The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots

by Tamar Myers

“Why?” Madame OP asked. “Do hippos make good eating?”

  “They do, actually. But we didn’t eat them. We shot them because they were there, and shooting them was fun. Did we need another reason?”

  “No, of course not,” Amanda said.

  “Imbeciles!” cried Madame Cabochon.

  “Look here,” Monsieur OP said angrily, “you have no right to judge—”

  But Madame Cabochon was not about to be lectured by the latest runt to be sent out from the Consortium’s main office in Brussels. She gathered up some of the excessive material of her hot pink palazzo pants in each hand and agilely jumped up onto the low brick wall that ran along the edge of the sweeping verandah.

  “My friends,” she said without further ado, “let us not remain here and discuss the morality of shooting animals for sport. Just minutes ago I saw a tree the size of this house floating downriver and headed for the bridge. We all felt the shocks, we heard about the legend, and we can all see for ourselves what appears to be open water where an island once stood. That said, I am leaving at once for the bridge to see for myself what is happening. Is there anyone who would like to come with me?”

  There was a unanimous show of hands; even the tiny brown Madame OP’s hand shot into the air.

  “I’ll drive,” Monsieur OP said officiously. What a pompous so-and-so.

  “Don’t be stupid—er, precipitous,” Pierre said. “I will drive. The road could be just a series of undercut gullies, and it would be very easy to tip over. It is best that all of you ride in the truck now that it has stopped raining.”

  The OP snorted, his pigeon chest still ridiculously extended. “Will we have to ride in the back—like animals? Like Africans?”

  Madame Cabochon wished to push the OP off her verandah. With luck he would land on a slippery patch of lawn and slide all the way down into the rain-swollen Kasai River as it tore through the moonlight landscape like a giant python.

  Chapter 21

  The Belgian Congo, 1935–1942

  The boy was sold as a slave to a rich fat man of the Bajembe tribe. As there were very few fat or rich men in the Belgian Congo at this time, except for Europeans and Arabs, this Mujembe was quite famous. It was the boy’s job to attend to the man’s personal needs—a most unpleasant and unhygienic job—and as a result the boy was often ill. Whenever he could not perform his duties satisfactorily, the chief’s son was beaten within an inch of his life with the hippo hide (which was also the white man’s favorite means of dispensing punishment),

  One day, six or seven years after the boy’s abduction, two soldiers—one tall, the other short—from the Bula Matadi paid a visit to the fat man’s village. Upon spotting the boy, the tall soldier called out to him.

  “Boy! Why are you not working for the state?”

  “I must work for my master,” replied the boy.

  “Leave him alone,” growled the fat man. “Can you not see that he is just a small boy? Besides, he is my son—the son of my third wife.”

  “This boy is no Mujembe,” said the short soldier, “and he is no small boy either. Raise your arms,” he said to the boy.

  “Do not do as he says,” the fat man commanded.

  “If you do not raise your arms,” the tall soldier said, “I will shoot this fat man through the belly and then he will die an agonizing death.”

  “I am a slave,” the boy said, “and this fat man is my master. Shoot him first, and then I will raise my arms.”

  Bulelela. Truly. This is what the soldiers did, for they were of the Bakongo tribe and they had no use for Bajembe people, and besides, they had taken a liking to the boy. Then after they shot the fat man, the boy raised his arms, and it was plain for all to see that he had hair and was indeed old enough to work for the state; they took him with them and he was taken to a place called Belle Vue.

  Chapter 22

  The Belgian Congo, 1958

  All the living that dwelled in the workers’ village had gathered on the hill in front of the mango grove where the whites buried their dead. It was a place forbidden to them unless they were there to dig the graves or to fill them in again, or sweep away the ever-falling leaves.

  When the first Belgians came to take from the streams “the stones that sparkled”—which was about seventy years ago—nearly half of them died from a disease called malaria. It was a disease that also struck Africans, but for them it was mostly a children’s disease. If one managed to survive childhood—and the odds were slim—one might be able to build up enough immunity to survive to adulthood.

  The first Belgians who arrived in the vicinity of the present town of Belle Vue were for the most part men: prospectors, miners, overseers, and a few priests. They lived down by the river, close to the pits from which they extracted their precious stones. When it rained, these same pits filled with water, becoming the breeding ground of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

  One by one, as the white men died, they were carried by black men to the top of the highest hill around and buried. There they enjoyed, for all eternity, one of the best views in all of Kasai Province. Up there the breeze kept mosquitoes away and made it a very healthy place for the living to sit and visit these same dead. Since it was such a pleasant, scenic spot, the living ordered the black man to plant mango trees so that they might be shaded from the fierce tropical sun. Ah, what a fine place to spread a blanket and picnic—even to spend an entire day.

  But not once during all those seventy years did the living ever consider claiming that healthy location as their own. Except for a small privy shack, no houses were ever built on the crest of that tall, majestic hill. All the while the white men continued to live down by the gravel pits where the mosquitoes bred because they would not be parted from their treasure, and one out of four of them would never leave Belle Vue alive. Meanwhile the Africans, who were forced to live across the river in the hills behind the cemetery, fared much better than the Europeans.

  Later, when their womenfolk joined them, the white men acquired some meshi—sense—and moved across the river to hilltops opposite their dead. These hills were not as high, and not quite as healthy, but by then the white witch doctors had created potions that protected one against malaria, so that a greater percentage of the whites survived—enough of them, anyway, to form the village known as Belle Vue. Nonetheless, the whites continued to bury their dead on the highest hill around, even though now it was forbidden by law for any white to live there, except for missionaries.

  The irony of the situation had not been lost on the young Kibanguist, nor on the headman from Léopoldville. Cripple, who was surely the most reasonable of all women, could not stand either of these two men. Therefore she watched with disdain and horror as the two of them made much fanfare for themselves by beating on a small drum and then leaping onto a flat rock that extended far out into the Kasai River. Before the rain, this rock had stood at the edge of the river and held its head high above the water. Now it lay so low that to some, depending on where they stood, it gave the appearance that the men were standing on the surface of the river. However, the scene gave only the appearance that such was the case; unfortunately, there were plenty of ignorant people who were willing to believe that indeed the two men could walk on water.

  The two men had abandoned the drum, but the young Kibanguist was quite skilled at whistling through his fingers. Then he shouted through cupped hands, although still one had to strain to hear his words above the rumbling voice of the angry Kasai River.

  “People of Belle Vue! Did I not predict a great storm that would wash away this bridge?”

  “Eyo,” many people responded, “you predicted the storm, and it came; in that your word has proven to be true. But the bridge is still here!”

  “People of Belle Vue, behold—tangila—this bridge is but an illusion. Already the real bridge has been washed away. When Independence Day comes we will have a new bridge, one
that will not have been built over the falls just for the white man’s pleasure. The new bridge will be built upstream, where the water is quiet. It will be built in a peaceful location where the babas and children can cross and not be afraid.”

  At that point many people clapped and cheered, for walking across the plunging torrent was a frightening experience for many of them, but something they had to do on a daily basis if they wanted to stay employed. Cripple hated using the bridge, but she resisted expressing her sentiments, because she knew that the Kibanguist was playing on their collective fear. Truly, that hate-filled man did not really care two bananas’ worth about how they really felt.

  The headman was wiser and older than the Kibanguist, and he was not fooled. “Bulelela,” he said, “truly, what this man speaks shall come to pass, because when Independence Day comes, I shall remain your headman, and it will be me who sees to it that this new bridge is constructed.” He quickly held up his hands as if to silence the applause, although there was none that Cripple could hear. “My people,” said this man of the Bakongo tribe, and thus a foreigner to the region, “who do you suppose will build our bridge? Yes! Your thoughts are correct! It will be the white man. I personally will sit on the neck of the local Bula Matadi and give him a taste of his hippo hide whip!”

  “Aiyeeeee!” the people cried in one voice, for there was not a man, woman, or child who bore in his heart animosity for Captain Pierre Jardin. Many were the Belgians who deserved to be flogged with the dreaded hippo hide, perhaps some until they could no longer even cling to life, but most assuredly this white man was not one of them. This time Cripple did join her voice with those of her people.

  The headman’s words were so outrageous that they angered even the spirits in the Original World, which is a heathen belief only. At any rate, these spirits sent a great crocodile to ensure that the good whites, like Captain Pierre Jardin and Madame Cabochon—and of course Mamu Ugly Eyes, even though she was not Belgian—were not harmed after Independence Day. So even as the people were still expressing their dismay, the huge beast leaped out of the water and caught up both of the outside troublemakers in its jaws. The men emitted the most satisfying screams before disappearing into the dark waters of the Kasai River, and neither the reptile, nor the men, were ever seen, or heard from, again. Privately, Cripple felt quite satisfied; this was indeed a fitting way for these two men to rejoin their ancestors.

  “We must be careful,” a wizened old man rasped. “It was these dead white people on the hill behind us who sent this ngandu—crocodile—to eat the headman and the Kibanguist.”

  An equally old woman with a faded blue-and-orange turban elbowed her way to his side. Cripple recognized her as the man’s wife, although she knew neither of them by name.

  “You are but a crazy old man. There are only corpses to be found in the Bula Matadi cemetery, for no ghosts reside there. The whites are all Roman Catholic or Protestant, and when they die, their spirits leave the cemetery and journey to a place even farther away than Mputu. This place, which they call heaven, is so distant that the spirits cannot return. Thus the spirits of the whites cannot create mischief after death, as can the spirits of our dead. Is not this heaven a clever idea?”

  There were many exclamations of wonder, which vexed Cripple sorely. “Do not believe this foolishness,” she snorted, unable to control her temper, although she had tried mightily. “If no one has returned from heaven, then how can we be certain that this place exists? As for the white corpses that are rotting in those graves, do you not think it strange that only their dead may join us on this side of the river, but not their living?”

  Their Death grabbed Cripple’s elbow. “Cripple,” he growled through clenched teeth, “you are only a woman. You must not express such strong ideas.”

  Their Death’s wife would not be tamed like a wild pigeon. “But consider this,” she said, speaking even louder than before, “at least the dead white men on the hill above us can no longer order any of us around—be it man or woman.”

  There followed a ripple of laughter, but mostly gasps and some cheers, for a tree the size of a white man’s house was just meters away from crashing into the indestructible bridge. It was the bridge that both divided and united the two sides: the black and the white, the rich and poor, the past from the present.

  “Baba, kuata tshianza tshianyi,” Brings Happiness cried out in a loud voice. Mama, hold my hand! It was Cripple to whom the child called, and to Cripple the child clung, not to Second Wife, whose belly had borne the child to a state of ripeness, and whose bisuna—vagina—had been torn practically asunder during her delivery.

  Such is the ingratitude of a child, but truly, the gratitude of a Second Mother knows no bounds under such circumstances. The feel of Brings Happiness’s small arms around her own swollen belly gave her strength, and she did not fear as she stood and observed those things the eyes had never seen, and therefore the mind could not understand.

  The giant tree, the one as large as a white man’s house, was now turned sideways at an angle, wedged between two of the massive pillars that held up the bridge. Half the tree’s broad canopy projected above the water, and in the very uppermost of those branches sat a family of colobus monkeys. Rather than appearing afraid, the monkeys stared glum-faced at the villagers. After all, the colobus monkeys had been every bit as inconvenienced as the people; no, make that a great deal more.

  “Mona buhote buebe,” Cripple said. Look at your impudence! For she was deeply offended by the monkeys’ arrogance. Under normal circumstances the monkeys would be shrieking as they attempted to flee from arrows or bullets, because colobus monkeys were highly desirable prey animals. Not only was the flesh of these creatures delectable—when stewed in palm oil with a few chilies—but their beautiful long black-and-white fur was prized by tribal chiefs and kings, who used it to adorn their royal headgear. (But to speak of impudence: Mamu Ugly Eyes actually believed that monkeys bore a resemblance to human beings! Well, perhaps to the whites! But then, only maybe.)

  “Kah!” Their Death said. “Cripple, you should not use such foul language in front of the children.”

  “Tch,” Cripple said. “But Their Death, did you not see how these animals insulted us? One large male even kept his back turned the entire time.”

  “Cripple,” said Dikumbu, who was their neighbor, and a member of the Zappo Zapps tribe, “I did not see any monkeys; I saw only whites sitting in that tree.”

  Those who heard the Zappo Zapp—and there were many—roared with laughter.

  But there was a white face among the crowd that stood on the hill in front of the place where the whites buried their dead. Cripple saw this man and recognized him as the priest of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church. He was fluent in Tshiluba, but with a heavy accent, and his French was accented as well. Cripple was not familiar with the various nuances that distinguished the Belgian tribes (how could she be, since even the individuals within a tribe looked so much alike?), but there was something about the mon père that caused Cripple to think that he belonged to some minor tribe, perhaps something akin to the Zappo Zapps.

  Now, it is one thing to laugh at the expense of many, when you yourself are few in number, but a good heathen is never unkind to the helpless. The mon père was alone and helpless—even if he did not know it.

  Cripple pressed closer to strange man from Mputu (over there), whereas Brings Happiness shrank back in terror. The child of two heathen parents, and just one Protestant parent, Brings Happiness had had little occasion to interact with whites, and she had certainly never had any prior dealings with a white man in a dress.

  “Kah,” said Cripple, “he will not hurt you. He is a man like any other—and an old one at that. If need be, I will push him down and you can jump on his mihesa.” His testicles.

  When Brings Happiness did not so much as giggle, Cripple let the child go and approached the man alone. Aiyee! Everything she�
�d heard about him was true: his eyes bulged, his breath smelled of drinking, and his women’s clothes stank of body odor so foul that Cripple thought she might throw up the evening’s cassava mush.

  “Life to you,” Cripple said. She had to say it twice to be noticed, telling herself that it was not so much that the man was hard of hearing (he was that as well); it was that he did not expect a crippled little woman to speak to him in a way that did not portend begging.

  “E, muoyo webe,” he finally said.

  “Master,” Cripple said, “you should not be disturbed by what these ignorant people say. You are not all monkeys; I know a white who is almost like a real woman.”

  The old man smiled, although Cripple had said nothing humorous. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Cripple. I am a Muluba, master. I am also the wife of the Baluba witch doctor.”

  His smile disappeared. “So you are heathens?”

  “Yes, master. I am a very proud heathen. Do you wish to try your hand at converting me?”

  “Do you mock me, Cripple?”

  “No, master.”

  “Then I do not understand this game that you play.”

  “It is not a game, master. Many people have tried to convert me to the Jesus way, but all of them have failed.”

  “Why is that?” he shouted, for it was necessary to communicate at that volume because of the noise of the crowd.

  Cripple tried to shrug nonchalantly; as usual, it was wasted effort. Cripple had often thought about the matter in great depth. If she could have a normal body, like that of every other adult in the village, it would not be activities like running, jumping, or lying on the mat with her husband that she would try first; it would be strutting about and gesticulating like a truly angry woman.

  “Some say that I am stubborn, master. Yet there are others who say that I am capable of thinking for myself.”

  “Thinking? You are not supposed to think, Baba. All you need to do is believe.”