Forest of the Pygmies (12 page)

The king's wives received no more consideration than the rest of the female population of Ngoubé. A strict old man had the responsibility of keeping them in line, a task for which he kept at hand a slender length of bamboo he did not hesitate to use for whipping their legs whenever it pleased him. Apparently mistreating queens in public was not frowned upon.

Brother Fernando found courage to ask about the missing missionaries, and The Royal Mouth replied that there had never been any missionaries in Ngoubé. He added that no foreigners had visited the village for years, except for an anthropologist who had come to measure the heads of the Pygmies but had beat a fast retreat a few days later because he couldn't bear the climate and the mosquitoes.

“That would have been Ludovic Leblanc,” Kate said, and sighed.

She recalled that Leblanc, her archenemy and colleague in the Diamond Foundation, had given her his essay to read, a study on the Pygmies of the equatorial jungle. According to Leblanc, they had the freest and most egalitarian society on earth. Men and women lived in close companionship, the husbands and wives hunting together and equally sharing in the care of the children. There were no hierarchies among them, the only honorific posts being “leader,” “healer,” and “best hunter,” and those positions did not carry power or privilege, only responsibilities. There were no differences between genders or old and young, and the children owed no obedience to the parents. Violence among members of the clan was unknown. They lived in family groups, and no one owned more than anyone else; they produced only what was indispensable for the day's livelihood. There was no incentive to accumulate goods because as soon as someone acquired something, the relatives were entitled to take it. The Pygmies were a fiercely independent people who had not been subjugated even by European colonizers, but in recent times many of them had been enslaved by the Bantus.

Kate was never sure about how much truth was contained in Leblanc's academic writing, but her intuition told her that the pompous professor could be in the right regarding the Pygmies. For the first time, Kate missed him. Arguing with Leblanc was the salt in her life. It kept her in fine fighting form; it wasn't good to spend too much time out of touch with him, or her character might grow soft. The aging writer feared nothing so much as the idea of turning into a harmless little old grandmother.

Brother Fernando was sure that the spokesman was lying about the lost missionaries and persisted with his questions until Angie and Kate reminded him of the proper protocol. It was obvious that the subject annoyed the king. Kosongo seemed to be a time bomb just waiting to explode, and they were in a very vulnerable position.

To honor the visitors, the villagers offered them gourds of palm wine, some leaves that looked like spinach, and a kind of pudding made from cassava. There was also a basket of large rats that had been roasted over the open fire and seasoned with streams of an orange-colored oil obtained from palm seeds. Alexander closed his eyes, thinking nostalgically about the cans of sardines in his knapsack, but a kick from his grandmother jolted him back to reality. It was not prudent to refuse the king's dinner.

“But they're rats, Kate!” he exclaimed, trying to contain his nausea.

“Don't be squeamish. They taste like chicken,” she replied.

“That's what you said about the snake in the Amazon, and it wasn't true,” her grandson reminded her.

The palm wine turned out to be a disgustingly sweet and nauseating brew that the
International Geographic
group tasted out of courtesy but couldn't swallow. On the other hand, the soldiers and other men of the village gulped it down, drinking until no one was left sober. All attempts to guard the prisoners were abandoned, but they had nowhere to escape to. They were surrounded by jungle, the miasma of the swamps, and the danger of wild animals. The roasted rats and the leaves turned out to be more acceptable than appearances would suggest. The cassava pudding, however, tasted like bread soaked in soapy water, but they were hungry and ate everything down to the last crumb. Nadia limited herself to the bitter spinach, but Alexander surprised himself sucking the leg bones of a rat with great pleasure. His grandmother was right: It did taste like chicken. More specifically, like smoked chicken.

Suddenly Kosongo rang his gold bell again.

“Bring on my Pygmies!” The Royal Mouth shouted to the soldiers, and added for the visitors' benefit: “I
have many Pygmies; they are my slaves. They are not human; they live in the jungle like monkeys.”

Several drums of different sizes were brought to the plaza, some so large it took two men to carry them. Others had been made from hides stretched over gourds or rusty gasoline tins. At an order from the soldiers, the small group of Pygmies, the same who had brought the foreigners to Ngoubé and who had not joined in earlier, was pushed toward the instruments. The men took their places reluctantly, heads hanging, not daring to disobey.

“They have to play music and dance so their ancestors will lead an elephant to their nets. Tomorrow they will go out to hunt, and they cannot return with empty hands,” Kosongo explained through his spokesman.

Beyé-Dokou gave a few tentative thumps, as if to establish the tone and whip up enthusiasm, and then the others followed. The expression on their faces changed; they seemed transfigured. Their eyes shone and their bodies moved in rhythm with their hands as the volume rose and the beat of the drums accelerated. They seemed incapable of resisting the seduction of the music they themselves were creating. Their voices rose in an extraordinary song that undulated on the air like a serpent and then stopped to give way to counter melody. The instruments came alive, competing with each other, connecting, pulsing, animating the night. Alexander calculated that half a dozen percussion orchestras with electric amplifiers could not equal their volume. The Pygmies reproduced the sounds of nature, some as delicate as water rippling over stones or the leaping of gazelles; others deep as the tread of elephants, thunder, or galloping buffaloes. Still others were laments of love, war cries, or moans of pain. The music rose in intensity and beat, reaching a climax, then diminishing until it became a nearly inaudible sigh. The cycles were repeated, never identical, each magnificent, filled with grace and emotion, music only the best jazz players can produce.

At another signal from Kosongo, they brought in the Pygmy women, whom the foreigners had not seen until that moment. They were kept in pens at the entrance to the village. They were all young, dressed only in raffia skirts. They came forward slowly, dragging their feet, humbled, as the guards shouted orders to them and threatened them. When the musicians saw the women, they froze; the drums stopped abruptly and, for a few instants, only the echoes vibrated through the jungle.

The guards lifted their sticks and the women shrank, huddling together to protect themselves. Immediately the instruments began to sound with new vigor. Then before the helpless gaze of the visitors, a mute dialogue began between the women and musicians. As the men pounded the drums, expressing the whole scale of human emotions, from anger and pain to love and nostalgia, the women danced in a circle, swinging their raffia skirts, lifting their arms, pounding the ground with their bare feet, answering with their movements and song the anguished call of their companions. The spectacle was one of primitive and painful intensity. It was unbearable.

Nadia hid her face in her hands; Alexander held her tight because he was afraid that his friend would leap into the center of the square and try to put an end to that degrading dance. Kate came over to warn them not to make a false move, because it could be fatal. They only had to look at Kosongo to understand what she was saying: He seemed possessed. Still seated on the French chair that served as his throne, he was shaking to the rhythm of the drums as if jolted by an electric current. The trinkets on his robe and hat were chattering, his feet were keeping time with the drums, and his jerking arms set his gold bracelets jangling. Several members of his court, and even the drunken soldiers, began to dance, and after them, the rest of the villagers. Soon there was a pandemonium of people twisting and jumping around.

The collective dementia ceased as suddenly as it had begun. At a sign that only they perceived, the musicians stopped beating their drums, and the pathetic dance of their companions was cut short. As a group, the women retreated toward the pens. The moment the drums were silenced, Kosongo's erratic behavior ended; his subjects, too, returned to normal. Only the sweat running down his naked arms recalled the king's frenzy. It was then the foreigners noticed that ritual scars like those of the soldiers disfigured his arms, and that like them he wore strips of leopard skin tied around his biceps. His courtesans hastened to settle the heavy mantle around his shoulders and to straighten his hat, which had shifted to one side.

The Royal Mouth explained to the foreigners that if they did not leave soon they would be present during
ezenji
, the dance of the dead, which is performed at funerals and executions.
Ezenji
was also the name of the great spirit. As might be expected, this news did not meet with enthusiasm. Before anyone dared ask details, the same person told them, speaking for the king, that they would be escorted to their “chambers.”

Four men lifted the platform holding the royal chair-throne and bore Kosongo off toward his compound, followed by his wives carrying the two elephant tusks and corralling their children. The throne bearers had drunk so much that the heavy chair swayed dangerously.

Kate and her friends picked up their bundles and followed two Bantus equipped with torches, who went before them to light the path. They were led by a soldier with a leopard armband and a rifle. The effect of the palm wine and the frenzied dance had put the men in a good humor; they were laughing, joking, and slapping one another on the back. But their mood did not calm the foreigners because it was obvious that they were being treated like prisoners.

The so-called chambers turned out to be a rectangular, straw-roofed, mud building located at the far end of the village, at the very edge of the jungle. Two holes in the walls served as windows, and the entrance was a larger opening with no door. The men with the torches stepped inside to light the interior and, to the revulsion of those who were going to have to spend the night there, thousands of cockroaches scurried across the floor toward the corners.

“Cockroaches are the oldest creatures in the world; they've existed for more than three hundred million years,” said Alexander.

“That doesn't make them any more agreeable,” Angie pointed out.

“Cockroaches are harmless,” Alexander added, although he wasn't sure whether that was true.

“So what about snakes?” Joel asked.

“Pythons don't attack in the dark,” joked Kate.

“What is that awful smell?” Alexander asked.

“It could be rat urine or bat excrement,” Brother Fernando clarified in a conversational tone; he had run into similar situations in Rwanda.

Alexander laughed. “It's always a treat to travel with you, Grandmother.”

“Don't call me Grandmother! If you don't like the accommodations, go to the Sheraton.”

“I'm dying for a smoke!” moaned Angie.

“This is your chance to give it up,” Kate replied, without much conviction, because she was badly missing her old pipe.

One of the Bantus lighted other torches placed around the walls, and the soldier ordered them not to come out until morning. If they had any doubts about his words, the threatening gesture with his weapon dissipated that.

Brother Fernando wanted to know if there was a latrine nearby, and the soldier laughed; he found the idea amusing. When the missionary insisted, the tall African lost patience and pushed him with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the ground. Kate, who was used to commanding respect, intervened decisively by stepping in front of the aggressor and, before he could give her the same treatment, placing a can of peaches in his hand. The man took the bribe and left. After a few minutes, he returned with a plastic pail and handed it to Kate with no further explanation. That battered receptacle would function as indoor plumbing.

“What do those leopard skin ties and scars on their arms represent?” Alexander queried. “All the soldiers have them.”

“Too bad we can't get in touch with Leblanc; I'm sure he could give us an explanation,” said Kate.

“I think it means that those men belong to the Brotherhood of the Leopard,” Angie told them. “That's a secret society that exists in several African countries. They recruit their members while they're teenagers and mark them with those scars so they can be recognized anywhere. They're mercenaries; they fight and die for money. Its members have a reputation for brutality. They take an oath that they will help one another all through their lifetimes and kill their mutual enemies. They don't have families, or ties of any
kind, except for their brothers in the society.”

“Negative solidarity,” Brother Fernando amplified. “To them it means that anything any one of them does is justified, no matter how horrible. That's the opposite of positive solidarity. In that people join together to build and plant and provide food and protect the weak . . . all to better their conditions. Negative solidarity is a brotherhood of bullies, and of war and violence and crime.”

“I see that we've fallen into very good hands,” said Kate, who was exhausted.

The group prepared to spend a bad night, watched from the door by two Bantu guards armed with machetes. The soldier left. As soon as they tried to get comfortable on the ground, using their packs as pillows, the cockroaches returned and crawled all over them. They resigned themselves to little feet probing into their ears, scrabbling across their eyelids, and poking beneath their clothing. Angie and Nadia tied kerchiefs around their heads to prevent the insects from nesting in their long hair.