Forest of the Pygmies

by Isabel Allende

  In the meantime Alexander had a good look at the canoes, and, as he saw no fishing gear, concluded that the men were lying and could not be trusted. No one among the stranded travelers was easy in his mind.

  While the men in the canoes ate, drank, and smoked, the International Geographic party moved away to discuss their situation. Angie’s advice was for everyone to stay on guard, for they could be murdered and their goods stolen, though Brother Fernando was sure the men had been sent by heaven to help him accomplish his mission.

  “These men will take us upriver toward Ngoubé. According to the map—” he began.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Angie interrupted. “We’ll head south, to these men’s village. There must be some form of communication there. I have to get another propeller and get back to my plane.”

  “We’re very close to Ngoubé. I can’t abandon my companions,” Brother Fernando rebutted. “Who knows what they’re going through.”

  “Don’t you think we already have enough problems?” was the pilot’s reply.

  “You have no respect for the work of missionaries!”

  “And do you respect the African religions? Why do you try to impose your beliefs on us?”

  “Be calm, both of you! We have more urgent matters at hand,” Kate directed.

  “I suggest we split up,” Brother Fernando proposed.

  “Those who want can go south with you, and those who want to go with me can come to Ngoubé in the second canoe.”

  “No way! We’re much safer together,” Kate interrupted.

  “Why don’t we put it to a vote?” Alexander suggested.

  “Because, my boy, in this case democracy doesn’t apply,” said the missionary dictatorially.

  “Then we should allow God to decide,” said Alexander.

  “How?”

  “We’ll flip a coin: Heads, we go south; tails, it’s to the north. We’ll leave it in the hands of God, or of fate, whichever you prefer,” the youth outlined, taking a coin from his pocket.

  Angie and Brother Fernando hesitated a moment and then both burst out laughing. The idea seemed irresistibly humorous.

  “Deal!” they exclaimed in chorus.

  Everyone else agreed as well. Alexander handed the coin to Nadia, who tossed it up in the air. They held their breath and watched it fall onto the sand.

  “Tails! We’re going north!” Brother Fernando shouted in triumph.

  “I will give you three days total. If you haven’t found your friends in that length of time, we come back. Understood?” roared Angie.

  “Five days.”

  “Four.”

  “All right, four days and not a minute less.”

  Convincing the supposed fishermen to take them to the place they pointed out on the map turned out to be more of a job than they had foreseen. The men explained that no one ventured into that area without the authorization of King Kosongo, who had no great love for foreigners.

  “King? There are no kings in this country. There is a president and a parliament; it’s supposed to be a democracy,” said Kate.

  Angie clarified that in addition to the national government, certain African clans and tribes had kings, and even queens, whose role was more symbolic than political, just like that of certain sovereigns in Europe.

  “Our missionaries mentioned a King Kosongo in their letters, but they had more to say about a Commandant Maurice Mbembelé. It seems that it’s the military that’s in control,” said Brother Fernando.

  “Maybe it’s not the same village,” Angie suggested.

  “I have no doubt at all that it’s the same.”

  “I don’t think it’s a very good idea to walk straight into the jaws of the wolf,” Angie commented.

  “But we do have to find out what happened to the missionaries,” said Kate.

  “What do you know about Kosongo, Brother Fernando?” asked Alexander.

  “Not much. It seems that Kosongo is a usurper; he was put on the throne by Commandant Mbembelé. There was a queen earlier, but she disappeared. It’s supposed that she was murdered; no one has seen her in several years.”

  “And what did the missionaries say about Mbembelé?” Alexander insisted.

  “He studied a couple of years in France but was expelled because of problems with the police,” Brother Fernando explained.

  He added that once Maurice Mbembelé was back in his country, he joined the army, but he also encountered problems there because of his undisciplined and violent temperament. He was accused of putting down an uprising by burning houses and murdering a number of students. His superiors covered up for him to keep it out of the newspapers, then rid themselves of their problem by sending him to the least known point on the map. They hoped that swamp fevers and mosquito bites would cure him of his bad character—or finish him off once and for all. Mbembelé faded away into the jungle, along with a handful of his most loyal men, and shortly after reappeared in Ngoubé. According to what the missionaries wrote in their letters, Mbembelé set up headquarters in that village and controlled the region from there. He was a tyrant and dealt out the cruelest punishments imaginable. They said that on more than one occasion, he had eaten the liver or heart of his victims.

  “That is ritual cannibalism; it’s believed that in that way you acquire the courage and strength of your defeated enemy,” Kate amplified.

  “Idi Amin, a dictator in Uganda, used to serve his ministers for dinner,” Angie commented. “Roasted.”

  “Cannibalism isn’t as rare as we believe; I saw it several years ago in Borneo,” Kate added.

  “Did you really witness acts of cannibalism, Kate?” Alexander asked.

  “It happened when I was in Borneo on assignment. I didn’t see them actually cooking anyone, if that’s what you mean, Alex, but I was told about it firsthand. As a precaution, all I ate was canned beans,” his grandmother answered.

  “I think I’m going to become a vegetarian,” Alexander concluded, nauseated.

  Brother Fernando told them that Commandant Mbembelé did not look favorably on the presence of Christian missionaries in his territory, but he counted on the fact that they wouldn’t last long. If they didn’t die of some tropical illness, or suffer a timely accident, they would be defeated by exhaustion and frustration. He allowed them to build a small school and a dispensary for the medicines they had brought with them, but he did not permit children to attend classes or the sick to go to the mission. The brothers devoted themselves to teaching good hygiene to the women, until that, too, was forbidden. They lived in isolation, under constant threat, at the whim of the moods of the king and the commandant.

  Brother Fernando suspected, through what little news the missionaries were able to send, that Kosongo and Mbembelé financed their reign of terror through contraband. The region was rich in diamonds and other precious stones. There was also uranium, which as yet had not been exploited.

  “And don’t the authorities do anything about it?” asked Kate.

  “Just where do you think you are, lady? Apparently you don’t know how things get done in this part of the world,” replied Brother Fernando.

  The Bantu men agreed to take them into Kosongo’s territory for a sum in money, beer, and tobacco, with two knives thrown in. The remaining provisions were shoved into duffel bags. The International Geographic group hid the liquor and cigarettes at the very bottom, for they were more coveted than money and could be used to pay for services and bribes. Canned sardines and peaches, matches, sugar, powdered milk, and soap were also very valuable for trading.

  “Nobody touches my vodka,” Kate threatened.

  “What we will need most are antibiotics, malaria pills, and serum for snakebites,” said Angie, packing the plane’s first-aid kit, which also contained the vial of tranquilizer Mushaha had sent as a sample.

  The Bantus overturned their canoes and tipped up the ends on poles to improvise two roofs, beneath which they took their rest after having drunk and sung at the tops of the
ir voices until the early hours. Apparently they feared neither foreigners nor animals. The remaining party, on the other hand, did not rest well. Clutching their weapons and their various bundles, they could not close their eyes for wanting to keep an eye on the “fishermen,” who were sleeping the sleep of the dead.

  Dawn broke a little after five. The landscape, wrapped in a mysterious fog, resembled a delicate watercolor. While the exhausted foreigners got ready to leave, the Bantus ran up and down the clearing, kicking a cloth ball in a vigorous game of soccer.

  Brother Fernando set up a small altar topped with a cross made of two sticks and called everyone to pray. The Bantus came out of curiosity and the others out of courtesy, but the solemnity he lent to his prayers moved everyone, even Kate, who had watched so many different rites in her travels that she was no longer impressed by anything.

  They loaded the slim canoes, distributing the weight of passengers and gear as best they could, and left what they couldn’t carry in the plane.

  “I hope no one comes along while we’re gone,” Angie said, giving a farewell pat to the side of her Super Hawk.

  The plane was her only capital in this world, and she was fearful she would be robbed of everything, down to the last screw. “Four days isn’t much,” she told herself, but her heart shrank, filled with unpleasant presentiments. Four days in that jungle were an eternity.

  The group got under way at about eight in the morning. They strung canvas to shield them from the sun, which bore down mercilessly when they had to travel up the middle of the river. While the foreigners were perishing from thirst and heat, besieged by bees and flies, the Bantus were effortlessly paddling against the current, urging one another on with jokes and long swigs of the palm wine they were carrying in plastic containers. They got the wine the simplest way imaginable: they made a V-shaped cut low on the trunk of a palm tree, hung a gourd beneath it, and waited for it to fill with sap, which they then allowed to ferment.

  There was the babble of birds in the air and a fiesta of fishes in the water. They saw hippopotamuses—maybe the same family they’d met at the riverbank the first night—and two classes of crocodiles: grays, along with the smaller brown ones. Angie, safe in the canoe, took the opportunity to hurl insults at them. The Bantus tried to catch one of the large ones, knowing the skin would bring a good price, but Angie became hysterical, and her companions were just as reluctant as she to share the crowded canoe with the beast, even with its feet and snout tied. They’d had a chance to appreciate those rows of regenerating teeth and the force of that slashing tail.

  A species of dark water snake brushed past one of the canoes and suddenly blew itself up into a bird with white-striped wings and black tail. They watched it as it rose into the air and flew off toward the forest. Later a large shadow passed over their heads and Nadia gave a cry of recognition: It was a crowned eagle. Angie told them that she had once seen a similar bird carry off a gazelle in its claws. White water lilies floated among large, fleshy green leaves, forming islands they had to swing around to avoid getting tangled in roots. Along both banks the vegetation was thick with hanging vines, ferns, roots, and branches. From time to time, there were dots of color in the uniform green of that nature: purple, red, yellow, and pink orchids.

  They traveled north for most of the day. The tireless men never varied the rhythm of their paddles, not even in the hottest part of the day, when their passengers were half fainting. Since there was no pause for lunch, they had to be content with crackers, bottled water, and a small amount of sugar. No one wanted sardines; the thought of them turned their stomachs.

  About midafternoon, when the sun was still high in the sky but the heat was relenting slightly, one of the Bantu men pointed to the shore. The canoes stopped. Here the river split into one wide arm that continued north and a narrow channel to the left that led into thick undergrowth. At the entrance to the lesser channel stood something that looked like a scarecrow. It was a life-size wooden statue garbed in raffia, feathers, and strips of hide. The mouth of its gorilla head was open, as if uttering a gruesome scream. Two stones were fitted into the sockets of the eyes. The trunk was studded with nails, and the head was crowned with an incongruous bicycle wheel that served as a kind of sombrero, from which swung bones and dried hands that may have been monkeys’ paws. The figure was surrounded by other equally frightening dolls and animal skulls.

  “Those are satanic witchcraft dolls!” cried Brother Fernando, making the sign of the cross.

  “They are a little uglier than the saints in Catholic churches,” Kate replied sarcastically.

  Joel and Alexander focused their cameras on them.

  The terrorized Bantus announced that this was as far as they were going, and although Kate tempted them with more money and cigarettes, they refused to continue. They explained that that macabre altar marked the border of Kosongo’s territory. Beyond that lay his domain, and no one entered without his permission. They added that there was a track through the forest that they could follow and reach the village before nightfall. It wasn’t very far, they said, only one or two hours, and they would be able to follow the trail by looking for trees slashed by machete. The Bantus drove the noses of their canoes onto the bank and without waiting for instructions began throwing bundles to shore.

  Kate paid them part of what they were owed and, with her bad French and the help of Brother Fernando, managed to communicate that in four days they were to come pick them up at this same spot. At that time they would be given the rest of the money and a bonus in cigarettes and canned peaches. The Bantus accepted with fake smiles, stumbled away, climbed into their canoes, and shot off as if pursued by demons.

  “What eccentric men!” Kate commented.

  “I’m afraid we’ll never see them again,” Angie added, worried.

  “We had better start before it gets dark,” said Brother Fernando, slinging his knapsack onto his back and picking up a couple of the duffels.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Pygmies

  THE TRACK THE BANTUS HAD referred to was invisible. The terrain was a quagmire strewn with roots and branches, where feet often sank into a soft pudding of insects, leeches, and worms. Huge rats as big as dogs scurried away at the group’s passing. Fortunately, they were wearing boots to midcalf, which at least protected them against snakes. It was so humid that both Alexander and Kate chose to take off their befogged glasses, while Brother Fernando, who saw almost nothing without his, had to clean his lenses every five minutes. In that lush vegetation it was nearly impossible to locate the trees that had been slashed by machetes.

  Once again Alexander felt how the tropical climate drained the body and produced a profound indifference in the soul. He missed the clean, invigorating cold of the snowy mountains he climbed with his father and loved so much. He knew that if he felt overwhelmed, his grandmother must be on the verge of a heart attack, but Kate rarely complained. She was not disposed to be defeated by age. She said that people betray their years when they get bent over and make old person sounds: coughing, hawking, creaking, moans. Which was why she always stood very erect and stifled any senior noises.

  The group practically felt their way forward as monkeys rained down projectiles from the trees. They had a general idea about the direction they should be heading in, but no notion of how far they were from the village. They suspected even less the kind of reception that awaited them.

  They walked for more than an hour, but they made very little headway; this was not terrain in which you could hurry. They had to cross through more than one swamp with water up to the waist. In one of them, Angie took a false step and screamed when she realized that she was sinking in quicksand and that her efforts to free herself were futile. Brother Fernando and Joel held one end of a rifle and she grabbed onto the other end with both hands, and in that way was pulled to firm ground. In the process Angie let go of the duffel she was carrying.

  “I lost my pack!” Angie cried when she saw it sinking into the mud.r />
  “That’s of no consequence, miss; what matters is that we got you out,” Brother Fernando replied.

  “What do you mean, no consequence? My cigarettes and my lipstick are in there!”

  Kate heaved a sigh of relief. At least she wouldn’t have to smell Angie’s delicious tobacco any longer; the temptation was getting unbearable.

  They stopped by a small pool to rinse off a little, but they had to resign themselves to mud in their boots. In addition they had the uncomfortable sensation that they were being observed from the impenetrable growth.

  “I think someone’s spying on us,” Kate said finally, unable to bear the tension any longer.

  They formed a circle, armed with their reduced arsenal: Angie’s revolver and rifle, one machete, and a pair of knives.

  “May God protect us,” mumbled Brother Fernando, a prayer that was escaping his lips more and more frequently.

  After a few minutes, human figures as small as children cautiously emerged from the thicket, the tallest no more that four and a half feet tall. They had yellowish brown skin, nappy hair, wide-set eyes, short legs, long trunks and arms, and flattened noses.

  “These must be the famous forest Pygmies,” said Angie, greeting them with a wave.

  They wore only minimal breechcloths, except for one whose tattered T-shirt hung to below his knees. They were armed with spears, but they weren’t raised threateningly; rather, the men were using them as walking staffs. Two of them were carrying a net rolled onto a pole. Nadia realized that it was identical to the net that had trapped the gorilla where their plane had come down, many miles away. The Pygmies answered Angie’s greeting with confident smiles and a few words in French; then they launched into uninterrupted chatter in their own tongue, which no one understood.