The Headhunter's Daughter (15 page)

At any rate, for the past six years Protruding Navel had been saving up to purchase a house—a real house with a tin roof—in the Jacaranda Grove section of the workers’ village. This house was only steps away from one of the village’s four public water faucets. If they lived in this house then Protruding Navel’s wife, who was expecting her third child, would not have to carry her laundry or her water for more than a kilometer, as she did now. This house did not have electricity, but it had wooden shutters that could be closed at night against the mosquitoes, and best of all, it had two rooms! Imagine that;
two
rooms.

But in order to get this house Protruding Navel had to make sure that everything continued on as it was. The status quo had to be maintained. Thus it was that when he saw two men rolling about on the grass at the edge of the Missionary Rest House property; one of them white, one of them black, Protruding Navel was horrified. Not knowing what to do in this case he picked up a large fallen branch—one bereft of leaves—and began thrashing both men soundly.

“You fools,” he cried.

“
Aiyee!
” the Headhunter groaned as he tried to shield his face.

“Stop it,” roared the enraged missionary.

Protruding Navel was, of course, horrified at what he had done, and would have stopped immediately—perhaps even run away from the scene—but then it occurred to him that this would be the perfect opportunity to beat a white man. Down came the stick—
thwack
,
thwack
,
thwack
—across the missionary’s blubbery back.

“You heathen Mushilele,” Protruding Navel shouted. “How dare you try and harm this white man, this emissary of God? I should beat you even harder for this.”
Thwack
,
thwack
,
thwack
.

“Ow! Damn you to hell, you son of a bitch!” Despite his great size, and the steady onslaught from the houseboy’s makeshift cudgel, the white man had managed to get to his feet. “How dare you strike me?” he roared. “I am a white man! A
white
man.”

Protruding Navel gave each man another whack. The missionary received his blow across the bottom, and as a result he lurched forward but remained standing. The Headhunter was smitten across his broad shoulders and knocked temporarily back to the ground.

Having regained his balance the missionary advanced on the houseboy like a man intending to do severe bodily harm. Alas, the time for games was over. No longer could Protruding Navel hide behind the excuse that he had suffered momentary confusion. This white man was not so easily fooled. With flight as his only other option, Protruding Navel closed his eyes and held his clenched fists by his sides. The offending stick now lay on the ground at his feet.

However, the
muambi
did not strike the lowly servant, as was his right in this case. “Extended Belly,” he sputtered, “or whatever your name is, you are going to be very sorry for this! Believe me.”

“
Eyo, muambi
.”

The white man was silent for a long time. Finally, Protruding Navel couldn’t stand the silence, so he opened his eyes. Much to his distress he saw tears in the
muambi
’s strange green eyes. How was a mere houseboy—even if he were a chief’s son—to deal with such an embarrassing turn of events? He need not have worried too much, for things only got worse.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he Headhunter’s Daughter wanted nothing more than to go home, to return to her village. Perhaps the only thing she wanted more was to see her father again, for she was not sure at that point that he had kept his word—that he had been
able
to keep his word—and remain within hearing distance of her cries. Oh how glorious it would be to see her mother, her
baba,
again, and her
baba
’s best friend, Iron Sliver. Even the annoying village children, even the cruelest among them, would be a welcome sight.

“Be patient,” the little crippled one was saying. “It will be all right.”

Yes, but for whom? Ugly Eyes felt naked in the blue dress selected for her because it didn’t even come down to the knees. Only the village harlot dared wear her
madiba
above her knees, and she was mocked and spat upon by the other women. That was certainly not a life to which one should aspire.

Then there was the matter of the breast garment. It was meant to draw attention to the breasts, and surely it did, for it generated strange lumps beneath the cloth of the dress that should rightly scare away any man who was not possessed by malevolent spirits. It made the hair on her arms and neck stand on end.

As to her hair; it was frightening. Her hair closely resembled the dried grass sewn around the perimeter of the witch doctor’s mask. That was meant to give the impression of a lion’s mane. Who was the girl who wished to look like that? It was not Ugly Eyes.

Simply said, it was all too much. Too much had happened since yesterday; too much was happening that very moment, too much which was strange and frightening. Ugly Eyes could no longer contain herself.

“I want to go home,” she said, in a loud, clear voice. She spoke the words in Tshiluba, the trade language, so that the white
mamu
named Ugly Eyes, and the
Bula Matadi
, would understand.

There fell a silence such as there is immediately following a flash of lightning. Then the white
mamu
gasped and clapped her hands to her cheeks.

“You
do
know Tshiluba! Why did you and your father—wait, does he speak it as well?”

“Lady
mamu
,” Ugly Eyes said, “we are the Bashilele; we are not savages like the Bapende people. Of course we speak the regional language in addition to your own. It is a pity, however, that you do not speak our language since it does not assault the ears as does Tshiluba.”

“
Aiyee
,” the little one cried. “See how this white woman lies!”

“I am
not
a white woman,” Ugly Eyes said. She wanted to look each person in their face, but instead could look only at her own feet.

“Yes, you are a white woman,” Mamu Ugly Eyes said. “If not that, then at least a white girl.”

“I am an albino,” said the real Ugly Eyes. This was a notion that she longed to believe, but could not. Mother and Father had shown her the difference. They had taken her to visit a real albino, and held her healthy arm up next to his blistered skin. The difference was indeed clear, but the truth so unwelcome. Where
had
she come from? Surely not from people such as these.

“No, you are not an albino,” the white
mamu
said. Sadly, even she could not be fooled.

“What is your name?” demanded the
Bula Matadi
.

“Ugly Eyes.”

“Who told you to say that?” the white
mamu
said, suddenly very agitated. “Did Cripple tell you?”

“
Aiyee
,” Cripple wailed again. “Not me. Why, until just a few minutes ago I was unaware that this bush rat was capable of speech.”

Ugly Eyes smiled. “Cripple, you and Iron Sliver would make fast friends, for you both enjoy the advantage of quick wits. But you are a witness to the fact that it was me who spoke first of this name.”

“Is this true?” the
Bula Matadi
said.

“
E
,” Cripple said.

It was then that the old white man—the one who had the gall to claim that he was her father—said something. Since he spoke in one of the foreign languages, Ugly Eyes didn’t understand a word. However, she hoped it had to do with him withdrawing his claim to her, so that she could return to her village. At once! She would gladly walk that distance, by the way.

“Permit me to translate—please,” said the
Bula Matadi
. “This man is the chief of this village. His name is Chief Raging Baboon.” The
Bula Matadi
paused to glare at Cripple for giggling. “Chief Raging Baboon has offered to give a big feast in your honor at his house tonight. The entire village is to be invited. Of course, as his daughter, you are to be the guest of honor.”

Ugly Eyes squelched an impulse to spit on the
Bula Matadi
, because she realized that he was merely the translator, and not responsible for these words. Besides, he was a very attractive man—despite the color of his skin.

“This man is
not
my father. If he wants my father to attend this feast, then someone must invite him.”

Cripple laughed openly despite cautionary looks from both the
Bula Matadi
and the young white woman.

“I will give him the message,” the young
Bula Matadi
said.

Chapter Sixteen

W
hen Protruding Navel, coward that he was, opened his eyes, the white man was gone. But so was the Headhunter. Protruding Navel had heard the sound of scuffling, and grunting, like the sound of pigs mating in the banana grove, and then a thin reedy screech, like that of a hawk as it calls for a mate. Then silence—well, but for the roar of the falls. There was always the falls.

For some the constant noise of water striking against rocks was soothing, whereas for others, it brought on the pains that threatened to split open one’s head. Generally, it was the women who suffered more from this disease, but Protruding Navel also suffered from such pains.

Sometimes it was a thunderstorm that brought on the suffering. Other times it could be a simple act, such as beating
Mamu
’s braided rugs, of which there were many, and from which great clouds of dust flew up, as if each rug contained a miniature drought’s worth. Yet another source of these intense pains was stress, and as far as Protruding Navel could reckon, absolutely nothing in his life until then had been quite as stress producing as beating a white man with a mango branch as thick as his thumb.

On another day Protruding Navel might have investigated the sudden, almost mystical absence of the other two men, or even considered the thin reedy cry of the hawk, but today he had all he could do just to keep from gathering his knees to his chest and calling aloud for his
baba
. In order to appear as a semblance of a man, if only a lazy, sleeping Lulua man, Protruding Navel stretched out in the shade of a mango tree, put one of the
mamu
’s “borrowed” handkerchiefs over his face, and pretended to sleep. With any luck, in due course, real sleep would follow.

Madame Cabochon checked her reflection in a car window one last time. It was important that she present a flawless appearance; after all, she was
the
most beautiful woman in Belle Vue—bar none. It was a fact even, not just an opinion. Everyone thought so; you could see it in their eyes. In the men’s eyes you could see lust, whereas in the women’s eyes it was envy or hate. Yes, there were a couple of men who were unaffected by her great beauty in a sexual sort of way, and perhaps one woman who was, but even these individuals still made it clear that they too worshipped at the altar of Madame Cabochon’s perfection. Surely Madame Cabochon was worthy of being encased in glass and exhibited in a museum somewhere.

She was like an alabaster vase clothed in purple silks and satins. Her flaming hair spilled down her back like a miniature replica of the Belle Vue falls, drawing attention to the shockingly low V cut of her dress. It was virtually impossible to tear one’s eyes away from Madame Cabochon. That’s what they would say when they recalled the party that the OP threw for that savage daughter of his.

So what was an exquisite beauty like the madame doing in the Congo in the first place? She had the good fortune of being born in Coquilhatville, in the north of the country, on a palm oil plantation. Like Captain Pierre Jardin, she had the Belgian Congo in her blood. So rather than “return” to Belgium when she reached the age of majority, she married a member of the Consortium and moved to Belle Vue, where she was perfectly miserable.
Except
for events like tonight.

“Francois,” she said, having approved of her reflection long enough, “do you hear the music? I don’t recognize it. American, no?”

“Screw American,” her husband growled—in French, of course. Francois was not in the mood for anything American. When he’d heard that missionaries had been invited, he’d almost refused to come.
Almost
, because he really had no choice, without arousing suspicion. After all, it wasn’t common knowledge that Francois’s mother was German, and as far as he knew, nobody was aware of the fact that just before the Germans marched into Brussels, the Cabochon household had hung a large flag of the Third Reich from their second-story windows.

It was indeed toe-tapping rock ’n’ roll from America that the gorgeous Madame Cabochon heard. She couldn’t wait to get down into the thick of things, shed her husband, and start shaking it up a bit—perhaps with that cute Captain Pierre Jardin.
Mais oui
, so he had eyes for the young American hostess of the Missionary Rest House, but so what? The word
missionary
said it all, did it not? No missionary could compete with Madame Cabochon. That was like having a nun compete with Cleopatra.

“Ah Francois,” she said, succumbing to the beat. “Promise me, you won’t be a
drag
.” She said the last word in English. She’d learned it on the shortwave, along with “rock ’n’ roll.” Congo born and bred, but still up on things, eh?

But Francois was not altogether pleasant. Instead of answering, he forged ahead. What a pity that he didn’t care for her; what fun they could have had as a couple just getting to where the real action took place. Because to reach the terrace where the phonograph and buffet tables were set up, one must wend one’s way down the hillside through a series of gardens and terraces lit by torches. It was so dramatic! Really a lot of fun! And with servants in full livery to point the way at every turn.

“Excuse me.” At a dark turn in the path, where the torch was unlit, and there was no servant to point the way, a figure stepped forward and thrust an envelope in her hands.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Give this to the OP,” the figure said. Then it was gone.

It had happened so fast, that recreating it in her mind was really pointless. The messenger was African, male, but so what? That could have been any of the servants, or none of them. As for the envelope—damn! It was sealed.

Madame Cabochon, her heart pounding from the encounter, slowed her descent as she pondered the ramifications of her two choices. If she withheld the envelope, so that she could read its contents, she might find herself with a powerful possession. On the other hand, the contents could spell trouble, something that only the OP could avert. At the very least, by delivering the document to its rightful owner she would cement her husband’s position in the company, if only by the smallest fraction, and every little bit helped these days.

Alors,
she would do the right thing!

Cripple reached the workers’ village just as the first of the jackals came bounding out of the
tshisuku
and onto the road behind her. What wondrous news there was to share with Husband. Who but Husband would believe what strange things Cripple had seen and heard in the white woman’s house that day?
Yala
, it would be an evening of recounting like no other.

But when Cripple finally hobbled into the family compound, she found no fire, no bubbling pot of bidia calling to be stirred, no laughing children—no crying ones for that matter—only Husband sitting in the dark on his slant-back wooden chair, his head in his hands.

“Husband!” Cripple cried. “What is it? What has happened?”

“It is Second Wife,” he said. “Her brother came to take her home.”

“What? I do not understand.”

But Cripple did understand. Ever since Husband had allowed himself to be caught up in a white man’s plot to smuggle an enormous diamond out of Belle Vue, the family had had less luck than a stewing hen. First Husband lost his job at the post office, and then a windstorm blew their hut’s roof halfway to Angola. In a culture where a brother had more rights to his sister’s children than did their biological father, it was time to step in.

“It is only temporary,” Husband said. “There were no discussions about returning the dowry.”

“Of course not,” Cripple said. She bit the inside of her cheek. How much
had
Husband paid for Second Wife? Five goats? More than that?
Aiyee
, she must not think of such things. The girl Morning Joy was truly a joy to be around. And the baby, the one Second Wife had recently named Amanda, who could not help but love that cheerful little boy?

“Cripple,” Husband said without looking up.

“Yes, Husband.”

“Do you think that your missionary might have a job for me?”

Cripple sighed softly and then carefully considered the question. Meanwhile, the village noises of happy families, laughing women, crying babies, bleating livestock and soft beating of drums filled the void that seemed to suddenly exist between Cripple and Husband.

“I will ask,” she finally said. “But remember, Husband, that you are a witchdoctor, and she is a Christian. The same might be asked, what need does a snake have of an eagle?”

“Which am I?” Husband asked.

“It was a white man’s question, of the sort not meant to be answered.” She paused long enough to let him know that she was on to something new. “Husband?”

“Yes, Cripple?”

“Is it only money that we lack?”

“
Tch.
No. It is face. Second Wife’s brother cannot allow her children to live in the house of a failed witch doctor, one who can not even keep his job with the
Bula Matadi
.”

“You are not a failed witch doctor! How many potions did you prescribe this week? How many curses did you put in place, or lift?”

“Two people came to see me, an old man and a woman with a baby. I sold the woman a small antelope horn for the baby to wear as an amulet against the night spirits, and I prepared a potion for the old man to drink so that his tree might once again become firm and hard, such as it once was, and no longer the soft useless sapling that it is now—”

“Husband,” Cripple said, not caring that she interrupted, because Husband almost never beat her, “does this tree of which you speak press its foliage against his groin, so that it grows upside down?”

“
Kah!
” Husband slapped his thighs, he laughed so hard. “Cripple, the priest at my Catholic school would not approve of you.”

“Husband, nor would I approve of him.”

“Nevertheless, Cripple, we cannot stay in this house, for when the rains come to stay we shall drown like the toads that fall in the privy. And as we do not own this land, we have nothing to sell or trade that is of any value except for a few useless potions and bits of animals tied on to raffia strings.”

Cripple sank to her haunches. “But Husband, what are you saying? These things—these potions and animal parts—they are full of magic. Surely they have value.”

Husband sighed, and suddenly the village sounds were far less soothing. Cripple thought that she already knew the answer—at least part of it. For many years already it had troubled her mind that such ordinary things, items gathered by Husband’s own hands, should somehow become magic simply because he declared them to be so. An antelope horn was a horn—simply that. Yet there were indeed herbs and potions—such as the aphrodisiac—that did appear to work.

“Wife,” Husband said, “I have powders that soothe, and some to ease pain, and the one of which we spoke that makes the male member hard, but as for the spirit world, it is you, the heathen, who seems to be better connected than I.”

“
Aiyee
,” Cripple said, “now that it is dark, let us not speak of that world.” She struggled to her feet. “Come, rise if you wish and light the kerosene lantern. Meanwhile I will look for food in what remains of the hut. Surely Second Wife will have left us something.”

“
E
, Cripple,” Husband said, rising quickly from his chair. “You are a good wife. I need not worry.”

“
Kah!
Husband, indeed you must worry, for I have become as forgetful as an old man of fifty years!” Cripple hastily unwrapped her head cloth. “Look what the white
mamu
has generously supplied for our supper!”

She proudly displayed a feast of two chicken legs, four boiled eggs, a third of a loaf of homemade bread, a slab of Blue Band margarine, and two very ripe, somewhat spotted bananas. Husband squatted to better examine the goods.

“Wife,” said Husband, “truly I am astounded. What is the meaning of this? What is it that the white
mamu
desires of you?”

“Husband, it is not what she desires; it is something else that she offers.”

Husband looked longingly at the chicken legs and then back into his wife’s eyes. “Cripple, you are a very wise woman. But a wise woman seldom marries a fool. I know that you find her offer most attractive, am I right?”

“Very much so.”

“At the same time, you dare not refuse her demand—for indeed there is a demand as well. Am I right again?”

“Yes, Husband. You are so often right,” Cripple said, in just the right tone to make Husband smile with satisfaction.

“Then please explain.”

“There is to be a
fete
given in honor of the new white
mamu
tonight. I am to be there as—ah—”

“Servant?”

“
Nasha!
I am there to give her comfort should she need it; she is just a child, after all, and the ways of the white man are still very strange to her.”

“Where is this fete? At the Missionary Rest House?”

“
Nasha
. It is at the house of the OP.”