The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots

by Tamar Myers

  “Amanda, I think maybe Colette is right when she said that Americans feel obligated to judge everyone else.”

  “What? I can’t believe you said that.”

  By now they were far enough from the falls that they no longer needed to shout in order to be heard. “How long have you been here? Four months?”

  “Three.”

  And two days, she might have added, if she hadn’t felt quite as miffed. Instead she reminded herself that she was a responsible adult now, a missionary, not a rebellious teenager, and although it was a struggle, she put her best foot forward.

  “Well, if they can’t do anything, then what can we do?”

  “We will wait until tomorrow. That will give the mud on the hill more time to dry. It needs to be more—uh—staple, yes?”

  “Stable.”

  They continued to walk back to the Missionary Rest House in silence. Halfway there Amanda stopped abruptly, and quite on purpose, causing Pierre to execute some fancy footwork in order to avoid bumping into her. It was definitely not the mature—not to mention Christian—thing to do—and she instantly felt guilty. What a boob she had been. She’d berated the local white populace, been properly upbraided for it, and now she’d just thrown a tantrum.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted.

  “Mais non, it was my fault. I should not have been following so close.”

  “Not that. I’m sorry for being such an all-around jerk.”

  “Jerk? What does this mean?”

  “It means that I’ve been a fool.”

  He took her in his arms, right there in the open—in broad daylight! “You are not this round jerk, Amanda; you are under very much pressure. But soon everything will be back to normal. I promise. Life is always like this in the Congo; we move from one crisis to the next.”

  “They have been this bad before?”

  “Believe me, much worse. Ask any of the older people, like Father Reutner, perhaps. He will tell you stories that you will not believe.”

  Amanda wrinkled her nose; she’d been told that it was not her most endearing habit. “Hmm. You know, I’ve only seen him once. I was taking a walk through the village and I passed the Catholic mission. Father Reutner—at least I think that was him—was crossing the lawn from one building to the next. He was talking to an African, but he looked over and saw me. Then he looked away quickly and never looked back again. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  The sun was now high in the sky, and the heat searing. Perhaps that is why Pierre released her so suddenly. Or perhaps once again she’d come across as self-centered and vain.

  “Ah, well, Father Reutner is very shy—among us whites, that is; among the Africans he is just the opposite. In fact, there have been complaints that he—well—it is best that I do not go into details. I have heard it said—by a certain sociologist—that the reason for this is because he thinks of the Africans as children, and therefore certainly not his social equals.”

  “Oh my,” Amanda said. She had heard similar comments from some of the older members of her church back home. In fact, even her father once cited this very reason for why the Negroes in the American South had yet to achieve social and economic parity with the whites. That conversation—at the Sunday dinner table—had ended in an explosive argument, following which Amanda drove all the way into Charlotte with some students, all girls, from Winthrop College, searching for some real-life Negroes to whom they could express their solidarity.

  It was a cold, blustery day, with few people out and about, and those that were wouldn’t even glance their way. At last they spotted a cluster of tightly huddled youth in West Charlotte, but as Amanda and her friends approached and slowed their car, the Negro youth eyed them suspiciously. Then one of them, a girl, flipped them the bird.

  “What you white folks doin’ here?” she said. “Beat it before we whip y’all’s skinny white asses!”

  Amanda related this story to Pierre on the remainder of their return walk. She left no detail out, and he listened intently.

  “This race matter is très difficile, n’est-ce pas? There is what we have in our head, then what lives in our hearts, and then what lives under our skin.”

  “But you mean skin color, not under our skin. Am I correct?”

  “Exactly not. I mean under the skin—just under the skin. These are the things that make us react without thinking. Your head knew better, and so did your heart, but under your skin it was necessary to prove that you were not a racist. And for this girl you describe; she too reacted to what was under her skin. She is poor, she is cold, and then you come with your white face, in your warm car, and you look at her as if she is an animal in a zoo.”

  “I most certainly did not! You take that back.” Talk about an “under your skin” reaction, Amanda thought. Jeepers, but Pierre had a way of getting under her skin like nobody’s business!

  Pierre had the audacity to remain calm. “Speaking of priests,” he said, although the idiom didn’t sound natural coming from his lips, “the monsignor asked me to inform you that he will not be at dinner tonight.”

  Amanda was grateful for the change of subject. “Oh? Why not? Is he not feeling well? It must be all that sun earlier.”

  “If that was a problem, then perhaps he feels even worse. He will not be attending dinner because he has already gone up the hill.”

  “What? How?”

  “The same way that Cripple came down, through the tshisuku.”

  Amanda felt tears of frustration well up. “But if he can do it, then why can’t you—why can’t we?”

  “Tomorrow we will climb up the road—I promise. We will not be surprised by snakes on the road. Trust me; you will be glad that you waited.”

  “Maybe,” she said, and she forced a small smile, although on the inside she felt like she was going to explode with frustration.

  Early on the morning of the third day, three miracles occurred. The first was that the generator was repaired and electric power was restored. This miracle was witnessed by all the whites and those few Africans who were wealthy enough to afford such a luxury.

  The second miracle was the birth of a two-headed goat to Mbushi Mutu, the cranky old woman who sold kindling wood in the marketplace. Two-headed kids were not unknown to the villagers, but these freaks of nature generally died at birth or shortly after; they certainly were not viable. However, Mbushi Mutu’s kid was born with heads of equal size and development and centered on the neck. The youngster stood right on schedule, and both heads were able to locate its mother’s teats and took equal turns nursing. When the mother walked, the kid walked with it without any difficulty, the outer eyes on the two heads apparently cooperating with each other.

  This most astonishing sight attracted a huge crowd of people; unfortunately, it also meant that the morning mass at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church was sparsely attended. When even the altar boys did not show up, the monsignor lost his temper. He had managed to struggle up the hill the day before, covered in mud and cuts from the sharp blades of tshisuku, only to find that the old priest, Father Reutner, had suffered a mild stroke—well, at least his speech was slurred and the left side of his face seemed to be sagging. And yes, the monsignor had checked the septuagenarian’s breath, and although it reeked, he couldn’t detect alcohol.

  What irritated the monsignor so much that morning was that he’d wanted to be on the road as soon as possible. With the bridge out, he needed to take the long way around to get back to Luluabourg, and it was critical that he make his flight back to Rome. This meeting with the cardinals—well, the monsignor didn’t have to have it spelled out for him in Latin beforehand to know that he was about to be made bishop. Now, unexpectedly, he’d been called upon to lead Mass. But for so few, and all of them infirm, or else elderly. Si, si, these were just the sort of people Our Lord would have ministered to, but the monsignor was not the Prince of P
eace. He was not even yet a prince in the church. Unless he got his butt back to Rome in time, he might not even be made a bishop.

  But just because the monsignor was human, with a man’s emotions, that did not mean that he was any less punctilious in his religious observance. Mass began at the appointed hour and continued in the usual way until it was time for the handful of attendees to file down to the front to receive the host. Just as the first of them stepped into the aisle and was genuflecting on arthritic knee, the doors to the church were flung open and brilliant rays of sunlight flooded the dim sanctuary.

  “He is risen!” With the sun to her back, the woman who cried out was in silhouette, helping her cut a dramatic, almost biblical figure.

  “Eyo,” the congregants responded in unison. “Jesus Christ wakubika bulelele!”

  “Nasha! It is the man Jonathan Pimple who has risen from the dead!”

  “Blasphemer!” shouted the monsignor. “Get out of my church!”

  “No, you must come and see for yourselves. The night before last, my kinsman Jonathan Pimple was found dead in his chair. It was the heart-stopping disease. Yesterday morning we buried him in front of half the village. This morning when I was taking some food and drink to him at the grave, I saw him standing there.”

  “Food and drink?” cried the monsignor even louder. “If you were taking him food and drink, then he was not dead!”

  It was a curious and most irritating habit—one which the monsignor never understood—that when Africans got nervous, they laughed. Well, at least he understood that much. Some whites thought that the blacks were laughing at them, which was usually not the case. Still, the laughter in the church did nothing to improve his mood.

  He felt a gentle tug on his sleeve. “Monsignor,” Father Reutner said, “this woman is a heathen. The food and drink were not meant for a living person; it was a symbolic meal to feed the dead. When the dead person eats this tiny portion of cassava mush—about the size of a walnut—it will turn into a full-size ball of mush, the size of a soccer ball.”

  “But that’s ridiculous! How can they possibly believe such nonsense? Something real like a bite of mush turning into something they can’t see?” In that moment he remembered one of his many frustrations with the Congo, one of the reasons he had chosen to pursue his spiritual path in Rome.

  “It’s because they’re heathens, Monsignor.”

  “I am not a heathen,” the woman said. Her eyes were blazing with defiance, right there in the house of God. This very attitude did little to support her assertion.

  “Tangila mukashi” (look, woman), the monsignor said. “Dead people do not rise from the grave in these days. Truly, this has not been the situation since the days of Jesus Christ, which was before your ancestors’ ancestors.”

  “Muambi, I do not call you a liar; I only ask that you come and look.”

  “This is preposterous,” Father Reutner mumbled in Latin. It was the secret language of the priests.

  “Go! Leave my church at once, for you bring the devil with you along with your lies.”

  Still the fire would not leave the woman’s eyes. She was a Mupende woman—he could tell by her pointed teeth—which helped add to her devilish appearance in his mind. And since Monsignor Clemente had a very keen mind, and an even more active imagination, he thought he could actually smell something satanic about her. A faint odor of sulfur perhaps?

  “Mukelenge wanyi,” she said—my lord—“it is not just that my kinsman lives; there is more that may interest you. Even now as I speak Jonathan Pimple is preaching to the people of this village in the marketplace.”

  “Preaching?” rasped the old man, Father Reutner.

  “Explain this, sister,” said the monsignor, but he was already walking toward the large twin doors at the front of the church.

  The wild-eyed woman began to explain but was not given a fair chance. The monsignor would not have denied that this was so, because the courtesy of fairness is not something one extends to the Prince of Darkness.

  It had been many years since Monsignor Clemente had visited the marketplace in the Belle Vue workers’ village. In fact, he had never been to this exact location, for the old place had become disease-ridden during a smallpox epidemic, so the stalls were demolished and houses built in their place for the new wave of workers brought in to replace those who had died. There was no need, however, for the monsignor to ask directions to the site of Jonathan Pimple’s preaching, for the earth practically shook with periodic roars of approval from what sounded like a vast and enthusiastic throng.

  And that is exactly what the monsignor beheld: it was a scene straight out of one of the Gospels, except that all the participants were black. Whereas John the Baptist had preached repentance, and Jesus the Christ had preached atonement, this Jonathan Pimple was clearly preaching blasphemy. After all, he had not been ordained into Holy Orders; he was not even ordained as a lay deacon. He was a Protestant. More to the point, and more dangerously, the people liked what he had to say!

  Forgetting his Italian manners, plus the benefits of maintaining goodwill, Monsignor Clemente shouldered his way through the wall of unwashed and somewhat odiferous humanity. Initially, not knowing who he was, the people pushed back. Then one by one, realizing that they had dared to elbow their master, they would cry out in panic or abject apology and yield their place to a man who assumed too much to be grateful. At last, his best “dress” stained with mud and mucus, Monsignor Clemente was given a front-row seat on a rickety homemade wooden chair.

  “Ah,” Jonathan Pimple said, wasting no time to point out his presence, “our benefactor has arrived.”

  Chapter 31

  The Belgian Congo, 1958

  Amanda made sure that everyone got an early start. She set her alarm for an hour before the sky turned pink so that she could fire up the Primus stove and boil coffee. But then when the electricity returned before she was through with her morning ablutions, she literally cried with relief and thanksgiving.

  By the time the rest of her guests were dressed, coffee was ready and so was a pile of toast and a freshly opened tin of Blue Band margarine, as well as the jar of Crosse & Blackwell marmalade. Thank goodness for the fact that these continental Belgians didn’t go in for a proper breakfast like the English did.

  “I have enough mikasu that we can each have our own.”

  “Pardonnez-moi,” said Madame OP apprehensively. “What is the meaning of this word? My English is just so-so.”

  “Your English is excellent, Madame Fabergé,” said Pierre, with utmost sincerity, although he winked at Amanda. “Lukasu is the Tshiluba word for a hoe—the sort one uses in the garden.” He turned to Amanda. “Tell me, mademoiselle, why will Madame OP be in need of a lukasu today?”

  “Because, Captain Jardin,” Amanda said archly, “you promised that today we would do our best to carve a path up the hill so that we can get to the workers’ village. Once we get there, we can direct our workers to begin repairing the former ferry line. And since we all have servants who live in the village, then it seems to follow that we all pitch in equally to achieve our objective. There, now I’m sure it all makes sense.” Amanda stood and, using a clean bread knife, began scraping crumbs from the red-and-white gingham tablecloth into her hand.

  Pierre and the OP stood as well. “Ah,” Pierre said, “your objective meshed perfectly with mine, and your means of execution is really quite admirable. However, you have forgotten one small detail.”

  Amanda’s lips formed a perfect circle. “Oh?”

  “Yes!” roared the OP. “You forget that my wife is not a common laborer!”

  “You Americans,” Madame Cabochon said, and laughed gaily—or perhaps it was with forced gaiety, in order to diffuse the OP’s wrath—“you have no sense of class.”

  “Colette!” Pierre barked. “There is no need for insults.”

  “
Oh no, it was not an insult,” Amanda said quickly. “She was quite correct on that score. We did, after all, fire our last king on the grounds that he performed poorly at his job.”

  “Touché,” she said, “what cheeks!” Then she laughed even harder.

  Perhaps it was going too far to say that the OP and his wife, Madame Fabergé, were amused as well, but at least they dropped the subject and suddenly became intensely interested in their coffee. They did not, however, pick up a lukasu and set forth to toil under the broiling sun as did the rest of them.

  Although to be perfectly honest, that morning the work that everyone else did was minimal. Pierre was in the prime of his life and as fit as they come. His baggy khaki shorts offered him complete freedom of movement (and for Amanda a far more personal view of the captain than she felt was appropriate just then). Pierre was able to leap from clay ledge to clay ledge, and he hauled the women up after him, so that almost no hoeing was required. He assured the women that he would get “boys” in the village to do the work later.

  By then Amanda understood that the term “boys” in this context referred to house servants of any age and/or field workers, usually in their late teens or early twenties. At first she had bristled at hearing the word, thinking to be at last cut free from a world of racial prejudice, but now just three months into her term of missionary service, the word boy was part of her everyday lexicon, and it no longer troubled her. Amanda’s houseboy was Protruding Navel. When the Missionary Rest House was booked solid during the cool months, he had a helper whose position was table boy. Then of course, one must take into account the wash boy and the yard boy.

  At any rate, the trio scaled the high hill much quicker than any of them had envisioned. In fact, they managed to enter the narrow, canopy-covered lanes of the village before the cruel sun was high enough to bake them senseless, but it was a village strangely devoid of life. Clucking hens scratching among fallen mango leaves along with their peeping chicks, and swarms of flies that rose from piles of dog turds, were the only signs of life.