ut: poor Ruth May this and Ruth May that! Well, jeez, maybe she is sick, but it's no easy street for me either, being here and taking this guff. My family is thinking of everything but my personal safety.The instant we get back to Georgia I am filing for an adoption.
And if that wasn't already the living end, now my knight in shining armor has arrived: Mr. Stinkpot Axelroot. He just showed up in the yard one day, right when Tata Ndu was coming up the steps in his stupid hat and his no-glass glasses, and the two of them had a word of exchange. After that Tata Ndu only stayed about ten minutes and then left. I was just getting going on my retarded-daughter presentation. Too bad!
Well, it turns out Father and Mr. Axelroot hatched up a plan to get me out of marrying Tata Ndu without hurting the whole village's feelings. They're setting it up to look like I was already promised in marriage to Eeben Axelroot! I about croaked. Mother says don't let it get me down, it is only for appearance's sake. But that means now he comes around the house all the time, Coo, and I
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have to act engaged! And, naturally, we have to act like it out on the front porch so everybody can see. Sit out there and watch the grass dry up, is my social life at this point in time. Don't let it get me down? Man, oh man! I always wanted to be the belle of the ball, but, jeepers, is this ever the wrong ball.
The very first time we were alone for ten seconds on the porch, believe it or not, Axelroot tried to get fresh. He put his arm on the back of my chair. I slapped him hard like Elizabeth Taylor in the Hot Tin Roof and I guess that showed him a thing or two. But then he laughed, if you can believe. Well! I reminded him this entire engagement was a lot of bunk and don't you forget it. "Mr. Axelroot," I said, "I will commiserate your presence on this porch "with me but only as a public service to keep the peace in this village. And furthermore, it would help if you took a bath once every year or two." I'm willing to be a philanderist for peace, but a lady can only go so far where perspiration odor is concerned. I kept thinking of Brigitte Bardot and all those soldiers.
So he behaves pretty well now. I just call him Axelroot. He calls me Princess, which really is maybe too much polish for the jalopy, but he means it in the right way, I think. He can be halfway decent if he tries. He actually did start taking baths and leaving his horrible hat at home, praise the Lord. Mother hates him as much as ever, and I guess I do too, but what am I supposed to do? I talk to him. As long as you're sitting out there pretending to be engaged to somebody, you might as well pass the time. And his company does keep the children away. They don't care for Axelroot. He smacks them. Well, all right, he shouldn't, I know that! But at least I don't have to be surrounded with little brats jumping up and pulling on my hair all the livelong day. Normally they clamber around me until I feel like Gulliver among the Lepidopterans.
My unspoken plan is that, if I can butter him up enough, maybe he'll change his mind and fly us out of here. Mother already secretly offered him her wedding ring plus a thousand dollars, which supposedly we'd dig up after we got back to Georgia without Father or any visible means of self-support. Axelroot said, "Cash only, ladies," he doesn't take credit. But maybe he'll take pity!
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So I pass the time by telling him stories from home: the kids I knew back at Bethlehem High and things we used to do. It makes me homesick. But, oh boy, if those fast cheerleaders who teased me for being a preacher's kid could see me now, practically engaged to an older man! He has been around the block, let me tell you, being born in South Africa and spending his youth here and there, partly even in Texas, from what I gather. His accent sounds normal. And he makes up these cockalamie stories to stand my hair on end about being a flying fighter. How he has shot very influential men in cold blood and dropped fire bombs from the air that can burn up a whole field of crops in ten seconds flat. He's not just an errand boy flying missionaries around, no, sir! That's only his cover, or so he informed me. He claims he's actually a very important figure in the Congo at this moment of history. Sometimes he rattles off all these names of people I can never keep straight: CIA Deputy Chief, Congo Station Chief. He has code names for everybody. Big Shot is the Deputy Chief, and the Station Chief he calls Devil One. Oh, it's all a game I'm sure. A man of his age might seem too old to be playing Zorro, but then consider the source.
I asked him, "If you're such an important figure in the Congo, how come all we've seen you do is pay too-cheap prices for people's stuff to sell in the city and come back with our powdered milk and comic books from Leopoldville?"
He says he hasn't been at liberty to discuss his real work, but now he has U.S. protection and he can tell me a thing or two, so long as I keep it under my hat. Well, natch, even if it were true