Brazzaville Beach

by William Boyd

  “You say they were all males?” I asked Alda.

  “Yes, Mam. I think. And they move very slow—looking here, looking there—and they make no noise. No noise at all.”

  To me this sounded exactly like a patrol.

  That evening I typed the final draft of my article. It was twenty pages long, short on scholarly apparatus but very readable. I knew that whoever I submitted it to would publish it, such was the inflammatory and controversial nature of its contents. In the end I decided to send it to a magazine called The Great Apes. It was a monthly with a sound academic reputation and a fairly wide popular appeal. Also, I knew one of the editors there.

  I sealed the article in an envelope, addressed it, and then sealed it in another envelope which I addressed to Professor Hobbes, with a covering note asking him to forward it to the magazine. I was taking no chances.

  Two days later, when Toshiro was on the point of setting off on the provisioning run, I handed him my package. He accepted it without a second glance and added it to the pile of the project’s mail on the seat beside him.

  The article complete, I spent more time analyzing and transcribing João’s and Alda’s field notes. I noticed another discrepancy. Quantifying the traveling distances of the individual chimps over the last three or four weeks, I realized that they were diminishing. Plotting them on the map, it was at once obvious that the ranging area of the southern chimps had shrunk quite dramatically, by about thirty-five percent.

  Something strange was going on, but I wasn’t at all sure what. It was in the light of these observations that I called a halt to our normal procedures of observations and follows and instituted the watch on the Danube. Each day, João, Alda and I would take up our positions, about a mile apart, on the southern slopes of the small valley cut by the Danube as it flowed down from the escarpment, east to west. We each found prominent viewpoints overlooking the river and between us were able to cover a significant amount of ground.

  We watched without any result for three days. Then, on the morning of the fourth day, at about half past nine, João called me up on the walkie-talkie. I was in the middle, João was a mile to the east.

  “They comin’, Mam,” he said. “I think seven, maybe eight. They comin’ your way.”

  He said they had just passed a big mafumeira tree, which I could see from my position. I told João to keep following and went to meet them.

  There were seven chimps, moving cautiously along the ground on all fours, loosely spaced out in a column. Their complete silence and concentration was eerie and disturbing. They were led by Darius, whom I recognized at once. There was one female, anestrous, in the rear. They were coming straight toward me.

  The ground cover here was patchy, so I moved off the path to give them a wide berth. I circled round to rejoin João, who was following about a hundred yards behind. He looked unhappy and grim. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this before.

  We followed the chimpanzees for about an hour as they moved steadily, ever deeper, into southern territory. Then they halted at the side of a narrow valley with a stream running through it and climbed into a veranista tree. They sat there for forty minutes, still and silent, watching and listening. There was no sound or sign at all of my southern chimps.

  Eventually the intruders climbed down from their tree and headed back north at a quicker pace. When they got to the Danube valley they burst out into a loud chorus of hoots and barks, running frenziedly across the stream, drumming on the trunks of trees, breaking off branches and shaking them in the air. Then they were off, deep into the northern territory, still screaming and whooping at each other.

  “I don’t like,” João said. He was still upset and troubled, frowning intently. “I don’t like at all, at all.”

  “It’s so strange,” I said. “What are they trying to do?”

  “I fear too much, Mam.” He looked at me. “I fear too much.”

  I asked Ian Vail if I could come out with him once more and spend a few days with the northern chimpanzees. He readily agreed, but when he asked me why, I said only that some strange individuals had been spotted in the south and I thought they might be his chimps.

  I spent two days in the north with him and saw most of the males that belonged to the group. The composition of the northern group was in fact very male-dominated. There were three mature females but two of them had just given birth and would not resume their sexual cycles for two to three years. The only “available” female was Crispina. The other members of the group were four prime males, half a dozen adolescents (male and female) and a couple of old males. In the early days before the group split the sexual balance had been more normal, but the departure of Clovis, with three mature females—Rita-Mae, Rita-Lu and Lena—had, so Ian’s theory went, destabilized the community. One other young female had also disappeared eighteen months previously, exaggerating the imbalance further. She might have been killed by a predator, or possibly lured away by the other chimp community to the north of Grosso Arvore. Since my last visit Crispina’s sexual cycle had finished. There was every chance that she might be pregnant.

  Ian thought the patrolling in the south was highly significant.

  “I’m sure they were looking for Rita-Mae,” he said, casually. “She was very popular.”

  “It didn’t look like it.”

  “Is she in estrus?”

  “No. But her daughter’s about to start.”

  “Ah-ha. What about the pregnant one?”

  “She…the baby died.”

  “Well, she’ll start her cycle again.” He thought. “What do you call the alpha male?”

  “Clovis.”

  “He’ll have his hands full.” He gave a leering grin. It was at moments like this that he was easy to dislike. I changed the subject.

  “Have you got photos of your chimps?”

  “Mug shots? Yeah, masses.”

  We were sitting on a rock in the afternoon sun. At the foot of some trees ahead of us, some chimps were searching for termite nests. I waved away a couple of circling flies and wondered briefly whether to tell Vail about Bobo’s killing. I decided not to, in the end, because of Roberta and her connection to Mallabar.

  Vail was looking at the foraging chimps through his binoculars. He was wearing khaki shirt and shorts and suede ankle boots. His legs were brown and dusty and covered in small scratches. Blond hair grew thickly on his knees and lower legs. Perhaps I should tell him, I thought again? I needed an ally, after all. But he had warned me off once before.

  “Do you know anything about Eugene’s new book?” I asked.

  “Well, yes. Roberta’s correcting the proofs at the moment. It’s huge.”

  “God. What’s it called?”

  “Primate: The Society of a Great Ape,” he said in a sonorous American accent.

  “They’ve got proofs?…When’s it out?”

  “Four months, five months.” He turned and smiled sarcastically at me. “So we might as well pack up and leave. It’s very much the Last Word, if you know what I mean.” He unslung his binoculars from around his neck. “Better find another area to write about.” He stood up. “What were you doing before you got into this lark, anyway?”

  “Hedgerow dating.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Always has been a bit of a conversation stopper.”

  We were walking back to the Land-Rover. I decided to go a little further.

  “Ian, do you think…I mean, how aggressive are these chimps? Violently aggressive, I mean.”

  He stopped and looked at me quizzically. I could see he was trying to guess what was behind the question.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Not really aggressive. No more than you or me.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you if something comes up.”

  We watched three more northerner patrols. They crossed the Danube at more or less the same point, and e
ach time penetrated deeper into the south. With the aid of Ian Vail’s photographs I was soon able to identify and name the individuals. The groups were always led by Darius and there were always a few adolescents with them (whom I found harder to single out), and usually three other mature males: Gaspar, Pulul and Americo. From time to time an old male called Sebastian would accompany them. These five were the nucleus of the northerner patrols.

  It was when they crossed the Danube that their normal noisy chimpanzee demeanor changed. They became tense and careful and almost completely silent. Their sweeps into the south grew longer and more extensive. Often they would stop, climb trees and watch and wait. It was obvious to me they were looking for my chimpanzees.

  Our watch on the Danube, and the shadowing of the northern patrols, meant that I had lost contact with the southern group. One day I sent off João and Alda to try and locate them. We knew now where the northerners tended to cross the river; I could watch it effectively on my own.

  This time, they came over at about four in the afternoon. I heard them before I saw them—the sound of vigorous drumming on tree trunks. Then I saw Darius, fur bristling, displaying aggressively, shaking branches and shrieking. Then the other chimps joined him, calling, shouting, hurling rocks into the Danube. Then they crossed the river and fell silent. Darius led, and strung out behind him were Pulul, Gaspar, Sebastian and Americo—and one adolescent that I couldn’t recognize. I followed them as best I could. They saw me, of course, but they were completely habituated to human observers. All the same, I remained a prudent forty or fifty yards behind them.

  They moved south, cautiously, for an hour. Then they stopped on the edge of a small rock cliff to watch and wait. At this point João came through faintly on the walkie-talkie—I had the volume low, and he was at the limit of his range—and told me that he had seen Clovis, Rita-Mae, Lester and Rita-Lu. There was no sign of Muffin, Mr. Jeb, Conrad or Lena.

  I took out my camera and took some photographs of the group on the cliff edge. Their concentration was intense. Nearby, there were fruits on chavelho bushes but none of them seemed interested in eating. They watched. They smelled the air. They listened.

  Then I noticed that Darius’s attention was now focused on a small grove of date palms about five hundred yards away. I called up João.

  “Where are you?”

  “Far in the south, Mam. Near the bamboo.”

  “Rita-Mae and Rita-Lu?”

  “They are here. I can see them.”

  I relaxed slightly. If Ian Vail was right, and the object of these patrols was sexual, then these northerners were miles adrift.

  Suddenly, Darius gave a soft grunt and bounded off his rock, down the cliff face, and disappeared into the undergrowth beyond. The others followed immediately, moving fast. It took me a little time to find a place where I could slither safely down the cliff, and by the time I had reached the bottom the chimps were lost to view. Ahead I could hear them crashing through the undergrowth. I found a path that appeared to head toward the palm grove and ran off up it.

  I must have been about a hundred yards away from the palms when I heard the warning hoots of a southern chimp. And then I heard a second chimp respond. I stumbled over a root and fell, grazing my knee badly. I stood up and limped-ran in the direction of the noise. All at once, there was a mad bellowing of screams and barks and a persistent shrill screeching, all the panicky hysteria of a fight. Then, as I reached the first trees of the palm grove, I saw a chimp fleeing, swinging away through the branches of a huge alfonsia tree. In the glimpse I had, it looked like Conrad.

  I moved forward cautiously. Through the trunks of the palm trees, I could see excited chimpanzees milling about. Then I saw Mr. Jeb, surrounded by the northern chimps. He was crouching low, his teeth bared and screaming. The northern males standing around him displayed, rearing up, hair bristling with bravura aggression. Darius held a dried palm frond in one hand with which he lashed the ground, making guttural pant-roars at Mr. Jeb. Mr. Jeb’s response was feeble and pathetic. As he writhed and shook, his withered arm flopped uselessly around. His bald head and stringy goatee made his threatening gestures look sham and nugatory. But he roared as bravely as he could, peeling back his lips to expose his worn old teeth, and hurling pebbles with his good arm at the encroaching gang of northerners.

  Then they charged him. Darius, twice Mr. Jeb’s size, felled him easily and sat on his chest, holding down his arms. Gaspar clutched his feet and Pulul and Americo jumped on his head repeatedly. Then Gaspar leaned forward and sank his teeth into Mr. Jeb’s scrotum, producing a horrifying scream of pain from the old chimp. But the battering he was receiving from the others stunned him, and his body slumped. One by one the others let go.

  Then Darius grabbed both his legs and dragged him violently to and fro along the ground, running backward and forward. In the course of this, Mr. Jeb’s head hit the trunk of a date palm and gobbets of blood spurted from his nose. Darius stopped at once and licked and slurped at the blood that dripped from his nostrils.

  Darius moved away after a while, and the other chimps gathered round to gaze at Mr. Jeb’s inert body. He lay face down, quite motionless. Then he stirred. He raised his head and gave a small whimper. He sat up and with his good arm tried to push himself upright, but he fell over at once, his entire body shivering.

  Pulul approached, sat on Mr. Jeb’s back and started twisting his leg round and round. I saw, rather than heard, the break. All natural tension suddenly went from the limb. Pulul then gnawed at the toes, biting one of them off, and nearly severing two others. Mr. Jeb made no sound while all this went on.

  Pulul backed off eventually, screeching. Then they sat and watched Mr. Jeb as he lay there for a full five minutes before Darius stalked up and prodded him several times with a finger. There was still no movement from the old chimp. Darius seized one leg, the broken one, and dragged him a couple of yards, turning him over, face up. Then he began to hit him in the face with his fists, again and again, for two or three minutes.

  Darius stopped, moved away, and suddenly, at great speed, the northern chimps were off, bounding and scampering away through the scrub.

  I looked at my watch. The attack on Mr. Jeb had lasted nearly twenty minutes. I felt exhausted, aching with tension. I stood up awkwardly—I hadn’t moved at all during the attack—and walked over to Mr. Jeb.

  He was still alive. I could see the fingers of one hand moving slightly. A V-shaped gash on his bald head had flipped back a triangle of scalp that shone a bright pinky-orange against the dusty gray-black of his skin. The blood had congealed on the wound on his scrotum and already there were blowflies crawling on it. But it was his torn feet that particularly distressed me: I could see the bone gleaming white at the stump of his severed toe.

  I felt a kind of breathless shock boom through me, making me gasp and gulp at the air as if I were drowning. I turned away and took deep breaths, exhaling slowly. “Oooh, Mr. Jeb,” I heard myself saying. “Poor Mr. Jeb.” Then I walked back to him, knelt and touched his shoulder gently.

  He opened his eyes. One of them was just a slit, almost closed by dark plummy contusions. He looked at me.

  I was too close, and stepped back a few yards. Mr. Jeb began to shiver, and tried again to raise himself up but he was too weak. Then he began to haul himself away along the ground, using his good arm and one good leg, making for a dense thicket of undergrowth. He left an irregular furrow in the dust, speckled with his blood.

  He crawled deep into the thicket. I tried to follow for a way, but it was too dense and thorny for me. I backed out with a bad scratch on my arm. I sat down, with my back against a tree, and rested there for a minute or two. It was late in the afternoon and dusk was not far off, I realized. I should think about returning to camp. I opened my bag and took out some antiseptic ointment, which I spread over my scratch and grazed knee. As I replaced it, I saw my camera.

  I had taken no photographs of the fight. And now Mr. Jeb was dead or dying in an im
penetrable clump of thorn…. What was happening in Grosso Arvore, I asked myself? Already the revelations of my article were out of date. Those northern chimps had come to kill and, most disturbingly, to inflict pain. As far as I was aware this was without precedent.

  I heard a soft pant-hoot—hoo hoo hoo—and looked round. Conrad crouched, staring at me, twenty feet away. I felt stupid relief, and an absurd sense of welcome.

  “Conrad…” I said out loud.

  At this he was off, bounding through the undergrowth. Then I saw him a few seconds later, climbing a pale-trunked lemon-flower tree that hung over the thicket that hid Mr. Jeb’s body. He edged out on the farthest branches and sat there peering down into the tangled bushes where Mr. Jeb, no doubt, was dying slowly, in enormous pain.

  I was late getting back to camp. I went straight to the canteen to allay any suspicion. I told no one what had happened, explaining away my scratches as the result of a fall during a follow. I ate my stringy chicken and sweet potato with unaccustomed pleasure and asked one of the cooks to bring me a bottle of beer. It was barely cool but I felt a powerful need for some alcohol. So I ate my meal and drank my warm beer. I had just lit a Tusker when Ginga came over.

  “Hope, are you all right?”

  “Fine. Why?”

  “You look…not very well.”

  “Just tired.” I smiled at her. “Long hard day. And I think one of my chimps is dead.” I still don’t know why I said this to her. I think I had to eke out something of what had built up inside me. I told her I had come across the scene of a fight and had found a blood trail leading into a thorn thicket.

  “How do you know it was a chimp?” she said.

  “There was another in a tree above the thicket. Sort of keeping guard.”

  Ginga shrugged. “Maybe a leopard?” She squeezed my hand. “My God, if you knew how many dozen chimps I’ve lost since we came here. Dozens.”

  “I know. It’s just that there aren’t many in the south. One gone and you notice it.”