DEBORAH SERRA

No Road Not Taken

The fog that separates the earth from the infinite has a consoling quality in the Virungas. It is a white palm held gently over the open mouth of the wild, subduing it, reminding the jungle to whisper as it tucks away its mysteries for the long night. It took three days of travel to arrive in the deep of it: five planes (San Diego, Los Angeles, Paris, Cairo, Nairobi, Goma), plastic chair layovers, cellophaned food, and finally Goma, Zaire. Then, in 1988 the Democratic Republic of the Congo was Zaire.

Finally, having touched down in Goma, what ensued was a jarring two-hour assault in a truck bed too noisy to even talk to myself. Along the dirt road, a local man with a bloody machete raised his arm high for the last strike, severing the parts of an unidentifiable hoofed mammal, as a couple of women quickly snatched up their warm portions from the soaked soil. Life, raw, life. Unloading from the truck bed, I was led on an arduous several mile hike straight up hill. It was distressing because I was weak from travel, hunger, and dehydration, but also because of the very urgent requirement to beat the sundown: dark in the Virunga Mountains was not like dark anywhere else: unknown and ancient beings, man-eating cats, and flying diseases own the night. Keep walking. Go. Go, because it was walk or lie down on the jungle floor, which was crawling. Here, where Uganda, Zaire and Rwanda meet, way up in the peaks of Central Africa, it is unimaginable that this is the same Earth that is home to London and San Diego. As different as London is from San Diego, it still feels like the same world. This is different.

I was barely inside the one-room cabin when the sun set with an engulfing finality. Unconsciousness came without consent as weariness pressed down on my limbs. Total involuntary human shut down: no matter that the rough bedding was damp; no matter that there were living things on the walls; no matter a fleeting thought — was that a thought? No matter. Eyes shut, breathing deep, and then oblivion, overpowered by my body, and by the hammer of exhaustion, I fell asleep, defenseless and at the whim of the night.

Before elite guides, before glamping, before tourists with sommeliers, organized viewing, and global travelers with rolling suitcases, the journey into Central Africa was perilous. Travelers go to New York, to Rio, to Sydney but into Central Africa – it’s an immersion. In 1988, President Mobutu Sese Sato was enriching himself with European castles, foreign bank accounts, hundreds of millions in cash, at dire cost to his people. Zaire was a land rife with diamonds, gold, minerals, a surfeit of natural resources, but poverty, hunger, disease, and violence were driven by desperation. Few people from the West entertained the idea of travel to such a distant sinister unknown. Once there, you were utterly on your own: should you venture into the dense green mouth, and it swallowed, there was no one to blame, and no one to search for you. Your body would not be returned to loved ones. One hundred years after Joseph Conrad’s steamboat sojourn to the heart not much had changed: no permit or visas required, no tour company brochures with toothy westerners in safari hats, and no locals by the roadside with handmade goods to sell. What was there?

Up and away, veiled in the impenetrable leafy peaks, there were gorillas, mountain gorillas, profoundly majestic apes in danger of complete annihilation from the most destructive predator our planet had ever produced: a killing machine mammal, who kills for food, for fun, for profit, for power, for ideology, for mythology, and who in consummate stupidity, fouls its own nest. Extinctions follow wherever it spreads. An examination of the consequences, as this predator spread out across the globe, suggested that time might be short for the mountain gorillas of Central Africa. The desire to be present-in-time with this ape cousin, to see them in situ, and to experience who they were, was a force powerful enough to propel me into the forbidding center of Africa.

Morning came damp and loud. The Virunga Mountains were resonant with calls, squawks, screeches, and last night, from the utter bottom of a stone well of exhaustion, barely recalled, was a low resonant more menacing growl.

Two thin Zairian guides in solid green fatigues emerged from out there — somewhere. They spoke Lingala and French. The French language was a holdover from the exploitive and murderous role played by Leopold the II, King of Belgium, in the Congo in the late 19 th century. The guides seemed leery and machetes were slung over their shoulders. “Suivez les gorilles”. I followed.

Woody arterial vines united the body of the wild, connecting every green thing to every other green thing, and included the guides who melted into the landscape like a drop in a lake. Giant flat leaves held the daylight in their palms above us. Smaller foliage pressed against the sides of my legs and whipped my torso as we moved. Each fine invisible hair that covers our bodies, unnoticed until now, dampened, and their unfamiliar weight reminded me that we were hairy once, apes once, apes still. Then, the humidity sank arthritically in-between my joints. Dry was a concept for another place. Everywhere there were footsteps, coming up from behind, coming towards the right, the left, in front, dull patters like the socked footfalls of a child running on a wooden floor– it was the leaves above, weighted by the daily deluge and weeping. Drip. Step. Drip. Step.

Guide One walked in front using his machete to chop a narrow path. Guide Two walked closely behind.

Mature male gorillas can be six feet tall and weigh nearly 400 pounds. Long hanging arms and powerful hands they can snap a 5” round tree trunk with a flick of the wrist. Besides their size, they are identified by the silver streak of hair down their backs. Should a family be located (usually composed of one silverback, and a couple of females with their offspring), and if the terrain is accessible for approach, one could get as close as the silverback allowed. We smell, of course, so he’d know we were coming. If the silverback continued to eat calmly, then we could observe in frozen silence. This was his world, his rules, and we knew the rules. If the silverback stood up erectly and faced you, then, do not make eye contact, do not back away, do not turn, do not run, never extend your arm toward a young one. Those behaviors incite. If he stood we must instantly drop our eyes and crouch down into the smallest human non-threatening ball. Surrender. Wholly. If alarmed for his family, the silverback will bolt toward you suddenly at 25 mph and it will be over. He will outrun you. He will out climb you. Submit respectfully.

As we sliced our way into their world, the rainforest residents erupted with vocal warnings of our presence. Above our heads, the black and white Colobus monkeys sprang from one treetop to another thwarting gravity and sending the alarm. We were a disturbance and everyone was talking about us.

Guide One, who was a few steps ahead, identified a possible gorilla location by watching the tops of the trees in a distance. If a tree shook intermittently a gorilla family was breaking down branches and eating. A path was begun toward the movement. Walking was strenuous and slipping on the wet leaves and patches of mud was common. This is where green smells. It is a synesthesia of color with scent. It was sweet and musty.

So much was left behind upon arrival in Zaire in 1988: familiar foods, electricity, safe water, phones, emergency medicine, clocks, and time itself. Something has been lost now that the world has been organized into succinct touring packages and all is mapped; now, that the whole Earth was known; now, that no one sails off toward the horizon with no idea what is beyond; now, that there were a hundred outfitters willing to take you into Africa with varying degrees of luxury; now, that all is known, and all paths trodden. The stimulation of edgy wonder vanished when your book club could travel in suburban comfort to Nepal with a bright-faced professional tour guide who promised you the inside track, and when well-stocked ice cutters can transport you with warm cozy assurance to the frigid North Pole. What has been lost because the risk, which was the fertilizer of the thrill, has been watered down to slop? Has adventure been beaten into a pulp of convenience? Is all life now staged? Do nightlights fleck every darkness? Has daring been left behind, left alongside a plastic water bottle dropped somewhere in the Serengeti?

Guide Two cried out and leapt backwards. He whacked viciously with his machete at the bottom of a tree trunk near my leg. Frightened by the force, I stumbled and fought for balance. He dug the tip of his machete into the ground and lifted to display a Green Mambo. The lime green neon colored snake’s body was draped over his machete in a frown. Limp and headless. If bitten what comes next is nausea, trouble swallowing, convulsions, and respiratory paralysis. At least it’s quick. The guards eased up, exchanged a glance of relief, turned, and trudged on. They never spoke to me.

Hours later, Guide One abruptly stopped. The monotony of single file, step after step, on and on, instantly broken. Peeking through the thick flora, not far ahead, black moving shapes of various sizes. Using his machete he cautiously parted branches and revealed a family. Right in front of us, perhaps fifteen feet away.

Living their lives in the jungle: two medium-sized females, five children, and one large commanding shape with a long grey stripe – the silverback. He broke a branch and ate. Reflexively, I took a step forward, mesmerized. Guard One raised his finger to his lips – silence, no movement! We froze.

The little ones rolled around playfully, and no differently than children on every playground, in every other country of our world. Both moms were lounging and grooming. The silverback knew we were there, but unconcerned for the moment, continued eating. Gradually, over the course of thirty or forty seconds, I raised the arm that held my camera to my eye. I began to shoot photographs of the scene while experiencing an excited wellspring of pleasure and gratitude. Click. Click. The silverback glanced my way. Guard Two swiveled his head to me and shook it alarmed. The click from the camera – no good. Very quietly I dropped my arm back to my side and stood immobile. We settled to watch appreciating the privilege and understanding the fragility of the moment.

One toddler with round brown eyes, and approximately the same size as a three-year-old human teetered away from his friend. He’d lost interest in the rolling game and looked about him for something new. His gaze found me. Perfectly still, I looked back. He stepped toward me. The guards tensed. Six feet away. Five feet away. The silverback looked over. Four feet away. The silverback stood up erect and faced me. Three feet away. I gently shrunk down into a squat and bowed my head. I sensed that both guards were also crouched low, but made no move to look. My hands were fixed to my knees. Two feet away. Paralyzed. Shallow breathing. Then, the little one reached out and rubbed his fingers along my gloved right hand. He was touching me. In the middle of Central Africa, in the midst of the jungle, days from civilization, inside their home, this gorilla child reached out on his own and touched me. The silverback stared wild-eyed erect and primed, weighing his response. Frozen in absolute stillness I moved only my eyes. I lifted them from the ground. Crouched down, my face was on the same level as the standing toddler. Face to face, we were 12 or 15 inches apart. His face was my entire world. With his hand warm on mine, I looked directly into his brown eyes. Time stopped. He searched my eyes with an inquisitiveness that felt profoundly intimate. No sounds. No smells. No jungle. No fear. We sank into each other and I had an overwhelming desire to say “I’m sorry.” Then, he simply turned away and ambled back to roll around with his sibling. I was weeping. A private soaking exhilaration overcame me. And at that moment, I knew it was all I’d hoped for, it was the reason I had come, all this way, all the effort, for this minute – for one minute.

As the toddler returned to his games, the silverback’s muscles relaxed and he went back to eating. The guards who were both shaken rose unsteadily to their feet. I did the same. Bit by bit, we backed away from the family. Once out of sight we walked back in astonished silence. Not a single word was exchanged between them, or with me on the several hour walk back to the clearing. Back at the makeshift cabin, as the darkness grew-up all around me, I sat for a long while on a wooden plank staring out at the path. Something extraordinary had happened.

So many years have passed. So many changes in the Virungas both physical and political. Controls are in place. Accommodations available. Permits to purchase. SIM cards to obtain. A civilized tourist economy, with rangers, and itineraries are online. The gorillas are familiar with humans and have adapted to seeing them. Visitors cause no curiosity. There are no surprises. No real risk. No sudden intimate encounters. But before, there was this one time, one moment, thirty years ago, one glorious moment of unplanned kinship.

Serra is a double recipient of the Hawthornden Literary Fellowship. Her first novel was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Award. On assignment, she has written ten TV films, numerous episodes, and wrote two years on staff for NBC. She sold two original feature films, completed two more on assignment, and optioned two others. She has written three award-winning plays. Serra is a member of the Writers’ Guild of America, the Dramatist Guild, and PEN USA.
She has three children, several dogs, and lives in San Diego and New York City with her husband.
Detailed credits can be found at:  www.deborahserra.com