North of Ghana. East of the Ivory Coast. West and down through Mozambique until they reached a valley of curled mists. Up and above Victoria falls, the wind beating at her hair as she gazed down at the gapping mouth of beyond. River mountain desert, and the lady with the oversized umbrella at Dejenne who told them the hotel at the next pass was the last one with electricity and the tall man that had unloaded her father's bags had grunted that the last radio signal died out at the Iron Pass that led into Rwanda. She clutched the radio to her chest as their caravan rumbled across the pass, the music melting away in a silent hum of static. Nothing. Nothing beyond “Beautiful Dreamer.” The Dark Continent swallowed her music even as it swallowed her. Sometimes she told herself that she didn't mind it. She could do without the radio. She didn't really need it.

“It's true, Daddy. The station dies out in Rwanda.”

She wasn't sure if he had heard her. He had his back to her, his hands moving over his possessions, nervous little gestures as he set up his shaving mirror and unscrewed the top off his shaving cream and set out an organized line of tweezers and nail clipper and razor. He grunted a few words, rubbed his palms together and over his chin as the lather formed. She looked down at the brown face of the radio and stepped outside. Silence followed her. She wanted to sing, but the stretches of land beyond her eyesight crippled her voice. The jungle devoured it.
 

The radio was old. It had sat at her dresser in the London house, the dial pointed east and west and trembling over frequency one hundred and thirty, a young man informing her about the weather. Not many people had radios, her father told her. Not many people needed them. The paper is just as good her father would say, tall pillars of stock exchange and the results at the races and Russia and Germany hanging between them and breakfast. Eggs, toast, scones, and she liked to climb back up to her room and lie in her bed and listen to the ladies' voices coming from the brown box set on her dresser. Oval at the top, pedestal for legs.

“You're taking it to Africa?” He stroked his moustache, clear blue eyes quizzical even as he wrapped it carefully in brown paper and marked it as a component of the field work phonographs and sent it down with the procession that led down to the waiting auto. “What are you going to do with it over there? Africans don't have broadcast stations. They live in villages. They don't live with the gorillas. You'll only be saddling yourself with extra baggage.”

She knew that. She set the radio on the makeshift table beside her bunk and drew her knees beneath her chin and knew that it was a worthless piece of wood with two crystal cylinders inside and too many wires and a useless needle that trembled a few times before lying still. She wanted it to find something. Voices. Voices beside her father's and Mr. Clayton's and the phonographs playing back to themselves and a few bird calls and gorilla grunts and lizards crawling along her tent floor. It was silent. Now on its side as she stood up from bed. She couldn't think about it all day.

Mr. Clayton didn't like the radio. Noisy baggage. He didn't like the music she liked. She didn't think he liked music at all. He sang to himself, as he shaved in his tent in the afternoons. The razor would lift and fold and his silhouette would tremble in the light of his lamp and his deep baritone would rouse her from her sleep. Along the banks of the River Niger. Her father would sing those words as he set up his day's work, fiddling with the phonograph straps. Mr. Clayton had picked it up. She didn't like the sound of his voice, like her father's through a funnel, his voice stretched out and tired. It scratched along her nerves.

"Why did you bother bringing that thing here, Ms. Porter?" He would say things like that. Strike the sides of his wash basin with his razor and turn back to his reflection. The entire camp smelled of him sometimes, of his shaving cream and cologne and the gun powder for his guns and the leather pouches where he kept his bullets and the rifles he stroked like kittens. She wanted the radio to work, to have something to drown out the sound of Mr. Clayton, the whole feel of him. The static was his fault. The Iron Pass was his backbone, deep into the manly sport of taming the jungle and patting her head and thundering in his tent.

She kept drawing supplies beside her bunk, charcoal sticks and an ink well and carbon pencils she kept together in a shoe box, and sometimes she would welcome the afternoon silence of the camp and Mr. Clayton's private rituals. Hullo, and she would sit cross legged on the dirt floor and sketch out the surroundings. If she flipped back through her notebook she could see the rough sketches she had made of the harbour and the ship as they had pulled out to sea. Her father securing their luggage, a caricature of Mr. Clayton falling overboard. Von Bogage crawled out of his mouth. She smiled. She had hated taking French in school. Everybody loved French, the roll of it, the finery of it, the naughty ideas saddled to it like so much excess baggage. She felt like a frog when she tried speaking it. Britons and Frogs. She took up the notebook  and flipped forward to her newer drawings. Monkeys and vines and a canteen lying on its side. Her father sitting in the shade. A caricature of Mr. Clayton as he was carried away by a hairy gorilla. The very last page was covered with rough sketches of a human figure.

She turned the notebook in her hands. It was him, the man with the tangled hair and the brown skin and the wide green eyes. The blue green ocean as she pulled out of South Hampton. It made her smile. She couldn't capture them at all. Not like she could capture her father. He looks just like me, he would say, handing the notebook back to her and smiling and patting her head and the pat was something special then and she would smile. It made her feel silly. The green eyed man couldn't tell her anything, couldn't see where he was in the paper, couldn't pat her in the head. He pushed her away, striking at her shoulder and flexing his fingers over the ground. Jungle boy. Gorilla man. Deep green eyes. Like the song they had played and played again in frequency nine hundred and eighty four while she lived in London. She turned the notebook over in her hands and wished she could be in her bed, curled up at the edge of the mattress, the radio playing to itself.

But the jungle gorilla man wouldn't be in her drawings then.

"Don't you wonder sometimes, what it would be like? To be a gorilla I mean."

She lowered her head and hid a smile. Two cups of tea and an abandoned saucer lay between them. Mr. Clayton had emerged from his tent to take his cup, gulp down his drink, and shoulder his rifle. I'll be sitting out by the edges of camp, keeping an eye out on things, and he was gone. Farewell to him. It was just her and her father, his field shoes removed as he soaked his feet and read through the newspaper he had brought along. Three months old, all decisions void, all sales and discounts done away with. The night hung in suspended animation around them. A call from the trees, the sound of Mr. Clayton as he sneezed and shifted in his spot, the insects darting across and crashing into the gas lamps set out by the tent flaps. A fire burned in the centre of the camp, the flames curling within themselves.

She was sketching her father. She loved him when he read the newspaper and sat in his chair, silent and comfortable. It was London again. How do you think the furniture is getting by back home, he would say, stroking at his moustache. She shadowed in the dark lines under his eyes, drawing out wispy lines for his hair. He didn't move while he read the newspaper, like the jungle gorilla man wouldn't move as he looked at them, hunched at the corners of the camp, his eyes sliding off his surroundings while taking in everything. Bless them both.

"Can I see how I'm coming along?"

He took the notebook in studious silence, lips thinning as he looked at himself. I look just like myself. As always. She saw him flip through the notebook, chuckling at the sketches of himself. He cast a glance in Mr. Clayton's direction once, flipped through to the sketches of the monkeys. These'll make it to my book, if I ever finish it, he mused. He came to the sketches of the gorilla man and stopped. She saw him set the notebook on his lap, his clear blue eyes narrowed as he looked at her lines and squiggles and measuring marks and the deep green eyes and the grey charcoal dust. These are very good, very good, and he handed the notebook back to her. She hoped he hadn't seen her blush. She felt naked, vulnerable, when the gorilla man's images had appeared, as if she wanted to reach forward and snatch the notebook away from her father. Rip out the sketch pages.

"He's out there, right now. Mr. Clayton says he saw him."

Her eyes found the floor. Ants crawling towards their tents. Long lines of brown soldiers and they didn't have to bite their lips to keep from blushing. Her voice was low when she spoke, a monosyllable of curious fear. She could feel her father's smile as he stood up, folding his newspaper and overturning the bucket, the water sinking into the mud and disappearing down into the earth. That's what Mr. Clayton said, he murmured and padded back towards his tent and left her alone outside with her back against the jungle. The jungle that breathed. Deep green eyes. She didn't know what she could say to him. She didn't want to see him. Deep green eyes. She didn't feel comfortable. The jungle breathed, and she knew she would get up and walk towards the edge of the camp.

"It's a radio," she said. "It picks up these signals in the air and..." She trailed off, her voice dying away as he cocked his head and questioned her with his eyes and looked no older than ten. She rubbed the back of her head. "No, that won't do. But it's, ah, a device that plays music. Birds in a box." He blinked at her commentary, his fingers crawling over the ground as he took in every word. She wondered how much he really understood. She wanted the radio to flare to life, to play "Beautiful Dreamer" and show him what it was. She wanted to shake both of them. "I really can't explain it... but it's music. Like la la lala la and para para um pa pa and all of that." She trailed off again. His head was still cocked.

"La la lala la?" he said. A mimic of her, tongue rising and falling against the roof of his mouth, her accent and her posture. He reached forward to take the radio in his hands, held it against his ear, eyes gazing up at the night sky. Nothing. Silence. He looked at her. Deep green eyes. She looked down at the floor and twisted her fingers. One hand rose to brush away at her bangs.

"It's broken now. No more la la la."

"No more la la la." A mimic again. She smiled. A broken radio, a gorilla man that couldn't speak to her.

"That's right. Only silence."
 

Her father held up the phonograph's microphone, pointing it towards the jungle. Maybe today we can tape some of the native calls of birds, he said. Might as well take something back to the Academy. The gorillas were nowhere in sight. She sat by the ashes of last night's fire, eating breakfast and watching her father set out the phonograph. Her notebook lay at her feet, ignored since she had woken up, even after it had been the first thing she had reached for in the morning. She had stayed up late into the night, sketching and erasing. Deep blue eyes and dark lines she couldn't connect to them. She yawned.

"This is going to be long, boring work, honey, and Mr. Clayton's coming with me. Are you sure you'll be all right alone?"

She lifted up her spoon, porridge sliding off it. "I'll be fine, Daddy."

He didn't look convinced, but he shoulder the rest of his equipment and kissed her goodbye. Mr. Clayton stood waiting at the edge of camp, smelling of cologne and his rifles and leather pouches and sweat. She heard him greet her father, their footsteps dying away into the jungle canopy. The shuffle of her father's feet. The thud of Mr. Clayton's boots. They would be gone all day, return tired and sleepy and bored although neither would admit it. Her father could find wonder in hours of silence for the call of a single bird, though, while Mr. Clayton could not. But she could really care less about Mr. Clayton's opinions on bird watching.

She finished her porridge quickly, wriggling her toes under the table. Her tent loomed behind her, dwarfed by the jungle around her. She wanted to ignore it today. She looked towards the jungle canopy, waiting. Waiting for the leaves to part, for him to come into the camp, for her father to give up on the birds and turn back, although she didn't really want him to turn back and she felt guilty and looked down at her bare feet.

"Jane?"

She started, the spoon almost flying off her hands as she realized that he was crouching at the edge of her breakfast table, long fingers wrapped around the border and body hunched forward. She didn't think. She couldn't think. She lifted up her porridge bowl and flung the contents at his face. A long howl rose around her, the table shivering underneath her as he jumped down, shaking his head, surprised and panicked and she was certain he'd be furious. She clasped her hands over her mouth, her mind racing.

"I'm so sorry! You scared me... I didn't know..."

She watched him crouch low, chin held near the ground as he looked up at her. He shook his head once, his tangled hairs slapping against his back. Then again and again, crouching on all fours like a dog. She saw him take a step forward, shake his head again. A glob of porridge fell on her lap. He edged closer, and she saw the look in his eyes. "Oh no," she murmured, her mind racing again. He took another step forward, his mouth stretching out into a grin. He shook his head again, several times, globs of porridge splattering her dress. Getting even. Playing a game. Deep green eyes laughing as she turned over her chair and dove for cover and found herself scooping up the left over porridge and flinging it back at him. He was laughing, a wheezing sound in the back of his throat as he inhaled air and bared his teeth. Funny gorilla man. She got him once, heard him laugh and duck for cover, lithe and a streak of brown. Silent as he grinned at her and played his game.

"You are the most childish person I've ever met!"

Silence met her words. He had crouched low beside the table again, his eyes darting from side to side. Nervous. She stood still, her brows knitting together. She hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. She had been smiling. He must have known she was joking. She took a step forward, hands outstretched as her father had instructed her to do. He wasn't looking at her, his eyes were fixed on her tent, narrowing. She saw him shift, his knuckles against the ground as his back flexed and she saw him draw back and she started as he leapt forward, a lightning streak as he ran towards her tent. She heard him land on her bunk, the sound of his voice high pitched as he screeched to himself. She found him hunched over the edge of her bed, his mouth around the oval top of her radio.

"No, wait!"

She didn't realize what she had done until she stood a few feet away from him, clutching the radio to her chest, looking at him on the floor, shaking his head from the force of her blow. He drew his feet under him, edging away from her, and she wanted to cry. It made no sense. She could feel the tears at the corners of her eyes. He looked up at her, green eyes deeper than before, and all she could see were the lines of his body, drawn out sharply against the tent floor. Hurt, not comprehending. He had attacked her radio, she had attacked him. She clutched the wooden box to her chest and felt as it rose and fell, her heart beating quickly. She wanted to apologize, but her mouth would not work.

He took a step forward, his hands rising as he mimicked her manners again. "La la la," he said. He pointed at the radio, at her. La la la. No more la la la. She looked down at the wooden box in her hands. It shivered a while, a faint hum coming from it. She couldn't make out the sounds. Loud, sinking lower, shivering and spewing out nervous static. She held the radio firmly in her hands and sought out the gorilla man's gaze. He was smiling, gesturing with his hands. La la la. No more lala la.

"Do you hear it?" Her voice was almost a whisper. She couldn't understand it. An advertisement for soap. That's what came through the static. A jingle. But she couldn't stop smiling. "You hear? La la la. Birds in a box. This is what it's like..."

He had come to crouch beside her, leaning closer to the radio. Deep green eyes laughing as she laughed and the voices in the wooden box laughed. She had thought he would run away from the strange sounds, the strange machine. "Do you hear it? It's called a radio. Music." He listened to her words and took the box between his hands, his ear close to the sound piece. Music, he said. Birds in a box. Looking up at her. Deep green eyes and birds in a box.
 

"Whatever it was that made it play then, I'm afraid it's gone now, honey. I've tried everything I could think of."

She took the radio from him silently, placed it gently at the edge of her bunk again. It wobbled sideways a bit, threatening to topple off the edge. She smiled at her father, told him it was all right. She hadn't really expected the reception to stay for long. She was all right. He didn't look convinced, his hand rising to stroke at his moustache, but he didn't say anything. He reached out to pat her head and wished her good night and walked back to his tent. He walked slowly, and she could hear him still murmuring under his breath. Where could the signal have come from? But he couldn't furnish himself and answer, and he was soon murmuring to himself about heating up a good cup of tea.

"Jane?"

The sound of his voice didn't surprise her this time. He was hunched by the flaps of her tent, looking inside. She could tell he was looking at the radio, his eyes narrowing in thought. He looked up at her as she passed, straightened and followed her in. She heard him clamber on top of her bunk, the radio between his hands as he pressed his ear against it. He looked at her again.

"No more la la la?"

She shook her head, sitting beside him on the bunk, drawing her knees up under her chin. "No, no more la la la. It didn't last an awful long, did it?" She sighed. She could feel the gorilla man shifting beside her, placing the radio back on top of the bunk, his legs dangling from the corners of the makeshift bed as he had seen her do. She wanted to say something to him, about London, about the radio and her favourite songs and how lonely it felt sometimes to lie in her bunk in total silence and about how much she missed the music while she drew. But she knew he wouldn't understand. Not really. She lowered her head on her knees, feeling the box springs shift and groan underneath her as he clambered down.

"Jane?"

She didn't look up at him. She found that she couldn't. He probably blamed himself. He was probably crouched on the tent floor, deep green eyes thoughtful as he looked at her. She murmured out a yes and waited for him to answer. He was silent. She began to feel the minutes sliding past them, growing heavier. Silence. But she still could not raise her head.

"La la la..."

His voice. Rising slowly. She could barely make it out at first, like the sounds that had come from the radio. She raised her head, slowly. Just like the sounds that had come from the radio. He sat crouched on the tent floor, eyes closed in concentration as he picked out the sounds, the nuances.

"... for a better wash and a better clean. Pa ra pa ra pa pa pa ra. Halbercomby & Sons Pure Botanical Extract Soap..."

She lowered her legs, found that a smile had spread across her lips. It tickled at the corners of her mouth. "That's amazing." He smiled, his eyes still closed, and provided the jingle, followed by a cascade of slow brass and baritone violins. Along the Banks of the River Niger, and she found that she was laughing. "You're actually very good."

He smiled again. He was looking at her. Deep green eyes. She lay out on her bunk, one hand held under her cheek as she listened to him, the music and nuances and the perfect mimic. She could feel herself becoming drowsy, the sound of his voice lulling her to sleep. She heard him move nearer, his back resting against the sides of her bunk, his hands wrapped around his knees as he played music for her. Deep green eyes. Birds in a box. A jungle that breathed. She closed her eyes, one hand rising to brush against his shoulder. Funny gorilla man.
 
 
 
 

Author's Note

June 14th, 1999. Although this was actually the second Tarzan story I started writing, I managed to finish it first. It's bit silly... but I guess it'll always feel a bit silly to write about Disney films, and specially about Tarzan... That's why I never actually mentioned his name. A chicken's ploy. Heh heh. Many thanks to my buddy Tarzan (all hair here, buddy!) for pointing out that Tarzan's eyes are actually green (as opposed to the blue I thought they were) and for demanding that I write at least one Tarzan story. This was written out while I waited for the movie, so errors must be rampant. At this point I'm just building characters from RPG sections and commercials. I humbly apologize for errors and horrors.

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