The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys (15 page)

I was soon to find out. I heard the doors to the cab slam and the sound of the bolts of the tailboard sliding back. All around me, a mass stirring of animals started up. Buzzings and flappings and hoots and high chirrups, though my poor monkey friend lay lifeless in his cage.

And then there was light, though I could see the day was fast disappearing. I was being blinded instead by the lights on other vehicles that were still flashing past at terrifying speeds.

I hated speed. In my world, speed meant danger. It meant a predator, preying. The risk of sudden death. It meant a bullet, or an arrow, or the jaws of an aggressor. I shrank back into the truck and gripped the rail tighter, terrified at the prospect of getting out.

But it seemed the hunters had other things to do at that moment. Having opened the back of the truck and peered in at us, the man grunted then followed the woman towards the fence. I couldn’t see what lay beyond it and had no idea what might be there. I was only glad they had gone and that I was still safe inside. I had no thought of running, though. I had no thought of anything. Everything outside that truck seemed too terrifying to contemplate, so I crouched in the darkness, squeezed my eyes tight shut and berated myself for the idiotic, reckless and dangerous folly that had taken me from everything I loved, knew and wanted, and brought me to a place I couldn’t have conjured up in my worst-ever nightmare.

I didn’t wait long. I could hear voices coming closer and opened my eyes enough to see that the hunters were back. Now the woman in whom I’d foolishly invested so much hope looked as scary to me as the man. I tried to make myself as small as possible and scuttled as far into the truck’s interior as I could manage. They beckoned me out, but I simply bared my teeth and began making monkey distress calls, which seemed to quell their enthusiasm for touching me, at least. They beckoned again and then, saying something to the man, the woman climbed into the truck with me and reached for my arm. I quickly snatched it away and bared my teeth again.

I could see the man losing patience, and I felt even more fearful. I could also see that the man held some sort of filthy cloth in his hand. As he too climbed up to assist the woman in grabbing hold of me, I realised with sudden clarity what he was about to do. It wasn’t a cloth but one of the bags that they would stuff the monkeys into. The monkeys they shot out of the trees!

This was enough to force me to fight. Speed of movement always meant attack in my world, and I felt impelled to defend myself from it. Making noises of aggression, I fought them with every shred of strength left in me. Shrieking in terror, I tried to slap them away and bite them, though they were always too quick for me – not once did I manage to connect with their flesh. So I was soon overcome and hauled roughly from the truck, where a group of people stood and watched us, presumably having come out to see what all the commotion was about. But these were not people like the Indians, with their solemn ways and blank faces. These humans seemed to find my distress funny.

The cloth turned out not to be a sack, after all. It was some sort of covering – looking back now, probably a towel – and, having yanked me out and hauled me up onto two feet once more, the woman draped it loosely round my naked body. Seemingly satisfied, she then gripped my wrist and, pulling on it roughly, led me up the stony path towards the fence and whatever destiny awaited me beyond it.

The ground beneath my feet felt cold, hard and painful, not at all like it was in the jungle. But within seconds we had reached the entrance to a building. It was a solid barrier and again not like anything I remembered. In the Indian village, the entrances to huts were just open apertures, hung with material at most, which could be simply pulled aside.

Both the hunters now had a firm grip on my wrists, despite my repeated attempts to bite them. Still holding me tightly, the woman pushed the door open, revealing a gloomy interior. She then yanked me inside, the man following behind us, and though I screwed my eyes shut in fear – as small children do – once again my feet found some welcome warmth. I was standing on some sort of strange, smooth red surface, and as I dared to look around, almost everything I could see was unrecognisable, with functions and forms I could only guess at. I recognised mats on the floor but almost nothing else. Things like beds, chairs and lamps had no meaning.

But it was warm and, compared to the nightmare of getting here, peaceful. Though I still felt scared, I could also begin to sense that this might be some sort of home. Perhaps it was just another version of the Indian camp I had so yearned to live in. A place where I might be welcomed and cared for.

But though my mind grabbed onto positives, a part of me knew better. If that were so, then why was the woman still gripping me so tightly? Why were the expressions on the hunters’ faces so hard?

‘Ana-Karmen!’ The man’s voice boomed in the small space. I didn’t understand the words – it was just a harsh and sudden sound to me – but, as had been the case all along, the tone was clear. I followed his gaze and could soon hear the sound of someone coming. It was a fat woman who had shuffled in from another part of the dwelling and now approached us with an equally hard look on her face. Years of relying on my instincts for survival made me stiffen. She was old and tired-looking, with evil green eyes and a heavily lined face – no doubt the result of years of nurturing the sour, angry expression that occupied it now.

Nothing seemed good about this woman. Every fibre of my body seemed to want to shrink away from her. Happily, though, she seemed to want to keep me at a distance, too. The humans communicated in their weird, unintelligible language, the fat woman, whose many chins seemed to have lives of their own, repeatedly darting disgusted glances in my direction. I knew what her expression meant as she cast her gaze over me – I had seen the same look on the Indian chief’s face.

This did not look as if it was going to turn out well, and I felt cold dread once again overtake me. The hunter woman still held on tightly to my hand, as if fearing that I’d choose to run away – which I might have done, had the idea of what was outside not felt every bit as terrifying a prospect.

I watched as the fat lady then waddled off and left us, aware that whatever trace of compassion had still existed in the hunters when we arrived here had now drained away as surely as the rains did.

The woman returned with something in her hands. Two things, in fact. On one hand perched a green parrot, its plumage bright and unusual. I wasn’t even sure I’d seen one like it. And in the other hand she held several pieces of something – I didn’t know what they were but they looked a little like a wad of dried-up leaves. They crackled slightly as she held them out and waved them towards the man and woman. More unintelligible babble was now exchanged, though not the wad of leaves, even though it was clear to me that the fat lady wanted the hunters to take them.

It was at this point that I felt a push in the small of my back. At the same time, my arms were released and the truth about what was happening became clear. I knew so little of this world, knew so little about so much, but some things, I think, are universally straightforward. This was one of them – I was being exchanged. I had seen it happen once at the Indian camp, when I saw a man giving another his bananas. I had been surprised by it then: a monkey would never willingly give their food away. But in return, the other man had given him a pot of something. I didn’t know what, but it seemed the same sort of thing was happening now. The fat woman had given the hunters the bird and dead leaves, and in exchange they had given her me.

As if to reinforce that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life by leaving my family in the jungle, the next few minutes and hours remain horribly sharp in my memory. I watched the man and woman leave, returning the way we had just come. I recall how they never so much as turned round. I remember the heat of my hand where the woman had held it, and how I flexed and released my fingers as I watched them go.

I felt as if I drowning, as if my heart were being submerged into a sea of regret. Why had I chosen this path? Why had I left my home for this? Why had I trusted that the hunter woman would save me and care for me? The devastation when the woman left was total. I would never trust a human being again.

In a state of shock but beginning to come to my senses, I started to take stock of my surroundings. I recall seeing food in a bowl, some pieces of fruit that looked familiar from the jungle, and something that looked similar to a kind of bread I’d watched the Indian women make. I remember my hunger. I was starving. I had barely eaten in two days, and to snatch some was almost an automatic action. I certainly didn’t anticipate the wooden implement that slapped down on the back of my hand, however, nor the pain that went through me as it connected.

After a few days, I would come to anticipate that feeling all too well. I would also begin to learn the names of things. The vicious implement was called a ‘wooden spoon’. Ana-Karmen kept it stowed in her belt at all times and would pull it out and use it at the slightest provocation. Right now, though, like Ana-Karmen, it was just an agent of pain. Just like the humans who had swapped me for a parrot and a pile of leaves I’d learn were called ‘money’. I had a great deal to grasp and I would learn faster than seemed possible. But the first important lesson had already been absorbed. I would never trust a human again.

*

Ana-Karmen (whose name would so soon take shape for me) closed the door on the hunters and the night. I kept my head low as I studied this strange new creature. She had a big lump on her neck that wobbled when she spoke, and her eyelids were painted with smears of livid blue and green – like that of a beetle’s wing case but not at all pretty.

I felt sure her intention was to harm me – kill me, even – though I perhaps had enough innate intelligence to realise that had she wanted to kill me she wouldn’t have made an exchange for me. What would have been the point? Even so, I was riddled with nerves. What did she intend to do with me now I was trapped here? I felt so anxious that every part of me was taut and poised for action. If she attacked me, my body was already saying I would fight her in every way I knew.

That I could fight was something I didn’t doubt. As well as fear, I felt anger. Anger at myself for having come here, anger on behalf of all the trapped animals, anger especially at the death of that poor monkey, though I consoled myself that he had at least been spared further torment.

Ana-Karmen spoke, opening her mouth and letting another stream of noise out, her chins wobbling threateningly as she did so. She reminded me of a bird I used to enjoy watching in the jungle. It was a nocturnal bird that had a big red-balloon chest and never failed to entertain me. He would stand up, pick up leaves, turn around, inflate his chest, then deflate it, turn around and sit down again. And then he would do it all again.

I had no idea why he did it, and it was the same with Ana-Karmen. I had no idea what she was trying to communicate, so I couldn’t answer. Which seemed to infuriate her. She gabbled the sounds at me once again, this time pulling sharply on my ears for good measure. I shrieked in shock and pain, and perhaps it was at this point that she too learned a lesson: that however much she shouted, I couldn’t understand her. And another lesson, too: that I couldn’t talk.

‘Sophia!’ Once again the sound boomed around the tiny dwelling. It made me jump. And as I did so, another person arrived from somewhere. I didn’t know where, quite; it would be a few days before I worked out the layout of my new home. But there were clearly other rooms here – who knew how many? And people, too. This new person was another woman, but younger. Though her face seemed slightly older and her eyes were dark and sunken, she reminded me of the mother I’d seen in the jungle having her baby. She was slender and more graceful, and the thing I remember most clearly was that she wore bright orange shoes. Like Ana-Karmen, she also had paint on her eyes: this time a bright blue with black lines. Like me, she seemed scared.

She was joined by another girl, who looked and spoke differently, and when I return to these memories now her difference still remains. I wonder if perhaps she was disabled in some way. They called her ‘La Bobita’, and she looked a little like the women from the Indian camp, with darkish skin and a long, shiny black fringe. She seemed to spend all her time stationed in the corner of the kitchen and apparently couldn’t talk – she only made strange spastic utters. When she was beaten, though, she screamed. Just as I did.

After a burst of snapped orders – again, the tone was unmistakeable – Sophia duly led me to another room. I still had no idea what any of them planned to do with me, only that they seemed disgusted by my presence. They certainly looked at me as if they could hardly bear to touch me.

As soon as I entered this new, darker chamber and saw what was in the middle of it, I froze. In the centre of the space stood a big battered container that seemed to be made of the same shiny material as some of the Indian camp cooking pots and which Sophia began filling from huge containers of water. Was she filling this to cook with, as the Indians cooked the roots? And then another thought made me flatten myself hard against the wall. Were they filling it so they could cook me?

It’s impossible to adequately describe the emotions that filled my head at that moment. I had survived in a wild place for a very long time. I had done so with nothing but my own wits to help me. I had made my own mistakes and I had made my own rules. And bar leaving the Indian camp all that time ago, I had never been made to do anything. Such memories that lingered of my time before the jungle were now so vague as to be nothing more than wisps of impressions: about the pea pods, the path to the allotment, my black dolly. I was as much a wild animal as I could be, and now I was a cornered wild animal. I tensed again, waiting for the woman to pounce, and made noises that I hoped would convey to her that I was not going in that water however hard she tried to make me, that I was an animal she would be unwise to take on.