Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [10]
� thank you," he said, "for good intention." "But I should mind my own business? You may be right. I don't want to bust into your customs. But it's hard to see all this going on and not even make a suggestion. Can I have a look at your water supply at least?" With a certain reluctance he said, "Okay. I suppose." And Itelo and I, the two of us almost of a size, left his wives and the other villagers behind and went to see the water. I inspected it, and except for some slime or algae it looked all right, and was certainly copious. A thick wall of dark green stone retained it, half cistern and half dam. I figured that there must be a spring beneath; a dry watercourse coming from the mountain showed what the main source of supply was normally. To prevent evaporation a big roof of thatch was pitched over this cistern, measuring at least fifty by seventy feet. After my long hike I would have been grateful to pull off my clothes and leap into this shady, warm, albeit slightly scummy water to swim and float. I would have liked nothing better than to lie floating under this roof of delicate-looking straw. "Now, Prince, what's the complaint? Why can't you use this stuff?" I said. Only the prince had come up with me to this sunken tank; the rest of them stood about twenty yards off, obviously unsettled and in a state of agitation, and I said, "What's eating your people? Is there something in this water?" And I stared in and realized for myself that there was considerable activity just below the surface. Through the webbing of the light I saw first polliwogs with huge heads, at all stages of development, with full tails like giant sperm, and with budding feet. And then great powerful frogs, spotted, swimming by with their neckless thick heads and long white legs, the short forepaws expressive of astonishment. And of all the creatures in the vicinity, bar none, it seemed to me they had it best, and I envied them myself. "So don't tell me! It's the frogs?" I said to Itelo. "They keep you from watering the cattle?" He shook his head with melancholy. Yes, it was the frogs. "How did they ever get in here? Where do they come from?" These questions Itelo couldn't answer. The whole thing was a mystery. All he could tell me was that these creatures, never before seen, had appeared in the cistern about a month ago and prevented the cattle from being watered. This was the curse mentioned before. "You call this a curse?" I said. "But you've been out in the world. Didn't they ever show you a frog at school--at least a picture of one? These are just harmless." "Oh, yes, sure," said the prince. "So you know you don't have to let your animals die because a few of these beasts are in the water." But about this he could do nothing. He put up his large hands and said, "Mus' be no ahnimal in drink wattah." "Then why don't you get rid of them?" "Oh, no, no. Nevah touch ahnimal in drink wattah." "Oh, come on, Prince, pish-posh," I said. "We could filter them out. We could poison them. There are a hundred things we could do." He took his lip in his teeth and shut his eyes, meanwhile making loud exhalations to show how impossible my suggestions were. He blew the air through his nostrils and shook his head. "Prince," I said, "let's you and I talk this over." I grew very intense. "Before long if this keeps up the town is going to be one continuous cow funeral. Rain isn't likely. The season is over. You need water. You've got this reserve of it." I lowered my voice. "Look here, I'm kind of an irrational person myself, but survival is survival." "Oh, sir," said the prince, "the people is frightened. Nobody have evah see such a ahnimal." "Well," I said, "the last plague of frogs I ever heard about was in Egypt." This reinforced the feeling of antiquity the place had given me from the very first. Anyway it was due to this curse that the people, led by that maiden, had greeted me with tears by the wall of the town. It was nothing if not extraordinary. So now, when everything fitted together, the tranquil water of the cistern became as black to my eyes as the lake of darkness. There really was a vast number of these creatures woggling and crowding, stroking along with the water slipping over their backs and their mottles, as if they owned the medium. And also they crawled out and thrummed on the wet stone with congested, emotional throats, and blinked with their peculiarly marbled eyes, red and green and white, and I shook my head much more at myself than at them, thinking that a damned fool going out into the world is bound and fated to encounter damned fool phenomena. Nevertheless, I told those creatures, just wait, you little sons of bitches, you'll croak in hell before I'm done.