The Girl Who Married an Eagle Read online

  “Oh.” Julia dreaded getting malaria; she knew that sooner or later it was inevitable. The fevers, the chills, the malaise—as a single person, who would be there to nurse her back to health? In the “old days,” the Mission Board allowed only married couples to serve for just that reason.

  Could it be that Julia Newton had gotten ahead of herself ? Had she checked with God first before setting out on her adventure? Really checked? Because if she had, she might not be referring to it as an adventure, but as a “calling.”

  “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “I’m forever getting myself in over my head and then relying on you to come to the rescue. This time I think I’ve jumped off the deep end. I might even have hit my head. In fact, I might have hit my head first, judging by what I’ve done. All I can say is help!”

  “Miss Julia, are you all right?”

  “Quite. Why do you ask?”

  “You’ve been mumbling to yourself.”

  “I was praying.”

  “Hey, I’m really not that bad of a pilot,” Hank said, sounding hurt, but he grinned good-naturedly.

  It was practically impossible to carry on a conversation when seated up front in a single-engine Cessna, and it was a totally impossible feat to pull off if one wished to simultaneously appear cool and urbane. Given that shouted witticisms rarely hit their mark and that Julia’s verbal aim was poor, even under optimal circumstances, she decided that her best strategy was to keep her lips zipped for a change. Okay, so make that a first.

  It was a wise choice, because it freed her up to enjoy the scenery. That very night, if she could, she was going to describe it all in a letter home.

  Imagine, if you will, looking down upon millions of deep green broccoli heads, all facing dome side up. Each broccoli head represents the emergent crown of a massive rain forest tree. Here and there one catches glimpses of long strips of silver Christmas tree tinsel; these are streams. Sometimes the streams turn into frothing rivers of cola, rich with tannin, while others, no less swift, are the color of sun-dried bricks.

  More than anything Julia wished to share this sight with someone to whom she was close. Jeepers creepers, she’d even be willing to share the moment with her little brother, Willard, who was seventeen and a know-it-all if there ever was one. In exchange, she’d have to listen to him spout off the scientific names of trees and geological formations and all that, but that would be okay. Outside of being boring as all heck and a bit stuck on himself, Willard really was an all right guy.

  At least Julia had Willard’s number, having known him since birth. Hank, on the other hand, was a total enigma. He seemed to know Africa quite well, but why shouldn’t he? He was born here, after all! However, he did not know the first thing about women. Because if he did understand women, then he would have picked up on Julia’s interest in him, which had begun the moment that they’d met. It was an interest that Julia could not squelch, no matter how hard she tried.

  Even when Julia closed her eyes and tried to relive the day that she received a D as a semester grade for geology in college, or when she broke her metatarsal skiing and couldn’t dance at her senior prom in high school, Hank insisted on entering the picture. It was he who issued her the near-failing grade, and it was Hank’s arms that she had envisioned wrapped around her as they swayed at the perimeter of the dance floor.

  Of course these images were merely flickers of her imagination, the kind of experience an honest person might admit to having a zillion times a day. She didn’t dwell on them, so they didn’t count, inasmuch as a temptation didn’t count if one didn’t act on it. Still, it was irritating that these thoughts of Hank should intrude unbidden into her sphere of thinking.

  It was precisely because of this that Julia never prayed with her eyes closed. Her entire life she’d been instructed, along with others in the room, to “bow your heads and close your eyes for a word of prayer.” She’d been told this was to minimize distraction for the faithful. For her, however, it was tantamount to lowering a pair of movie screens upon which her very active brain (or was it the Devil, with a capital D?) would project unimaginable, and undoubtedly very sinful, images. Sometimes the images involved the minister himself—and in very compromising situations.

  One thing for sure, you didn’t want to waste any time praying with your eyes closed when you could be looking at Congo cloud formations. They were God’s handiwork, and so totally awesome that just looking at them was the same as praying. In Africa, clouds pile up in the sky miles high in preparation for the afternoon thunderstorms. Julia mused that if one might climb the clouds, just as one climbs mountains, then it might be possible to climb right into the lap of God and gaze into his face. Surely these were the sort of clouds that the Lord would ride on when he returned someday in all his glory. One of those anemic clouds typical of Ohio would simply not be up for the job.

  At any rate, there she was, captivated by the virgin landscape below her, enthralled by the sky all around her, and feeling physically pulled like a magnet to look at the man sitting next to her. All that changed in a flash when their tiny plane dropped from the sky, like a fish that had slipped free from an eagle’s talons.

  Julia had heard that old saw about having one’s life pass before one’s eyes when faced with death, but she later remembered having two thoughts, neither of which were connected to her past. One was whether or not her body would ever be found. Would it perhaps be eaten by animals? The other thought was whether she would be able to recognize her grandmother when she stepped into heaven. Or vice versa. After all, wouldn’t they both be inhabiting new bodies?

  Strange as it might seem, she was not afraid that she would feel pain when she actually crashed into the broccoli-top trees, which were fast becoming enormous. (By this point she could see black-and-white monkeys leaping about in the tree that would be her final resting place.) She’d been brought up to believe that the Lord instantly erased all memory of death so that one essentially felt nothing upon passing. This was his special gift to his martyrs throughout the centuries, like those Christians who’d been fed to the lions in the Roman coliseums.

  Mercifully, Julia didn’t recall screaming. With her heart squishing the air out of her lungs, it wouldn’t have been much of a sound anyway. But then, just as surely as they’d plunged, the plane began to climb, just a whole lot slower. The engine caught and sputtered a bit at first, as if it couldn’t quite believe its good fortune, and then gradually the rain forest disappeared from sight until all Julia could see were the clouds.

  “Holy crap!” Hank said. “Now that was a close one.”

  Wow, Julia thought, talk about a jolt to the senses! They had just survived something awful together, hadn’t they? In fact, it seemed like they’d almost crashed. But instead of saying “Hallelujah!” or breaking into prayer or song, the pilot, who was also supposed to be a missionary, had instead—sworn! Holy crap, indeed.

  “What happened back there?” Julia asked between gasps.

  “Downdraft,” Hank said. “Those beautiful clouds can be lethal. Did you at least enjoy the ride?”

  “Not one bit.”

  “Good,” Hank said with a smile. “We like our new missionaries to start out sane and then have Congo drive them slowly crazy. If you were already loco upon arrival, you’d have nowhere else to go but right back to the States on the next banana boat.”

  THREE

  It was just before dusk when the plane touched down in the town of Belle Vue. The town—ha! Forget all your preconceptions of what a town is or ought to be, because the Belgian Congo had its own peculiar definitions. A place was a town only if it had white residents; no matter how large an all-black settlement, it was always called a village. But give it a handful of whites and it was sure to pop up on the map like mushrooms after the first September rain.

  Belle Vue, like all Congo towns was strictly segregated, so that even the whitest mulattoes had to live on the black side of town unless they were household employees. That is because each white re
sidence had a servants’ quarters behind the main house where a trusted servant, such as a watchman or a nanny, might stay, although most Belgians preferred to have their staff reside across the river in the workers’ village.

  The white population of Belle Vue, perhaps one hundred twenty souls, resided in hilltop villas on one side of the Kasai River, and on the other side, tucked out of sight behind the hilltops, lived the five hundred plus natives in their one-room concrete boxes.

  “Do not feel bad for the African,” the Belgians joked. “Who in Europe has a house with diamonds embedded in the walls?”

  This feeble attempt to assuage their collective colonial conscience was based on the fact that there were indeed diamonds embedded in the walls of the workers’ houses. The sole reason Belle Vue existed is that long ago Belgian prospectors had discovered that the land drained by the Kasai River and its tributaries contained vast quantities of alluvial diamonds.

  Unlike in South Africa, where the diamonds had to be dug up from the earth’s core in dangerous mines, the Kasai diamonds were there for the picking. They were just another pretty stone mixed in with the gravel, so that when the gravel was mixed with cement to make concrete block—voilà, diamonds in the walls!

  The commercial removal, sorting, and exporting of diamonds was all controlled by a single company: the Consortium. Virtually everything in the town of Belle Vue, whether it had to do with Africans or whites, was controlled by this company and its rules. Even the airport was owned by the Consortium.

  Although it was easy to arrive at Belle Vue, apparently it was not so easy to leave. To do so, one had to report to the Office of Colonial Departures. Someone of the appropriate gender would then conduct a complete and very thorough cavity search. At the same time, the contents of one’s luggage would also undergo extensive examination. For example, one’s toothpaste would be squeezed out of the tube and smeared around on a flat, nonporous surface. The seams of one’s clothing could be run through the thumb and forefinger of an experienced agent, looking for small diamonds squirreled away in the hem.

  This knowledge was all part of the education Julia had received from Aunt Marl, along with her Tshiluba language lessons. It was referred to as orientation, although Julia’s boyfriend at the time called it “indoctrination.” The more that Julia learned about the Belgian Congo, the more that she was hooked—an analogy that she hated but that, again, her boyfriend used. Needless to say, they broke up.

  At any rate, no amount of education could have prepared her for the real experience of Africa: the fecund smell of the tropics as she stepped out of that small plane, jackals loping across the road the way into Belle Vue, and the roar of the falls as she and Hank crossed over to the black sector. Her jaw dropped some more when she saw the Missionary Rest House, which was to be her stop for the night. This hostelry clung to the side of a cliff, above the falls, as audaciously as a swallow’s nest. The setting was so gorgeous that King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola had paid the Rest House a brief visit on their recent sweep through the colony.

  It has been said that night falls on central Africa like a heavy velvet stage curtain with a broken pulley. One moment a person might be luxuriating in the gloaming; in the next moment, the same person could be stumbling about in the inky blackness of a starless sky. But if the stars were out, then a person’s mind would reel from the brightness, for it is actually possible to read outside without additional light when the moon is full. Or so it was said.

  At any rate, there was nothing to be seen at the Missionary Rest House, just much to be heard. The sound was the roar of the falls, accompanied by the pounding of Julia’s heart. The hostess, Miss Amanda Brown, had left a detailed note stating that she had elected to cross over to the Belgian side of the river to view a romantic film at the Club, and then on to spend the night with her Belgian husband in his house.

  Oh, the scandal of it all! Not that Julia would pass on a word of what was in the note, mind you. But someone would, and when the news got back to the Mission Board in the United States, Amanda Brown from Rock Hill, South Carolina, would surely be fired. Never mind that Amanda Brown and Capitain Pierre Jardin, of the Belle Vue police force, were legally married under Belgian law; they were not married in the eyes of God.

  It was a shame, really, because the scandal wasn’t even taking place in Belle Vue. Here the white population was composed predominately of Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholics were sophisticated people like Brigitte Bardot and Grace Kelly. It was the folks back home, in the buckle of the Bible Belt, who didn’t recognize Amanda’s civil union. To folks like Brother Zug, she was simply carrying on an adulterous affair out in the open. A thing like that was sure to give Protestants a bad name.

  To be fair, Amanda did leave a long list of instructions for Julia, and a huge pile of clean fluffy towels, so that the newcomer did feel very much cared for. That night she found that reading the Book of Leviticus—just a few verses even—put her quickly to sleep. Before Julia knew it, she awakened to the restorative smells of bacon and freshly brewed coffee. As her wonderful new day gradually came into focus she became increasingly—then fearfully—aware that something was standing at the end of her bed.

  “What are you?” she gasped.

  “I am not a what?” the creature said. “I am a woman.”

  Julia leaned forward, rubbing her eyes as she did so. Indeed, it was a woman, an African woman in traditional garb. But in her defense, this native was no taller than a six-year-old American, and as twisted as a Pennsylvania Dutch pretzel. Besides which, she had a small black monkey tied to her back.

  “Then who are you, and what are you doing here?” Julia asked in amazement. They had been speaking in English, but now seamlessly switched to Tshiluba. It was the first time that Julia had ever spoken that language to anyone besides her teacher, Aunt Marl. She felt a rush of adrenaline. It was if she’d been learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels, and now magically they’d disappeared, but she was still managing to balance.

  “My name is Cripple and I am the head housekeeper,” said the woman. “Who are you, Mamu?”

  Mamu! Oh the thrill of that word!

  “I do not have a name in Tshiluba at this time,” Julia said.

  “Then what is your Christian name?” the strange little woman asked.

  Thank heavens that Aunt Marl had explained some of the native customs to Julia, like the one about them not having any surnames. However, if they were baptized, she said, as many of the natives were, it was the custom to choose a name from the Bible as a second name. This was called one’s “Christian” name, even if it was taken from the Old Testament.

  “Uh—I do not have a Christian name,” Julia was forced to confess.

  The woman named Cripple twisted this way and that as she adjusted the monkey tied to her back. “Mamu, am I to hope, then, that you are a heathen like me?”

  “What?” Julia cried in alarm. This was certainly not the way she had dreamed that her first contact with an actual African would take place.

  “A Christian must have a Christian name, Mamu. It is not I who has made this rule, but you missionaries. One must be born again, you say to us—although such a thing is not possible—and then take on a new name, leaving our heathen names behind. Therefore, if you do not yet have a Christian name, you must still have a heathen name, and thus you are a heathen—like me.” The little woman smiled in welcome.

  “But I am not a heathen!”

  “Most certainly you are, Mamu. Believe me, this is a matter for rejoicing, is it not? Tell me your heathen name so that I might address you properly from now on.”

  “I most certainly will not tell you my heathen name! My heathen name is my business—oh, never mind! I wish to be called by a Tshiluba name just like every other mamu. Tell me, Cripple, which Tshiluba name should I choose?”

  “Tch. One does not choose their own name, Mamu. A name is a gift given by others, and always it is an observation of some characteristic, or behavior, of the
recipient. Is my English good?”

  “Yes, you speak it excellently. Now please, if you will, select something for me. I am so, so, anxious to start my adventure here in Africa!”

  “Very well, I shall call you Mamu Mukashiana.”

  “Is that a good name, Cripple?”

  “Eh, you are deserving of this name, Mamu. Come now, let us be going.”

  “Us? I am headed to Mushihi Station to run a girls’ school. Where are you going?”

  “I am going with you, Mamu Mukashiana. I am to be your housekeeper.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Julia cried, and meant it. What were the odds of having a housekeeper who was fluent in English virtually fall into one’s lap?

  Oh what a joy-filled morning it promised to be for Julia. First, she raced to the window where she spent a few minutes taking in the majesty of the falls. Then, accompanied by a bit of groaning, she managed to haul her suitcase up onto the bed so that she could dress carefully for the trip. What fun it was to pull out a white cotton skirt and blouse, to prevent overheating in the broiling sun, a white cork helmet, white anklets, and white oxford shoes.

  It wasn’t until the new missionary was through dressing that Julia sensed that she was being watched. She jumped, dropping her heavy train case on her left foot.

  “What are you still doing here? Have you been here the entire time? Watching me dress?”

  “Trust me, Mamu, I have seen this white flesh before. E, it is indeed most unfortunate, but we too have albinos, Mamu.”

  “I am not an albino, Cripple. I am just a regular white person.”

  “E, perhaps.” Cripple cocked her little head cheekily, as if she still hadn’t made up her mind. “Tell me, Mamu, why is it that Protestant white women grow no hair under the arm, but the same cannot be said of Catholic white women?”