Chapter Seven
3 September 2004
Odzala-Kokoua National Park
Republic of the Congo
The hard part for Massimo Scialdone had been convincing Annabella to take a vacation.
She always had the same excuse: she didn’t trust the staff of Vino Scialdone—the Tuscan winery that had been in their family for the better part of a century—to do anything right in her absence. However, their sons, Primo and Secondo, were now doing most of the day-to-day of running the place, and Annabella and Massimo were too old to do as much of it as they used to.
Even with that, it had taken Massimo two years—aided by Primo, Secondo, and their daughters-in-law—to finally talk her into it. It helped that their children had jointly given the stay at one of the Odzala Discovery Camps in the Congo to them as an anniversary present. Annabella had spent the day they boarded the train that would take them from the heart of the Tuscan hills to Rome, and thence to the airport, on her phone. Eventually, Primo stopped taking her calls, at which point Annabella sent a stream of texts, which only paused during the period when she wasn’t allowed to use her phone on the plane from Rome to the Congo.
After three days, however, Annabella had finally put the phone away, and even admitted that she was glad she’d taken the vacation. For his part, Massimo was grateful for the peace and quiet.
The camp was built into the forest canopy, so it was like living in a treehouse. A luxurious, well-appointed treehouse, but still. It was lovely, from the handwritten note from the staff welcoming them when they checked in to the attentive waitstaff at the bar and restaurant to the expert, and patient, tour guides.
Today, they were doing gorilla tracking, which involved hiking to the locations where gorilla families congregated. Specific families were set aside for people to view, others kept away from people for conservation purposes.
The expedition included only one other couple, two Germans named Helmut and Helga. They each referred to each other as “Hel,” which they thought was hilarious, which was more than Massimo was willing to admit. He also wasn’t willing to admit that he spoke German—a language that Annabella was not fluent in. Instead, they mostly conversed in French. This worked out nicely for everyone, as their guide, Etienne, was much more comfortable with French than he was with Italian or German.
At one point, Annabella asked, “Etienne, do you have many issues with poachers?”
“Occasionally.” Etienne’s voice, Massimo noticed, had a tinge of sadness. “More often than we’d like, though less often than we fear.”
Helmut said, “I heard there was an incident recently.”
“Yes,” Etienne said with obvious reluctance. “But the poachers were driven off before they could do any more harm.”
“So they did do some,” Annabella said.
Etienne simply nodded.
“I saw the most amazing thing in Rwanda last year,” Helmut said. “It was a pair of young gorillas actually dismantling one of the snare traps set for them!”
Annabella nodded. “I remember reading about that. I was impressed that they knew the trap for what it was.”
“They did it very nimbly, too,” Helmut added. “Probably saved a few lives.”
“It is a barbaric practice,” Etienne said. “Particularly in this case. Most poachers are people who are desperate for money. Bushmeat can be sold for four Euros a pound or more—that is quite a large payday, especially for a three-hundred-pound gorilla.”
“Particularly for the poorer people who live here,” Helmut added.
“Yes,” Etienne said quietly. Massimo noted a bit of resentment at Helmut’s tone, but Etienne was too good a tour guide to say anything.
But Massimo was more interested in the reasons for targeting gorillas in particular. “You say people eat the meat of gorillas?”
“Many consider it a great delicacy, unfortunately. Also, their hands are often considered objects of great interest, as ashtrays or other household items. The poachers who attacked recently removed the hands and heads of the gorillas before butchering them. I can only assume they adorned their dwelling places with the latter, while selling the former.”
Massimo felt nauseous. “That is appalling,” he said, followed by a few curses in Italian.
“That is the word used in polite company, yes,” Etienne said dryly, and everyone got a chuckle out of that.
Suddenly, Helga wrinkled her nose. “Do I smell smoke?” she asked her husband in German.
Looking up, Massimo saw the smoke that she smelled about fifty meters ahead, coming from the tree line.
Etienne cursed in French and started running toward the smoke. Massimo did likewise, as did Helga. Annabella and Helmut followed behind, moving more slowly.
As he ran, Massimo saw a man emerge from behind the trees. He was moving quickly and elegantly, like he was trained in how to run.
But that wasn’t the odd part. The man was wearing a gorilla mask that covered his entire head.
Massimo knew it was a gorilla mask because the man hesitated in his running just long enough to look at the five of them as they moved toward the smoke.
Then he ran away even faster.
Etienne ignored the man running away, more concerned with the smoke itself. As they got closer, Massimo could smell the fire.
Helga tried to chase down the man in the gorilla mask, but he sped too far ahead, and she was soon out of breath from the exertion. Helmut ran ahead to catch up to her and console her.
Massimo followed Etienne into the forest. He could see the flames now, though they seemed to be in a single, circular area.
Passing several large trees, he came into a small clearing and saw a firepit. Someone had placed several stones on the ground, all about ankle-to-knee height, with a fire inside. Massimo breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that the fire, while surprisingly intense for a firepit, was contained.
Only then did the other smell register: burning flesh.
Peering closely, Massimo Scialdone saw a sight that he feared he would never forget until his dying day: five human bodies being burned.
At first, he didn’t believe it. His mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing.
But though they were quickly being seared beyond recognition, they were definitely human beings.
Massimo heard someone scream.
It took him a few seconds to realize that it was he himself who was screaming at the sight of flesh being boiled and blackened, of body parts becoming so lost in the flames that they were no longer visible, of each burned corpse becoming slowly less recognizable as a person.
Seeing eyes boil away, seeing hands melt, seeing legs shrink and burn.
Massimo didn’t stop screaming for a quite a while.
Somewhere he registered that Etienne had taken out his satellite phone—there was no cell service in this part of the park, which was deliberate, but the sat phone was necessary for emergencies—and called the authorities.
Much later, Massimo sat with Annabella and Helmut in the bar at the camp. Massimo was on his fifth vodka. Having grown up in a winery, he rarely drank socially, as it was too much like work, but today, he drank. He went with vodka because it was the strongest thing they had. In truth, he would happily have guzzled grain alcohol if it helped get the image of the burned bodies out of his mind.
“Will Helga join us?” Annabella asked Helmut.
He nodded. “Shortly. She said she had to take care of—of something, I don’t recall what.”
An awkward silence followed.
Annabella had never been one to tolerate silences, awkward or otherwise. “I wonder who that man was.”
“He was fast, I’ll you that,” Helmut said. “Hel ran marathons in her youth. She is not a slow woman. But that—that person in the gorilla mask outpaced her easily. Not many can do that, especially when Hel has her dander up.”
Massimo threw back more vodka. “I wonder what would drive a man to do that.”
“What, kill someone?” Helmut asked.
“Not just kill. To burn people in such a manner—it is despicable. Nothing human could have done that.”
“He seemed human to me,” Helmut muttered.
Annabella smiled wryly. “Actually, he seemed like a gorilla.”
Helmut chuckled. Massimo drank more vodka.
Helga chose that moment to come into the bar. “Schnapps, please,” she said to the bartender before kissing her husband. “Hel.”
“Hel. We were just talking about the man in the gorilla suit and how he outran even you.”
In German, she said, “Of course he outran me, you idiot, I’m fifty-four years old.”
Massimo almost choked on his vodka at that. “My apologies,” he said quickly between sputters, covering up that he understood German. “I swallowed too quickly.”
Helmut added, back in French, “Massimo was wondering how a human being could do what he did to those five people.”
Helga said, “I have spoken with Etienne. Apparently, the men in that firepit were among the ones who poached their gorillas. According to the coroner, they were trapped in the same type of snares that the poachers use to trap the gorillas.”
“Like the one I saw the young gorillas taking apart in Rwanda last year?” Helmut asked.
Nodding, Helga paused to take the Schnapps from the bartender and take a very long sip of it before continuing. “Not only that, but after they were trapped, they were burned alive.” She looked at Massimo. “I’d be much more curious what manner of human being could do what they did. Cut off gorillas’ heads and hands and sell them for meat?”
“We butcher cows,” Massimo said quietly. “What is the difference?”
“Cows are imbeciles!” Helga took a breath, realizing she was shouting. “I am sorry. Cows are bred for food. Gorillas are actually intelligent. Remember, Hel saw them dismantle a trap! They are not to be eaten, they are to be encouraged! No, my friend, those who did this are monsters, and the world is well to be rid of them forever. Had I caught up to that man in the mask, knowing what I know now, I would have shaken his hand.”
Massimo did not respond to Helga’s words at first, instead slugging down the rest of his vodka and ordering another.
Once it came, and the uncomfortable silence had gone on long enough that Annabella was on the verge of another attempt to continue the conversation, Massimo finally said, “Perhaps you are right, Helga. Personally, I have always believed that vengeance is the purview of God, not humanity. I also recall a rather tiresome cliché that is nonetheless apt: two wrongs do not make a right. And I know this as well—until the day I die, I will never ever forget the sight of those human beings being burned alive. And I will never stop thinking of the person who could do such a thing to other people—any other people, regardless of what they may have done—as anything but a monster.”
The awkward silence that followed Massimo’s pronouncement lasted quite some time. Even Annabella found no way to break it.