A Forest in the Clouds

by John Fowler

  Josephine began grooming the top of my head. I could feel her chubby fingers sifting gingerly through my hair and hoped she wouldn’t find anything living there. The little gorilla’s subtle touch sent a wave of relaxation across my scalp and down my neck and shoulders. I tried to resume typing, but stopped again to enjoy the sensation as if it was a scalp massage. Then I understood the mystique of primate grooming behavior.

  When our traveling classroom had seen vervet monkeys or olive baboons in Kenya six months earlier, our leader Terry Maple had repeatedly emphasized the importance of grooming as a social activity within primate societies. “It strengthens the bond between individuals,” he would say while we witnessed one monkey grooming another, its nimble simian fingers proficiently articulating the hairs of the other. Occasionally the groomer would pick some tiny particle out of its partner’s fur and place it in its own mouth. Other times our group would see a mother baboon pull her baby out of play with another infant and draw it onto her lap. As the mother began grooming her offspring, the baby would stop resisting her and half-close its eyes in relaxed compliance.

  Now I was enjoying the same luxury, and understanding its appeal, as Josephine worked her way down my left sideburn and into my beard. I tilted my head as if I was in a barber’s chair. The beard grooming was even more relaxing than on my head. Suddenly a warm feeling started at the base of my neck and traveled down my spine accompanied by the smell of urine and the sound of liquid dripping on the floor. My little groomer was relieving her bladder down my back! In a reflex action, I intuitively pig-grunted . . . eh eh eh . . . and bolted to my feet. Josephine clung to the back of the chair, but without my weight as a counterbalance, gorilla and chair toppled to the floor!

  “No, Josephine!” I exclaimed, but the little gorilla, righting herself, just stared blankly up at me as if asking, what’s your problem?

  Exasperated, I dropped to my knees in front of her and she crawled onto my lap, wrapping her furry arms around my neck. We sat quietly for a moment, and I shuddered as the urine on my back turned cold and clammy. I used the baby’s body warmth to warm myself as I snuggled with her in apology for my allowing her to plummet to the floor. At least the rain outside had let up.

  Minutes later, light shuffling footsteps approached on the muddy trail outside the Empty Cabin. I sighed in recognition of Dian’s voice.

  “Uh . . . John?”

  “Yes? We’re in here.”

  Dian lifted the latch and, easing the door open, stepped up into the cabin. I rose to my feet as the baby clambered to Dian, who crouched down and joined the little gorilla on the floor. I noticed Dian was feeling Josephine’s stomach.

  “She’s had several lobes of poop today and she just peed down my back,” I said, forcing a laugh.

  “Did you make a note of it?”

  “Yes, well I was just going to . . .”

  “You know you’ve got to keep a record of her dung and urine, or we’ll have no way of monitoring her health. No way at all.” Dian had a distinct way of running the words at all together as if they were one atall.

  “I know, I’ve saved the lobes right here.” I retrieved the crumpled paper from my backpack with the seven clover-shaped segments of gorilla dung. Dian craned her neck and eyed the small turds dubiously.

  As if embarrassed by the scene, but excited by our visitor, Josephine slapped at Dian. Dian was silent as Josephine climbed onto her lap. I turned sideways in my chair and began writing a note about Josephine urinating . . . on me.

  “This . . . uh . . . Terry Maple . . .” Dian wrinkled her nose and scowled as she drew out the sentence, “Who is he again?” she asked, keeping her attention on the baby.

  “He’s a psychology professor at Georgia Tech.” I answered optimistically, thinking that she must have finally read Terry’s research proposals for a silverback study at Karisoke. “He’s also worked at Emory and has a lot of experience with animal behavior, especially primate behavior.”

  Dian remained silent.

  “He sponsored my coming here.” I tried to temper the enthusiasm in my voice to prevent triggering her need to keep me suppressed.

  “So far, I’m not very impressed with you . . .” Dian said, without looking up, “Or Carolyn either.” My heart sank, and then my own feelings of disappointment were replaced by the angry feeling of being backed into a corner again, poked and prodded unrelentingly. As Josephine moved back to her pile of wild celery, Dian looked up at me. “You’re not worth much to me.” I was speechless, and thought to myself, What the hell do you want from me? I became aware that my lips had formed the tight-pursed posture assumed by an annoyed gorilla, and wondered if Dian could read my expression.

  Dian shifted onto her left thigh with her legs tucked under her, and sat quiet and tense for a moment.

  “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices . . .” she began. “We can’t always have what we want.” Dian fell silent again. My frustration turned to puzzlement as I waited for her to continue her speech. Slowly it began to come to me—Terry Maple . . . a silverback study . . . the baby gorilla . . . Dian must have read Terry’s proposal, and was worried about who would take care of Josephine if I focused on a study of my own. Why didn’t Dian just come out and say what she needed? Why did she need to make me feel guilty and try to humiliate me into helping her? I wished I simply could’ve confronted her on this, but I’d had no previous experience with someone like her, and lacked the skills and aptitude for the mind game that was playing out before me.

  “Dr. Maple’s proposals are just suggestions,” I said. “Terry and I were just as interested in a mother-infant study even before we knew there was a baby in camp.” I did not admit it to Dian, but I really didn’t know how to approach a study of silverbacks and having had no real research experience, I thought a study of gorilla mothers and their infants would be simpler to conduct.

  The lines in Dian’s face softened as she looked at me. “It’s important that someone is willing to devote themselves to the baby. Really and truly . . . she needs work.”

  “Well, I’ll do it,” I said, dumbfounded by the realization that Dian had been thinking I would not be interested.

  Dian didn’t smile, but her frown was gone as she looked at Josephine nibbling blissfully on a stalk of wild celery. I had hoped for Dian’s approval from the moment I met her, but was just then strangely uncomfortable with the idea that we could have some sort of positive relationship. Although Dian’s direct contempt was hard to take, I had grown comfortable with the distance it brought between me and this woman who I now found so unnerving.

  Our silence was broken by the slow hiss of flatulence from Josephine.

  “She’s been eating a lot today,” I said, “and farting a lot too.” Dian cracked a smile.

  “She needs to be active.” Dian said, “You’ve got to play with her also.”

  “She’s been active today. Haven’t you Josephine?” I crouched down on the floor and swatted at the little gorilla who dropped her celery, raised her arms, and pounced on me. My furry friend and I tumbled across the grass mat floor into the other half of the cabin. Josephine chuckled as I tickled her ribs. Dian was smiling now as she crawled on her knees and followed the two of us on the floor. The little gorilla rose up on her legs and beat her chest like a miniature King Kong before pouncing on Dian who managed a restrained laugh while grabbing at her little foster ape.

  “That’s a ‘two-hand slap,’” Dian said when the baby raised her arms and slapped both hands on my head. When Josephine banged her hand against her upper torso before falling onto Dian, my boss pointed out that maneuver too. “That’s a ‘one-hand chest beat.’”

  Josephine let out a slow hisser, that filled the room with the essence of partially digested forest foliage, and I added a descriptor of my own. “That’s a fart.” Dian barely smiled at my joke, but I could see that the tension that was on her face when she arrived was mostly gone.

  For the next ten minutes, Josephine played heartily wit
h me as I chased and tickled her across the floor. The nimble gorilla farted repeatedly as she spun and rolled, her gas smelling like clean, fresh compost. Dian watched our antics until the baby at last collapsed in my lap to rest.

  “That’s good play,” Dian said, with a relaxed smile on her face. The little gorilla sprawled languidly, face-up in my lap, allowing her heavy breathing to subside. Dian and I stared at the happy gorilla in repose on my legs as her deep breaths abated, and she closed her eyes in relaxed comfort. Soon, the baby was in the early stage of sleep, and Dian rose quietly to her feet and moved toward the door. Josephine roused and tried to follow her, but I picked her furry body up and turned her away to block her view of Dian’s departure. As usual, there were no goodbye pleasantries from Dian while she made her exit, but I was relieved that her contempt and condescension upon arrival had abated and departed with her.

  TEN

  IT’S N’GEE!

  After Dian had left the Empty Cabin, the clouds parted and sunshine swept over Karisoke, both figuratively and literally. I lifted Josephine into my arms and carried her out into the rain-washed air, down to the stream that ran through camp. At one place behind my own cabin there was a shallow ford with a broad flat lava flow to cross upon. The baby was attracted to this pretty crossing spot as much as I was and would linger on the stepping stones over the still pools, examining her reflection, staring as if in amazement at her own self.

  When I crossed to the other side, Josephine followed. On the grassy bank, I found a black-and-yellow-striped caterpillar and picked it up to show my little friend. Obviously curious at first, she stared at it intently for a moment. Then, with a quick squeamish flick of her thick fingers, she tried to brush the insect larva from my hand. Her repugnance made me laugh. She was grossed out! Like a mischievous big brother, and still curious of her reaction, I moved the caterpillar closer to her. At this, Josephine scampered away from me.

  Still holding the caterpillar, I sat back against a tree and waited to see what she would do next. Within a couple minutes, Josephine returned to me, pausing as if in thought about this dilemma—me with a caterpillar. Then with a succession of three squeamish swipes she knocked the larva to the ground and pounced onto me, grabbing me tightly like a child who thought there was a monster in the closet. Her little frame bounced with my convulsive laughter.

  My curiosity piqued, I picked up the caterpillar again and held it out to Josephine. Showing her displeasure with a standard gorilla pig-grunt vocalization, “eh, eh, EH!,” she boldly smacked the bug from my hand. She’d had enough of my game. Her indignant disgust made me laugh some more until my eyes watered.

  A few minutes later Josephine and I walked back up from the creek bank where I noticed a small frog tucked in the grass. Catching it as it leaped toward the water, I sat down and showed this new critter to Josephine. More tolerant of this greenish-gray amphibian than of the boldly striped caterpillar, the little gorilla examined it closely. Seated on my legs, she surprised me further by tasting the tiny creature with a lick of her tongue directly on its slippery back. With a blank expression of disinterest, and one brave swipe of her hand, she efficiently sent the tiny frog sailing back into the tussocks. Happy again, she drew herself in close to me, settling into my lap. Then, as if to thank me for annoying her, she urinated in a warm release of her bladder into my Levi’s.

  Just before 5:00 P.M. I started to lead Josephine up the camp trail for the night, but halfway up, Stuart approached from the direction of Dian’s cabin with a folder jammed with black and white photographs of gorillas. He crouched in front of Josephine and began showing her the photos one by one.

  “What are you doing?” I asked with a laugh.

  “These are pictures of Nunkie’s Group. Dian has a new theory . . .”

  Stuart began showing each photo of a gorilla’s face to Josephine who was mostly uninterested.

  “And . . . ?” I asked.

  When Stuart got to the photo of the silverback, Nunkie, the baby gazed at it with interest for a few seconds.

  “Dian thinks the baby may be one from Nunkie’s Group.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, apparently one about this age has been missing.”

  Stuart gathered the photos back into the envelope, and as quickly as he had arrived, trotted back up the path toward Dian’s cabin. Interested in learning more about this sudden turn of events, I soon followed. But not without the baby making a detour. Before I realized it, she had made a beeline for the fruit cage outside my cabin just as we passed it. Each cabin had a wire cage mounted on wood stilts outside the door. These permitted us to keep our fruits and other produce cool and safe outside away from the heat of the cabin stoves, protected from forest creatures like rodents and ravens. When Josephine made a quick reach for the caged fruit, again she knocked down one of the poles that supported the metal awning above my door. With the ensuing crash Josephine stopped in her tracks with a stunned look. After staring blankly for a few seconds at what she’d done, she opted to abandon her attempt at fruit theft and proceeded to a clump of thistles to dine, as if that was what she had really intended to do anyway.

  When we finally reached Dian’s cabin, Josephine took the lead, obviously anticipating the fruits and candies waiting for her inside. I was happy to see that the door was open, and I didn’t have to restrain the baby while dodging her candy-crazed, gnashing teeth. Inside, Dian was sitting on her couch surrounded by pieces of paper and open ring binders. She was peering intently at a photo in her hands. Josephine just ambled past to the bedroom and climbed the ladder to her nest box where her treats awaited. Back on the couch, Mademoiselli burst forth with manic excitement at her revelation.

  “It’s Nnnn’gee! It’s Nnnnnn’gee!” she exclaimed looking through me to Stuart standing behind me on the step up to the dining area. Dian stretched her neck and distorted her mouth as she tried to pronounce the combined “n” and “g” as one consonant in the Swahili-ized name she had created for a baby gorilla in Nunkie’s group.

  “NG” had become the nickname around camp for the National Geographic Society, and Dian had named one of Nunkie’s babies “N’gee” after the organization that had backed her both financially and politically. Many Swahili words begin with an n or m and another consonant like d or b such as with ndege for bird and mbogo for buffalo. But most Swahili words also ended in a vowel that ran into the first consonant of the next word, thereby creating an easy flow as in “iko ndege” for “it’s a bird,” or “na mbogo” for “and a buffalo.” These n and m words are difficult to pronounce in an English sentence with a preceding word that ends in a consonant. Having no gift for languages, Dian could barely say the Swahili-ized name she, herself, had invented.

  “It’s Nnnn’gee!” Dian repeated. She couldn’t say it enough as she pointed to a page in the notebook balancing on her bouncing knees where she sat on the couch. Pages of photos of gorilla faces with sketches of nose prints lay strewn on the coffee table, floor and cushions surrounding her. Caught off guard, I looked blankly at Dian, who kept her focus on Stuart.

  “You really think so, huh?” Stuart chimed.

  “Ehht mwaaah . . . Look at this nose print drawing, Stuart. N’gee was born in ’79. That makes her the same age. He’s been missing since last November when Nunkie was in heavy poacher area in Zaire.”

  “Do you think N’gee could’ve been a female?” Stuart asked.

  “Somebody might’ve got that wrong, Stuart . . .”

  I later learned that N’gee was a male, but Dian did not express any concern that the missing infant from Nunkie’s Group was the opposite sex of our little orphan.

  “The motherfucking poachers could have had her all through December before we got her.” Dian continued, as she closed her eyes and shook her head, emphatically lamenting, “Oya, oya! The goddamn poachers have killed the whole group by now!”

  Stuart and I moved to the living area where Dian sat. The notebook on Dian’s knees was a who’s who of go
rillas in the Karisoke study range, containing close-up photos of each gorilla with their estimated ages or birth dates, and their parentage. With each photo there was a corresponding hand-drawn sketch of a gorilla’s nose. The faces of gorillas, and in particular their noses, have distinctive creases and folds that differentiate one from another. Most of the earlier sketches were drawn by Dian, but later sketches of new babies or gorillas that moved into the study range were drawn by some of the students. The nose prints and photos now served as a long-term record of Dian’s gorillas.

  “I need a nose print of the baby!” Dian surmised.

  “I can do that.” I offered, enthusiastic about being able to contribute in what seemed like a small but important assignment.

  Dian scarcely heard me, instead lamenting that she couldn’t find a close-up photo of N’gee in her folders. She went on to explain that there were better photos on file at the National Geographic Society’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  “Bob’s coming from the States,” she said suddenly, with the excitement of Nancy Drew on a case. “He should be able to pick up photos from NG.” “Bob” McIlvaine, also known as “Rob” or Robinson McIlvaine, I soon learned, was a former US ambassador to Kenya, and current executive vice president of the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation in Washington, D.C. He was an old friend of Dian’s, and some speculated that they had been more than just friends. After the brutal killing of the silverback named Digit from Group 4, he had helped her create and manage the Digit Fund. Dian used the money from the fund to equip and pay her poacher patrol.

  Mr. McIlvaine, a staunch ally in the past, was on his way to visit Dian under the cloud of her continuing delays to leave camp and return to the States. I would eventually learn that an entire network of support that Dian had built up over the years, from the American Embassy in Kigali to the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., was eroding at an ever-increasing pace as Dian dragged her feet about leaving Karisoke. Rob McIlvaine was just one of the several individuals taking on the task of diplomatically encouraging Dian to move out of camp and on to Cornell.