E, Jonathan Pimple had had no real intention of becoming a Roman Catholic; there had just been a couple of things he had need of clarifying. When he died, the night of that great storm, his mind was very much clearer than it had been in a very long time.

Chapter 25.

The Belgian Congo, 1935 Jonathan Pimple was taken, along with men from many tribes, to a place that even the imagination could not go without the head as its companion. It was called a city, and the name of this one was Belle Vue. Since no words can properly describe this place, no further description shall be given here, other than to say that there was a Belgian side and a Congolese side, and the great Kasai River divided the two.

In those days it was possible to get back and forth between the two sides via a ferry, a wooden platform lashed atop four large dugout canoes. However, there was, at the time of Pimple's arrival, a war being fought in the faraway lands of the white men, and it was rumored that a bridge connecting the two sides of the river would be critical in providing necessary materials for that war. So it was that Pimple was put to work helping to build what was surely the most impressive bridge in all of Kasai Province, and quite possibly it was the most impressive bridge in all the Belgian Congo, maybe even in the entire world-for who could possibly know how far the world extended?

One day Jonathan Pimple overheard two other men speaking Kipende and hurried over to them as soon as he was able, which was as soon as the gong had sounded signaling the end of the workday.

"Brothers," he said, "I too am a Mupende."

At first the men looked surprised, and then their looks grew angry. "Do you joke at our expense?" one asked.

"No, I would not do so, for we are brothers."

Then one man pulled a knife from the waistband of his shorts and held it up to Jonathan Pimple's chin. "Listen to me, stranger; there are large crocodiles that lie in wait at the bottom of these waterfalls. It would be my pleasure to feed you to these beasts."

Jonathan Pimple did not flinch. "Truly, brothers, I do not understand your hostile reaction," he said.

The knife blade was lowered the distance of a thumbnail. "A Mupende's teeth are filed, as are yours, but he does not speak with a Bajembe accent," the knife wielder said.

"E," Jonathan Pimple said, "you have spoken the truth; my Kipende accent is atrocious. You see, I was captured as a small boy by a raiding party, and then sold to a very fat Mujembe. My master was a cruel man who forbade me to speak anything but his language. He threatened to cut out my tongue if I so much as uttered one word in my native Kipende."

"I once heard of a very fat Mujembe," said the man with the knife. "This fat man was said to possess many slaves because he could barely manage to walk. It was said that even to use the bush, this man had to be carried. Tell me, where does he live?"

"He does not live, brother, for the soldier who brought me here shot this man in the stomach. It was my pleasure to watch him die."

"Yala!" cried the other man.

"Tell me," said the knife wielder, "how is it that you persuaded a proper Mus.h.i.+lele to perform the teeth-filing ceremony on you, one with the accent of a Mujembe?"

"Because, brother, I was able to persuade this man that I was the son of the great Bapende chief-Chief Nyanga-Yanga."

The two men stared at Jonathan Pimple, their eyes bulging like those of a great carp, one that has been dead two days in a stagnant pool of water.

"Surely he did not believe you!" The man with the knife had puffed his chest out in order to appear larger, and he was breathing hard. He smelled of hate and anger.

"Eyo, it was not hard to convince him, for indeed I was telling the truth. After all, no ordinary boy would confess to being born one of twins."

Upon hearing these words the other man appeared extremely agitated. "What was the name given you as an infant?"

"I was given the name Ts.h.i.+s.h.i.+." Torment. "For I was the boy who stole the leopard's spots."

Chapter 26.

The Belgian Congo, 1958 Amanda Brown now knew what it was like to be in love. Despite the devastating destruction of the bridge that stood as the symbol of his country's sovereignty over the local peoples, Pierre's only thought seemed to be for her. The powerful OP and his mousy wife, the voluptuous and seductive Madame Cabochon, the maddeningly influential Roman Catholic cleric-all these people seemed to take a backseat in Pierre's eyes as soon as the battered blue truck jerked to a full stop.

Although they were still many hundreds of yards away from the Missionary Rest House, that rather significant fact did not affect Amanda's progress one whit. Captain Pierre Jardin simply scooped her up in his strong arms and, with the agility of a goat, scrambled over rocks the size of was.h.i.+ng machines. In no time at all, he had her at the front door. There, much to Amanda's surprise, they were met by the head houseboy, Protruding Navel.

No, that's not exactly what happened: Mama would scarcely believe the truth when she wrote her, and Papa would certainly disapprove. The front door to the Missionary Rest House was unlocked, as no missionary ever locked his or her doors (there not even being locks on the doors), so Pierre merely pushed his way in. The electric was still not on, of course, and no lanterns had been lit, but by then the moonlight was strong enough that one could literally have read in bed.

One certainly didn't need nearly that much light to see that Protruding Navel was dressed in one of Amanda's very best frocks. The servant was slight in build, only half a head taller than she was, so that her bright yellow, "just in case" party dress with the full-circle taffeta skirt fit him remarkably well. The cheeky fellow had even gone so far as to stuff something in the bosom area because, truth be told, he had a remarkably feminine shape. The funny thing was that, had he been wearing a wig or head covering of some sort, Protruding Navel could have pa.s.sed for a woman-but an African woman in the latest Rock Hill fas.h.i.+on.

"W-wewe!" Amanda said. You! It wasn't even an accusation.

"Mamu," Protruding Navel said, "you must take this dress to the woman in the village who sews for the whites. The middle portion here"-he patted his midriff-"will not fit my wife for she has given birth to four children and the fifth has now taken up residence inside her."

Amanda felt her feet touch the floor, and she was gently pushed into a living room chair. It was a useless gesture of concern on Pierre's part, because Amanda bounded back up like a weighted punching bag.

"Protruding Navel," she shouted. "What are you doing in my diyeke?"

The head housekeeper smiled indolently. Yes, even indoors, because of the moonlight she could see him smirk.

"It is not yours, Mamu." This he said with a toss of his small, round Bena Lulua head; indeed, was that not their chief racial characteristic?

"What do you mean by it is not mine? Of course it is! Everything in this house is mine!" She had to stop herself from adding that even he, Protruding Navel, was hers-in a manner of speaking, of course.

"Because, mistress, when the great day of independence comes, all that belongs to the oppressor shall be ours."

"That is a lie! Where did you hear such rubbish?"

The man in the yellow frock stiffened, transfigured into a bizarre mannequin, like one she had chanced to see in a Charlotte shop window when her parents had gotten lost driving back from the circus, and they'd found themselves in the colored part of town.

Amanda had been in the Belgian Congo only a few months and already there was talk of expelling all the whites. That wasn't fair! More important, surely that couldn't be G.o.d's plan for her. How did the Lord expect her to atone for the deaths of the innocent people whose lives had been stolen, all because she and some fellow Winthrop College cla.s.smates had recklessly decided to drive to Gaffney, South Carolina, while drunk one night?

"There is a great prophet in the village now," Protruding Navel said. "Have you not heard, Mamu? E, but I am sure that you have. This prophet is none other than our new headman. He knows these things because he is both a Kibanguist and a Communist who has studied in Russia. Unlike other Communists, he preaches that it is not necessary to give up one's beliefs, especially if they are traditional."

Amanda could not deny that she'd inherited a bit of a temper from the Brown side of her family, and she could feel the ire in her rising now from the tips of her toes like floodwaters. Soon she would choke and drown on her rage if she didn't open a sluice gate. At the same time she felt the firm, yet somehow gentle, restraining hand of Captain Pierre Jardin, the young Belgian who had been born and raised in the Congo, and who understood the locals far better than she ever would-even if independence for the Congo never came to pa.s.s, and she were to die an eighty-year-old virgin, still on the mission field.

How was it that Pierre, who was not a Christian but a Roman Catholic, was at the same time a far better Christian than she was? This was one of the first questions she would pose to the Lord when she got to heaven. And why was it, anyway, that Catholics were excluded from heaven when they also believed in the saving blood of Jesus? Was it just because they prayed to Mary on the side? If that was the only reason, then did that mean that all the so-called Christians who lived prior to the Reformation were also doomed to spend eternity in h.e.l.l? Of course this was just cracking open the theological door, because then what about all the people who lived before the time of Jesus?

"Good girl," Pierre whispered. "Just allow me to handle this."

The handsome man of her dreams-her real dreams-crossed the room, spoke a few low words to the houseboy, and the two of them disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. It was then that Amanda realized that she hadn't garnered Pierre's approval through any action on her part, but through her slowness to respond. Well, perhaps that wasn't all bad; after all, the Bible does urge its readers to be slow to anger. For Amanda, this was progress.

The monsignor was at a loss. He'd tried but failed to climb the steep road that led up to the workers' village and Saint Mary's Catholic Church. What had once been a smooth expanse of red brown dirt was now a series of ruts so deep that one slip could easily result in a broken leg, and here in the tropics a broken leg with a protruding femur can quickly become septic, resulting in death. No, any attempt to scale the hill would have to wait until the morrow, even though he knew that Reutner would be frantic. Unfortunately, that geriatric Swiss priest had a very active imagination and might well indulge in some carnal supposition, thereby indirectly involving the monsignor in his sin. After all, anyone with two eyes in his head could see how Little Colette Underpants threw herself at him.

Yes, of course, tomorrow he would try his best again to get up that awful hill-perhaps through that snake-infested ts.h.i.+suku. Then again, who was he, Alberto Clemente, just because he was now a big-shot monsignor-who was he to desert the little lambs of the flock? What about the pitiful, dark-eyed Madame OP? She with the perpetually haunted look? Didn't Christ commend his disciple to especially care for those such as she? But screw the OP, the monsignor thought, and then made the sign of the cross to undo this small sin.

Quickly he filled his mind with something else, this time a spiritually borderline thought-if there could be such a thing. To put it succinctly-as he would pose it to his seminary students-he should be billeted in a Protestant home; most especially the home of a young beautiful single Protestant American missionary. Every one of those adjectives just added to the gravity of the sin. However, at the same time, the word missionary had a very strong pull; if he could manage to convert her to the true church, think of what a victory that would be for Mother Rome!

So when the vivacious young American (made somewhat less so by the appearance of her housekeeper in a woman's yellow dress) invited him, for a second time, to spend the night, the monsignor politely accepted. He was careful, however, not to sound too eager.

"Bon!" cried Madame Cabochon, "for I too have decided to spend the night. Isn't this exciting?"

"Exciting?" said the OP. "We are cut off from our town, and I am separated from my diamond mine-let's face it. We are virtual prisoners here on the black side of the river. Who knows what could happen, here or there?"

"What do you mean?" his wife said. She was a very plain, timid little thing who seemed, at least on the surface, better suited to life in a Brussels convent than in the Congo as a diamond mine operator's wife.

"I mean," he said, "that those savages could come running down that hill anytime they want to and start hacking at us with their machetes."

The OP, Monsieur Faberge, laughed insanely as he cut the air with his hands. "Chop, chop, chop." When no one even cracked a smile, he repeated his tasteless performance, and then said, "One must have a sense of humor here to survive, yes?"

"Yes," said the monsignor, "but you, monsieur, are not humorous; you are a monstrous fool. And as I have absolutely no doubt that you will not apologize to the lovely ladies here, I shall do so on your behalf. Mesdames et mademoiselle, our Heavenly Father created men, and he created a.s.ses. The creation known as Monsieur Faberge is not a man. Therefore kindly disregard the remarks he just made. Rest a.s.sured that the natives in the village are by and large Christians, and far less dangerous than is he."

The swarthy little Belgian advanced on him, chest out, fists balled. He looked far more pathetic than he did dangerous. Clearly the man had no idea that Monsignor Clemente worked out regularly in the archbishop's private gym.

"Fermez la bouche," the runt said softly. "Or else."

The monsignor smiled, looking past him. "Mademoiselle Brown," he said, "if you will be so kind as to show me to my quarters, I will take my leave for the evening."

At first Amanda thought that the previous night's happenings had all been a bad dream. The nightmare was almost as bad as one of many she'd experienced following the accident-that defining moment back in the Unites States when her entire universe had irrevocably turned on a dime. But unlike those mornings, when she'd awaken to find her sheets soaked with perspiration, and then gradually realize that she'd been dreaming, this morning her bedding was dry, and she knew at once that the horrifying sound of steel girders shearing apart was no dream.

Amanda sprang to her window. From here she normally enjoyed a breathtaking view of the falls, and the bridge that spanned it. A visiting missionary had once remarked that when Belgians chose to site the bridge over the most spectacular waterfall in the province-if not the colony-they were tugging playfully on G.o.d's beard. When the Belgians went ahead and actually built the bridge, they gave the beard a hard yank, laughed, and then sat back to wait and see what would happen next. Well, now they had their answer; the Good Lord didn't like his facial hair abused.

In the daylight, the first thing Amanda noticed was the color of the water. For much of its length the Kasai River runs through red clay hills and the runoff reflects this. Today, however, the water was gunmetal gray. The next thing puzzled her; the bridge appeared to be intact.

It was only after removing the screen and leaning out the window a good deal that Amanda was able to get a visual of the entire length of the bridge. The closest end, the one nearest the Missionary Rest House, remained fastened securely to its concrete pad. However, shortly beyond that, a gap of over three meters existed where once there had been metal girders covered by wood planks. Beneath that, crammed between the cliff face and next concrete piling, was a tree, the likes of which Amanda had never seen before.

The tree was one of a species that grew b.u.t.tresses-wooden wings, Amanda liked to refer to them. These natural supports for the tree extended a dozen feet in every direction at head height, so that the trunk, which by itself had a radius of ten feet, seemed even more ma.s.sive than that of the ancient live oaks Amanda had often observed growing along the Carolina coasts. In addition, the height of the trunk rose untapered and limb-free for at least sixty feet, whereupon it exploded, virtually forming its own little forest. Even from this great distance the young missionary from Rock Hill, South Carolina, thought she beheld a troop of black-and-white monkeys leaping about in its still leafy boughs.

It was a mesmerizing scene, and the avoidance aspect of her personality (which was quite considerable, actually) was willing to pull up a chair and watch, when movement to her right caught her eye. Oh my gos.h.!.+ There, on the back patio, was Monsignor Clemente, all decked out in his spotless black robes. He appeared to be serving coffee to the OP and his wife. Seated next to them on the back patio was Pierre, one brawny tanned leg crossed over the other at the knee. For some reason he'd already been served and was looking down at his cup. Then suddenly he looked up and waved at her, just as calmly as could be.

Amanda ducked back behind a curtain. What was going on in the world? Had everyone gone mad, including herself? Or were these people truly so adaptable, so used to calamity, that they could sit and enjoy a cup of coffee outdoors while surveying so much damage to the infrastructure that sh.o.r.ed up their lives?

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle Brown!"

Amanda whirled. Madame Cabochon stood in the doorway, swathed in a diaphanous peach robe that covered a matching baby doll pajama set. The pajama set belonged to Amanda and was something that she regarded as intensely personal. It was part of her trousseau, but now, as she felt her cheeks burning, she could not remember why she had decided to bring it to Africa.

Her extra pair of cotton pajamas had gone to Madame Faberge, who had nonetheless complained that she had never worn sleepwear with "legs." Then it was either lend Madame Cabochon the baby doll pajama set or allow her to sleep in the nude. For the record, Madame Cabochon had been all for the latter.

"Why aren't you dressed?" Amanda said.

"But I am," Madame Cabochon responded cheerily. "Come, there is something you must see."

The younger woman took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. "Perhaps you should come see this instead."

Madame Cabochon strode to the window, trailing her chiffon robe and a heady scent behind her. A cursory glance in either direction elicited merely a Gallic shrug.

"What fools they are, non? One would think that they are English, and that they are drinking tea, instead of coffee. Tell me, do you find their calmness admirable?"

"I most certainly do not! Why, in America we would be-"

"You would be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around like ants, yes?"

"The word is scurrying."

"And the bridge would be half rebuilt, am I correct?"

"Well-"

"You must remember, Mademoiselle Brown, that in America you have access to better technology and better means of communication. Here we live much like you did fifty-maybe one hundred-years ago. This means that there are many times when one must be happy to wait in the present."

Frankly, Amanda did not cotton to taking spiritual advice from a floozy, especially one wearing the baby doll set she'd bought and put aside for her wedding night-should that ever happen!

"Madame Cabochon," she began through clenched teeth, "I hardly think that-"

"Non, non! Now is not the time to think; you must come with me now." Madame Cabochon grabbed Amanda's hand and literally pulled her from her bedroom, through the living room, and out into the dazzling sunlight that invaded the front porch at that hour of the morning.

"Voila!" she said, pointing to the dirt parking area in front of the Missionary Rest House. Overnight the muddy red s.p.a.ce had erupted into a carpet of tiny yellow daisies that were quivering in a gentle morning breeze. It was a sight so beautiful that Amanda felt tears in her eyes, and her throat began to tighten. It was a miracle; it was truly a gift from heaven.

"Oh, thank you," she cried. "Thank you for insisting that I see this first thing-although I can't imagine how flowers can grow and bloom so fast. I mean, yesterday, it was a sea of mud. I must go get my box Brownie camera and photograph this sight. Someday, Madame Cabochon-mark my words-someday they will invent an affordable camera that photographs in color. If only I had such a thing, I could capture the true essence of these gorgeous flowers."

"But mademoiselle, those are not flowers! Those are-how do you say in English? 'b.u.t.ter that flies'? Yes, I am sure of it, b.u.t.ter that flies!"

"What? Do you mean b.u.t.terflies?"

"Alors, is that not what I just said?"

"Yes, but-"

Madame Cabochon, still clutching Amanda's hand, pulled the girl down the front steps. "Come, mademoiselle. We must dance with these b.u.t.terflies! It is good luck, non?"

"Excuse me?"

"Ah, this is a game that my sister and I played when we were little girls. Always we pretended that we were like Tinker Bell, non?"

"Like fairies?"

"Oui, that is the word! Come, you will enjoy; it is a harmless game."

As much as Amanda wished to dance among the yellow b.u.t.terflies, in the golden sunlight with Madame Cabochon in her borrowed swirling chiffon, there was one rather major problem; Southern Baptists of Amanda Brown's ilk did not dance. Dancing was of the devil, for it brought on s.e.xual thoughts. Dancing with the extravagantly endowed Colette Cabochon-well, G.o.d only knew to what abomination that might lead.