As so many times before, a mad rhinoceros was once again chasing me through the thickets. I was running as fast as I could but already felt its horn tickling my back, when I suddenly heard a cry, which made my blood bubble like a light sparkling Mosel. The source of the sound rushed towards me through the air and suddenly a strong arm lifted me up high over the ground.
When I dared opening my eyes again and turned around, I saw that the person who had saved me was a young white woman, holding me in one arm and with the other holding tightly to a liane, which swung us up on a high branch. She was completely naked apart from a grass skirt and a long woollen sweater, that reached to her knees. She pronounced some garbled sounds that didn't have much resemblance with any real language. I replied in the same vein and said some phrases in broken Danish.
The woman took my hand and led me away through the jungle. Suddenly she pointed straight up into a tree. Apparently she wanted me to climb it, but as my leg was slightly injured by the rhino, I declined. When she realised that I wouldn't do it, she grabbed me around my waist and carried me over her shoulder as a sack of potatoes, as she climbed up. This was very embarrassing, especially as my fiancé was standing on the ground watching it happening.
The woman took care of the wound with skilled hands, but when it had healed a couple of days later, my fiancé had left. I was very disappointed about that behaviour, especially as the mystic woman had thrown down bananas to my fiancé twice daily.
I gave my saviour the name "Jane", partly because of the literary allusion to Jane Austen, whom she resembled, but also because she every now and then had pointed at herself saying the name loud and insisting.
We were now walking through the jungle, and Jane pointed at different things and repeated them persistently in her own language, until I learnt them. I especially remember that I didn't get the pronunciation right of her word for lion teeth as fast as she wanted to. The lion was equally impatient.
One day we met a dark-skinned gentleman with a clerical collar. He said that he was a missionary from Kenya, who tried to spread the worship of the spirits of his own ancestors to other parts of Africa. He was also able to make himself understood with Jane, something which came in very handy. He explained that she spoke an almost unknown African language called "Swahili".
Stop there! you say. Swahili isn't unknown. It's spoken by hundreds of millions of people..
Yes, in Eastern Africa! We were in Nigeria, and there the language was almost unknown.
With the help of our new heathen friend, Jane learnt English fluently in three days. Well sluggishly anyhow.
"You, Queen of the jungle", I said.
"Cor blimey! No! I'm ombudsman for nasty little insects, who live under humid stones", she replied, "of the jungle."
"What do you mean 'ombudsman'?" I wondered. "Why not 'Queens'?"
"It's already taken."
"By whom?"
"I don't really know, but all good titles are taken by someone. Catherine is Countess of the Apes, Bob is High Commander of the Lizards, John is..."
"Stop there!" I interrupted. "Who are John, Catherine and Bob?"
"Oh, they are other children, who were forgotten in the African jungle by disgustingly rich European parents. There are loads of them, if you only look around. Hi, Steve!" she waved at something that was rustling by in the bushes.
I gave up. This was obviously not a theme that would evolve to a best-selling book anyhow.
17 November 1998
by Magnus Lewan