Koestler returned to the office in his small brick duplex—a mere hundred square feet cluttered with a large desk, five filing cabinets, books, whiskey bottles, medical paraphernalia, ashtrays, and a tricolored, fully assembled human skeleton. Koestler shook the last Dunhill from his pack and lit it. How long had it been since he had eaten last? He had a full-blown hangover now, and the cigarette, which tasted like Vicks VapoRub and cardboard, practically wasted him. He heard Johnson’s feet flip-flopping along in an oversized pair of Clarks which Koestler had handed down to him, and looked out to see Johnson rushing toward the office, anxiously followed by a couple of boys who were carrying Babbitt toward the gazebo on a stretcher.

Koestler was not pleased. In the first place, Johnson had let the chickens burn in all the excitement, and now Koestler’s fears about Babbitt were realized as he listened to the story of how the baboon had passed out and dropped from the tree with his arms tucked to his sides. He pictured the monkey falling like a black leaden weight, an oversized version of the Maltese Falcon. He would not tell Hartman of the incident after all, since if he did he would never hear the end of the pilot’s ridicule about Koestler’s misplaced love for the absurd animal. Absurdity was a very big part of his life, even as he strove to attain a kind of nobility in spite of it. Koestler became completely fed up with Babbitt as Johnson explained that the animal was basically unhurt. Koestler wondered if he should get himself a dog for a pet, since every other creature on the planet seemed inclined to shun him. It must be some vibe he gave off, he thought. Beyond superficial relationships, he was alone. Even Hartman, once you got past the fun and games, did not really care one whit about him. Not really. My God, he felt vile! Koestler suddenly realized how his devotion to the monkey must have seemed to the staff: as inexplicable as he had found Philip Carey’s pathetic, masochistic attachment to Mildred, the green-skinned waitress in Of Human Bondage, a book he had read many years ago as a kid in Auckland, the very book that had pushed him into medicine and off to faraway tropical climes.