Endangered (6 page)

I spent that weekend in a slushy mix of anxiety about the country's instability and delight at watching Otto fill out into a handsome young bonobo. He'd been improving for a while, but he looked fully healthy for the first time. The mamas still made fun of me for having an ape husband, but at least they couldn't make fun of me anymore for having an
ugly
ape husband. Though his hair had become thick, it was still uneven, so for the time being he had a punkish look. Fittingly enough, too, since he had a big mischievous streak that was coming out in full force. He knew when to stop, though: He'd steal a magazine and hide it, and then once he'd laughed for long enough he'd gallantly take my hand and show me where he'd put it. With his sweet smile and big eyes, it was all very charming.

Almost the moment my mom left, Otto and I came down with amoebas. I won't go into exactly how we knew, but it involved poo and the color yellow. But the infection was minor and, since Otto was eating well by that point, we got through it by Monday. That same day his results came back from the lab in Kinshasa, and I was officially the guardian of a healthy baby boy. For my last few days in Congo, at least.

Well, maybe not such a baby. Patrice had first thought Otto was two years old, but it turned out he was that small only because he'd lost so much weight during his travels. He was filling out so quickly that Patrice now thought he was closer to three and a half or four years old. Still young, but a kid more than an infant.

He'd become really good on his feet. Or off his feet, I guess I should say. Otto was still an unsteady walker, staggering a stretch and then holding my hand for a second before getting up the courage to toddle farther. But when he was near a tree — or a drainpipe, or a car, or (as I learned the hard way) a wobbly filing cabinet — he would suddenly be up in the air. My idea of space was limited to left, right, front, and behind, but he had a wonderful sense of
up
. He'd disappear from my hands, and I'd look around for him, getting panicked, until I'd hear a telltale raspy laugh and find him dangling from a ceiling fan, revolving on one of the blades.

He still wasn't ready to meet other bonobos, though. I'd walk into the nursery with him, and the others would come over curiously, but Otto would clutch me hard and whimper until we left. Like a kid too young for kindergarten, he simply wasn't ready.

I loved video chatting with Dad, but otherwise my social life was pretty narrow. That's why Otto and I were on our own when we met the strangers. We were taking a walk along the sanctuary's overgrown driveway … well, I was walking, and Otto followed me along the treetops, calling down to me, amused that I would be so silly as to choose the ground when there were thrilling branches to swing from. He would go for minutes through the jungle canopy, then come across something that scared him — a snake under his fingers, a snapping branch, a songbird flying in his face — and he'd be in my arms. Then he was back into the trees again.

The sanctuary was far from any major road, so I was shocked when I turned a corner and saw four guys trudging up the driveway toward us. Two of them had mangy-looking dreadlocks. All wore mismatched army uniforms.

I backed up, my body tensed. My skin felt like rubber.

One of them held up his hand. “
Zila, mundele.
Don't run. We're lost, and we need you to guide us.”

I didn't want to help them find their way. I wanted to get out of there. But if I ran, they might follow, and I definitely didn't want that. “What are you trying to find?” I called out in French, crossing my arms over my chest.

“What's up the road?” the man asked. “Where are you coming from?” He was speaking Lingala, but his accent sounded like a Swahili speaker's. Eastern Congo?

“I have to go,” I said, backing farther down the path. I heard branches bending in the canopy over my head. Otto was up there, watching. I prayed that, like most bonobos, he'd be shy of strangers. If he didn't try to join me, the men might not notice him.

“Wait,
mundele
,” the man said. “
Olobaka Français?
What's your name?”

I hated getting called
mundele
. Back before 1960, when Congo was still a colony, the Belgians would say
“suivez le modèle”
when they wanted the black Congolese to behave.
Follow the model.
The French had morphed over time, so now any white person was called a
mundele
. It was a sarcastic way to paint anyone who was white as stuck-up. While my dad is white, my mom is black. But no one treated me like I was halfway. I was either bled-through black Congolese or the
mundele
. I'd inherited these face spots from my dad, not the pinpoint kind common to the Congolese, but broad leafy freckles. Sometimes I thought that's what tipped things over, whether someone could see my freckles. I was black only to those with bad vision.

“I'm leaving. Good luck finding your way,” I said.

The man in front advanced, holding out his hands. “Is there a school nearby?”

“A school?” I asked, confused. Subtly but naggingly, the situation was spinning out of control. I quickly decided I wouldn't answer, no matter what he said back.

The men said something in Swahili, then suddenly they were all moving toward me. I was nervous, but not really scared — I was only a hundred yards away from the sanctuary entrance, and if I sprinted, they wouldn't be able to catch me before I got to safety. But then I saw one man reach down beside a tree and pick something up — a rifle.

All of a sudden the trail was full of movement. I heard a loud crack from above, and then Otto was on the ground before me. He held out his arms to make himself look bigger and stormed the men, barking loudly. They jumped and fled a ways down the path before it must have come to them that the charging monster was only two feet tall. When the men stopped, Otto lost his nerve and ran headlong back to me, nearly bowling me over when he leaped into my arms. He barked at the men, buried his head in my chest in fear, barked again, then hid his face away.

Three of the men started laughing, but the smallest one was rattled; he lifted the rifle and aimed it at us. Otto started caterwauling when he saw the gun, jumping back to the ground and charging. This time the men didn't scatter, but watched him unsmilingly. Otto stopped short a few feet in front of them, peered at the man with the gun, then ran back to my arms.

Finally seeing that Otto was no threat, the man lowered the rifle. “Is that monkey yours?” he asked.

“Please get out of here,” I said, heart slamming. As steadily as I could, I turned my back on them and walked up the path. I kept my ears pricked, listening for any sound of pursuit. Nothing. Otto stared over my shoulder and barked, full of endless bravery now that he was in my arms.

Once I reached the sanctuary door, I allowed myself to turn around, head faint and legs trembling. But the men were gone.

When I told Patrice, he took Clément out to scout for the men, but couldn't find any sign of them. From my description, he
thought they were
kata-kata
— “cut-cut” in Lingala — a catch-all local term that could refer to renegade guards or deserters from the Congolese or Rwandan or Zambian armies. Congolese politics were such a confusing mess that
kata-kata
came to refer to anyone you didn't want to meet. Many of the roaming soldiers didn't themselves know who was paying for their weapons. Seeing my anxious expression when the
kata-kata
were mentioned, Patrice assured me there was nothing to worry about. But I noticed he double-checked the locks on all the doors and windows of the sanctuary that night.

 

Otto had been simple before, representing only himself. Now whenever I looked at him I'd see the image of those two little bonobos in the cage. His life stood for those other two lives. And it stood for my own guilt.

Our history had become complicated. Maybe that's why we were both drawn to Pweto.

The adult bonobos kept to themselves, hiding away in the center of their large enclosure. I would hear them calling to one another, especially at the end of the day when they were bedding down, but I didn't see them very often, only when one happened to be near the fence while foraging.

But Pweto was different. He had to be kept by himself, and his one-ape enclosure was a lot smaller than the main one. Because his arm was crippled, he didn't spend much time in the trees, just sat all day by the piece of stream that snaked through his space, in full view of any who walked by as he stared into the water.

Something terrible had happened to him. He was missing an ear, and there was a hole in his cheek. One arm had a hunk missing and dangled uselessly. While the other bonobos loved to frolic, he barely moved all day.

Otto was fascinated.

We parked ourselves at the edge of the fence, where I did my summer reading while he watched Pweto. This quiet, motionless adult was apparently more Otto's speed than the rowdy nursery bonobos. One hand resting on my leg for assurance, Otto sat and called for Pweto to come play. Occasionally Otto got frustrated and approached the fence, calling louder. He never tried to touch it, though, not since the first time he'd grabbed the metal and gotten hurled backward, left with frizzed hair and a shocked expression. Now he was very wary of the magic in the wires.

That afternoon Mama Brunelle joined us when she went on break. “Pweto used to be our most energetic bonobo,” she said, looking wistfully at him.

“He didn't arrive this way?” I asked, surprised.

“Oh, no,” Brunelle said. “He was the most popular and handsome bonobo in the nursery. Really could do nothing wrong, especially with the young ladies. Then, early last year, one of the females in the enclosure gave birth to a little girl bonobo. Pweto was fascinated by the baby, and would carry her on his back, whizzing around the trees to make her smile. It earned him a lot of points, but then one time he went too fast. The baby slipped off his back and fell to the ground and died. The Pink Ladies turned on him.”

“The Pink Ladies?”

“That's what we call them. Bonobos are matriarchal — that means that the females are in charge. Because bonobo females spend all day together and help care for one another's children, it makes them very close, so they're able to band together and have power over the males. Even though the males are bigger and stronger, if any of them steps out of line, the Pink Ladies gang up on him and teach him a lesson.”

“Other
bonobos
did that to Pweto?” I asked. Bonobos always seemed so sweet and friendly. I didn't know they could be savage like that.

“The baby girl bonobo was the infant of Banalia, one of the Pink Ladies. When she saw it was dead, she got furious and attacked Pweto — and her allies joined in. Before Patrice and his staff could get in there with tranquilizer guns, he was almost dead.”

“Poor Pweto,” I said. “All he did was make a mistake.”

“They kept him apart for a while, and once he'd healed they tried to slowly introduce him back. As soon as he was back near the females, they went after him as if no time had passed. So he has to stay by himself.”

Otto and I watched Pweto until the sun set. Even when Otto would occasionally call a greeting, Pweto wouldn't react. Only once did he look back at us, and when he did, his eyes were empty, empty, empty.

 

Otto and I went to my room to video chat with Dad before dinner, but I'd just established the connection when the satellite link went down. I went into the hall to find someone who might know anything, and found the building quiet. Finally I discovered where everyone was: huddled around a shortwave radio in my mother's office. “What's going on?” I asked, and was immediately shushed a dozen times over.

The radio crackled and popped as a weak signal struggled to get through.

“Why aren't we watching the television?” I asked, only to get shushed again. Intrigued, Otto made a bonobo version of a shushing sound back.

Finally words came through: “… confirm that the gunfire this afternoon was indeed … seen emerging from the capitol building with the defaced body of … thought to be the actions of the TLA, or Trans Liberation Army, a militant group from the east, with links to Hutu groups in Rwanda and Burundi … fleeing the capital, where the army has been seen infighting and … those who are home, stay home …”

The signal cut out for many seconds.

“What's happened?” I whispered to Mama Marie-France, seated next to me.

Her face was severe. It had always been that way, but now it seemed like she'd been holding it tight in preparation for this moment, for the inevitability that everything would again fall to bits. “The president has been shot,” she said.

“Is he dead?”

She nodded gravely.

The president is dead?
Though I was in shock, I finally got out: “Does that mean the vice president's in charge?”

“No,” she said. “It means no one is in charge.”

I hugged Otto to me so tightly that he whimpered in protest.

“I'm trying the UN station,” Patrice said, fiddling with the radio dial. The United Nations had been in Congo since war broke out in the 1990s, and had reserved a frequency for emergency communications.

“We have to get in touch with my mom,” I said as the radio whizzed through varieties of static.

No one answered at first. Everyone was in a private, horrified zone.

“We can't get in touch with your mother,” Clément said quietly. “The networks are down, and she is somewhere on the river with the bonobos.”

“Then I have to call my dad in Miami,” I said.

“Shh!” one of the staff said. Of course — they were all worried about their families, too.

Patrice found the UN station. It broadcast in Belgian French: “… imperative that no one be on the roads. Until a stable transition government is in place, avoid interaction with any military or police or anyone who identifies as such. To reiterate, as many as a thousand people in the capital are already dead in street rioting, with reports of many more. Counterattacks from loyalists have resulted in confusion and a spike in opportunistic violence, so being in the open is inadvisable, as most victims have died in the streets. Stay calm, but treat this situation with utmost caution. Many armed groups are on the main roads, with no affiliation or central organization. The governments of the United States of America and Belgium have already announced their intent to evacuate all citizens and France is expected to follow; specific directions will follow on this station. Again, this has been a broadcast of the United Nations command center in Kinshasa. This message will repeat until further information becomes available.”