by Tamar Myers
At the appropriate time (that is, when enough palm wine had been drunk to bring him happiness) the chief set down his human skull and raised his staff with the colobus-monkey-tail tassel.
“My wives will now dance,” he declared. The drums took up, and the chief began to count his wives as their entered the compound. But alas, one woman—wife seven, Born Crouching, was not among their number.
“Where is Born Crouching?” the chief roared.
A female slave was quick to appear from out of nowhere. “My Lord,” she said, “her ladyship is yet confined to the house of the women.”
“Impossible.”
“My Lord, this is truly so.”
Chief Eagle struck the female slave so hard with his fist that she was thrown into Bad Odor’s lap.
“Do not tell me what is so, when it cannot be. For are you all not on the same cycle?”
“Lord Husband,” said Breaks Wind While Walking, “it was but yesterday that Born Crouching gave birth to your son.”
“My son? What son? I have no son by this good-for-nothing woman—worth not even one goat of her dowry payment—only girl children.”
Breaks Wind While Walking did not look away, like a lesser wife might have done. “Yesterday a son was born to you, one so small that he could not bite the breath of life.”
“Why was I not told?”
“Lord Husband,” said Breaks Wind While Walking, “I did not tell you, because it was you who were responsible for your son’s death. You beat Born Crouching so badly that her body could no longer hold on to her child. Therefore, you did not deserve to know of his existence.”
Buakane wished more than anything that she could be a child again, perhaps a toddler clinging to her mother’s leg while she did her chores. Or she could find contentment in being one of the many bats that were forever swooping overhead. She would be anyone, anything, go anywhere, to just not sit here and listen to the shocked silence, which was surely worse than the battle cries of a thousand men.
Finally the chief spoke, but not to his wife. “Go to the House of Women and bring Born Crouching to me,” he said to two of his warriors. “And you,” he said to his personal slave, “fetch me my hippopotamus hide whip.”
“Lord Husband, I beg you not to do this,” said Breaks Wind While Walking.
Chief Eagle stood up and moved in her direction, his hand raised, as if to strike her as well, but in the end he merely stared. And while he stared at her, his lips parted, and the tip of his tongue flickered from side to side in the space where his two front teeth had once grown. At last he beckoned to another pair of warriors.
“Remove this woman to her hut and see that she is not disturbed by anyone until tomorrow midday,” he said.
Bad Odor leaned close to Buakane, so that only her ears would be the ones to receive his words. “He means to include himself as well.”
“Kah!”
“He does not wish to beat his number one wife; by then he will have slept off the palm wine.”
Buakane was stunned. She was neither feebleminded nor innocent like a child. To the contrary, she prided herself on being a keen observer of others. She had always known that she was a commodity, a thing to be sold to the highest bidder, but then, she had also assumed that her father would mourn her leaving. Apparently, however, the acquisition of twenty goats, and a basenji bitch, plus chickens and pigeons to go with his nightly mush were more important than what happened to his daughter.
There was a slight chance that he was putting on a show of strength for her, but Buakane rather doubted it. After all, there was another occasion when her father put wealth before family. Since it was not something she ever liked to remember, she usually kept it well pushed to a far corner of her mind. That was the time when Mother came down with the “mosquito fever,” and her forehead became as hot as coals. Even though Paddle chewed on the bark given to her by the witch doctor (it had worked many times in the past), she grew sicker and sicker, until at last she was writhing in pain. Paddle had shouted many things—some of them curses—but most of them were incoherent.
At the time Bad Odor was aware that there was a clinic at Mushihi Station, which dispensed medicine specifically to combat mosquito fever. However, he would not take Paddle there or allow her to be taken there because he was under the impression that the clinic charged a small fee for the pills. And yes, it was only a small fee; this was something Buakane knew for herself, for she had asked those who had reason to know.
“Buakane! Buakane! Why do you stare at me like a fool?”
Of course Buakane had been staring only at the father in her mind, not the one beside her. Nonetheless, it behooved her to lie. More than that, a plan had begun to form in her mind.
“Father, I ask permission to use the toilet.”
“Absolutely not! The dance is about to begin.”
“Let her go,” Paddle said.
“I said no.”
“You were never a bride,” Paddle said.
“Then go quickly,” Bad Odor said.
“Thank you, Mother,” Buakane said. She touched her mother’s shoulder lightly and slipped like a stitch into cloth, through the courtiers that surrounded them and into the night.
The plan that had begun to form now took shape with every step. Buakane walked with apparent purpose in the direction of the public toilets. She walked briskly, one hand held to her belly, as befitting a bride with a stomach full of jumping frogs. As she had hoped, no one paid attention to someone in this condition. However, upon reaching the coil of palm thatch that hid the privies, Buakane strode right past them. She marched straight into the shadows of the thick tshisuku, the elephant grass that grew along the perimeter of the village.
After three months of rain, the grass grew tall, reaching above her head. The blades were coarse and sharp, leaving welts upon her body, so Buakane made her way forward with her arms crossed in front of her head in order to protect her eyes. She was, however, in more danger from the snakes coiled in the bare spots between the clumps, where they preyed on toads and rodents. But the spirits of the bush were favorable to her, and she was able to make good progress, though she knew not to where.
After having covered a distance equal to that of three round-trips to the stream, Buakane encountered the most curious thing; in fact, it was so startling that she sat down on her heels to take it all in. It was this thing called a “road,” which she had heard about many times. But one cannot begin to imagine the magnificence of such a thing, until one has beheld it with one’s own eyes.
How could Buakane ever describe it to her best friend, Withholds Famine? It’s to a path as a drop of water is to a storm. A road is so wide that one’s hut can easily be set right in the middle of it, and there would still be room for the pigeon coop, and a plot for gourds. As for the length—surely there was no end. It stretched from sky to sky, and being that the world is round, then the road circles until it meets itself again, like a length of lukodi tied around a tree trunk.
In the bright moonlight, the road gleamed silver against the dark, brooding wall of grass behind it. Buakane longed to step out into this strange new thing, to see for herself what it was like to walk, swinging one’s arms this way and that, whirling in circles, without having to mind one’s step. What a marvelous thing a road was, if only the white men had not been the ones to think of it. Buakane had heard that these roads were necessary for the movement of the giant iron beasts that the Bula Matadi, their Belgian rulers, built. Although some said that it was more likely that these strange beasts were created by magic, and not by the hand of man.
Consider this: the largest of the beasts were even larger than the largest bull elephants. Instead of legs, the bodies of these bizarre animals were held off the ground by four circles consisting of rubber. Each beast, no matter its size, had a mouth large enough to swallow a person whole, and every beast had at least two mouths, and some beasts were said to have as many as four. Also, the mouths were located on the sides of the
animal, behind the eyes.
It was a fact that a person—even a Mushilele—could enter a beast and be disgorged by the same beast, unharmed. Clearly, these creatures were not related to any other living thing—not even the okapi—therefore one must wisely conclude that they were the product of magic, and one must treat them with the utmost suspicion.
Truly, the Bashilele witch doctors were incapable of performing magic that was anywhere near this caliber. Buakane had even heard her own witch doctor say the same thing, just not directly. Usually such an omission was voiced as a jealous rant.
Not that it mattered. As much as she had wanted to see the road, Buakane had no desire to enter the belly of a metal demon creature. She had heard tales of others who, upon doing so, had screamed like toddlers denied the breast, and many others who had vomited, and one supposedly brave warrior even soiled his loincloth.
Yet nothing terrified the girl more than hyenas, and behold! Buakane’s limbs froze in place, her ears and nose becoming the totality of her senses. Was that not the sound of some hyenas crashing toward her, not a stone’s throw away? Could she not smell the carrion on their breath, the stench of flaked blood and viscera buried in their rough coats?
The witch doctor said that hyenas were possessed, for a hyena’s jaws were more powerful than those of a lion. Unlike lions, they were consummate man-eaters, stealing into the village at every opportunity and making off with an unattended child, or even ripping a baby from its mother’s arms. Just three years prior, an elderly woman, whose eyes had had grown dim with the years, wandered from her hut into the tshisuku in broad daylight, only to be beset upon by the these demonic beasts. The grandmother’s screams of agony, as her innards were pulled from her pulsating belly, still haunted the dreams of Buakane.
Buakane now searched frantically for a stick or a branch that she could use to hold the hyenas at bay until she could reach an acacia tree that was climbable. However, the tall clumps of grass grew too dense that close to the road, and the one stick that she did find began to move just as her fingers began to close around it.
Buakane yelped like a kicked puppy and threw herself into the road that the white man had ordered built for his machines. Fast on her heels were eight female hyenas, their jaws snapping even as they sailed through the air.
SIX
Congo time.” That’s what missionaries and colonialists sometimes laughingly referred to as the phenomenon of events happening long after they had originally been scheduled. Quite often they weren’t laughing when they said it. Julia had heard about Congo time being blamed on the steamy weather, the lazy natives, and the sporadic, but often rather dramatic, interference of the local fauna (charging elephants, all-consuming driver ants, and so on). However, not once had she heard about noncommunicative, irresponsible white missionaries being blamed for this phenomenon. To say the least, to someone who was born in September, that was most annoying—not that Julia would have publicly admitted to putting any stock in zodiac signs.
Before he flew off to “who knows where,” the disarmingly handsome Hank had told Julia that Reverend Paul Hayes, the missionary from Mushihi Station, would be there to pick her up at eight in the morning. When Julia had protested about the early hour, Hank had enjoyed a good laugh at her expense. Eight A.M. was practically midmorning for a missionary, especially during the rainy season. A proper missionary rose at six, prayed, ate breakfast, read the Bible and prayed again, and was off to the chapel for services by seven.
So when the morning hours dragged by, and there was no sign of the promised missionary or his precocious daughter, Julia began to fume. This was supposed to be the real beginning of her African adventure, but the day was just going to waste. Dang it all! What kind of colony were the Belgians running that they couldn’t even supply basic necessities like telephones. If she only had a telephone—of course that meant Mushihi Station would have to have one as well, and since they were out in the middle of nowhere, neighbors to a cannibal tribe, that wasn’t bloody likely.
You’d think the servants would be more help. The head housekeeper was an insolent man named Protruding Navel. Imagine that! And you’d better be good at imagining, because his amusing name was the only good thing he had going for him. When Julia asked the man if he wouldn’t mind running into town (meaning the white section) and inquiring whether anyone had seen Mr. Hayes that day, his response was shockingly rude. Perhaps it sounded all the more so because he delivered it in French.
“I do not understand the language you are speaking, mademoiselle.”
“I am speaking Tshiluba.”
“Non, mademoiselle, I assure you that you are not.”
“Yes,” Julia said with exaggerated slowness, as if he were a small child, or perhaps someone with a mental disability. “And what I said is that I need you to run an errand for me.”
“Mamu,” he said, having switched to his native tongue of Tshiluba, “it is possible that I can now understand some of your words. Perhaps I did not understand them before, due to your atrocious accent. Nevertheless, I shall not do as you have requested, because I work for Mamu Jardin, and not for you.”
“But you must do as I say,” Julia said. Be firm with the natives; wasn’t that what all the retired missionaries back in America had said?
“Tch,” said Protruding Navel. “I am not your slave; I am the son of a chief, and in addition, I am an educated man. My work here is only of a temporary nature. Soon I will be the lord of this house. Perhaps then you will work for me, white woman.”
“Kah!”
Julia had not noticed Cripple’s presence in the kitchen. Seated on a stool in the corner, between the stove and the pantry door, she was more like a large black doll than a human being. But a large black doll with one corner of her top pulled up, and a mahogany breast completely exposed. There in front of God, and man, sat a half-naked grown woman. Yes, it was only Julia’s new maid, but still, she was nursing her baby, as if it were an entirely natural pursuit!
“Cripple!” Julia cried. “What are you doing?”
“I am feeding the future president of the Congo, Mamu.”
“Nasha,” said Protruding Navel scornfully. “That woman is a heathen and a Muluba. Our future president will be a Lulua Christian.”
“Such foolishness. The Bena Lulua are like children compared to us. Even the Belgians say that the Baluba are the most intelligent tribe.”
Protruding Navel actually spat at Cripple, but lucky for him, he missed. “Do you always take what the Belgians say as a compliment?” he shouted. “What if they say: ‘Look at that clever little monkey, with her little baby monkey. Let us take it for our pet?’ Then what?”
“You have offended me beyond what can be comprehended in this world,” Cripple screamed. “I will arrange a curse for you.”
“A curse? From where will you get this curse? From that broken-down witch doctor who used to be your husband?”
“Aiyee,” Cripple screamed again.
“Enough! That applies to both of you,” Julia said. “I need to get a message across the river.”
“Then take it yourself,” the two servants said almost in unison. Even the infant chimed in with a hungry cry, for in her agitation the mother had accidentally swung her breast out of reach of her daughter’s mouth.
“But I am new to this place,” Julia said. “Why do you treat me like this? I am not a Belgian. I have traveled a long way from my home in America, and my parents, to serve you. This morning I will be traveling all the way up north to Mushihi Station, to manage a school for little girls who have been married to grown men. Is this not a good thing?”
“Mamu,” said Protruding Navel, “the people of that region are of the Bashilele tribe, are they not?”
“Yes, that is correct!”
“The Bashilele do not deserve to be called people, Mamu. Do you not know that they practice the taking of heads?”
“E, but—”
“Mamu, did you not know that Cripple is a Muluba, a
nd that the Bashilele have taken many of her tribe as slaves? That is the reason that the Bashilele can speak the language in which we are now conversing—even though it is very difficult to understand you, given your terrible accent. Tell me, did you learn our language from the Belgians? It must be the case, for they are likewise impossible to understand. Mamu, the next time that you try and learn Tshiluba, you must either learn it from an African or a Portuguese person. The Portuguese are the only white men who can speak our language.”
“No, I did not learn Tshiluba from a Belgian, and no, I did not know these things about how the Tshiluba language was spread. But why do the Portuguese people speak your language so well?”
“It is because they marry our women.”
“But that is so wrong!”
“On that we agree very much, Mamu; you whites are too much our inferiors.” Protruding Navel turned his back on Julia.
Meanwhile Cripple tugged on her other breast a couple of times before stuffing it into the mouth of her squalling infant. Immediately the child began to suck, although the sounds she made were disturbingly loud and disgustingly private.
“Mamu,” Cripple sighed, “pay no attention to this man. You are new here. We should not expect so much from you.”
Julia smiled. “Thank you, Cripple.”
“Yala, I do not wish your gratitude. But you are a child, Mamu, like the offspring of a goat. You bound this way and then that. You do not mean to offend, and just as a kid does not know where it will land when it jumps, so does your tongue not know where it will land when you speak. Therefore, I must care for you as a mother cares for her child.”