by Tamar Myers
Amanda was taken aback. “Y-You mean for a woman,” she stammered.
“Mademoiselle, you are not correct; believe me when I say that she is exceptional.”
“E, believe him,” Cripple said, nodding in agreement. She appeared to be taking herself quite seriously too.
Then the unbelievable happened. Monsignor Clemente and Cripple struck up a conversation, chatting about the “old days” in Belle Vue when she was a child and he a young priest—like old chums meeting outside Friedman’s Department Store in downtown Rock Hill. They seemed oblivious to the blazing sun, which, coupled with the oppressive humidity of suicide month, felt like a million degrees. Sweat streamed down Amanda’s brow, attracting tiny wasps that sucked at the moisture collecting in the corners of her eyes. Even more maddening were the bees, which actually stung, piercing the inside creases of her elbows and behind her knees.
Darn the two of you, she thought, although she would never swear aloud. This farce of an exchange between European man and native woman, between cleric and heathen—surely this was nothing more than a charade. To what purpose? Perhaps to ease guilty consciences on both their parts, consciences made heavy by the hate they harbored for the other’s race. In the meantime, the old priest, Father Reutner, was not only getting away with murder, he was—well, he was such a darn hypocrite!
There was practically nothing Amanda hated worse than a hypocrite. Yes, she had known it was wrong to drive while drunk. She and her friends had done that anyway. Not that it excused their behavior, but from whom had they learned this bad behavior? From their parents! Every last one of them had at least one parent who was guilty of guzzling a beer or two at a picnic or backyard barbecue and then driving home. And Amanda knew for a fact that the judge in the courtroom on the day of her sentencing—the judge who had been so lenient with her—he too drove while under the influence. Amanda knew this because he went to her church and attended the same functions.
Finally Amanda had all she could take of other folks’ reminiscences and the brutality of the midday sun. “Monsignor,” she snapped, “can we not do something besides compare our life stories?”
He fixed her with that infamous smile; or was it really just a smirk? “Certainly, mademoiselle. Do you have any idea what the captain’s intentions were the last time you saw him?”
“E. He was going to search for the old ferry landing. That is why we are on this abandoned road.”
“Of course. But as you can see, it is not such an abandoned road after all; Madame Cripple, I see here footpaths that are yet clear enough so that my chauffeur might drive my car. Who uses this so-called abandoned road?”
“Muambi, it is only fishermen. Never cars. The fishermen tie their dugouts up somewhere up there”—she waved her arms with more verve than she had ever shaken a rug in Amanda’s experience—“but exactly where, I do not know, as I have not had the motivation to drag my tired, misshapen body up this tortuous path in many, many years.”
“My eyes have already seen evidence of your bravery, Madame Cripple, so I know it is not fear that has kept you from going farther. I am also quite aware that when the mood strikes you thus, you are quite capable of dragging that tired, misshapen body of yours anywhere it is that you wish to go.”
“Tch,” Cripple said. She turned to Amanda. “Please tell the white man in the black dress that even you are better at making compliments than he is. If he had not been so rude, I would have told him that the fishermen take those same dugouts over to the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters to fish for a creature called capitaine. Have you ever eaten this capitaine, Mamu Ugly Eyes?”
“Capitaine is a fish,” Amanda said. “It is not a creature. But yes, I have eaten it. It was wonderful.”
Monsignor Clemente sighed. “Ah, capitaine! It is by far the most delicious fish I have ever tasted. Believe me when I tell you this, Madame Cripple, there is no finer-tasting fish in all of Europe.”
“Bulelela?”
Amanda sighed as well, but that time not with pleasure. “Please, may we return to speaking of Capitaine Pierre Jardin?”
“Tch,” Cripple said again.
“E, let us do that,” the monsignor. He gestured expansively at his sedan. “I am confident that this car can complete its journey on this road, and I would be pleased if the two of you accompanied me. Together we will see if the man capitaine is to be found at the end of this road. If he is not there, then we will have spent but a short time looking. Afterward this car and I can transport you back to the village, and we can search those areas where the lanes are wide enough to accommodate an automobile. Is this agreeable?”
“E!”
The monsignor started. “Miss Brown,” he whispered in English. “Isn’t she afraid to ride in a car?”
“My father was a mechanic,” Cripple said in French without missing a beat. “I often rode with him on his test drives.”
It was hard to say who was the most shocked, Amanda or the monsignor. Amanda finally closed her mouth when she remembered something that her mother used to say—it was something along the lines of: “One day you’re going to swallow a fly, dear.” There were lots of flies buzzing about her now, as well as sweat-sucking wasps and insidious little bees.
“Do you speak English?” Amanda demanded incredulously.
“Non, Mamu, but I understand this simple language of yours. Perhaps someday we can discuss some changes to the pronunciation of various words. Like French, there are many unnecessary sounds, and others that are simply unpleasant to the ear. Do you not agree, Muambi Monsignor?”
It was perhaps then that the monsignor closed his mouth; it was, after all, necessary to do so first in order for him to speak. “Madame Cripple, I could not agree with you more. Do you not find the sound of Latin much more pleasing to the ear?”
“E. Latin is a beautiful language.”
“Then perhaps you should consider becoming a Roman Catholic.”
“Absolutely not!” Amanda said. She pounded the dashboard of the sedan with such force that the dust swirled up around them, creating the effect of a snow globe.
“Is it not possible for a heathen to speak Latin?” Cripple asked.
“Let us speak no more of religious matters—or of Latin,” the monsignor suggested. “Our only task now should be to find Captain Pierre Jardin.”
Pierre’s heart raced. It was a familiar feeling, an enjoyable feeling, one he experienced every time he hunted, no matter his prey—beast or man. And since he was an exceptionally honest man, if he’d been asked just then, he would have answered quite truthfully that he found hunting man the more exciting pastime, if only because most men at least were fair game. Made it a fair game? How did one say it in English? Never mind, the point was that he enjoyed the hunt when it came to man. Only the hunt.
You would think that someone so visible one minute, like Jonathan Pimple, could not simply disappear the next minute. But that is exactly what he did. Jonathan Pimple vanished right before his eyes. He just melted into the crowd. True, the natives all had coal black hair, and most men kept theirs cropped short, but by no means did they all look alike. There were tribal differences often relating to skin tone and height, and of course there were always individual differences.
Every person, every animal, indeed every piece of vegetation on this planet is an individual in that it has been shaped by outside forces peculiar to the space it occupies. It is these differences, sometimes virtually invisible to the untrained eye, that both the sophisticated government spy and the illiterate bush tracker learn to pick up on. Although Pierre was neither of the two, he leaned toward tracker, yet with all the people milling about he knew that tracking in the literal sense would be a lost cause.
So would looking for Jonathan Pimple at his hut; Pierre didn’t even waste any time considering that. Well, the main thing, now that he couldn’t find Jonathan Pimple, was to find Amanda. All P
ierre really wanted Jonathan for was to warn him away from harming Amanda. She was new to the Congo, he’d intended to say, and she didn’t understand the power that the resurrection cults had on a people who had been oppressed for centuries. Also, this Jonathan Pimple fellow better be sure he knew what he was getting into, if he was going to be concocting similar scenarios between his cult and the Kibanguists. The latter did not respond lightly to mockery.
He was considering his course of action when he heard a cough at his elbow. Coughing to get attention was an African thing to do; thus Pierre was rather surprised to see a tall, thin white man with blue-gray eyes. After a second or two, he realized it was the Flemish mulatto, the poor lad who would be forever trapped between two worlds, yet stuck in one.
“Excusez-moi, Capitaine,” the merchant said softly, “if you are wondering where your friends are, I can tell you.”
“What? How do you know who my friends are?”
“Monsieur, I am a lonely man; or have you not recognized that it is I, the dancing, singing, happy mulatto resident of Belle Vue workers’ village? I am too white to be black, and too black to be white—like a spotted goat, nasha? I have no friends—not even a wife. So I content myself with keeping track of everyone else’s whereabouts.”
“Ah, très bien! Do you know where Jonathan Pimple is?”
“Tch,” the Flemish mulatto said, sounding just like a native, for indeed he was, no? “Monsieur, is he your priority?”
“Do not tell me my priority!” Pierre roared. Then, aware that his outburst had drawn a great deal of unwanted interest, he lowered his voice. “Please, give me news of my friends.”
“Very well. First, Madame Cabochon—she with the large mabele—she went back down the hill to the Missionary Rest House. The other two—the pretty young American woman and the Muluba woman named Cripple—they have foolishly set off down the road that the fishermen use when they catch capitaine in their dugouts next to the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters.”
“Merci.” Pierre grabbed the man’s slim hand, gave it a quick shake, and then, just before he turned to go, the thought occurred to him. “Why is it so foolish for them to go down that road, monsieur?”
The Flemish mulatto beamed. No doubt he was enjoying such a long exchange with a real white man.
“Because Monsignor Clemente is pursuing them, monsieur.”
“What nonsense,” Pierre said angrily, for he had caught on to the half-caste’s game. “Why would the monsignor pursue them?”
“Ah, now you have asked the important question! You see—”
“Out with it, you fool!”
“He intends to kill them.”
Chapter 36
The Belgian Congo, 1958
There was no sign of Pierre at the river’s edge, just a pair of dugout canoes and a bazillion dancing yellow and black butterflies. The water level seemed up, but not like it had been immediately following the storm. Although Amanda had never viewed the Kasai River from this location, she was still very much aware that something was missing from the scenery, that something being most of the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters.
In the island’s place was a tangle of immense, upended trees, their circular root systems and flying buttresses denuded of soil. Some of the trees terminated like the tips of ski poles, others like eggbeaters, but all on a giant’s scale, of course. Nowhere in that mess was there even a suggestion of dry land.
“There is no need to even stop,” Amanda said to the chauffeur.
“Mademoiselle,” the monsignor said gently, “he is my chauffeur, oui?”
“Certainement,” Amanda said. Perhaps she had overstepped her bounds, but there was no need to make her feel like a schoolgirl. Not in front of her former housekeeper.
“We will stop,” the monsignor said.
“Mamu,” said Cripple, just a bit too loudly for normal conversation. “Please tell your friend that I am a woman in the family way and, as such, I must return to the village.”
“There will be no returning,” the monsignor said. “Now get out, please.”
They stumbled once more into the unforgiving sun, but Cripple would not be stilled. “Mamu, please tell this man in a dress that a woman in my condition must frequently use the bush.”
“Monsignor, uh—what she means,” Amanda said, “is that—”
“She should have thought to use the toilet earlier,” Monsignor Clemente said. “Now, walk this way down to the canoes.”
Clouds of butterflies rose with every step they took. Even with the weight of suicide month pressing down upon them, the lifting bank of yellow and black was an ethereal experience. In her heart Amanda believed that this was a gift from heaven at the hour of her death, something to make the impending suffering more bearable. Because even though no words had been spoken to that effect, the young American knew that she and Cripple had guessed wrong, and that it was the charming Monsignor Clemente, and not the abrasive Father Reutner, who had murdered Chigger Mite.
“Cripple,” she said softly in Tshiluba, although she knew the monsignor could still hear and understand her, “I know that you do not share my beliefs, but—”
“Mamu Ugly Eyes, you need not worry about my soul; if I am wrong about my beliefs and you are right, and if your god is truly merciful, then he and I will have a palaver after I am dead.”
“But, Cripple, by then it will be too late.”
“Aiyee, Mamu, then that is most unfortunate for your god, is it not?”
“Cripple, this is no time to joke!”
“I do not joke, Mamu. Nor am I afraid. Does this disappoint you?”
“Surely you must be afraid,” the monsignor said sharply. “It is impossible to approach death without fear; one does unimaginable things in order to escape death. Everyone does!”
“Tch.”
“I was young,” the monsignor said. He’d begun to ramble in English, his eyes darting from one woman to the other, like he was looking for sympathy or understanding. “I was barely out of seminary. Yes, I wanted to be a missionary to the Congo—I love this country—but you get teamed up with another priest, you see. That is supposed to keep one out of trouble. But tell me, how is that supposed to work if they team you up with a pedophile?
“Our first assignment was a Bapende village—some of them were still cannibals back then—and Father Eugene’s target happened to be one of the chief’s twin sons—”
“Yala,” Cripple said. “This cannot be true. The Bapende do not permit such abnormalities as twins to exist!”
“All children are gifts from Yehowah Nzambi,” Amanda said.
The monsignor waved his arms impatiently. “This chief was strong-willed. The twins were born to his favorite wife who had remained barren up to perhaps her fortieth year. The chief broke all the rules for those two boys. Then we came along, we who were doing God’s work, and then one day when I was away from the village—I had gone off to fetch some medicines for a woman with a badly infected leg—Father Eugene undid all that work.”
“I do not understand,” Cripple whined. “How does one undo something that has not been done?”
“Stop making noise,” Amanda said gently.
The monsignor resumed speaking immediately. “Their witch doctor said that the only way that the twin who had been molested could take back that which was stolen from him—his soul, I presume—was for everyone present at this feast to—well, you know what I mean.”
“We do not,” Amanda said, although she really did.
“So I tasted. That is all they made me do—taste—although looking back on it now, I should have chosen death. How could I confess such a sin as eating human flesh? To whom could I confess it? Not to another human being. I could not confess to a priest that the man I had eaten was also a priest! I could confess this only to God.”
“Isn’t that enough?” Amanda said. But there
in lay the great divide between their two faiths, and with the monsignor about to kill her, it was hard to dredge up any ecumenical feelings at that moment.
“You don’t understand, Amanda Brown. For a Catholic, for a priest, the secret I lived with was an intolerable burden. It ate away at my soul. It turned me into an empty, hollow man. I thought that by returning to the Congo, to the place where I was born and where I grew up, I might find some little bits of my soul that I could begin to piece back together. But then my first day here, I happened to see Chigger Mite, and just the opposite thing happened.”
“E,” said Cripple. “He recognized you from when he was a boy, so you killed him. Now you will kill us.”
“What?” The monsignor threw his hands in the air and then clamped them to the sides of his head. “Is that what you think?”
Amanda stepped forward, unconsciously protecting her friend from the sudden explosion of emotion. “It’s a reasonable supposition, isn’t it? You drove us here, down this deserted road. Then you made us get out. Now all this talk of death.”
“Mon Dieu,” the monsignor said as he shook his head, still clutching it. “I offered to drive you here to look for Captain Jardin. I had you get out so that I could talk to you in private, away from my chauffeur, who is like a gossipy old woman—no offense intended to Cripple.”
Cripple scowled. “It should be obvious even to a man that I am not old; for behold, I am with child.”
“But still,” Amanda said, pointing an index finger at the monsignor’s chest, “you did kill Chigger Mite.”
The monsignor sank to his knees in the mud, amid a cloud of butterflies. “Yes, of that I am surely guilty. That very day, when I saw him with the snake, I knew that he recognized me—just as Madame Cripple said. I inquired as to where he lived and paid him a visit late that night, when the natives believe that only the spirits walk freely about. I saw the fear in his eyes. Why? I do not know, but I played off it. I told Chigger Mite that I was putting a white man’s curse on him—one even more powerful than the curse that had brought the white man to Africa so many centuries ago. I told him that the curse would go into effect only if he told anyone that I was the same priest he had seen at his restoration ceremony those many years ago.”