by Tamar Myers
So it was that when Jonathan Pimple expressed his strong interest in examining a piece of flesh, Firefly only pretended to swallow the host. Instead she deftly managed to palm it before it made contact with her tongue. Just how she accomplished this, she would tell no one, not even Jonathan, lest anyone else attempt—and manage to succeed—at what was surely a desecration.
For Firefly knew that taking a wafer home with her would be considered a grave sin—maybe even an unforgivable one, if the priest ever found out. Yet how could a just God condemn her for such an action when it was Jonathan Pimple who had put the idea in her head? He had also raised several other questions that needed answering.
This is how Jonathan Pimple convinced his good friend. “Consider,” he said, “that this Jesus Christ lived almost two thousand years ago, yet the missionaries have been here less than one hundred years. Now then, they insist that unless we believe that this Jesus Christ became a ghost after he died, and that he lives now somewhere above the stars—but in a place that they have never seen—when we die we will burn in a great fire. There we will be consumed by unbearable pain for all time. But if we believe, then when we die, we will be given unimaginable riches—although we will no longer have a yearning for women, so we will not be given women.”
Firefly had a most pleasant laugh. “Nor will I be given any men. But yours is the Protestant view, I think—although the Catholic view is somewhat similar.”
“E. No matter the interpretation of their book, why should they be the ones who possess the truth? Perhaps it is our witch doctors and our elders who should be instructing them in the path of the unseen world.”
“Aiyee! Enough of this foolish talk, my friend. I, for one, am not about to give up my unimaginable riches.”
Jonathan Pimple smiled and grunted his agreement. He was all for unimaginable riches; too bad that they were not promised for this life. He had a secret desire to study medicine at the university in Brussels. Even if the Belgian government sponsored him, the cost for “incidentals” was staggering. In fact, Jonathan Pimple had never even heard of most of the items: deodorant, toothpaste, shaving cream—the list went on and on.
“So then let us now examine this bit of flesh that you have stolen from the white man,” Jonathan Pimple said.
Although he had spoken lightly, with amusement in his voice, Firefly was much aggrieved. “No! Do not say that I have stolen this,” she cried. “It was merely borrowed.”
Jonathan Pimple took the wafer from her trembling hand and held it up to the sun. “This does not resemble the white man’s flesh that I ate,” he announced.
Firefly gasped softly. “Tell me more, Jonathan Pimple.”
“I was just a boy, Firefly, I remember very little. But it was the same as eating any other kind of meat that walks on the earth or flies through the air. Only fish is different—fish and insects.”
“I am a Muluba, Jonathan Pimple; my tribe does not eat the flesh of others. There must be a reason for that fact.” She laughed her pleasant laugh. “Ah yes! There are many more Baluba than there are Bapende. Perhaps that is the reason!”
Jonathan laughed as well. “That would be a result, not a cause, Firefly. Besides, we never ate members of our own tribe; we only ate captives taken during war, or people that we captured who were trespassing in our territory—and that includes the white man.”
“E. Tell me, confidentially, does a white man taste differently than a black person?”
The truth was not nearly as much fun to say as a good story, and probably not what she wanted to hear anyway. Therefore, without any guilt whatsoever, Jonathan Pimple gave in to temptation.
“A white man is very bitter to the tongue.” He shuddered dramatically. “He is like a tart, unripened guava. One must add the juice of ten long stalks of sugarcane to the pot, or he is virtually inedible. Salt as well.”
“Salt?”
“Eyo. Salt intensifies the flavor of all that it is added to, and in addition to being bitter, the white man is essentially flavorless. What little flavor he possesses can be accessed only with salt. But never be fooled by the leg made from wood, for it will leave splinters in your mouth.”
“Kah?”
It was a story that had been a favorite of his when he’d been a small child. He had heard it many times, and he had always assumed it was true. Then again, perhaps like many other tribal tales, this was a story, the value of which was in the entertainment—and not because it contained some great eternal truth.
“A great many years ago, long before I was born, a white man—a great explorer—”
Firefly clapped her hands, which were long and delicate, despite being rough from her toil as a wife who performed her chores well. “Wait! How can this be? This has been our land since even before the great flood; at no time has a white man set foot on even as much as a grain of sand that has not been seen by one of our people.”
“Bulelela, Firefly.” Truly. “Nonetheless, that is the title by which this man went. When he was taken captive by my people and shown the pot in which he would be cooked, he became very much afraid.”
“It is only natural,” Firefly said.
Jonathan Pimple pretended his face was carved from wood. Firefly had a soft heart, which meant she would make a good mother, but she already had a husband. For her sake—and for his—he would be careful to remember that.
“Yes, fear is natural, but at that point some men in that situation simply give up; they cry out for mercy as if they were—”
“Women?”
“Kah! Small children! Or else they struggle until their last breath, which is most unfortunate, as it causes nodules to form in the muscle tissue and gives the meat a most unpleasant taste. It is the same with pigs.”
Firefly looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “E, it is so with pigs. My father beat me once for running too close to a sow that was tied beneath our mango tree. Truly, the meat was full of nodules, and I was beaten again and again.”
“Now what was I about to say—yes, this man behaved in neither of these two ways; instead he smiled! Yes, Firefly, you heard me speak the truth! This white man smiled and then asked the chief to cut off his leg”—he gestured—“right here, just below his manhood. Not only that, but the white man indicated that the chief must cut the leg off right through his pants!”
“Aiyee! But that is such a waste of good pants! If this happened as long ago as you said, it must have taken a tailor a very long time to sew them. Perhaps the machine for sewing was not yet discovered by this time.”
Jonathan Pimple was deeply offended. “Do you mock me, Firefly? Ask around to the other Bapende in this village, for I am sure that you will find more than a few who have heard the story of the white man’s leg that tasted of wood.”
Firefly gave him her full attention. “Was it of a different flesh? One that tasted of wood?”
“Eyo; it was in fact wood. Just like that tree over there, so that no matter how long it cooked, wood it remained. Then the chief ordered the white man stripped of his clothes and it was discovered that his second leg was indeed real flesh—such as that of a human, but belonging to a white. Then the white man confessed that his leg had suffered disease and had been removed and replaced by the wooden one.”
“Was the chief angry to be deceived in this manner?”
“No, the chief was a simple man and he marveled at the stunt. In the end, he let the white man go free.”
“And what would you have done, Jonathan Pimple?”
He shrugged. The chief had lost face, had he not? And what business did a white person have in Bapende territory anyway except to look for slaves, or perhaps force new beliefs upon the people. Besides, a one-legged white man had no chance of surviving on his own. Would not even a white man prefer a few quick whacks of a machete over being mauled by a lion?
He was still thinking over his a
nswer when the sky opened and began to dump the first rain of the season on the residents of Belle Vue’s workers’ village. It was the likes of which no one had ever seen. Jonathan Pimple and Firefly parted without speaking another word.
Those white residents of Belle Vue not invited to the Cabochon dinner party were missing out on an occasion as grand as anything the town had ever seen. That is the mantra Madame Cabochon repeated to herself as preparations for the evening went from bad to worse, and then descended into the realm of disaster.
Rain was to be expected during suicide month, but the lightning that accompanied this storm blew out the transformer that supplied electric power to the homes on the European side of the river. Not even a year earlier Madame Cabochon had, in a great show of modernity, been the first housewife in town to dispose of her wood-burning stove in favor of an all-electric model. One could not be any more modern than that!
When her new electric stove stopped working, Madame Cabochon had an undercooked pork loin in the oven, two pans of yeast rolls yet to bake, potatoes to boil, and vegetables to simmer—completing dinner was impossible! Impossible! What was she to do? She couldn’t ask anyone for help; none of her nearby neighbors had been invited.
However, Monsieur Cabochon, who had at first been against the idea of entertaining a clergyman, turned out to be surprisingly helpful. He drove his half-German derriere over to the Club Mediterranean, where he drank Johnnie Walker Red by the light of a Pullman lantern.
There were two things Madame Cabochon did not lack: a sense of drama, and—as a Jewish friend of hers back in Coquilhatville once described it—chutzpah. When the guests were dropped off under the portico that evening by their uniformed chauffeurs, they found their car doors opened by a colossal Sudanese man dressed in a starched white jacket bearing gold epaulets. His left earlobe sported a large hoop that appeared to be gold as well. Appearances are everything, are they not?
This giant ushered the guests to French doors that were opened by a pair of servants, similarly outfitted. Only then did one get a glimpse of the divine Madame Cabochon, arrayed in a swirl of pink chiffon that was more toga than it was gown, and which was held together by antique cameos, some spit, and a bit of luck. As to the whereabouts of Monsieur Cabochon: it was murmured that he had crossed the river to deliver some much-needed medicines to some poor child stricken with malaria. At any rate, continuing the grand deception that this was a grand evening—one for the record books, even—was the fact that every candle in the house was lit, and every kerosene lamp and lantern pressed into service.
Somewhere—perhaps it was at her Swiss finishing school—the hostess had learned a little decorating tip involving aluminum foil. When used as a backdrop for candles, it multiplied their presence, and so although the metal wrap was scarce as snow in the jungle, and had to be ordered months in advance, Madame Cabochon used every roll she had and turned her dining room into what she imagined the tsar’s winter palace in Saint Petersburg might have looked like—in miniature, of course—for a gala event. Those were but just two examples of Madame Cabochon’s flare for the dramatique.
As to her legendary chutzpah—well, displaying that was just plain fun. Really, she had no choice, so why not pull out all the stops? The only item on her original menu that she could still serve was some canned baby green peas. These, however, would have to be served cold. Madame Cabochon, who had ever so cleverly hand lettered ten paper menus, gently folded some real mayonnaise, a bit of chopped red onion, and some thinly sliced celery into the legumes and served them atop leaves of fresh Bibb lettuce. She titled this dish: Petits Pois Americains.
“Alors, Mademoiselle Brown,” said the OP, Marcel Fabergé, without either a hint of playfulness or irony, “how does Madame Cabochon’s interpretation of this dish compare with the way it is prepared in your native America?”
The OP was a swarthy little Walloon—a French-speaking Belgian—with a neck like a sink drain, and ears that stood at right angles to his head, and with cartilage so thin as to be translucent. A more ridiculous-looking little man for the job, Madame Cabochon could not imagine. Yet there was something crafty about this man—perhaps even devious—that kept all his European employees on their toes. That was the only reason he’d been included on the evening’s guest list. One wouldn’t want to snub this OP, no matter how much one despised him.
Madame Cabochon was just opening her mouth in order to prevent the missionary from answering when the question was answered for her. The plain young American, who was seated beside the OP, touched his arm lightly and flashed him a toothy smile. Those Americans were all teeth: strong, straight white teeth that they were quick to display frequently, and almost arrogantly, as if it were their birthright.
“My compliments to the chef,” she enthused. “In America, especially in the South, this is a very popular dish. My grandmother—may she rest in peace—was famous for her pea salad, but I must say, Madame Cabochon’s is even tastier.”
Madame Cabochon beamed.
“Salad?” said the OP. “So this is merely a salad, and not some fancy national dish?”
“Marcel,” whispered his wife. She was seated across the table from him, and unless she was able to reach far enough with her foot to kick him in the privates, she was essentially quite powerless.
“No, no,” Amanda Brown protested, her face growing Contadina red. “We most definitely do call it American-Style Peas. It’s in all the cookbooks and everything.” She turned to Madame Cabochon. “I just love your table decorations. They are so clever—what with the foil reflecting back the candlelight. It looks so professionally done.”
As much as Madame Cabochon hated to do so, she knew there was wisdom to be had in making a public show of civility to the Philistine from the New World. Imagine that, a woman born and bred in Africa looking down her nose at an American! But yes, that was exactly the case. Madame Cabochon may have been reared in the Congo, but she was descended from good European breeding stock, and she had been to finishing school in Switzerland. She was cosmopolitan in her outlook. She had a worldview, and she was no longer a virgin. That about said it all.
That and the fact that she simply could not stand that the mousy missionary seemed to have instantly captured the heart of Belle Vue’s most eligible bachelor, a man who was unquestionably a heartthrob. Of course, Madame Cabochon was nobody’s fool; she didn’t for a minute envision a future with the uneducated police chief. The man had no ambition, no plans to advance himself. What’s more, he probably wanted a family, whereas the very idea of babies made Madame Cabochon’s skin crawl—at the very least babies gave one stretch marks and sagging breasts. Besides—and this was a closely guarded secret—Madame Cabochon was beyond the age of breeding.
“Mademoiselle Brown,” the hostess said, expertly feigning warmth, “you have an interest in decorating, perhaps?”
“Oui, madame. Some of the furnishings at the Missionary Rest House are truly outdated. In fact, if I might speak frankly—”
“By all means,” Madame Cabochon said. She was quite ready for a juicy bit of gossip; but then, who wasn’t?
“The entire place could use a facelift.”
“Facelift? Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Mon Dieu,” the OP moaned, “is there anything more dreary than two females discussing—how do you say—matters domestique?”
Then, much to Madame Cabochon’s immense satisfaction, Monsignor Clemente came to life for the first time that evening. One moment he was barely more than a statue: cold to the touch, his eyes blank. He didn’t seem to notice her at all, whereas the next moment he was all man. His chiseled features, made all the more handsome by the infusion of Latin blood, were wasted on a man of the cloth. What a pity!
“Perhaps we should talk about more serious subjects,” he said in his educated British accent. He turned to Captain Pierre Jardin. “Last Thursday I learned from the talking drums that the great pyt
hon hunter, Monsieur Lazarus Chigger Mite, had been murdered. Yet there seems to have been scarcely a word about it spoken in the white community, and no funeral that I am aware of. Was Monsieur Lazarus Chigger Mite a Protestant perchance?”
“He was not a Protestant,” the American chirped. “He was a Roman Catholic.”
Everyone turned to look at her, as if she could possibly know the answer. Then again, she was young, American, and potentially pretty—the three things that the men of Belle Vue valued the most, regardless of their vocation.
“How do you know this, Amanda?” Pierre asked. His mouth was still full of Madame Cabochon’s cleverly prepared meal.
“Because the subject of Lazarus Chigger Mite’s religion was discussed behind my woodshed the day he killed the great muma.”
“What is this muma?” asked the OP irritably.
“It is a Tshiluba word,” Pierre said. “It means python—that’s all.”
“Then please, can we not stick to just one language at a time? It is enough that we must speak English tonight!”
“Marcel!” said his mousy wife, before clamping her hand over her mouth and looking down at her lap.
But Monsignor Clemente was favoring the American with a devilishly handsome, but much unappreciated, smile. “Mademoiselle Brown, what lies behind your woodshed?”
“My washstand, sir. You see, Cripple—she used to be my assistant housekeeper, but now she is in the family way—has a little business enterprise going on back there.”
“She’s a fortune teller,” Pierre said, and winked broadly.
“No, sir, she is not! Why, that is against our Bible, and I bet that is even against y’all’s!”
The monsignor’s smile broadened.
Madame Cabochon smiled as well, but somewhat ruefully, and to herself. Clearly the monsignor hadn’t had many dealings with the deceptively charming Americans known as “Southerners.” They were a species unto themselves. That is exactly what made them so dangerous to European men; men were linguistically unequipped to spot the snares these women laid. A woman, however, didn’t need a dictionary to interpret another woman’s intentions, even an American’s, because the game never changed.