A Dark Place in the Jungle : Science, Orangutans,

At four o'clock, it begins to be cool enough that movement is just bearableagain. Between five and seven, the light gets longer and softer and there areshadows on surfaces. Greens deepen. The sky becomes opaque. That afternoon, asthe hard heat began to lift, I stood, wet with sweat, on the porch and tried tothrow off the oppression of the closed and silent rooms. As if the effort ofbringing back her childhood had been physically exhausting, Riska was soundasleep. I took a deep breath. Yes, it was ever so slightly cooler and thesunlight didn't hurt my skin. A pair of kingfishers flew past! The smell of adistant cooking fire rose up from across the river and mixed with a nearer,marshier scent. My forest ancestors would have recognized every detail of thosesmells, would have absorbed them the way I absorb the particular flavors of asoup. This time of day would have furnished them special delights, which is whyI had come, after all?to waken those senses and find my most elemental self.Locking the door against Gistok, I threw the key in over the transom, so thatRiska would not be trapped inside.

Locked out, locked away from everything even faintly familiar?my books,clothes, comforts, my language, even my guide?I was staring at a river full ofcrocodiles. I was allergic to the grass. I had no boat. No phone. No mailbox. Noone could contact me even if they tried. In a moment I would walk into theforest and if I didn't come back, no one would know where to look for myremains. I'd kicked off the traces; that's how I felt. For almost thirty yearsI'd been responsible for children. And to them. In fact, I'd been answerable tosomeone all my life. To be sensible, to be respectable, to stay within the law,within the bounds of etiquette, inside well-marked cultural lines. Like theorangutans, I was a creature of culture. And like Riska, only she'd gone a lotfurther from her origins than I. From the start, I'd been so closely monitoredthat when I jumped, I never knew whether it was a reaction to the lines I wascrossing or a response to some part of my true self. I couldn't think of asingle minute of my life that hadn't belonged to someone else. Even now, on theother side of the locked door, there was Riska. Maybe I should stay unattached,forget any personal feelings for her. I'd come from another world and I had noright, or duty even, to make her part of mine. Writing the truth, about herselfor anything else, would permanently change her life. I had locked the door.Fine. And when I looked around for Gistok, he was out of sight.

I thought, If fear is connected to other people's claims, then being invisible Ishould be fearless. And being fearless, I'm free. "Out of here," as my kidswould say. Four hours' walk away there was a piece of land held byBiruté's husband, Pak Bohap. Anyway, it was ostensibly in his name. I'dheard about it from the rangers, from other visitors and from people inPangkalan Bun and Kumai. Biruté's secret forest. I'd heard thatBiruté kept a group of ex-captive orangutans on this land under the careof some very isolated workers who were extremely unfriendly. Even hostile. I'dbeen told that, denied access to Camp Leakey, she protected this secret place asvigilantly as we protect our secret selves. There were guards. It was "privateproperty." Very dangerous to trespass.

There were stories from former volunteers and associates, and also locals. Theywere never denied.

I kept the river on my right and the trees on my left. The path was sandy and Isearched it for fire ants. Nothing. Nobody. That was what I felt. Around me,beneath and above, nothingness. Even meeting up with a wild pig or a poisonoussnake would have been less terrible than . . . And what if a snake did comeslithering out of the grass? I was only wearing my Tevas and I hadn't told AlanI was going out of camp. I'd broken a cardinal rule: Never go out alone andalways notify . . . If something happened, I would cause trouble for him. It wasdarkening, and that happens fast. If I went any farther, it would be too dark tofind my way back. Trees on my left, gathering shadows like birds, river on myright, lungs out of breath, feet pounding the earth, I ran toward that hiddenplace in the woods. Passed the graveyard. Got to the old, wobbly tower. I waspicking up speed, watching my feet grip my sandals, watching the ground move.

In front of me, Biruté's secret place. Behind me, Riska's hidden life.

Biruté says we are social animals. She says we've learned to give becauseof our greed. But maybe it's something else. If clambering taught us to think ofourselves as separate and unique, as causal agents, it made us aware ofourselves and our movements so that we could paint on the walls of caves when wecame down to the ground. What we painted was stories and images made for anotherset of eyes, a spirit or god or fellow being. It's the awareness of ourselvesthat causes us to create. I'd argue against "greed" as the cause for the giftsof our deepest sensibilities. Surely there is generosity in writing . . .

I decided to ignore the secret forest and turn around. I wanted my lover, mychildren, the friends I've adopted for keeps. And my work. Words. Riska. Thedoor to the cabin was still locked, so I turned toward the river, where I couldsit on the dock and cool my feet. It was dusk. Riska would soon wake up andlight our lamp. I neared the dock and saw something strange. Gistok was sittingin the river, quietly splashing himself with a meditative flick of his wrist.Slowly, as if absorbed in the deepest thought, he examined his fingers, trailingthem through the current so he could study the drops that fell when he liftedthem. Delighted by the sight of his toes underwater, he grinned at them and thenlooked up at me and grinned again.

Orangutans like sitting on docks and playing with soap, but they never swim.Still, Gistok sat in the river. He was alone. I got in with him. Companionably,we watched our hands waver under the surface, both of us wordless, made of thesame sensibilities. Each of us with a brain that creates images and the sensesthat feed them joined in the realm of gestures, expressions and empathy, sweetlycommunicating. No tugging this time. No overpowering strength. The sky reddenedbriefly, and Gistok leaned over to peer at some passing fish. If I'd had a pairof goggles, I'd have given them to him.

***

That night Riska and I ate our meal and prepared ourselves for sleep. Mosquitocoils, lanterns turned down, teeth brushed, dishes scraped.

"There's something I think I should tell you," she said in the wavering light."Did you know I have a little daughter?"

I shook my head.

"I didn't think so. It was bothering me."

I do like you better, I wanted to say, but I couldn't find the words to explain.What draws us close is not just sharing the everyday things. There are alsofrightening and terrible truths. How much was I giving of myself? I couldn'teven tell her how I felt.

I went to sleep and dreamed of my mother visiting me in a house that was talland white. We walked around on its green lawn, and she told me the name of herfavorite rose and gave me instructions about planting it. I tried to explainthat I would never live long enough in that house to see a rose come to bloom,but suddenly she fell on the grass and I picked her up and carried her on aroundthe white house, feeling such tenderness for her that all the next day, when mysenses were again awake, the feeling persisted, the weight of my mother in myarms.

Copyright © 1999 Linda Spalding. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-56512-226-7