The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

Mike believes that someone is planning to kidnap the gorillas. In his head he can see them being led out of their enclosure by masked men into the back of a yellow van. Sometimes the van is blue. He wakes up in the night sweating.
He has told his mother about it. She is a therapist and when he is talking he feels she is thinking about him as if he is on her hourly rate.
“You should never have got that job in the zoo,” she tells him finally, exasperated.
“Is that your only advice?” says Mike.
His mother looks at him sharply. “Well, what do you want me to say?”
Mike shrugs. “I don’t know. What is the best way to deal with a kidnapper? Where to buy a gun? How to fit an alarm to a gorilla cage? That kind of thing.”

As a child Mike would never let their dog off the lead. When he got back from their walks and his mother would ask if, Charlie, the dog had had a good run Mike would say yes. But really he had sat by the river, his arm around Charlie, the lead gripped tightly in his hand.
He would tell Charlie all his secret things. How he loved digestive biscuits more than chocolate ones but said the opposite in case he seemed boring. How he and his best friend James would play with each other’s ears, carefully running a finger around and around and around. That his favourite programme was One Man and His Dog and that he kept a secret diary in which he would record how many sheep each dog had managed to pen each week.
He liked it when the sheep were finally in the pens. Up until that point he would be in a state of high tension. What if one of the sheep got lost? Or fell off the edge of a cliff, tumbling down to the rocks below? He could clearly see the sheep’s face in the last instant as it clung desperately onto the cliff edge.
He would tell Charlie how he liked sitting with him by the side of the river. That he liked the dampness seeping through his jeans and then through to the underpants below.
He would tell Charlie that sometimes he would stand on the doorstep and be afraid to go out.
Think of all the things that could happen.

Mike decides that it can’t hurt to go and check on the gorillas. It is two o’clock in the morning. He has been awake for over an hour and he has just seen the kidnappers. This time they have a yellow van and the gorillas are bound and gagged. He gets out of bed and pulls on some clothes. Before he leaves he looks in on both the ants and James.
The ants are in the living room. Mike designed their habitat himself. He bought a special mouldable see-through gel and spent two weeks designing the structure before he introduced the first ant. He based the design on a nineteenth century panoptic prison. From a central point it is possible to see into every walkway and cavern. The ants seem to like it, at least, they are thriving. Mike lifts the clear perspex lid and drops in some food and then goes to James’s room.
James has tossed aside the covers and is lying naked face-down on the bed. Just out of reach of his left hand is his Sony PSP. It is still on and little cars race around and around. Mike leaves it knowing that James finds the sound comforting.
Mike knows James’s three favourite things are. 1. Sitting on the sofa naked clipping his toenails. 2. Listening to From Our Own Correspondent on the waterproof radio while taking a shower. 3. Finding new pictures of the Eiffel Tower on the internet which he can print off and paste onto the wall of his bedroom.
James’s favourite picture of the Eiffel Tower is a still from the film A Bout De Souffle with Jean Seberg in the foreground and Jean-Paul Belmondo leering menacingly from the side of a car.
Mike pulls the door to, goes out to his car and sets off to the zoo.

Mike stops by the zookeepers common room first and makes himself a cup of tea. Each member of staff has their own mug. His is a Lord of the Rings one. He is not keen on the film but got it in last year’s Secret Santa. Other members of staff got willies on ropes, books of rude jokes, see-through underwear. Mike wishes he had got a willie on a rope. Not for the willie, more for the rope. He likes things on ropes.
He takes the steaming mug and heads towards the gorilla enclosure. As he nears it, his heart starts to beat fast. What if they are already gone? What if while he was making a cup of tea the gorillas were being ferried away?
As he stops outside the bars he panics. The gorillas are gone. But then seconds later he spies them. All four are curled up in a heap under one of the trees. They are breathing gently and seem to be at peace.
“Lucky I got here,” says Mike and blows on his tea. Then he takes a sip. Then he watches.
The zoo is quiet at night. It is far enough away from the road so there is no sound of traffic. There are no tvs on late at night in the zoo, no music blaring out. Mike closes his eyes. He can smell animal dung, hear the sound the wind makes as it passes through the branches of trees.
He imagines this is what it would be like in Africa, only warmer there. He can see him and James setting up a large blue igloo-type tent on the coast of Sierra Leone. He can see James sitting naked on the Serengeti, peacefully clipping his toenails under the umbrella-shaped canopy of a tall thin tree. He is not sure if imagining this is actually the same as wanting it.
At six o’clock he decides to make a tour of the zoo. Animals are starting to wake up. One of the elephants uses its trunk to toss sand over its back. The hippo yawns like a bored teenager. The snakes twist and twist and twist.
Mike doesn’t worry about any of these other animals like he does the gorillas. The elephants look like they can look after themselves. Nobody can make a hippo do what it doesn’t want to do. And who would want to kidnap a snake? But the gorillas, they are our closest living animal relative. Their DNA is 97 to 98 per cent the same as humans. Mike believes it is nearer to 98.
Sometimes the gorillas look at him like they have something important to tell. Mike thinks they know how to make him stop worrying about everything and he doesn’t want them to go before they have chance to explain.
As he approaches the gorilla enclosure he sees a figure standing by the side of it.
“This is it,” thinks Mike. “They are here.” Then, “What shall I do?”
He is still holding the Lord of the Rings mug. As a weapon, he doubts its efficacy. On the other hand, surprise is on his side. He steps up his pace and raises the mug over his head. As he is about to strike the figure turns around. Mike sees it is his boss, Darren.
“Ah good, you got my message then,” says Darren.
“What message?” says Mike.
“About the early morning meeting. We have an important new arrival.”
Darren starts to head towards the common room and then looks back over his shoulder.
“One question Mike? Were you going to hit me with that mug?”
Mike shakes his head. “No I wasn’t.”

The common room is full of zookeepers. Some are sitting and others are standing near to the back wall. All are wearing the same tight black uniform with bright silver buttons. At the front is Darren, and next to him is a woman Mike hasn’t seen before. She is thin and beautiful. Her face is deeply tanned and at the corner of each eye are banks of little tiny lines. The woman looks like she has been staring at the sun for longs periods of time.
“This is Donna Weis,” says Darren, holding his hands together. “She comes to us via Princeton, Harvard, the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Donna...”
Donna takes a step forward and smiles. “Thank you all for coming to meet me this morning. At this stage I want to keep it informal, say hi. Darren thought it was a good idea for you to see my face. So if you do see me in one of the animal enclosures you won’t think me an intruder and shoot me.” Donna pauses here as if expecting a laugh. She doesn’t get one. “And I also just wanted also to say how excited I am. I’ve done some preliminary enquiries and it’s safe to say we’ve got big plans. Plans for both the zoo and especially the gorillas.”
Mike’s head snaps up at the mention of the gorillas but now Darren has stepped forward and is going through the routine zoo business. One of the marmosets has flu, Tokyo National Zoo has requested three eagle eggs, there have been warnings of unspecified activist activity.
At the end of the meeting Mike arrows himself towards Donna. He wants to ask her what she meant about the gorillas but before he can say anything she speaks first.
“I saw you this morning.”
“What?”
“Looking at the gorillas. Four o’clock. I was there as well. They are beautiful, aren’t they?”
Mike nods his head and Donna puts a hand on his arm.
“Look, I’m new to this place. How about you take me out for a drink this evening? We can talk gorillas.”
In his pocket Mike feels his mobile vibrating and he pulls it out. From the picture displayed he can see it’s James. James never calls him this early.
“I’ve got to get this,” says Mike to Donna.
Donna smiles. “So that’s a yes then?”
Pushed into a corner Mike nods at the same time as he presses the answer button. “James,” he says, “what’s happened?”
The voice on the end is echoey, ephemeral. “Mike, you better come home.”
“What’s happened?” says Mike. There is panic in his voice.
“It’s the ants,” says James. “They’ve escaped.”

When Mike gets home James is standing naked in the centre of the living-room.
“I came in and they were everywhere,” he says.
Mike looks over to the ant farm. The perspex lid is off and a single trail of ants leads down the side of the habitat, down the table leg, then towards the kitchen.
“Looks like they are making a break for it,” says James. “I didn’t know what to do so I called you.”
Luckily, Mike has an ant-escape contingency plan. He gets the cardboard scoops he has premade from his bedroom and shows James how to use one, first getting him to practise on some AngelDelight. He doesn’t want any unnecessary casualties.
It takes about half an hour to get all the ants back in the habitat. Mike fixes the perspex lid back in place. He remembers feeding them in the early hours of the morning and he thought he had put the lid back. But he was so worried about the gorillas, perhaps he made a mistake. Things have been hectic recently.
Before heading back offf to work Mike goes into the kitchen to say goodbye to James. James is sitting at the kitchen table. He has put the ant-scoop on his head and is wearing it as a hat.
“It’s pretty neat,” he says. He looks towards the habitat. “I think we got them all. They probably just wanted a holiday.” He laughs in that way of his. “When you finish work this evening will you help me put up a picture of the Eiffel Tower? It’s a pretty big one.”
“I’m going out after work tonight,” says Mike. “With this new woman.”
James takes the ant-scoop off his head. “Is it a date?”
“It’s about the gorillas,” says Mike.

When Mike gets back to the zoo all hell seems to have broken out. Darren runs up to him as he is getting out of the car.
“We’ve got some naked people loose.”
For a moment Mike thinks of James. He was naked. But he was at home and he couldn’t have got to the zoo. Besides, he is just one person, not people.
“They’re naturists, or animal rights campaigners or something,” says Darren. “They’re down by the meerkat playground.”
Mike sees the bank of zookeepers first. There are five or six of them in a line and each one is holding one of the water-cannons they use to clean the elephants. As he nears he hears the gush of water which is followed shortly after by a high-pitched yelp.
“We’re trying to herd them towards the giraffe enclosure,” says Kevin, one of the zookeepers. “We reckon if we can get them in there, shut the gate, everything will be sorted. Take this.”
Kevin passes Mike one of the water-cannons.
“What about the giraffes?” says Mike.
“They’re in with the buffaloes. Watch out!”
Mike looks. One of the naked men is breaking from the group. He is holding his placard as a shield. On it is written, ‘Let’s get back from Iraq’ in large red letters.
“You go for the left ankle and I’ll go for the right,” says Mike.
“Good plan,” says Kevin and they both fire together. The man staggers once and then is down, the placard sliding before him on a plume of water.
This incident seems to break the the spirit of the naked people, or perhaps their objective has been gained, and they let themselves be meekly led towards the giraffe cage. Darren locks the door and puts the key in his pocket.
“It’s illegal to lock up humans,” says one of the females, gripping onto the bars with both hands.
“I’ve called the police,” says Darren. “They’ll tell you what’s legal or not.”
Darren says he is sloping off for a fag behind the koala shed and he asks Mike if he will keep guard.
“We are going to let them out?” Mike asks.
“They’re not a new exhibit if that’s what you mean,” says Darren and stomps off.
Mike is perturbed by the sight of the naked people in the cage. He can’t put his finger on what it is but thinks it is something to do with James. James is always naked.
Mike feels a tug on his arm. He looks down and there is a little girl standing there, looking up at him.
“Those animals,” she says pointing, “what are they?”

“You look tired.”
Mike takes a sip of his pint. He is in the pub with Donna Weis. They are sitting at a table by themselves. Above them on the wall is the picture of a large donkey. It is a theme pub. In the grate, a fire roars.
“It’s been a long day,” says Mike. “First the gorillas, then the ants, then the people.”
Donna raises an eyebrow. “The ants?”
Mike holds a hand up to indicate it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know what he is doing here.
“I’ll come clean with you straight away,” says Donna. “I haven’t come via Princeton, Harvard, the Bwindi Impenetrable forest. I’m with the CIA.”
Over Donna’s shoulder Mike sees two men dressed as clowns enter the bar. Between them they have a large St Bernard dog. The barman points at the dog and says it is not allowed. No pets. The two clowns about-face and head back out, looking sad.
“Why are you telling me this?” says Mike.
“Do you recognise these?” Donna has reached into her large handbag. She takes out four similar-sized photographs. Each photograph is of a gorilla.
“They’re gorillas,” says Mike.
“But not your gorillas,” says Donna.
“What?” says Mike.
“On August 18th last year these four gorillas set out from Edinburgh’s City Zoo. Their home was to be the new gorilla enclosure at your zoo.” Donna holds up her hand as if she knows Mike is going to interrupt. “The gorillas that set out were not the gorillas that arrived. They were switched.”
Donna reaches into her bag again. She takes out a map which she unfolds and unfolds. There is a lot of green on it but in the centre of all this green is clearly marked in biro, a small red circle.
“Do you know the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest?”
Mike takes a long drink of his pint. “Not really, no.”
Donna taps the map. “It’s in Uganda. It’s a sanctuary. No one goes in. No one goes out. More importantly, no animals. Gorillas from there have been turning up in zoos all around the world and it’s always the same MO. Gorillas of known clear origins are swapped en route as they move from place to place. Zoos are none the wiser. Gorilla colonies are being depleted.”
“I don’t understand,” says Mike.
“It is not difficult,” says Donna. “It is like money laundering, only this is gorilla laundering.”
Mike nods. He understands perhaps. “But what has this got to do with the CIA?”
Donna leans over the top of the table. “America needs our African friends. What with all this trouble in the Middle East, nowadays more than ever. For the Africans we are returning the gorillas home.”
“But I still don’t see why you are telling me this?” says Mike.
Donna laughs. “Gorillas are like humans. They travel well with friends. We want you to go with them.”
“As a kind of escort?” says Mike. “To Uganda?”
“That’s right,” says Donna. “To Uganda.”

It has started to rain. The drops are thick and vicious. As he drives Mike thinks of his dreams, the ones in which the gorillas are kidnapped. It wasn’t that it was going to happen. It already had.
He had told Donna this.
“Have you had these kind of thoughts or dreams about other things?” she asked.
“Are you asking me in a professional capacity?”
Donna smiled at this and the wrinkles at the side of her eyes smiled too. “We are the CIA. We have other ways of gathering information. I’m just curious.”
Mike didn’t know where to start. In his head catastrophes had always been about to happen. Between the ages of six and seven he wouldn’t step on cracks in the pavement in case tsunamis hit the eastern seaboard. At fifteen he would only change his underpants once a month. This was to do with global warming. He believed that seeing three cows in a field would mean a distant relative would die. More than anything, he worried that if he coughed eight times in an hour James’s illness would get worse.
“And what is James’s illness?” asked Donna.
“He’s allergic to fabrics,” said Mike. “Man-made and natural. If he wears clothes for more than five minutes he comes out in boils.”
“Yikes,” said Donna. “That must hurt.”
Mike pulls the car into the parking slot in front of the flat. The lights are still on which means James is awake. He lets himself in and is surprised to hear voices. He goes into the lounge and James is there, sitting cross-legged and naked on the sofa. Opposite him, on the other sofa, are three men. Each has a weather-beaten face with a cigarette clamped in the left-hand side of the lips.
“Hello,” says Mike.
“Hello,” says James. He is holding up a picture. It is the Eiffel Tower. On it are some markings in pen. “So,” he says to the three men, “you reckon if we cut here and here and here then it will work.”
Two of the men nod their heads. The third takes the cigarette from out of his mouth. “Definitely.”
“What’s going on?” Mike asks.
“I’m going to steal the Eiffel Tower,” says James.
“What?” says Mike.
“Not the whole thing. Just this bit.” James points to an area on the picture he is holding. “These guys used to work on the oil rigs. The Petronius Platform in the Gulf of Mexico is over 610 metres tall. Compared to that, at 324 metres, the Eiffel Tower is tiny. It’s a drop in the ocean, isn’t that right?”
This time all three guys nod. Smoke from their cigarettes ascends to the ceiling and collects there in a cloud.
“I want to be able to scale its upmost peaks on a daily basis,” says James. “If it’s here in this room then I can. You do understand, don’t you?”
Mike looks at the three men. They appear dangerous in themselves. And Mike figures that if someone tries to steal the Eiffel Tower the French aren’t going to let it go quietly. The air force will probably get involved.
In his head he can see James clinging to the top of the tower. A jet roars towards him. Its rockets are primed.
“I have to go and check on the gorillas,” he says.
“But you just got in,” says James.
“I’ll be back.”

The gorillas are fine. Mike knew they would be. He only wanted to get out and have some time to think.
“What would you do?” he says in their general direction.
One of them puts its head on one side and grunts quietly. It walks over on its knuckles to where Mike is standing and stretches an arm out towards him. Mike stretches out his own hand and they touch fingers. The gorilla’s finger is leathery, the nail yellow. It feels like it should be fake and yet it’s not and that is its beauty. Like all of nature, that all of these wonderful things could exist.
Mike takes a walk around the zoo. The giraffes are back in their own home. One is picking at the branch of the tree two of the naked men climbed earlier. He wonders if it can smell humans. He wouldn’t be surprised. Animals have amazing senses. He read somewhere that sharks can smell blood at twelve kilometres. Not that giraffes are particularly like sharks but they are of the same world.
At the hippos Mike stops. They always make him smile. They are just funny, their heads are so big and their bodies so round. He understands about James wanting the Eiffel Tower close. He would like a hippo in his own bedroom and then when he was sad he would go and hug it. On a Sunday morning he would feed it leaves from the end of a long branch while he lay luxuriously in bed. We all have our own desires.
When he gets back to the gorillas he takes out his mobile number and pushes in the number he was given.
“Well,” says Donna almost immediately. It is like she has been waiting.
“I’ll do it,” says Mike, “but I think they’ll need to be sedated first.”

The helicopter skims the treetops. Mike has a helmet on his head and is wearing green combat fatigues. To his left are a number of large wooden crates and to is right is Donna. Donna has a map in one hand and a compass in the other. At a certain point she looks up.
“THIS IS THE START OF IT,” she shouts. She points downwards with one finger. “THE BWINDI IMPENETRABLE FOREST.”
Mike looks down. Either the trees are very high or the helicopter is very low. The most likely scenario he decides is that it is a bit of both.
The canopy is thick, luscious, verdant. The smell is like that of a continental breakfast; pomegranates, oranges, kiwis sliced into segments. The suns burns, there is a fine mist, the horizon shimmers.
“IN CASE I DON’T GET A CHANCE LATER,” shouts Donna, “I WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU. YOU’VE DONE A GOOD THING FOR THE GORILLAS, A GOOD THING FOR THE FREE WORLD.”
Mike suddenly panics. This is for the tenth time. “MY TOOLS?”
“ALL PACKED,” shouts Donna. “I THINK THIS IS IT.”
There is a clearing in the canopy and the helicopter is banking to the left, the right. Leaves fly and dust scatters as the helicopter descends. The grass bends like in a mini hurricane and there is a thump as the helicopter settles.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” says Mike.
He exits the cabin just in time, is sick, then watches as the crates are unloaded. The soldiers handle them like babies. He takes the map out of his pocket, unfolds it. Donna has circled where he’ll be living. “You’ll be like the new Dian Fossey,” she had said. “At one with the gorillas.” Then she had given him a book, How to Live in the Jungle and Come Out Smiling.
“It’s a CIA handbook,” she said. “Read it.”
Mike has it in his back pocket now. He knows how to skin a snake, create a water trap. He knows how to make a shelter from the bark of a tree.
Diana comes up to him and holds out a hand.
“So this is it, we’re off.”
For a moment Mike wants to put his arms around her and hold her and not let go but he steps back and watches as the helicopter lifts off. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it is only as big as a fly and then it might be a fly and is gone.
Mike sets to work straight away. The crates come apart easily. The gorillas lie there, at peace. At home. Mike unpacks other crates, spreads out his tools. He sets up the saw bench and he begins to saw, hammer, construct. The sweat slides off him. He thinks if he keeps busy then all this won’t seem so strange.
At nightfall some figures appear from the bush. Mike is not surprised. He was told of the forest rangers. They are tall and angular and wear their clothes in the same way coat-hangers do.
They stand back and poke each other in the ribs and smile at his construction. They leave food, they sit awhile, and then they are gone.
At some point in the night Mike is awoken by the sound of the gorillas stirring. He sits up. The only light is that of the moon. He watches as they rise confused, how they stand tentatively, how gradually their confidence grows and they make off.
He is not afraid. He is not worried about them. This is a new feeling, separate from anything he has felt before. He says to himself, “I am in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest”. He says to himself, “I am safe.”
The following day he works again; sawing, cutting, hammering. The structure gets higher and higher. And then the day after that and it is finished.
Mike goes to the final crate. This one he hasn’t yet dismantled. Carefully he pulls it apart, using the wrong end of the hammer, until all there is is a base and a bed of straw.
In the end it was Donna who had given him the phial.
“It was developed by the CIA,” she said. “Miles better than the regular stuff. It will last for four or five days.”
On the bed of straw is James. He is naked and breathing gently, his stomach going in and out. Mike kneels next to him and runs his finger around James’ ear, remembering times past. After five minutes of this James wakes up. He sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes.
“What?” he says. Then, “Mike?”. Then, “Where am I?”
Then he sees the structure. His face breaks into a look of wonder.
“You did it,” he says. “The Eiffel Tower.”
“Well,” says Mike and shrugs.
Slowly James gets up and both he and Mike walk over to the construction. It has four large feet, it tapers up to a point.
“It’s made of wood,” says Mike. “It’s forty feet high. I’ve got paint. It’s grey. We can do it together.”
“Can we go up it?” says James.
Mike nods and James goes first and Mike follows, the struts of the inbuilt ladder smooth under their palms.
At the top, the forest floor is below them, they are on a level with the trees at the edge of the clearing. The breeze is lucid, smells abound.
“It’s fantastic,” says James. “My own Eiffel Tower.”
“Fantastic,” says Mike and then in the shade of the trees he spies them, the gorillas. One of them seems to be looking at them. It stands up, nods its head and disappears into the foliage. The others follow close behind and are gone.