Darkness

by David Fletcher

  It wasn’t. It was just upsetting. In place of a Western-type display of “plenty” and choice – and hygiene, there were just some thin pickings and some really disturbing piles of bush meat. This market was no Waitrose and it didn’t accommodate any of those Waitrose-type sensitivities. Dan soon realised that he should have stayed on the Land Cruiser and he should have taken more seriously those forlorn expressions on the faces of the villagers. They clearly did not welcome strangers and they certainly did not welcome them in their market. So it wasn’t long before he was back on board with a silent Svetlana, and soon after that, just as he’d noticed that the Spaniards were heading back to their own waiting vehicle, a subdued-looking Bruce was back on board as well. Kate and Connor, however, were still conducting some business, and Mike was… well, somewhere or other, but Dan couldn’t actually spot him in the market.

  He wondered whether he should do anything. Kate and Connor, he thought, might not know that one of their charges had apparently disappeared. However, before he could make a decision, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  ‘Any room for a slim one?’ it announced. And then the not-so-slim Mike was hauling himself aboard the Land Cruiser – from the “wrong” side, the side facing away from the market. As he then flopped into a seat, throwing his rucksack onto another, Dan found his own voice, and used it to pose a question.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘I was just about to report you missing.’

  Mike laughed loudly, and then he responded to Dan’s question.

  ‘Haven’t you heard the expression “a girl in every port”?’ And then he laughed loudly again. Then, probably realising that this wasn’t the response that his companion required, he replaced it with another. It was a serious and sober one.

  ‘I’ve a friend here. A man. I don’t know him that well, but I know he’s sick. Has been for years, and he’s now virtually bedridden. So I always bring him a couple of books. He reads French, you see. But the last time a travelling library got up here… well…’ (and here he laughed very quietly) ‘…it never has, and so I try and help him out. I’m not exactly the Department for International Development, but he’s always very happy to see me.’

  Dan began to absorb this information and then he attempted to process the information, and particularly what it meant. And what it meant, he decided, was that his bluff but somewhat enigmatic companion was also a small-time philanthropist, the sort of person who does unsung small good deeds – in the most improbable of situations. And it was just as he’d made this decision that he asked Mike what he immediately realised was a rather impertinent question.

  ‘How did you know we’d stop here?’ he said.

  Mike looked unfazed and unoffended.

  ‘I didn’t. I was going to ask Kate to stop on the way out. You know, when we go back to the airstrip. But I won’t need to now, will I? And Petrus can get down to some reading a little earlier than I’d planned. So everybody’s happy…’

  Dan felt a little abashed. He had no right to be so inquisitive. But Mike didn’t seem to mind and, as so often happens, events took a hand in providing a distraction from his unavoidable discomfort. And the first event was Kate re-joining the vehicle and quickly pulling away from her parking place near the market to pick up the track that led to Ngaga. The second event, which made an appearance within minutes of her leaving the village, was the arrival of rain. That humidity, it appeared, hadn’t been misleading. It really had presaged the onset of some precipitation, and not just a mild shower but a full-blown tropical downpour.

  It was barely credible, but the two Land Cruisers were suddenly assailed by a deluge. Water cascaded from the sky in torrents, and it soon began to find its way into both vehicles. They were both equipped with a canvas roof, but it would now be necessary to deploy their rolled-up canvas and plastic sides – and quickly. Failing to do so would see their occupants soaked within minutes. Fortunately, this “storm-rigging” procedure didn’t require any training, and as soon as Kate had pulled to a halt, Dan, Mike and Bruce had the back of their own Land Cruiser pretty well water-tight. Meanwhile, Kate was doing her best with an awning device that could be fixed to the top of the windscreen – without any assistance from Svetlana. She appeared to have been rendered paralysed by the first drops of rain on her fake-leather skirt. And, having chosen that front seat next to Kate, those first drops wouldn’t be the last – as Bruce was gleefully keen to point out.

  He was also pretty happy about the rain in general. It may well have been his first experience of “torrential tropical” and he was clearly relishing it, even though it was making Kate’s job almost impossible. And this was because, as she now continued on her way, her visibility was seriously impaired by the sheer density of the rain, and her ability to spot and then avoid the increasing number of potholes in the now-water-covered track was more or less zero. She didn’t even have the benefit of another Land Cruiser to follow. That one, no doubt fully storm-rigged itself, was somewhere behind her. So, as she ploughed slowly on, it was one pothole after another, each one unheralded and each one providing the Land Cruiser’s passengers with the most painful of jolts.

  It seemed to go on forever and it seemed to Dan that there were more potholes than ever and that the downpour, although difficult to believe, was getting even more intense. It was as though Kate was piloting a boat through some rapids rather than driving a two-ton vehicle along a track – and then the rapids turned into a virtual waterfall. This was when she had embarked on a “side-road”, a narrow track off the main Gabon highway which led – very steeply downwards – to Ngaga camp. This provided a white-knuckle ride for all those on board and what could have been the breaking point for Svetlana. As Dan could not help observing, she was now as rigid as their dramatic forward progress would allow and, like Kate, she was pretty well soaked. Whoever had designed the awning at the front of the vehicle had done a pretty poor job. Water had poured in at its edges almost unchecked.

  Sometime later, the new visitors to Ngaga would learn that this approach track was already so eroded that it was soon to be abandoned and a replacement one built. However, they hadn’t reached Ngaga just yet, and meanwhile, if they had the same thoughts as Dan, they were occupied in contemplating whether they would ever reach the place or instead slide off the track and come to grief amongst the trees. Even Kate looked concerned.

  And then they were there… It was now late afternoon, and through the rain-filled gloom there were lights. Within less than a minute, there were then huddled forms running towards them and unfurling umbrellas. Ngaga – and some shelter – beckoned. That said, Dan could not help suspecting that those umbrellas would be futile. In fact, just about as futile as Bruce’s attempts to somehow console Svetlana. She now looked not just very wet, but murderous and very wet. It was, thought Dan, irresistibly entertaining, and, judging from the smirk on Mike’s face, he thought the same.

  And, as was confirmed over the first of three ice-cold beers, he did.

  fourteen

  Ngaga was a copy of Lango. It had the same Pygmy-inspired main building containing a lounge and a dining space, and the same Pygmy-inspired cabins to accommodate its guests. This Dan had established from his initial drinking session in the lounge and then from his being taken to his cabin to freshen up and change. However, the rain was still so intense and the evening gloom now so impenetrable that he could deduce little about the configuration of the entire camp, other than it seemed to be built on the side of a wooded hill. His own cabin was certainly on a really acute slope, as evidenced by its reliance on a set of stilts at its front and its proximity to the tops of several nearby trees. However, he would have to wait for the morning to see where his cabin sat in relation to the others and what sort of vegetation surrounded them all. That would not be a trial. There was, after all, a meal to occupy him this evening and then the promise of a visit from the camp’s resident primatologist, a world-renowned sc
ientist who had dedicated her life to the study of the local gorillas. And after that there would probably be another “amiable interrogation” by Mike…

  The meal was splendid. It was hosted by the camp manager, an elegant Frenchman by the name of Olivier, and it was rounded off with another extravagant selection of French-made fromages. Even that terrible Gabon highway and that impossible descent into camp couldn’t, it appeared, prevent the delivery of these essential victuals, and Dan was again greatly impressed. Much more impressed than he would be with the famous primatologist.

  She appeared a few minutes after the end of the meal. Olivier had invited his guests to seat themselves in the lounge – on any one of the comfortable settees there, but not on the throne-like chair that sat at its edge. That, apparently, was reserved for the camp’s very own VIP. So that when she made her entrance, she would be able to “ascend the throne” without the need to interact with the guests, but with her importance apparent for all to see. And that is exactly what she did. She strode in, offering no greeting or even an acknowledgment of those already seated, and as she sat on her designated chair she maintained a fixed look of contempt on her face. It was worse than any of those expressions that Dan had seen on the faces of Mbomo’s joyless-looking villagers – by quite a long way.

  It was all very strange. Here was a woman – from Spain – who had spent two decades in this forest researching gorilla behaviour, and who had even coped with the threat of Ebola in order to continue her research. By applying herself so diligently to her work she had brought the plight of these Western lowland gorillas to the attention of the world and, ultimately, she may well prove to be their literal saviour. Furthermore, she had brought in funding to sustain her work and even to promote some low-level development in Mbomo. So she could genuinely be described as a cross between a heroine and an angel. But here she was radiating contempt, if not out and out loathing. It was as though she regarded her guests not just as interlopers but as a truly distasteful presence, something she had to tolerate even though she thoroughly despised them.

  It was no better when she deigned to speak. She made eye contact with nobody and her only concern was to ensure that these ignorant intruders knew how privileged they were – and that they knew how to conduct themselves in the presence of her precious charges. In essence, she delivered just a list of “don’ts” to the assembled company, in a tone that could only be described as severe, before concluding abruptly with the direction that any questions on her diktats should be put to Olivier or “one of the guides”. She didn’t appear to know their names and she wasn’t about to learn them, because she then rose and left the lounge in the same disdainful manner as she’d adopted to enter it.

  Dan found himself smiling. It was such a strange performance. Then he had cause to smile a lot more. The normally silent Svetlana had found her voice, and she put it to very good use.

  ‘What the fuck is her problem?’ she announced. And then, turning to Bruce, she informed him that, ‘She can stick her fucking gorillas. Wherever she fucking likes.’

  Dan was then aware of three things. One was Kate looking at Connor with raised eyebrows, another was Olivier shrugging his shoulders while he raised his own eyebrows, and the third was Mike beginning to chortle uncontrollably behind him. Then Olivier spoke.

  ‘Well, if anybody does have any questions… then please feel free. And please don’t read too much into… well, I think you know what I mean.’

  Dan thought that was a noble effort, but it wasn’t going to work. Everybody was reading everything they wanted to read into the woman’s behaviour. Even her fellow countrymen – the four Spaniards – were hard at it, formulating their own interpretation of what this weird diva’s performance could possibly mean. And as for Dan… well, he could easily identify with her possible “desolation of spirit”. After all, burying oneself in a forest for so many years and witnessing the impact of something like Ebola on creatures you have come to love must be devastating. However, he could not understand her obvious antagonism towards a group of people who were indirectly supporting her work and who genuinely wanted to share what she herself had experienced for such a very long time: close contact with one of their close relatives. And they certainly didn’t want to do them any harm.

  Maybe, later on, he’d give all this a little more thought, and even consider whether his own desolation was hardening into a contempt for all those around him, and if so, whether this contempt was becoming apparent in his behaviour. It might be no more than an academic exercise, he realised, but it wouldn’t stop him doing it. However, that really was for later, and for now there were some gorilla-tracking logistics to be discussed in readiness for the morning, and there was then an interrogation to be conducted by Mike. On this occasion – again when all their companions had retired to their cabins and they were alone in the lounge – it began with a confession rather than a question. Looking unusually sad, Mike confessed that he’d once killed a kudu.

  ‘How?’ was Dan’s immediate response.

  ‘With a car…’

  ‘It jumped in front of you?’

  ‘Yep. It was in Namibia. Straight road. Broad daylight. Nothing going on. No traffic. And then there it was. Not in front of me but on me. I mean on the bonnet of my Land Cruiser. And that was it. One dead kudu. One seriously bent Toyota. And one seriously shaken-up driver. It was horrible. Even though I think the poor critter was dead before he even knew I’d hit him.’

  ‘It happens. I’ve driven there a lot. And I’ve seen the results of more than one kudu encounter. There was a Golf near Etosha – at the side of the road – and it had been absolutely demolished. And that was a stretch of road where the game fence was as high as they come. But it makes no difference. If they want to jump it, they will. And then they end up on the road…’

  ‘Oh, I know. Not my fault an’ all. But it was still me who killed it. And I’ll never forget it.’

  Dan looked at his companion. He was clearly being sincere in what he said, but was he also being just a little bit devious? Dan decided to find out.

  ‘Mike. I sympathise. I really do. But I’m not sure why you’re telling me this. Particularly as you’ve already conceded that it is I who have… well, let’s say, cornered the market in the morose.’

  ‘You think this is all part of the interrogator’s art?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t. But I thought it was about time that you realised that you hadn’t a monopoly in your regard for other species.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, you can’t have forgotten that in your bashing of Homo sapiens, you’ve included on the charge sheet its decimation of just about every other species on Earth. And I just wanted you to know that you’re not the only one who can… well, empathise with other creatures, and… and, well, get a bit upset about their plight.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh what?’

  ‘Well, I’d rather assumed that if you’d come all this way to see gorillas – and not for the first time – then you would have an intense interest in wildlife anyway…’

  ‘And how intense is yours?’

  This question wasn’t so much asked of Dan but more fired at him. Mike had adopted a completely different tone and was clearly searching for a completely honest answer. As would any capable interrogator. Dan would not disappoint him.

  ‘Very,’ was his immediate response, and then, to satisfy his interrogator, he went on to say a few more words. ‘You know that for much of our history – when, if we’d known the term, we could all have called ourselves hunter-gatherers – we didn’t see ourselves as very different from the other animals around us. In fact, we quite often saw our prey animals as superiors and we probably even worshipped them. So it’s only recently – with the help of all our established religions – that we’ve decided that it is only us who are of any importance, and that between us and t
hem there is one almighty, unbridgeable gulf. I mean, it’s a bit of an aberration really, but we seem to have got ourselves into the situation where self-interest is now so important that we feel the need to screw every other creature we encounter. And, of course, it’s no great surprise that we arrived at this situation when our numbers were getting well out of control, when almost inevitably Homo sapiens was beginning to feel that it had to establish itself as one of the most predatory and most destructive species on the planet…’

  ‘When you say “most predatory and most destructive”…?’ interrupted Mike.

  ‘I mean,’ confirmed Dan, ‘that we were becoming – and now are – like some sort of friggin’ pathogen. Quite simply, the human species has now grown in number to the point where we represent what can only be described as a serious disease of the planet, and the sort of disease that constitutes a devastating lethal threat to all other life forms.’

  ‘Jesus, Dan, do you need to be quite so dramatic?’

  Dan bristled.

  ‘Look,’ he replied, ‘the trashing of the natural world is not down to capitalism – or to any other economic system, or, despite what I’ve said before, to the pernicious effect of a raft of corrupt institutions. It’s down to our evolutionary success and our ability to con ourselves into thinking that we’re different from all other animals. And everywhere we succeed, ecological devastation follows in our wake and mere animals get trodden underfoot…’

  ‘Ah,’ interjected Mike, ‘I see…’

  Dan stared at Mike and then gave him the benefit of more of his thoughts.