Drums Along the Congo Page 17

  The jungle is a triple-tiered world sustained by abundant rainfall and relatively constant temperature. Far above me, almost two hundred feet overhead, is the luminous upper canopy, formed by huge trees with immense flattened crowns. Although the canopy appears seamless from the ground, each crown is actually circled by a meter-wide halo of air. Birds use these gaps as doorways to the sky; botanists believe they are a defensive mechanism that prevents flightless insects on one tree from infesting a neighbor.

  The major branches of these giant trees, usually four or five in number, are draped with hundreds of multicolored vines, some wide and others narrow, like a great tie rack. These are epiphytes, which have no roots on the ground. They live off the debris that accumulates in the canopy, and many of them draw moisture from the air through the spongy outer covering, or velamen, of their aerial roots. While most vines grow straight down, others spiral, curl, and arc up and down in an endless variety of rococo patterns. The ones that need the most light, especially orchids and aroids, prosper in the high forks and crooks.

  Rain forest trees blossom at all times of the year, and not all flower annually. The energy involved in producing pollen, millions of seeds, and thousands of fruits (a mass of new growth often weighing more than a ton) can exhaust one of these giants; depending on soil conditions, it may take two or three years to replenish the nutrients needed to blossom.

  Parrots, coucals, bulbuls, barbets, warblers, babblers, sunbirds, flycatchers, finches, and several hundred more species of birds build their nests and patrol for food in the canopy. Because of the huge diversity and sheer number of trees, there are always fruits and insects to eat. Raptors cruise above the canopy in search of prey; some eagles feed on monkeys twice their size.

  Monkeys, more than twenty species of them, including mangabeys, guenons, monas, Dianas, patas, and thumbless colobuses, share the upper canopy with birds, snakes, frogs, and countless insects. The monkeys usually move through the canopy in troops, returning to one dormitory tree night after night until they’ve picked an area clean. Various prosimians, wet-nosed cousins of the monkey, also live up there. Mainly nocturnal, they have the best night vision of any animals in the jungle, thanks to a crystalline disk behind the retina that reflects light back onto the lens. Although they’re never credited in patent applications, prosimian eyes are the models for modern telescopes and night scopes.

  The second tier of the rain forest, the middle canopy, is a world of oval-crowned trees, fifty to a hundred feet high, that sop up what sunlight manages to filter down. Many of these trees are future giants biding their time until age or disease fells an elder overhead. Once they gain access to direct sunlight and have room for root expansion, they supercharge and spurt skyward. How long a tree will have to wait, or even how old it might be, is difficult to tell in the tropics. Since the forest is seasonless, there are no annual sap surges and consequently no rings to count. Laboratory tests suggest that the lifespan of a baobab exceeds 4,500 years, and botanists suspect that some other species outlive them. Right now, though, no one is even sure how many different kinds of trees grow in the rain forest; estimates vary between 2,500 and 4,000.

  The middle-canopy trees are also host to a boggling array of epiphytes. To my left is a mammee apple tree, its trunk barely visible behind the curtain of vines hanging from its branches. I slash at a few of the aerial roots. One vine in the Apocynaceae family starts dripping a white latex, and I collect a few drops of the natural rubber for my collection. A neighboring vine yields several cups of crystal-clear water, but I double-check my field guide to make sure it’s in the Buettneria family before taking a sip. Another vine oozes a clear liquid that drips on some leaf-cutting ants. Within seconds, the ants drop their burdens, race wildly about, and die.

  As we amble northward, I keep noticing clumps of leaves in the branches of the middle canopy; more than likely they’re nests belonging to one of the many medium-sized mammals, such as chimps, leopards, and swamp cats, that sleep or roam in this tier. The middle forest is also the favorite haunt of pythons and mambas and of what sound like the loudest frogs in the world, including one species with a call not unlike someone sitting on a whoopee cushion. Lord Derby squirrels live here as well. They’re the best fliers among mammals, equipped with a gliding membrane that acts as a sail, allowing them to soar more than a hundred yards through the air.

  The third tier, the shrub layer, where I stand unable to see the sun, is carpeted in fallen debris. The trees here are rarely taller than fifteen feet and have spindly trunks with few leaves. They, too, are waiting their chance to move up, ready to fill any vacated niche in the middle canopy. But the majority of plants in the shrub layer are herbaceous, with varieties of ginger, arum, and arrowroot predominating. Many of their leaves are tinted a faint yellow, purple, or red, from excessive carotene and xanthophyll, which the plants produce to better utilize the available light.

  Among the large animals that inhabit the ground level are lowland gorillas, jungle elephants, and hippopotamuses; smaller residents are rats, rabbits, pangolins, porcupines, mongooses, snails, tortoises, and of course insects. A day’s march from here, we will enter an area dotted by tiny lakes, pools, and swamps—the home ground of bushbucks, sitatungas, and bongos, large ungulates the size of cattle, with long, twisted horns. Fleet-footed and with a mean kick, they fear only humans and leopards. If we’re lucky, we might spot an okapi, which, like Mokele-Mbembe, was considered a creature of the imagination until one was caught in the early 1900s. Descended from the giraffe, the okapi has striped legs that hoist it almost seven feet in the air.

  On the ground grow many saprophytes, the most obvious of which are mushrooms and other fungi. Unable to produce their own food, as green plants do, saprophytes derive nourishment from decaying matter and come in an array of outrageous colors: livid reds, poison yellows, and violets. Stinkhoms, also known as “dead man’s fingers,” pop up here and there along the trail. Phallus-shaped, with blood-colored splotches, stink-horns smell like feces, a perfume to the flies that the plant relies on to disperse its spores.

  “Whirr-woo-wuuu,” Raymond calls. “Whirr-woo-wuuu.”

  He’s standing next to a mahogany tree with his spear pointed at a hole under a buttress. Following his instructions, I clear away the leaves and gently probe the shallow burrow with a stick. Feeling something, I fall to one knee to scoop out more debris. Two bright orange eyes stare out at me. Further enlarging the hole, I get a clear look at a long-nosed mongoose, baring its teeth and snarling. My friendly cooing sound makes it snip at my fingers. I reel backward, bumping into Raymond as the mongoose flies out of the hole and darts up a nearby tree, its tail high in the air. Raymond regains his balance and goes in hot pursuit, but he’s no match for the swift climbing creature.

  “Next time,” Raymond announces, narrowing his eyes, “you stay away and Innocent helps me.”

  An hour later we see smoke from the campfire and come upon Theo fanning a few hot coals with a blowpipe fashioned from a hollow liana. He says that Ange and Gabriel are off hunting monkey. Raymond grabs a chocolate bar from my hands and heads out after his friends, calling, “Whirr-woo-wuuu … whirr-woo-wuuu.” Moments later we hear a shrill reply as he disappears into the forest.

  “Where’s that monkey meat you promised?” Innocent asks Theo.

  “I can’t even get the fire started. Everything’s wet, wet.”

  “What about the others?”

  “No gunshots … I don’t think they caught anything. We may have to eat moon food,” Theo says, returning to the blowpipe.

  He’s referring to the freeze-dried dinners I’ve brought along, similar to the ones astronauts dine on. We also have plenty of manioc, dried fruit, chocolate bars, a few pounds of lentils, and a bag of rice that we’ve agreed to use only in emergencies. Back in Boha, Ange convinced me to leave behind all the tinned food I bought in Epena. The cans were too heavy to lug, he said, and besides, “the best hunters come from Boha, so there will be food on
the fire every night.”

  Innocent goes off to fill the water jugs while I busy myself clearing the ground and gathering fronds from tree ferns to sleep on. The campsite looks as if it has been recently used; the British team must have spent a night here. Someone has built a lean-to and a platform to keep bags off the ground, away from the jungle floor, home to the world champions of decomposition.

  Innocent returns lugging five gallons of muddy water, and we begin to filter it with a pricey water purification device I bought at the Outdoor Boutique in New York. The product brochure guaranteed that it “will purify 200 gallons of dangerous, filthy water… Wherever you go, your family will have safe water to drink. No more worries.” It yields a mere two quarts before one of the seals pops, and its filters are clogged beyond repair. Innocent and I revert to a simpler method, straining the water through a handkerchief. Larvae, worms, tadpoles, spiders, and other dreck quickly fill the cloth in a writhing mass. We add some chlorine to the water, let it sit for a while, and take a tentative sip. It tastes awful, but it will have to do.

  Meanwhile Theo has managed to coax the fire alive, and a steady column of smoke is rising into the air. The three of us are exhausted, but our mood soon shifts, tensing as darkness falls. We blow our whistles, signaling to the men from Boha, but the only reply is from a tree hyrax that grunts, groans, and eventually screams. Theo keeps blowing his whistle, wondering aloud if we’ve been abandoned. “They’ve tricked us … left us to die.”

  The tree hyrax cranks up another of its eerie calls and is soon joined by a neighbor. Out of time with each other, the two hyraxes cry out, ascending the scale in quarter-notes until they start screaming again. They rest several seconds before starting over. Theo wants to shoot them. “They’re giving me the creeps,” he says, grabbing his rifle. Sure that he won’t find a target, I wish him luck. Hyraxes, or dassies as they’re sometimes called, are the only hoofed animals known to climb trees. Being small, about the size of a rabbit, with black fur, they will be impossible to spot at night.

  Theo returns within minutes. He no longer cares about the hyraxes. “Forget them,” he says. “It’s too spooky out there. Evil spirits are around… Stand away from the fire and you can hear them.”

  Rustling sounds come from all directions, and tens of millions of insects and other creatures are croaking and trilling. A few thump and bark, and one animal sounds just like a cow burping.

  Innocent tells Theo to relax. “As long as we don’t hear the molimbo, we’re all right.”

  Years ago, when a village dispute threatened to disrupt community life, the elders would meet to resolve the situation. If they agreed on a culprit, they’d call together all the males of the village. While the men talked, one person appointed by the elders would hide in the jungle and commence the accusatory molimbo, an ancient sequence of preternatural sounds.

  “The caller was supposed to make the most frightening noises possible,” Innocent explains. The bizarre sounds were directed at the accused and wouldn’t stop until that person accepted the judgment of the elders. “It could go on for days.”

  Branches crunch to our left. Theo spins around, one hand on his juju bag, the other on his pistol.

  “Miss us?” Gabriel bounds into the light of the campfire.

  “Look!” says Raymond, holding out one of the Ziploc baggies I brought along for plant specimens.

  I shine the flashlight on a bagful of grubs. “Dinner?” I ask.

  “Dessert,” Ange answers. “Delicious.”

  Theo, his old self now that the others have returned, rifles through our supplies and pulls out six freeze-dried entrées. The label on each one reads, “Just add one cup of boiling water… A feast in a pouch!”

  Theo puts the water on to boil, and Raymond fans the flames. Our campfire, a lone beacon in the dark night, attracts hundreds of moths, including one the size of a hummingbird. They fly kamikaze-like into the flames, their wings flaring up like tissue paper as they combust. In view for a mere second or two before carbonizing, they prove impossible to catch.

  My feast in a pouch is a meatloaf that tastes like sawdust floating in a sauce of Elmer’s glue. Innocent’s beef stroganoff smells remarkably like dog food. The men from Boha are too hungry to complain, but Theo gobbles up his chicken dish and licks the foil clean, murmuring, “Très bien.”

  Gabriel passes out slices of manioc, which has as much flavor as tofu and is as chewy as shoe leather, but I’m the only one who doesn’t seem to enjoy this staple of the Congo. Ange thrusts a hand into the bagful of grubs, elbows me, and points to my notebook.

  “You should write this recipe down… Never wash the grubs. The dirt adds to the flavor… Make sure the pan is real hot.” He holds the skillet over the fire, waits several seconds, and spits into the pan. When his saliva skitters across it, he smiles. “Pour in a little water or coconut oil, and add the grubs. Stir and sprinkle a little of this.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out an old aspirin bottle filled with brown powder. “Don’t use much of this, just a pinch or two… Keep stirring until the water is gone. Voilà!”

  “What did you add?” I ask.

  “That’s a secret.”

  Ange serves us each a scoop of grubs on an arum leaf. Gabriel spreads his portion on some manioc, while Raymond simply sucks them up from the leaf. The grubs have a crisp outer shell and a soft, gooey interior with a slightly bitter taste. I bequeath my share of seconds to the others.

  Innocent and Theo help me set up the tent, a two-person affair that will have to accommodate three on this expedition. When I practiced erecting the tent in my apartment in New York, it never took longer than five minutes. Tonight, however, after nearly recreating a lost episode of “The Three Stooges,” we secure it only after a half-hour of bumbling and head-knocking. Next time we’ll pitch it while there’s still light. Climbing inside, I promptly rip the tent’s bottom, but at least I discover where I left my knife.

  Gabriel walks around our new home, shaking his head as he touches the nylon. “No good for storms,” he critiques, swearing that he’d never sleep inside such a flimsy thing.

  “Too small for me,” Raymond says, stretching his arms and spreading his legs. “This is how I sleep.”

  I wanted to buy a hammock for this trip, like the one that had served me well in Central America, but I couldn’t find one suitable for backpacking in the jungle.

  “Only the ground is safe and comfortable,” Ange insists.

  “What about the bugs?”

  “Hah, only weak men cry.”

  “Drivers?” I ask, referring to the menacing ants. Termites are their usual prey, but they’ll attack anything and have been known to strip an elephant to the bone in less than a day.

  “Mundélés always complain. We don’t,” Ange says in a huff. Gabriel and Raymond grunt in agreement.

  Theo runs a flashlight over the interior of the tent. “Pardon,” he says, and grabs a field guide out of my hand. Seconds later loud thumping noises come from the tent. We inspect his work: five harmless leaf-cutting ants lie squished on the nylon.

  “Good book,” he says, returning Butterflies of Africa.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE TENT REEKS of three unwashed bodies, sweat-soaked clothing, and socks that have sprung mushrooms overnight. The insides of my forearms have been tattooed by skin borers, leaving thin red lines like a map of an interstate highway system, and wheals from insect bites dot my legs. The early morning air is as hot and sticky as a dog’s breath, and as I sit up, the tent fabric peels away from my skin with a sucking noise.

  On the other side of the mosquito netting our guides are sprawled on the ground. Raymond lies spread-eagled, his shirt over his shaven head, dewdrops beaded on his chest hair. Ange is partially buried under leaves stripped from the roof of the lean-to; his left hand clutches his juju bag.

  I step out into sapphire light filtering through the dense fog hanging in the forest canopy. As the sun rises, the mist gradually thins, and the bluish ligh
t turns into golden green. Dawn arrives and rousts the diurnal animals.

  “Who-wuuuuu,” a mona monkey calls from its perch three trees away. It bolts the moment I swing in its direction.

  I go on a short walk to collect plants and insects and return to find five grumpy men drinking bitter-tasting instant coffee. No one has slept well. Raymond developed a loud cough around midnight that kept animals away and us awake for hours. Theo says he dreamed of ants, which explains why he can’t stop scratching himself. Our supply of sugar melted during the night, its Ziploc seal left open after someone’s late-night snack. Everything else, including the ever-essential chocolate bars and cigarettes, is intact in triple-ply plastic bags.

  We plan an easy day of walking. The edge of the swamp abutting Lake Télé, where we’ll make camp, is less than five hours away. This will leave most of the afternoon for hunting, and Ange doesn’t want to waste a minute of it.

  “Today, one monkey for every one of my toes… Tokay.” He bounds to his feet, emptying his coffee cup on the fire. The steam rises into our faces.

  I ask Ange to wait a few minutes. There’s only one beetle left to catalogue from my morning stroll. Innocent translates his response, my first exposure to Lingala profanity. Raymond adjusts the dressing on his thigh wound, which I’ve been treating since before we left, and steps between me and Ange. Again he agrees to shepherd me and Innocent, and our expedition divides into two parties. Gabriel promises to leave conspicuous trail markers and, together with Ange and Theo, he jogs northward, leaving us to clean up camp and follow at our own pace.