Shallow Breath

49

Pete




It takes Pete three days to get from Western Australia to the orang-utan release centre in Sumatra. First he has a brief stop in Denpasar, before he flies on to Jakarta. As the plane circles to land, he surveys the city’s hazy panorama of concrete towers with ambivalence, grateful for the bed he’s booked in a nearby guesthouse. The last time he’d been through Jakarta, he and his boss had spent the night sleeping outside Berani’s container in the airport’s cargo hold.

The five-minute trip to the guesthouse takes forty minutes, since the cars are at a crawl. When he reaches his room, he finds the walls are painted luminous green, which makes it easy to shut his eyes. The next day he grabs the breakfast box of water and bread rolls that has been left at his door, and is at Terminal 2 early, eager to get on his short Garuda flight to Jambi. To his dismay, as he searches for his departure gate, he sees a stacked display of shark fins among the items for sale at a convenience store in the lobby. And once he gets in the air, his excitement about returning to the rainforest is marred by the view of an endless plain of acacia and palm oil plantations – there is no hiding the scale of destruction from up here.

At Jambi, he finds out the supply truck will not leave for the release station until the next day. That evening, in another small guesthouse, he eats nasi padang and tries to call Desi. It’s probably the last chance he’ll have to speak to her for a while, since there’s no mobile signal available in the jungle without a long hike, and he’s disappointed when there’s no answer. He sleeps fitfully, waking soon after dawn to get ready for the journey. Only once they set off into the rainforest does he realise that he’s always had an English-speaking companion before. His Indonesian is patchy; he will have a lot to learn if he moves here.

As always, the journey over the deep, muddy tracks is painstakingly slow and bumpy. It is worse than being at sea, and Pete struggles to contain his nausea, despite having taken tablets in preparation. He’s on the lookout for wildlife, but the dense vegetation is hiding its treasures today. Nevertheless, it is a good run – no breakdowns or blowouts, and they get across the river without water seeping into the car.

He arrives at the station in late afternoon. After saying hello and a grateful thank you to the manager, he gets to watch the last hour of jungle school – the orphaned and abandoned young orang-utans who are busy training for their release into the forest. The confident ones show off their brachial skills along ropes and branches, while others hover by their carers, observing. But they all scurry across once cups of milk are produced, drinking greedily after their exertions.

The orang-utan babies are adorable without exception, with their huge, innocent brown eyes and their playful nature, but Pete is all too aware that this has been their curse as much as a blessing. When their mothers are shot down from trees and killed, these youngsters are carried away to be living dolls, the status symbols of the wealthy. Half the babies here have background stories like this, while the rest are victims of habitat destruction.

In the evening, Pete chats to a group of devoted German scientists who have spent years putting their money and expertise into the project. Then one of the trackers comes across to tell him he can accompany their group tomorrow. Soon after, he decides he’ll head for bed.

He endures another night of broken sleep, this time because of a cacophony of forest musicians, an array of feathered choristers following an entire orchestra of insects. When the first pure rays of morning light shine through the small windows, and the gibbons begin to sing, he is already getting dressed. His clothes are damp from the humidity, and will doubtless remain that way until he leaves.

There is a deep level of peacefulness to plodding behind the trackers, day after day, despite the insects that pester and bite, the sweat that drips into his eyes and the sore neck he gets from craning up towards the trees, searching for glimpses of orange fur. Pete cannot entirely pin it down, but perhaps it comes from a sense of purpose. He is in awe of the skill with which the two trackers can negotiate pathways within the deep forest without ever getting lost. They are from the local Talang Mamak tribe, another victim of logging and forest degradation, whose traditional pastimes have been replaced by new occupations such as this. While these trackers are keen to locate certain orang-utans to check on their welfare, they are keeping a lookout for all one hundred and thirty in the release zone. Pete’s eyes are searching for just one.

And yet, day after day, there is no sign of Berani. Pete is despondent by the end of day five, as the trackers radio in before indicating that they should turn around and head back. It is late afternoon, and broken patches of yellow sunshine stream through the forest canopy. A rabble of pretty butterflies dance around the low-lying grass and stop to gorge on the mud, while the men have to take winding, circuitous trails to avoid stepping on them. The trackers stop to study what could be cat prints, talking rapidly between themselves, while Pete gets the feeling that there are eyes on him. He peers into the canopy again, hoping to find Berani, and instead spies a brightly coloured wrinkled hornbill watching silently from a nearby branch.

What would Desi make of this? he wonders, as he gives the hornbill a playful salute. How he longs to show her this beautiful hidden world, before it is too late.

As he follows, the men begin talking into the two-way more often, and he notices them eyeing him with more interest. They are almost back at the camp when they both fall behind, and he comes out into the clearing first. Across the way, he sees the jungle school assembled again, a troupe of little apes hanging suspended from a horizontal rope, swaying like washing out to dry.

One of the German scientists comes across to him and points up into the trees. ‘There,’ he says.

Pete gazes up to see a big, sleek orang-utan sitting on a branch some way above. They must have released another adult from quarantine.

The German scientist is laughing at him. ‘Berani!’ he says, pointing again.

And Pete, shocked, takes another look.

He hadn’t recognised him because Berani is so much bigger, and a perfect picture of health. His coat had been a dull orange in the dry heat of the zoo, but here, in the intense humidity, it has become a lustrous deep red. As Pete watches, his long-lost orang-utan stoically surveys them all, chewing on a small green jambu fruit.

‘He must have heard you were here and come to visit,’ the German scientist laughs, as Pete steps forward. Berani has noticed him and is coming slowly down from the tree, but Pete hastens across to climb a nearby observation post, not wanting Berani to come to the ground for him. As he climbs up, someone in the background cries ‘Hati-hati!’– ‘Be careful!’ – but Pete ignores them. Rather than approaching Berani, he sits waiting at the top, as the orang-utan ambles closer, until finally he is greeted by what can only be described as a hairy, smelly ape embrace.