Gorillas in the Mist (35 page)

A
s 1979 began, Dian found herself threatened with exile, which was paradoxical for she had long since exiled herself from her native land. She felt she was being nudged, inveigled, and pressured into leaving her adopted country—that amorphous patch of hoary old volcanoes, dripping hagenia forests, bamboo, and nettle scrub that was the shrinking world of the Mountain Kings.

During her visit to Washington she had become half convinced that those who were insisting she return home at least long enough to write up her scientific data might have a point. Yet somewhere in her subconscious she sensed the hidden intent. Awareness was slow in surfacing because she found it terribly difficult to believe that some of the people she trusted most were conspiring to divert permanently the vibrant current of her life in the Virungas into a sterile backwater on some American university campus.

The saga of Group 4, the family Dian had cherished for so long, was still echoing to the reverberations of the murderous assault upon it in July of 1978. In mid-December, while Dian was in the United States, the remnants of Group 4 had encountered Nunkie’s Group, and in the ensuing conflict the infant, Mwelu—the Bright and Shining Light—Digit’s only offspring,
had been killed. Although news of this new death devastated Dian, she at least understood the reason for it.

Simba’s infant, Mwelu, was killed by Nunkie when he and his group took Simba from Group 4. This was inevitable because the dominant male of any group is dedicated to keeping his own bloodline going and so tries to mate with a new female as soon as possible; but it hurt me so much as I so wanted Digit’s only offspring to live. Simba is much better off with Nunkie, if he keeps his group on Visoke, but he is now testing out Group 4’s old range on the saddle. This is all right for the time being since there are no poachers operating within five kilometers of camp, but tomorrow could well bring disaster.

The lone silverback, Peanuts, has now taken over the three males that were all there was left of Group 4. They readily sought his company. Peanuts has at least eight years of maturity over the blackbacks Beetsme and Tiger and is capable of acting as the leader and protector of them and young Titus. But he has never had a female of his own and will probably seek interactions with other groups in search of females, and may not be able to handle the ensuing conflicts, thus subjecting the three young males to serious injury. Worst of all, he may take them to the “moon” as he tries to stake out a new territory for “his group.” He is now close to Mt. Mikeno and is already five hours away from camp, but thank God, hasn’t yet run into poachers or traps.

On January 15, Karisoke was visited by Benda-Lema, the new director of
ORTPN
, accompanied by a number of his senior officials, including the park conservateur with whom Dian had had so much difficulty. The meeting that followed was long, complex, and sometimes incomprehensible since several languages were being spoken, but the upshot was that Dian felt she and Benda-Lema understood each other and would work together to the advantage of the gorillas and of the park.

Although she had done her best to be diplomatic, she had not been able to entirely suppress the Fossey in her. She told Crigler of her indiscretions in a letter written only hours after the delegation had departed in pelting rain down the muddy trail:

“One thing I said that made Benda-Lema furious—which was good by the way because I want him to be honest with me—was that Africans aren’t allowed to approach my gorillas to proximity because of their skin color (I can just envisage you beating your head right now). Benda-Lema says, ‘What is the park for?
Bazungas
only?’ Then I tried slowly to explain about that one split second it might take a gorilla to distinguish between an African he knew and a poacher intent to kill him, which could cost him his life. I had Nemeye explain this to him too. I don’t know if he grasped the idea or not. I also told him I had said the same thing to his president and his president understood, therefore so should he.

“Might as well tell you one more thing you won’t like. I took them all out to the graveyard when they were ready to leave, for pictures. They looked solemnly at the little wooden markers with the names of the gorillas on them, and it seemed to make some of them uncomfortable. Most of them are Catholics, and the idea of a graveyard for animals was pretty strange. The park conservateur was specially uncomfortable, and kind of groveling with his tail between his legs because Benda-Lema had been giving him a hard time. I asked him in Swahili, French, and English to move in a little closer as everyone else was posing. Finally I just said, in what I thought was a whisper, ‘Banzubaze, get your ass in the picture!’ Wow. Everyone just broke up.”

Crigler was not amused. He replied on the nineteenth with his version of what had transpired at an earlier meeting of his own with Benda-Lema:

“He professed the very highest regard for you and your work, and he said he hoped your research would continue indefinitely at Karisoke. However, he said he was concerned that there were a growing number of people inside and outside
the park who regarded themselves as ‘enemies’ due to the firmness of your efforts to protect the gorillas…. Benda-Lema observed that those who had personally felt the sting of your anger harbored extremely serious resentments toward you—to the point, he said, that he feared for your personal safety and even your life.”

Since neither Benda-Lema nor his staff had said anything of the kind to Dian herself, she did not take this seriously. In her response she pointed out: “He was speaking of the Mukingo village of poachers. He went there recently. Naturally these people don’t like me—no poacher in his right mind should. I wouldn’t worry about the personal safety bit … talk to the Africans in the Kinigi farming commune at the base of the mountain. You won’t find a single Fossey enemy there. These people have given me their trust and friendship throughout the years and continue to do so.”

Dian was becoming irritated by the dire prophecies of doom and disaster emanating from the embassy. She may have suspected that it might be part of a design to scare her off the mountain and out of Rwanda. If so, it was the wrong tactic to use against Dian Fossey.

There were other indications that the noose was tightening. In early January a letter from the Leakey Foundation intimated that funding for Karisoke from that source would also be in jeopardy if she insisted on remaining in Rwanda. One of the elder trustees, Dr. H. Coolidge, was particularly adamant about this.

This was closely followed by an ominous letter from the National Geographic telling her that the ten-thousand-dollar maintenance grant she was counting on had been delayed for further consideration, and that her book was of such paramount importance that she should return to the United States at once in order to complete it.

Her response was a grim determination to complete the book within three months—at Karisoke. To this end she cut herself off from human intrusions even more than had been her wont. Working at her typewriter night and day, she became
so reclusive that even old friends such as Rosamond Carr and Alyette de Munck hardly dared intrude upon her.

Her reaction was volcanic when, on February 6, a French television crew preceded by a long line of heavily laden porters unexpectedly straggled into camp. As Dian watched, unbelieving, their dapper leader, clad in spotless safari clothes, approached and arrogantly informed her that he and his eight men would be her guests for the next six weeks! This invasion had been sanctioned by Benda-Lema, so an almost apoplectic Dian was told. Further, the French told her they not only wanted the camp staff and gorilla study groups made available for filming, but expected her to act as research consultant too!

Drawn up to her full imposing height, eyes flashing and arms akimbo, Dian erupted.

“Holy hell! That’s
all
you want? You don’t want me to hang by one arm from a tree and beat my chest? I don’t give a shit
who
said you could come here! Out of my sight!”

Retreating to her cabin, Dian fired off a furious salvo of letters to Benda-Lema and Crigler, then she cabled Melvin Payne at the National Geographic for help in evicting the interlopers. Since the society claimed exclusive rights to all film made at Karisoke, whether stills or movies, the French invasion was clearly a major transgression on those rights. Dian confidently anticipated Payne’s support.

When she attempted to prevent the Karisoke research students from cooperating with the French, she found she had a mutiny on her hands. Far from being perturbed by this interruption of their studies, the V-W couple and Craig Sholley seemed delighted with the prospect of being filmed. Dian exploded yet again.

There is big trouble now in this camp. The new director of tourism has allowed a French cine team to come here. They came out of the blue. I blew my lid but I was so, so alone. They have put up tents galore and are living in part in the cabin of the Vedder-Weber couple, who make Kelly
and Harcourt look like angels! They have told me I will be removed from the country within thirty-six hours if I continue to oppose the French invasion…. She makes her
merde
with the gorillas and laughs about their reaction to it. Her husband looks like Jesus Christ Superstar, speaks perfect French, and sits around playing his guitar. Ambassador and Mrs. Crigler won’t have them in their house because of the stories they have spread about me.

More was soon to come. On February 11 an army of 107 porters poured into camp bearing the parts and pieces of a huge hot-air balloon from which the French team hoped to take aerial shots of the Virungas and of the gorillas too!

Dian struck back in earnest. Within twelve hours most of her African staff had reported sick of a mysterious malady and had gone down the mountain, each to his own village to “recuperate.” The French appealed to Benda-Lema for help. He went to Crigler. On the seventeenth the ambassador and his wife climbed to Karisoke, nominally to pay a social visit and go for a ride in the balloon, but primarily to get Dian off the mountain, if only temporarily, and thereby end the war with the French.

On the twentieth Dian noted in her journal:
Balloon going up.

She could hardly have realized how prophetic that remark would be.

Crigler’s bait to get Dian away from Karisoke proved irresistible. Robinson McIlvaine was arriving in Kigali on the twenty-first and would be staying with the Criglers. Putting her feud with the French on hold, Dian hastened to join him there. She spent the next two days enjoying herself, although there were some problems. Crigler and McIlvaine formed a duet, the burden of whose tune was that “for her own good” she must leave Karisoke by May at the very latest for “an extended stay” in the United States. In addition, the V-W couple met McIlvaine by arrangement and according to Dian,
Discussed how horrid I was, and begged the
AWLF
for funds for themselves
.

Never mind. Candlelit dinners at the embassy, the Sierra Club, and the Mille des Collines hotel lightened the clouds. When McIlvaine departed on the twenty-sixth, the parting was emotional.

“I very nearly cried, saying good-bye,” he wrote Dian while he was still airborne between Kigali and Nairobi. “I understand the very real trauma you are suffering. Have faith, and never forget that you have many good friends ready to support you.”

Maintaining such faith was easier said than done. When Dian returned to Karisoke next day, she was greeted by a cable from one of those good friends:

This was signed by Melvin Payne, President of the National Geographic Society.

On this same day Crigler received a long telex from his top boss, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Under the heading
DR. DIAN FOSSEY-KARISOKE’S FUTURE
, Vance told Crigler that his departmental cables from Rwanda about Fossey had been copied to the National Geographic, and then:

Despite the fact that the five thousand dollars to which Vance referred had been given to Dian
specifically
for antipoacher work, Crigler’s proposals for “regularizing” Karisoke recommended that the Center be completely removed from Fossey’s control and placed under the umbrella of the mountain gorilla consortium being organized by his professional peer and close friend, Robinson McIlvaine. Crigler’s support was much appreciated, as McIlvaine testified in a report to his trustees a few months later: