The Headhunter's Daughter

by Tamar Myers

  Similarly, he was brusque in his manner—a bit of a loudmouth, when it came down to it—but at the same time, he was a humble follower of the man from Galilee. And just because Harry yelled at Mrs. Gorman and Peaches, that didn’t mean that he didn’t love them; au contraire, a more passionate family man you’d be hard-pressed to find out on the mission field.

  So when Harry went hunting for the Headhunter, it wasn’t so hard to convince himself that he did so in his capacity as a father. There was at least a part of him that wished to communicate with the man heart to heart. But since the other so-called father was a Mushilele, one of the tribe known to be headhunters, Harry did not have much hope. Only Satan could convince a man that it was all right to kill another man as a right of passage. Only Satan could convince a man that it was okay to drink one’s palm wine from a human skull. Satan and his helpers on earth: the village witch doctors.

  Oftentimes the natives were spiritual slaves to these witch doctors. They lived their lives in abject fear of the witch doctor and the power of his curses. Harry also knew that these curses weren’t just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, either. They were very real. In his twenty-one years in the Belgian Congo, Harry had witnessed perfectly healthy people fall deathly ill overnight because of a witch doctor’s curse. He had seen a man’s arm shrivel practically before his eyes. He was there when a woman, cursed to her back, fell on the ground, foaming at the mouth, and died twenty minutes later.

  If the Headhunter was under a protective spell, it might even be dangerous to talk to him. Yet what worried Harry more was the possibility that the girl was similarly protected. What else could explain the fact that she, with her skin the color of yellowed ivory, could live undetected for thirteen years in a Bashilele village?

  Harry slipped out the back kitchen door, the one facing the woodshed, and took stock of his surroundings. To his left was the lawn; that narrow, level bit of land that led to the precipice and the falls. To his right the land rose steeply, save for a half acre or so, tightly planted with mango and citrus trees. The Missionary Rest House had been built at the base of a great tshisuku-covered hill, atop of which perched the workers’ village.

  The Headhunter had found quail in the tshisuku—the elephant grass—and Harry thought of the antelope it must contain. There would be time to hunt on the morrow, and in a safer place, because the hillside was too close to the village, and undoubtedly the tshisuku here was crisscrossed with native trails. So focus, Harry told himself, focus. He was always talking to himself. Wasn’t everybody his age? And look, it paid off. There, sticking out behind the green-and-white blotched trunk of that mango tree. That is the tip of a bow.

  Harry could creep up on a grasshopper and grab it. That was a skill he’d perfected as a child, just in case he had to run away and live in the woods. You never really knew when the home you lived in would be invaded again, or if the people Foster Care stuck you with would treat you mean. After all, adoption was out. Nobody wanted to adopt a harelip, even after the surgery.

  Cripple could work wonders, not miracles. She had engaged Protruding Navel in many conversations regarding the mamu’s clothes, but neither of them had been able to figure out the workings of the garment-of-shameful-breasts. This was to be expected, as neither of them had actually seen it worn. However, Protruding Navel, having been employed by several white women of varying breast sizes and shapes, proclaimed himself to be the more informed of the two on the subject.

  In Protruding Navel’s considerable opinion, the band was worn up, along the top side, to help flatten the breasts. The cups then hung down like the mud flaps of a truck, but essentially to protect them from being bumped. Any suggestion that the breasts might be hoisted and enhanced by an article of clothing struck the man as lewd—unchristian to the extreme; certainly something no Protestant would ever do.

  “Come,” Cripple said to Ugly Eyes, when she had dried her off with the softest of cloths, “come and I will show you the most amazing sight.” She led the girl, who by then was truly almost white, to the mamu’s closet and flung open the door.

  “Behold! A forest of dresses hanging from sticks! Have you ever seen such a thing in your life? Of course you have not; you are a savage from the tshisuku-dwelling Bashilele. Nonetheless, are they not beautiful?”

  “Aiyee,” said Ugly Eyes, and then she did the oddest thing; she backed away, as if she were afraid of all that brightly colored cloth.

  “They will not bite you,” Cripple said, repeating a joke she’d heard the mamu say. “Except for one!”

  “Baba wani!” Ugly Eyes cried and flung her arm over her eyes.

  Cripple thought she would burst a gut laughing. Perhaps she would have, had not the mamu pounded on the door and demanded that she account for the racket.

  “Cripple! Nudi nenza tshinyi?” What are you doing?

  “Nothing, Mamu. We will be out shortly. In the meantime, please attend to your guests, for they are bakalenge, lords, and as such are far more important than I am.”

  “Stop that,” Mamu Ugly Eyes said, and then Cripple could hear her walk away from the door.

  “Cripple,” whispered the new Ugly Eyes in astonishment, “you dare to speak to a white woman like that?”

  “Tch,” Cripple said. “I said nothing that was untrue. And when I am through with you today, you too will be a mukelenge—a lady. I shall have to call you mamu and show you the respect one normally reserves for one’s parents. I will have to say yes, when I mean no, and no when I mean yes. I will have to stand when I can no longer feel my feet, and then I will have to walk home, only to sleep on a thin mat woven from the fronds of the malala palm. I will have to serve you and the other lords sumptuous feasts—with meat—three times a day, but I will eat but twice, and perhaps twice a week there will be meat—if we have been fortunate.”

  Ugly Eyes had big feet and she stamped one now, just like a white woman. “Then I will not be a white woman. Believe me, Cripple, I will never treat you as you have just described. Give me back my didiba—my loincloth—and I will return to my village.”

  “Aiyee! Such a sensitive one you are. Perhaps it is because of the pasty color of your skin. Do you not recognize a joke when you hear one? Of course not! Well, never mind; that will all come in due time. For now let us return to the matter of the dresses on sticks. You must choose one to wear.”

  “Kah! They are not mine!”

  “And the sky is not yours, yet you breathe the air. Now choose. Hurry, we do not have much time if we are to surprise the mamu with a good impression.”

  The poor girl was truly a musenji, a barbarian. She was completely without the knowledge needed to choose a dress. Cripple had never worn a dress, so she was not exactly an expert herself, but she had seen Mamu Ugly Eyes in the blue dress. She knew that it buttoned in the back. She also remembered that after Mamu Ugly Eyes was all buttoned up in her pretty blue dress, she then stepped into a strange white skirt, and then pulled that strange white skirt up under the skirt of the dress.

  Now that white skirt was a puzzle—truly, truly it was. It superficially resembled the costumes that the fertility dancers wore. Like the costumes, the white skirt was stiff and stuck out in all directions; it swayed with every movement Mamu Ugly Eyes made. However, unlike the costumes, the white skirt was not made from straw, but some strange web-like material made by the white man.

  “Cripple,” the new Ugly Eyes said, “do you not think that there are too many things to ponder in a place such as this?”

  “E,” said Cripple, for that was exactly what she was thinking. Of what use were the underskirt and the breast protector? Surely a dress was enough.

  But even then the dress was almost more than Cripple could handle. Although she was barely more than a child, this Ugly Eyes had larger breasts than Mamu Ugly Eyes. Stuffing the breasts into the dress so that they were placed properly, and getting the girl to put her arms through the sleeves, was like trying to catch a fish without a hook. Finally Cripple was able to stand bac
k and survey her work.

  “Now we must do something about your hair,” she said.

  “My hair? What about it? Iron Sliver, my mother’s friend, toiled a long time to weave these braids. Do you not admire her handiwork?”

  “Eyo, my little barbarian, but you are not a basket; you are a white lady. I shall remove the braids and give you the hair that you were born with. In the meantime you must think of a new name.”

  “A new name?”

  “Yes, of course. Have you ever heard of a white lady called Ugly Eyes?”

  “Cripple, until this mukelenge came to my village, I had never seen a white woman. Truly, I tell you; I know nothing of their names.”

  “Then I must help you select something more dignified.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mamu Mabele Manene.” Mistress Big Breasts.

  “Bulelela? Really? Is that more dignified to the white man’s ear?”

  “E.”

  Amanda must have thanked God a dozen times that the other missionaries had decided to spend the morning in town—except for Mr. Gorman. That still left the OP and Pierre to entertain, and of course, entertaining Pierre wasn’t any work at all—not anymore. Amanda flushed just to think of it.

  But it was true. It seemed like just being near Pierre was all she needed to have in order to pass the time. Conversation was just a bonus. Then there were those rare moments when his skin brushed up against hers, sending sparks of electricity throughout her body, even to those places she dare not think about—in fact, was told she shouldn’t think about until after marriage. Such was the power of Pierre.

  So really, that left only the OP that she had to entertain. Why was the Operations Manager even here? After all, the girl was found in a Bashilele village far away from his private little kingdom of Belle Vue. The girl was not his subject, and for that matter, neither was Amanda.

  And indeed, Belle Vue was ruled exactly like a feudal state. In the two months that she had been in the Congo, Amanda had become well aware that the OP was in charge of everything that had anything to do with what went on in town, both European and native sectors—everything, that is, except for those few hectares that comprised the Missionary Rest House and its environs. Those had been leased directly from His Majesty’s government for a period of ninety-nine years. That was forty-six years ago.

  If, and when, the Belgian Congo gained its independence in two years, as some predicted, then the fate of the Missionary Rest House was anybody’s guess. Until then, the Home Mission Board made the rules, and the current Hostess—in this case, Amanda Brown—implemented them. In fact, she even had the power to make rules of her own, although, of course, later they might be overturned by the board. The point being that if she wanted to, Amanda could require the OP to don a paper hat and recite a nursery rhyme before he could enter the Missionary Rest House.

  The frustrating thing about this business was the fact, of which the OP was probably blithely unaware, that Amanda was quite possibly risking her very soul by disliking him so much. And it wasn’t even anything personal that he had done to Amanda, but to Cripple.

  That racist man had sat calmly in the grandstand, watching Cripple climb the gallows to her certain execution. True, he had lacked the power to commute her sentence, but he could have stood up and protested. He could have done something; but he didn’t. There is always something that one can do to make a difference. Amanda knew that from experience.

  If only she could tell him off face-to-face. Pierre, however, absolutely forbade that tactic. Even though the OP had no power over Amanda, and there was virtually nothing he could do to her that either Pierre or Amanda could think of, the captain would not back her up. Yes, this felt like a form of betrayal, although Amanda was doing her best to compartmentalize those feelings.

  Now the time had come for the great unveiling. So to speak. Cripple—bless her heart, the woman was as slow as molasses on a cold day in January—had finally signaled that the girl was ready to come out. It had taken Cripple an hour and a half to bathe and dress the girl, plus many whispered conversations through a cracked door.

  Amanda had approved the use of her royal blue cotton dress with the scoop neck and the dropped waist. She’d given Cripple permission to use her hairbrush even though she couldn’t imagine why, given that the girl had rows of tightly woven braids.

  What about shoes? Cripple hadn’t asked about shoes. My goodness, what a mistake Amanda had made to turn the girl over to Cripple; there had been no conversations at all about leg shaving, or anti-perspirants, or all the other necessary things a white girl needs to know.

  “Cripple, come on out,” Amanda said. She sounded far gayer than she felt.

  Much to Amanda’s surprise a white woman stepped out of the room first. Amanda’s first thought was, Where did she come from? Her second thought was, What is this woman doing in my dress?

  It wasn’t until after she heard the OP say: “Mon Dieu, c’est ma fille! Ma fille est belle!” that she realized the young woman standing before her was none other than the Headhunter’s Daughter.

  Her hair now sprung loose in golden curls, some of them reaching as far as her shoulders. Her developing figure, stuffed into a dress a size too small for her, was almost shockingly buxom. Funny, Amanda thought, but she looks sexier now than when she was topless. If I was her mother, I wouldn’t let her out of the house in that dress.

  “Voila,” Cripple said proudly, “elle est magnifique!”

  “Yes, she is magnificent,” Amanda said.

  She turned to the OP, who stood staring with his mouth open and his eyes glazed. Unfortunately, Amanda was acquainted with the “dirty old man” syndrome, thanks to “Uncle” Casey at church back home, who sat next to her in the choir and performed lewd acts under his choir robe that were meant to get her attention.

  “What do you mean by saying, ‘She’s my daughter’?” Amanda snapped.

  “Yes, what did you mean?” Pierre said.

  The OP glanced at them and then turned back to the girl.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Headhunter could have grabbed the clumsy white man, flung him to the ground, and then slit his throat with the homemade blade he kept in its monkey-skin scabbard. The man had a big head; his skull would have made a fine wine mug. One of his hairy ears, even when dried and shriveled, would have made an impressive addition to the thirteen already on his belt.

  This is not to say that this Mushilele was an immoral man. Au contraire; never had the Headhunter taken the life of a fellow Mushilele, whether man, woman, or child. All thirteen of these ears represented men who had dared encroach upon Bashilele territory. Since he was not now on Bashilele territory, and his daughter was not in any immediate danger, the Headhunter allowed the missionary to creep up behind him. But only so far.

  “Muoyo webe,” he said to Harry. Life to you.

  The big white man recoiled. “You speak Tshiluba?”

  “Eyo,” the Headhunter said. “I am a Mushilele; not ignorant.”

  “But they said you couldn’t,” Harry said, still speaking in Tshiluba.

  “Perhaps they are right,” the Headhunter said. “Perhaps this is all a dream.”

  “Really?” Harry said.

  The headhunter couldn’t help but laugh and then immediately realized he had taken the joke too far. The big white man was furious for having been made the fool.

  “You heathen,” Harry exploded. “What are you even doing here?”

  “My daughter is here,” the Headhunter said, his face ridged. “I am here to see that she is safe.”

  “Safe? Of course she’s safe,” Harry said. “She’s with her own people.”

  “They are not her people,” the Headhunter said.

  “And you heathens are? You live like dogs, like naked monkeys. What do you know about raising a white girl?”

  The Headhunter tried to lean his bow against the trunk of the mango tree, but it wouldn’t stay. Recalling that he still had his knife strap
ped to his waist, he let the bow slide to the ground. Then he stepped away from the tree and held his hands out in front of him. He hoped that Harry recognized that this was a peaceful gesture.

  “Muambi, you are a father, are you not?”

  “E.”

  “I have seen your daughter. She will bring a good dowry, but you must act quickly. She will soon no longer be desirable.”

  “Mona buhote buebe,” Harry said. Behold your stupidity.

  “Aa!” The Headhunter started to laugh. It startled him to learn that a white man knew such an insult. “You speak Tshiluba very well, Muambi. But now I wish to return to the matter of my daughter. Even a blind mudfish can see that her skin and my skin do not match, but I held her in my arms when her mind was not yet formed, and she did not see the difference between her skin and mine.”

  “Tatu,” Harry said. Father. “I am sure that the Belgians will give you a matabisha. A reward. But listen closely to me, for I speak the truth. The Bula Matadi are not to be trusted. They will say that their reward is very generous, when for a fact it will be like one ear of corn for an elephant. Instead of accepting such an insult, you should allow me to conduct proper negotiations on your behalf. Of course you and I will consult privately so that these sons of Flemish monkeys will never know that I am the real mastermind behind this scheme.”

  “I do not want a reward! I do not wish to negotiate away my only child! I only want her safety and—”

  “Nonsense. You would be happy to sell her for a handful of goats and some fat ducks, would you not? As for her happiness? I’m sure that she will be well taken care of.”

  The Headhunter felt his toes curl in the thick grass, so great was his frustration. “Forgive me, master,” he said, “but to guarantee her happiness is foolishness. I can wish only that she is safe, and well fed, and healthy. To wish for more is to tempt the spirits.”

  “Tch,” said Harry, sounding deceptively like an African. “There are no spirits; only Nzambi, tatu wetu mu diulu.”