Gorillas in the Mist (48 page)

With her arrangements nearing completion she booked a flight to arrive in Kigali late on June 20, 1983. Her stay at Karisoke would be shorter than originally planned. Publication of
Gorillas in the Mist
was scheduled for August 25, and Houghton Mifflin was arranging a promotional tour beginning only a week later.

Everything I own is packed now as I get ready to wing back to camp. Much will be stored but I have five suitcases-
UGH-
filled with everything, literally, from soup to nuts. I have to take all this on to camp because just about nothing remains. In preparation for that I’m trying to pack my temper along with my belongings! Am only able to stay until August 27 when am due to return to the States for a bloody lecture tour arranged primarily for the book. My heart is certainly not in this. I reckon if people want to buy a book, they will buy it. They don’t need the author shoving
it down their throats. I don’t know where I am going to go after the tour. If my old bod can take the altitude and the work, then I shall plan on returning to camp, but only if I can function there. I really can’t tell. The first thing is to get Karisoke functioning again the way it used to, for the good of the students and of the gorillas. Then we’ll see.

She arrived in Kigali on schedule—and had to spend the next four days in the capital.
ORPTN
had decreed that she too must now have a work permit and was reluctant to give her one. When a permit
was
finally produced—it was good for only six months. Nevertheless, her waiting time in Kigali was well spent, literally, shopping in the dingy little
dukas
scattered along Kigali’s dusty streets for yet more replacement items needed at Karisoke.

On the morning of the twenty-fourth she finally climbed to camp.

In the midst of a horrid hailstorm that had to be meant for me, since this is the beginning of the dry season.

Once she reached camp the sun began to shine.

The return was very emotional as I once again met my African staff (nine men), some of whom have worked for camp since 1967. We simultaneously hugged one another, shook hands, cried, laughed, and exchanged all kinds of gossip and tales. They kindly said that I seemed ten years younger (good old Miss Clairol), and they liked my new “fat” look…. About ten minutes after I had arrived, bathed and cleaned up, Kanyaragana, my houseboy since 1968 (now about thirty years old), came into the living room and said,
“Habari Mama yako?”—
How is your mother? Basili asked the same question next day. This isn’t just politeness; they have a real concern for the families of close friends, and I believe they think of me as one.

I then had tea with Richard Barnes and the American girl, Karen Jensen. They are enjoying a sweet, new love affair and are both actually very nice, particularly Richard,
who works hard; but the Africans are still the backbone of this place.

In the afternoon I took my first good look around. My heart really sank. I had never imagined such decay and neglect. The Africans watched me, and when I got so mad I was really crying, Kanyaragana said, “It hurts us too. But now you will bring it all back again.”

My own cabin-some people call it the manor-was worst of all. Everything I loved was broken or removed. The big fireplace in my room was closed off; the stoves all removed; the pens for chickens and other animals destroyed; the gorillas’ graveyard totally obscured by vegetation; outdoor tables all rotted; wall mats rotten and paint peeling off everything inside and out. The whole camp has been totally neglected as white people have come and gone, taken what they wanted, never bothering to replace or refurbish anything. Where the hell am I going to find stovepipes in Rwanda just now?
BUT
I will find them somewhere in Africa! I just do not understand how or why anyone could hate me this much.

The work of restoration began next day, and within a week—such was the fervor Dian brought to the task—the little world of Karisoke was looking considerably better, although it would take the best part of two months to finish the job. Meanwhile there were other old friends whom Dian urgently wished to see. The meeting, when it came, was unforgettable.

One of the outstanding moments of my life happened on July 5 when I set out with some degree of mixed anticipation and anxiety to renew acquaintance with Group 5, who were the only gorillas fairly close to camp. Would they remember me after three years’ absence? I doubted it sincerely.

To reach them meant a bloody long climb lasting two hours and filled with such oaths from me that the long-dormant volcanoes should have erupted, because a new
tracker, Kana, took the most energy-wasting and zigzag route. We finally found them in a bowl between First and Second hills south of camp. Kana headed back right away, leaving me huffing and puffing like a run-out old buffalo.

The females and youngsters of the clan (sixteen in all) were resting in thick vegetation in the warm sun on the steep slope of the bowl where they had made their day nests. When I got my breath, I worked my way down toward them, though I could see only the occasional one. When I got twenty feet from them I sat down and began making Fossey-style introduction noises—a soft series of rumbles like gorillas make when expressing contentment.

The nearest female was old Effie, mother of six, whom I had known since 1967. She’d had a new baby in my absence, little Maggie, who sure didn’t believe in making shy. Maggie came scrambling over right away—not to look at me, but to investigate my clothing and equipment. This dismayed me because I thought it was the result of too much habituation with the tourists the park gang has kept on sending to Group
5
.

But my dismay only lasted a second or two. Effie glanced my way while chewing on a stalk of celery. She looked away, then did a double-take myopic scrutiny as if not believing her eyes. Then she tossed the celery aside and began walking rapidly toward me.

Meantime Tuck, another female I had known nearly as long, appeared out of the underbrush and started to pick up Maggie, I guess to take her off to safety, then Tuck too did a second take. She dropped Maggie and walked right up in front of me, resting her weight on her arms so that her face was level with mine and only a couple of inches away. She stared intently into my eyes, and it was eye-to-eye contact for thirty or forty seconds. Not knowing quite what to do, for I had never had this reaction from gorillas before, I squished myself flat on the bed of vegetation.
Whereupon she smelled my head and neck, then lay down beside me … and embraced me! … embraced me! … embraced me!
GOD
, she
did
remember!

Tuck began crooning, and I crooned back. Effie had come up by then and she too stared straight into my eyes, sniffed me, then piled up on the two of us and I was really squished. Her and Tuck’s plaintive murmurs reached other clan members in the dense foliage nearby, and one by one the other females came over to us. All the older four that I knew best repeated the eye-to-eye contact, then settled down with long arms entwining all of us into one big, black, furry ball. As they settled in, each one was making prolonged, inquisitive “hmmmmm” sounds as if to ask: “Where the hell have you been? Is this really you?”

Not to be left out, the youngsters joined us too: Jozi, Cantsbee, Pablo, and Maggie really took advantage of the trust their mothers were showing to work me over, gently hitting, nibbling, pinching me, and pulling my hair, and trying to carry off everything loose. They tried to take my camera, water jug, panga, and my glasses, which, unfortunately, I have to wear in the field now. They did kidnap my new leather gloves (two hours later I found the right one, but the left one is forever on the mountain).

I could have happily died right then and there and wished for nothing more on earth, simply because they had remembered.

While the kids cavorted a few feet from us, Effie, Puck, Poppy, Tuck, and I settled down to enjoy a forty-five-minute palaver, all nestled up together amidst the thistle and celery clumps. I’m ashamed to say I did most of the vocalizing, but with an audience like this how could I resist? The problem was that when I used their language I didn’t really know what I was saying, so I talked English. I told them of Cindy’s death, then strayed to life in America (that got me a few sympathetic grunts), and apologized for
inflicting Harcourt on them, then ended up just trying to tell them how happy I was to be back. Believe it or not, I’m sure they understood that part at least.

While we ladies had our confab, old Beethoven, the leader of the group, with the two blackbacks Ziz and Shinda, fed their way down into the bottom of the bowl, paying us no heed. The other silverback, Icarus, stayed on our slope about fifteen feet from the ladies’ gossip circle but didn’t interrupt. Eventually Beethoven looked up at us and barked that the party was over. Time to go. The ladies and their offspring moved off slowly, leaving me with absolute disbelief at what had happened. They
knew
me—they
welcomed
me back! Perhaps they were even happy to see the Lone Woman of the Forest again.

I tried to visit them next day, but they had returned to the high part of the saddle, above eleven thousand feet and five hours’ walk away. I couldn’t make it.

I had gone out with Rwelekana; and when we were coming back (I was totally exhausted), he very seriously said, “Yesterday the gorillas had to come a long way to say hello and greet you near camp. Today they have to go on with their own business.” I absolutely choked up at this idea, but he was serious.

The effect of the reunion with Effie’s clan was transcendental—and enduring. Whatever doubts Dian may have had about her future place in the scheme of things had been resolved.

I know now that I’ve truly come home. No one will ever force me out of here again.

Restoration went on apace during a long stretch of warm and sunny weather. Dian was reveling in Karisoke, as this letter to Anita McClellan testifies:

“Heard the weirdest sound today. Took about fifteen seconds to identify it. The drone of a distant airplane! Now I know I’ve really escaped. Well, not quite. Every now and then I think I
hear the phone ringing and just freeze. That particular Ithaca symptom might take another week to disappear.
DAMN
, phone just rang again….

“Magical afternoon. Off and on sunshine, warm, quiet. I’d been four hours working on the six-month summary report for National Geographic and couldn’t stand one more minute of same. So in my lavender Nikes and matching windbreaker, I sneaked away from camp chores to go out to Mzee’s grave.” Mzee had been the patriarch of the Karisoke duikers.

“On the small protected glade where he last lay down, the turf is now filled with neat piles of bushbuck and duiker dung, and buffalo circle the glade. It was spine-tingling, as if the remaining antelope (the population is more than halved since I left here) held nightly séances with the spirit of the wise old sage, seeking the secret of longevity in their doomed habitat….

“Mikeno, Karisimbi, Visoke, all loomed out of the mist on cue, and there was such tranquillity as I have not known in years and years. Within a couple of dozen feet of Mzee’s grave grows a special orchid known to no one but myself. The striped flowers, a slightly pink shade, were in full bloom. I bade it greetings and once again resisted the urge to take a small sample. Never, never! Nothing is quite as magical as having forest secrets like this—perhaps seashore secrets run a close second. I might share them with you if you are willing to run the risk of having your tongue cut out.

“Muse time took up a large portion of the afternoon’s two-hour allotment of freedom, leaving just time to Nike-christen my favorite meadows and visit more secret places, of the serval family, touraco family (not home today), and oh, so many squeaky friends.”

To human friends in Ithaca, she wrote:

“Wish you could have a little slice of this gorgeous forest with its majestic hagenia and hyperium trees…. I can’t believe I’m saving $475 monthly rent by being surrounded by beauty instead of cement…. There are eight cabins here.

My own we built in 1974 from saplings as supports; tin sheeting painted green for outside walls and roof; lovely, durable matting to form inside walls, ceiling, and floor covering. Every one of the rooms has large, large windows through which you can look out at the age-old hagenia trees (somewhat similar to giant oaks, but covered with moss, strands of lichens, and orchids). They look like they are floating, in all the shades of the green rain forest, particularly at dusk when the animals of the little meadows surrounding the camp come out to graze. Sure does beat Lansing North!” And a somber touch:

“It is lonely without my old dog Cindy and my old monkey Kima, both of whom played such a large part in my life over the past fifteen years. I have Cindy’s ashes with me, but I must await a private moment to spread them in her favorite spots around camp and along some of her favorite trails.”

To Stacey Coil:

“The Africans and I have now virtually rebuilt half of the whole damn camp—matting, painting, rewiring stovepipes, fixing broken ceiling supports, replacing outside tables and benches, totally rebuilding the johns and the men’s kitchen. I have spent two thousand dollars on the job so far, but inch-by-inch the men are restoring this place as it was. No rain for the first thirteen days, but now it is hailing like hell every day, so we stay in and repair lamps, stoves, sew the ripped-up sleeping bags, tents, even boots.

“As far as Barnes and Jensen are concerned, I again have the luck of having two kids all of a sudden madly, passionately, forever in love. I am really and truly happy for them—I do not joke, for it will be another Karisoke marriage.

“The gorillas remain very far away, thus I have not had another contact with them since July 5. Not seeing them hurts, but I do have six weeks left and am feeling stronger and more fit than ever. However all four study groups remain at over eleven thousand feet, which means more than three hours’
climbing. And the oxygen support system I brought back with me doesn’t seem to work at this altitude. The nose tubes simply
shoot
out oxygen—nearly blew my head off!”