by John Fowler
I brought up the rear of our single file as Stuart and Peter followed Dian into her cabin, which felt warm relative to the damp night’s early morning air.
Before we could leave, Dian insisted on making popcorn, clearly reluctant for the evening to end. The three of us couldn’t resist an opportunity for food and despite the late hour we obliged, with Dian providing us with yet more beer to quench our salted popcorn–induced thirst. She was on a manic high, and we obliged, catching the fallout of free beer and food, so scarce under the circumstances.
It was after 2:00 A.M. when we pecked away at the last of the unpopped kernels at the bottom of their tin pan, and Dian’s high abated enough for our little Saturday night/Sunday morning party to subside. Collectively, we headed for the door.
“Ohhh, Stuart, your hands are cold,” Dian said, catching him just inside the doorway. “Let me warm them.” She shoved Stuart’s hands up the front of her sweater before he could pull them away.
“Wait a minute, Dian!” Stuart exclaimed, yanking his hands back with a nervous laugh. “No, thanks.”
“You’re sleeping with me tonight.”
“Uh . . . no Dian, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” Dian repeated, wrapping one arm around his and drawing him back inside. Peter and I just reveled in the absurdity of the moment, and Stuart’s dilemma, while maneuvering ourselves out the door.
“Oh, no I’m not!” Stuart blurted, sidestepping away from her to a spot between Peter and me. In a chortle of nervous laughter, we three students skedaddled out into the night and down the camp path through snorting buffaloes to the respite of our own cabins.
Back in my bed, I lay awake for a while, taking in the events of the night. Would this evening really end up in Dian’s book? A fond memory of Dian’s wonderful interactions with students? Perhaps her editors were wondering too: Where is everyone in your life, Dian? All the camaraderie? The friendships? And I thought about the former student who Dian had said couldn’t tolerate the sound of the hyraxes. I doubted if that was really why she left. What would Dian tell the next group about Carolyn’s departure?
I realized there had been many students through camp, none of whom Dian had maintained an ongoing positive relationship with. And Amy Vedder . . . Bill Weber, now entrenched in a cold war with Dian from their own home base at the foot of the mountain. There were other former students on the outs, like Sandy Harcourt, who, after helping create the Mountain Gorilla Preservation Fund in the UK, was now backing the Mountain Gorilla Project, with Amy and Bill, to organize and develop tourism to see gorillas. There was an irony to Dian’s contempt of this, because she was once a tourist herself—the one that didn’t leave. The experience had changed her life, but after that, it was as if gorillas were hers alone.
Sandy and his wife Kelly Stewart were once-beloved supporters of Dian, now ostracized. Kelly had been a student in camp, like ourselves. As for Peter, having been more a part of her life, these former students were all more worthy of inclusion in Dian’s life story than we newcomers, and yet time made them more the unmentionable outcasts. For Dian, familiarity really and truly bred contempt.
Even a favorite among Dian’s former students, Ian Redmond, was on her latest shit list because he had assisted with the operation of the Mountain Gorilla Project, training new park guards in collaboration with the V-W couple and making him a traitor in Dian’s mind. I was young, but I knew there was something wrong with Dian’s inability to maintain relationships. What was next for us? For me? What would bring about my end? My head swam thinking about all the former camp residents that had come and gone, only to become more of the ever-growing list of those estranged from Dian Fossey.
FIFTEEN
A MAN A PLAN A GORILLA DIAN
What to do about the baby gorilla, who would run the poacher patrols in her absence, and Nunkie’s unknown whereabouts remained at the top of Dian’s list of complaints as she dragged her feet about leaving Karisoke. Stuart reassured her as best he could that we would continue to run the poacher patrols, despite the risks and legal ramifications of sending armed men into a neighboring country. In another ambitious effort to finally find Nunkie, Stuart and I travelled farther into Zaire, even camping overnight high on the far side of Mount Visoke to extend our search. Rwelekana never shied away from these most-arduous forays, and led us to a beautiful grove of giant heath under which we pitched our tents. Despite the valiant effort, we couldn’t provide Dian with evidence of Nunkie’s existence.
Dian discarded all the names she had ascribed to our gorilla baby after photos confirmed that the little one was not the missing N’gee from Nunkie’s Group. After that, she neglected to give her any name at all. I needed something to refer to her as in my notes, and after looking up the word for who in my little green Up Country Swahili book; I started using Nani for the former Charlie, Josephine, N’gee, Sophie . . .
With Nani’s origins once again a mystery, Dian had to quickly change her plans of putting her in Nunkie’s Group, but the idea of releasing the baby into a wild group persisted. Instead, she decided Group 4 would have to suffice as the little gorilla’s new family. This had only been tried once before, with eastern lowland gorillas in Zaire’s Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, and with a much younger baby. The results were tragic. That infant was never seen again.
I was more than a little surprised that Dian decided that if the baby died in the wild, it would be better than if she had gone to a zoo. Dian said that Coco and Pucker, the young gorillas she had rehabilitated in 1969, barely tolerated life in Germany’s Cologne Zoo. Dian also thought that because there were no mountain gorillas in captivity, bringing an individual female into the zoo world would trigger a market for a male to pair her with. She feared this would result in yet more poaching as others scrambled to get mountain gorillas out of the wilds and into their zoos.
As the full-time caretaker of our little nameless orphan, I continued to learn much about gorilla infant behavior, including what and how gorillas eat, the importance of play and affection to a nonhuman primate, and perfecting my technique to hold an ape—so spoiled by Dian—without getting teeth imbedded in my skin. Impressed by the way I cared for the baby, Dian continued to bestow a certain respect for me as she formulated her plan for the little one.
In a complete about-face, Dian decided to invite the Japanese film crew that had been camped at the base of the mountain up to Karisoke. Disappointed by having gotten minimal gorilla footage with the V-W couple, these documentary filmmakers had been desperately wanting footage of the internationally-known Dian, who until now had remained standoffish, perhaps because she had nothing new to say or show about her work.
Energized by her new plans, Dian continued to treat me as a team member. Then again, as Nani’s primary caregiver, I had become an important player in this grand scheme. With uncharacteristic trepidation, she asked me if I would agree to camp out with the baby for several nights in the forest across the border in Zaire. Actually, she did this through Stuart, and I was surprised that she didn’t just make this an order, or else . . . Of course, I well knew by then the consequences of declining, the verbal abuse and condemnation it would trigger. I had witnessed it with Carolyn. You’re either with Dian or you’re not, and if you’re not, you are an outcast, shunned by the leader of this remote cult.
Dian of all people knew the consequences would be dire if I were to be caught in Zaire without a visa. She had been held hostage there. But with my willing participation, she would have the men set up a bivouac campsite, within the natural range of Group 4, where I would help prepare the little gorilla for transition back to the wild. I accepted the mission eagerly as an honorable role in the little one’s hope for a proper life as a gorilla, and, yes, as a way to remain in good standing with our headmistress. Dian seemed truly grateful when I agreed, which surprised me. But perhaps that was just her way of showing relief that things would be progressing as planned.
With Group 5’s curiosity of me apparently satisfi
ed, its members wouldn’t feel the need to examine and crawl upon me en masse again. But six-year-old Pablo remained a very forward and charismatic youngster, who would often rush up to me with a slap, or even plop himself right down in my lap before trying to nudge me over. Perhaps his attraction to us humans was a consequence of his earlier life and abandonment. Before he was four years old, his mother Liza transferred into the rival Group 6 to become the consort of the silverback, Brutus, leaving her son behind. It was documented by Dian that silverbacks will kill the offspring of rival males after winning over their females. This harsh strategy causes the new female to come into estrous sooner, thereby allowing the new male to sire his own offspring with her. Whatever the intuition was for Pablo, he chose wisely to remain behind with his biological father, Beethoven. But as a consequence, he was denied an ongoing motherly connection. This he made up for by being everyone’s playful, comedic friend, including us humans.
Out with Group 5, as the days drew on, Peter and I often talked of home, and of food, and of favorite foods from home.
“Boy, I could really get into some pierogis right now,” I mused, while Group 5 napped in the warm sun, after a rain. “That’s my favorite thing that my mom makes. With the cheese and potatoes inside.”
“That would be käse-piroggen in German,” Peter said. “I like my mom’s spaetzle. I wish I could make that here.”
“What’s that?” I asked, with Peter trying to correct my attempt at pronouncing the German dish.
Peter went on to describe what seemed to me like a dumpling-meets-noodle kinda thing, made from flour and eggs. I had seen my mother make noodles from scratch, and the process sounded similar to me.
“My mom cut the dough really fast from a board into boiling water.” Peter responded to my queries about the process, as I pondered trying to make them that evening. It would certainly be a nice diversion from our regular rations. We were forbidden to eat together, but I offered to give some to Peter later if they were a success.
Back in camp, I described my culinary plan to Stuart, but I didn’t have much flour or eggs.
“I’ve got some spaghetti noodles,” Stuart said. “Maybe we could throw those in with them.”
“You know, I’ve actually got a can of spaghetti sauce I’ve been hanging onto,” Peter revealed. “You wanna get together?”
At that point, the dinner plan had taken on a life of its own. My stomach knotted up at the very thought.
“Hey guys,” I said, “I don’t know about this.”
“C’mon,” Stuart said, “we’ll just try to keep it quiet. Dian won’t even know.”
Peter and Stuart were much more eager than I, but I relented. They laughed at me as I went to each window, drawing the curtains closed tightly.
Soon, I was scrubbing out my wash pot, in which to prepare the salted boiling water. Peter watched as I cracked the eggs into a bowl of flour and kneaded the dough with a wooden spoon.
“That kinda looks about right,” he said, when the mixture gained a smooth workable texture. When the water came to a rapid boil, I took a knife and cut a few as quick and best I could into the pot. They sunk, then floated up with the bubbling water, and within minutes looked done enough for our taste test.
Although they weren’t quite like Mrs. Veit’s, a little too thick and clunky, we agreed they were good enough for Karisoke fare at the end of another long day of gorilla trekking. I chopped the rest of the batter into the pot, before Stuart broke and dropped his spaghetti noodles in after them. At that moment I realized, while the pasta might take ten minutes or more, the spaetzle would get overcooked. Sure enough, we watched as the water turned milky and the delicate German dumplings sank and vanished. By the time the spaghetti was done, not a spaetzle remained. At least the spaghetti had swelled enough to feed the three of us, and with the sauce, made for a pretty decent meal by Karisoke standards.
The camaraderie and banter made me forget about Dian. Our laughter occasionally became too loud, but surely our mistress didn’t keep constant vigil enough to know everything going on at the far end of camp, and there was quite a bit of scattered forest between us.
How wrong I was.
“Ahem . . . Stuart . . . ?” Dian queried, with a knock at the door. “What the fuck is going on in there?”
The three of us stared at each other, deflating at the sound of Dian’s telltale breathy ahems. When Stuart opened the door, Dian squinted into our lantern light.
“Shit goddamn motherfuckit, Stuart!” Dian muttered with contempt. “I meant what I said! NO goddamn communal dinners!”
“Dian . . .” Stuart stammered, unable to hide the exasperation in his voice, “Dian, why . . . ?”
“We’ve got work to do here!” Dian answered. “And we’re here for the gorillas, not to feed our goddamn bellies!”
“Okay, Dian . . .” Stuart relented. “We’ve finished eating anyway.”
“I said no communal dinners, and I meant it!” Dian yelled again, “Peter, get back to your own goddamn cabin.” We stood dumbfounded once again as our boss turned away into the darkness.
Stuart let the door swing shut, and Peter and I started gathering the dishes into a stack on the desk. Stuart grabbed the pot of pasta water, thick with dissolved spaetzle, and Peter opened the door for him. In one bold swoop, he flung the contents out into the darkness.
“Oops! Sorry, Dian!” Stuart said, laughing cathartically.
Peter laughed with him. I cringed.
“It’s too late for Dian to get mad at me.” Stuart declared. “She needs me now.”
When the door flung closed again, I saw the beam of a flashlight shine through the gap at the top from outside, sweeping across the ceiling. I knew Dian must still be out there somewhere. Neither Stuart nor Peter seemed to care, but I was ready to wrap it up and turn out the lights. That party was over for me.
With characteristic crassness, Dian insisted on referring to the film crew from Japan’s Nippon AV Productions as “the Japs.” I asked the camp staffers for the Swahili word for Japanese and they said it was Abashinwa, which I later deduced must simply be the Franc-ified Kinyarwanda word for Chinese, placing the French Chine between the Kinyarwanda prefix Aba and suffix wa for people. With the camp’s crew knowing little about individual Asian countries, this word must have served as their name for all Asians.
To my utter surprise, Dian invited me up to her cabin where she had planned a meeting with the two Japanese cinematographers. I was being rewarded for good behavior, plus I made a good prop for appearances to the outside world. As she offered me a cold beer, I realized I still didn’t know how to act when she showed me friendliness, so cautious had I become under her volatility, but I thanked her, and with every sip, I found myself relaxing. Dian had brushed her hair and wore a fresh pair of jeans with a clean blue cotton turtleneck. On this day her cabin was not only freshly cleaned and tidy, but uncharacteristically bedecked with tiny arrangements of orange and yellow flowers gathered from around camp.
While I waited with her for the Japanese film crew to arrive, Dian pulled out some photocopied documents from the bookshelf on her wall.
“John . . . uh . . . here’s something I did on the vocalizations of the gorillas . . .” She said, flipping through the pages, pausing at the complex images of sonograms. She slid her hand across the zigzags of vertical black lines on the page, as if trying to read braille. I recognized the papers as part of her doctoral thesis on gorilla vocalizations; Terry Maple had given me a copy.
“You can take this,” she said, passing it into my hands. “Try and understand it if you can. I know I sure don’t.”
This only corroborated what I’d heard about her difficulty in getting her PhD at Cambridge; apparently her mentors had to do much of the work in order for her to graduate.
Dian had a PhD in Zoology, but to me, she didn’t seem to have a broad understanding of science, biology, or wildlife, beyond her beloved gorillas. These beloved consisted primarily of gorillas in her rese
arch groups, the ones she had met and named, giving them human names, even family names, like Uncle Bert and Aunt Flossie. She was desperately concerned about Nunkie and his welfare, but when a research group had a confrontation with a fringe group, that fringe group was just an interloper, an unknown with which she had neither connected emotionally nor developed a bond. It was as if her groups were her pets, like Cindy and Kima, part of her family, versus the neighbor’s pets, or the neighbors themselves. All else were outsiders to her cloistered world. What belonged to her, what she had staked her claim upon, became an extension of her, and any assault upon it, she took personally with a deep lament and vengeful wrath. Karisoke and its surroundings had become her turf, her gorilla territory, and she was there to defend it . . . to the end.
Soon the film duo of Haruhiko Takenaka and Jinzaburo Kajiura arrived, smiling and bowing repeatedly as Dian welcomed them into her home and beckoned them to take seats on her couch. The contempt she had previously shown about them being parked at the base of the mountain while wanting access to Karisoke had dissolved into a gracious pandering welcome from her.
Haruhiko, looked to be in his late thirties and was obviously more comfortable with English. He introduced himself and Kajiura, explaining that they go by the nicknames Taka and Kaji. Reading the gestures, Kaji, the elder at around fifty, nodded affirmatively.
