Gorillas in the Mist (39 page)

Near the end of July, Vatiri brought her a baby bushbuck with a badly mangled leg that had been caught in a poacher’s snare. In a classic case of maternal transferral, the young antelope adopted Dian as its mother, refusing to be separated from her. So she took it into her crowded cabin, where she nursed it for almost a month before it was fit to be released. It insisted on sleeping with Dian and became frantic if she went out of its sight.
It
had adopted Dian, but Cindy decided to adopt
it
, with the result that Cindy, too, insisted on sharing the bed.

No sleep again last night-sciatica and damn dog and baby duiker not enough. Kima jealous, had to join in too.

Apart from the duel with Harcourt, life at Karisoke went smoothly. Relations between Dian and the students had never been better. Peter Veit was showing signs of becoming a real gorilla defender in the style of Ian Redmond. Free of the influence of the V-W couple, Craig Sholley had returned to the fold. David Watts continued to be a dedicated and effective scientist.

It was with real regret that, in mid-July, Dian bade good-bye to Watts. Although they had never become close friends, they
respected each other, and this despite Dian’s inherent suspicions of anyone who professed an interest in socialism. She wrote to the director of the National Zoological Park in Washington, “I worked with David a total of fifteen full months at Karisoke. Throughout his stay, he was always good-natured and highly self-motivated. He also proved himself extremely levelheaded.”

She felt somewhat less distress when, in early August, Sholley returned to the United States.

I guess I could never tolerate what I call the Peach Core approach – turning the other cheek to the poachers.

Far from turning the other cheek, Dian had by now made her patrol system so effective that poachers had all but abandoned the region central to the southern trio of volcanoes, Visoke, Karisimbi, and Mikeno. Vatiri was now leading his men deep into Zaire as well as northeastward toward Mt. Sabyinyo, cutting traps wherever they found them. The work was not without incident. On one occasion the patrol encountered a party of Zairean poachers armed with a rifle, and Vatiri’s men had to beat a hasty retreat with bullets whistling over their heads. Next day they returned to the offensive.

They wanted a second pistol from me, which I gave them for today, but am not sure that was too wise. Will be on pins and needles until they get home tonight.

Elsewhere in the Parc des Volcans the poachers did much as they pleased. Neither the original Mountain Gorilla Project employees nor those of the
AWLF
had organized a patrol system, and the park guards remained as ineffective as ever.

Hard evidence of this came to light on September 3 when Dian was informed by Dr. Vimont, in Ruhengeri, that two gorilla babies were being offered for sale in Gisenyi. She investigated at once.

They reputedly come from Zaire, though not from any region we are patrolling. Two babies means at least one more group destroyed. They are offered for sale for 400,000
RWF!
It seems the French want to get them for captivity in
Europe-the Rwandans also know about them, and I want to get them to try to release them back to the wild.

Despite intensive efforts, Dian was unable to locate the orphans. She concluded that they had been smuggled to France, possibly via a notorious Spanish dealer in wild animals and with the connivance of Rwandan or Zairean officials.

The influx of tourists continued unabated. On one occasion camp was invaded by a party from Chicago who demanded that Dian herself escort them to see the gorillas. She responded by pretending to a fit of dementia and firing a pistol over their heads.

I should hate myself for such a “no-no” but just couldn’t resist. They were so pompous and so sure they could have anything they wanted because they were from the States. I guess I scared the hell out of them. They went clomping down the trail like a herd of buffalo that had gotten into a bee tree!

They later filed a complaint of attempted murder against Dian, but nobody in Rwanda except for a few of her perennial detractors took this seriously.

Camp was host to many welcome visitors that summer, amongst them a number of Rwandan nationals including Dian’s bank manager, whom she always addressed with full formality as Mr. Joseph. He climbed to camp with his family several times, and Dian was delighted and touched when he named a newborn daughter after her.

On August 12 a professor from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, arrived at Karisoke.

Dr. Glenn Hausfater did not know Dian personally, but had written some months earlier for permission to visit as part of an African tour he was making to further his studies in primatology. Dian had agreed rather grudgingly since she did not like “scientific tourists” much better than the ordinary breed.

When the professor appeared, Dian was bowled over.

He is about six inches taller than I! But also about six years younger-he is
really
nice! We had coffee, sandwiches,
and beer and drank his cognac up here at my cabin and had a neat, long conversation.

Hausfater had only intended to remain two days before continuing on to visit A’Kagera Park, but he and Dian got along so well that he decided to remain at Karisoke. Despite a week of rain and mist, or perhaps because of it, the friendship bloomed.

I really like him. Glenn and I talk so well together and feel the same about so many things. He told me all about his life and I told about mine. He’s been very unhappy recently but keeps his sense of humor.

Clad in rain gear, the couple plodded through the forest to visit Group 5, and Dian was overjoyed at the way the gorillas seemed to accept Hausfater’s presence. Although he was living in a guest cabin, Dian cooked his meals at her place and they talked far into the nights. She unburdened herself of the whole sorry story of the attempts to get her out of Karisoke, and he listened sympathetically.

One thing that bothered her was that she quite literally had nowhere to go in the United States. Although Snider and McIlvaine had suggested an affiliation with one of several universities and research centers, nothing came of this. Furthermore, few such institutions offered salaries or grants, and Dian was in no financial condition to support herself.

Glenn Hausfater thought he could resolve this problem. “I believe a niche could be found for you at Cornell as a visiting professor, Dian. I know Ithaca’s a bit out of the way, but it’s a wonderful place to live. Lots of wilderness and wild critters close at hand. I’ve got a little plane and I could fly you to some really remote places. The college crowd is small and friendly, and they’d fall in love with you.”

Hausfater had to leave on August 18 to complete his African tour, but he kept in touch with Dian by cable, and she sent off a long letter that would await him on his return to Ithaca.

“Glenn,” she concluded, “your visit was of deep significance to me. I remain very grateful to you, though I can envisage
you cringing at that word, for all that you gave me of yourself. I’m not getting schmaltzy. You have no idea what a special gift it was to have met a person of your depth and integrity. Please don’t be personally disappointed if they don’t allot me a visiting professorship grant. You’ve done so much already. In all sincerity though, and I speak intuitively, this is the first time that I feel absolutely ‘right’ about leaving Karisoke…. You’ve made Cornell seem a viable and empathetic place rather than a competitive factory. I’ve been identifying with it since you left and only need to get camp settled before I can be free to come. Thank you so much for the first positive line of thought I’ve had in a long time.

“P.S. The big poacher I told you about, Munyarukiko, the one responsible for all the gorilla killings over the past eleven years, died of ‘mysterious’ causes last week. He
really
died this time. Imagine that!”

In his reply Glenn described an energetic assault he was making on Cornell’s establishment in order to find a place for Dian.

“There are two or three possibilities…. The first is for very senior scientists, silverbacks with long publication records and big egos. Nevertheless, Cornell is really concerned about not having enough women professors. The provost has a cache of funds specifically earmarked for women scientists … you would be perfect for this. I am working on a March 1980 or September 1980 residency date for a visiting professorship. But be forewarned, I have been absolutely unsuccessful in finding any handsome 50-ish men who would be suitable partners for you at the local disco. These matters may take care of themselves once you are here.

“I
like
the schmaltzy parts of your letter. The visit to Karisoke was as helpful to me, personally and emotionally, as it seems to have been for you. You just have so much to offer, have made such a contribution toward gorilla conservation, and just deserve so much good, that I can’t help but want to try to get you into a comfortable position and see
that some good things come your way…. With a little patience we can lick the bastards.”

Dian now began to have some doubts about her professorial abilities. At the end of October she wrote Glenn, “If I can, as you state, get my travel expenses to Ithaca, a small amount of research funding, office space, secretarial help (you’re kidding!), and stationery, I believe I would be wiser to come to Cornell initially as an unsalaried visiting professor. In this manner I could test my abilities to cope once again with civilization…. If all goes well once the ‘adjustment’ period is over, then I could prove myself. I would also be free to finish the book and do a few lectures.

“I can’t wait to get to the State Diner and have pictured it in my mind just so. I hope you can learn ’em how to fry breaded pork chops without tomato sauce gluck slopped over them, for that would run into the mashed potatoes and create a bus accident scene. I am drooling. And so onto another of my bad habits—
MUSSELS!
I crave them, and reckon there is something Freudian in it. The only kind I have thus far found in Kigali are tinned in Spain and have seaweed merde in their innards.

“I now have a poacher’s dog in the front room with a bad, bad, bad foreleg from having been caught in a trap. I can’t bring myself to kill it as it is terribly sweet. I will feed it up, it is emaciated, and try to fix its wound and find a home for it. In addition to the dog the last patrol brought in eighty-eight traps.”

Not only did Dian nurse the dog back to health, she persuaded Earl Haldiman, director of an
ABC
television crew who visited Karisoke early in December, to adopt the poor creature and smuggle it back to the United States. Poacher, as Haldiman named it, adjusted so well to California that she eventually became a television star in her own right.

On the same day that Dian sent Poacher off to a new life, she received a letter from the chairman of the Neurobiology and Behavior section at Cornell:

“The terms of your appointment will be from mid-March 1980 to mid-December 1980. You will be paid a salary of
$13,500…. Your professional duties will be to give several public lectures in the spring and to teach a seminar on the Great Apes in the autumn. We believe this schedule will … provide you an opportunity to do the writing Glenn has told us you were anxious to do.” Dian was ecstatic.

Christmas sure has come early this year! The times and place and everything are exactly right for me. Glenn is a miracle man!

As the year approached its end, Dian’s health improved. On October 2 she had gone to the Ruhengeri hospital for an examination of her hip. X-rays revealed that she had neither sciatica nor cancer. The pain was being caused by compression of her fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae. Her friends, Drs. Vimont and Lolly Prescada, prescribed drugs and therapy that greatly reduced the pain, pending remedial treatment when she returned to the United States.

Since Sholley’s departure in early August, the only other white person in camp had been Peter Veit. No vacancies had been filled pending Harcourt’s arrival, but once Dian decided against him she had moved quickly to make alternative arrangements through Dr. Ramon Rhine of the University of California. Rhine produced three research students eager to work at Karisoke. Dian was confident that at least one would be able to take charge in her absence. However, none could arrive until early in the new year, so she and Peter continued to soldier on alone. This was no hardship.

Peter works better and better. I encourage him to work for his doctorate thesis and he spends all his time with the groups…. Life is really peaceful in camp; I don’t even yell at the Africans. I guess Fossil Fossey is getting marshmallowy.

If there was a fly in the ointment, it was Jean-Pierre von der Becke, whom Dian had recommended to manage the
AWLF
gorilla project consortium. Following his arrival in Rwanda in
early September, he had showered Dian with notes and letters fulsomely attesting to his enormous gratitude for her getting him his new job, and assuring her of his undying loyalty to her personally and to the cause of active gorilla conservation. But it was not long before his center of emotional gravity began to shift. By the end of October he had become an integral part of what Dian contemptuously referred to as the Parking Lot Gang, so called because its members spent much of their time around the tourist parking lot at the base of the mountain.

The “gang” now included Monfort and von der Becke, together with Bill Weber and various other employees of the combined
AWLF/FPS/WWF
Mountain Gorilla Project. According to the reports from Dian’s intelligence network, their contributions to poacher control and gorilla protection amounted to virtually nothing, their time and energy being devoted almost exclusively to gorilla “tourism.” To assist in this enterprise they tried to hire trained trackers away from Karisoke, but with the exception of one whom Dian had fired for theft, these efforts were unsuccessful.