“Reverend,” he said.
“Sir?” asked my father.
“I do not like to contradict, but in seventy-five years the only roads the Belgians ever built are the ones they use to haul out diamonds and rubber. Between you and me, Reverend, I do not think the people here are looking for your kind of salvation. I think they are looking for Patrice Lumumba, the new soul of Africa.”
“Africa has a million souls” is what Father told him. And Father ought to know, for he’s out to save them all.
“Well, yes, indeed!” the doctor said. He looked out into the hallway and then closed the door with us still inside. He said in a lower voice, “And about half of them were right here in Stanleyville last week to cheer on their Tata Lumumba.”
Father said, “Tata Lumumba, who from what I hear is a barefoot post office worker who’s never even been to college.”
“That is true, Reverend, but the man has such a way of moving a crowd he does not seem to need shoes. Last week he spoke for an hour on the nonviolent road to independence. The crowd loved it so much they rioted and killed twelve people.”
The doctor turned his back on us then. He washed his hands in a bowl and wiped them on a towel like Mama after the dishes. Then he came back and looked hard at my arm for a minute, and then at Father. He told my father there were only eight Congolese men in all this land who have been to college. Not one single Congolese doctor or military officer, nothing, for the Belgians don’t allow them to get an education. He said, “Reverend, if you are looking for Congo’s new leaders, do not bother looking in a school hall. You might better look in prison—Mr. Lumumba landed himself there after the riots last week. By the time he is out I expect he will have a larger following than Jesus.”
Hoo, boy! My father didn’t like the doctor one bit after that. Saying anything is better than Jesus is a bad sin. Father looked up at the ceiling and out the window and tried not to hit anything until the doctor opened the door and time for us to go. The ceiling light was a clear glass bowl half full of something dark, like a coffee cup, only it was dead bugs. I know why. They like to come up to the light because it is so, so pretty like something they want, and then they get trapped in there.
I know how they would feel if you touched them. Like somebody’s eyelashes right up against your fingers.
When we came home my sisters had to cut up my dinner every day and help me get dressed. It was the best thing that happened. I showed Leah where you could get into the alligator pear tree and she boosted me up. I could still climb just dandy with my other arm. I have to play with Leah the most because the others in my family have got something wrong with them or else they’re too grown-up to play.
We had to wait up there in the tree. I told her, “Mr. Axelroot drinks red whiskey. He has it under the seat of his airplane. I rolled it out with my foot and then put it back.”
I was the youngest, but I had something to tell.
You don’t ever have to wait around for the Belgium Army. They always come at the same time. Right after lunch, when it isn’t raining yet and all the women with their buckets and things have gone down to the river and the fields and the men are home sleeping. It’s quiet. Then the army boys will come a-marching down the road saying a song in French. That white one knows who’s boss and all the others have to yell back because they are the Tribes of Ham. But, boy oh boy, let me tell you, they all have shoes. They walk together hard in the road and then stop so fast the dust comes down on their shoes.
The Jimmy Crow boys are harder to see. They don’t care for the Belgium Army, so they hide out. They come just every now and then and have meetings in a place back behind our chicken house. They squat down to listen to the main one that talks, and their legs and arms are so skinny you can tell just what shape a bone is. And no shoes, either. Just white scabby dust on the tops of their feet, and all of them with those dark black sores and scars. Every scar shows up good. Mama says their skin bears scars different from ours because their skin is a map of all the sorrows in their lives.
We were waiting to spy on them back there behind the chicken house when they came. Leah told me Mama says Mrs. Underdown says don’t even look at them, if they come. They want to take over the whole country and throw out the whites.
I said, “I’d like to have me a red hat like that.”
“Shhh, shut up,” Leah said. But then she said, “Well, I would too. That’s a good red hat.” She said that because “Shut up” hurt my feelings.
The boys said, “Patrice Lumumba!”