GIRAFFE: What are you looking for down there? You’ve been buzzing around with your camera and your movie camera for a while now. I’ll tell you right away, I am not in a good mood—I don’t mean today, I mean never. With this fence and this metal barrier that keeps me from head-butting all the pests who come here to ooh and aah. Once, though, I got some satisfaction. One of the visitors was very tall and was wearing a straw hat; I took it away from him with a flick of my tongue and chewed it thoroughly. It wasn’t good—it tasted like glue—but at least it was revenge.
JOURNALIST: I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s not just a whim of mine or my director. There’s talk now of closing down the zoo, and who knows where you’ll end up and certain problems that concern you might remain unresolved.
GIRAFFE: So you’re just a journalist looking for odd things?
JOURNALIST: As far as oddity goes, take it as a compliment, but you have your fair share.
GIRAFFE: All right then, out with the questions, but they had better be simple and clear, no tricks.
JOURNALIST: Let’s put it this way, then: in brief, sex, height, weight.
GIRAFFE: Not to be vain; but I think you can tell from a distance that I am a male.
JOURNALIST: Yes, I only asked for the sake of being thorough. With a neck that long, how many cervical vertebrae do you have?
GIRAFFE: I have seven vertebrae, just like you and just like a mouse. I weigh seven hundred kilos and I’m 6.2 meters tall.
JOURNALIST: Good. This means that when your head is up you’re putting spectacular pressure on your legs [he takes notebook and pencil from his pocket]: if you do the math, something like 450 millimeters of mercury, plus at least another 140 from the heart. A total of, let’s say, 600, and when our blood pressure is only 200 we don’t feel well—yet we are both mammals, and we’re made more or less of the same materials. Don’t you suffer from hypertension, especially when you run? Or from varicose veins, or from internal hemorrhages?
GIRAFFE: You have to understand that, ever since we decided to lengthen our necks and legs to reach the highest leaves, we’ve studied hydrostatics, physiology, and histology with intelligence and passion. We immediately realized that some innovations cause problems—for example, the act of drinking is not a simple feat for us. In the first place, even if we lower our neck all the way, we still can’t reach the ground. So as soon as our little ones are weaned, we have to teach them that in order to drink from a river they have to spread their front legs wide. It’s not elegant, but it’s necessary. And then each sip needs to reach a height of about three meters. We understood immediately that the glottis pump was not enough. Well, our sages solved the problem by giving us a series of small peristaltic pumps, positioned along the esophagus. That said, I can’t claim that drinking is the easiest thing in the world for us, and as a matter of fact I am personally grateful to the director of the zoo who had that curious trough installed for me over there—you wouldn’t be able to reach it even if you stood on tiptoe. So, given the complications involved, we drink rarely and for as long as possible.
JOURNALIST: Thank you. But the question of your feet remains: I mean the difference in pressure when you’re lying down and when you’re standing.
GIRAFFE: We never lie down: that’s a luxury we leave to cows and to you. We sleep standing up, always ready to flee, because we have many enemies.
JOURNALIST: But the hypertension, really . . .
GIRAFFE: Your insistence makes me think you must have some sort of personal problem.
JOURNALIST: Yes, it’s true. Hypotensive drugs, diuretics, no salt. . . . It’s not a simple life.
GIRAFFE: That’s all because you didn’t know to equip yourselves in time. Yes, we are hypertensive, but we don’t suffer from it. Have you ever worn elastic hose? Well, our four legs have natural, built-in elastic hose. I must tell you, they are extremely comfortable. Veins and arteries don’t get exhausted, even if the pressure is what you’ve calculated, and they are made of an excellent material that doesn’t wear out; in fact, it renews itself over time. Then we found a way to reduce the blood pressure. In you humans, the blood in the arteries is viscous, but so is the blood in your veins, which has to flow back to your heart. Well, we perfected a series of small valves that are positioned in all the large arteries. They open with every contraction and close again, which keeps the blood pressure normal. It’s as if every vein were subdivided into independent segments. Please excuse my primitive language—I am not a physiologist, I am just a male giraffe, proud of his height and humiliated by his captivity. Enough now, please; I have to get some exercise, not that the veterinarian prescribed it—it’s my instinct and nature. I must run, even if only in the miserable space where you have confined me.
The Journalist takes his notebook and writes: “In spite of their structure, which is so different from that of all other quadrupeds, when giraffes run they are extraordinarily elegant. Their pace is between a gallop and a dance. The four legs leave the ground almost simultaneously while the neck balances the majestic rhythm of their gait. It appears slow but is very fast: it recalls the sailing of a ship, and betrays not the least effort. The vast body sways naturally, tipping inward when the animal changes course. Observing it, I realized how great is their need for the freedom of large spaces, and how cruel to confine them within the meshes of a fence. And yet the specimen that I interviewed was born here, in captivity, ignorant of the unspoiled splendor of the savanna; but he carries its primeval nobility within himself.” (He reads the text aloud.)
Grunt!
“Imaginary Zoo: Natural Histories by Primo Levi,”
Airone, April 1987