I’d never seen a mock man until the Professor showed me one. I’d heard them, of course — many evenings the chimpanzees would scream within the dark trees surrounding my village, their cries too strange for a person and too intimate for an animal. I still hear those shrieks, these years later. Whenever they got too loud, my mother and I would huddle on the floor of our hut, her arms wrapped tight around me. “This is why you must promise always to be home before dark, Luc,” she would whisper. “If you’re not, you’ll become one of the kivili-chimpenze.” The mock men.

I’d lean into the scratchy fabric of her boubou and wait for a hairy hand to come through the window. I’d imagine a lumpy head sniffing the air, black eyes staring into mine, lips pulling back from sharp teeth as the mock man lunged. I’d see us carried off into the jungle, one under each of the beast’s arms.

My mother’s warning worked; I was always home and at her side before dark.

Even when I was a little older and my village and my mother felt long in my past, I turned quiet and watchful at dusk. I would have loved to be safe in a home before the sky turned black. I just didn’t have one to go to.

I worked long into the nights at the paillotte across from Franceville’s best hotel, where the foreigners with their American dollars piled in after the day’s train arrived. No one knew quite when that would be — the trains were always hours or days late. If one appeared to be arriving on time, it was probably from last week.

When I heard the whistle of a locomotive, I’d dash through Franceville’s dusty streets to the Café de la Gare. There, beneath a string of naked lightbulbs, I would clean glasses, rubbing each with an old wet rag until the spit on the rim and the line of dried beer foam had merged and it could be filled again. I didn’t get paid, but sometimes foreigners would leave me coins on the table and the lime twists at the bottoms of their drinks. Between coins and peels and the occasional snack swiped from the center market, I survived. At least I didn’t have to rummage my food from the dump.

The city was loud at my back, but when I faced the trees all I could see were plastic tables tilting into the mud against the silhouette of the jungle. The streets were gone, the hospital was gone. Sometimes, when there were no more glasses for me to wipe, I’d stand at the forest line and listen under the music for the calls of the kivili-chimpenze, straining to hear the angry screams that said they’d once been men and now were not. I hadn’t heard them since my mother had died, and I’d begun to wonder if the mock men had ever been out there, or if they’d been an illusion she’d conjured and the spell had died with her.

The night I met the Professor, a fleet of logging trucks had arrived at the same hour as the train, so I was very busy. It was all I could do to get the glasses wiped before they had to be filled and back out onto the tables. I worked hard and kept grinning, wiping sweat from my forehead with the ragged hem of my shirt. I’d smiled through all the bad moments of the past year: surfacing memories of my mother or sister; the times hunger’s blade went from flat against my belly to jabbing its tip; the diarrhea I kept clenched inside my body until the bar closed and I could flee into the trees. I kept smiling because the bar owner could replace me at any time with one of Franceville’s other street boys. I kept smiling because if I didn’t have an occasional coin to bring home to Monsieur Tatagani to put toward my mother’s debt, he would throw me out in the street. Or worse.

I didn’t notice the Professor at first, not until he said the word chimpanzee. I thought right away of my mother’s warnings about the mock men, and gaped at the man. He looked to be an Arab, at least forty years old, and was seated all by himself. I decided to clear the table next to him as an excuse to draw near. I expanded time by scrubbing hard, as if hoping to find a new and better plastic table beneath the surface.

The man was a foreigner, but not too much so. He spoke good French like a normal person, and was darker than the Chinese bosses who ignored us and the American missionaries who didn’t ignore us enough. He definitely wasn’t Christian: He wore a tight woven cap, a taqiyah.

Unlike the other bar customers, this foreigner wasn’t taking the fastest path to drunkenness — he’d ordered a mint tea. He was here for the company, I guessed, since he let his drink cool while he leaned far over the back of his chair to talk to a man at a nearby table.

“There have been other researchers who have come to these forests,” the Arab was saying, “but none so famous as me. This conversation we are having might not seem like much now, my friend, but one day you will brag about it.”

Maybe if the Arab had said he was a rich businessman, the man would have been impressed. But a researcher? What did that even mean?

“You have heard of janegoodall?” the Arab continued. “No? Well. Many important people came together to make a vote. And do you know what they concluded? They have decided that Africa should have its own native janegoodall. And that person is to be me!”

It was clear that the man did not know what the Arab was talking about any more than I did. I figured, though, that if a janegoodall was something all of Africa could have only one of, it had to be important. I edged closer, deciding this was the time to give the nearby chairs a good rubdown, shining them like lamps. It brought me even nearer to this strange man who had said my mother’s word. I smiled for real as I worked, without knowing why I did.

The neighbor asked the Arab his name. “I’m Professor Abdul Mohammad of the University of Leipzig,” he replied. “But most people call me Prof. It’s less formal that way, you understand. I don’t need to be flattered by formalities.”

There was a flurry of motion below the table. A monkey emerged from the Arab’s belongings, nearly knocking them over as it scampered up his back and onto the tabletop. “And this is Omar the vervet. Also of Egypt,” Prof said.

Startled, the other man sprang to his feet.

A monkey was nothing unusual — they were frequently chained up at the side of the road to offer as pets, or gutted and hung for sale in the bushmeat markets, their dead mouths sucking on sky. But this one was fearless and tiny and silver with a soft black face. We didn’t have monkeys like that in Gabon. Omar flicked his gaze to his master and then paced the table, lurching from one leg to the other as he stagger-walked. After testing the tea with his finger and hissing, he sat down, scratched at a sore on his backside, and scrutinized me, as if figuring out how I might be of use. I returned my focus to the chair I was cleaning.

Prof didn’t have the monkey on a leash, but Omar sat close, worrying his hands together and peering into his master’s eyes. Prof plucked a salty nut from a bowl and offered it up. Omar looked at the single nut, then picked up the dish and wolfed down handfuls. “Omar, no!” Prof scolded. But his eyes were smiling.

Omar met all of our eyes in turn as he gobbled, suspicious of this good turn in his luck. The other man took advantage of the commotion to shift his seat so it faced away from the Professor and his monkey. Left without an audience, Prof caught my eye. “That chair looks very, very clean,” he said. “You’ve done good work. Perhaps you can stop wiping it for a minute and talk to me instead. What’s your name, boy?”

I was flattered — he had barely asked the other man a single question, but he was curious about who I was. I pretended not to understand him and headed away. I’d learned that all the worst things that could happen to you in the city came after being noticed.

Besides, I didn’t want this man to remember my face. Not with what I was already planning to do to him.

Alongside his chair, where the monkey had been hiding, I’d spotted luggage. There was a huge leather valise, probably as old as Prof himself. But what had caught my attention was beside it: a metal briefcase with a sturdy combination lock.

I’d never seen anything like it in the real world. But I’d seen metal cases in the spy movies the vendor in front of the station sold from his wicker mat. He always had one of them playing on his tiny screen, and each day while I listened for the train whistle I would stand as near as he allowed and watch. In those movies, it seemed like every time a man carried a metal briefcase, it would wind up broken open. Money would flurry about, everyone desperate to catch it.

Of course, in those movies the cases were carried by handsome men in expensive suits, not scrawny professors. But that case still told me that Prof was something special. There was probably a lot of money inside. Or maybe fancy equipment. Whatever it was, it was valuable enough to lock away.

I maneuvered so I could watch him while I wiped glasses. He looked my way once in a while, offering an unknowable smile. Eventually he pulled out a book, leaned it against the edge of the table, and began to read. I’d never seen anyone read at a bar.

I didn’t want to steal. But I couldn’t stay in Franceville forever. By the time my mother had died in the hospital, leaving me standing out front with a plastic basin full of her possessions and a baby sister on my back, she’d owed thousands of francs we didn’t have. The hospital released me to Monsieur Tatagani, the bill collector, who let us live in a room crowded with other street boys working to pay off their debts. Of the six boys who’d been there when I’d moved in, three had gotten sick and died. Two had disappeared. The last had stolen a hundred francs from Monsieur Tatagani and fled. Monsieur Tatagani had gone all the way to Lastoursville to retrieve him, and after he’d brought him back he’d chopped off the boy’s hands, right in the middle of Independence Square. The police had watched in case the boy tried to run. He’d died of infection not a month later.

If there was money or valuables in the metal case, I could pay my debt, get out of Franceville, and buy land somewhere. I could take the first steps to having a home, with breath still in my chest and hands still on my wrists.

Once Prof had finished his drink, he dropped some coins on the table and got to his feet, Omar scampering to his shoulder. I hadn’t expected him to leave so soon, and hadn’t yet come up with a scheme for getting the case. In an instant my heart went from quiet to thudding.

I decided I would put the glass I was wiping back in the slop bucket and get to the front of the bar as fast as I could manage. Skirting the wall, I eased around the corner. I didn’t have to look far — the Professor was right there, facing me.

“M’bolo,” I said, shocked.

“Ma wok ki Fang,” he said slowly in my language, shaking his head.

“That’s not a problem,” I said in French. “I speak French, too.”

“Oh, you must have gone to school,” he replied, also in French.

I didn’t know how to answer. I had gone to school until my mother had died. I had loved it. But you didn’t have to go to school to learn French. It was the language of the radio.

Prof gave up on getting further explanation from me. “I’m looking for the Hôtel Beverly Hills,” he said. “Do you know where it is?”

I pointed down the road. “It’s the large building at the other side of town,” I whispered. “Franceville’s only painted hotel. You can’t miss it. But someone important like you should be staying here at the Hôtel Léconi.”

Prof had hunched close to hear me, hand cupped at his ear, and now shook his head. “The only thing African about this hotel are the flies. Does the Beverly Hills have beds?”

I nodded.

“Then it will do fine. I am going to live with apes in the jungle, after all. No need for luxury now! Would the bar’s papa mind if you disappeared for a few minutes to help me with my bags? There could be a franc in it for you.”

I filled with warmth. The Professor was singling me out, as I’d done him. I sized up the large leather valise and figured I could manage hauling it. I picked it up and fought back the wave of dizziness that tilted me. My worry was less about passing out and more that Prof would notice my strain and fire me before I’d begun. I lost sensation in my arms for a moment, but managed to fit them through the straps. Blood pounded in my head, pricking the hairs on my neck.

“Have you had anything to eat today?” Prof asked.

Please, I silently begged, don’t be nice to me. I told him I had. I didn’t tell him it was because someone had spilled pastis into a bowl of dried peas and I’d gone around back and downed the whole thing.

Omar, full of bar nuts, watched me passively from his shoulder perch.

“Do you need to tell your parents you’ll be helping me?” Prof asked.

I shook my head.

He nodded sadly, as if I’d revealed myself, and I hated him for it. “Okay, let’s get along, then,” he said. “I know the bag is heavy. It might be worth five francs to carry. Or even ten. I am an important man, after all, on a very important mission, and important things are not cheap. Important things are either free or expensive.” Pleased with himself, he scratched the silver-and-black scraggle on his chin.

I took a step forward and immediately stumbled. After a moment’s pause, I made another step. Grinning to let the Arab know how enormously fine I was feeling, I freed a hand and reached for the metal briefcase.

“No, no,” Prof said hurriedly, picking it up and clutching it to his chest. “I’ll hold on to that.”

Omar chattered at me and exposed his teeth. The stupid monkey had figured me out better than his master had. Muttering under my breath, I took one step and another toward the far side of the town.

Prof puffed with exertion, walking with a slight limp.

We weren’t a hundred paces from the bar when we came across Monsieur Tatagani. He spent his days sitting in the center of Franceville so he could keep an eye on his boys. Squatting in the dirt, he wore a blazer that was so unclean, it was more the tan of dust than the black of fabric. Sometime in his life he’d been struck on the head hard enough to expose skull; he had a ring of white at the top, like an upside-down teacup saucer. When I had nightmares, I always knew Monsieur Tatagani had been the cause if the monsters had the same saucer of bone on their heads — and if, when I reached up my arms to defend myself, there were no hands at the ends of my wrists.

When he saw us coming up the walk, Monsieur Tatagani grinned hugely, exposing teeth unusually white and strong for a man of his age. He said nothing, though, I think because he sensed the chance for a payday. We were suddenly conspirators, he and I. The Franceville moneylender, the man generous enough to give me a place to sleep at night but cruel enough to cut off the hands of orphans who couldn’t pay, saw into my wicked heart. Worse, he found himself there.

I avoided Monsieur Tatagani’s eyes as I struggled under the valise. Soon he was out of view and Prof and I were stepping along Franceville’s main paved avenue, kicking away garbage and excrement and the occasional stray dog.

“How old are you, boy?” Prof asked, gasping as we walked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. It was the truth. The last person who’d acknowledged my birthday had been my mother. That had been my tenth. I thought that had been three years ago, but it might have been two.

“That,” Prof said, pausing for a moment to catch his breath, “is my official answer, too.”

We’d arrived at the Hôtel Beverly Hills, a dank cinder-block tower. It had painted walls, not because it was the fanciest building in Franceville, but because it had the most to hide. I let Prof lead us in.

Once I’d heaved the valise to the ground, Prof thanked me, placed a twenty-five-franc coin in my palm, and turned his attention to the desk clerk. Omar climbed down and sat on the floor, one hand protectively circling his master’s ankle, his little monkey fingers working their way under the pant leg until they were against Prof’s skin. I kneeled beside Omar, as if to pat his head. Prof noticed my attention to his monkey, smiled, and returned to haggling with the clerk.

Omar watched as I stroked his forearm. He watched as I stroked his shoulder. He watched as I inched my hand over to the handle of the metal briefcase.

Suddenly suspicious, the monkey bared his teeth and began squawking. Now that I was so close to him, I noticed that the skin on his arms was strange — it was almost like corduroy, and his palms were the slightest bit oily.

Though I was worried the monkey would bite me, I wasn’t about to stop.

I tightened my grip on the handle.

I took a deep breath.

I ran.

There was shouting behind me, and motion. But I couldn’t afford to look. I couldn’t afford to do anything but sprint and dodge.

I knew these streets so well, and it felt like only moments before I had turned a half dozen times and thrown myself down countless alleys. I stopped against a tree on an empty street.

The briefcase was so solid in my arms. If it had money inside, I could escape with it come morning, hitch a ride on the next logging truck, and get away from Monsieur Tatagani and the police, into Angola or over to Libreville. If it was something other than cash, I could sell it at the market right as it opened and then either use the money to pay off Monsieur Tatagani or flee.

All I had to do was survive the night without getting caught. Because boys like me didn’t go to jail for theft. Boys like me disappeared.

The night came, and grew long. I clutched the case to my chest. Avoiding the main road, I stuck instead to the edges of the city, creeping along farmland buffalo paths and the hunting trails I’d once prowled for bushmeat. The jungle loomed black off to one side.

It might have all been in my head, but for the first time in years I thought I could hear the mock men off in the trees, shrieking about how they had once been just like me.