by Tamar Myers
“Tch,” said Cripple as she folded her hands across her belly. “This white mamu is an expert in these things. Why else do you think she has come all the way from America? If it is religious facts you have come for, then you could do no better than to listen to her. But Protestant, Catholic—these things I care nothing about, for I am a staunch heathen. However, if it is some other bit of advice you seek, Jonathan Pimple, you best get on with your story, for I grow weary and impatient.”
He nodded. “Eyo. Well then, what Lazarus Chigger Mite does not tell you is that this grandfather of all snakes—this muma—is now in possession of my finest goat.”
Cripple leaned forward with great interest. Given the restraints of her condition it must have appeared comical, for there were those who laughed. Of course, a wise woman knows when it is useless to lose her temper.
“Was it a full-grown goat?”
“Eyo. A ram, even—with horns like this.” Jonathan demonstrated, much to the crowd’s continued amusement. “Now the muma has a bulge like a pregnant woman. Like yourself.”
“With twins!” Lazarus Chigger Mite said.
The crowd roared.
“You simpleminded men,” Cripple said crossly, “you have yet to tell me the nature of your palaver.”
“Aiyee,” said Jonathan Pimple, clapping his hands to his cheeks. “It is this. Wise woman, to whom does this goat now belong? To Chigger Mite, who slew the muma, or to me, the rightful owner of this fine white goat? I was saving this goat for my dowry in order that I might purchase a fine Protestant bride and raise children who would be law-abiding citizens and leaders for the new Congo when independence comes.”
Cripple ignored the people who repeated the word independence and who simultaneously raised their hands, their fingers forming a V for victory over their Belgian oppressors. When she shook her head, the message was meant for Jonathan Pimple and Chigger Mite.
“From what I have been led to believe, the answer to your question is very plain for all to see: the goat belongs to the python, and the python belongs to Chigger Mite. Now, if someone will please help me down from these washtubs, I will go and see this wonder for myself.”
Both men nodded, clearly accepting her wisdom, and the murmurs from the crowd were indeed quite edifying. However, a truly wise woman understands that there can be no public displays of pride, for hubris begets hatred.
Chapter 3
The Belgian Congo, 1935
Both men were bound—hands and feet—with lukodi vine. They were naked as well. It was a moonless night, and with just the fire to illuminate their bodies, the boys at first mistook them for goats that had been shaved and set aside to await their turn at the spit. Perhaps there was something in the eyes of the men that helped give this impression of intelligence, for that night they gleamed, dark, wet, and much larger than either boy remembered.
The men were not gagged and were therefore capable of speech. Because their knowledge of the Kipende language was limited, whenever possible they tried to make themselves understood in French. They spoke a third language as well: Latina. It was this third language that they had resorted to when they had engaged in their witchcraft.
Every day the two white men would entice the village boys to draw close by means of food. Then they made the boys sit in rows, smallest to largest, with no thought given to age or status, so that free boys sat between slaves. When the boys were seated, the men forced them to mimic the sounds employed in their white witchcraft, bizarre incantations requiring much repetition. The boys who did the best job of mimicking these sounds received extra morsels of food, but those boys whose lips and tongues did not cooperate were actually struck—struck, if one can believe such a thing! But struck only by the man with hair the color of flame. He had even struck the smallest of them.
Much palaver was made then in the council hut of the men. As a rule, one did not strike children; surely one never struck the children of others. Here was a man who was not the mother’s brother, or of the clan, or even merely just a member of the Bapende tribe. Here was a white witch doctor who reeked of the scent of wild boar, and whose hair was the color of those who suffered badly from worms. It was his loathsome hand that drew blood from the nose of a child still young enough to grab hold of his mother’s teat when he needed comforting.
Chapter 4
The Belgian Congo, 1958
Madame Cabochon loved going to Sunday mass. It was not because she was religious, but because she adored dressing up for church. Full circle cotton frocks with tightly cinched waists, in the American style, the deeply scooped necklines just a blush away from being indecent. But no stockings, of course, because this was the tropics. No woman, no matter how devout, would think of wearing stockings.
There could be no denying that Madame Cabochon was a beautiful and voluptuous woman. Unfortunately she was married to Monsieur Cabochon, who was a drunk, and a surly one at that. So each Sunday morning she was driven by chauffeur across the river that was the great divide between white Africa and black Africa, for Saint Mary’s Catholic Church was planted firmly among the heathens, the people who needed it the most. Upon arrival, Madame Cabochon and her gaily colored frock would separate from the chauffeur, for they used different entrances and sat in segregated sections. After all, one could hardly expect a native who bathed in the river daily to sit next to a Belgian who bathed just once a week—and even then, was content to sit in his own filthy stew.
Madame Cabochon cherished each minute of the spectacularly scenic drive to Saint Mary’s Catholic Church and back. When she arrived at church, Madame Cabochon saw it as her duty to keep a tally of who among the white employees of the Consortium was in attendance, and who was not (bimonthly attendance was compulsory). She also saw it as her duty to critique the outfits of the other company wives, so that in case any of them should wish to stop by her house later in the week for a spot of gossip, she would be equipped with the truth. Hers was not an acid tongue, mind you; she was merely gifted in the art of dressing with panache, in a tropical climate wherein even chain mail would wilt and hang like a sodden rag.
At any rate, at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church a wooden screen separated the races, and platform seating ensured that the colonists said their prayers positioned closer to God than did their subjects. From her customary window seat in the front row, Madame Cabochon was assured of receiving her Communion wafer first; that way she was free to observe the others as they filed up to feast on the Savior’s body.
Precedence was always given to the Europeans, of course. Not only that, but it was Consortium members first, then any other Belgians in attendance, followed by visiting northern Europeans, then North Americans (of Caucasian descent)—if Catholic—and last, Europeans of decidedly Mediterranean appearance. After a suitable pause, the mulattoes—who sat in their section behind the whites—were ushered forward. This wasn’t racism; ask any of the Europeans there. This was merely ensuring that order was kept. Order: Wasn’t that what human beings craved the most?
Unlike their Protestant neighbors, Roman Catholics cared about such things as modesty in their houses of worship; therefore, bare breasts were not tolerated, not even among those heathens attending church for the very first time. Also, women were required to cover their heads. Because of these rules Madame Cabochon was invariably treated to a parade of colorful scarves and African wrap dresses. (Although to be sure, Madame Cabochon, who had been raised in the Congo and who had glimpsed many breasts other than her own, was above such petty judgments.)
However, as a woman of high spirits, discriminating taste, and strong sexual appetites, Madame Cabochon was not afraid of judging a book by its cover. To Father Reutner, a disheveled old priest from Berne, Switzerland, she gave the grade of F-. It wasn’t just his rumpled and stained vestments, his thin greasy hair, or his frizzy beard, streaked bile-brown from years of dribbling tobacco juice that she found off-putting; it was the priest’s heav
y German accent. Father Reutner sounded just like a male version of Madame Cabochon’s mother-in-law back in Brussels. Madame Cabochon thoroughly detested her husband’s mother, who was not only German born, but also a secret supporter of the Third Reich during the recent war.
At any rate, on that especially hot Sunday morning during the suicide month, the day that Madame Cabochon slew the deadly poisonous green mamba, the woman realized that she had just had all she could take of church for one day. For one thing, Father Reutner looked particularly disheveled, and for another, his crude accent sounded exceptionally grating. Mass was not yet over—the closing benediction not yet sung—but if the lady in the fetching emerald green dress, with the slash pockets trimmed in white, tarried just one second longer, she might explode like a stick of the dynamite, the kind that her engineer husband used when he blew up streambeds in search of diamonds.
The most obvious way for her to get outside—the only way outside—was to slip past her husband, skim over the knees of the lecherous (but unattractive) Monsieur LaBoeme, and around the stomach of his corpulent wife, genuflect in the direction of the altar, and then pivot left through the side door of the nave. This was assuming that neither the deacon nor Father Reutner did anything to stop her. While Africans came and went with some regularity, their passing precipitated a good deal of clucking and grunting on the part of the frustrated holy men. Madame Cabochon had never beheld a European attempt to escape before, and her heart raced with joyful excitement to think of the consequences.
Monsignor Clemente resisted the temptation to dab at his temples with the monogrammed handkerchief that he kept concealed in a secret pocket beneath his snow-white cassock. The beastly heat outside was amplified by the metal shell of the black automobile in which he rode. An oven on wheels, that’s what the car was, and his was the goose getting cooked. In the long run, this familiar discomfort didn’t matter; what mattered was that the cardinal’s orders be carried out.
Yet despite feeling like a piglet on a spit, the monsignor, fresh from the Eternal City—that is to say, Rome—possessed an uncanny ability to appear as cool as a gelato. Perhaps this was his greatest gift, this ability to appear at ease in his environment. There were those, his mama in particular, who thought he should have been a film star, so regular were his features, so broad his shoulders, so clear his eyes and strong his chin, and that hair—those thick black curls, inherited from the Sicilian side of his family. But to the handsome priest, now nearing middle age, these outward gifts had never been anything but curses. Not only did women throw themselves at him, but sometimes men as well—seminary had proved to be a trial by fire for someone as beautiful as “Pretty Boy Clemente.”
It was his feelings of worthlessness, however, that drew Monsignor Clemente to religion—to a God—at such an early age, and ultimately to the priesthood. What went on inside the perfect shell was anything but. The real Monsignor Clemente was ruined; he had been from an early age. The real Monsignor Clemente was like a rotten soft-boiled egg that, if opened, would emit a sulfurous odor even stronger than Satan’s.
As always, Monsignor Clemente was determined to keep his shell intact, although it was a decision he had to make daily—like an alcoholic’s fight against the bottle. Today would be the hardest day of the struggle. If he could make it through vespers—
“Stop here,” Monsignor Clemente said to his African chauffeur. He spoke in French.
“Yes, Father.”
Monsignor Clemente watched dumbfounded as a white woman suddenly appeared in the window of the church just ahead, turned, then dangled helplessly for a few seconds, before dropping to the ground. He could almost hear the breath being knocked out of her, and then a soft moan. The priest still played soccer on a regular basis, and some of his regular opponents claimed he had the reflexes of an alley cat, but by the time he’d jumped out of the black sedan, the woman was up on her feet and running. Reflexively, Monsignor Clemente hitched his cassock up around his ankles and ran after her.
The route she chose took her through one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the village. Goats bleated, chickens squawked as they scattered, and the startled cries of the women and children—the heathen women and children not in church—were bliss to the visiting priest’s ears. Since Monsignor Clemente took care to follow well behind the fugitive from God, he went unnoticed by her in the din.
It was only gradually, however, that Monsignor Clemente became aware of the fact that the narrow, crooked lane was beginning to fill with people, all of whom appeared to be chasing the white woman. No—some were passing her! Yes, now he was caught up in a rapidly flowing stream of humanity; now he saw the woman’s bobbing head, now he didn’t.
“What is it?” Monsignor Clemente called out in French. “What is happening?”
“Someone killed a giant python. It is said that it swallowed a goat.”
It was only afterward, when the man who’d answered his question had melded into the burgeoning torrent of people, that Monsignor Clemente realized that he’d been spoken to by the man in Tshiluba. What’s more, he’d understood every word.
Police chief Pierre Jardin was not a particularly religious man. If asked about his beliefs, he would admittedly give you the runaround, because he didn’t see how such information was anyone’s business but his own. This was especially true when it came to the nosy inquiries from the American missionaries, none of whom would accept no for an answer. To be fair, it must be remembered that these people were merely concerned about his soul because, without an exception, they believed that, as a Roman Catholic, Pierre Jardin was headed for eternal damnation and the flames of hell. Even the modern young woman who ran the Missionary Rest House was of that opinion.
Despite his lack of interest in spiritual matters, Pierre Jardin was a regular attendant at Sunday morning mass. It was, after all, his duty to set a good example for the citizens of Belle Vue—maybe even more so for the whites than for the Africans. Pierre always arrived early, along with three of the men assigned to work for him, black soldiers all of them. They were always dressed in freshly washed and pressed khaki uniforms—but they too had to split up and use separate entrances. No one minded, of course; no one even gave it another thought. This was the way it had always been.
That particular Sunday, as usual, Pierre’s mind wandered after he’d received Communion. In fact, it wandered over to where Madame Cabochon sat, and there it loitered. His few feeble attempts to rein it back in were in vain. So entranced was he by her comely appearance that he was slow to react when the object of his admiration hoisted her shapely hips into the open window well and slipped effortlessly to the ground.
Capitaine Pierre Jardin jumped to his feet. “Excusez-moi, s’il vous plaît,” he said to the woman he’d sat next to. She just happened to be Madame Fabergé, the wife of the new operations manager.
“Certainement,” she said. Her golden brown eyes were too large and round for her face, giving her the appearance of a lemur. This slight disfigurement was most unfortunate because Hélène Fabergé was a woman of exceptional intelligence and fierce loyalty; she would have made someone—or some people—at Belle Vue a first-class friend.
“Is there a problem?” Monsieur Fabergé demanded.
Apparently no one else had seen the incredible—merde! The entire congregation was bolting. Father Reutner and the deacon were shouting at them and waving their arms—even the acolytes were getting into the act—but the worshippers were like horses escaping from a burning barn.
“Yes, monsieur, there is a problem,” Pierre said, for at the very least there would be a problem if he did not follow the crowd and help see that order was maintained.
As Pierre passed the altar rail again on his way out through the side door, he felt the thick calloused fingers of Father Reutner digging into his collarbone from behind.
“You Judas,” the old priest growled. “This is all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Oui. You are far too lenient with these people. They are like children, but you treat them like equals! Blow your whistle, Captain. Order your men to arrest them. Do something! They cannot be allowed to bolt from church before the final benediction.”
“Au revoir, mon père,” Pierre said. Then he ran from the church. He ran on legs that were better nourished than any of the Africans. Soon he overtook all the parishioners except for the youngest and strongest. These he followed through the town’s winding lanes, past entrances to frail bamboo courtyards, where even frailer elderly citizens sat to catch a glimpse of the world passing by. Pierre jumped over puddles where children and Muscovy ducks splashed happily. He dashed through newly planted fields where already the cannabis-like leaves of the cassava plants grew waist-high in the tropical sun.
At the edge of the forest Pierre caught up with the runners. In fact, jostling about along both sides of a narrow ravine was the entire adult population of the Belle Vue workers’ village, excepting those who had been the attending the late mass. However, it would only be a matter of minutes before these people too joined the curious throng. Across the cassava field, like a dark surging tide, was the leading edge of the congregation he’d left behind.
As a police officer, Pierre had every right to investigate something of this magnitude, but for once, on a Sunday morning, he wished to be a private citizen. A private white citizen, that is, which is something quite different from a being native African. On one hand, Pierre was tempted to pull rank as a white man and demand to be let through to see whatever it was that had drawn such a crowd. On the other hand, he had always believed that he owed a great deal of his success as a police captain—especially in these difficult political times—to the fact that he did not demand to be treated any different than he was willing to treat others. This was a lesson that he had learned from his father; it was the only good thing he ever got from the senior Jardin. It was more than enough; it was worth Pierre’s weight in gold.