The Girl Who Married an Eagle

by Tamar Myers

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Robert Gordon Chambers.

  Mr. Chambers, sixty-two, of Charlotte died on October 18, 2011, at Levine & Dickson Hospice House in Huntersville, North Carolina, following a valiant and vigorous fight against melanoma in consort with the extraordinary care provided by the Blumenthal Cancer Center at Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte.

  Bob was born September 13, 1949, in the Philadelphia area to the late Gordon Harispe Chambers and Marjorie Chambers Nicholson. He graduated from Chestnut Hill Academy (PA) in 1967, Princeton University in 1971, and Villanova University School of Law in 1975.

  He was preceded in death by his wife of thirty years, Lynne Meyerberg Chambers, in 2003 and his nephew Keithly Jones.

  In addition to his mother, Bob is survived by his daughter, Nicole McCormick (Michael) of Florence, Alabama, and her children: Sophie Lynne, Michael Aloysius, John King, Lila Carol, and Matthew Hawkins McCormick; son, Robert Gordon Chambers Jr. (Gina); sister Joyce Chambers; sister-in-law, Priscilla Dugdale (Bill); seven nieces and nephews; a grandniece and grandnephew; and his beloved friend, Becky Rizzo.

  Bob was a partner with McGuire Woods in Charlotte and previously a partner with Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads, and Duane Morris LLP (both of Philadelphia). He was a member of the board of directors of the World Affairs Council of Charlotte, past chairman of the American Benefits Council, chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees of Chestnut Hill Academy, past president and director of the St. Andrews Society of Philadelphia and past trustee of the Foundation of the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia, Saunders House, the Cap and Gown Club, and other nonprofit organizations. Bob was a competitive and avid member of the Varsity Squash Team at Princeton University and a freshman coach.

  Bob’s family is grateful for the care given by his superb oncology team, Dr. Richard White, Dr. Asim Amin, and Denise Hogan, PA, and the incredible, indefatigable IL2 nursing staff on ICU Floor 11 at Carolinas Medical Center.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Tamar Myers

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel contains more fact than fiction. For research I mined the painful depths of my memory, which often led to nightmares. Despite having been treated for posttraumatic shock syndrome, I often scream aloud just as I fall asleep. My fear is that I will be hacked to death by a machete.

  My mother did run a boarding school for the runaway child brides of head-hunting warriors. One day the chief, along with six of his machete-wielding warriors, appeared on our verandah as we were having dinner. My father excused himself from the table to greet the chief.

  When my father returned to the dinner table, the following conversation ensued (to the best of my memory, for I was age eleven).

  Mother: “What did the chief want?”

  Father: “He said that when independence comes, he is going to live in our house and take our daughters for his wives.”

  Mother: “Oh, no! What did you say?”

  Father: “I told him that he was crazy.”

  Mother: “Then what did he say?”

  Father: “He said that he would burn us out.”

  Older sister: “Daddy, what are we going to do?”

  Father: “Eat your soup.”

  Me: “Daddy, will you protect us with your double-gauge shotgun?”

  Father: “I cannot.” He looked at Mother. “I cannot because we are pacifists. We do not take human life.”

  The subtext, however, would seem to be that pacifists stand by and allow their children to be slaughtered—or worse. Indeed, such is the stuff of nightmares.

  PREFACE

  There once was a girl who married an eagle. To be sure, this eagle was no bird with feathers, beak, and talons. This eagle was a powerful chief of the Bashilele people, who resided in the Kasai district of the Belgian Congo, in Africa. His mother, who was a chief ’s wife, claimed that he was conceived when she heard an eagle scream, looked up, and the eagle’s seed entered through her mouth. Who was there so brave as to call one of the chief ’s wives a liar? And anyway, when the boy was born, he emerged screaming like an eagle, and his fingernails were long like talons. Therefore, he was given the name Tshiminyi, which means eagle.

  In due course of time, Tshiminyi inherited his human father’s position, and he was thereafter known to all as Chief Eagle. Tshiminyi was fearless in battle and thus was able to lead his warriors to victory in countless raiding parties. Soon he became a very wealthy man and was able to afford many wives. By the white man’s year of 1960, Chief Eagle had twenty-two wives and was in the process of acquiring his twenty-third. Her name was Buakane.

  Because of its special meaning, one must take care to pronounce Buakane correctly. Phonetically, it might be spelled thusly: Bwa-kah-neh, with each syllable receiving the same amount of emphasis. This word translates as goodness, excellence, purity, holiness, elegance, handsomeness, beauty, fairness of color, honor, honesty, integrity, justice, righteousness, sanctification, uprightness, virtue, worthiness, and right. Indeed, this was far too big a name with which to saddle the average child, but the girl who was about to marry Chief Eagle was far from average.

  Even in her mother’s womb, Buakane had been exceptional. Never once had she caused her mother to be sick in the morning, nor given her a moment of discomfort. When it came time to deliver, Buakane slipped out as easily as that which one does in the privacy of the tall grass on a daily basis. That is the truth, mene mene.

  What about labor pains, one might ask, and rightfully so? The answer would be: of these there were but three. These pains were a blessing sent by Buakane’s maternal grandmother who had long ago returned to the Spirit World. She had been bitten by a deadly poisonous mamba snake when Buakane’s mother was only an infant. Without these three labor pains, Buakane’s mother, whose name was Tshibetu, would not have known it was time to return to her hut, and there to squat above her birthing mat.

  The word tshibetu, it should be mentioned, means “grasshopper swatter,” and it is a noun. The Bashilele sometimes hunt by lighting circular fires, with diameters of several miles across. The men use their bows and arrows to kill the mammals that escape the flames, while the women and children swat at grasshoppers that are the size of sparrows and that are capable of flight. The giant insects are knocked out of the air from a height of about ten feet using the grasshopper swatters. These consist of foot-long paddles woven from palm fronds that are attached to the ends of skinny poles that are six or more feet long.

  Grasshopper Swatter had been given that name because a misplaced swat to her mother’s abdomen had sent her mother into an early but successful labor. Since the name Grasshopper Paddle rolls off the tongue with more ease than Grasshopper Swatter, that is what she could be called from now on, but even that is too cumbersome. So just Paddle will suffice.

  At any rate, so easy was Buakane’s birth that Pad
dle attended to everything herself. In fact, given that her husband was away hunting, and her mother-in-law disliked her enough to stay away at the slightest excuse, Paddle was able to appear in the doorway of her hut holding her newborn before anyone in the village even realized that she was missing.

  “Come, friends,” Paddle called in a voice as strong as ever. “Come and see what I have made!”

  The ancient crone who lived next door, a woman of least fifty Belgian years, had been peeling manioc tubers with a sliver of sharpened iron that might once have been a machete blade. Slowly she set her work aside, used a nearby tree stump to pull herself erect, and hobbled over.

  “What is it?” she lisped, for she was entirely toothless. “Is that a monkey you have?”

  “Kah! Be silent, you fool,” Paddle cried. “This is my daughter.”

  “Now who is the fool?” the crone said. “I saw you enter your hut, and you were with child. The midwife did not follow you. Now but a short time has passed, and you wish me to believe that you have given birth.”

  “Tch! Look, old woman, put your hand on my belly, and feel for a child; you will not find her there. Put your hand between my legs and feel that I am still bleeding.”

  The crone did what she was bade, for she was past the age of embarrassment. Satisfied that Paddle was telling the truth, she took a closer look at the newborn.

  “Please, neighbor,” she said, “hold the child this way and that, so that I might see all of her, for never have I seen a more perfect child.”

  Now it was that Paddle and her husband, Bad Odor, had yet to select a name for their child. The name was to reflect some aspect connected to the child’s birth, or perhaps some omen foreseen by the village witch doctor. But when the old lady made this strange request, Paddle sensed something momentous was about to happen, and she joyfully complied.

  As Paddle lovingly held her naked infant up and turned her this way and that, even spreading her tiny legs in order that the crone might inspect her daughter’s genitals, Paddle was totally unaware that a crowd had gathered and was murmuring in one voice. “Buakane, buakane, buakane!”

  “This child is perfect in every way,” the ancient crone said. “It is as if she was carved in ivory by a master craftsman, and then dipped in the pink juice of mbelebele berries. Do you hear how the village chants her name?”

  “E, I hear!” a man said. It was Bad Odor, the girl’s father, just returned from his hunt, and slung over his broad right shoulder was a nice plump antelope. “By the spirits of my ancestors, I swear that from this day forward our daughter will be called Buakane.”

  Truly, Buakane was deserving of her name. Not only did she take to the breast immediately, but she never cried, never once gave her parents a reason to feel anxious. In the fierce sun of the upland plains, her skin turned as black as obsidian, and every bit as glossy and smooth. Her limbs grew long and strong, her neck graceful, and her features were finely chiseled. Although Buakane was exceptionally beautiful, one could tell at once by these characteristics that she was a member of the Bashilele tribe. It was said that even the Belgians admired these “savage headhunters” for their beauty.

  But to become a full-fledged member of the tribe, a Mushilele (that is the singular form of Bashilele) must bear on his or her body certain physical signs of belonging. The most obvious of these is that the two upper front teeth must be knocked out. In addition, beautiful patterns are created on the skin by inserting small lumps of charcoal into shallow cuts. The charcoal is sterile, which usually precludes severe infection. Eventually, very attractive keloid scars form. The higher the scar, the more exquisite it is considered to be.

  Patterns are created on the cheeks of course, but it is a woman’s back that is surely her best feature. On a wealthy woman one might see an astonishing array of swirls and curlicues. Yes, of course, all these things are quite painful, but never are they done to a small girl. These are the rituals of one who is about to become available for marriage.

  Unfortunately, Buakane was born at a difficult time in the tribe’s history. Polygamy had caused such a shortage of marriageable women that the average age of marriage for a girl was as young as nine Belgian years. The husbands were sometimes four or five times that old. Many men, anticipating this long wait, were making provisional contracts with pregnant women. They were putting down payments on unborn babies, knowing that they would not get a refund if the baby happened to be a boy. The full bride-prices were also being driven up to ridiculous heights. By the time Buakane reached her ninth Belgian year, or thereabouts (the Bashilele do not keep track of such nonsense), her father had already been the recipient of many marriage offers. After all, who among the Bashilele would not want this most remarkable girl to be the progenitor of their descendants?

  But Bad Odor would not even listen to their offers, for he was confident that the longer he waited, the higher the dowry his daughter could command. Then, when Buakane had grown as tall as her mother, and had still to sprout the beginnings of breasts, or womanly vegetation, Bad Odor demanded that his daughter have her two front teeth knocked out. She would also have her cheeks scarred, the scars that would mark her as a Mushilele. Her back, however, would remain smooth until after marriage; her husband could pay for that.

  Thus it was done. But never once did Buakane cry out in pain. Not one tear did she shed. Not even the oldest crone could remember a girl as brave as Buakane.

  Truly, truly—bulelela—the girl who was given a name that meant eighteen wonderful qualities lived up to every single one of them. There was no one in the village of Mushihi, the village of Chief Eagle, who could say a bad word about her. Normally, one might expect something like this to engender jealousy among her peers, but there was something so special about Buakane that the opposite thing happened: everyone vied to be her friend.

  Then one day Buakane’s father noticed that his daughter’s body had begun to change. Where once her chest had gleamed as flat as a boy’s, buds formed almost overnight, and soon swelled into guavas. Already she’d been wearing the loincloth for the span of three long dry seasons, so he did not know for sure her complete state of development.

  “Grasshopper Paddle,” he said to his wife one fine morning after breakfast, “concerning our daughter, Buakane, does thatch now grow in the shade?”

  “What?”

  He pointed at his own loins.

  “The thatch is now a jungle,” Paddle said. Then she threw back her head and laughed so loud that Buakane, who had meandered off with some friends, came running back in alarm.

  “Baba, what is wrong?” she demanded.

  Paddle contained herself immediately. “Nothing is wrong, Beautiful One. It is quite the opposite. Your father just informed me that this morning he will begin entertaining offers from your suitors.”

  “Baba,” Buakane said calmly, “I have yet to commence the bleeding.”

  “Aiyee!” Paddle cried in mock agitation. “This is not a matter to discuss in front of a man.”

  “I am not a man!” Bad Odor shouted. “I am your father; I must know these things. Nevertheless, Buakane, you are turning into a beautiful young woman, with hips that will accommodate the passage of many babies. As the old adage says: do not hesitate to release your arrow when you are close enough to shoot; you may not have a second chance.”

  Buakane nodded. Rather than be resentful that she was about to be bartered like a goat or a basket of chickens, she was instead grateful that she had a father who cared enough about her to fetch the highest price. After all, if a man paid a good deal for something, was he not more likely to treat it better than something of lesser value? To show her appreciation, she excused herself from the hut and resumed talking with her friends. It was much better to let her parents discuss the details without her being there, she thought. Too many details would cause her to worry, and Buakane wanted only to be happy.

  Days passed, and Buakane convinced herself that she still had plenty of carefree days ahead of her. For in add
ition to all the good qualities that she possessed, Buakane was in possession of one very unfortunate quality: optimism. In a society where only two out of ten children survived to reach adulthood, it was pessimism, doubt, fear, and wariness that were needed to outsmart the Grim Reaper. If a village thought that it had enough food and water to outlast the coming dry season (a full three months without a drop of rain), then surely it did not. If a warrior thought that he was skilled enough with that bow that he need practice no more, then surely he was not. Simply put, doubt led to improvement.

  One day, when Buakane returned from sauntering about with her peers, she was alarmed to discover that the door of the hut had been secured from the inside with a wooden peg. This was a most unusual circumstance in the middle of the day. Given that Bashilele huts lacked windows, the doors were normally kept open to catch what little breeze was available. A closed door usually meant that something intensely personal—although not necessarily sexual—was taking place within the four palm-thatch walls.

  It was a good thing that the old crone was no longer alive, for to be sure, she would have found a spot where the thatch was thin and pressed a large but wrinkled ear against it. The old crone had been a busybody and loved nothing better than to spread gossip. Some might think that Buakane, the faithful and discreet daughter, had a right to hear the conversation too. At any rate, this is what she heard.

  “Grasshopper Paddle,” Bad Odor said in a hoarse whisper, “earlier this morning, when I washed at the stream with the men, Chief Eagle signaled that he wished to speak to me alone. So I followed him up the stream a ways, to the pool where the manioc soaks. It was there that he told me that he wishes to purchase our Buakane to be his twenty-third wife.”

  “Aiyee,” cried Paddle softly. She shuddered. “What did you tell him?”

  “What could I tell him? He said that she will have her own hut, meat once every ten days, and when he beats her, he will not hit her in the face. And as for us, we will receive ten goats, five sheep, nine chickens, and five ducks.”