Chapter Six

My friend Beri

My uncles had caught a small male baboon; it was a baby. They had gone hunting for trophies and found the little baboon all alone and abandoned. They tied him up and brought him home. At first they put him in a cage and gave him a banana to eat. I was delighted that they had found this little animal, and I longed to hold and hug him, but my uncle said that this was not possible because baboons bite.

We called the baboon Beri. A small wooden house was made for him, which was placed at the top of a tall post to which Beri was chained. He was able to clamber up and down the pole with ease and sit inside his little house observing the world. I would sit for hours looking at him; I wanted to gain his trust because he was terribly frightened. After a few days, by which time he had appeared to gain courage, he sat on the ground by the post and I sat facing him at a safe distance. He made some grimaces and opened his jaws wide, displaying awesomely sharp teeth. He had mustard-coloured eyes and his look was sharp and devilish it literally pierced your soul but there was also an element of deep sadness in his eyes.

One day, I remember stretching out my hand to pet him, which is a very risky thing to do. Initially he shrank back, feeling threatened, but after a while a little hairy hand grabbed my finger. We sat like this, motionless, staring at each other. I examined his little hand: how beautiful it was! It was almost like a human hand, the only difference being the brownish-grey hair covering the upper part, the jet-black fingers and the smooth palm. I studied his whole body and noticed that his penis looked like a piece of string with a knot at the end, which puzzled me. It made such an impression on me that later, in the bathroom, I studied my own body for comparison. Then I went and asked my grandmother why Beri’s ‘willy’ was the way it was. She answered with commendable seriousness, ‘You might as well ask why the elephant's “willy” is long and thick. There’s a reason for everything in nature.’ I found this answer completely satisfactory.

You see, in Africa people were not ashamed of nakedness: it was considered natural. The Masai men, for example, wore a cape over their shoulders but were completely naked in front, and the women were usually topless. As a child I never thought anything of it. And we saw animals urinating, defecating and mating almost daily. It was all a part of life.

Beri grew up and became quite aggressive because of his captivity. I could no longer get close to him without him jumping around pulling on his chain and barking like a fierce dog. His behaviour scared me and I ended up just watching him from my bedroom window. Whenever he was calm, with the window between us, we would play a game. I would focus my gaze on his eyes and nod my head up and down two or three times, just as baboons do. He responded in the same manner. We would do this several times until it sent him absolutely crazy and he started jumping about and screaming.

One day I woke to a commotion. Something metallic was being dragged along the roof tiles and there was chaos in the garden. The servants and a gardener were shouting loudly while my grandmother gave orders in Swahili. I peered outside the window and realized that Beri had escaped. He was no longer in his little house on the pole and the chain was missing. The gardener saw me and ordered me to stay indoors.

Beri was moving to and fro on the roof of the house, dragging the chain behind him. He had no intention of coming down; he knew that if he did he would lose his freedom. After some hours one of my uncles finally arrived and succeeded in capturing poor Beri. Beri went down fighting: he managed to inflict a nasty bite on the arm of one unlucky servant before he was subdued. From the open windows I could now hear his shrieks of despair and rage as they stuffed him back into the cage. He was going to be taken to the Savannah to be released, in the hope that he would find a troop of baboons to belong to. I wept inconsolably in my grandmother’s arms. I had lost a friend forever.

Many years later I learned that when Beri was freed near a troop of baboons in the savannah, some of its members attacked and killed him. He was an enemy and did not belong to the troop, which was governed by strict rules and hierarchies.