Forest of the Pygmies Page 6

  “We need to go get help. We’re going to have to cut the net,” Nadia decided.

  They hurried back to the river as quickly as the terrain allowed and told the rest of the party what they had found.

  “That animal could attack us,” Brother Fernando warned. “Gorillas are peaceful, but females with young are always dangerous.”

  Nadia, however, had already laid her hands on a knife and started back, so everyone followed her. Joel could scarcely believe his good fortune: He was going to photograph a gorilla after all. Brother Fernando armed himself with his machete and a long stick. Angie carried the revolver and the rifle. Borobá led them straight to the trap, but when the gorilla saw herself surrounded by human faces she became frantic.

  “This is a time when Mushaha’s tranquilizer gun would come in very handy,” Angie observed.

  “She’s terribly afraid. I’ll try to get near her; you wait back there,” Nadia directed.

  Everyone stepped back several feet and crouched down among the ferns as Nadia and Alexander moved forward inch by inch, pausing, waiting, creeping a little closer. Nadia kept up a constant, soothing monologue, which seemed to calm the poor trapped animal, because after several minutes, the grunting stopped.

  “Jaguar, look up there,” Nadia whispered into her friend’s ear.

  Alexander looked up and high in the treetop saw a black, shiny face with close-set eyes and flattened nose observing them attentively.

  “It’s another gorilla. And it’s much bigger than this one!” Alexander replied, also in a murmur.

  “Don’t look it in the eye. That’s a threat to them; it might get angry,” she counseled.

  The other members of the group also saw the great ape, but no one moved. Joel’s hands were tickling to focus his camera, but Kate dissuaded him with a sharp glance. The opportunity to be at such close proximity to these large creatures was so rare that they couldn’t ruin it with a false move. A half hour passed and nothing happened; the gorilla in the tree did not move from its observation post, and the figure entangled in the net below was silent. Only her agitated breathing and the way she was holding her baby close betrayed her anguish.

  Nadia began to crawl toward the trap, watched by the terrified female from the pit and by the male overhead. Alexander followed with the knife in his teeth, feeling vaguely ridiculous, as if he were in some Tarzan movie. When Nadia reached out to touch the netted animal, the tree branches where the larger gorilla sat swayed ominously.

  “If he attacks my grandson, kill him right where he sits,” Kate breathed to Angie.

  Angie didn’t respond. She was afraid that even if the animal were only three feet away she wouldn’t be able to shoot it: The rifle was trembling in her hands.

  The female never took her eyes off Nadia and Alexander as they crawled toward her, but she seemed a little more calm, as if she had understood the reassurances that Nadia repeated over and over that those humans were not the same ones who had set the trap.

  “Easy, easy, we’re going to get you out,” Nadia kept murmuring, like a litany.

  Finally the girl’s hand touched the black pelt of the gorilla, which shrank away from the contact and showed her teeth. Nadia, however, did not remove her hand, and gradually the animal relaxed. At a sign from Nadia, Alexander began cautiously to drag himself toward her on his elbows. Very slowly, so as not to startle the frightened creature, he, too, began to stroke the gorilla’s back, until she was comfortable with his presence. He filled his lungs with a deep breath, rubbed the amulet on his chest to give himself courage, and gripped the knife to cut some of the rope. The animal’s reaction when she felt the metal blade so close to her hide was to draw up into a ball, protecting the baby with her body. Nadia’s voice came from somewhere far away, penetrating her terrified mind, calming her; at her back she felt the friction of the knife and the tugging at the net. Cutting the rope turned out to take longer than expected, but finally Alexander succeeded in opening a hole large enough to free the prisoner. He signaled Nadia, and they both scooted back a few feet.

  “Out! You can get out now!” she ordered.

  Brother Fernando squirmed close to Alexander and handed him his stick, which the youth used to delicately prod the huddled form beneath the net. That had the desired effect. The gorilla raised her head, sniffed the air, and looked around her with curiosity. It took her some minutes to comprehend that she could move, and then she stood up and shook free of the net. When Alexander and Nadia saw her standing up with her baby at her breast, they had to cover their mouths to keep from yelling with excitement. They didn’t move a hair. The gorilla crouched down, clutching her baby to her chest with one hand, and sat staring at the two young people with deep concentration.

  Alexander shivered when it dawned on him how close the animal was. He felt the warmth of her body, and a black, wrinkled face swam only three or four inches from his own. He closed his eyes, sweating. When he opened them again, he saw a blurred, rosy muzzle filled with yellow teeth. His glasses were fogged over, but he didn’t take them off. The gorilla’s breath struck him square in the nose; it had the agreeable scent of freshly mowed grass. Suddenly the curious hand of the baby gripped a lock of his hair and tugged. Alexander, choking with happiness, stretched out one finger and the baby gorilla grabbed it as a human child would. The mother was not pleased with that show of confidence, however, and she gave Alexander a shove that knocked him flat, though she wasn’t being aggressive. She uttered one emphatic grunt, in the tone of someone asking a question, and with two leaps bounded off to the tree in which the male was watching, and all three faded into the foliage. Nadia helped her friend to his feet.

  “Did you see that? It touched me,” yelled Alexander, hopping with excitement.

  “Well done,” Brother Fernando said approvingly.

  “Who could have set out that net?” asked Nadia, thinking that it must be of the same fiber as the bits of rope she had found by the river.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Bewitched Forest

  BACK IN CAMP, WHILE THE others discussed the recent adventure, Joel improvised a fishing pole from a length of cane, some string, and bent wire, and sat on the riverbank hoping to catch something to eat. Brother Fernando agreed with Nadia’s theory that there was hope that someone would come to help them, because the net indicated a human presence. At some moment the hunters would return to check the pit.

  “Why would they be hunting gorillas?” Alexander wanted to know. “The meat’s terrible, and the skin is ugly.”

  “The meat is edible if there’s no other choice. The organs are used in witchcraft; they make masks from the hide and skulls, and they sell the hands for ashtrays. Tourists love them,” the missionary explained.

  “That’s horrible!”

  “In the mission in Rwanda, we had a two-year-old gorilla, the only one we were able to save. They killed the mothers and sometimes brought the abandoned babies to us. They’re a sensitive breed and often die of melancholy . . . if they don’t die of hunger first.”

  “By the way, isn’t anybody hungry?” asked Alexander.

  “It was dumb to let that turtle go; we could have dined in style,” Angie noted.

  The persons responsible for the centenarian’s reprieve said nothing. Angie was right: In such circumstances they couldn’t allow themselves the luxury of sentimentality; survival came first.

  “How is it going with the radio in the plane?” asked Kate.

  “I’ve sent out several SOS calls, but I don’t think anyone received them. We’re a long way from nowhere. I’ll keep trying to contact Mushaha. I promised him we’d call in twice a day. Surely he’ll be surprised not to hear from us,” Angie replied.

  “At any moment someone will miss us and come looking for us,” Kate consoled them.

  “I think we’ve had it,” blubbered Angie. “My plane is in pieces, we’re lost, and we’re hungry.”

  “What a pessimist you are, woman! God may put a rope around your neck, but
he doesn’t pull it tight. You’ll see, everything we need will be provided,” Brother Fernando replied.

  Angie seized the missionary’s arms and hoisted him a few inches off the ground, until they were eye to eye.

  “If you had listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this pickle!” she spit out, shooting sparks.

  Kate intervened. “It was my decision to come here, Angie.”

  The group scattered across the beach, each occupied in his own project. With the help of Alexander and Nadia, Angie had managed to remove the propeller. After carefully examining it, she confirmed what she had suspected: They would not be able to repair it with the tools at hand. They were trapped.

  Joel hadn’t really believed that anything would strike at his primitive fishhook, so he nearly fell backward with surprise when he felt a tug on the line. Everyone came running to help him, and finally, after a long struggle, they hauled a good-sized carp from the water. The fish thrashed on the sand for some minutes, which was acute torture for Nadia, who couldn’t bear to see animals suffer.

  “It’s the way of nature, child. Some die so others can live,” Brother Fernando consoled her.

  He didn’t add that God had sent them the carp, which was what he truly believed, because he didn’t want to provoke Angie’s wrath anew. They cleaned the fish, wrapped it in leaves, and roasted it: Nothing had ever tasted so delicious. By then the clearing was blazing like an inferno. They improvised some shade, rigging canvas on long poles, and lay down to rest, observed by the monkeys and the large green lizards that had come out to soak in the sun.

  They were all drowsing, sweating beneath the insufficient shade of the canvas, when a veritable whirlwind blew in from the forest at the far end of the beach, raising clouds of sand. The furor of its arrival was so stupefying that at first they all thought it must be a rhinoceros. At closer view, however, they saw it was a huge boar, with bristly hair and menacing tusks. The beast was blindly charging the camp, giving them no time to grab the weapons they had laid aside during siesta. They barely had time to scramble away before it reached them, crashing against the poles that held up the canvas and sending everything to the ground. From the ruins of the tent, it observed them with malevolent eyes, huffing and snorting.

  As Angie ran to find her revolver, her movement caught the attention of the animal, which readied a new attack. Its front hooves raked the sand; it lowered its head and headed straight for Angie, whose considerable flesh presented a perfect target.

  Just as Angie’s fate seemed inevitable, Brother Fernando stepped between her and the boar, waggling a piece of canvas. The beast stopped short, swerved, and threw itself at the missionary, but at the instant of contact he sidestepped gracefully. The boar lunged past, furious, and charged anew, but once again its only victim was the canvas; it didn’t even graze its true target. In the interim Angie had retrieved her revolver, but she didn’t dare shoot because the animal was circling around Brother Fernando, so close that the two were a single swirl of movement.

  The travelers realized that they were witnessing the most original “bull” fight ever. The missionary was flourishing the canvas as he would a scarlet cape, provoking the beast and goading it with shouts of “Olé!” and “Toro! Toro!” He was bamboozling it, he was dancing before it, he was maddening it. In a short time, he had exhausted the boar; it was drooling, near collapse, its legs trembling. At that point Brother Fernando turned his back and, with the supreme arrogance of a torero, walked a few steps away, dragging his cape, as the boar tottered on its feet. Angie seized the instant to kill it with two shots to the head. A loud chorus of applause and cheers greeted Brother Fernando’s daring feat.

  “What good fun that was! It’s been thirty-five years since I had a chance to do that,” he exclaimed.

  He smiled for the first time since they had met him, and he told them that his childhood dream had been to follow in the footsteps of his father, a famous torero, but God had had other plans for him. He had fallen victim to a terrible fever that left him nearly blind, so he couldn’t pursue that career. He was wondering what he was going to do with his life when he learned through the parish priest in his village that the church was recruiting missionaries to serve in Africa. He had answered the call only out of the despair of not being able to be a toreador, but soon he discovered he had found his vocation. Being a missionary required the same talents as bullfighting: courage, endurance, and the faith to confront difficulties.

  “Fighting bulls is easy. Serving Christ is a little more complex,” Brother Fernando concluded.

  “To judge by the demonstration you gave us, apparently good eyesight isn’t a requirement for either,” Angie said warmly—he had saved her life.

  “We’ll have enough meat for several days, but we need to cook it so it will last a little longer,” said Brother Fernando.

  “Did you get photographs of the corrida?” Kate asked Joel.

  The poor fellow had to admit that in the excitement of the moment he had completely forgotten his obligation.

  “I have pictures!” shouted Alexander, waving the tiny camera he always had with him.

  The only person who knew how to skin and gut the wild boar turned out to be Brother Fernando; he’d seen hogs slaughtered many times in his village. He took off his shirt and got down to work. He didn’t have the right knives, so the task was slow and grubby. As he worked, Alexander and Joel, armed with long sticks, beat off the buzzards circling just above their heads. After an hour the edible meat was dressed. They threw the rest into the river, in order not to attract the flies and carnivores that would be drawn by the scent of blood. The missionary dug out the wild pig’s tusks and after cleaning them with sand gave them to Alexander and Nadia.

  “These are for you to take back to the States as a souvenir,” he said.

  “That’s if we get out of here alive,” Angie added.

  Brief but heavy rain showers fell through most of the night, making it difficult to keep the fire going. They set a canvas over it, but it kept going out, and finally they resigned themselves to letting it die. The only incident occurred during Angie’s shift, something she later described as “a miraculous escape.” A crocodile frustrated at not catching its prey at the riverbank was brazen enough to approach the faint glow of the coals and the oil lamp. Angie, crouching beneath a piece of plastic to keep dry, didn’t hear it. She became aware of its presence only when it was so close that she could see the gaping jaws less than three feet from her legs. In that split second, the prophecy of Má Bangesé, the marketplace diviner, flashed through her mind. She thought her time had come, yet didn’t have the presence of mind to use the rifle by her side. Instinct and fright took over; she sprang up and leaped aside, letting out a series of screams that roused her friends. The crocodile hesitated only a few seconds and lunged forward again. Angie started running, tripped, and fell, rolling to one side to avoid the croc.

  The first to answer Angie’s screams was Alexander, who had just crawled out of his sleeping bag to report for his shift. Without stopping to think what he was doing, he grabbed the first thing that came to hand and slammed it down as hard as he could on the beast’s snout. He screamed louder than Angie and blindly kicked and struck at the animal, half the time missing it completely. By then everyone had run out to help, and Angie, recovered from her surprise, began firing her weapon. Even without careful aim, one or two bullets hit the target but failed to penetrate the saurian’s thick hide. Finally all the racket, and Alexander’s blows, changed the crocodile’s mind about dinner, and it headed back toward the river, tail slashing indignantly.

  “Th—that was a crocodile!” exclaimed Alexander, stuttering and trembling, unable to believe that he had battled such a monster.

  “Come here, kid, let me give you a kiss; you saved my life,” Angie called, crushing Alex to her ample bosom.

  Alexander felt his ribs creak and was choked by a scent of fear and gardenia perfume as Angie covered him with loud smacks, laughing and crying at
once.

  Joel came over to examine the weapon Alexander had used.

  “That’s my camera!” he yipped.

  It was. The black leather case was destroyed, but the heavy German mechanism had withstood the brutal encounter with the crocodile without apparent damage.

  “I’m really sorry, Joel. The next time I’ll use my own,” said Alexander, pulling out his small pocket camera.

  It stopped raining during the morning, and the entire crew seized the opportunity to wash their clothes with the strong lye soap Angie had in her luggage and lay them out to dry in the sun. They had a breakfast of roast meat, crackers, and tea, and were working on the plan Alexander had suggested the first day—to build a raft and float down river to the nearest village—when two canoes came into view. Their relief and joy were so explosive that they ran toward them howling with jubilation, like the castaways they were. At that reception the canoes slowed, turned, and started moving in the opposite direction. There were two men in each canoe, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Angie hailed them in English and in all the local languages she could remember, pleading with them to come back, stating that they would gladly pay them for help. The men talked among themselves and finally curiosity, or greed, got the upper hand, and they began cautiously to paddle toward shore. They had established that the group consisted of one robust woman, an odd-looking old woman, two teenagers, a skinny man with thick eyeglasses, and another from whom they could see they had nothing to fear. It was, on the whole, quite a ridiculous group. Once they were convinced that the six strangers presented no danger, despite the weapon in the hands of one of the women, the men waved and got out of the canoes.

  The new arrivals introduced themselves as fishermen from a village some miles to the south. They were strong, heavy-bodied—almost square—with very dark skin, and they were armed with machetes. According to Brother Fernando, they belonged to the Bantu peoples.

  Because of colonization, the second language of the region was French. To her grandson’s surprise, it turned out that Kate spoke passable French and so was able to exchange a few words with the fishermen. Brother Fernando and Angie knew several African languages, and they took a try at anything that could not be communicated in French. They explained their accident to the men, showed them the damaged plane, and asked for their help in getting out of there. The Bantus drank the warm beers they were offered and devoured some strips of boar, but they did not seem interested until a price was reached and Angie handed out cigarettes, which had the effect of softening them up.