them had anywhere near the amount of one on one tutelage that Sam had had during his sessions in the kitchen with Dr. Procacelli.
When it became clear that an intractable divide existed between Sam and the other orangutans, Dr. Procacelli decided to reestablish contact with Sam. She showed up in their kitchen with an armload of ingredients, but Sam didn't respond to her gestures. After several minutes of silence, she put on their favorite Toots and the Maytalls CD and danced around as arrhythmically as she could, but he just looked the other way. Finally, she made their favorite orangtosca dish and set it out for him before leaving him in the kitchen on his own. But when she went back later on to wash the dishes, he hadn't taken a bite.
She tried apologizing to him, explaining why she'd done what she'd done, but Sam was distant and unresponsive. The next morning when Dr. Procacelli and her colleagues went to collect the orangutans for the day's research, Sam was gone. All they found in his sleeping area was a smashed copy of Toots and the Maytalls Greatest Hits. They never saw him again.
As for Dr. Procacelli, she continued her work with the orangutans in Borneo, and she made a lot of progress with interspecies communication. But she never connected with any of them like she did with Sam.

(Co-written with Misako Goto)