Endangered (8 page)

Otto and I had gotten only a short way in before the jungle shrouded us. I slowed, crawling over thick branches that arched through the air like tentacles before diving into the fertile soil and becoming roots. I pushed back giant ferns and leaped through the open space before they snapped back. Branches and fronds kept smacking poor Otto, but he seemed to take it in stride. All part of being a bonobo.

After a few minutes I stopped and listened. There was no sound of pursuit, no crashing of the underbrush. They must have decided against following us into the enclosure. We were safe.

Which meant, precisely, that we were
un
safe. I'd chosen not to escape a country heading into civil war. And for the time being, at least, we were stuck in a paddock with wild animals. Animals that had almost killed Pweto. The enormity of what I'd rashly committed myself to set in.

Young bonobos were mischievous and charming, but the adults were a different story. The only person who could safely enter the enclosure was my mother. Even Patrice always had assistants to back him up, and a tranquilizer gun.

The ground was muddy everywhere, so for the sake of my pants I stayed standing with Otto, rocking him back and forth and humming. I heard, from somewhere distant, the calls of the adult bonobos coordinating their foraging. I listened for something approaching, either peacekeeper or ape, but the jungle was quiet — well, as quiet as it could be, what with the constant squawks of
birds and the repetitive ringing of the insects, like a demented show choir with sleigh bells.

After a few minutes Otto fussed to get down from my arms and started exploring the overgrowth. He peeled back pieces of rotting bark and delighted at the beetles and grubs he uncovered beneath, some of which he chose to crush and some of which he chose to eat, through some mysterious bonobo logic.

I couldn't get my mind to calm, not without knowing what was happening on the other side of the fence. It had been years since I'd climbed a tree, but I figured that if I got high up I could see whether the van had left. There was an ancient tree nearby with many well-placed branches and rough bark that should give my feet traction between the slick patches of moss. It also had thick foliage for hiding in case someone came in to get me. I started climbing.

At first Otto stayed at the bottom of the tree and called up to me. I worried he wouldn't follow, that he'd cry and I'd have to go down and get him. But then he started up and was soon way above me, reclining at the top of the tree and killing time until I arrived. Huffing, arms aching, I finally swung around the final branch. I was covered in a fine green film and tiny ants, which I brushed off as best I could. Bracing my feet against two branches, I looked out.

The driveway was empty, two brown tire tracks streaking through the white gravel. The UN van was gone.

I hoped the evacuees would remember my name long enough to get word to my father.

Then I realized I was smelling smoke. I pivoted and saw whorls rising from the village next door. A curling and greasy black, curiously sweet, pluming from burning homes.

The village was on fire.

Nearby was a cluster of men wearing mismatched uniforms, the greens, grays, and blues almost indistinguishable from my
distance. They walked through the center of town, stepping over piles of clothes.

No, not piles of clothes. Bodies.

I squinted, trying to see anything more, even as a surge of fear made it hard for me to process anything. The men had blades at their sides and were sifting through abandoned homes before setting them on fire. One had a piece of burning thatch in his hand and was carrying it from home to home.

Barely aware of my own hands and feet, I hurried down the tree. I had to warn Patrice and the rest of the staff that whoever set fire to the village might be at the sanctuary next.

The fighting had come nearby after all. And I hadn't taken the UN vehicle.
Idiot!

After hitting the ground, I ran toward the enclosure exit, Otto springing to my back, riding jockey-style.

I pulled up short. A shot had rung out.

Then another.

Directly on the other side of the fence.

I became acutely aware of the enclosure's impassable boundary all around me, the sensation of being in a jail cell; it became all the more important to get out. But I had to stop, because Otto wasn't on my back anymore. At the noise of the gunshots he must have leaped off. I finally spotted him quivering under a bush. I got on my hands and knees and picked him up. He was shaking so hard that I instinctively curled around him in the mud, forming a barrier like he was a fire about to go out.

More shots rang out from the sanctuary, and then another sound, a sort of wet slam that ended in a hush.

The screaming started. Some cries were long and full of panic and the labor of running, others were cut off almost as soon as they began. Otto shook even harder under me. I kept him inside
the shell of my body and stroked him. I sang nonsense to him as my terrified mind skipped around.

I recognized Mama Brunelle crying, then heard a man yelling back at her, their voices fading and then getting stronger, a rush and a crash and a scream cut off. I was too far away from the enclosure fence to see anything — or to be seen — but I could hear it all.

The combatants must have made it to the nursery. I heard the young bonobos patter and make high-pitched calls as they fled. I looked up long enough to see branches of trees on the far side of the sanctuary shake as the young bonobos disappeared into the surrounding jungle. They wouldn't be able to get into the enclosure, but I hoped they at least made it out into the woods, and that the soldiers would be too busy to notice the meaty little bonobos until they had already escaped.

Too busy killing to notice.

I crouched in the mud with Otto, smelling filth and listening to the slaughter and unable to stop the
flash flash flash
of imagined images going along with the voices of the people I'd grown to love as they were silenced, witnessing their last moments in my mind until the familiar voices were gone, leaving only the unknowable Swahili of the rebel soldiers, occasional gunfire accompanied by laughter, and the crashing ruckus of pillage.

Throughout it all, I cradled the heartbeat beneath me and prayed the pulse wouldn't beat so hard that it tired and stopped, that I wouldn't lose Otto, too.

When I heard unknown voices nearby, I broke out of my paralysis. I was only a short way in — would they be able to spot me? A
zap
and then shouting, then another
zap
. The
kata-kata
had discovered the electrified fence.

I gingerly pushed up from Otto, who stayed on his side, breathing shallowly. He turned his head upward so his eyes could search out mine, the soft brown irises huge and rimmed in white
in a way I'd never seen before. When I lifted him, Otto wrapped one arm and then the other around me. I laid him over my knees and blew stiffly into his face and belly, trying to convince him nothing was wrong. He refused to smile and only stared back, searching my eyes for reasons to calm.

Every time a
kata-kata
shouted, Otto would bark and bury his face. Eventually the rebels would realize that there were apes back here, but it would be best to delay the realization. If Otto was going to keep making noise, we had to go deeper into the jungle.

My blood thrumming in my throat with each step, we picked our way farther from the human world. Somewhat recovered, Otto took to the branches while I scrambled through the overgrowth, making sure to shuffle my feet so I wouldn't step on any wasp nests or vipers or millipedes. Not that I'd have been able to feel the sting in my state; pain didn't matter anymore, but all the same I wanted to stay alive.

Given their fear of loud noises, the bonobos had probably fled to the far side as soon as the gunfire started, so I didn't expect to come across any for a while. Though I was intimidated by the prospect of facing the apes, I was far more willing to risk my life with them than with the
kata-kata
. I figured I'd stay in the enclosure for a few hours, until the men had left, and then I'd go back out, forage what I could, and head with Otto … somewhere. To risk the capital, in hope I could make it to my aunt's house?

I couldn't think about that stage, not yet. I had to keep the scope of my situation as narrow as possible or risk falling apart.
Make it over this branch. There — see the fence on the right? Turn.
Having Otto to care for helped; if I'd only had to worry for myself I'd have broken down, but my mission was to keep him safe, and my own survival could come along for the ride. As if to convince me that life was totally normal, Otto stood on the edge of a branch and took a long pee.

I felt pretty sure that the fence would hold the
kata-kata
out, at least for a while. My mom had had it all reinforced a year ago, after she discovered that one of the night guards was snipping away bits of wire to sell in the scrap metal markets. Now it had redundant solar panels, whose frequent bursts of coordinated electricity were strong enough to knock back an elephant. And it was tall, over twenty feet. Though its purpose was to keep bonobos in, not people out, I figured it would fulfill that new need fine.

It was impossible to live in Congo without growing a thick skin for bugs, but even so, trudging through the jungle was almost more than I could take. Whenever uneven ground thrust me against a leaf or a tree trunk, I'd accumulate a new zoo-worthy creature: a roach-sized ant, a mantis fat as a crayfish, a centipede with pincers that could have bitten through a ruler. I stopped every few steps to brush the bugs off, and when I did I'd see Otto, dozens of feet above me, dealing with his own problem insects by eating them.

Eventually we came to a narrow clearing created by a recently fallen tree. I swept a space under its shelter, dusted dirt from my hands, and sat. Otto hurtled down from the canopy, swinging around the fallen trunk and landing hard in my lap. He reached his arms in his signal for me to play the airplane game, and I did, though I kept my anxious gaze on the surrounding jungle and what might stalk out of it at any moment.

Otto had barely any weight, but my legs unexpectedly buckled during our game and he fell. He landed on his head, sprang to his feet, and looked at me in confusion. I whispered that I was sorry and drew him toward me. My whole body was trembling; I'd kept the tension inside me stilled for too long and now it was coming out everywhere. Even my vision seemed to quiver. I squeezed my eyes shut and began to rock.

“I love you, I love you, oh God, I love you,” I said. Though I
said it to Otto, I was talking to my parents. I missed them so much, and my hysterical lost feeling was even stronger than six years ago when I'd had to say good-bye to my mom and my home. I thought back to the look of sorrow and odd surprise on her face when I actually got on the plane. We'd lost something then, something that we never got back. She wasn't first in my life anymore; she slid to the background after the divorce. “I need you,” I said. “Oh my God, I hope you're okay.”

An image came back to me, unbidden, one of the earliest of my life: Dad insisted I be sent to preschool at the Catholic school in the posh Gombe district, and when my mom dropped me off I bawled and bawled, begging her not to leave me alone. Eventually she left, and I stopped crying after a while. But when the teacher brought us outside hours later, my arms around two new friends, I saw my mother standing at the fence. She'd stayed all day, in case I'd look her way and be reassured. I imagined her in the distant release site, hearing word of the attack and worrying about me from afar, and my father waking up in Miami to terrifying news. I bet he was on the phone with everyone he knew. Though I was probably the one in the most danger, I was scared for them. I wanted to let them know I was alive. And I wanted them to rescue me.

I felt a hand in my hair, stroking me. Otto was standing tall in my lap and peering at me with those deep eyes. He stared at me harder — more without embarrassment — than any human had ever done. Then he found a termite in my hair and got distracted, not returning his attention to me until its brittle waving legs were crunching between his teeth.

This little creature, who needed me so much, could also care for me. I put my head between my knees and let Otto caress me.

Until I sensed we weren't alone.