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Maurice Blaise graduated from St. Michaels College, and then procceeded to join a Catholic Mission in Africa, which is where he got the ideas for his two part novel, "White Mandingo." This article is drawn from the first chapter of the novel. Upon returning from Africa, he attended Princeton Theological Seminary. Maurice has written several screenplays, which he plans to sell to feature film studios. He and his wife, Ellen, have been teachers for over 20 years. They have founded international schools in started schools in Thailand and East Germany. Additional Resources White Mandingo website  Jobs in Africa  African Embassies  Contact Maurice Blaise

African conga drums pounded erotically under the full equatorial moon. Only five hundred yards from the roomy, white, New England-styled mission church, twelve drummers gyrated on a precipice that hung over the sea. Hollowed teak logs, capped with gazelle skins, rocked between taut thighs. Flecks of white, thousands of tiny moon mirrors, glistened and dripped from sweaty bodies. These men would stop beating, only when the golden sun rose. Moonlight! ... a cause for celebration. The mysterious silver disc, swollen by heat and humidity, washed the jungle like a brilliant movie set - but only once a month. “Let there be light!” … and Maurice finally understood, for, because of this light, neither demon spirits, nor the carnivorous beasts that haunt tropic corridors, would prowl this evening. Tonight, all night, the people were free! *       *       *       *       * Old man Blamo shuffled toward the altar. A teak crutch, his strongest leg, thumped the concrete floor authoritatively. Its hypnotic rhythm mesmerized Maurice, as it echoed off the walls and pews of the almost empty sanctuary. Blamo’s head swirled in and out of the thick cloud of incense that hovered, eerily. His stained, light tan, “Brooks Brothers” sport coat flickered in the candlelight, then disappeared in the fog and darkness. Two small candles of pure beeswax waned while the pre-dawn liturgy continued.

The seminarian squinted through eyes, blinded by sweat and high fever. As old man Blamo approached, tawny light danced upon his beautifully carved cane. Rich village scenes of huts, drums, gazelles and sandals adorned the appendage. The darker, repoussé area of this African masterpiece matched his weathered face.

It was June, 1974; five in the morning. The place: Grand Cess, Liberia, West Africa! The novice was thousands of miles from South Burlington, Vermont, his birthplace. Far, far from home, as he wished. Far, far, from family.

For the past two years, he had studied ‘Liberation Theology’ at a Catholic theological school, perched tranquilly on a hilltop, overlooking the Hudson River, in Westchester County, New York. Originally a Shaolin Monastery from Mainland China, it had been shipped -pagoda by pagoda- to America during the last Chinese revolution. Amid the transplanted bronze Buddhist bells, silk tapestries and incense, he had studied, meditated, and practiced martial arts, preparing for missionary work in the heart of Africa.

On his last afternoon in America, he had eaten lunch at the “Russian Tea Room” in New York, watched the controversial ‘Rock Opera,’ Jesus Christ, Superstar, then boarded the ‘red eyed special’ for Dakar, where it refueled before arriving in Monrovia. Later, by Piper cub, he had flown three hundred miles further, southeast, deep into the jungle. Each boarding had been a quantum leap back in time. He had traded the brilliant skyline of New York City for that of Dakar, where on this edge of Africa, only a few tall buildings stood, dim lighthouses before the foreboding, deep blue sea. In these dark, tempestuous waters, high-masted, creaking, wooden slave ships had prowled the swells, barely a century ago, filling their bowels with shackled, stinking, human treasure. Once overloaded, they sheeted canvas taught, following Saharan trade winds West, to that great continent of freedom - America.
 

From French-African Dakar, he had flown on to Monrovia. There, one ten-story building stood, single and alone. Then, onward again, into that primal womb of lush rain forest, where only verdant, dripping canopy scraped the sky. In these tropics, amid liana and tangled vines that embraced ancient trees, with branches interlocking hundreds of feet above carpets of musk-scented, giant ferns, he had been reborn - this time - by choice; dropped from the heavens by a noisy, aluminum stork, into the center of five hundred huts. Now, each night in the jungle, he watched dark, polygamous figures pound animal skin drums, while others danced around fire teeming with writhing magical spirits. *       *       *       *       * Old man Blamo’s thumping cane stopped. He stood before Peter, the priest,and Maurice, the seminarian. Monkeys deep in the forest awoke and began chattering. The drumming outside ended, as dawn approached. In his feverish state, it seemed to Maurice that everything was happening in slow motion.

The sun was about to crack the darkness. He loved that mysterious moment when the black sheet of night parted, birthing the yellow orb, ending the chronic nightmares he had had since childhood. Each morning, he longed for its soothing light, but today was different. Just the thought - twelve hours of searing brilliance and intense humidity - left him queasy.

Large beads of sweat disappeared into his thick, curly black beard, falling from the ringlets like full monsoon drops, onto the white robe which was already pasted against his broad chest.

A swollen, severely infected thumb jabbed him with pain. One week ago, he had nicked it. The tiny cut, a quarter inch long, healed quickly, but only after an equatorial germ had found its way in. It was now devouring the swollen flesh. He winced with agony and closed his eyes, as the ‘child’
within offered the fever to the heavens above, while the ‘man’ in him feared the gods might be asleep.

Smoldering, stale incense made his nausea worse, but the seminarian managed to hold the paten steady for the young priest. Though they were born the same year, Father Peter had decided that twenty-four was not too young for ordination. Maurice glanced at this pony-tailed clergyman. They were neither friends, nor enemies.

Blamo coughed dryly, signaling his presence by the altar for communion. The African pulled himself up in an officious manner before Peter, who held the golden chalice that cordoned ten sacred, white wafers. Blamo’s gray head reached the breast level of the two six-foot missionaries. The old man belonged to the short, stocky Kru tribe, a fishing people adept at handling ten foot hollowed logs far out at sea.

Maurice glanced from the crutch to the man’s right pant leg. It swayed loosely from the thigh down, hiding his amputated leg. He raised the paten to Blamo’s neck. The old man eyed the novice’s swaddled thumb warily. This African feared that the demons who caused it to swell five times its normal size, might jump to his body.

The seminarian took a closer look at the sport coat. It surprised him how well it blended with Blamo’s brown skin. The ragged, breast pocket had been torn off, but it was re-stitched with red thread, like the patches hippies had sewn onto their jeans, a few years back. The coat had no buttons, and his frayed twine belt, made from palm leaves, dangled six inches below his waist. If only the New Yorker, who had donated this part of his stock broker’s uniform to some umanitarian organization, could see it now, still in service and worn with such religious zeal!

The seminarian’s eyes shifted to the thin metal disc he held. Rust peeked from underneath the flaking, fake gold paten, corroding it with small, cancerous red pits. Like everything else on the equator, humidity and heat were slowly consuming it. The ‘bodies of Christ’, were they to tumble, stood a better chance of remaining untainted on the swept, concrete floor.

Blamo popped out his tongue. It darted easily from a nearly toothless mouth, looking odd against his chestnut face. Deep ripples lined each side. There was something about all his movements, Maurice mused, that was too forced, too quick. The novice wondered whether the disease that afflicted the African’s tongue was connected to the loss of his leg. “The body of Christ,” Peter announced slowly ... officially. “Amen, Fala,” Blamo responded militarily.

Father Peter dropped the wafer on the ragged ‘thing’ and quickly withdrew his hand, not wanting any of the man’s spit to get on his fingers. Blamo stood there like a pouting child, his tongue hanging out, eyes closed sanctimoniously. The white wafer began to dissolve like a large snowflake on the black man’s tongue. After what seemed an eternity, he piously pulled it in. Suddenly opening his eyes, he spun on the crutch and performed an ‘about face,’ then limped back to the pew. Blamo’s gecko jerkiness startled Maurice from his dreamy state. As a reflex, the seminarian jumped away, stumbling on the altar step.

“Are you all right?” asked Peter, with professional concern.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered weakly, getting up, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his left arm. “It’s my fever.” “Well, the paten then!” he ordered with a nod, indicating that he was eager to speed up the mass. Toh, the cook back at the mission house, always made such wonderful breakfasts, and Peter’s stomach rumbled its anger.

Maurice began to elevate the paten for the next recipient, but froze. Through the lifting fog of incense approached a stunning young woman, the color of milky brown chocolate. A thousand rows of long hair, plaited with ivory cowry shells draped her shoulder, tinkling like chimes. Through large, sloe eyes, she watched the white men before her carefully, conveying little. Her almost Ethiopian nose ended just above an exquisitely chiseled pair of lips, with salmon undertones. She walked proudly, with her head held high and shoulders back. At five-foot nine, she easily stood above the tribe’s average female. Neither missionary had seen her during their six weeks in the country.
 

Her dalo looked new. Even in dim candlelight, cobalt blue, splashed with silver and gold bordering, jumped out electrically. Open at the left breast, the vibrant cloth revealed a naked five-month old, sucking noisily. Distracted, the baby gazed at the white men, but instantly shifted his attention to the golden chalice. He reached for it. The child’s movement away from her breast, left it visible. Both men riveted their eyes on the large, firm, soft brown cone of motherhood. At its center was an areola, the size of an American silver dollar, from which poked an erect, half-inch nipple. There, yellow-white drops beaded and fell with the frequency of sap from a Vermont Maple after a cold, early April night. “Maurice!” Peter whispered hoarsely, as his eyes knowingly caught the seminarian’s. “Yes,” he answered, studying the priest who had quickly refocused nervously on the woman, his eyes lower than usual. “The paten!!” the priest called, remembering his purpose. “Of course, of course,” the novice consented, raising it, shifting his attention from the priest to the woman. Maurice peered into her eyes and instantly spotted the bright sparkle of intelligence. As he placed the paten beneath her chin, she closed them and parted her mouth slightly, extending an inch of flamingo-tinted tongue. Peter stopped for a second. His lips opened unconsciously, while his eyebrows arched, as he let her beauty envelope him. She had caught them off guard.

Taking a wafer from the rust-pitted, sacred chalice, he slowly brought the dry white bread toward her succulent mouth. His hand trembled noticeably. Just as he attempted to insert the host, it bumped against her top lip and flipped like a leaf to the paten.

She opened her eyes and glanced at both. Maurice lowered the plate to Peter’s stomach level, so it would be out of the way of the child, who was now busy grabbing for anything but her breast. Father Peter boldly reached for the host which lay on a particularly rusted comer. As he was about to pick it up, his hand stopped in mid-air. Near the paten’s center, where some shiny fake gold remained, five drops of her milk flashed, having caught thesky’s delicate, saffron sunrise. She glanced at the paten, at the men, then serenely closed her eyes and parted her mouth. They stared from the paten to her dripping breast, from the breast to her face, in awe.

This time, Peter, despite more pronounced quivering, managed to successfully insert his fingers and deposit the host safely inside. She re-opened her eyes, looking first at the priest, then at Maurice, who thought he caught the faintest wisp of a smile in the subtle movement of her lips. Shifting the baby to her right hip, she slowly closed the fold of dalo, turned, and walked to the back of the church where she sat.

A short, old-looking woman scuttled toward the altar, a crippled crab trapped in a human body. Her old dalo, with a faded picture of President Tolbert printed on the front, wrapped a skeletal frame. Many poor women wore this design because they were the cheapest. The Liberian women joked that one could cover the country with the material during election time. The President used the clothing gimmick as an incentive to get people out and voting, for the only person allowed to run for his office.

The ancient woman, probably not yet forty, dragged herself forward, scraping the cold, concrete floor. Her knee-length lappa exposed a normal left leg and a monstrous right one. Elephantiasis! Despite the grotesque appearance, and ungainly, blackboard-grating shuffle, she approached with dignity. The woman extended her tongue in a plaintive, spiritual manner, beseeching the heavens with a supplication that betrayed her desperate faith.

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