Someone Wishes to Speak to You (5 page)

‘I’ve been carrying out research on a captive population of
gorillas at the Yerkes Primate Research Center,’ explained Mathew, ‘and hope to spend three months carrying out comparative work on Adrien Deschryver’s habituated family group of eastern lowland gorillas in Kahuzi-Biega.’ Dr Kunkel listened to Mathew’s description of his previous research with considerable interest and after discussing the nature of the methodology that he intended to use during his field investigations, said that he would be only too happy to help by providing any of the institute’s resources, both human and technical, that could be of assistance.

He dialled a number and asked Patrice Daman, a postgraduate from Brussels, to come to his office.

Patrice Daman was in his early twenties, five feet eight, thick-set and of a ruddy complexion. His heavy dark eyebrows were half hidden under a mop of unruly black hair, which somewhat shadowed the intensity of his deep-set eyes.

‘Patrice, meet Mathew Duncan – he is carrying out some primate research at Kahuzi-Biega – I have suggested that you should be Mathew’s main conduit with the institute as you frequently visit the area.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mathew,’ said Patrice in a heavy Belgian accent, stepping forward to shake his hand. ‘I’m carrying out ethnological studies of the Pygmy populations in the environs of the national park – I look forward to working with you.’ His dark eyes didn’t reveal much enthusiasm, but Patrice was very helpful in discussing the potential for Mathew to utilise some of the institute’s resources. Patrice suggested that his technicians would be able to help identify the type of vegetable matter that the gorillas had been observed feeding upon, as well as for the institute’s laboratory to analyse the contents of their faecal matter. He offered to collect the samples weekly from Mathew’s hut.

‘Once you’ve completed your studies,’ said Dr Kunkel, ‘yourself and Lucienne must come to see me again. I would be very interested in receiving a summary of your research
findings – and I would be delighted if you would both join me for dinner. My home is up in the hills over there, not far from here.’

‘I will be certainly be in touch once the field studies are complete and would be delighted to accept your invitation. In the meantime, my sincere thanks, Dr Kunkel, for all the assistance you have offered. Your help will be invaluable.’ Patrice accompanied them both back to their vehicle, during which time Mathew could not help feeling a little jealous of the amount of attention Patrice was paying Lucienne and the way he was directing the majority of his conversation toward her. He felt excluded as they chatted away enthusiastically in Flemish, while Lucienne appeared to be very much enjoying such a degree of masculine attention.

On their return journey to Bukavu, Mathew was more reserved than usual – perhaps it was his self-conscious way of beginning to experience a degree of possessiveness toward Lucienne. On her part, Lucienne had greatly enjoyed her time at the institute and had been fascinated by the variety of research activities being carried out there, as well as in meeting Patrice Daman for the first time. She had been very pleased by the amount of cooperation that Dr Kunkel had offered Mathew and so as she drove, she was as happy and high spirited as ever. After skillfully negotiating around some of the potholes on the tarmac road, and no doubt as a consequence of her female intuition in recognising that Mathew was not acting in his normal relaxed manner, Lucienne suddenly swerved the jeep up a corrugated earthen track. She drove to a vantage point that commanded a dramatic view of Lake Kivu, through a valley of lush tropical vegetation.

As soon as they got out of the jeep, Lucienne took Mathew’s hand and pulled him towards her to confront him directly, with a bewitching sparkle in her deep brown eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you? Why have you gone so quiet all of a sudden? Have I done something to upset you?’

Mathew spontaneously responded to these uninhibited questions by momentarily dropping his guard, gently cupping his hands on either side of her soft cheeks and planting a brief kiss on both of them, although one of these had been through a thin curtain of her long, silken hair. Then, slightly blushing, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

‘Yes, I’ve been very fortunate to receive such offers of assistance from Dr Kunkel . . . and all the help of the institute’s scientific staff. What a marvellous view of the lake one gets from here . . .’

Lucienne, recognising that Mathew was embarrassed by his sudden unexpected display of affection towards her (one which she had so much appreciated), decided to diplomatically share his conversation as if nothing had happened between them. ‘Yes, it’s been a productive day, Mathew. I’m so glad you like the view – this is one of my favourite places . . .’

The following morning, in preparation for Mathew’s forthcoming semi-isolation, Lucienne willingly helped him to gather together the week’s required provisions which, apart from food items, included a case of red wine, a supply of local beer, soap, shampoo, sterile plastic sample bags from a chemist, and a box full of candles.

Back at the Hotel Metropole, these stores were combined with the assortment of equipment that Mathew had brought with him from Atlanta or had purchased with Lucienne’s help, which included waterproof clothing, a pair of US Marine canvas army boots, a sleeping bag, mosquito net, medical supplies, binoculars, camera, films, note books and a small library of research literature. Lucienne drove Mathew to a rendezvous with Deschryver, who had arranged to be with him during his first few days of exposure to Casimir and his family. Deschryver was very pleased with the success of the meeting with Dr Kunkel. He wanted to select two of his
most trusted Pygmy trackers to accompany Mathew in the forest, as well as to appoint a suitable house boy to cook for him. It was important for Deschryver to feel as confident as possible that Mathew would not take any liberties with his very precious habituated family group of gorillas, as well as to see just how he would react in an emergency.

‘Well, I wish you success for your first week – goodbye for now.’ Lucienne bade Mathew a rather formal farewell, but once out of Deschryver’s sight, she blew him a kiss, whispering with an engaging smile that at the end of the week, she would drive out to see him with some further supplies. Finally, all of Mathew’s equipment and stores were safely stowed in Deschryver’s mud-encrusted VW Kombi and he was ready to go.

On the journey, Mathew was keen to ask Deschryver as many questions as possible. What did he consider the estimated population of gorillas to be in the park? How many gorillas were now familiar to him? Now that Kahuzi-Biega had gained the status of a national park, what were the chief threats to the gorilla population? How much erosion of the habitat was currently being inflicted by human encroachment? What other mammal species would he be likely to encounter, etc. etc? It had been fortunate for Deschryver, for on the whole he was not by nature known to be a very talkative person, that there had been little traffic on the road so that he had been able to make the journey in almost record time.

On arrival, Deschryver introduced Mathew to a jovial-looking Pygmy called Tilli-Tilli, who had been waiting for them next to a wooden hut under a thick canopy of lush foliage, just behind the park’s main entrance. With Tilli-Tilli were a small group of fellow villagers and two Zaire army soldiers who had immediately sprung to attention in the presence of the park’s
Conservateur
; it was obvious that when Deschryver addressed them, he was regarded very much as their ‘
Bwana Mkubwa
’ (big chief). After a brief inspection
of the soldiers’ .303 rifles, Deschryver turned his attention to Tilli-Tilli and those who had accompanied him, and asked them in their local tongue to bring him up-to-date with the whereabouts of his two habituated gorilla groups. He had then, on Tilli-Tilli’s recommendation, selected two additional trackers and a houseboy/cook to care for Mathew. In the same way as the soldiers showed obvious respect to Deschryver, Mathew could sense as he talked to the Pygmies that a deep bond of trust existed between them.

Mathew found the next four months to be the most thought-provoking, challenging and stimulating period of his life. How humble he had felt himself, after having been on so many occasions in close proximity to Casimir’s group, as well as with the second sub-group led by Hannibal, by the way he had been accepted by them. Also, how much he had admired the social interactions within the gorilla family, especially during their resting periods, which he frequently found to last up to 40 per cent of their day. During these times how delighted he had been to witness the mother-infant relationships, with mothers having to regularly put up with their offspring jumping up and down on their heads and backs.

Mathew’s numerous note books were overfilled with his observations which had included the jubilant play-jostling of the juveniles; the boisterous exchange of chest-beating between blackbacks and silverbacks; the way group members sought closeness to the silverbacks during day-resting periods, which further promoted mutual grooming; the way the sexually mature females mainly always solicited matings with the more mature silverbacks; and how Mathew had so much respected the extremes that silverbacks would go to in order to avoid physical clashes. How very much he wished that their human counterparts would emulate this enlightened and pragmatic behaviour.

As quite an accomplished artist, Mathew had accumulated a comprehensive set of ‘mug’ sketches of the majority of the gorillas he had encountered in an attempt to determine whether there was any underlying geometry of facial signals between them. As a result of his drawings of an individual’s eye flashes and facial patterns, he had been able to clearly identify each member of the family group he had been studying. Also, during his time with the gorillas he had been able to well imitate their chest-beating and vocalisations, from the soft belly noise of ‘Uh-uh-u’ to their screams and roars; as well as to appreciate a gorilla’s ‘pig-grunt’ as a sign of discipline within the group or perhaps a signal he had come too close to one of the sub-adults who was not too familiar with his presence. During the writing up of his daily log reports, he had been particularly keen to document how mutual grooming served both a socially binding and a functional purpose, as well as noting how there had always been a degree of competition in the grooming of the group’s dominant silverback, and how silverbacks seldom groom others for they have no need to reinforce their dominance.

Some days, the heavy mists and fog that frequently rolled into the saddle area of the lush, gently rolling hagenia forested slopes of Mount Kahuzi prevented Mathew from making direct visual contact with Casimir’s group. On such occasions he was able to collect samples of some of the vegetation that he had observed gorillas feeding upon, including some of the roots that he had seen them digging for. The plant life included a variety of mosses, lichens, ferns, orchids, vines, nettles, thistles, wild celery, blackberries, bracket fungi, red-flowering parasitical plants belonging to the mistletoe family, worms, grubs and some samples of the epiphytes supported by the limbs of the hagenia. Mathew was able to give these, as well as some of the fresh faecal samples he had collected from the gorillas, to Patrice Daman on his weekly scheduled meeting with him.

Although elephant and buffalo were still to be found in the park, and Mathew had seen some signs of the destruction to the habitat that the elephants had caused during their foraging, he was relieved not to have encountered either species. While carrying out field work in such a densely vegetated environment, the last thing an observer wishes is to suddenly come across and alarm an animal the size of an elephant or a buffalo, and as a result to cause a panic charge by them. However, during his months in the forest he had seen a cross-section of animal species ranging from blue monkey (which he wished he had time to carry out a specific study on), bushbuck, duiker, bush pig and within some of the older and partly hollow hagenia tree trunks, he had caught glimpses of hyrax, genet, mongoose, dormouse and tree squirrel. Also, always present, was a diversity of bird species feeding upon the berries among the foliage, although due to the thickness of the vegetation he had found that, apart from the touracos they had been difficult to identify. Mathew had also observed a variety of lizards inhabiting the peat-like substrate of the forest floor, which he had occasionally seen being caught by a gorilla, pulled in half, and eaten in a similar fashion to the way they devoured earthworms. Safari ants, mice and rats were frequently observed, but perhaps the most ubiquitous were the clouds of midges that accompanied the gorillas wherever they went. During resting periods, these were frequently interlaced with the fluttering of a diversity of colourful butterflies.

Throughout his field studies, which usually took place from soon after sunrise to when the light began to fade, Mathew had always found himself to be totally preoccupied with his observations and note-taking. Prior to sunset each day he would return to his forest hut which he had named ‘Chatsworth’ and his cook, whom he had christened ‘James’, would present him with the regular meal of goat meat, rice and black beans, followed by a banana dish and a pot of strong Kivu coffee.
It was only after Mathew had written up his daily observations at an old wooden table under the hut’s solitary hurricane lamp, only during the following hours of solitude, that he experienced a degree of isolation and loneliness until the first light of the following day. Also, and somewhat to his annoyance, he had found it difficult to prevent his thoughts from drifting towards Lucienne and his desire to be in her company.

Mathew had found it necessary to hang his hammock well above the planks of the wooden floor, for as soon as the hurricane lamp had been extinguished a nocturnal invasion took place by what appeared to represent the majority of the local rodent population, and animal life that was not scampering over the wooden floor would be either flying or hovering around the hut’s cobweb-festooned rafters. However, each evening, prior to climbing into his hammock and zipping up the mosquito net which was stitched into either side of it, Mathew would do as much reading as possible in order to keep his mind occupied, as well as to help distract him from Lucienne.