메시와의 재회

위에 보이는 사진이 뉴욕타임즈 지역섹션에 기사와 함께 실렸다.
두 사진에 등장하는 인물은 동일인으로 70년이 넘는 세월의 공간이 두 사진 사이에 자리하고 있으며,
함께 놀던 침팬지는 뉴욕 자연사박물관에 박재되어 현재의 모습을 하고있다.

누구나 위의 사진을 보면 분명 아름다운 추억에 관한 이야기일거라 상상하겠지만 기사의 내용은 다르다.
배치에 따라 이미지를 조작할 수 있다는 몽따쥬 이론이 유효한 이야기이다.

사진에 등장하는 인물의 이름은 헨리 레이븐 Harry Raven 으로, 어릴적 함께 놀던 침팬지 메시 Meshie를
만나기 위해 그녀가 박재되어 있는 뉴욕 자연사박물관을 찾았다. 하지만 그는 조금도 메시를 그리워하지 않는다.

그가 메시를 처음 만난 것은 뉴욕 자연사박물관의 큐레이터로 일하던 그의 아버지가 르완다에서 사냥꾼의 손에 잡힌
어린 침팬지 한 마리를 집에 데려 오면서부터인데, 이 침팬지의 이름을 메시라고 짓고 헨리를 포함한 세 명의 아이들
과 함께 자라게 된다. 어린 메시도, 아이들도 한 동안은 행복한 시간을 보내지만, 어느 날 메시가 어린 헨리의 손가락
을 물어버리는 일이 발생하게 된다. 하지만 메시에게 오렌지를 뺏기지 않으려다 발생한 이 사고에 오히려 그의
아버지는 오렌지를 주지않은 헨리를 꾸짖는다.

문제는 메시보다는 헨리의 아버지 Henry Cushier Raven 에게 있었다.
여느 아버지처럼 따뜻한 포옹도 뽀뽀도 없던 엄격한 아버지가 아들의 성장과정에 많은 상처를 남긴 것이다.
일과 관련해 오랜 동안 해외에 머무는 일이 많았던 헨리의 아버지는 어머니가 넷째를 가졌을 때도 탐험을 위해
가족들을 떠났으며, 메시가 헨리의 손가락을 물었을 때도 헨리에게 가죽끈으로 체벌을 가할 정도였다고 한다.
또한 성장과 더불어 점점 난폭해지는 메시의 성향이 헨리를 두려움에 떨게 만들었고 더불어 그에게 왔어야할
따뜻한 아버지의 관심이 오히려 메시에게 돌아갔으니 그에게 메시는 그다지 행복한 기억의 대상이 아닐 수 밖에.
그래서 그는 자신의 아버지처럼 되지않기 위해 82살인 지금도 가족에게 최선을 다하고 있다고 한다.

헨리의 기억 속의 메시 또한 그다지 행복해 보이지는 않는다.
같은 가족이 될 수 없는 개체간의 이질성, 난폭해지는 성향을 막기위한 철창 속 생활 그리고, 아버지의 이해할 수
없는 행동들. 결국 1934년, 메시는 시카고의 한 동물원에 보내지고, 그로부터 3년 후인 1937년 출산과 함께 죽음을
맞이한다. 죽음 이후 메시는 박재가 되어 다시 뉴욕 자연사박물관에 쓸쓸히 자리하고 있는 것이다.

아래 사진들은 헨리의 아버지가 직접 촬영한 어린 메시와 아이들이 함께 노는 오래 전 필름의 한 장면들이다.  

Reunion With a Childhood Bully, Taxidermied
June 5, 2009
By JOYCE WADLER

You never forget the rival who cast a shadow over your childhood, monopolizing your father’s love and attention, clearly preferred. This is especially true if she has bitten your hand so deeply that nearly 80 years later, a scar is still there.

Hers is a face you remember, and so it is that Harry Raven, now 82, easily spots his old bête noire, Meshie — in a glass case at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, even if her only identification is a sign that says “Chimpanzee troglodytes.” “There she is, that’s her,” Mr. Raven says, walking as quickly as a guy with an arthritic hip can toward a thoughtful looking, taxidermied chimp, sitting with its legs crossed, its handlike feet, large and leathery.

How does Mr. Raven know it’s her?

“How do I know you’re you?” Mr. Raven says. “I recognize the details.”

He studies Meshie, recalling a previous exhibit that included a picture of her playing with his older sister, Jane; he imitates, with a bit of an edge, Meshie’s demanding, grunting, Uuuh-wooo! uh-awooo! yelp. Mr. Raven has said that his father’s devotion to Meshie at the expense of his family caused great heartache. But standing beside the chimp, whom he has seen now and then at the museum over the years, he shows none of the emotion one might expect at the sight of an enemy vanquished.

“I’ve mellowed,” he says.

The news stirs up memories. When a pet chimp attacked a Connecticut woman early this year, tearing off much of her face and leaving her blind, Mr. Raven, who had never spoken to reporters of his life with a chimp so famous that she got an obituary, was compelled to write to a reporter. His wife’s poor health prevented him from coming in from his home in Brick, N.J., until this week, when he arrived at The Times accompanied by his son in law, Andrew Haas, and his 10-year-old grandson, George.

Mr. Raven’s father, Henry Cushier Raven, a curator at the Museum of Natural History, was a famous man whose life made headlines. “Expedition to Hunt Gorillas In Africa” read one, in this newspaper, when he set sail in May 1929.

Two years later, when Mr. Raven returned with an orphaned female chimp named Meshie and seemingly made it a member of his household in Baldwin on Long Island, that made news, too. He took photographs and home movies of Meshie as she snuggled between the Raven children in bed; having a tea party with them; even holding Mary, the youngest, when she was a few months old. A Christmas card showed Meshie, in boots, hauling Jane and Harry on a sled through the snow. Sometimes Henry Raven took Meshie to work at the museum, where she had lunch with him. Magazine stories of the time reported that the children considered Meshie a sibling.

All of this still drives Harry Raven, a polite, mild-mannered man, a little crazy. Meshie was never considered a sibling, he says. She was cute and nonthreatening when his father first brought her home — he has a memory of her dozing in an apple crate in the basement — but as soon as she grew up she was strong and unpredictable. She never slept in a bed — she was kept in a cage in the basement or backyard. The only time she played with him and his sister was when his father was shooting movies. When something went wrong — like the time Meshie bit Harry on the finger because he didn’t give her an orange quickly enough — the scene was cut.

His father he remembers as a harsh, domineering man, who punished his son with a razor strop, left his family for long periods to go exploring, and was affectionate only with the chimp.

“I can’t think of him ever giving anybody a hug, except Meshie,” Mr. Raven said this week during a visit to The New York Times with his son in law and grandson before visiting the Museum of Natural History. “I used to go down the street and wait for him to get off the commuter bus. I would run down to give him a hug, he would lean down and I would kiss him on the cheek, but he would never kiss me.”

As the chimp became older, she escaped more often, Mr. Raven recalls. When his mother was pregnant with her fourth child and his father announced he was going to leave on yet another expedition, his mother burst into tears and said she could no longer take it.

In 1934, Meshie was shipped to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. After she died in 1937, after giving birth, Henry Raven had her sent back to the Museum of Natural History and preserved. He died seven years later, at age 54. The Meshie story, as far as Harry Raven was concerned, was over. He kept no pictures of her in the house, although he does say that after he married and was living in Chicago he went to see Mike, the chimpanzee who impregnated Meshie.

Why did he do that?

“Just curious.”

It’s time to visit the museum. Meshie means nothing to him — it’s just another museum exhibit, Mr. Raven says. Still the museum entrance, with the dinosaur bones of Barosaurus defending her young, sets him remembering: His father’s office in one of the great round towers; a story about the way his father, facing a charging gorilla, told the African bearers to hold their spears, in order not to damage the hide; the way, as a father of two daughters, he tried not to be his father.

The New York Times