The Poisonwood Bible Read online

was that. Well, Mama made her take it outside, even though Leah pitched a fit because it was still yet just a baby. That's true, it was. It was getting feathers but mostly it still had white baby hair and was tame.

  Nelson went and got Anatole, pulling on him by the hand like he was a note from home. Anatole said the Congo people don't like owls because an owl flies around at night and eats up the souls of dead people. And there's just way too many of them here lately, he said. Too many sick children for people to abide an owl hanging around and looking at them with his eyes still hungry. Even if the owl was just a baby himself. Maybe he'd want other babies for company.

  Father said that was just all superstitions. So! Leah went and fetched the owl back and sashayed around the house with it sitting on her shoulder, saying Father was sticking up for her side of things. Uh-oh. He smacked her hard for the sin of pride, and made her do The Verse. She sat there holding the side of her neck while she

  wrote it out. When she put her hand down you could see the bruise just as plain. It looked like Father was holding his hand in front of the kerosene light and making a shadow on her. But he wasn't, he was in the other room a-reading in his Bible.

  When she got done with her Verse, she went way down in the jungle to turn that baby owl loose, and we thought she never would come back. We were all scared half to death and sat up waiting for her, except Father. It was so quiet you could hear the second hand on Rachel's Timex going sit-sit-sit. The flames in the lantern went up and down and the shadows jiggled ever time you'd go to blink your eyes. It was way after dark by then. So whatever you were thinking might have got ahold of Leah out there, snake or leopard, you couldn't say anything out loud but string or spotted cloth. I said, "I hope a string didn't bite her!"

  Father already went in his bedroom, way way earlier. He hollered finally for Mama to put us to bed and come on herself. He said our sister would be back, so we'd just as well go on about our business because she was just looking for the attention. He said not to pay her any mind or we'd get the same medicine. Then he said, "If an owl can eat up a soul outright, he is one step ahead of the Devil, for the Devil has to purchase them first, and I see he has made some purchases right here in my own household." Father was mad and wanted to get the subject off of Leah, since it was him that ran her off.

  We didn't say boo to him, nor go to bed either. We just sat there. Mama stared out the open doorway with all her might, waiting on Leah to get home. The mosquitoes and big white moths came in the door and went out the windows. Some of them decided to take off their coats and stay awhile, so they flew in the kerosene lamp and got burned up. That is what happens to you if you're bad and don't go to heaven, you go and get burned up in the bad place instead. So that night our house was the bad place for the Congolese bugs. Ha ha.

  Father is trying to teach everybody to love Jesus, but what with one thing and another around here, they don't. Some of them are scared of Jesus, and some aren't, but I don't think they love Him. Even the ones that go to church, they still worship the false-eye dolls and get married to each other time and again. Father gets right put out about it.

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  I'm scared of Jesus, too.

  When she came back from the woods, we hooped and hollered and ran to the porch and just jumped up and down and pulled her inside by her shirttails. But uh-oh, there "was Father in his dark bedroom doorway looking out. All you could see was his eyes. We didn't want to get the same medicine, so we just looked at Leah real hard with I'm sorry for you eyes and tried to get a nice message across. After we went to bed I reached over through the mosquito net and held her hand.

  Mama didn't sleep in her room.

  Mama says birds are going to be her death. I'd sooner say it was snakes. But I guess if a bird is going to eat up the dead children's souls, that is a worry. That is one more sound to listen for at night. One more thing you can't say out loud after dark.

  Rachel

  IN JANUARY the Underdowns showed up as a complete surprise from Leopoldville.They came in Mr. Axelroot's plane, when the most we were really expecting was Potato Buds and Spam. The Underdowns don't like to come out here in the boondoggles, so believe you me this was an occasion. They looked like they had nervous-tension headaches. Mother was upset because they're our bosses from the Mission League, and they'd caught her red-handed doing housework in her old black Capri pants with the knees worn through. She was a sight to behold there on the floor, scrubbing away, with her flyaway hair sticking out and dark bruise-colored circles under her eyes from all her worrying about us catching the kamikaze disease. What with the mongooses and lizards traipsing in and out of the house as they pleased, she had a lot more to be embarrassed about than just getting caught in her old clothes, it seems to me. But at least that horrible owl was gone.Thank goodness to that, even if Father did come down too hard on Leah about it. That was a bad scene. We were all tiptoeing around on the eggshells even more than usual, after that. But that owl stank of rotten meat so I do have to say, Good riddance.

  But listen, why should we have to put on the Ritz for the Underdowns? They aren't even Baptists, I heard Father say; they just oversee the financial affairs for the Mission League since so many people have pulled out. They are Episcopotamians, and their real name is actually something foreign like On-tray-don. We just say Underdown because it's easier. To tell you the truth, the two of them are just a couple of the plainest Janes you ever saw, in their economical home

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  haircuts and khaki trousers. The funny thing about Frank and Janna Underdown is that they look exactly alike except for the accessories: he has a mustache, she has little gold cross earrings and glasses on a chain. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.

  They sat at our table sweating while Mother ran and squeezed the orangeade and served it. Even the glasses were dripping with sweat. Outside, the sky was getting its regular afternoon storm organized: wind whacking the palm leaves together, red dust ghosts flying up from the road, little kids running like bansheets for cover. Mother was too nervous to sit down with the company so she stood behind Father's chair, leaning on the windowsill, waiting for him to finish the newspaper they'd brought. All of them passed it around. Except Mr. Axekoot, the pilot, who probably wouldn't know what to do with a newspaper except wipe his you-know-what.Yes, he was there among our numbers too. He stood leaning in the back doorway and spitting until I thought I would croak. He stared right at me, undressing me mentally. I have said already my parents are entirely in the dark about certain things. I made faces at him and finally he went away.

  While Father was reading the latest news, Mrs. Underdown tried to make friends with Mother by complaining about her houseboy in Leopoldville. "Honestly, Orleanna, he would steal anything except the children. And he would have those, too, if he thought he could sell them. If I try to lock things up, he slaps his hands over his heart as if I've accused him of murder. Even though I just caught him the night before with four of Frank's handkerchiefs and a kilo of sugar tucked into the front of his shirt. He always claims he has no idea how they got there."

  "Well, my stars," Mother said, without seeming all that interested.

  Mrs. Underdown stared at Mother, puzzled. "Your stores'?" She always implies we have an accent, by repeating our words and expressions like little jokes. With her being somewhat of a foreigner herself, that's the pot calling the skillet black if you ask me.

  For once, my sisters and I got excused from spending the whole livelong morning playing Ding Dong Schoolhouse with Mother. But we were curious about the Underdown visit and didn't really

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  want to leave. We were so deprived of company, honestly. I lingered about the room checking my hairdo once or twice in the mirror and tidying up the desk, and finally ended up loitering out on the veranda with my sisters, close enough to the doorway so that we could keep tabs. We stared at the glasses of orangeade, wishing Mother had had the simple confederation to make enough for all of us, while we listened in and tried to get the p
icture of what had caused them to come out here. Even though I knew before it was over I would probably go bored out of my gourd.

  Sure enough, when they'd finished passing around the newspaper article, they dropped the subject of the Underdowns' criminal-element houseboy and moved onto the subject of everything dull under the blue sky: new sheets, malaria pills, new Bibles for the school. That jazz.

  I sashayed in and picked up the newspaper after Father had thrown it down on the floor. Well, why shouldn't I? It was written in red-blooded English, from New York, the United States of America. I read the page they'd folded back: "Soviet Plan Moves Forward in Congo." It said Khrushchev wanted to take over the Belgian Congo and deprive the innocent savages of becoming a free society, as part of his plan for world domination. Jeez Louise, if Khrushchev wants the Congo he can have it, if you ask me. The newspaper was from last December, anyway. If his big plan was going so well, seems like we would have seen hides or tails of the Russians by now. The article told how the Belgians are the unsung heroes, and when they come into a village they usually interrupt the cannibal natives in the middle of human sacrifice. Huh. If they came to our village that day they would have interrupted Mother in the middle of scrubbing the floor and about twelve little naked boys having a pee-pee contest across the road. I gave the newspaper to Adah, and Leah read it over her shoulder. They turned some pages and showed me a cartoon: big, fat, bald-headed Nikita Khrushchev in his Communist uniform was holding hands and dancing with a skinny cannibal native with big lips and a bone in his hair. Khrushchev was singing, "Bingo Bango Bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo!"

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  I stared out the window, -wondering who -wouldn't want to leave the Congo before you could say Jack Robinson if they had half a chance. The Underdowns and mother were just finishing up with the fascinating subject of quinine pills, and then it went quiet for, as they say, an uncomfortable silence. The Underdowns went "Ahem, ahem" and crossed their legs and got around to what appeared to be their big news: the Congo is going to have an election in May and declare their independence in June. As far as I am concerned you can chalk that one right up with malaria pills and Bibles for a tedu-lous topic, but Mother and Father seemed to take it as a shock. Mother's whole face dropped out of its socket. She looked like Claire Bloom in Beauty and the Beast when she finally gets a look at what she's going to have to marry. I kept waiting for Mother to snap back to her old Everything Is Just Fine attitude, but she stayed blanched out and kind of stopped breathing. She put her hand on her throat like she'd swallowed a shot of Mr. Clean, and that look scared me. I started paying attention.

  "This June," Mother said.

  "Belgium won't possibly accept the outcome of an election," Father said. Oh, well, naturally he already knew all about it. No matter what happens on God's green earth, Father acts like it's a movie he's already seen and we're just dumb for not knowing how it comes out. Leah, of course, was about to fall out of her hammock, hanging on his every word. Ever since Father smacked her over the owl, she's been trying twice as hard to win him back over.

  "Belgium absolutely will, Nathan. This is the new official plan. King Baudouin invited eighty Congolese leaders to Brussels to chart a course for independence." So said Mr. Potato Head, who has no elocution in his voice whatsoever. I am positive he is foreign, or used to be.

  "When?" Mother asked.

  "Two weeks ago."

  "And might we ask what happened to the old official plan?" Father said. He always has to say, "And might we ask?" Instead of just asking.

  "Leopoldville and Stanleyville have been shut down with riots

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  and strikes, in case you haven't heard. The old official plan did not go over so well.":

  "What about the threat of a Soviet takeover?" Mother wanted to know.

  "Frankly, I think Belgium is more concerned about the threat of an African takeover," he said. Reverend Underdown, whose name is Frank, says "Frankly" a lot, and he doesn't even see the humor. "The Russians are a theoretical threat, whereas the Congolese are quite actual and seem to mean business. We say in French, if your brother is going to steal your hen, save your honor and give it to him first."

  "So they would just hand over independence to the Congolese?" Mother leaned forward over Father's head to speak. She looked like Father's guardian angel with iron-poor tired blood. "Frank, what leaders are you talking about, getting invited to Brussels? Who on earth around here is eligible for a thing like that?"

  "Tribal chiefs, heads of unions, and the like. They say it was a pretty motley assembly. Joseph Kasavubu wavered between boycotting and trying to run the show. Lumumba got out of jail just for the occasion. They settled on a parliamentary system of government. Elections will be mid-May. Independence day, June thirtieth."

  Methuselah had sidled up into the bougainvillea bush right behind us, muttering, "Lubberlubberlubber." I swear it was like he was trying to listen in on the conversation, too.

  "Belgium has never been willing to discuss independence before," Father declared.

  "That's true, Frank," Mother added. She had both hands on her hair, pulling it back from her face like a skinned rabbit and fanning her neck in the back. It wasn't at all becoming. "We discussed this with the mission people in Atlanta before we ever decided to come. They said the political advisors in Belgium had mapped out a plan last year that would grant independence in, what was it, Nathan, thirty years? Thirty years' time!"

  Mother had raised her voice a little, and Mr. Potato Head looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry to have to remind you that you were advised not to come," he finally said.

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  "That's not exactly true," Mother said. She looked at Father, and Mrs. Potato Head looked at Father. Father stared at Mr. Potato Head, who didn't have the nerve to look him in the eye.The whole thing was out of this world.

  Finally Mr. Potato Head dared to speak. "No offense intended," he said. "Your work here certainly has the blessings of the Mission League, Orleanna." He may have meant no offense but he pronounced my mother's name like a bad word. "And I would also say it has the admiration of many people who lack your family's . . . boldness." He looked at the button on his sleeve, probably sewn on upside-down or something by the handkerchief-stealing houseboy. Then he started turning his wet empty glass around and around on its damp ring on the table.

  Everybody waited for what else Frank Underdown might have to say with no offense intended. Finally he allowed, "But you do know your mission here was not sanctioned." He glanced up at Mother, then back to his spinny-go-round glass.

  "Well, whatever does that mean?"

  "I think you know.You didn't get the language in-service or any of the ordinary kinds of training. I'm afraid the Mission League thinks of your stipend as an act of kindness on their part. I would not be too surprised to see the end of it now."

  Well! Mother's hand hit the table, bang! "If you think my family is living in this moldy corner of hell for the fifty dollars a month!" she practically shouted at him. Man oh man, if the porch could have opened up and swallowed us all.

  "Orleanna," Father said. (Dog peed on the carpet voice.)

  "Well, Nathan, for heavens sake. Can't you see you're being insulted?"

  Usually Father doesn't have to look twice to see when he's being insulted. Usually he can see insults as big as a speck when they're hiding under a rock in the next county over. We all crossed our fingers.

  "Now everyone simmer down," said Mr. Potato Head, trying for a fake friendly laugh. "Nobody is being insulted. We don't have any control over the decisions of the Mission League, you know that.

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  We are just humble administrators for the SBML and a lot of other organizations, who are all giving similar advice right now. We came here to talk with you personally, because we are deeply concerned about your witness for Christ and your precious children."

  My mother, who had just said the word "hell," was about a million miles from her witness for Christ
at the present time. I would say at the present time she looked ready to bean somebody with a baseball bat. She turned her back on the Underdowns."Why in the vorld did they even let us come here, if it was dangerous?" she asked some birdy outside the window.

  Father had not spoken up yet. My theory was he didn't know who to jump on first, the insulting Underdowns or his cussing wife, so he just stood there brewing like a coffeepot. Only with a coffeepot you know exactly what's going to come out of it.

  "Now, please, Orleanna," Mr. Potato Head crooned. "This is not the fault of the Mission League. No one could have predicted the move to independence would come so suddenly."

  She turned around and faced him. "Wasn't it somebody's darn business to predict it?"

  "How could they?" he asked, opening his hands wide. "Last year when De Gaulle gave independence to all the French colonies, the Belgians insisted this had nothing to do with us! No one even took the ferry across to Brazzaville to watch the ceremony. The Belgians went on speaking of rule with a fatherly hand."

  "A fatherly hand, is that what you call it!" She shook her head from side to side. "Using these people like slaves in your rubber plantations and your mines and I don't know what all? We've heard what goes on, Frank, do you think we're simpleminded? There's men right here in this village with tales to make your hair stand on end. One old fellow got his hand whacked off up at Coquilhatville, and ran away while he was still spurting blood!"

  Father shot her a look.

  "Well, honestly, Nathan. I talk to their wives." She looked at Mrs. Potato Head, who was keeping mum on the subject.

  "We had no idea," Mother said quietly then, like she'd just fig-

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  ured the whole thing out. "Your King Baudouin is living off the fat of this land, is what he's doing, and leaving it up to penniless mission doctors and selfless men like my husband to take care of their every simple need. Is that how a father rules? Hell's bells! And he didn't expect trouble?"

  She glanced back and forth between Mr. Underdown and Father like a nervous child herself, unsure which of the two men was entitled to give her a licking.