The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots

by Tamar Myers

  The silence that followed these words was like a leopard running upon stone. Not even a suckling babe dared breathe, nor an old man break wind.

  One could only hope that this would be the time when the gendarme, Captain Jardin, would intervene, but then one would be wrong. Monsignor Clemente had heard that the young police chief had been born and reared in the Belgian Congo, and thus he was more in tune with how the natives thought. However, his impassivity at the moment smacked of cowardice; it came nowhere near hinting at wisdom.

  The first lessons drummed into prospective missionaries to Africa at seminary is that the natives are like children: “It is a waste of time to try to reason with the African. If you cannot persuade him outright, then fear is your only other option.” This was sound advice for both the government and the church.

  Although the monsignor represented the one true God, there was no time for a homily. He certainly lacked the power to arrest anyone, although he would if could, and—God forgive him—he wouldn’t even mind roughing this young fellow up a bit. To be truthful, as long as he was being honest, he would very much like to beat the merde out of the young black revolutionary.

  He cupped both of his tanned hands, with his long, exquisitely shaped fingers to his mouth. “Attention!” He switched immediately—automatically—to Tshiluba.

  “The woman is correct; the bridge that spans the mighty Kasai River will never fail. It was built with the strongest of metals. It is the same metal from which hammers are made. As long as the earth remains intact, so shall the bridge remain in place. But as for you, you so-called lesser prophet of a greater false prophet, I predict that on the new moon, a one-eyed she-leopard, with three cubs, will emerge from this very forest and bring with her a terrible hunger. Her need for sustenance will be so strong that it will infect you with insanity, and you will tear off your clothes and run into the bush, where she will leap upon you and devour you.”

  When it was clear that the monsignor had finished pronouncing his curse, at least a dozen voices rose, wailing in terror; however, that of the young militant was not one of them. This man, whom the monsignor had now come to think of as the Lesser Prophet, stood in place just as solid and immovable as one of the tall red anthills that dot the savannah.

  Lazarus Chigger Mite did not recognize either man. As a faithful Roman Catholic he would, no doubt, soon learn all there was to know about the new white priest. It was the identity of the other fellow that had him worried. He could tell by the speaker’s accent, and lack of tribal markings, that he was a civilized man of one of the Baluba clans, but nothing more than that.

  Quite possibly this fellow was a rabble-rouser, brought in from the capital by the headman expressly to make trouble. He could even be a Communist. Lazarus Chigger Mite had heard from his white boss at the mine that if the Communists got control of the country come independence, then every person would have to share what was his. In a society such as that, Lazarus Chigger Mite would be forced to cut his muma into thousands of bite-size pieces and feed even the undeserving. Just the thought of that caused him to seethe with rage.

  “Now I will show you the goat that awaits liberation by my machete,” he shouted. He acknowledged the crowd’s laughter before going on. “You will all get a chance to see this delicious creature, which by now has been marinated by the juices of the muma’s stomach. However, you will not be permitted as much as a taste, for—as you undoubtedly heard—I am being forced to hand this delicacy over to our headman, he of the Bakongo tribe.”

  Lazarus Chigger Mite pushed against the heavy carcass of the reptile so that he might roll a section of it over, thus exposing some of the belly. That way it would be easier to slice it open with his machete. After all, it would be foolish for him to do battle against a sturdy rib cage in front of so many people. But even as the snake yielded and exposed its soft under parts, a terrible reality was revealed: the python’s belly had already been slit open for the length of a man’s arm.

  “Kah!” cried Lazarus Chigger Mite as he jabbed at the scaly gash.

  “Kah!” echoed the astounded villagers, for they too had never expected to see such a sight. In response to each thrust of the machete blade, out pushed branches with leaves and vines, so much foliage altogether that a man could not easily carry a pile that large from one spot to another without dropping a great deal along the way.

  The bold young man, he who might well have been a Communist, pointed at Lazarus Chigger Mite accusingly. “This man has deceived you—all of you, no matter what your tribe. He has made a mockery of you. You have become like children who must run and see the latest attraction, regardless of how preposterous the claim. This thing—this thing he calls a muma—is not even a snake; it is a sorcerer’s invention.”

  Despite the fact that he was a real Christian—a Roman Catholic, and not a Protestant—Lazarus Chigger Mite stepped back in alarm. It was not only a serious accusation the stranger had made, but a frightening one. A creature this large—if indeed it had been created through witchcraft—could be very powerful, and potentially wreak havoc with him and his village. What was he to do now?

  Then the most astonishing thing happened. Madame Cabochon, his Belgian oppressor, dropped the mamba’s head so that she might clap her hands. As she did so, she called loudly out to the crowd, imploring them to give her but a moment of silence.

  “Residents of Belle Vue,” she said in Tshiluba, “people of Kasai, do not listen to this man. He is not one of you. I ask you, does anyone here know the name of his mother’s clan? Anyone? No? Then let me suggest that it is this man—an obvious foreigner—who is the sorcerer who planted this muma here—in your very own forest—so that one of your own should find it, and that one of your own should appear foolish. For I ask you now, does anyone here know who Lazarus Chigger Mite’s people are?”

  “E,” half the people yelled as one voice. “He is a Mupende from the Nyanga-Yanga clan.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  An ancient woman with bare breasts that drooped almost to her wrap cloth pointed at Lazarus Chigger Mite with a crooked finger. “This man’s hearth is next to mine. I have known Lazarus Chigger Mite since the days when I still possessed all my teeth.” She grinned broadly, displaying only three brown stubs, and the crowd roared with laughter. “I tell you, mukelenge, that this man does not lie.”

  Madame Cabochon turned to the man who might well be a Communist, and who most certainly had no business being at the Belle Vue workers’ village. “Go away,” she said. “You are not wanted here. Go back to your own people if you wish. But leave us alone!”

  Lazarus Chigger Mite could not believe such a thing was happening. Furthermore, neither could the people, for they were apparently shocked into silence.

  Chapter 7

  The Belgian Congo, 1935

  Both boys cried. This surprised the father, until the boy’s uncle reminded him with sharp words that his twin sons were yet just small children, and that no other children before them had ever witnessed this ceremony. It is one thing to slaughter and dress a goat in front of a child, but quite another to put a human being—even one such as this—on the spit.

  Despite the boys’ tears, all were in agreement that it was necessary for them to watch the proceedings. Thus they did. Likewise, it was necessary that the other white man, the one who had not harmed either boy in any way, must be forced to watch.

  It has been said that the real test of one’s manhood is the moment of one’s death. A real man—or a real woman, for that matter—will choose to die with dignity. A real man might utter sounds of pain, but never of fear. Using this test as a guide, one could instantly conclude that the white man with the flame-colored hair was a man in body only. Even as the sharp, pointed stake that was to be the roasting spit first came into view, he howled as loud as ten keening women. In fact, it might well be said that it was precisely this man’s intense fear that kept his com
panion alive.

  That is to say, compared to his friend, the dark-haired man appeared to be carved from stone. He did not pull back from the raised machete, nor did he flinch at the sight of the stake. He did not whimper, nor did he throw his arms up to protect his face and head.

  “I will not remember your badness,” he said in tortured Kipende. Imagine that if you can. The crime of this man’s friend was of the sort not to spoken of, and yet this man dared to forgive his executioners! Was this cheek, or was it bravery? Was this man playing the elders for fools? Perhaps he was hoping that they would spare him on account of his effrontery—for surely these words were said in order to shock the governing council. No matter what truly lay in the dark-haired man’s heart, the end result was that on account of his bravery, it was decided that he should be given a chance to live.

  Of course there would be certain conditions.

  Chapter 8

  The Belgian Congo, 1958

  Amanda Brown had loved Sundays back in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Homemade pecan rolls for breakfast, young adult Sunday school classes, stimulating sermons in a language that she could easily understand, lazy afternoons visiting with family and friends—or, in recent years, suitors—these were all fading memories. Sundays in Belle Vue, however, were the loneliest days in the week.

  To Amanda’s knowledge she was the only white Protestant for fifty miles in any direction. That is, if one did not count the Greek Orthodox manager of the Consortium’s commissary and his family, which of course Amanda didn’t. Her duties were to run the Missionary Rest House as if it were a full board hostel for those Protestant missionaries of cooperating denominations who might be passing through town, or who might need a short vacation in what passed for civilization. However, most of the guests checked in on Monday and checked out on Saturday, leaving Amanda utterly alone for the Lord’s Day.

  Yes, there were a few Protestant natives (some fortunate souls who had somehow managed to escape the clutches of the Roman Catholic Church), but it would have been unseemly, if not unpleasant, for a lone white woman to attend the small Methodist chapel on the far side of the village. For one thing, those workers spoke the Lunda dialect, and for another, the children would have pestered her to death begging her for handouts.

  Thus it was that most Sunday mornings Amanda spent reading her Bible and praying. Quite honestly, Cripple’s claim to have the “second sight,” or whatever it was, was more of a distraction than it was an irritant. As long as the Mission Board didn’t hear about the housekeeper conducting her unholy business on their property—particularly on the Sabbath—then Amanda didn’t really object. About this snake, that was definitely something worth checking out (just think of the letters home if it turned out to be true). Besides—just being brutally honest again—the serpent might well have been sent by God in answer to one of Amanda’s many desperate pleas for something, anything to break up the tedium of Sundays spent alone.

  So it was that while the crowd surged toward the main road that would lead them up the steep hill on which the village perched (only then could they beat a path to the forest), Amanda made up her mind to journey as far as she could in the mission’s battered old Land Rover.

  “Cripple!” she called to her employee who, despite her handicap, had hobbled a fair distance and was almost out of earshot by then.

  “Mamu?”

  “Wait! I too am going. I will pick you up in the machine.”

  “But, Mamu,” Cripple protested through cupped hands, “this place is in the forest. Your machine cannot go there.”

  “Then how can you, one who is lame?”

  Cripple, who was panting heavily by this time, stopped to catch her breath. “Do you mock me?” she asked between gasps.

  “Truly not,” Amanda said. She was both taken aback and deeply offended. “The machine will take us as far as it is able, but I have my wheelbarrow in the back. I will push you the rest of the way.”

  “Aiyee! Now surely you mock me. Poor Cripple, you say to yourself; she has only the brains of a monkey.”

  Amanda could feel her right temple twitching, which was sometimes a precursor to a migraine headache. At the moment, it was more “poor Amanda” than anything else.

  “I do not mock you. Now, do you wish to see the largest snake ever to visit the Kasai, or will you sit by the fire when are you are old and whisper with shame to your descendants that you are the only woman of your generation who did not witness this great event?”

  “But you are white, Mamu!”

  Amanda feigned surprise. “No, such a thing is not possible!”

  “Kah!” Cripple smiled. “Never have the people of Belle Vue seen such a sight: a white woman pushing a black woman in a wheelbarrow. I shall become an even greater heroine to my people, nasha?”

  “Without a doubt. I, however, will be known as a traitor to my people. Perhaps Captain Jardin will throw me in jail.”

  Cripple scrambled to get in alongside Amanda, all the while shaking her head vigorously. “The captain must not arrest you, Mamu; for if he does, who then will pay my salary?”

  That night the drums of the Belle Vue workers’ village talked incessantly. They spoke of the muma, this ancestor of all snakes, that had been slain before it could enter the village and swallow a child—or two! But by whom had it been slain? Surely not by the fool Lazarus Chigger Mite! That man could not tell the difference between a live beast and dead beast, between a goat and a bundle of foliage.

  The drums sang loudly the praises of the little Muluba woman named Cripple, she who had the misfortunate to be married to the failed witch doctor, but who, nevertheless, had triumphed over her adversity. Cripple, a bent, no-account black woman, heavy with child, had ridden triumphantly into the forest, pushed in a wheelbarrow by her white oppressor. Surely the woman Cripple was a symbol for what was to be: a new Congo where the black man was to be waited on by the white man.

  Cripple is our hero, the drums said over and over again. Lazarus Chigger Mite is a fool. Of the odious interloper from Léopoldville, the talking drums had nothing to say.

  Their Death speared a chunk of succulent goat meat with a sharpened sliver of bamboo and held it out to his beloved Cripple. “Is this not sweet and tender, wife?”

  “Indeed it is. Their Death, this is by far the finest-tasting antelope you have caught in the forest. Tell me again how you came by it.”

  “There is nothing to tell. I was high up in a palm tree cutting nuts as I do on a daily basis, when suddenly far down below I could see something thrashing about in the bushes. Of course it was this poor little fellow. Cripple, I know that you do not like to hear such talk, but I wonder if perhaps it was the God of the Christians who sent this antelope to us, such as he sent the ram to our father, Abraham, when he was on the verge of sacrificing his only son.”

  “Nasha!” said Cripple. “Abraham is not our father; he is the father of the Jews, and I am a heathen. Besides, this antelope was white, and he went maaaa when he ran around the village breaking into people’s vegetable patches and stealing their chicken feed.”

  Their Death laughed. “Do not think ill of me, Wife, for liberating this poor creature from the confines of a muma’s stomach. Truly, I heard it protest mightily, and although the monkeys also possess arms, they did nothing to help. When I finally got there, Lazarus Chigger Mite was gone and the goat had already been swallowed. What I did, Cripple, I did for the child that grows in your belly.”

  Cripple was silent for a long time. “E,” she finally said, and belched happily.

  The next morning, before the cocks began to vie for mates, Cripple was awakened by the sound of persistent coughing just outside her hut. In her morning dream-state she at first supposed it was Their Death, perhaps fanning the fire into life in preparation for the morning meal. Then, with a start, she realized that Their Death lay beside her, and it was another person whose presence wait
ed acknowledgment without.

  “Sister Wife?” she called softly. “Have you returned?”

  Their Death’s Second Wife would have been welcomed at that moment, despite her jealous and complaining ways. She was, after all, young and strong, and quite capable of stirring the morning’s mush without aid, no matter how far along with child she was.

  “It is only Jonathan Pimple,” a low voice said in reply.

  Cripple made quick to grab her day wrap before stumbling out into the compound. For once she was grateful for the heavy fog that sometimes rolled up from the river. She would have been decently covered in any case, but now she felt doubly protected from a man’s curious stares.

  “What do you want?” she hissed.

  Jonathan Pimple bowed his head as if he were addressing a European. “I must speak to you in your capacity as a wise woman, as a leader of our people.”

  Cripple cleared her throat, which is something that everyone should do first thing in the morning. She did this several times. Then she picked up a large stick and jabbed it at a hen that was pecking too close to the coals in the hearth. The chicken squawked, as it is supposed to do, and ran in a zigzag fashion for some weeds that separated Cripple’s clearing from her neighbor’s. The hen ran even faster after Cripple threw the stick at it, purposely missing it, but coming very close nonetheless. All this gave Cripple time to think, for she was, indeed, a very wise woman.

  “Jonathan Pimple,” she said, “much was made of me last night by the talking drums, but in truth I am just a crippled woman who was in need of a means of conveyance. I did not subdue the white woman; to the contrary, she is my employer.”

  “Eyo. I am aware of this. But I sense that our Heavenly Father has bestowed on you special qualities. He has given you wisdom, Baba. I can see that; everyone can see that. This is the reason the drums sing your praises.”