The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots Read online

  Curiosity, the chief knew, had killed many a monkey; so it was that by and by, the elders could not stop themselves from examining the giant paw and exclaiming over its authentic appearance. And with each new convert the witch doctor’s rage grew hotter and hotter. Meanwhile the chief slipped into his favorite wife’s hut and examined his twin sons. They were perfect in every way—and identical. How could it be that a demon existed in one, and not the other, as witch doctors always claimed?

  Then his first wife, the wife of his youth, and wife of his heart, spoke. Her voice was weak and sorrow filled.

  “My husband, I beg that you forgive me. I have disappointed you woefully. But if you must—as surely you must—put someone to death, say that the evil spirit has forsaken the babies, and that it has entered me. Then stuff the chili peppers up my nostrils and bury me in the anthill, for these children have done nothing to deserve death.”

  “Hush, wife.”

  “Husband,” she said, her voice growing stronger, “yes, I remember clearly as the pains of childbirth subside—yes, it was I who made a deal with this evil spirit—”

  “Shut up, woman!”

  The chief returned to the growing bedlam outside the hut. The witch doctor was still trying to stir up the emotions of the people along the lines of traditional thinking. Everything the witch doctor said made sense; that was the problem. It was normal for women to give birth to one child at a time, just as it was normal for goats to have twins. If a goat failed to give birth to twins, the goat was either too young or too old to do so, or else someone had a placed a curse upon the goat. But when a woman gave birth to twins—well, that could mean only one thing.

  The twin child was an evil spirit entering this world in a human form, one that had taken advantage of the mother’s hospitable womb. The problem lay in discerning which one of the infants contained the human soul, and which one contained the spirit from the netherworld. Unfortunately, there was no time to waste, as an evil spirit could wreak tremendous havoc on a village in just a matter of days—sometimes even within hours.

  For the greater good, it was therefore necessary to torture and then ultimately destroy both infants. The torture was not an act of unnecessary cruelty; the torture was the only way to make sure that this particular demon (and there were many waiting in the wings) would have no desire to attempt a return visit.

  When the husband reappeared in the doorway of his wife’s hut, the witch doctor practically shoved his monkey skull staff into the chief’s face. “You cannot fool a sorcerer,” said the witch doctor. “I will admit that this appears to be the paw that made tracks in our village. But it was you who killed the leopard, not one of the twins. How could a child that small—on the day of its birth—do anything except cry out for its mother’s milk?”

  The chief was careful to control his smile. “Ah,” he said, sounding like a man who had just finished gorging himself at a feast, rather than a father fighting for his infant son’s life. “The spirit of my son was able to do so even when he was yet in his mother’s womb, for he is the opposite of what you claim. He is a good spirit—a great spirit—he is the return of my ancestor, Chief Sends Death Ahead.”

  The chief waited until the many gasps, whimpers, and much chattering had ceased. Even the witch doctor appeared to know when it was wise to keep silent, for although his eyes flashed, even in the gathering dark of the upland village, he kept his lips pressed tightly together.

  Finally it was the chief who clapped his hands. “Behold my people, this is a new day for our village. Soon I shall tell you why. But first I shall tell you this: it is true that when he was yet in the womb—a second time—the spirit of my dead ancestor flew down to the forest, and there the boy beheld me taking aim at this mighty beast. ‘Father,’ he said wisely, in a voice that only I could hear, ‘what good will it do to kill this leopard, for then its spirit will be reborn into another, and when that is killed, it will return as another, and so on it shall go? It is much better, Father, that we do something to stop this animal in this life, than in its next.’ ”

  The witch doctor laughed scornfully. “All this palavering while you were taking aim?”

  The chief’s smile had long faded. “The words of the spirit are spoken quickly. In the mind. Is this not something a man in your position understands?”

  The people laughed heartily, which meant his comment could have been a big mistake for the chief and his family, but he was beyond caring. Fortunately, the witch doctor merely scowled before answering.

  “Yes, of course. Do not presume to tell me things that I already know.”

  “Well, then,” said the chief, “I asked my unborn son what he suggested that we do. ‘We must do two things,’ he said. ‘You must spare the leopard’s life in this world in exchange for one of his paws, and I shall prevent his spirit from returning ever again.’ ”

  The people in this Bapende village murmured in wonder at the unexpected wisdom that this twin’s unborn spirit had dispensed to his father, the chief. “Yes, yes,” a man cried. “It is well known that a lion with three paws becomes a man-eater, but a leopard with only three paws feels shame and will not be seen again.”

  The chief knew that this was false information, but he did not correct the man, for he did not wish to shame him. However, a leopard with three paws, if it survives the mutilation, could well become a man-eater. It is only that such animals are rarely encountered. Anyway, what is truth, except those things which the majority of people hold to be true? Besides, the chief knew that this man was not alone in his opinion.

  So the new father of twins pressed on with his strange tale. “I then asked my son—who was still in the womb, but whose powerful ancestor spirit stood beside me—how he proposed to stop the powerful leopard from returning from each death time as another leopard? Here is what he said: ‘Father, you must cut off his paw slowly. As he is writhing in pain, I shall sneak up on him and steal his spots. Without his spots he cannot die and be reborn as a leopard but is doomed to live perpetually in the spirit world. For all leopards have spots, even the black ones that are known as panthers. Under their blackness—when the sun strikes them just so—one can see spots.’ ”

  “Then where are these spots?” the witch doctor demanded. “Show them to us! And which one of the boys stole them? We must know his identity, in order that we might destroy the other.”

  “You are a fool and a simpleton,” the chief said, “for only the boy who stole the spots is capable of telling you. That can only happen when he is capable of human speech. However, since you claim to be able to understand the speech of spirits, then go back into my wife’s hut and ask each boy to speak to you as a spirit. But I say this to you, old man—in front of all my people—if you select the wrong child, then I myself will kill you. And I will cut off your hand that holds your sacred staff, just as I cut off the leopard’s paw.”

  The witch doctor’s eyes bulged, and a vein along his neck pulsed. Sweat streamed down his head, following the contours of his prominent brow. He raised his arms aloft and shook his staff so vigorously that the monkey skull flew off into crowd.

  “Your chief is lying to you,” he roared. “He has consented to having an evil spirit live in our village. Already this evil spirit has begun its work by inhabiting the body of your chief. How else could one possibly explain his ability to make a threat against me—the most powerful person in the tribe? Listen well, my people, remember that it is your witch doctor who holds the knowledge of all curses and potions, not your chief. Choose wisely whom you will follow.”

  Yet one by one the villagers drifted away, and for the first time that anyone could remember, they were not afraid to have twins living among them. Their chief had proved to them that he was a brave man, and they trusted him. Besides, was it not more comforting to believe that a twin was a good ancestor, instead of a demon? Yes, of course! And then there was the story of how the spirit child, no
t yet born, stole the leopard’s spots while it was enraged, thrashing about in pain. A story such as this was also of great comfort to children growing up in a land where leopards abounded.

  Father,” one of the chief’s twin sons asked, perhaps five long dry seasons, and ten rainy seasons, later: “Is it really true, that I, or my brother, stole a leopard’s spots? Neither of us can remember where we put them.”

  The chief smiled. “My son, do not ask the same of our stories as the white man demands of his own tales. Truth and information need not be the same thing. Someday you will understand this paradox. In the meantime, it would be wise if you both claim to be the boy who stole the leopard’s spots.”

  The boy nodded, for he was wise beyond his years.

  Chapter 1

  The Belgian Congo, 1935

  The boys were still naked when they attended their first ceremony, which meant that they had yet to grow the hair that would mark them as men. No one in the tribe could remember children so young ever being admitted to the eating-of-flesh ceremony, and it was a matter of much whispered discussion among the women. Even the elders were bewildered by such a drastic break with tradition, but the boys’ father was the chief, and he was adamant that his sons should partake in the sacred ritual. Thus it was so.

  It was only when the chief agreed to shoulder all responsibility for this particular ceremony that the elders acquiesced—although there are some things that no man, even a chief, can guarantee. If the spirits were displeased, they would punish only the chief. However, should the Belgians discover that the men in this village still practiced the ancient custom of cannibalism, they would hang every last one of the village men until dead, and then string them up to swing from the trees that grew along the road that stretched between Nyanga and the Loange River.

  The boys were privy to these discussions, but they were not afraid; only curious. In what manner were the victims prepared? How would they, meaning the boys, feel after partaking in this ceremony? Would it, in fact, right the wrong that had been perpetrated against the one brother?

  Chapter 2

  The Belgian Congo, 1958

  Despite the heat Madame Cabochon carried her breakfast of coffee, croissant, and pineapple out to the terrace, where she could watch the baby hippos frolic. Across from the Cabochons’ house, the Island of Seven Ghost Sisters divided the Kasai River neatly in two, and the water on the lee side was rife with enormous crocodiles. But nature had armed hippopotamuses, which are vegetarian, with tusklike teeth, as much as eight inches long, and even large crocs are reluctant to tangle with an angry mama hippo.

  Today the water was the lowest Madame Cabochon had ever seen it get, so for a change she paid more attention to the island than to the wildlife it supported. According to one legend, the island took its name from the ghosts of seven sisters who drowned while trying to escape from a cruel husband whom they shared in common, when the canoe they were riding in was overturned by one of the aforementioned mother hippos. But the missionaries will tell you that the island was given this name because the natives are afraid of ghosts, and that the island is used by a secret and very wicked society that initiates girls into womanhood.

  As much as Madame Cabochon disliked missionaries—they were forever trying to get the Africans to put on clothes—she believed their account. This was only because she had seen with her own eyes the dugout canoes packed with young girls approach the island from the far side, where the shore was unfavorable for hippo calves. At night she would lie awake and thrill to the pulsating drums, as a very drunk, and exceedingly corpulent, Monsieur Cabochon, who reeked of Johnnie Walker Red, would lie sweating beside her, like a volcano oozing magma, and snore.

  During those long nights, Madame Cabochon ached to have been born African. Of course she dared not ever share this longing with another living soul, so bizarre was it. Nor dare she even, in the safety of a confessional, whisper that she found the sight of a Mushilele, a headhunter, with his loincloth slung low beneath sculpted abdomen, somewhat stimulating.

  Madame Cabochon was a Belgian, born of Belgian parents. She had, however, been born in the Belgian Congo, which was a huge colony sprawled across the heart of the African continent. Therefore, since Africa was the place of Madame Cabochon’s nativity, did this not make her a native of Africa? Of course it did, Madame Cabochon reasoned.

  After all, the sights of Africa, the smells, the sounds, the tastes, had all found their way into the developing fetus via her mother’s nervous system. Someday science would prove that; just wait and see. Someday—just not today. Madame Cabochon wasn’t stupid.

  She drained the last of her coffee and then licked her fingertip so that she might dab up the croissant crumbs remaining on her plate. Madame Cabochon was a sensual woman who firmly believed in satisfying all her senses. Since she was stuck being a Belgian, she might as well enjoy everything European with gusto, and croissants were one thing that Europe had gotten right.

  Sunday was her cook’s day off, so the pineapple had been sliced the day before and kept in the refrigerator. Since even someone who is only pretending to be a European would still eat everything with a knife and a fork—even an orange—Madame Cabochon had brought with her from the kitchen a very sharp little knife that the cook used when he sliced uncooked yams and other tough root vegetables.

  Madame Cabochon did not believe in luck; she believed in opportunity. It was just as she was picking up the sharp little knife to cut the pineapple slice into bite-size pieces that Madame Cabochon noticed the snake. It was a green mamba, one of Africa’s deadliest snakes, and it was coiled around the armrest of her husband’s chair—less than a meter away.

  Mambas have a reputation for being aggressive; Madame Cabochon had heard Congolese women speak of being chased from their fields by these venomous serpents. Well, there was no point in finding out if these tales were true. Opportunity had also presented itself, so Madame Cabochon took it. Without wasting a second to think about the consequences, she lunged at the snake, her arm fully extended.

  When Madame Cabochon clambered to her feet a few seconds later, the mamba’s head had been severed, but Madame Cabochon’s favorite church dress—the deep forest green frock with the questionably low neckline and slash pockets trimmed in white—was splattered with small flecks of blood. “Merde,” she said aloud. Then, without giving the matter much thought, Madame Cabochon picked up the severed mamba head using some tissues she kept in her slash pockets and went inside to survey herself in a mirror.

  Honestly, one would never guess that this blond bombshell had just celebrated her forty-eighth birthday, and in great style! Every white in town had been invited, and everyone sober enough to walk or drive had shown up although none of them knew her age. Not even Monsieur Cabochon, who was too drunk to find his way out of their bedroom, knew her true age. That was because her uncle had been the marriage registrar in Stanleyville, where they were married, and as a wedding present to his niece he obligingly shaved a cool decade off her age to match the stories she’d spun.

  But Madame Cabochon really did look good for her fake age of thirty-eight; one might even believe her to be in her early thirties. Of course she owed it all to the American cinema. Jane Mansfield, Doris Day, Marilyn Monroe—all of them were women with curves. Meanwhile a lot of European actresses looked as if they were still living on war rations. But not that gorgeous brunette, Sophia Loren; now there was a woman one could emulate!

  Madame Cabochon tossed her flaming tresses this way and then that. Oh yes, it had to be the forest green dress! See how it lit up her hair like a savannah fire? Besides, the flecks of blood were completely dry now and appeared as tiny newborn freckles, almost as if they belonged there. Anyway. she would put it to soak when she returned from church across the river where the blacks lived.

  Madame Cabochon, who considered herself to be a native-born African, despite her flaming red hair, lived in the town of Belle Vue, in t
he Kasai Province of the Belgian Congo, which was the name applied to a vast area of central Africa between the years 1908 and 1960, when it was a colony of Belgium. (Later the name was changed to Zaire, and eventually to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.)

  Approximately eighty times the size of Belgium, this colony covered as much territory as the eastern third of the United States and stretched from a narrow outlet along the Atlantic Ocean in the west to snow-covered peaks bordering the Western Rift Valley. The interior portion formed a shallow bowl that contained one of the world’s largest tropical rain forests.

  This rain forest was drained by the Congo River, which was second only to the Amazon in the amount of water that it discharged into an ocean. So powerful was the Congo River that, after its juncture with the Atlantic, it continued to flow underwater for another hundred miles, carving out a canyon in the ocean floor that was four thousand feet deep in places. The Kasai River is one of the major tributaries of the great Congo River, but it is also well known for another very important reason: the banks of the Kasai River, and the streams that feed into it, contain alluvial deposits of gem-quality diamonds.

  Belle Vue, where Madame Cabochon lived on the day that she slew the little—but deadly—green mamba, was especially famous for its fine gemstones. Coincidentally, Belle Vue, which means Beautiful View in English, was also known for its spectacular scenery.

  Not only did the Belgian-owned villas sprawl across the tops of high grassy hills, with just a necklace of emerald green forest along the river, the town overlooked a stunning, horseshoe-shaped waterfall that gave rise to a perpetual rainbow. Surely the rainbow was God’s promise that good fortune would always smile upon the simple, well-meaning inhabitants of this town, these 136 brave colonialists who wanted nothing more than to improve their lives, which had been made wretched, even intolerable, by the two wars in Europe.