Endangered (7 page)

Patrice turned the volume down.

“What do we do?” asked one of the gardeners.

“We stay put,” Patrice said. “You heard them. This will go like it has gone before. We will hope no one tries to enter our homes. And the roads are where you die.”

“What are you talking about? Everywhere is where you die,” Mama Evangeline said.

“We'll stay here for now. No one is going to attack the sanctuary,” Patrice said.

“Maybe not for a few days. But once there is no government and ten million starving people in Kinshasa? The first thing that happened in '94 was they tried to eat the zoo animals. We might as well be sitting on a herd of cattle here. Not to mention the US
currency they'll figure we have in our safes from our foreign donors.”

“It's not going to come to that,” Patrice said. “Not this time.”

But he didn't give a reason why, and despair, already heavy in the room, grew crushing. It was something about the way Patrice said “this time”; assassinations and coups were baggage the Democratic Republic of Congo had been lugging on its own for a long time. Why should anyone expect magic intervention now?

 

Since we couldn't risk the road, everyone stayed overnight in the sanctuary. The mamas curled up in the nursery with the young bonobos, the gardeners pulled blankets and pillows into the shed, I shared my little room with Emile the chef, and Patrice and Clément encamped in my mom's office. The rebels must have taken down the Internet and cell networks, as we could establish no communication with the outside beyond what we heard on the shortwave radio. Throughout the night, I groggily trudged into the office, nodded to Patrice and Clément, and made herbal tea. No one talked, but we'd sit together and listen to the repeat of that same broadcast. Then I'd wander around some more, hoping to get tired. Otto seemed to love the sleepless chaos and chirped happily at the restless people we passed in the hall.

The first light of dawn found Otto and me sitting on the front step, staring into the jungle. I couldn't see anything, but I listened for footsteps. I listened for those four men I'd seen the day before. I listened for the sound of a vehicle approaching. I listened for gunfire from the nearby village. I listened for the first sign that death was on its way.

 

Around noon, Patrice yelled out that the UN broadcast had changed. We all piled into my mom's office.

It started with reports of increased fighting in the north and east, on the borders of Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi. And in Kinshasa. The president was dead, and people said it was Hutus, formerly from Rwanda, who had killed him, but it was feared that his intended replacement had also died in the fighting. No one from the TLA had stepped forward to take control, and the capital was falling apart. Banks and stores were looted. Corpses clogged the streets, mainly those of loyalists to the dead president and anyone who looked like a Tutsi, the ethnic group historically opposed to the Hutus. Most of the staff came from Tutsi families, so the atmosphere in the sanctuary was pretty grim. The mamas worried about their children holed up with their husbands back in the capital. The consensus in our group was that people who stayed inside weren't being killed, but the radio had said nothing about that, and we'd agreed on it only because it made us feel better.

The UN warned us that many of the slayings were being conducted with “white weapons”: machetes, clubs, and knives, so-called because they killed without noise. At the close of the broadcast, the announcer said, “Any citizens of the USA, or EU countries with Belgian reciprocity agreements, will be airlifted out of Kinshasa's N'Djili Airport at 20:00 tonight on marked UN planes. The respective embassies request that any applicable citizens be at the airport no later than 17:00. Any citizens whose addresses are registered with the embassies of the USA, Belgium, or France and living outside the confines of Kinshasa proper will be picked up by an armored UN vehicle between now and 16:00.”

“Your dad is American. You're a US citizen,” Patrice said.

Everyone stared at me. It felt terrible to be singled out for
rescue, when the rest of the staff would have to stay here. “I'm sure they'll come back for you guys,” I said.

Mama Marie-France snorted. “They're going to fly out sixty million of us?”

Perhaps to save me from embarrassing myself, Patrice led me into the hallway. Otto gripped my torso and stared at Patrice's lips, reaching out to touch them as he spoke.

“I can see this is making you uncomfortable. But we have to get you onboard that plane. The American government will make sure it gets all its citizens out. I know for a fact that your parents would insist you were on that plane.”

I knew it, too. They would want me out of here. I wanted to ask “What about you and all the rest of the workers?” but I knew the answer, and it made me sad. Then I wanted to ask “What about Otto?” but I knew the answer to that, too, and it made me sick.

 

All I could do that afternoon was walk. Around the edge of the enclosure. Around the nursery, with the oblivious young bonobos pranking one another. Around the front walk. I kept moving, because if I'd stayed still for even a moment, I would have fallen apart.

At any moment, the UN truck would arrive. I, and only I, would get in and leave. They'd fly me to Miami, and I'd be with Dad in time for my first day of high school. I wished so much that I could call him.

I was worried about my mom, but wartime Congo was the opposite of fairy tales: The wilderness was the safe place, not the town, because hiding was the only way to survive. By now my mom was off in the remote reaches of a national park. She might not even know what was happening. She was probably fine, and
would learn about our few days of crisis only when she came back to civilization.

Because I didn't need to worry about her, I worried about Otto. At any moment the UN vehicle would come, and I would have to leave him. As the political upheaval settled down, the mamas would take care of him alongside the other nursery bonobos — but it was only because he'd bonded with me that he'd pulled through and survived. I didn't think he'd make it through the loss of another mother, not when we hadn't yet transitioned him over. Even another week with me might make the difference. If I left now, he would fall into despair and give up. Saving myself would mean destroying him.

I kept thinking of those two little bonobos on the back of the bike. Could I doom Otto, too?

The big white UN van came rumbling by in the midafternoon. Otto and I were already on the front step; when the rest of the staff heard the noise of the approaching vehicle, they came out to join us. Their expressions were hard to read. Knots of relief and envy and fatigue. They'd been through situations like this a few times in the last twenty years. Some people got rescued, and most didn't. There were no screams, no attempts to plead their way into the van.

Two guards in light blue camouflage uniforms and flak jackets got out. An officer stood in front of them, a slender man with a blue cap that somehow looked both rakish and sloppy on his head. When he spoke I recognized an Italian accent. Like my dad's parents. Unconsciously, I put my hand to the silver chain around my throat.

“Are you Sophie Biyoya-Ciardulli?” he asked. “Your father called central command and said you were here.”

I nodded.

“You are allowed one bag.”

I pointed to the large duffel at my side. I'd filled it with clothes and food, figuring I couldn't count on in-flight meals on a UN plane.

The officer stalled for a moment, like he was mentally searching his protocol book for how to handle this particular situation. “Miss, is that a monkey on you?”

“He's an ape. A bonobo,” I said slowly. I'd prepared my words ahead of time. “They're an endangered species, and I know that means they can't legally be taken out of the country, but you have to understand that he's fragile and will die if parted from me, so it's actually his best chance for survival, and maybe once we arrived a zoo could take him and …” I lost words. I knew there was no way they'd let me fly with Otto. Only my desperation was making me even try.

The officer let me cry for a few seconds. “I'm sorry, there's no way you can bring him. You'll have to leave him here.”

Patrice stood forward. “We'll take care of him, Sophie, don't worry,” he said, reaching for Otto, who batted him away, gripped me harder, and bared his teeth.

“Otto,” I said through tears, stroking his little head with its wiry hair, “you have to be good and stay here. They'll take good care of you. Soon this will all be over and I'll be back, and …”

Otto's arms began quivering, he was holding on to me that hard. I pulled at his hand to loosen him, and each time I managed to get a few fingers up he'd switch his grip somewhere else.

“Patrice, could you help me?” I said. “I can't …”

It took the combined efforts of Patrice and one of the gardeners to get Otto off me. He kept making these high-pitched cries and reaching his arms toward me. Seeing that I wasn't going to take him back, Otto fought fiercely, biting Patrice's forearm so hard that after he finally released I saw spots of blood. But Patrice held fast.

“We need to leave,” the UN officer said. “We have another stop to make before we go to the plane.”

“I can't go,” I choked out.

“Look,” the officer said, “your parents will be very worried. They need you to make the right choice.”

“Go now, Sophie,” Patrice called. “The quicker you make this, the easier it will be for Otto.”

I believed him. I got into the van.

It was full of scared white people. From their nervous frowns I could tell that the situation in the capital was grim. I found an open seat and sat down.

Once the officer got in, the van began to move, backing down the driveway until it reached a space wide enough to turn around. An elderly stranger next to me held my hand.

But all I could do was stare out the side window.

Patrice was struggling to hold on to Otto, who was shrieking piteously, clubbing around with his hands and feet. Seeing Otto thrash made it hard to breathe, so I cast off the stranger's hand and put my head between my knees. Otto began to screech louder. The thought of not getting a final glimpse of him was too much to bear, so I raised my eyes.

With one big thrash, Otto fought his way out of Patrice's arms and was on the gravel path, running after the van. He was soon so close to the door that I couldn't see him out the window anymore.

He could go under the wheels any second.

“Stop!” I cried. “Stop the van!”

A mother with her arms around two children protested that we couldn't delay any longer, that if we did the plane would leave without us. The officer nodded and looked at me sadly.

“I'm sorry. He's just an animal, and we have to get out of here. We're not stopping.”

“But you're going to run him over!” I shrieked.

I threw open the door. We were going so slowly that it was easy to jump out with the duffel. I looked back through the open door as the van continued to move away. “I'm sorry!” I called to
the people inside. “My name is Sophie Biyoya-Ciardulli. When you get out of here, please get in touch with my dad and tell him that I'm okay and that I'll call him once all this is over!”

None of them could pull it together in time to say anything back. One of the evacuees slid the door closed.

Then I saw Otto. He'd flung himself at the front of the van and was clinging to the grille, staring at the moving ground and murping worriedly. I called his name. He turned his head, saw me, squeaked, and let go. He bumbled in the gravel, dodged a rolling wheel, then ran to me and leaped into my arms.

Patrice had his hands to his mouth in panic. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You have to be in that van!”

“I'm staying,” I said. I told myself that soon the van would be gone, and they'd have to let me remain in the sanctuary with Otto. That it was the right choice.

Which was when the van stopped.

The officer and the two peacekeepers sprang out and started running toward me. “Young lady,” the officer called out, “you're a minor — we will get you out of here, even if it means arresting you.”

I threw my duffel bag over my shoulder and ran, Otto bouncing against my chest.

“Sophie!” Patrice called. “Stop!”

I ran headlong around the side of the administration building, focusing on speed and keeping Otto safe and not giving a thought to my direction. Only once I was past the nursery did I risk looking back.

The peacekeepers were running after us.

I dropped the duffel, hoping the obstacle would slow them down, and kept sprinting. Once I was past the nursery, I came upon the tall electrified fence of the enclosure and ran heedlessly
along it. The fence would branch toward the pond soon, so I'd be penned in, and the guards would catch me. I couldn't keep this up for long.

Unless.

Farther down, embedded into the base of a tree and hidden by palm fronds, was the delay switch for the enclosure's entrance. It worked on a timer: When a code was entered the electricity went off for a few seconds, long enough for an attendant to get inside. The same code, when input on the other side, deactivated it temporarily so the person could come back out. I pulled back the fronds hiding the box and typed in the code. The familiar buzzing sound of the fence stopped. Then I opened the chain-link gate to the enclosure and went inside, shutting it behind me.

A moment later, the buzzing of the electricity started back up. It would take the peacekeepers a few minutes to get the code from Patrice, enough time for me to hide away.

Otto and I hurtled through the overgrowth.

Into the enclosure.

With the bonobos.