by Gill Lewis
Frog turned away and dug his shovel hard into the earth. “I don’t hate anyone.”
Imara stared at him and lowered her voice. “Not even the Mambas?”
Frog shook his head.
Imara leaned forward. “But the Mambas took you from your family,” she whispered. “They destroyed everything. Don’t you hate them for that?”
Frog stopped digging and turned. He took Kitwana’s small hand in his. “Mama told me if you let hate in, it eats your soul. It leaves you empty. Hollowed out, with nothing left but hate inside. I promised her that whatever happened, I’d never let it in.”
Imara scowled at Frog and walked away, snapping her fingers for Saka to follow. Frog unsettled her in a way she couldn’t understand . . . a way she didn’t want to understand. She walked with Saka deeper and deeper into the forest, hacking at the vines and grasses. Saka walked ahead of her, plucking leaves and stopping to offer Kitwana different foods. He tried feeding wild celery and nettles, but Kitwana wouldn’t eat anything at all. He turned away, pressing his head into Imara’s chest.
Imara flicked the uneaten nettles on the ground. “Maybe gorillas don’t eat this stuff.”
“They do,” insisted Saka. “It is one of their favorites.”
“How do you know?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
Saka paused as if he was deciding whether or not to talk. “I am Batwa,” he said quietly. “I belong to the forest.”
Careful, whispered the demon. You are letting Saka and Frog too close. You are letting them tell you their stories.
“So why won’t Kitwana eat?” snapped Imara.
Saka shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe he is homesick. Maybe he belongs with his family in the forest too.”
Imara looked across at Saka, but he had turned his back to her.
The demon clamped his fist around her heart. Remember, he is no friend of yours.
“Kitwana will eat when he is hungry enough,” said Imara, turning to head back to camp. She tried to sound more confident than she felt. Maybe she would try to feed more rice and banana, but she wondered just how long the gorilla would survive.
Saka checked on his snares as they walked back to camp. He bent down to inspect the nooses, frowning as he did so. “Empty again. The game has moved farther into the forest. I will need to set traps deeper in.”
Imara pushed ahead of him and walked back into the camp along the lower edge of the coltan mine. Every day, more men arrived to dig the ground, burrowing deep trenches in search of the gray rock they hoped would make them rich. Imara watched them swinging their shovels and picks into the ground, breaking up the red earth and washing and sieving the rocks in the streambed. Some days the sweat glistened from their backs as they worked beneath the hot sun, and other days the miners worked in the rain, their bodies turning dark red with mud. Every day the forest retreated from the mine, as the trees were cut for timber and firewood. The charcoal kilns puffed constant thick smoke into the air, which hung like dirty clouds in the canopy of leaves.
Imara could see Frog working back in the mine. Many of the other miners were older men, their faces leathered by the sun. There were nearly fifty men on Bundi’s books. Some came with wives and families in tow, setting up camp on the far side of the river. The children scratched and scraped for coltan in the mine too.
The Black Mamba’s men didn’t mine the ground. They became the guards. They patrolled the mine, and made sure no one took coltan out into the forest. No one dared. If they did, they knew they would be shot. The Mambas grew lazy on dagga and beer. They liked to sleep late into the day and give out fines to miners who did not dig fast enough or for long enough.
As Imara walked back into camp, she could see some Mambas gathered beside the Black Mamba’s hut. They looked excited, jabbing their guns into the air and hooting like chimpanzees that had cornered their prey.
Imara tried to catch glimpses of their prize. Had they found another gorilla? If they had, what would happen to Kitwana?
Imara tried to squeeze her way through the tight circle of men.
But it was not a gorilla the Mambas had caught.
It was a boy.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
imara
Rat pushed the boy to the ground. “We found him coming here on the miners’ track through the forest.”
The Black Mamba put his hands behind his back and walked up and down. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” the boy lied.
Imara craned her neck to see him. The boy was tall but didn’t look sixteen. His clothes were muddied and stained with sweat but they weren’t worn and threadbare like the other children’s clothes. This boy wore shoes, too.
The Black Mamba stared into the boy’s eyes. “Why are you in the forests?”
“I came to mine for coltan,” said the boy.
“Without a shovel?” said the Black Mamba.
Rat smirked beside him.
Imara edged closer.
The Black Mamba held up the boy’s hands. He threw back his head and laughed. “These are soft hands . . . a girl’s hands.”
Rat laughed and jabbed the boy in the back with his rifle.
The Black Mamba leaned forward. “I do not think these hands have done a day’s hard work.”
“A spy,” spat Rat.
The boy lifted his head up high. “My mother and father are dead. I have come to work,” he said.
The Black Mamba glanced at Imara. “Imara,” he called. “Come. Meet this new recruit.”
Imara pulled the blanket around Kitwana, hiding him from view, and slid out from the crowd. She stood in front of the boy and stared at him.
The boy turned to look at her, taking in the long scar on her face, before he looked away.
The Black Mamba laughed again. “I see you have heard of our Spirit Child. You will not look her in the eye.”
Imara watched the boy. Behind his soft eyes there was something else about him. A dangerous stillness. A silence.
“Imara,” said the Black Mamba, “this boy says he is looking for work. He says his mother and father are dead. Does he speak the truth?”
The demon whispered in her ear. He lies. Look, he is young and strong, not broken like the other men. He comes to fight.
“Well, Imara, does he speak the truth?”
“He lies,” said Imara.
Rat pushed the end of his rifle in the boy’s back. “I told you . . . a government spy.”
The Black Mamba pushed his face nearer the boy. “Why has he come here?”
Imara looked at the boy. His face was expressionless, although the muscles of his jaw were clenched tight. “He comes to fight,” she said.
The Black Mamba’s lips curled up in a smile. “So, you want to be a Mamba?”
The boy nodded.
The Black Mamba pushed his face even closer. “You think you can just walk in here and we just take you in?”
The other Mambas smirked.
The Black Mamba pulled back his sleeve to show a long snake-shaped scar on his forearm. “You need to earn a place among us. What makes you think you have what it takes to become a Mamba?”
The boy looked at Imara, staring deep into her eyes. “I can look death in the face,” said the boy. “I am not afraid to die.”
Don’t trust him, Imara. This one is different. He is angry. This one is fighting a different battle.
The Black Mamba stepped back. “Brave words, but words are not enough. We will put him in the mines and see what he is made of. Let us see if he is strong enough to become one of us.”
Kitwana shifted in Imara’s arms, pulling a corner of the blanket from his face. The boy’s eyes fixed on the young gorilla. Imara could see his mask of hardness slip for a fleeting moment. It was a moment of recognition. A moment he tried to hide, turning his face away. But Imara had seen it.
The Black Mamba had seen it too. “You are interested in the gorilla!”
It was a statement, not a question.
The boy glanced at the gorilla. He shrugged his shoulders. “I have not seen one before.”
“He lies,” said Imara.
The Black Mamba leaned closer. “What is your business with gorillas, boy?”
Rat moved closer and leveled his gun. “A spy, a ranger . . . it is all the same to us.”
“My father . . . ,” began the boy, “my father traded gorillas and chimpanzees before he died. He smuggled them across the border for money. Big money.”
He lies he lies he lies.
The Black Mamba narrowed his eyes. Imara could see he didn’t believe the boy’s story either.
Rat released the safety catch of his rifle and held the rifle to the boy’s chest.
The boy swallowed hard, fighting for time. “This gorilla is sick,” he said. “It will die unless you know how to look after it. I know how. I had to feed them for my father and keep them alive for the clients.”
The Black Mamba pushed Rat’s gun away. He lifted the gorilla’s limp arm and dropped it to show how weak it was. “So, gorilla boy, what does this one need?”
“Milk,” said the boy. “It is a young one, maybe a year old. It was still feeding from its mother.”
“And where do we find milk?” said the Black Mamba.
The boy looked around. “Do you have a goat?”
“We ate it,” sneered Rat.
“You need powdered milk, the sort you get for human babies. And a bottle,” said the boy.
Rat laughed. “If you hadn’t noticed, this is the jungle.”
The Black Mamba studied the boy. “Powdered milk will save it?”
The boy nodded.
“Bundi,” snapped the Black Mamba, “radio the bluebird. Say we need powdered milk and a bottle with the rest of the goods tomorrow. Tell the pilot not to bother to come at all unless he has what I have asked for.” He turned to the boy. “If the gorilla dies, you die.”
Imara didn’t take her eyes from the boy. The evening was cooling, but sweat trickled down his face. His nostrils flared with breathing he was trying to control. “What is your name?” She looked deep into his eyes. “What is your real name?”
The boy looked back at her. “Bobo,” he said.
He tells the truth.
The boy cleared his throat. “My name is Boboto.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
bobo
My name is Boboto.”
Bobo could hear his own voice saying his name, but it seemed detached from him somehow, as if someone else was doing the talking. Everything felt unreal and yet more real and vivid than anything he had felt before. His life hung on the precarious edge of being, or not being, and for one brief moment he had looked into the void. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and ran down the creases of his nose. He could taste the saltiness on his lips. He clenched his fists and tried to stop his legs from shaking. The Black Mamba was standing right in front of him.
Bobo knew he couldn’t hide his fear. The Black Mamba had not been fooled by his story, but he wanted the young gorilla to stay alive and this alone had saved Bobo’s life, so far. The young gorilla was Hisani’s son, he was sure of it. He could tell by the wide flat noseprint he had come to know. Kambale had said Hodari, the silverback, was dead, but what of the rest of the group? Where were they now? And where was Papa?
Now Bobo was trapped in the rebel camp with no plan at all. The idea that he could walk into the Black Mamba’s camp and demand to see his father seemed a childish fantasy now. This was the real world, a world of men.
Only two nights ago he had left his mother and hitched a lift on a logging truck heading along the highway through the forest. He had stopped at one of the trading posts to find out about the coltan mine. Two men drinking beer had just returned from the mine and pointed in the direction of the camp, and Bobo had followed the track into the forest, a path worn and muddied by many feet. The camp wasn’t hard to find, but the Mambas guarding the checkpoints hadn’t believed his story.
On the way, he had built a fantasy in his head that he would find his father and escape with him into the forest. But now he didn’t know what to do. Yet, the gorilla baby was here in the Spirit Child’s arms. Maybe his father was here, imprisoned somewhere. Maybe he was hiding in the forest planning to rescue the gorilla. Maybe his father was watching him right now.
“Boboto,” said the Spirit Child. “Kitwana needs something to eat until the milk arrives. What will he eat?”
“Kitwana?” said Bobo. “Is that his name?”
The Spirit Child frowned and watched him carefully. “You sound as if he has another one.”
Bobo shuffled his feet and looked at Imara, at the long raised scar that split her face in two. After all the stories, he’d expected to be terrified of her, but here she looked like just a girl, her arms wrapped around the gorilla as she might cradle a baby brother.
Bobo turned and pointed through the trees. “We need to go into the forest to find his food.”
Rat laughed. “So you can try to escape?”
Bobo shook his head. “The gorilla needs forest food. It is the only way.”
“Then bind Bobo’s hands,” said the Black Mamba. He nodded to Rat. “Go with them into the forest. If he tries to run, shoot him dead.”
* * *
Bobo walked between Imara and Rat along the forest paths. Rat walked at the back, swinging his gun around his shoulders, as if he was hoping for an excuse to use it. The ropes cut deep into Bobo’s wrists and he tried to concentrate on not falling over the tree roots and lianas that snaked across the ground. As they walked farther into the forest, the sounds of the mine and the camp faded. Bobo looked for signs of gorillas or elephants, but there were none. The forest was strangely still and silent. No birdsong, no glimpses of black-and-white colobus monkeys leaping through the trees.
“Stop here,” said Bobo as they reached a clearing. “See, there are plenty of young nettles.”
Imara scowled. “We have tried those already. He will not eat.”
“He will eat them,” said Bobo.
Imara snatched at the young nettles, wincing as the tiny hairs stung the palms of her hands. She unwrapped the towel to show Kitwana and pushed the nettles near his mouth. “See! He won’t eat.” Kitwana lay limp in her arms, his eyes half closed. She pushed the gorilla toward Bobo. “He is too sick,” she said. “What does he need?”
Bobo stared down into Kitwana’s face. He looked so different from the lively gorilla he had known, the one who tried to take the rangers’ notebooks and liked to annoy Enzi, the blackback. He thought of his father’s last photo of Kitwana clinging to his mother, warmed by her body and sheltered from the rain.
“He needs his mother,” said Bobo. “But she is not here. You need to show him what to do.”
Imara looked up at Bobo. “How?”
Bobo was aware of Rat, sitting with his gun on his legs, silently watching.
“You need to show him what to eat and how to eat,” said Bobo. “His mother would have picked the nettles and folded them in her hands, making sure all the stinging hairs are pointing inward.”
Imara followed Bobo’s instructions, folding the stinging leaves into a ball in her hands.
“Now you must pretend to chew,” said Bobo. “You must show what is safe to eat.”
Imara nibbled on the ball of nettles, and as she chewed, Kitwana watched her, blinking intently. The leaves were bitter, but not unpleasant. Kitwana reached out his fingers to touch the green juices dribbling down her chin.
“Offer some to him,” said Bobo. “He is ready.”
Imara offered the ball of nettles to Kitwana. He took them and held them close to his mouth, poking out his tongue and tasting the green juices, playing with the leaves in his hands.
“He is still not eating,” said Imara.
“Go slowly,” whispered Bobo, sitting down next to her. “This will take time. Even if it takes all day.”
Imara chewed the nettles too, and as she did, Kitwana put some in his m
outh and rolled the leaves around his tongue.
Bobo watched them both. He watched Kitwana look up into Imara’s eyes. “He needs you to look after him.”
Imara looked up and frowned.
“He needs you,” repeated Bobo. “You must be the one to protect him, to hold him close to you and curl up with at night. If he is to live, you must become his world. You are his mother now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
imara
Imara lay down on her sleeping mat with Kitwana beside her that night. She covered him with her blanket and curled her body around him, feeling him warm up against her skin. She lay awake, breathing in the musty sweet smell of him, outlining his shape in the darkness. He snuffled and wriggled in his sleep. His small hands and feet pulled himself closer to her, gripping her clothes, holding on to her, as if he wouldn’t let her go.
Imara could feel more strength in his fingers. Bobo, the new boy with the soft eyes and the silence, had saved him. The demon stirred restlessly at the thought of him and turned somersaults, trying to push him out of Imara’s mind. But it wasn’t the demon’s voice she heard, it was Bobo’s. Kitwana needs you. You are his world. You are his mother now.
As Imara fell into sleep, the woman with the coffee-colored skin walked through her dreams. She could almost feel the woman’s fingertips brush her forehead.
Imara smiled. “Kitwana is safe now,” she murmured, holding him close. “He is safe, with me.”
* * *
The bluebird came clattering out of the sky in the morning. Imara was expecting the White Lioness to be on board, but there was only the pilot. She watched as the Black Mamba’s weapons were carried out and laid on pallets, while Bundi counted the boxes of bullets and new guns. The Mambas unloaded more sacks of rice, crates of beer, tinned meat and fish, coffee, tea, and a drum of oil for the generator. Bundi ticked everything off in his book and then signaled for the sacks of coltan to be carried into the helicopter.