Helen of the Congo: A Tale of Immortal Love

By J E Murphy

Songgirl is a member of a tribe hidden deep inside the Congo rainforest. Her people predate modern humans, and have acquired books and scrolls no longer available to the outside world. Songgirl has studied hard to learn this arcane knowledge with the sole intent of finding her one true love, who has become lost in time and the world of illusion. In her search, Songgirl has learned the true meaning of love and uses her knowledge to change the world around her -- starting with Paris.

Songgirl is captured by poachers in the Congo rainforest and is about to be sold for scientific experimentation in Paris, when she makes her escape, and soon all of Paris is in love with her, and the poachers' plans go further and further astray.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J E Murphy
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223359937

J E Murphy

J E Murphy (Jim Murphy) is a retired network and computer analyst. He has spent much of his personal life in a comparative study of religions, and in pondering the nature of reality, humanity and what makes us human. His writing, while fast paced, and full of physical adventure, also explores the adventure of the mind and the soul.

Book preview

Helen of the Congo

A Tale of Immortal Love

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A Novel

by

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J. E. Murphy

Helen of the Congo

Copyright 2023 by J. E. Murphy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

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Published by Portraits of Earth Press

Direct inquiries to

Portraits of Earth Press

8 River Road Dr E

Mayflower, Arkansas 72106

U.S.A.

Special Thanks

I would like to give special thanks to Teresa Tidwell for her valuable help in editing and proof-reading this book, and to Tabitha Gregory Mosely for her valuable discussion and comments.

J. E. Murphy

March 2023

Table of Contents

Contents

Copyright 2023 by J. E. Murphy

Special Thanks

Table of Contents

People, Places, Things, and Songs in this book

c-1 At the Edge of the Forest

c-2 Out of the Woods

c-3 Into the Fire

c-4 A New Home

c-5 The Picnic

c-6 A Critical Perspective

c-7 Enchantment

c-8 City of Lights

c-9 Belief

c-10 The Tower

c-11 Achilles

c-12 The Menagerie

c-13 First Concert

c-14 Catnapping

c-15 Night at the Opera

c-16 Second Concert

c-17 At the Tower

c-18 Trouble

c-19 Night Stroll with Leopard

c-20 News of the Day

c-21 Preparations

c-22 Reunion

c-23 The Searchers

c-24 Full Disclosure

c-25 Preparations

c-26 Kidnapped

c-27 Escape

c-28 Sounding the Alarm

c-29 To the Tower

c-30 Reinforcements

c-31 Helen’s Story

c-32 Paris

c-33 Breakfast with Siva and Rumi

c-34 To Go or To Stay

c-35 Practice

c-36 At Play in the Trees

c-37 A Leopard’s Spots

c-38 The Trained Ape

c-39 The Final Curtain

c-40 The Wrong Limousine

c-41 The Whole is Greater

Appendix

Rumi on the Concept of the Beloved.

Rumi on Being a Devotee of the Beloved

Seven Stages of the Ego

Other books by J E (Jim) Murphy

People, Places, Things, and Songs in this book

People

Songgirl, Firelight, Helen Alexandros-

Atry – Poacher

Percy – Poacher

Alex Schluterman – from the embassy

Francois Leroux – Opera producer

Dyeu - the leopard

Arthur Godschalk

Doctor Rosalina Rossi

Songs

Habanera Bizet Carmen

Un bel di, vedremo Puccini Madama Butterfly

Nessun Dorma Puccini Turandot

O Mio Babbino Caro Puccini Gianni Schicchi

Quando Me’n Vo Puccini La Bohème

I Dreamed a Dream Kretzmer  Les Misérables

All I Ask of You Webber/Hart/Stilgoe The Phantom of the Opera

The Music of the Night Webber/Hart/Stilgoe The Phantom of the Opera

Can't Help Falling in Love Peretti, Creatore, and Weiss  (to the tune of Plaisir d'amour  Jean-Paul-Égide Martini; text from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian)

Unchained Melody Alex North. Hy Zaret

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face Ewan MacColl

Tammy Jay Livingston, Raymond B. Evans

My Cup Runneth Over Tom Jones, Harvey Schmidt I Do! I Do!

The Twelfth of Never – Johnny Mathis, Jerry Livingston

Stranger in Paradise - Robert Wright, George Forrest Kismet

Oh, Promise Me - Reginald De Koven, Clement Scott

My Heart Will Go On - James Horner, Will Jennings Titanic

What Is a Youth - Nino Rota, Eugene Walter Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Cars

Ferrari Purosangue - Rosso Corsa red

Places

Paris

Orly Airport

The Plaza Athénée

The Palais Garnier – a famous Parisian opera house

Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes

The Eiffel Tower

Cirque d'Hiver Bouglione

N'djili Airport

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

A remote part of the Congo

c-1 At the Edge of the Forest

Songgirl loved the rainforest and everything that lived there, but uninvited guests often caused trouble. Her job was to stop the trouble.

The two men walked quickly along the edge of the forest. One of them carried a rifle. The other man carried a slingshot. The rifle was for protection from the lions and hyenas that lived in the grassland on their right, and from the leopards and venomous snakes, and other unknowns that lived in the rainforest on their left. The forest was fifteen hundred miles across, and it was commonly stated as fact in these parts that no one who entered the forest here was ever seen again. The local tribal people said the forest here was full of magic. They said there were fairies and spirits here, and that the monkeys here watched people more intensely than at other places. Some people even claimed that the chimpanzees in this part of the Congo had learned how to make and use crude, but lethal, bows and arrows. The tribal people here never entered the forest, but walked along the edge of it, as these two men were doing, and they left the chimpanzees alone.

The slingshot carried by the other man had been designed to shoot arrows, and the arrows had been designed to support hypodermic syringes loaded with animal tranquilizer. The tranquilizer was a fast-acting tranquilizer, which could only be obtained illegally, but this did not worry the men, as there was nothing legal about their operation at all.

The two men followed the sounds of screeching – the sounds of a trapped animal – the sounds of a terrified baby chimpanzee, mixed with the equally terrified sounds of its mother. The day before, the men had set out snares baited with fruit, and by the sounds, they had caught something.

As they crested the last hill overlooking the snare, they saw something crouched over the thrashing baby chimp while its mother danced around them in a panic. The creature was totally black, its thick fur reflecting hardly any light at all.

Blimey, Atry, the man with the slingshot whispered. What the bloody hell is that?

Bugger me if I know, Atry answered. But get your sling ready anyway. We might be about to become rich and famous, Percy my lad.

Get your gun ready, too, Percy said, in case I just piss it off.

The baby is getting away, Atry said. Stick it. Stick it now?

The baby?

No, you wanker, the other thing.

Just as Songgirl was watching the forest child run to its mother, she felt the sharp pain in her thigh and thought at first she had encountered one of the many stinging things that live in the forest. Looking down at the dart, however, she immediately realized what real danger she was truly in. Songgirl turned to see the two men – hairless men in dirty clothes – clothes of the outside world.

She leaped to her feet and began to run, but her legs would not work, and as she pitched forward, the world went dark, and she knew no more.

Songgirl was not her real name. Her parents had given her the private name, Firelight, because, they said, her smile would light up the darkest cave. The name Firelight was her private name and was secret to the family, so the villagers had given her the public name Songgirl because she loved to sing, and would often do so straight through sunrise, after most of the villagers had retired into their caves for the day. She sang in the forest as well, although the forest people had little appreciation or understanding of music. Songgirl had to adjust her sleep cycle to follow that of the forest people, but sometimes, if she was still not sleepy after they had all built their nests in the treetops for the night, she would sing to the stars and the moon.

Although she missed the fellowship of her village, Songgirl was never lonely at the edge of the forest. The forest people loved her, and she was fluent in their language. She would go with them to visit the trees with the ripest figs, and she also helped teach the young ones how to crack the hard palm nuts between two rocks. If the day became slow, she had her books, wrapped in waterproof waxed cloth, to entertain her with stories of the wider world.

The hairless ones who lived in the straw villages along the river knew from her singing that an Azizi lived in that part of the forest and so would not go there to hunt. The villagers knew the Aziza were a magical race who had taught the hairless ones everything they knew from the beginning of time and had given them the arts of medicine and healing. But they also knew the Aziza had powers both of light and of dark, and were not to be offended. On those nights of distant song, the hairless villagers stayed close to their fires, pulled their stolen furs and skins closer around themselves, and thought vast, bottomless thoughts as they stared at their fires.

Songgirl felt safe at the edge of the forest. The hyenas feared her, the lions held her in awe, and the forest people thought of her as friend, family, and protector. Although they did not feel the same about her sometime companion, Dyeu, the black leopard.

Songgirl had raised the leopard from an orphaned kitten, and had taught her how to hunt for herself. However, she had never taught the leopard to hunt forest people, which Dyeu’s natural mother would have done, and so, the leopard did not see forest people as even being on the menu. Songgirl had named the leopard kitten, Dyeu, because to the Azizi night vision, the leopard seemed to move through the dark branches of the night like the glow of the moon behind the clouds, and also because of the association of the name with Diana, goddess of the hunt. On rare occasions, Songgirl would awaken in her arboreal nest to find Dyeu snuggled up beside her, purring. On these nights, the leopard would be gone by morning, as Dyeu did not care for the fearful screaming of the forest people when they saw her. Their fear was ancient and instinctual, and not easily overcome, as those ancestors of the past million years who had no instinctual fear of leopards did not live long enough to pass on their brave genes.

Songgirl was here at the edge of the vast forest to protect it and the people who lived within it. Although the forest people had evolved instinctual defenses against leopards, lions, hyenas, and snakes, the technology of the outside world had changed so rapidly, the forest people had not had time to develop any instinct to warn them that a banana lying seductively at the edge of the forest might be a trap. The adults were learning this on an intellectual level, but the children were often the prey that the poachers really wanted.

When Songgirl heard the child screaming at the edge of the forest, she flew down from the treetops as fast as she could. She flew not with the literal wings that the river people believed the Aziza had, but with the skill of a primate that had evolved for millions of years to live in the trees.

She reached the child in time to stop her mother from pulling her apart as she tugged on the child whose hand was caught in an unyielding wire snare. Songgirl managed to make the mother turn loose of the child so that Songgirl could work on loosening the snare. The mother, however, had never stopped screaming, and neither had the child who screamed in pain and fear and jumped around while Songgirl worked, making the work more difficult. The screaming of the two had started a whole cacophony of screaming from within the forest so that Songgirl did not hear the approach of the two men, and only realized too late that they were there.

c-2 Out of the Woods

As they tied her hands and feet, and then tied her hands to her feet behind her back, Percy spoke up.

This ain’t right, Atry. You can’t sell her. She’s a human girl. Who buys people anymore?

She’s not human, Atry replied. Look at her. Look at her fur. Look at her feet. I know someone who will pay a lot of money for this thing. This is exactly what he is looking for.

Just because she is covered in fur, that don’t make her not human, the first man said. I saw a boy in a circus once who was covered in hair. That didn’t make him not human. You know that singing we heard last night? That was a human doing that – and it wasn’t in French, either. Maybe it was her. In my opinion, we should just cut her loose and get out of here before someone catches us at this. This is worse than poaching chimps.

Percy, I didn’t hire you for your opinions, Atry said. Besides, look at her feet. No human being ever had feet like that.

They cut a sapling down with a machete and stuck it through her ropes so they could hoist the pole onto their shoulders and begin the hike back along the edge of the forest to where they had left the truck.

Do you really think she is worth a lot of money? Percy asked. Who’s going to buy her – a circus?

I know a Russian. He lives in Paris. This thing is exactly what he is looking for.

He’s looking for a girl covered in cat fur with funny looking feet?

No, Atry said. He’s looking for a hybrid.

A hybrid? Percy seemed surprised. What are you talking about?

A cross between a chimp and a human.

Why would he want that? Percy asked.

I don’t ask a lot of questions with buyers, Percy said, but there have been rumors for decades that Russia has been trying to cross chimps with humans with mixed results. They put out feelers to chimp suppliers like us. I guess they think strange things can happen out here in the jungle.

What do you think they’ll do with her? Percy asked, puffing hard as they walked up the last hill beyond which the truck was parked in the tall grass.

I don’t know, and I don’t care, Atry said. Dissect her, maybe. But you can’t get rich worrying about things like that.

She’s kind of pretty, Percy said. Her fur is so short it’s almost like her skin. It’s so smooth and silky. I love to feel it. Like petting a cat.

Keep your hands off her and don’t get any weird ideas, Percy, Atry said. The Russians will know if she’s been tampered with. They’ll want to be the first to do that.

If you shut one eye and squinch the other, she’s just another naked girl.

Shut up, and keep your eyes on the edge of the forest. There’s a black leopard stalking us in the trees.

Percy turned his head to scan the tree line while feeling for his revolver in its holster.

We should get it, too, Percy said.

If it don’t get us first, Atry replied. We’ve already got our plate full for this trip. But now we know where to look when we come back.

They crested the last hill and saw the truck sitting where they had left it, a rusty brown heap of metal with a large flatbed supporting an iron cage. Near to the truck was a small tent and a smoldering campfire containing empty metal cans. They could hear lions moaning just over the next rise. They shooed away the lone jackal that was sniffing around the truck’s tires and slid the girl into the cage, still bound in her ropes.

Aren’t you going to untie her? Percy asked as Atry swung the barred door shut and locked it.

I’ll do it later. Those lions sound too close for us to be standing around out in the open. We just need to break camp and get out of here.

As the sun was setting, they drove west across the low grassy hills. With the sun in their eyes and darkness and tall grass behind them, they failed to see the charge being mounted from the edge of the forest. Gigantic arrows with large, clubbed heads were arcing towards them from the dark jungle, but were falling short, unnoticed, as the truck sped away.

They bounced along until they came to a narrow dirt road that connected some of the villages in the area.

Don’t you think you should untie her now? Percy asked. She’s going to get all beat up bouncing around tied like she is.

OK. You do it, Atry said. I’ll stand watch with the rifle.

Percy extracted a flashlight from a holster on his belt, but couldn’t get it to come on. He banged it on the palm of his hand a couple of times without any positive result.

I guess the batteries are dead, Percy said. Let me use that little flashlight you keep in your pocket.

You ain’t worth much, Percy. You know that? You can’t even maintain a flashlight. Here, take the rifle. I’ll untie her.

Atry climbed out of the driver’s side so he could reach into his pants pocket for the miniature emergency flashlight he carried. He walked to the back of the truck where the girl was lying on her side with her eyes shut facing him from inside the cage.

He switched on the flashlight and saw that she was still asleep from the drug, but as he reached in through the bars to pull the loose end of the rope that undid the slip knot, her eyes opened. She stared briefly into the light and then opened her mouth wide and hissed loudly, blowing warm breath into his face.

Atry jumped backwards, pulling the rope as he did, releasing her to slam herself against the iron bars on the far side of the cage.

Shaking almost uncontrollably, Atry gathered up the rope and climbed back into the truck, struggling to catch his breath.

Percy stared at him with