A Forest in the Clouds

by John Fowler

  “I have something for you,” I said, rising to release her hand. “It’s my watercolor painting of Bonne Année.” Like that bowl of coleslaw months before, it was a sacrificial appeasement to the ruling goddess. I had rolled it into a paper tube for transport and handed it to her.

  “Ohhh . . . John, thank you so much!” Her ensuing glee only made things tougher for me. “Really and truly, I want you to know that I believe you tried to help Cindy. And I also want you to know that you can come back to Karisoke anytime you want.”

  She paused. I froze. This was her ultimate gift, permission to come to Karisoke. Really, it was all she had to give—the rare gift of Karisoke, the Virungas, and mountain gorillas. The mountain gorillas were hers to give.

  “I’m going to leave my address with you.” She lifted a pen from my desk and began writing on a piece of my field note paper. I watched as she scrawled her name and the address of Langmuir Lab at Cornell University.

  “Shit merde!” Dian muttered, crossing out some letters before finishing.

  When she handed the paper back to me, I saw she had automatically started to write her Karisoke address, B.P. 105, Ruhengeri, as she must have done for the last thirteen years.

  With that, she seemed satisfied of her visit. We said our goodbyes while she fumbled to click on her old duct-taped flashlight, and headed out into the darkness. Her faint “ahems” became fainter as the wobbling beam of her flashlight moved up the trail like a fallen star bouncing through the forest.

  TWENTY-THREE

  GORILLA MURDER

  The next morning, Dian departed with her usual band of porters, this time with the faithful Cindy at her side. As I was pulling on my rubber rain pants for a visit with Group 4, I heard the chattering throng trudge by my cabin. I peeked out one window, just to verify that Dian was really leaving. As the porters’ voices finally faded, Kanyaragana appeared at my doorway, lowering a cardboard box from his head to my floor with a loud clink of glass cargo inside—the eight empty Johnnie Walker bottles Dian consumed during her five-day visit. He wanted to store them with me, to later take for water vessels at his home off the mountain. Stunned by the quantity, I had to know.

  “Did she drink all of these while she was here this time?” I asked in Swahili.

  “Ndio!” Kanyaragana replied, with the affirmative.

  I let him in and helped him maneuver the box onto a high shelf.

  Outside, we heard Peter shouting something from his cabin. In no time, he was striding briskly down the camp trail, arms flailing in exasperation.

  “Fuck it!” he shouted, loud and clear.

  “What?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “She did it again! She did it again!”

  “Did what?”

  “She stole my goddamn film!”

  Peter clenched his jaw in frustration, tempering the anger. Dian’s departure, just moments before, had made him think to check that his most recent exposed film rolls were still in his cabin. They were gone. After venting his anger at this new turn of events, Peter stormed off to Group 5. Stunned by the news, but relieved to have Dian gone again, I decided to take the day off—another little Siku ya Uhuru for me.

  The next day, I got back early from a brief visit to Nunkie’s Group, although tired from the hike up Mount Visoke, and an afternoon of Nunkie’s nervous screams and charges. I sought refuge in the camp’s tranquility in the wake of Dian’s departure, enjoying the warm cloudless weather of the long dry season. My reverie was short-lived, when by 5:30 P.M., camp curfew, Peter had still not returned. Group 5 hadn’t been far from camp as of late, and that made the circumstances even more odd. As it began to grow dark, I really began to get worried, and pondered getting trackers together for a search party. Finally I heard Peter’s footsteps outside my door. They were rapid and uncharacteristic, with a sense of keen urgency.

  “Everybody down by the fire!” he shouted in Swahili, “Tugende! Sasa!”

  I immediately stepped out of my cabin as Peter waved his arms for us to assemble.

  “Marchessa’s dead!” he told us, still out of breath from his return hike. “Marchessa kufa!” he repeated for the men.

  My first thought was poachers, but I waited to hear him describe how he hadn’t seen the old female Marchessa in the course of his four-hour visit. Then, just before he departed, aggressive vocalizations from the young silverback Icarus led him to a grisly scene—Icarus beating his chest, hooting and pouncing on Marchessa’s nearly lifeless form. All this while her mate, the lead silverback Beethoven, sat idly feeding nearby. The old matriarch soon took her last breath and was dead. We ended the night sending a messenger down the mountain to summon porters for the old gorilla’s body the next morning. I volunteered to take it into Ruhengeri for a necropsy.

  Peter said that upon arrival that morning, the group was feeding quietly near the night nests they had slept in the night before. As usual, Peter noted each member as he encountered them over his usual visit.

  “A couple of hours in, I knew I hadn’t seen Marchessa yet, but I didn’t think too much about it until it got later,” Peter said.

  As the hours passed, and it grew closer to the end of his typical four-hour visit, he became concerned that he still hadn’t seen the old female.

  “I wanted to at least make a note of her being there, you know. I couldn’t just leave without having seen her.”

  By mid-afternoon, Peter heard Icarus emit an unexpected sequence of hoots with chest-beats, typical of an encounter with another silverback or group. Drawn to the ruckus, he found Marchessa immobile, splayed on her back under a vernonia tree, Icarus standing in a domineering strut-position next to her. Stunned by the scene, Peter had to move in close to see if the old female was alive. He could see that her eyes were glazed and unfocused, but she was breathing in labored gasps. As Peter pondered the macabre sight, Icarus suddenly grabbed the old female with one mighty hand, and dragged her fiercely from under the tree, out into the trampled clearing. Astonished, Peter couldn’t discern what was happening.

  “Then Icarus just rushed in again and pounded his fists on Marchessa’s chest.”

  “What did Beethoven do?” I asked about Marchessa’s mate, in disbelief of what I was hearing.

  “Only when he saw Icarus try to drag Marchessa again did he rush in on Icarus and stop him,” Peter explained, “but when Icarus beat her with his fists, he didn’t react at all.” Icarus, Peter explained, vocalized his onslaughts with train-grunting, the sound usually made in association with sexual interest and intercourse by gorillas.

  During the mayhem, Marchessa’s infant son, Shinda, moved in to nurse on his dying mother, rushing away between Icarus’s repeated onslaughts.

  The men and I were chilled by Peter’s story, and sat listening in the growing darkness by the campfire with mouths and eyes agape.

  “I basically saw her take her last breath.” Peter added, describing it as one big congested exhale. “After that, I could see she wasn’t breathing anymore.”

  Peter had continued to observe the raw scene, while Shinda continued his sad efforts to nurse from his dead mother between Icarus’s beatings. Marchessa’s mate Beethoven permitted the younger silverback’s onslaught, only intervening when Icarus made repeated attempts to move the body. Only when darkness was imminent did Peter finally break away from the bizarre, tragic scene to return to camp.

  The shocking story left us all stunned where we sat around the fire. Peter and I discussed the meaning of what happened, and what needed to be done next. Had Marchessa been sick? She was fine the day before. What brought this all about? We decided a necropsy would be needed to determine the real cause of death. Perhaps she was sick, and Icarus finished her off. Perhaps not. Before turning in, we made arrangements with the men to summon porters the next morning to carry Marchessa’s body off the mountain. I volunteered to drive the corpse into Ruhengeri in the camp’s Volkswagen bus. Dr. Vimont had already shown so much interest and support of Karisoke and the mountai
n gorillas with his rescue of Bonne Année, we hoped he would be willing to perform the postmortem.

  The next morning Peter and I hiked to where he left Group 5 the day before. Marchessa’s lifeless body lay in the middle of a clearing trampled by the group’s extended presence in one place around her lifeless form. Mountain gorillas always move on to a fresh feeding site daily, but not this time, their cohesive bond being so strong. Remains of their night nests revealed that they had even nested around Marchessa’s body, confounded and stalled by her immobility in death.

  The old female had been dead for nearly eighteen hours, but within minutes, Icarus resumed the onslaught Peter had described from the day before. The young silverback began his emotional series of hoots, rising in crescendo. While beating his chest and thumping his voice into a sharp staccato, he rushed in and pounced on Marchessa’s flaccid belly. He then simply sat at her left side, staring blankly down at her body as if looking for a sign of life, utterly perplexed by her unresponsiveness.

  Moments later, Marchessa’s three-and-a-half-year-old son Shinda strutted downslope, approaching his dead mother to within inches and joined Icarus in staring at the cadaver’s sunken face. Shinda then moved to Marchessa’s right breast, whimpered lightly and began suckling. His older half-sister Poppy approached, and began peeling back Marchessa’s lips, examining the inside of her mouth. I thought this was a rare opportunity for the curious Poppy, because no living gorilla would allow such invasiveness. Poppy, being shy but curious, began probing gingerly, as if Marchessa could wake up at any moment, but eventually became bold enough to use her finger to pick and eat pieces of vegetation from Marchessa’s teeth, as if grooming.

  Shinda continued to suckle for over three minutes, until interrupted by little Canstbee, who scampered over to initiate play. Shinda shrugged him off and stared into Marchessa’s face, with Poppy still picking her teeth. They were like unsupervised children at an aunt’s funeral. Beethoven and the other members of the group continued to feed, occasionally pausing to rest, or look downslope toward Marchessa’s body.

  Icarus, still staring at the body he had assaulted, resumed the same train-grunting, or copulation vocalization, which Peter had witnessed the day before. Within minutes, the young female Tuck strutted downslope and solicited Icarus with a sexual posture. Icarus obliged, with a brief copulation before resuming his fixation on Marchessa, at one point train-grunting again, and laying his chin on her motionless chest.

  A few minutes later, Icarus again began his hoots, beating his chest and pouncing on Marchessa, scaring Shinda away. He repeated this onslaught four more times within the next thirty minutes, only to return to the body as if dumbfounded. Most of the group was far less interested, and continued feeding on vegetation beyond that which had been trampled. Even Shinda fed nearby, but soon resumed suckling from his mother, switching frequently from breast to breast as he was apparently no longer getting milk. Cantsbee made several more attempts to play with Shinda as he suckled, but his playmate only ignored him. At one point, Shinda tried to force his head under his mother’s left arm as it lay across her neck, as if he wanted to be held. The arm, by then stiff with rigor mortis, did not yield, and Shinda resigned to himself laying his head on her chest.

  It was 10:00 A.M. when our group of porters arrived up on the Porter Trail about twenty meters away. Beethoven screamed and rushed down toward them as the rest of the group fled upslope, except for Icarus and Shinda, the two most interested in the cadaver, but alerted by Beethoven’s alarm. During such alarms, an infant would naturally go to its mother, but Marchessa was of no more use to her Shinda. When the porters hid themselves and remained quiet, Group 5 soon returned. They would not be able to move in until the group moved on. Icarus once again hooted and pounced on Marchessa. Poppy resume her exploration of Marchessa’s mouth and was joined by Cantsbee and his mother, Puck, and another juvenile female, Muraha. Minutes later, Poppy, who had been so cautious at first, seemed finally to realize just how inanimate Marchessa was and slapped the body’s chest before boldly walking across her body. She then, like Icarus, beat her chest with her small fists and pounced on Marchessa before laying herself across the belly, something she would never have dared do when Marchessa was alive.

  By then, Peter and I were waiting for the group to move on. They couldn’t remain there indefinitely. We wanted to see if the group would soon move off and allow us to move in and retrieve the body, but they had settled in for their midmorning rest period, and we would have to wait them out. Meanwhile, Muraha started grooming Marchessa’s belly, now beginning to bloat in the warm air. Shinda made another attempt to suckle before trying again to squeeze under his mother’s stiff arm. Icarus stayed near the body, frequently exchanging belch-vocalizations with Beethoven, still settled into the midmorning rest with the others.

  Finally, just before noon, the group grew hungry again and began to move away into fresh forage. Shinda stared into Marchessa’s face one last time, made one more vain attempt to nurse, before scampering on to join the group, moving out of view. Tuck and little Cantsbee were the last to remain behind with Icarus as he charged roughshod one more time over Marchessa’s distended belly, as if he could do more harm. Only after Tuck and Cantsbee moved on toward the others, did the young silverback leave the scene of the crime.

  When the group was out of sight, Peter and I quickly ushered the porters in, covered Marchessa’s body with a blanket and carried her out to the Porter Trail. Our efforts did not go unnoticed. Beethoven and Icarus both caught site of the porters, and let out their terrifying screams, accompanied by several bluff charges in the thick vegetation just uphill from us. The porters quickly carried Marchessa’s body out to the Porter Trail.

  In the clearing, a couple of porters began whacking at the bases of young saplings, felling them easily, deftly trimming away the tops and branches, to create the sturdy poles and cross-pieces for the stretcher. Other porters identified sturdy vines nearby, and yanked them from the shrubs, quickly stripping them of their leaves in one swoop of their toughened hands. These they wrapped around the poles, lashing crossbars to the makeshift stretcher with great dexterity, forming supports for the heavy gorilla body. I had seen the locals below carrying their injured, sick, and dead this way, and was amazed by these men’s skill.

  Before laying Marchessa onto the contraption, Nameye surprised me with an earnest plea. He said the men had asked that a photo be taken with them and Marchessa. Struck by Nameye’s pleadings, I complied with the strange request. As I pulled the camera out of my backpack, the men propped Marchessa up in a seated pose and gathered around her as if she was some dearly departed family member. The macabre scene was also reminiscent of colonial safari photos of wild game trophies.

  Although the men would never see this photo, they were satisfied, and lashed Marchessa’s wrists and ankles securely to their stretcher before hefting her above their heads like pallbearers. Peter moved on to Group 5 to continue his observations as I followed behind the porters, once again awed by their strength and nimbleness despite their heavy burden on the tortuous trail.

  The day’s task would take too long for me to return to Karisoke before dark, so my plan was to drive to Jean-Pierre’s castle after the postmortem procedure. I knew I’d be welcome there for at least a cold Primus and a place to sleep.

  Word had already spread of the day’s event, and as soon as our entourage emerged from the forest at Dian’s parking spot, locals moved in for a look at a dead gorilla, pointing and chattering. The porters slashed the ties holding the corpse’s wrists and ankles, and lifted it into the side door of the bus, sliding it onto the floorboards. As I could see others trotting in from the surrounding shambas I jumped into the driver’s side and cranked the engine. I grew irritated as men, women, and children already crowded the way in front of me, slowing me as I lurched down the stony road. Everyone wanted a look, and many tapped on the sides of the vehicle as I slid through the throng, trying to pick up speed.

  My i
rritation turned to exasperation as two men insisted on blocking my way, one waving frantically at me as he held the other’s arm. His partner appeared solemn, by contrast, staring glumly, as the animated one swung him around to my window, shouting in Swahili.

  “Hospitali! Daktari! Iko mgonjwa!”

  “Oya!” I shouted back, the Kinyarwanda word for no. It was almost noon, and I just wanted to get moving out of that crowd and down the road.

  “Iko zamu! Zamu kwa motokari!”

  Ugh! It was Dian’s zamu. Our zamu. The local man Dian paid a stipend to for guarding Karisoke’s VW bus.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, forced into stopping the car, suspicious that they were just taking advantage of me for a ride into town. I was not putting them in the back with a dead gorilla. I didn’t even want to open the door again with so many people around.

  In broken Swahili, the two men explained that an argument had turned into a fight the night before, while drinking pombe at a local hut. In the melee, the antagonist speared our zamu in the back. Spears were common weapons in the shambas of rural Rwanda, with each household having one or more on hand for defense, just in case. Like guns and knives back home, they could do lethal damage in a drunken brawl. Unconvinced of the severity of the injury, I hesitated. Locals might say anything for the rare ride into Ruhengeri. Seeing the doubt on my face, the flustered attendant spun our zamu around and lifted up his shirt, revealing a long deep gash in his right erector spinae muscle, the large loin along the right side of his vertebra. Shocked silent, I could only stare, the gaping wound was the width of a two-and-a-half-inch spearhead, sliced deep into the dark red muscle, like a slab of meat in a butcher’s cooler. It was unquestionably severe and in need of sutures and medication.