The Boy Who Stole The Leopard's Spots Part 20

"Kah?" Amanda said. "I am not an old duck!"

No matter how fast Amanda walked, Cripple kept up. First it was astonis.h.i.+ng, then slightly amusing, and then eventually infuriating. Finally, she could no longer contain the question that burned within her like the wick on a Coleman lantern.

"Cripple, if you can keep up so well, why did you make me push you in a wheelbarrow to see the giant snake the other day?"

"Mamu?"

"Come on, Cripple, it is a simple question; just answer it. Please."

"E." Cripple shrugged. "Mamu, Their Death reads to me many books, and some of these describe a sort of cart-ah, a chariot-that is pulled by a large beast called a horse."

"I know what a horse is," Amanda said crossly.

"Mamu, since you are large like a horse-"

Amanda smiled, turning her head as she did so. "You do realize, I'm sure, that the chariot is pulled by the horse, and not pushed."

"Mamu," Cripple said, "one cannot know everything. Besides, you are a very clever horse."

"Indeed. And I am a horse much in need of exercising. So then perhaps you will not mind if I run; after all, the kabalu is a beast that is made for running." Instantly Amanda regretted saying that, fearing that perhaps she had gone too far in her teasing.

It was so hard to tell where the line was that one shouldn't cross. This was particularly true with Protruding Navel, the head housekeeper. They would be discussing some subject amicably, laughing, seemingly bantering, then suddenly and without warning Protruding Navel would look like he'd been slapped across the face.

"You offended me," he'd accuse her. "You offended me with great strength."

But how? What she had said had been completely innocuous. So it was with tremendous relief that Amanda saw Cripple literally collapse with laughter. The tiny woman rocked back and forth, practically choking on it.

An outside observer might even draw the conclusion that she was ill-because that is exactly what one did. As Amanda stood watching Cripple, feeling both amused and embarra.s.sed, a sleek black sedan with tinted windows barreled up and lurched to a stop. Almost simultaneously from the rear, with his skirts drawn up in one hand, out jumped the very handsome Monsignor Clemente.

"What has happened?" he said. He spoke in French, which seemed to be his default language, given that he had grown up in the Congo.

"She is laughing," Amanda said. "We were making jokes."

"Jokes? With an African? Mademoiselle, is this wise?"

"I may be a devout heathen," Cripple said, struggling to her feet, "but I am not a savage! I speak the language of my oppressors."

"Is that so?" the monsignor said.

He looked quizzically at Amanda, as if he were actually waiting for an introduction. For an African, if you can imagine that! Talk about being a hypocrite. Very well then, what was good for the goose was good for the gander.

"This is Madame Cripple," Amanda said. "Of course, the two of you have already met. She is the woman who reminded you about the old ferry landing. She is my former housekeeper. Together we are looking for Captain Pierre Jardin. Do you know his whereabouts?"

"This time it is truly a pleasure to see you, madame," the monsignor said, with a mysterious twinkle in his eye.

"E," Cripple said. She laughed inappropriately. "Now here is a white man like no other," she said in her native Ts.h.i.+luba.

"Cripple," Amanda warned her, "he grew up in Belle Vue, so he speaks Ts.h.i.+luba quite well."

"As well as he does Latin?" Cripple said, and then she said something else intended just to show off to the cleric in that very language-at least presumably so, because Amanda spoke nary a word of it, having almost failed Latin at Rock Hill High School. Needless to say, the poor girl was both extremely proud of her former housekeeper, and justifiably most annoyed.

Fortunately, the monsignor was practiced in reading the feelings of others, and he turned the conversation right back to the question she'd asked him a moment earlier. "No, I have not spoken with Captain Pierre Jardin. Is there something that you wish to tell him?"

Amanda thought fast and hard. Yes, she was compulsive by nature, but she also had good instincts-that is, unless she'd been drinking, and she hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since coming to the Congo three months ago. Actually, not since applying for her post at the Missionary Rest House and undertaking her language training in Brussels. Add it all together and she'd been sober longer than a year. She prayed about her decision now and had an immediate sense of peace. The monsignor could be trusted.

"I-I mean, we-are convinced that the old priest at Saint Mary's Church poisoned a man by the name of Chigger Mite."

"Kah!" Monsignor Clemente shook his head. "These African names are so amusing," he whispered as an aside in English to Amanda.

"Chigger Mite was a Mupende, not a Muluba," Cripple said archly.

"Then I am mistaken," Monsignor Clemente said, for there is no direct way of saying "oops" or "I'm sorry" in Ts.h.i.+luba.

"Why is it that you are not surprised by our suspicions?" Cripple demanded to know. "Is there yet something else?"

Again Monsignor Clemente shook his head. "Madame, you are not a Roman Catholic, or else you would understand."

"What he means," Amanda said, "is that if a member of the Roman Catholic Church tells the priest something in confidence, it cannot be repeated. Ever."

"Kas.h.i.+de, mene, mene?"

"E."

Cripple placed her hands on her crooked hips, a stance that emphasized her condition. "Mamu Ugly Eyes, although this white man in a woman's dress refuses to talk, in his silence he speaks much about the old priest."

"This is not a woman's dress," Monsignor Clemente said through clenched teeth. "It is what Jesus wore."

"Nasha," Cripple said, and wagged a finger at him in a scolding manner. "I have been to Saint Mary's Church to see the idols, and I know for a fact that the idol of Jesus does not wear this blackest of blacks. To the contrary, the dress of your Jesus idol is the whitest of whites."

The monsignor turned to Amanda, his eyes dancing with laughter. "Madame, I tell you, if I were to remain in the Congo, I would surely attempt to hire this woman away from you. Seldom have I encountered an individual who is so-so sure of herself. Your friend Cripple is intelligent, articulate, and extremely perceptive."

Amanda was taken aback. "Y-You mean for a woman," she stammered.

"Mademoiselle, you are not correct; believe me when I say that she is exceptional."

"E, believe him," Cripple said, nodding in agreement. She appeared to be taking herself quite seriously too.

Then the unbelievable happened. Monsignor Clemente and Cripple struck up a conversation, chatting about the "old days" in Belle Vue when she was a child and he a young priest-like old chums meeting outside Friedman's Department Store in downtown Rock Hill. They seemed oblivious to the blazing sun, which, coupled with the oppressive humidity of suicide month, felt like a million degrees. Sweat streamed down Amanda's brow, attracting tiny wasps that sucked at the moisture collecting in the corners of her eyes. Even more maddening were the bees, which actually stung, piercing the inside creases of her elbows and behind her knees.

Darn the two of you, she thought, although she would never swear aloud. This farce of an exchange between European man and native woman, between cleric and heathen-surely this was nothing more than a charade. To what purpose? Perhaps to ease guilty consciences on both their parts, consciences made heavy by the hate they harbored for the other's race. In the meantime, the old priest, Father Reutner, was not only getting away with murder, he was-well, he was such a darn hypocrite!

There was practically nothing Amanda hated worse than a hypocrite. Yes, she had known it was wrong to drive while drunk. She and her friends had done that anyway. Not that it excused their behavior, but from whom had they learned this bad behavior? From their parents! Every last one of them had at least one parent who was guilty of guzzling a beer or two at a picnic or backyard barbecue and then driving home. And Amanda knew for a fact that the judge in the courtroom on the day of her sentencing-the judge who had been so lenient with her-he too drove while under the influence. Amanda knew this because he went to her church and attended the same functions.

Finally Amanda had all she could take of other folks' reminiscences and the brutality of the midday sun. "Monsignor," she snapped, "can we not do something besides compare our life stories?"

He fixed her with that infamous smile; or was it really just a smirk? "Certainly, mademoiselle. Do you have any idea what the captain's intentions were the last time you saw him?"

"E. He was going to search for the old ferry landing. That is why we are on this abandoned road."

"Of course. But as you can see, it is not such an abandoned road after all; Madame Cripple, I see here footpaths that are yet clear enough so that my chauffeur might drive my car. Who uses this so-called abandoned road?"

"Muambi, it is only fishermen. Never cars. The fishermen tie their dugouts up somewhere up there"-she waved her arms with more verve than she had ever shaken a rug in Amanda's experience-"but exactly where, I do not know, as I have not had the motivation to drag my tired, misshapen body up this tortuous path in many, many years."

"My eyes have already seen evidence of your bravery, Madame Cripple, so I know it is not fear that has kept you from going farther. I am also quite aware that when the mood strikes you thus, you are quite capable of dragging that tired, misshapen body of yours anywhere it is that you wish to go."

"Tch," Cripple said. She turned to Amanda. "Please tell the white man in the black dress that even you are better at making compliments than he is. If he had not been so rude, I would have told him that the fishermen take those same dugouts over to the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters to fish for a creature called capitaine. Have you ever eaten this capitaine, Mamu Ugly Eyes?"

"Capitaine is a fish," Amanda said. "It is not a creature. But yes, I have eaten it. It was wonderful."

Monsignor Clemente sighed. "Ah, capitaine! It is by far the most delicious fish I have ever tasted. Believe me when I tell you this, Madame Cripple, there is no finer-tasting fish in all of Europe."

"Bulelela?"

Amanda sighed as well, but that time not with pleasure. "Please, may we return to speaking of Capitaine Pierre Jardin?"

"Tch," Cripple said again.

"E, let us do that," the monsignor. He gestured expansively at his sedan. "I am confident that this car can complete its journey on this road, and I would be pleased if the two of you accompanied me. Together we will see if the man capitaine is to be found at the end of this road. If he is not there, then we will have spent but a short time looking. Afterward this car and I can transport you back to the village, and we can search those areas where the lanes are wide enough to accommodate an automobile. Is this agreeable?"

"E!"

The monsignor started. "Miss Brown," he whispered in English. "Isn't she afraid to ride in a car?"

"My father was a mechanic," Cripple said in French without missing a beat. "I often rode with him on his test drives."

It was hard to say who was the most shocked, Amanda or the monsignor. Amanda finally closed her mouth when she remembered something that her mother used to say-it was something along the lines of: "One day you're going to swallow a fly, dear." There were lots of flies buzzing about her now, as well as sweat-sucking wasps and insidious little bees.

"Do you speak English?" Amanda demanded incredulously.

"Non, Mamu, but I understand this simple language of yours. Perhaps someday we can discuss some changes to the p.r.o.nunciation of various words. Like French, there are many unnecessary sounds, and others that are simply unpleasant to the ear. Do you not agree, Muambi Monsignor?"

It was perhaps then that the monsignor closed his mouth; it was, after all, necessary to do so first in order for him to speak. "Madame Cripple, I could not agree with you more. Do you not find the sound of Latin much more pleasing to the ear?"

"E. Latin is a beautiful language."

"Then perhaps you should consider becoming a Roman Catholic."

"Absolutely not!" Amanda said. She pounded the dashboard of the sedan with such force that the dust swirled up around them, creating the effect of a snow globe.

"Is it not possible for a heathen to speak Latin?" Cripple asked.

"Let us speak no more of religious matters-or of Latin," the monsignor suggested. "Our only task now should be to find Captain Pierre Jardin."

Pierre's heart raced. It was a familiar feeling, an enjoyable feeling, one he experienced every time he hunted, no matter his prey-beast or man. And since he was an exceptionally honest man, if he'd been asked just then, he would have answered quite truthfully that he found hunting man the more exciting pastime, if only because most men at least were fair game. Made it a fair game? How did one say it in English? Never mind, the point was that he enjoyed the hunt when it came to man. Only the hunt.

You would think that someone so visible one minute, like Jonathan Pimple, could not simply disappear the next minute. But that is exactly what he did. Jonathan Pimple vanished right before his eyes. He just melted into the crowd. True, the natives all had coal black hair, and most men kept theirs cropped short, but by no means did they all look alike. There were tribal differences often relating to skin tone and height, and of course there were always individual differences.

Every person, every animal, indeed every piece of vegetation on this planet is an individual in that it has been shaped by outside forces peculiar to the s.p.a.ce it occupies. It is these differences, sometimes virtually invisible to the untrained eye, that both the sophisticated government spy and the illiterate bush tracker learn to pick up on. Although Pierre was neither of the two, he leaned toward tracker, yet with all the people milling about he knew that tracking in the literal sense would be a lost cause.

So would looking for Jonathan Pimple at his hut; Pierre didn't even waste any time considering that. Well, the main thing, now that he couldn't find Jonathan Pimple, was to find Amanda. All Pierre really wanted Jonathan for was to warn him away from harming Amanda. She was new to the Congo, he'd intended to say, and she didn't understand the power that the resurrection cults had on a people who had been oppressed for centuries. Also, this Jonathan Pimple fellow better be sure he knew what he was getting into, if he was going to be concocting similar scenarios between his cult and the Kibanguists. The latter did not respond lightly to mockery.

He was considering his course of action when he heard a cough at his elbow. Coughing to get attention was an African thing to do; thus Pierre was rather surprised to see a tall, thin white man with blue-gray eyes. After a second or two, he realized it was the Flemish mulatto, the poor lad who would be forever trapped between two worlds, yet stuck in one.

"Excusez-moi, Capitaine," the merchant said softly, "if you are wondering where your friends are, I can tell you."

"What? How do you know who my friends are?"

"Monsieur, I am a lonely man; or have you not recognized that it is I, the dancing, singing, happy mulatto resident of Belle Vue workers' village? I am too white to be black, and too black to be white-like a spotted goat, nasha? I have no friends-not even a wife. So I content myself with keeping track of everyone else's whereabouts."

"Ah, tres bien! Do you know where Jonathan Pimple is?"

"Tch," the Flemish mulatto said, sounding just like a native, for indeed he was, no? "Monsieur, is he your priority?"

"Do not tell me my priority!" Pierre roared. Then, aware that his outburst had drawn a great deal of unwanted interest, he lowered his voice. "Please, give me news of my friends."

"Very well. First, Madame Cabochon-she with the large mabele-she went back down the hill to the Missionary Rest House. The other two-the pretty young American woman and the Muluba woman named Cripple-they have foolishly set off down the road that the fishermen use when they catch capitaine in their dugouts next to the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters."

"Merci." Pierre grabbed the man's slim hand, gave it a quick shake, and then, just before he turned to go, the thought occurred to him. "Why is it so foolish for them to go down that road, monsieur?"

The Flemish mulatto beamed. No doubt he was enjoying such a long exchange with a real white man.

"Because Monsignor Clemente is pursuing them, monsieur."

"What nonsense," Pierre said angrily, for he had caught on to the half-caste's game. "Why would the monsignor pursue them?"

"Ah, now you have asked the important question! You see-"

"Out with it, you fool!"

"He intends to kill them."

Chapter 36.

The Belgian Congo, 1958 There was no sign of Pierre at the river's edge, just a pair of dugout canoes and a bazillion dancing yellow and black b.u.t.terflies. The water level seemed up, but not like it had been immediately following the storm. Although Amanda had never viewed the Kasai River from this location, she was still very much aware that something was missing from the scenery, that something being most of the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters.

In the island's place was a tangle of immense, upended trees, their circular root systems and flying b.u.t.tresses denuded of soil. Some of the trees terminated like the tips of ski poles, others like eggbeaters, but all on a giant's scale, of course. Nowhere in that mess was there even a suggestion of dry land.

"There is no need to even stop," Amanda said to the chauffeur.

"Mademoiselle," the monsignor said gently, "he is my chauffeur, oui?"