It's Not About the Gun: Lessons From My Global Career as a Female FBI Agent by Kathy Stearman

Author:Kathy Stearman [Stearman, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, women, Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781643137315
Google: ZSYFEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-06-01T23:36:06.216442+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN MONKEY BUSINESS

I stared across the scarred, wooden desk past Mr. Kumar, my assigned contact at the CBI. Mr. Kumar’s head was hunched down into his neck, his wiry little body slumped against the back of his creaking chair. A monkey sitting in the open window just over Mr. Kumar’s right shoulder stared back at me with sad, yellow-brown eyes. “Yes,” the monkey’s eyes seem to say, “I did it. I’m guilty.” The monkey slowly turned his head away from me, his pink-pointed Yoda ears twitching as he stared down into the courtyard. He raised one leg and planted it on the windowsill, one arm crossed over his knee as his furry paw dangled down, swaying back and forth in the same, languorous rhythmic motion as his tail, which hung down into the room. His little chest rose and fell in a sigh as his pink, hairless, old-man’s face turned to look at me, once again in apology, before turning back to his perusal of the clamor down below, which no doubt involved the daily activities of members of the CBI. I could picture the scene; an officer urinating against a far wall, several officers squatting in the shade, having the ubiquitous cup of chai, or another officer stretching his arms up to hang laundry from the numerous lines that crisscrossed the inner courtyards of CBI headquarters.

Of course, I was assuming this monkey was a he. Everyone else in the building, with the exception of a few women who served tea, was male so why should this monkey be any different?

I knew the monkey in Mr. Kumar’s office wasn’t a langur, often seen riding on the backs of bicycles and motorbikes, which zigzagged through the congested cacophony of Delhi’s city streets and alleyways. Langurs were larger with tails that curled over three feet. Langurs were also very territorial; the US Embassy had hired a langur trainer to bring his langur to the embassy compound and pee along the walled perimeter in order to discourage other monkeys from climbing over. No, the monkey staring at me was a rhesus macaque, a species of monkey seen all over India and the other countries I covered.

I first became acquainted with monkeys shortly after my arrival in Delhi. A memo, known as the “Monkey Memo,” was distributed to everyone in the US Embassy, with a warning to beware of packs of monkeys roaming the streets of Delhi in search of lone humans to terrorize. The memo went on to describe how a female member of our embassy had been walking to work by herself when surrounded by a troop of monkeys, which stepped closer and closer to her, baring their canines in warning. An Indian woman who happened to be driving past recognized what was happening, pulled her car alongside the soon-to-be victim of a monkey mugging, threw open the passenger door, and yelled for her to get in. Embassy staff was advised to not venture out alone in the city and steer clear of gangs of monkeys headed their way.

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