1984

Koko wanted a kitten.

This is not her. Every photograph of Koko belongs to the foundation that raised her, and none is free to show. So: gorillas who were not Koko, and the places where it happened.

1971

She was born in San Francisco, at the zoo, on the Fourth of July. Hanabiko: fireworks child. Koko, for short.

At a year old she fell ill and was taken from her mother to be nursed.

A graduate student called Penny Patterson began teaching her signs. Food. Drink. More.

By 1984 Patterson said she knew hundreds of signs. Whether that was language was argued then and is argued now. About the kitten nobody had doubts.

Christmas 1983

She asked for a cat. She was given a toy one, and would not play with it. She signed: sad.

July 1984

For her birthday a litter of abandoned kittens was brought in. She chose the grey one with no tail.

She named him All Ball. She carried him on her back, the way gorillas carry their young. When he bit her she signed: obnoxious. Cat.

December 1984

In December, All Ball got out of the enclosure and onto the road. He was hit by a car.

Patterson told her. She was quiet for a while. Then she signed: bad. Sad. Bad. Frown. Cry. Frown. Sad. That night the people who worked there heard a sound they described as crying.

January 1985

The next month the two of them were on the cover of National Geographic. Koko's Kitten. He was already gone.

The next year she chose two more, and named them Lipstick and Smoky. She went on choosing kittens for thirty years. At forty-four: Ms. Gray and Ms. Black.

People came. Fred Rogers, whose shoes she took off, the way he did at the start of every programme. Robin Williams, whose glasses she took and tried on.

June 2018

She died in her sleep at forty-six, in the hills above Woodside.

The news went round the world in a day, told by people who had never met her, with the same three or four photographs. None of them are here.