by Tamar Myers
Nurse Verna was about to give Arvin a small piece of her mind—despite the fact that the misogynistic St. Paul would not have approved—when Arvin returned. Except that Arvin wasn’t alone; he was actually trotting after, not leading, the intruder. And she wasn’t some little African waif with a deadly hyena bite.
No siree, the intruder was a white woman, one whose looks rivaled those of Queen Esther, winner of the most important beauty contest ever held. This had to be none other than the young woman Henry had gone to fetch from Leopoldville. This had to be Julia Elaine Newton, the new director of the school for child brides. She would be doing what Henry’s deceased wife used to do.
Verna’s mind cleared like a fog driven by a gust of strong winds. “Reverend, you may put your tongue back in your mouth and leave the room,” she said.
“I will not,” he said.
“Listen, you two,” the intruder said, “there is no time for this. The girl in the truck is in a very bad way. Henry tried to tie a tourniquet, but the blood has seeped through. I’m afraid that she’s going to bleed to death.”
“By pointing to yourself, show me where the wound is,” Nurse Verna said.
“Uh—about here,” the young woman said, pointing to her thigh.
“Then it’s most probably just a flesh wound; there is nothing to worry about. I’ll give you everything—”
The young woman stepped forward, grabbed the sheet and thin cotton blanket, and ripped them off the bed. The motion caused Verna’s nightgown to flutter, revealing her pink, untanned calves. Even pinker were her very much suntanned cheeks.
“What—”
“Get out of bed,” the intruder barked. “Now! Put on your shoes, get your medical bag—or whatever—and let’s go.”
What arrogance! This was a brand-new missionary, someone young enough to be Verna’s granddaughter, and she was ordering around an “old-timer,” as if Nurse Verna were a—a—dolt? A brain-damaged chimpanzee? It was not only unacceptable, but the very first thing on the morrow, Nurse Verna was going to write the home office and demand—not ask—that they nip in the bud Julia Newton’s career as a missionary. And believe you me, after reading Nurse Verna’s letter and its many accusations, they would. Nurse Verna was far too valuable an employee, despite any small failures one might point to. Miss Newton, however, spelled trouble. With a capital T.
“But can’t you see that I’m not dressed? That my hair is down?”
“You’re covered, aren’t you?” Miss Newton raged at Verna. “And I don’t care if you were naked! A little girl is crying out in agony and you want to put on your holy roller clothes? Put on a robe and a hat, for crying out loud.”
“W-why, you’re j-just a newcomer,” Nurse Verna sputtered. “You can’t speak to me like this.”
“I can,” Miss Newton said, “and I shall.”
Nurse Verna threw her hands up in the air and surrendered, but it was not to the whippersnapper fresh from the States. “Lord, I give it all up to Thee,” she cried.
“Amen,” Reverend Doyer said, and he likewise threw his hands in the air. “Amen, all praise be to God. Father in Heaven, we just ask Thee—”
“Enough, praying, Reverend Doyer,” Nurse Verna snapped. “Now it’s time to act. Although we must remember to thank God later that we remembered to leave the generator on, so at least we can see.”
“God didn’t have anything to do with the generator being on,” Henry said. Oh yes, the other reverend had come in unbidden and was cradling the bleeding girl in his arms. “It is our station’s policy to leave the generator on until ten o’clock every evening. It’s a policy that I insist upon.”
Nurse Verna harrumphed. It was a sound that she relished. “Well, don’t just stand there, Reverend Hayes; carry the girl into the dining room where the light is the best. The tablecloth is plastic, so you may set her down, if you wish. As for you, Reverend Doyer, run get the Coleman lantern from the pantry, and some bleach.” Finally she looked at Miss Newton. “You. Run ahead and light a fire in the stove, and get some water boiling in the big cast-iron kettle. Bring me a full kettle of boiling water. And do not bother me again until you have a full kettle of boiling water. Is that clear enough? Because you look like you don’t understand English.”
“Wood—”
“If the wood box is low, there’s more in the shed out back, but you’ll have to take the key from the hook by the door. And grab a flashlight and watch for snakes. We’ve been having a problem with vipers this year. Anything else, girl? ”
As she was speaking Nurse Verna had been twisting her hair—her crowning glory—as per the Book of First Corinthians, into a massive bun that could be quickly held in place with oodles of hairpins and then covered snugly with a scarf. She worked quickly, competently, and prayerfully. So focused was she on her task that when Miss Newton piped up, interrupting Verna’s train of thought, the nurse started and jabbed the cartilage of her left ear with a hairpin.
“Uh—ma’am,” the silly girl said, “what I meant to say is that I don’t know how to light a fire in a wood-burning stove. I’ve never done that before.”
“Never lit a stove?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll show her.” It was the Great Distraction: that incorrigible Hayes child. She was forever popping up where she wasn’t wanted, where she had no place being, like weeds in a vegetable patch. Children had no place on a mission field. Here they were nothing more than a distraction, siphoning time away from the Lord’s work under the best of circumstances, and just plain getting in the way at other times—at times such as this.
“Go back and wait in the truck,” Nurse Verna said.
“The truck’s all bloody,” the child said.
“Then walk home. It’s not that far.”
“Okay, okay. You needn’t work yourself into a slather; Papa says that if you keep it up, you’re going to either have a nervous break-in or else you’re going to have a heart attack. But before I go, please can’t I help her with the fire? She doesn’t know anything.”
Nurse Verna thought she heard a snicker escape the new missionary, but she couldn’t be sure, and since her new resolve was not to judge, she decided to leave well enough alone. For the time being, at least. One’s true character could not remain hidden for long.
“All right then,” Nurse Verna said to Clementine, “show her how to make a fire in the stove, but be quick about it. The important thing is that I need boiling water to sterilize the needles and instruments.”
When the coast was clear, she quickly slipped on the appropriate garments and turned her hands over to the Lord so that they could be the instruments of his bidding.
EIGHT
Julia felt foolish. She felt stupid. She felt cowardly. The wood box next to the stove was empty, and she wasn’t afraid to go back outside—she was terrified. She was relieved when Clementine grabbed the flashlight on the windowsill by the door, but her knees buckled when she realized that the child was heading out to the woodshed without a weapon.
“You forgot a gun,” Julia yelled.
Clementine doubled over with laughter. “We don’t have to shoot the wood.”
“Of course not,” Julia said. “But there are some dangerous animals out there, right? Like snakes and such.”
“Except that I can see practically all the way to the woodshed, Auntie Julia, and there’s nothing in the path.”
They sprinted to the woodshed. Clementine, the experienced African hand, calmly filled the large woven basket that Julia had carried from the house, and then they hurried back—not quite as fast, of course. Then Julia watched closely as Clementine wrapped kindling in pages torn from a Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog. She observed how, when the flames caught, the child added logs in an overlapping pattern, in order to allow air circulation.
Unfortunately, it takes much longer to boil water when one is starting from scratch on a woodstove than it does to simply turn on the gas, or the electric knob, back in civilization. In the meantime,
there was nothing to do in the tidy kitchen but fidget, or talk with Clementine.
Julia was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to bed—her own bed back home in Oxford, Ohio. She’d been promised a house of her own on Mushihi Station, but there had been no mention of a wood-burning stove. As for the hyenas and snakes, she knew about those things by reading up on Africa, but up until now, they had been only theoretical.
This afternoon they had driven past a party of Bashilele hunters with their little curly-tailed basenji dogs. The hunters wore only loincloths, palm fiber mats slung low around their hips. They carried six-foot bows, quivers of arrows, and machetes. Clementine had called out to them and waved, but the expressions on the hunters’ faces remained impassive. Unengaged.
Cripple waited until the truck was at a safe distance, and then she spat over the tailgate. “Mamu,” she said to Julia, “does not this little white one know that it is not proper to call out greetings to savages?” Of course her criticism was meant not for Julia’s ears, but for the little white ears of Clementine.
“Baba,” said Clementine, sounding a bit piqued, “do you not read your Bible? It says that we are not to judge one another, or else we might get judged.”
“No, little mamu, I do not read your Bible, for I am not a Christian; I am a heathen woman.”
“A savage?”
“Kah! I would box your ears if they were the right color. Does your mother know that you speak with such impudence to another’s mother?” Cripple nuzzled her whimpering baby.
“I have no mother,” Clementine said.
“Truly?”
“Bulelela.” Truly, truly.
“Then my heart hurts for you. I wish now to explain why I called the Bashilele savages. My people, the Baluba, are at war with the Bena Lulua. We are brothers, speaking the same language, yet still we kill each other. At any rate, at the end of last year’s rains, my husband took my sister wife, and their seven children together, back to her village, to visit her parents. No one has seen them since the day they left our house on foot. Many people believe that they were killed by Bena Lulua, in revenge for this or that awful deed committed by my tribe upon them. But an equal number of people believe that they were kidnapped by the Bashilele and sold into slavery. My people, the Baluba, are said to be especially desirable as slaves.”
Julia had thought such talk was surreal. But there it was, and thinking about it now gave her a headache. If tomorrow she woke up and saw Grandma Newton’s corny afghan draped across the footboard of her bed and heard the voices of Miami University upperclassmen, gibbering on their way to classes, she would gladly eat crow for breakfast. Even real crows.
“Auntie Julia, Auntie Julia,” Clementine said, patting her arm. “The water is boiling. We can go back now.”
Julia had been so deep in thought that in a way she actually was back in Ohio. It took her a minute to get over being annoyed at Clementine for bringing her back to reality.
“I didn’t hear the kettle whistle,” Julia said foolishly.
“This kind of kettle doesn’t whistle. Come on, Auntie Julia, I don’t want to miss out on everything gooey.” That said, the little girl was halfway out the door.
“Wait! Where are the hot pads?”
Clementine slumped back through the swinging door. “Jeepers, Auntie Julia, don’t you know anything? Aunt Verna doesn’t want the hot water; she just wanted you out of the way, because sewing up that Mushilele girl’s leg was going to be icky, and Aunt Nurse Verna didn’t know if you were the type to throw up or faint. Either way, she doesn’t much like it.”
“Like what?”
“Having to break in new missionaries—although she’s really kind of good at it, because they always leave Mushihi Station broken. Anyway, that’s what Papa says.”
“Wait a minute! She thought that I might throw up if I was in there watching?”
“Oh yeah, the last missionary who came to work here vomited every time she saw her night watchman, on account of he had elephant eyes—or some disease like that.”
“Elephantiasis?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, come on, or we’ll miss out on everything.”
Julia found herself chasing after Clementine. The kitchen was semidetached, connected by a short breezeway, as a way of helping to prevent heat buildup in the house. Therefore, the two of them had been quite alone, and quite unaware of the goings-on in the dining room. Fortunately it was Julia’s hand on the doorknob first, and she turned it slowly and opened the door cautiously.
What she saw was the African girl still lying on her side on the dining room table, covered with a sheet. All three of the adults were kneeling in front of chairs, so Julia just as slowly closed the door.
“I think she’s dead,” Julia whispered. Oops, she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“Who’s dead?” Clementine’s whisper was just a raspy version of her regular voice.
Julia pulled the child back into the kitchen. “The African girl. I think she’s gone to be with the—well, she’s passed on.”
“Na-unh,” Clementine said, not even making an attempt to be quiet. “If that girl was dead, then she wouldn’t be lying on Aunt Verna’s dining room table anymore. Auntie Julia, the grown-ups are just giving thanks that everything went so well, and beseeching the Almighty Heavenly Father to let her get better, and to quell some uprising in some village somewhere, bring forth a good harvest now that the rains have arrived in due time, lay His Healing Hand on somebody’s sick uncle somewhere else, and bless it to the nourishment of our bodies, in Thy Most Holy Name, amen.”
Julia tried in vain to keep from laughing. “To the nourishment of our bodies?” she asked.
“Or something like that. Prayer meetings are on Wednesday night, and they last an hour—to the ‘dot,’ as Papa says. He calls them Aunt Verna’s ‘down-on-her-knees time.’ I don’t have to go on account of we don’t baptize until age twelve in our faith, and I’m only ten. But they switch back and forth between houses, and so once I snuck out of bed, and listened to one of them things for as long as I could stand it. It was b-o-r-i-n-g!
“But they prayed about everything you could imagine, and some things that I’d never even heard of, and at one point Papa prayed that I would be a good little girl, and get back to bed, or I was going to get what was best for me, and that it wasn’t going to be a box of Jell-O chocolate pudding. That was two years ago, and I’ve given that a lot of thinking, but I still can’t figure out how Papa knew that I was there, crouched down behind the door.”
Julia wished to hug the girl, so that’s exactly what she did. Much to her surprise Clementine did not pull away.
“Is there a mirror in your room?” Julia asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said. “It’s a big old mirror that used to be Mama’s. She sat in the back of Papa’s truck and kept that mirror safe all the way home from Luluabourg, while Papa drove so slow that moss grew on the wheel rims.”
“Well then, that’s your answer,” Julia said. “Your father saw your reflection in the mirror.”
Clementine gasped. “Hey, no fair! Christians aren’t supposed to cheat.”
“But, Clementine,” Julia protested, “that doesn’t count as cheating.”
“Well, you figured it out before me, and I’m smart, you know. ‘Tests ways beyond her years, that one, but her social skills are hopeless.’ ”
Julia smiled. “I tell you what, Clementine, because I feel that it would be rude to interrupt the praying, what if we play some games until they’re through?”
“Goodie! What kind of games. Like I Spy with My Little Eye?”
“That’s a good one. Or maybe you try to stump me with a question about something you’ve learned from your homeschooling, using encyclopedias.”
“Yay! I can do that. Okay, here goes: What does the word ‘aardvark’ mean in the Afrikaans language?”
“Earth pig, and I didn’t cheat; I studied up on African animals before coming out he
re.”
“Aw, man! Well, let’s see you get this one: who was Anna Akhmatova?”
“Uh—can you please spell the second word?”
“Auntie Julia, we’ve only barely begun the ‘a’s. Do you give up?”
“Of course not. You have to give me at least three hints for each question, and it’s three stumped questions, and then I’m out. Those are the rules, à la Auntie Julia, take ’em, or leave ’em.”
Clementine giggled her acceptance. And so they played and played, and of course Julia lost, but not for lack of trying. Julia was constantly amazed at the brilliance displayed by the child who was drowning in her clothes. The kid was a genius, with an IQ that might well have measured off the scale. There was no doubting her mental acuity, but there were hurdles one faced when dealing with a child this bright.
It was so easy to forget that Clementine Hayes was just a nine-(“almost ten”)-year-old child. Clementine’s mouth could spew out facts, it could quote pages of scripture, but her mind could not reason. When Julia forgot the child inside that formidable brain, she could see confusion and hurt in her young friend’s eyes. Even worse than that, she saw what looked like accusations of betrayal.
So Julia was careful, and the time passed quickly, even though for much of that time her cheeks burned with embarrassment. They burned even hotter when they switched to a game of biblical charades, and Julia chose to act out Jacob’s ladder. She was pantomiming, climbing and descending a stairway into heaven, as the angels did, when she heard a deep male voice speak off to her right.
“Jonah and the whale.”
She turned, mortified. She’d been observed by Henry.
“Jacob and his ladder,” she said.
“Looked like a hungry fish to me,” Henry said with a wink.
“Papa,” Clementine said sternly, “you do know better than that, don’t you? A whale is not a fish.”
“You’re so right, kiddo,” Henry said with an easy laugh. “Hey, you ready to go?”
“Twenty-three skidoo,” she said, and jumped into his arms. Then, giggling, she buried her tiny face into the sun-browned skin of his neck. In the process, her ubiquitous cork helmet clattered to the floor.
