Forest of the Pygmies (15 page)

“See, this is where they had the school and looked after the sick. There should be a garden nearby, which they planted, and a well.”

“Why would they want a well when it rains here every two minutes?” Kate wondered. “There's water to spare all around us.”

“They didn't dig it; it was already here. They put quotation marks around the word, as if it were something special. I always thought that was very strange.”

“I wonder what happened to them?” Kate said.

“I'm not leaving here until I find out. I have to see Commandant Mbembelé,” Brother Fernando said with determination.

For breakfast the guards brought them a stalk of bananas and a pitcher of milk swimming with flies, then returned to their posts at the entrance, in that way notifying the foreigners that they still were not to go outside. Kate pulled off a banana and turned to give it to Borobá. That was when she realized that Alexander, Nadia, and the little monkey were not with them.

Kate became frantic when she found that her grandson and Nadia were not in the hut with the rest of the group, and even more alarmed that no one had seen them since the night before.

“Maybe the young people went for a walk . . .” Brother Fernando suggested without much conviction.

Kate went running out as if she were possessed, before the guard at the door could stop her. Outside, the village was coming to life. Children and a few women were moving around, but there were no men to be seen; no one was working. In the distance they saw the Pygmy women who had danced the night before. Some were going to the river for water; others were headed for the huts of the Bantus or on their way to the fields. Kate ran to ask about Alexander and Nadia, but she couldn't communicate with them, or else they didn't want to answer. She went through the village calling the names of her grandson and Nadia, but she didn't see them anywhere; all she achieved was to stir up the hens and attract the attention of a couple of the soldiers of Kosongo's guard who were beginning their round at that moment. Without a break in stride, they took her by the arms and literally carried her toward the compound of royal huts.

“They have Kate!” screamed Angie, who was watching from a distance.

She tucked her revolver into her waistband, picked up her rifle, and waved to the others to follow her. They should be acting like guests, she said, not prisoners. The group pushed aside the two guards at the door and ran off in the direction in which the writer had disappeared.

By that time, the soldiers had pushed Kate to the ground and would have started beating her had they not been interrupted by her friends, who streamed in shouting in Spanish, English, and French. The foreigners' bold behavior confused the soldiers; they were not used to being disobeyed. There was a law in Ngoubé that no one could touch one of Mbembelé's soldiers. Even if this happened by accident the punishment was a beating; when it was intentional the cost was a life.

“We want to see the king!” demanded Angie, backed by her companions.

Brother Fernando helped Kate up, but a sharp cramp in her ribcage kept her from fully straightening. She thumped her chest a couple of times, and then was able to get her breath.

They had ended up in a large mud hut with a floor of tamped-down earth, bare of furniture. On the walls were two mounted leopard heads, and in a corner an altar covered with voodoo fetishes. In another corner, on a red carpet, sat a refrigerator and a television, symbols of wealth and modernity, though totally useless since there was no electricity in Ngoubé. The room had two doors and there were openings in the walls to let in a little light.

The sound of voices outside caused the soldiers to snap to attention. The foreigners turned to see a man with the look of a gladiator make his entrance through one of the doors. They had no doubt that this was the famous Maurice Mbembelé. He was very tall and muscular, with the build of a weight lifter: enormous shoulders and a thick neck; prominent cheekbones; thick, well-defined lips; a boxer's crooked nose; and shaved head. They couldn't see his eyes because he was wearing mirrored sunglasses, which gave him a particularly sinister appearance. He was clad in army trousers, boots, and a wide, black leather belt, but his torso was bare. He showed the scars of the Brotherhood of the Leopard and wore a strip of leopard skin on each arm. He was accompanied by two soldiers nearly as tall as he.

When she saw the commandant's powerful muscles, Angie was wide-mouthed with admiration. Her fury
dissolved in an instant, and she felt as flustered as a schoolgirl. Kate realized that she was about to lose her best ally, and stepped forward.

“Commandant Mbembelé, I presume?” she asked.

The man did not answer; he merely observed the group of foreigners with an inscrutable expression, almost as if he were wearing a mask.

“Commandant, two of our group are missing,” Kate announced.

That news was received with an icy silence.

“Two young people, my grandson, Alexander, and his friend Nadia,” Kate added.

“We want to know where they are,” Angie put in, no longer struck dumb by passion.

“They can't have gone very far; they must be in the village,” Kate babbled.

She had the sensation that she was sinking into a quagmire; she was unsteady on her feet and her voice trembled. The silence became unbearable. A long minute passed before they heard the firm voice of the commandant.

“The guards who were so careless will be punished.”

That was it. He turned on his heel and left the same way he had come, followed by his two personal guards and those who had manhandled Kate. They were laughing and talking as they left. Brother Fernando and Angie caught part of their joke: The white boy and girl who had escaped were really stupid; they would die in the forest, devoured by wild beasts or by ghosts.

Seeing that no one had an eye on them or even seemed interested in them, Kate and the remaining members of the party went back to the hut they had been assigned to.

“Those kids have just vanished. They're always causing me problems. I swear they're going to pay for this!” Kate groaned, tearing at the short gray clumps of hair that crowned her head.

“Don't swear, woman. We should pray instead,” Brother Fernando scolded.

He knelt down among the cockroaches that were calmly moving about the floor and began to pray. No one joined him; they were too busy speculating and suggesting plans.

Angie believed that the sensible thing to do was negotiate with the king to provide them a boat, the only way to leave the village. Joel thought Commandant Mbembelé was in charge of the village, not the king, and that since he showed no sign of willingness to help them, the best idea might be to ask the Pygmies to lead them back along the secret forest trails that only they knew. As for Kate, she had no intention of going anywhere before the two young people returned.

At that point Brother Fernando, who was still on his knees, broke in to show them the piece of paper he had found on one of their packs as he knelt to pray. Kate tore it from his hand and ran to one of the windows where there was light.

“It's from Alexander!”

In a faltering voice the writer read the brief message from her grandson: “Nadia and I are trying to help the Pygmies. Keep Kosongo distracted. Don't worry, we'll be back soon.”

“Those kids are nuts,” commented Joel.

“No, it's their normal state. What can we do?” the grandmother moaned.

“Don't tell us to pray, Brother Fernando!” Angie exclaimed. “There must be something more practical we can do.”

“I don't know what you're going to do, miss. As for me, I feel confident that the young pair will be back. In the meantime, I have to find out about my fellow missionaries,” he informed them, getting to his feet and shaking the cockroaches off his trousers.

A
LEXANDER AND
N
ADIA WANDERED THROUGH
the trees with no idea of where they were going. Alexander found a leech clinging to his leg, swollen with his blood, and pulled it off without a fuss. He had encountered leeches in the Amazon and wasn't afraid of them, though they still turned his stomach. There was no way they could get their bearings in the wild jungle growth; everything looked the same. The only spots of color in the eternal green of the forest were the orchids and the fleeting, gaily colored birds. They were walking over soft, reddish dirt, rain-soaked and strewn with obstacles, where at any
moment they might take a false step. Treacherous swamps lay hidden beneath mantles of floating leaves. They had to pull aside the vines that grew as solid as curtains, and avoid the piercing thorns of some plants. Even so, the forest was not as impenetrable as it had seemed before; there were occasional openings among the treetops that allowed rays of sun to filter through.

Alexander had his knife in his hand, ready to stab the first edible animal he could catch, but none gave him that satisfaction. Several rats scurried between his legs, but they were too quick. The two had to stave off their hunger with some bitter, unidentifiable fruit. Since Borobá was eating them, they assumed they weren't harmful and followed his lead. They were afraid of getting lost—which in fact they already were; they hadn't a clue how to get back to Ngoubé or how to find the Pygmies. Their one hope was that the Pygmies would find them.

They had been wandering for several hours, increasingly lost and concerned, when Borobá started shrieking. The little monkey had adopted the habit of sitting atop Alexander's head, where he clung to the young man's ears and coiled his tail around his neck; from that vantage he could see more of the world than in Nadia's arms. Alexander would shake him off, but given the slightest opening Borobá would leap back to his favorite perch. Because he was high on Alexander's head, it was he who saw the tracks. They were only three feet away but were nearly invisible, the tracks of huge feet that flattened everything in their path, leaving a discernible trail. The young people recognized them immediately from having seen them on Michael Mushaha's safari.

“Those are elephant tracks,” said Alexander, encouraged. “If there's an elephant anywhere near, the Pygmies will be close by.”

The elephant had been pursued for days. The Pygmies' method was to trail their prey, wearing it down completely, then herd it toward their nets and corner it; that was when they attacked. The only break this animal had had was when Beyé-Dokou and his companions were diverted while leading the foreigners to the village of Ngoubé. During that afternoon and part of the night, the elephant had tried to get back to its own territory, but it was fatigued and confused. The hunters had forced it into unfamiliar terrain; it couldn't find its way and was wandering in circles. The presence of the humans with their spears and nets signaled the end; instinct told it that, but it kept running because it was not ready to die.

Over thousands and thousands of years, the elephant has confronted the hunter. In the genetic memories of both is inscribed the tragic ceremony of the hunt, in which each is prepared to kill or to die. The vertigo of danger is mesmerizing for both. At the culminating moment of the hunt, nature holds its breath, the forest falls silent, the breeze becomes still, and at the end, when the fate of one, or of both, is decided, the hearts of man and beast beat in one rhythm. The elephant is the king of the jungle, its largest and heaviest beast, the most respected; no other animal opposes it. Its one enemy is man, a small, vulnerable creature without claws or fangs that with one foot it can crush like a lizard. How does that insignificant being dare claim supremacy? But once the ritual of the hunt is begun, there is no time to contemplate the irony of the situation: Hunter and prey know that the dance can end only in death.

The Pygmy hunters had discovered the trail of flattened vegetation and ripped out tree branches long before Nadia and Alexander made their discovery. They had been following the elephant for hours, moving in perfect coordination to surround it from a prudent distance. This was an aged and solitary male, gifted with two enormous tusks. They were only a dozen Pygmies, with primitive weapons, but they were not going to let it escape. In former times the women had been the ones to tire the animal and drive it toward the traps where the men were waiting.

Years earlier, in the days of their freedom, the Pygmies always had ceremonies to invoke the aid of their ancestors and to thank the animal for submitting to death, but since Kosongo had imposed his reign of terror, nothing had been the same. Even the hunt, the oldest and most fundamental activity of the tribe, had lost its sacred meaning to become nothing but a slaughter.

Alexander and Nadia had heard loud trumpeting and felt the thundering of enormous feet on the ground. But now the final act had begun; the nets had immobilized the elephant and the first spears had been driven into its side.

Nadia's cry stopped the hunters with spears uplifted as the elephant thrashed about furiously, fighting with its last forces.

“Don't kill it! Don't kill it!” Nadia screamed.

The girl stepped between the men and the animal, holding her arms high. The Pygmies rapidly recovered from their surprise and tried to push her aside, but by then Alexander had taken over.

“Enough! Stop! Don't do that!” he yelled, waving the amulet before their eyes.

“Ipemba-Afua!” they exclaimed, falling to the ground before the sacred symbol of their tribe, which had been in Kosongo's hands for so long.

Alexander realized that the carved bone was more valuable than the powder it contained; even had it been empty, the Pygmies' reaction would have been the same. That object had passed down through many generations, and to them it had magical powers. The debt they owed Alexander and Nadia for having returned Ipemba-Afua was enormous; they could not deny anything to the young foreigners who had brought back the soul of their tribe.