by Tamar Myers
Julia wanted to scoop up the child and hug her. That’s how anxious she was for an easy fix of this problem of the enigmatic child with the vocabulary—and possibly the mind—of an adult. But surely the little girl lacked the wisdom of an adult, for that came about through accumulated life experiences and lessons learned, and there was simply no substitute for having put in one’s time here on earth.
Julia extended her hand. “Come,” she said gently, “they want us up on top. The truck will be here any minute, they said.”
Clementine regarded her calmly. “Who is ‘they,’ Auntie Julia?”
“Mrs. Jardin, the really nice American woman in charge of the Missionary Rest House.”
“Oh.” Clementine slid to her feet and then clapped the white cork helmet back on her head. “Mr. Jardin is really Captain Jardin, the Belgian chief of police. He’s a Roman Catholic, which means he’s going to hell. Papa says that Aunt Amanda still stands a chance—if she confesses her sin of marrying a Catholic—but she better do it right now. After all, you never know which day is going to be your last. Uncle Arvin and Aunt Verna, on the other hand—well, they never did like Aunt Amanda, so they say that she is doomed with a capital D. What do you think, Auntie Julia?”
“I think that only God can judge us,” Julia said.
FOUR
Meanwhile at Mushihi Station, which lay deep in headhunter territory, Nurse Verna Doyer literally popped out of bed. She had always been an annoyingly early riser, and to hear her husband tell it, her engine perpetually idled on high. She could go from zero to fifty in three seconds (fifty miles per hour was as fast as Reverend Doyer believed that anyone should ever drive).
What, one might rightfully ask, was Nurse Verna Doyer in such a ding-dong hurry to do every morning out in the middle of nowhere? After all, she had no little ones to feed, and it wasn’t like she cooked her husband Arvin’s breakfast, because she never did. (Cooking was the providence of houseboys.) Ah, but Nurse Verna Doyer was a nurse, an RN—practically a doctor by the unwritten laws of the bush—and she was needed, perhaps desperately needed, at the small clinic that the mission station maintained on the north side of the church.
The first thing that Nurse Verna did after landing on her feet was to properly clothe herself in her earthly garments. She did this even before she knelt beside her bed in morning prayer or relieved her full bladder. Only God knew when an African would pound at the door, having been bitten by a snake, or on behalf of a loved one in breech labor. Along with the sunrise came Nurse Verna Doyer’s duties, and she took them seriously. God had called her to be a missionary nurse in the Belgian Congo, then paid her way through nurse’s training. She had complete faith in the Lord—just as long as she armed herself in both spiritual and earthly armor.
For her spiritual armor she reread the Book of Ephesians, chapter 6, each morning. Her earthly armor was a bit more involved. First she put on her brassiere (never referred to as a bra!). This contraption had been made by inserting dozens of tongue depressors into hand-stitched pockets along lengths of wide bands of surgical elastic. The end result was a brassiere that made it impossible for a native patient with fumbling hands to grab hold of the breasts of Mamu Snake.
With her breasts secured, Nurse Verna pulled on a pair of clean knee-length cotton underwear into which she had sewn an extra crotch. Nurse Verna firmly believed that suffering for the Lord was a virtue, and feeling virtuous gave her pleasure. Therefore, she did not mind at all her added discipline of wearing a whalebone girdle on even the hottest days. Only God knew for sure what those poor ladies had to suffer through back in biblical times, but it was a lot more yardage than women had to wear in the present day, that much was for sure.
After the girdle, Nurse Verna slipped a heavy wool tunic over her head. She had once been told that wool was a versatile material that served to keep out heat as well as cold, but she was no longer sure of that statement. Perhaps it was the nylon slip that she wore over the tunic that was the culprit, because to be truthful, there were many days on which Nurse Verna felt decidedly hot. However hot she felt, Nurse Verna constantly reminded herself that the fires of hell were even hotter.
All Verna’s dresses were simple, homemade affairs in various shades of white, and they lacked buttons. Nurse Verna permitted herself the use of only hooks and eyes for closure. Her hair had never been cut, not once in her fifty-four years. She wore it in a pair of braids that she wound around and around atop her head like a grease-soaked crown.
Verna’s legs were protected from the sun, from insect bites, and most of all, from unwanted stares by the length of her skirts and the thick woolen stockings she wore. These were held up by garters attached to her girdle. Her dainty size six feet were shod in sensible white leather tie-shoes with a bit of a heel and with thick soles, both to keep her out of the dirt and to give her some presence.
Nurse Doyer was only five feet two inches tall, but fully armored, which included her white pith helmet, she gave the impression of being a much larger woman.
“Oh Lord,” she prayed the morning of Julia’s arrival, “give us the strength to face this day. And we just ask that this new woman will not be seduced by the likes of Henry, and that she might actually have some positive influence on that urchin of his who runs amok—the Great Distraction.”
By then both the Doyers were dressed and had just finished breakfast. Their habit was to read a few Bible verses aloud, discuss their meaning, and then offer their concerns up in prayer.
“Please, wife,” Reverend Arvin Doyer said, “must we always be so hard on the man? He is a recent widower, after all. And as for that so-called urchin, I’ll say this, not one of us can speak either the Bushilele, or Tshiluba, language as well as she can. Haven’t there been hundreds of times when you’ve needed her to translate for you at the clinic?”
Preachers and their hyperbole! “Maybe dozens of times—at the most,” Nurse Verna said.
Reverend Doyer nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Nurse Verna stood. “Well? How do I look then?”
“You don’t have a spot of jam on you! I’d say you look like a professional nurse.”
“Which I am, Arvin. What I mean is, do I look like the perfect example of a Christian? In other words, someone whom this Miss Julia Newton would choose to emulate?”
“Indeed, wife, you do.”
“Then I shall delegate my work today so that this frock remains immaculate.”
Immediately Reverend Arvin Doyer began to shout his prayers up to heaven. “Heavenly Father,” he said, “only Thou knowest what lies in store for my wife, and Thou knowest as well that she has rather limited patience. If it be Thy will, guard her tongue from speaking words that could wound. In Jesus’s most holy name, amen.”
Nurse Verna Doyer did not appreciate having her limited patience referenced to as if it were a fact, although indeed that was the case. What’s more, she quite hated the mention of her tongue.
As it happened, no sooner had Reverend Doyer said the word tongue than out came Nurse Doyer’s, flickering like a snake’s, through the gap between her teeth. It was a habit that annoyed her husband to no end and made the natives think that the spirit of a snake lived within her. Mamu Nyoka, they called her—Mother Snake.
Yet the Bashilele people, whom she now served, and who ritually knocked out their two front teeth, were rather flattered by this gap, believing that its existence was somehow in appreciation of their culture. There you had it; everything that Nurse Verna did was to the glory of God, even if some of the things that she did seemed to get under the skin of Reverend Arvin Doyer.
So, having passed her husband’s visual inspection, off Nurse Verna Doyer strode to face what was undoubtedly a very full clinic. Yet, despite her haste, it took a minute or two for Nurse Verna to escape her husband’s loud prayer. She knew that Arvin didn’t believe that the Lord had a hearing problem (except when it came to hearing the prayers of Catholics, Mohammedans, Hindus, and Jews). She believe
d that the prayer somehow involved her, but she had not a minute to spare.
The clinic, with its sick and dying, demanded every ounce of strength that she could muster. From first light to last light, she toiled there, as well as burning the “midnight oil” if she had the kerosene and a translator (Clementine’s father would not let her stay up past nine).
Today, as every day, she followed the dirt path that led from her screened back verandah, past the carpenter shop where Henry worked, and on to the thatched roof church, and just around that, to the three-room clinic. Now that the rains had come, each step sent up waves of grasshoppers that settled, only to rise again in yet greater numbers. Up ahead, perhaps as close as thirty feet, a pair of enormous pied crows landed. They were monstrous birds, easily two feet tall, resembling hunched-back waiters in black tuxedos with white cummerbunds. Nurse Verna started to smile and even slowed her pace, before she remembered that she was on God’s mission and had not been led to Africa for the sights.
She had only just rounded the church when it was instantly apparent that she had been right not to dawdle. The line today was almost as long as usual, stretching from the north clinic door, wrapping once around the building, and then halfway out to the supply road. Praise God there would be some kerosene arriving along with Miss Julia Newton.
Many Boils, her assistant, was standing by the clinic door in his starched white apron. Truly this man had been sent from God to give her a hand. A member of the Baluba tribe (known for their intelligence), Many Boils combined compassion and arrogance in just the right proportions needed to perform triage when so many people were in need.
“Life to you,” Nurse Verna said as she unlocked the heavy wooden door.
“Eyo, life to you as well, Mamu Snake,” Many Boils responded.
“What is our first case?” she called, as she threw open the heavy wooden shutters.
“Mamu, it is a woman who has been beaten by her husband.”
“Many Boils, all these people waiting in line, and yet you bring me a beating? Yai, do not waste my time!”
“Mamu Snake, this woman has a broken arm, a broken jaw, and the bleeding thereof will not stop.”
Nurse Verna leaped to the door. “Do not just stand there, Many Boils. Where is she?”
“She is under the mango tree, Mamu, with those Bashilele warriors.”
“Oh, Heavenly Father,” Nurse Verna prayed aloud in the Tshiluba language, “please do not let it be so. Not again.”
“But, Mamu Snake, it is so; she is the seventh wife of Chief Eagle. It is she upon whom you had to perform the miracle of stitches the last time, as if her skin were but a torn blanket. It would appear that since she cannot keep her mouth shut, the chief has chosen to keep it shut for her.”
Many Boils appeared to eye Nurse Verna warily as he spoke. No doubt he thought that he might have gone too far. This was often the case.
“You are right to think those thoughts,” Nurse Verna said. “The mind of a man is superior to that of a woman; therefore, a husband must be master over his wife. Likewise, science has proven that the white brain is superior to the black brain, therefore the Belgian must be master over the Congolese. These things are all part of God’s plan for us.”
“Tch,” said Many Boils, for he did not agree with the last part.
“Tch,” said Verna, for although she believed that every word in her bible was true, even the ones that came out of St. Paul’s mouth, she couldn’t quite bring herself to concede that Arvin had the better mind.
After all, she was a graduate from a state school of nursing, holding a bachelor of science degree with a basic understanding of chemistry and mathematics. Arvin, on the other hand, had never actually graduated from seminary, but he had attended for a semester before “dropping out” to make room for somebody who had heard God calling in a louder and clearer voice. Then somehow, when the Mission Board found that there was a special need for a doctor/preacher team at a new mission station—well lo and behold, Arvin found himself suddenly ordained. The Lord did indeed work in mysterious ways.
“Mamu!”
Nurse Verna jumped in irritation. If there was one thing she didn’t like, that was being barked at by a man.
“What is it, Many Boils? Can you not see that I am busy?”
“Were you praying, Mamu?”
“Grab the basin and the sack that contains the rags, and follow me,” she said, and then did what she was best at, which was to stride.
When the warriors saw her approaching in such an aggressive manner, they fled. This is what they’d done the last time as well, for a woman with such courage was deranged. Possessed. A warrior might face a lion or a leopard—or even another man—and feel only the thrill of the hunt, but even a brave man fled in the face of a fool. Mamu Snake had lived in the Congo long enough to know that this was the case, and she used this bit of knowledge as if it were a medicine. The Lord, she was quite certain, had no problem with this.
But when she drew close to Chief Eagle’s seventh wife, a woman grown exceptionally old before her time, Nurse Verna let out an involuntary yelp of dismay. Not only was the Mushilele woman’s jaw broken, it had been pushed so far to the left side of her face that her tongue had been severed in the process. No wonder the bleeding would not stop. Even more alarming was the fact that the poor woman was totally unresponsive to touch. Perhaps she had fainted—although quite possibly she had suffered a severe concussion and had lost consciousness due to the buildup of fluids around her brain. To complicate matters, the woman was burning up. But whether her fever was a result of her injuries or from malaria, it was impossible to diagnose at this stage of treatment.
“Get me the drill,” Nurse Verna said to Many Boils, when he finally arrived with the basin and rags. (Many Boils believed that it demeaned him to be seen hurrying on orders of a white woman.)
“Mamu, do you wish the hand drill or the electric drill?”
“Many Boils, this is no time for games. Bring me the hand drill—please.”
While he was gone, Nurse Verna cleaned the woman’s skull. She used a rag cut from one of Arvin’s old shirts, one that he had eaten his way out of, and dipped it in rubbing alcohol. Drilling into patients’ skulls was nothing new: the Incas and the ancient Egyptians both did it. It was, however, a last-resort remedy for Nurse Verna, because her patients often died.
Killing the wife of a headhunter chief could have serious consequences, but what choice did Nurse Verna have? There wasn’t a doctor within a hundred kilometers at the moment, and those kilometers were rutted dirt roads. But even such a trip was impossible at the moment, because Mushihi Station’s only vehicle was in use, with Henry gone off to fetch his wife’s replacement.
When Nurse Verna looked up and saw Many Boils virtually sauntering back with the carpenter’s hand drill, she was justifiably furious. “Many Boils, light a fire under you,” she yelled.
“Mamu,” said Many Boils, “wa kufende mene, mene.” You have grievously offended me.
The line of waiting people and those who had come to support them (sometimes literally) took great delight in Many Boils’s humiliation. For what else had they to do but stand and endure their own pain? Behold, is not diversion some of the very best medicine? Knowing that it was, the people laughed and clapped, and some of them burst into snatches of song, some of it at Many Boils’s expense, and some of it at Mamu Snake’s expense.
But by the time Many Boils delivered the hand drill to Nurse Verna, the seventh wife of Chief Eagle had returned to the bosom of her ancestors, to be once more an authentic person in the real world. That is to say, she was no longer part of the illusion that is this world, for that is indeed what it is: just an illusion. Those who think otherwise are either Christians or other heathens; they are not Bashilele. Of course this was not Verna’s take on the matter.
“Now look what you have done,” she said to Many Boils. “Now that she is dead, we cannot save her soul. Now she will burn forever in hell with the Roman Cath
olics.”
“Tch,” said Many Boils. He was obviously still furious. “She was but one, a Mushilele, and a woman besides. Look, there is another with her daughter. We will save them both. But tell me, Mamu, is this hell of yours so vast that it can hold all of us Congolese?”
“E, I am sure of that,” said Verna, for she too was angry. Yet at the same time her heart was heavy.
FIVE
When the Belgians levied taxes, they sent soldiers into every village that they could locate (indeed, some were well hidden) and rounded up every single male person who had hair growing beneath his arms. These were the adults, the people who must render unto Caesar. When Chief Eagle wanted to count the people in his very large and sprawling village, he counted heads—in a manner of speaking. That is because in those days the Bashilele men drank their wine from human skulls.
These skulls were trophies collected by the individual man when he set out on the verge of his manhood to take the life of someone from another tribe. Along with the skull, he often kept an ear. The ear was worn dried, on a leather thong, around his waist. Often when a Belgian official, or even just a powerless missionary, visited a Bashilele village, the skulls were carefully hidden (perhaps in the thatch of the hut’s dark, smoky ceiling), so as not to get its new owner into trouble with colonial law. The ears, however, were often still blatantly worn, for how could one prove that such a thing was not a monkey ear, or perhaps from a deceased relative, or any other animistic symbol?
On this particular night, in 1959, in the very large and important Bashilele village of Mushihi, the great Chief Eagle was hosting all the warriors in good standing to a drinking party in the palaver hut, under the Tree of Life, at the center of the village. This special event was in honor of his having just acquired his twenty-third wife. Tomorrow the girl’s father would slaughter all but two of the goats he’d been given in dowry, and then the men would eat meat. After that they would have the strength needed to set forth on a raiding party into Bapende territory looking for slaves.
