The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots

by Tamar Myers

  “Parlez-vous françaîs, s’il vous plaît,” Madame Fabergé, the OP’s wife said. Her lips were a thin brown line in a slightly paler brown face.

  “Bien,” Cripple said. “Although my French is not the finest, given that I learned it sitting on the grass outside my brother’s classroom. Would you prefer to converse in Flemish instead? Or perhaps Latin? Now Latin—there is much about Latin that reminds me of my own remarkable tongue—”

  “Cripple!” Amanda was forced to say sharply. “Quit showing off.”

  “Eyo,” said Cripple. “Too quickly I forget my number five status in Congo Belgique.”

  “Number five?” said Madame Cabochon, sounding greatly amused.

  “Oui, madame. Number one is the white woman who is called Flemand Belgian—but there is no example here. Number two is the white woman who is Walloon Belgian like yourself. Number three are the Americans. Then come the Portuguese and their mulatto children—oh yes, madame, is it not true that the Portuguese are less apt to look down on us, and therefore are more willing to shake the bushes with a black woman like me?”

  The sex-crazed, and altogether crass, Madame Cabochon howled with laughter. No matter which way you sliced the red velvet cake, that woman was, as Mama would say, from the other side of the tracks—well, except that she was born right here in the Congo. Obviously then, it had to be her papist upbringing that made her who she was.

  Amanda flushed, remembering their shared dance among the yellow butterflies. Before coming to Africa, she had agreed to act as a beacon of light, not only to the natives, but to the godless Belgians as well. Oh, how she’d failed! Instead, since arriving, just three short months ago she had drunk alcohol again, kissed a man, skipped church (even on Sunday mornings), and danced with a woman!

  “Mamu,” Cripple said, slipping back into her own tongue. “You have turned mukunze.” Red. “Are you ill?”

  “No!” She had not meant to respond so sharply this time.

  “She feels shame,” Madame Cabochon said, for the word embarrassment did not translate directly into Tshiluba.

  “Shame?” said Cripple. “For what?”

  “You spoke of shaking the bushes,” said Madame Cabochon. “I am afraid that when these American missionaries go into the bushes, the bushes do not shake. They say that the only way to tell if a missionary is in the bushes is to toss a snake in with them.” Madame Cabochon commenced howling again.

  Of course Cripple joined in and was quite pleased with herself too. Poor Madame OP; one could hardly blame her for wandering off by herself.

  “Stop it,” said Amanda and, grabbing a saucepan, she brought it down on the stove with a resounding whack. Too late did she remember that in her Congo orientation class, this was exactly the sort of behavior one was not supposed to exhibit if one was to retain the respect of one’s employees—especially if they belonged to the dignified Baluba tribe. Well, dignified my foot; Cripple was practically down on the floor rolling around.

  “Stop it,” Cripple croaked. “Stop it, stop, stop it!”

  “Nyoka,” Amanda cried. Snake! If Cripple was willing to use the dreaded snake word, then so was she.

  Cripple’s sad little body snapped to attention. “Snake? Where, Mamu?”

  “There is no snake, Cripple; I wished only to frighten you.”

  “Why, Mamu? Do you not want the child within me to stay his allotted time?”

  Geez o’ Pete! Now look what Amanda Brown’s big old Rock Hill mouth had gone and done? She would never, ever have forgiven herself had she caused Cripple to miscarry. Oh Lordy, was there still a chance of that? How would she know, since there wasn’t a doctor on this side of the river?

  “No, Cripple, no! I would never wish for you to miscarry!”

  “Shhh, Mamu, you must not speak so loud, lest the spirits hear you and get ideas.”

  “Yes, never speak aloud your true thoughts,” Madame Cabochon said. With that she extended her hand and, in the most brazen manner imaginable, cupped Cripple’s belly in the palm of her hand. It was rude, it was paternalistic, it was contemptible; and worst of all, Cripple appeared to be fine with this behavior. At least she made no discernible attempt to pull away.

  Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. They were tears of frustration for having failed in her vision of being a shining light for others; by no means did they spring from self-pity—not that the other women would come to the correct conclusion. Therefore, under no circumstances must she allow those tears to fall. If in the future she hoped to save either one of their souls, Amanda must come across now as nonchalant.

  “My true thoughts are,” she said, “that Captain Pierre is a most unattractive man and I wish never to see him again.”

  “Aiyee!” Cripple said and slapped her thighs with merriment. Clearly all thoughts of miscarriage had been abandoned.

  Madame Cabochon swept over to Amanda’s side and laid a Rubenesque arm around the American girl’s slim shoulders. The Belgian woman smelled of sin: cigarettes, alcohol, and a cloying perfume that didn’t even come close to masking her body odor. Why was it that Europeans bathed so infrequently and eschewed deodorant, and the women were comfortable with having shaggy armpits?

  “We will make a proper African out of you yet,” Madame Cabochon said to Amanda.

  That got Cripple going again. “Mamu?” she gasped. “You will turn Mamu Ugly Eyes into an African woman like me?”

  It was time for Amanda to step up to the plate. “Cripple! Now we talk seriously.”

  “Eyo, Mamu.” But yet she giggled.

  “Since you have made the difficult journey down the hill through the tshisuku, and you are heavy with child, do you wish to rest in that little room next to the woodshed?”

  “Aiyee, Mamu, but that cement floor is very hard.”

  “And so it is. Permit me to set up a cot—a folding bulala that does not touch the floor. You will find that even more comfortable than the slipping mat in your own hut.”

  Cripple clapped her hands with glee. “Mamu, indeed you are very kind for a white woman. Perhaps what this mamu with the big breasts says is true; you are turning into an African.”

  Amanda smiled broadly. She felt like clapping as well. Actually, she felt like hugging the outspoken Muluba woman and the worldly Belgian. After all, they came closer to being her friends than any other women at Belle Vue. And to think that neither of them were Christians! At least Colette Cabochon, being a Roman Catholic, stood a small chance of going to heaven—perhaps a small house on the outskirts of the Protestant mansions—but poor Cripple, who was an outright heathen, was going to writhe in agony for all eternity in the literal flames of hell. Oh well, those thoughts had to be put on a back burner for now.

  Anyway, in the end, wasn’t the question of who got saved really up to God, even if the Bible already did spell everything out clearly? If only Amanda had another Southern Baptist her age whom she could talk to—really talk to about such troubling matters. Funny, but since coming to Africa to share her faith, she found that her faith had been shaken like never before.

  “Cripple,” Amanda said, “it will make my heart very happy to do this. If you so desire, you may even stay in that room until you have birthed your child.”

  “We laugh and we cry, Mamu,” Cripple said, by way of expressing thanks. “Will you also serve my meals to me in my little room next to the woodshed?”

  “Nakuya,” said Madame Cabochon. I have gone. But she stayed, her feet firmly planted to the kitchen floor.

  “E, I will bring you meals,” Amanda said, “but only in the event that you are no longer able to come to the kitchen.”

  “The meals must not be European,” Cripple elaborated, “because European food is not real food.”

  Madame Cabochon clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle a laugh that still managed to escape as a loud snort. For that she received withering
glares from both Amanda and Cripple.

  “It is agreed, however, you must bring me only bidia bia Bena Baluba. I cannot eat the cassava mush that the Bena Lulua make, for it is not as smooth and silky as ours. As for the stuff that the Bapende people call cassava mush—bah, I have tasted better mush made by a goat.”

  “Cripple, I do not know how to make mush of any sort; besides, for now I have neither cassava flour, nor palm oil.”

  “Aiyee,” Cripple wailed, “then how will my family join me? They have never tasted this European food—except for Their Death, my husband. They will not like it; that I can assure you.”

  “Cripple, how can this be? Many times I have sent you home with leftover food to share with your family. What did you do with it?”

  “I ate it, Mamu,” Cripple said without blinking an eyelash. “On the way home I sat in the tshisuku and ate it.”

  “But so much food?”

  “I was hungry. Besides, if I took it home, then Their Death would eat it all, and then I would have none. Was that your intention, Mamu? That I should not have any of it?”

  “No, of course not! It is just that I find it very hard to believe—I mean, I have met Their Death, and he seems like a very nice—”

  “She is telling the truth,” said Madame Cabochon in rapid-fire, if not quite perfect, English. “In her culture, the men, they eat separately, and they get to choose first if there is protein.”

  “Even if a pregnant woman is involved? Or growing children?”

  “Oui, my little innocent American cabbage; this is the real world. This is not Stone Hill.”

  “It is Rock Hill, madame, not Stone Hill,” Amanda said, her eyes narrowing. At the moment she didn’t feel very much like a missionary—at least not like a good missionary. Of that much Amanda was certain.

  “Tch,” said Cripple. “I find this gibberish you speak most annoying. Do you not see how I wait patiently for you to supply a solution?”

  “A solution? For what?”

  “Aiyee, Mamu, is it not a most fortunate thing that it is the Belgians who are our oppressors, and not you Americans? At least the Belgians, cruel as they are, are not without ideas. For instance, how will you satisfy the appetite of Their Death, Second Wife, myself, and our seven children?”

  “There are seven children now?”

  “Tangila [behold], this is not a ball of cassava mush that protrudes from beneath my blouse.”

  “Indeed it is not,” Amanda said, feeling only slightly relieved. Six children, seven children, all of them running around half naked and screaming in the cramped courtyard between the outbuilding and the main house; this would not do at all—not if this was to continue on as a missionary rest home.

  Of course, a missionary rest home, for all the Protestant missionaries of the right persuasion; that is what this establishment was intended to be; that is why folks back in the States sacrificed and put an extra dollar or two in the offering plate each Sunday. They certainly didn’t do it so that one misshapen Muluba woman with an attitude the size of Texas could use it as her personal convalescence home.

  “Wewe tangila [you behold],” Amanda said. “My offer was to you, Cripple, but only to you. I am sorry if this offends you or your family, but the people in America, to whom this Missionary Rest House belongs, do not wish me to allow anyone—Belgian or African—to live here. Only American missionaries are permitted to stay here, and even they must leave after two weeks. That is their rule.”

  Amanda had no doubt that the woman was insulted and possibly even very angry, but the Mission Board had tied her hands. What could she be expected to do? Besides, it wasn’t realistic to expect just Cripple and her family to occupy the small courtyard. Amanda might be a newcomer to the Congo, but already her knowledge of local ways gave her a pretty good idea that along with any extended family came chickens, ducks, and the ubiquitous goats. Even the constant roar of the falls would be unable to drown out that cacophony of cackles, quacks, and bleats.

  “Nakuya kashide, mene mene,” Cripple said, and hobbled straight outdoors.

  Her parting words—“Now I have truly gone forever”—stung Amanda like a face full of pea gravel flung up by a stock car on a dirt road. She stood there helplessly, wanting to chase after her, but not knowing what to say. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—give into Cripple’s unreasonable demands. It was so terribly unfair! And even if she decided to chase after that irritating little woman—well, Cripple had already turned and been swallowed up by a bougainvillea hedge.

  Madame Cabochon touched Amanda’s elbow gently, although it still made her jump.

  “It is hopeless, non?” Madame Cabochon said.

  “What is?”

  “This Congolese friendship circle. You are familiar with this custom, oui?”

  Amanda quickly sifted through the mountain of facts she’d packed into her brain during language school. Ah, yes! The custom of friendship reciprocity. First the African presented you with a gift, often with a great show of friendship—but it wasn’t a free gift, you see. You were expected to give one in return. And that new friend presented you with a second gift, after which you presented her with another, and so on and on it went. Of course since you were the unimaginably rich white, your gifts were expected to get bigger and bigger (think larger and larger gifts of cash). Presumably this went on forever, or, until you, the white, turned into a bad friend and stopped the cycle.

  “I think it is a horrible custom,” Amanda said. She could feel her nostrils flaring with anger at just the thought of being used that way.

  “Oui, some understand it as such. However, it is really quite different from a sociological point of view.”

  “Huh?” It was one three-letter word that Pierre had told Amanda he wished he could remove from the American vocabulary. On that account, he and Amanda’s mother would certainly have seen eye to eye.

  “Mademoiselle, it will undoubtedly amuse you to learn that I possess an undergraduate degree in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. It was purely an affectation on my part, since it was my intent to marry rich men, never to work—instead, I have done neither!” She laughed heartily and did not seem the least bit embarrassed by her confession. “At any rate, it is my belief that this custom of giving gifts is a way of making strong bonds between individuals. There are cultures in the world where men allow visitors to sleep with their wives as an act of hospitality. The customs of others are sometimes hard to understand, non?”

  “Non—I mean oui. Do you think that I was too hard on Cripple? There really wasn’t anything that I could do! It wasn’t just the rules, you see.” Amanda lowered her voice, although to the best of her knowledge there wasn’t anyone else around to hear her. “I’m not above breaking a few stupid rules. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still a good missionary and all that. It’s just that friends count for something with me.”

  “Mademoiselle, one cannot be friends with servants, and one cannot be friends with the natives. Therefore, most especially, one cannot be friends with native servants.”

  “I think you are a snob, Madame Cabochon. And what I was about to say is that if I thought I could get away with it, I would have made an exception for Cripple. However, some of the other missionaries are real sticklers for the rules, and I have no doubt that they would report me if they saw native children staring in their windows. Then I’d lose my job and get sent packing back to the States. And I mean pronto.” She took a deep breath, knowing that she shouldn’t go further, but like a semitrailer truck headed down a steep incline, she was quite unable to stop herself. “That would suit you just fine, wouldn’t it?”

  The belle of Belle Vue, the woman to whom every man gravitated like ants to a picnic, turned as pale as the October moon. “What do you mean by that, chérie?”

  “I know all about you trying to seduce my Pierre,” Amanda said. “Don’t you try to deny it, because there ar
e witnesses who saw—who saw—well, it was just shameful what they saw. And I know it was all your fault, because Pierre is not that kind of man.”

  The color flooded back into Madame Cabochon’s perfect complexion. “Oh, that! Oui, you are quite correct; indeed, I did attempt to seduce your young handsome Pierre, for he is a most attractive man. He is like a fine dessert—perhaps a pot de crème au chocolat; I could eat him with a spoon. But you see, Mademoiselle Brown, there is a problem, and it is that he is your Pierre.” Colette Cabochon jiggled her considerable assets. “He is interested in only you.”

  Chapter 30

  The Belgian Congo, 1958

  The men were overjoyed to learn that there had once been a ferry crossing. They tried to communicate this information to the people on the other half of the bridge, but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, Pierre commandeered one of the Missionary Rest House’s oldest sheets and painted the message on it. Unfortunately, the moving water generated its own breeze, and since the oil-based paint did not dry as fast as Pierre wanted, some of the words on the sheet became illegible. Still, without a doubt the bulk of the message was understood.

  Of course, that didn’t mean that the men on the other end of the bridge turned around and made a beeline for the jungle at the edge of town in search of the old ferry landing. How preposterous that would have been. Supposing one of them would have discovered something useful, then what? Which of them was actually going to perform manual labor in the withering heat of the suicide month?

  “They don’t look like they’re in very much of a hurry,” Amanda shouted into Pierre’s ear as they moved away from the roar of the falls. She’d watched in utter amazement as the crowd of Belgians disbanded; surely she’d seen sunburns fade away faster than that.

  “There is not much they can do,” the young Belgian police captain said.

  “You mean, there isn’t much they are willing to do—not without some African to do it for them.”

  Despite the heat, she had brazenly linked arms with him, hoping that he would see it as a playful gesture. However, he pulled away.