“He’s the node in the jungle they plug their machine into. Without him, the lights don’t turn on. No grand successes to brag about. No pretty maps of new parkland. No photos of dashing white men in khaki with smiling Pygmies. That’s what this conference is really about—the illusion of achievement in order to raise money. Terra is surrounded by enemies. She’s trying to save herself from Hew.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“What you need to get is that the real cannibals in the jungle are the big Western organizations. They chase donor cash, and those who get it consume the projects of those who don’t. Everyone here is a competitor, but they’re forced to put on good faces and spout salvationist doctrine. Now, Terra, she’s the real deal. It’s her work that’s about to be devoured. She used to be a typical tree hugger—”
“Aren’t all conservationists tree huggers?”
“Hardly. We live and breathe realpolitik. It’s like believing in democracy and human rights but having to do business with China.”
“Or other countries believing in democracy and human rights but having to do business with the US.”
“Point taken. Anyway, Terra is a little on the crunchy woo-woo mystical side of things, but she does phenomenal work. She goes native at quantum speeds. Believes in their values. Participates in their ceremonies. Holds and kisses the babies. None of it’s for show. She’s been living out there for a decade, trying to generate support for the eastern lowland gorilla, but it never caught on as a species. It had a bad name and wasn’t sexy. It lacked the primal, hippie shagginess of the mountain gorillas.”
He was animated now, rubbing his knuckles against his palm, as if to purée the information he was conveying, afraid I’d fail to digest it.
“Now imagine this. The big organizations don’t want to support her because her style of conservation is all local initiative and doesn’t show up on the map in the form of parks, which the big organizations need to brag about to raise money. That’s when Hew gets involved. Richmond Hew. Look him up. He’s been in the Congo thirty years, even during the war. He knows the gears of power and if the big organizations fill his coffers, he’ll come in like a conqueror, throw around a lot of cash, get locals to sign conservation agreements, and then kick them off the land. He’ll destroy everything she’s built.”
Other attendees were glancing over at us now, a few gesturing with concern.
“Just talking to you like this,” he said and blinked a few times, nervously, as if to calm a facial spasm, “it’s going to ruin me. Conservation is the mafia. I’ll never work again. But fuck it—this is my conscience speaking. I got into the game for good reasons, and it has poisoned me. So this is the last thing I’ll tell you. Hew is dangerous. I mean, really, really dangerous. People gossip about him. Fucked up stories make their way out. Murder. Rape. Some stuff to do with little girls. But we keep throwing money at him.”
“Would you be willing to go on the record with any of this?” I asked.
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. Tell me your name. I’ll find you online.”
As soon as I handed him my card, he hurried off, in the direction of the bathrooms, and I drifted from gaggle to parade—from ambush to leap to charm—without luck. Then the buffet was carted off and the hall emptied, and the building was silent but for the distant hard shoes of a staff person closing up for the night.
A few hours later, after a long session researching Hew and gorillas online, I headed to the hotel spa to use the sauna.
The hallway was softly lit, creating a nocturnal ambiance, and in the distance I recognized Terra, walking barefoot along the tan carpet, her dress disheveled and her dreadlocks loose.
“How’s the general?” I asked.
“He took an Ambien, I did a line. We had fun, but we weren’t in the same groove. I’ll reclaim him in the morning.”
As she sighed, her bloodshot eyes looked me up and down, as if inspecting a freshly painted post.
“How’s the prospecting going?” she asked.
“Not bad. I was actually wondering if you would talk to me about Richmond Hew.”
“Of course I’ll talk to you about Hew.” She lifted her arm as if declaring her words on stage. “Anything you want to know. Gun running. Diamond smuggling. He’s tied up in everything. The guy is a warlord. He’s about to ruin my fucking life. The Congolese love me and they tell me his secrets. He fucks little girls. He’s murdered people. He’ll do anything to stay in power. You should talk to Thomas Oméga tomorrow. He’s the pastor of the Congo’s president and he’s here. Rumors have it he’s next in line for a sinecure as the minister of the environment.”
She was wearing a small pouch on a string around her neck and dipped her fingers into it.
“Here,” she said, “chew this.”
The dried leaves crackled in my mouth. They were spicy. My lips and tongue felt as if they were buzzing. I had the impression that my face was one of those surrealist portraits of a face composed of other objects, flowers or vegetables—in my case, bees.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Something the gorillas love. I call it ‘gorilla love.’”
My throat was beginning to itch, and I considered asking if she had an EpiPen but didn’t want to come across as dramatic. The tingling spread down along my neck and chest, and suddenly I had an erection.
I was afraid that she would notice, but a look of exhaustion had come over her. Her high was ending and she was crashing. She took a few heavy steps to an upholstered bench in a recess, and sat.
“Are you okay?” I asked, the itching in my throat increasingly manageable.
“I’m great,” she said and smiled. She placed her hand on her knee and slid it along the inside of her thigh, drawing back her dress and showing white panties.
Then she closed her eyes and her head dropped back against the wall, and she was asleep.
I turned hesitantly and, hobbling ever so slightly, made my way to my suite.
Two weeks later, by the time I stepped into the familiarity of room 22(2), Oméga was my lone contact, since the embittered conservationist had failed to write, and, a few days after Aspen, Terra had returned to her site in the eastern Congo only to vanish on a dirt road near Butembo. Her 4Runner was found overturned in a ditch, riddled by bullets, and she, her supplies, and her driver were gone.
MEMOIRS OF THE LITTLE WITCH
I stood on a vast, misted river, staring for the far, dim shore with a longing as palpable as a bruised organ. Then a siren rang out and the dream vaporized to the electric blatting of the telephone. It sounded like a phaser in an old sci-fi flick.
The grenade was absent on the windowsill, and I now saw how different the room was—all the modernization I’d failed to notice upon my jetlagged arrival.
I coughed and cleared my throat, said, “Oui, bonjour,” into my shoulder as a test run to make sure my vocal cords worked, and then snatched the receiver.
“C’est moi,” a woman said—Sola, I realized, and was fully awake. “I’m heading over to meet the anthropologist and the girl. Would you like to join?”
“Yes. Of course,” I replied, pestered by my relief that she had yet to see him. She told me which neighborhood she’d stayed in and where the anthropologist lived, and we calculated that she was coming from a different direction. Picking me up would add an