by Tamar Myers
“Then give her your other breast,” said Protruding Navel, from behind his back.
That crude remark set the two African employees into hysterics. Julia, however, was flabbergasted by the vulgarity a black man dared to express to a white woman. Even in Ohio, she couldn’t imagine such a comment like that being directed at her—although to be perfectly honest, in Ohio she hadn’t known any black people. If indeed Oxford had any Negroes, there hadn’t been any living on her side of town when she was growing up, and the student body of the small bible college she’d attended had been as white as toothpaste. But what really stunned Julia was the rude behavior on Cripple’s part. After all, hadn’t the twisted little woman just declared a truce?
“Now it is I who am very much offended,” Julia stammered. “I have tried very hard to be patient this morning—knowing that I am especially tired. But you are both unkind. If you were to come to my country, I would not treat you thusly.”
“Bulelela?” Cripple asked. Truly?
“Truly.”
“But, Mamu, we have heard otherwise. Is it not true that in your country black people are set upon by dogs?”
“Kah! Who told you this? The Communists?”
“What?” Cripple said.
“I asked if it was the Communists who were spreading these rumors, that whites in America were rounding up black people with dogs.”
“Mamu, I can no longer understand your speech. You accent has indeed gotten very poor,” Cripple said. She began to hum to the coconut-size infant at her breast.
Julia strode away in what she hoped was a dignified manner. Clearly, she had her work cut out for her. First, she had to understand these childlike people. The next step, which was to have them understand her and then be persuaded to change from their heathen ways, by her Christlike example, was a far bigger job than she’d expected. For some reason she’d expected the natives to be much more passive; she’d thought that they would be eager, perhaps even clamoring, for her to light the way for them to civilization and salvation.
Civilization and salvation—these were the gifts that American Protestant missionaries were so eager to share. All that the Africans had to do in order to receive these gifts was to simply accept them, yet so many of them simply would not—could not—bring themselves to do so. Aiyee, a thousand times over! Maybe the natives really were just primitive savages, too simpleminded to see a good deal when it was offered.
As the hours passed, and there was still no sign of the Reverend Paul Hayes and Clementine, Julia’s agitation grew into desperation. Finally, around midday, she could stand it no longer. She clapped on her helmet, cinched the chin strap, and pulled her kneesocks up to full mast. Then with her eyes half shut, so that she wouldn’t see the smirks on the natives’ faces, Julia charged back into the kitchen.
“Yala,” she said, which was a nothing word, meaning anything that you wanted it to. In this case, it was intended solely to announce that she was back, and in fighting form.
The kitchen, however, was empty.
“Cripple? Protruding Navel?”
Then Julia heard what sounded like excited voices over the constant din of the falls. The voices seemed to be coming from the front of the Missionary Rest House, so she dashed out there. Lo and behold, there stood the two Africans, along with the diminutive Clementine, in front of a pickup truck. There was no sign of a Reverend Paul Hayes; instead she found herself staring at Hank!
“Life to you, Julia. Do you think you could shake a leg so that we stand a chance of getting home before dark. Gracie here didn’t even want to start up this morning.”
Julia continued to stare. Neither what she saw nor what she heard matched up with what was supposed to be. Yet it couldn’t be a dream, because the truck was belching noxious fumes, and she’d never had a dream involving odors.
“Gracie is the name of our truck,” Clementine said.
Julia smiled her appreciation. “Okay, that’s half the riddle solved. But where is your father, dear?”
Clementine giggled as she pointed at Hank. “He’s right here, Auntie Julia.” Then her face darkened. “But I must ask you never to call me that word again. ‘Dear’ is what mamas say to their children, and you are not my mama.”
The child spoke with such force that Julia felt as if she’d been slapped. It felt like everyone was ganging up on her, although of course they weren’t. Her only sin just now was to use language she’d heard other grown-ups use on children.
At this point Hank walked over to Clementine and drew her close. “Well, I guess there is no time like the present to confess my little ruse. My given name is Paul Henry Hayes. Reverend is a title I earned by going to school. I was named Paul after my paternal grandfather, who was meaner than a Cape buffalo with a hide full of ticks, and Henry after my maternal grandfather, who could teach that same buffalo to eat out of your hand. So I go by Henry, but the Mission Board insists on using the name Paul for all their official business, because it’s a biblical name.”
“But when you picked me up in Leopoldville, to fly me here, you introduced yourself as Hank.”
“Yes, but Hank is the nickname for Henry. Surely you know that.”
“Still, you were being deceitful!” Julia felt both embarrassed by her naiveté and irritated that she’d been played.
“Oh come on,” Henry said. “I was having a little good clean fun.”
Julia was gobsmacked. “Lies are what passes for fun on the mission field?”
“Papa wasn’t lying,” Clementine said fiercely. “Auntie Julia, you shouldn’t be so judgmental.”
“That’s enough,” Henry said.
Julia could see him draw his daughter even tighter to him, so it wasn’t like he was really admonishing her for chiding an adult. And in front of the help, no less. This explained why the little girl was so—so—well, so darn different.
Of course Julia had had to bite her tongue. Being judgmental was something that Julia excelled at; it was her worst fault. It was a good thing that she wasn’t one of those poor, misguided Roman Catholics, or she’d be forever going to confession, just like the girl who shared a piglet with her in biology class in high school. Wanda started smoking in the fifth grade and was addicted to smoking by the time she graduated from eighth. Plus, she’d started drinking. Wanda used to joke that she and her priest shared a drink before they ducked into the confession booth, and a cigarette after.
After tousling Clementine’s hair (which couldn’t have made it any messier), Henry went and got Julia’s bags and loaded them on the truck. After adding Cripple’s few belongings, he gave her a helping hand as she climbed into the back of the pickup. Next he hoisted Clementine aboard.
“Now me,” Julia said.
Henry winked. “You’re in luck; you get to sit with me. Up front.”
“But I want to ride in back with the others, to feel the wind in my hair. Besides, it will be too hot in the cab.”
“Julia,” Henry said, “you have just one opportunity to make an impression on the Bashilele people—both at Mushihi Station, and the ones whom we might encounter along the way. You need to appear dignified. They must see you as a woman with position, so that they will take you seriously.”
“Wait just a minute,” Julia said. “How do I know that this isn’t another of your good clean jokes. Cripple,” she called, “would you and your baby like to ride in the front of this machine?”
“Kah!”
Although Cripple appeared quite distressed by this simple offer, not so little Clementine. “Oh, Auntie Julia,” she said, “there is so much I need to teach you concerning local customs. Might I begin now?”
Julia felt her cheeks coloring at a rate that had nothing to do with the tropical sun. “Only if you must, dear—I mean, Clementine.” she said.
“You see, Auntie Julia, if Cripple rides up front with Papa, then the natives will think that she is his harlot, just like Rahab in the Bible.”
“Clemey,” said Henry with a twinkle i
n his eye, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He caught Julia’s appraising gaze. “A lot of the Belgian state officials and businessmen—especially the Portuguese—leave their wives back in the comforts of Europe. So out here they take up with harlots who most often ride up front with them.”
“And have sexy intercourse,” added Clementine.
“If you’re going to use grown-up terms,” her father said, “at least get them right.”
Julia merely cleared her throat, because for once she was at a loss for words.
“But, Papa,” Clementine said, “I looked the meaning of ‘harlot’ up in the dictionary, and I still don’t understand what makes it a sin. Didn’t you and Mama have sexy intercourse?”
This time Henry colored. Deeply.
“Everyone in the truck,” he said, looking expressly at Julia. “Mushihi Station, here we come.”
Oh, but if only it were that simple, Julia thought as the trip progressed. Travel in the Belgian Congo was like pulling the handle on a slot machine—one that was rigged so that it never came up with three matching numbers, or pieces of fruit either. The road to Mushihi Station consisted of two parallel dirt tracks, separated by a head-high ribbon of grass, and potholes that in America would be labeled as canyons and designated as national parks.
Wooden bridges spanned streams, but the only way to cross the one true river that they encountered was to board a ferry. This was nothing like the quaint ferries one might still find in rural America; this ferry consisted of four dugout canoes that had been lashed together, over which a platform of wooden planks had been nailed. This contraption was then poled across the water by men with teeth filed to points, men whose ancestors had once been cannibals.
The above conditions might have made for an interesting trip if Julia had been allowed to travel in the bed of the pickup. However, the cramped quarters of the metal cab, even with both windows rolled down, made it feel like she was sitting in an oven, while being roasted like a Thanksgiving turkey. Sweat poured from every pore. It streamed into her eyes. It pooled beneath her buttocks. Her blouse stuck to the back of the seat.
The only relief that came was when they entered the swatches of forest that bordered rivers—galley forests, they were called. There the trees rose to dizzying heights, a hundred feet or more, their broad canopies creating dense shade that blocked out the sun to such a degree that the forest floor was open and inviting. Even more inviting was the fact that the temperature inside these vast cathedrals of green was often ten degrees Fahrenheit lower than it had been on the savannah under the broiling sun.
“Henry, please, let’s stop. Please,” Julia said every time they came to a strip of forest.
Of course Henry did. Sometimes he even stopped up on the savannah as well, but usually to fix a flat tire; they had three flat tires and a radiator leak that needed tending to. So what should have been a four-hour drive, at the maximum, took eight hours.
When they were still about twenty kilometers away from Mushihi Station, and the hour was such that the moon and his wife, Venus, were plain to see in the sky, the pickup’s headlights shone on a scene that would later give Julia nightmares. In the middle of the road, an African child was desperately trying to fend off a pack of hyenas using nothing but her bare hands. The timing of their arrival was a miracle, there was no arguing that. One minute later, and the poor girl would have been ripped to shreds.
As it was, the largest of the hyenas, a female (the females are larger than the males), sprang at the child, even as the rest of the pack fled from the approaching automobile. The child screamed, and the female bounded away, but not before taking a chunk of the girl’s thigh with her. The girl then collapsed into unconsciousness on the dirt.
Henry stomped on the brakes and put the truck into park. “Everyone, stay where you are,” he yelled, and then rushed over to the child. After ripping off his shirt, he wrapped it tightly around her thigh as a tourniquet. He carried her gently back in his arms to Julia’s side of the truck.
“Open the door,” he said. “I want you to hold her. As soon as she starts to come to, let me know.”
Julia received the child, but not without wincing. It wasn’t the blood; Henry’s shirt was doing a good job of handling that. It was just that when she decided to become a missionary, she didn’t imagine that one day she’d actually have to hold a mostly naked savage in her lap. Her idea of missionary life was more along the lines of saving souls, which one accomplished by sharing the good news of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice. This—she sneaked another look at the child who was missing two front teeth, and whose pubescent breasts pointed straight up like two shiny black eggs—this did not fit her job description.
SEVEN
Nurse Verna Doyer did not undress when she went to bed; she deconstructed, and it was for this reason that she did not take lightly to being disturbed. The first thing she did was remove the hairpins that held the greasy coils of braids atop her skull. With each pin that she removed, Nurse Verna acknowledged a sin that she had committed that day. Those sins could be against either God or man. However, since Nurse Verna seldom wronged another human being, her prayers asking for pardon were usually thought of as sins that she’d committed against God.
Her most common prayer was: “Lord, I should have been more grateful for that ghastly lunch that my houseboy brought for me today.”
The second thing that Nurse Verna did was to unwind, and unbraid, her plaits; she recited scripture during that lengthy process. The matrons at the orphanage had drummed it into her that healthy hair had to be brushed one hundred times before one went to bed. Since Nurse Verna was a creature of habit, and ritual gave her comfort, brushing is what she did.
On the other hand, Nurse Verna was quite aware that the excessive brushing contributed to her oily scalp, so she used the brushing time to ask God to remove from her heart the anger that she felt toward the matrons—some of whom had been rather abusive. God never answered Verna’s prayers, so she felt quite justified in repeating the same prayers day after day.
When she was finished with her hair, Nurse Verna dismantled her wardrobe for the day. Off came the apron, the dress without buttons, the full slip, the half slip, and the homemade brassiere. On went the cotton T-shirt with the elbow-length sleeves, the night slip, the long flannel nightgown, and two fresh pairs of long-legged underpants, for there was always the possibility that while she slept, her nightgown might somehow get bunched around her waist, leaving her vulnerable to violation. Pajama bottoms were simply out of the question, because they resembled men’s trousers, and the Bible was very clear on that issue: for a woman to dress like a man was a sin.
The fact that all this clothing made Nurse Verna Doyer unattractive, not to mention practically inaccessible at night to Reverend Arvin Doyer, mattered not one whit. Nurse Verna was closed for business down there—so to speak. The Lord had been good to her, blessing her with late-onset menses, and early-onset menopause. The Doyers had never been cursed with children, and now that all possibility of that curse had been taken from them, it was no longer right that they should lie together as man and wife. God had created that loathsome desire to rub genitals for the sole purpose of procreation—not recreation.
Besides, by the time Nurse Verna was through deconstructing, Arvin was invariably fast asleep for the night. Some nights he fell asleep while still reading his bible, and Nurse Verna would find the holy book perched on her husband’s expanding stomach, perilously close to sliding off it and onto the floor. On the plus side, however, Arvin was quick to rouse and didn’t seem to require a period of adjustment between sleep and full mental acuity. Verna, on the other hand, could not sleep a wink without the aid of her special friend, a friend whose acquaintance she had made approximately a dozen years earlier following an emergency appendectomy. Because she was a registered nurse, and the only medical caregiver in a large area, the Belgian government had given her a permit to purchase and distribute various medications from a Lebanese-owned
pharmacy in Luluabourg.
Thus it was, on the night of Julia’s arrival, when Henry pounded on the door with fists the size of lion paws, that it was Arvin—wearing a full set of flannel pajamas, despite the heat—who sprang to see who the visitor was. Meanwhile Verna, who’d gone to sleep with the aid of her friend, struggled to separate dream from fact. Was she a little girl, being spanked for having broken one of Matron’s privately owned candy dishes, or was that the Angel of Death pounding at the front door, having come to take her soul?
“Nurse Doyer, wake up,” a familiar voice said. The words were repeated again and again, and slowly, fading into consciousness, like someone coming out of anesthesia, Nurse Verna became aware that the speaker was her husband.
“Reverend Doyer?” she asked, to reassure herself.
“Yes, Nurse Doyer. I’m afraid there has been an emergency.”
“What time is it?”
“It is not yet nine o’clock.”
Nurse Verna struggled vigorously to sit, but fell back.
“In the evening,” her husband said.
“Oh.”
“Nonetheless,” he said, “you must try to rouse yourself. The child has been severely bitten.”
“Snake?” she said.
“Hyena,” he said.
“That incorrigible Hayes child?”
“No, an African. Probably a runaway.”
“Reverend,” Nurse Verna said firmly, “thou knowest my position—and my condition. I do not entertain or attend visitors past a certain hour.”
“Very well,” Arvin said. “I will send them away.”
“And please shut the door before you talk to them.”
Much to her dismay, Nurse Verna could hear that Arvin forgot to shut the door behind him before delivering her message. Or was it that he simply didn’t care enough to follow through with her instructions? The third possibility was that he purposely ignored her. Oh poor Arvin; what must it be like to be just a man? Beyond that, what must it be like to be a man of his ilk?