Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [20]
XI
And now I have told you the history of these teeth, which were made of a material called acrylic that's supposed to be unbreakable--fort comme la mort. But my striving wore them out. I have been told (by Lily, by Frances, or by Berthe? I can't remember which) that I grind my jaws in my sleep, and undoubtedly this has had a bad effect. Or maybe I have kissed life too hard and weakened the whole structure. Anyway my whole body was trembling when I spat out those molars, and I thought, "Maybe you've lived too long, Henderson." And I took a drink of bourbon from the canteen, which stung the cut in my tongue. Then I rinsed the fragments in whisky and buttoned them into my pocket on the chance that even out here I might run into someone who would know how to glue them into place. "Why are they keeping us waiting like this, Romilayu?" I said. Then I lowered my voice, asking, "You don't think they've heard about the frogs, do you?" "Wo, no, I no t'ink so, sah." From the direction of the palace we then heard a deep roar, and I said, "Would that be a lion?" Romilayu replied that he believed it was. "Yes, I thought so too," I said. "But the animal must be inside the town. Do they keep a lion in the palace?" He said uncertainly, "Dem mus' be." The smell of animals was certainly very noticeable in the town. At last the fellow who was guarding us received a sign in the dark which I didn't see, for he told us to get up and we entered the hut. Inside we were told to sit, and we sat on a pair of low stools. Torchlight was held over us by a couple of women both of whom were shaven. The shape of their heads thus revealed was delicate though large. They parted their large lips and smiled at us and there was some relief for me in those smiles. After we were seated, the women choking their laughter so that the torches wagged and the light was fitful and smoky, in came a man from the back of the house and my relief vanished. It dried right out when he looked at me, and I thought, "He has certainly heard something about me, either about those damned frogs or something else." The clutch of conscience gripped me to the bone. Totally against reason. Was it a wig he wore? Some sort of official headdress, a hempy-looking business. He took his place on a smooth bench between the torches. On his knees he held a stick or rod of ivory, looking very official; over his wrists were long tufts of leopard skin. I said to Romilayu, "I don't like the way this man looks at us. He made us wait a long time, and I'm worried. What's your thinking on this?" "I no know," he said. I unbuckled the pack and took out a few articles--the usual cigarette lighters and a magnifying glass which I happened to have along. These articles, laid on the ground, were ignored. A huge book was brought forth, a sign of literacy which astonished and worried me. What was it, a guest register or something? Strange guesses leaped up in my mind, completely abandoned to fantasies by now. However, the book turned out to be an atlas, and he opened it toward me with skill in turning large pages, moistening two fingers on his tongue. Romilayu told me, "Him say you show home." "That's a reasonable request," I said, and got on my knees, and with the lighter and magnifying glass, poring over North America, I found Danbury, Connecticut. Then I showed my passport, the women with those curious tender bald heads meanwhile laughing at my cumbersome kneeling and standing, my fleshiness, and the nervous, fierce, yet appeasing contortions or glowers of my face. This face, which sometimes appears to me to be as big as the entire body of a child, is always undergoing transformations making it as busy, as strange and changeful, as a creature of the tropical sea lying under a reef, now the color of carnations and now the color of a sweet potato, challenging, acting, harkening, pondering, with all the human passions at the point of doubt--I mean the humanity of them lying in doubt. A great variety of expressions was thus hurdling my nose from eye to eye and twisting my brows. I had good cause to hold my temper and try to behave moderately, my record in Africa being not so brilliant thus far. "Where is the king?" I said. "This gentleman is not the king, is he? I could speak to him. The king knows English. What's all this about? Tell him I want to go straight to his royal highness." "Wo, no, sah," said Romilayu. "We no tell him. Him police." "Ha, ha, you're kidding." But actually the fellow did examine me like a police official, and if you recall my conflict with the state troopers (they came that time to quell me in Kowinsky's tavern near Route 7, and Lily had to bail me out), you may guess how as a man of wealth and an aristocrat, and impatient as I am, I react to police questioning. Especially as an American citizen. In this primitive place. It made my hackles go up. However, I had a great many things lying on my mind and conscience, and I tried to be as politic and cautious as it was in me to be. So I endured this small fellow's interrogation. He was very grim and business-like. We had come from Baventai how long ago? How long had we stayed with the Arnewi and what were we doing? I held my good ear listening for anything resembling the words cistern, water, or frog, though by this time I was aware that I could trust Romilayu, and that he would stand up for me. That's how it is, you bump into people casually by a tropical lake with crocodiles as part of a film-making expedition and you discover the good in them to be almost unlimited. However, Romilayu must have reported the severe drought back there on the Arnewi River, for this man, the examiner, declared positively that the Wariri were going to have a ceremony very soon and make all the rain they needed. "Wak-ta!" he said, and described a downpour by plunging the fingers of both hands downward. A skeptical expression came over my mouth, which I had the presence of mind to conceal. But I was very much handicapped in this interview, as the events of last week had undermined me. I was infinitely undermined. "Ask him," I said, "why our guns were taken away and when we'll get them back." The answer was that the Wariri did not permit outsiders to carry arms in their territory. "That's a damned good rule," I said. "I don't blame these guys. They're very smart. It would have been better for all concerned if I had never laid eyes on a firearm. Ask him anyhow to be careful of those scope sights. I doubt whether these characters know much about such high-grade equipment." The examiner showed a row of unusually mutilated teeth. Was he laughing? Then he spoke, Romilayu translating. What was the purpose of my trip, and why was I traveling like this? Again that question! Again! It was like the question asked by Tennyson about the flower in the crannied wall. That is, to answer it might involve the history of the universe. I knew no more how to reply than when Willatale had put it to me. What was I going to tell this character? That existence had become odious to me? It was just not the kind of reply to offer under these circumstances. Could I say that the world, the world as a whole, the entire world, had set itself against life and was opposed to it--just down on life, that's all--but that I was alive nevertheless and somehow found it impossible to go along with it? That something in me, my grun-tu-molani, balked and made it impossible to agree? No, I couldn't say that either. Nor: "You see, Mr. Examiner, everything has become so tremendous and involved, why, we're nothing but instruments of this world's processes." Nor: "I am this kind of guy, rest is painful to me, and I have to have motion." Nor: "I'm trying to learn something, before it all gets away from me." As you can see for yourselves, these are all impossible answers. Having passed them in review, I concluded that the best thing would be to try to snow him a little, so I said that I had heard many marvelous reports about the Wariri. As I couldn't think of any details just then, I was just as glad that he didn't ask me to be specific. "Could we see the king? I know a friend of his and I am dying to meet him," I said. My request was ignored. "Well, at least let me send him a message. I am a friend of his friend Itelo." To this no reply was made either. The torch-bearing women giggled over Romilayu and me. We were then conducted to a hut and left alone. They set no guard over us, but neither did they give us anything to eat. There was neither meat nor milk nor fruit nor fire. This was a strange sort of hospitality. We had been held since nightfall and I figured the time now would be half-past ten or eleven. Although what did this velvet night have to do with clocks? You understand me? But my stomach was growling, and the armed fellow, having brought us to our hut, went away and left us. The village was asleep. There were only small stirrings of the kind made by creatures in the night. We were left beside this foul hovel of stale, hairy-seeming old grass, and I am very sensitive about where I sleep, and I wanted supper. My stomach was not so much empty, perhaps, as it was anxious. I touched the shank of the broken bridge with my tongue and resolved that I wouldn't eat dry rations. I rebelled at the thought. So I said to Romilayu, "We'll build a little fire." He did not take to this suggestion but, dark as it was, he saw or sensed what a mood was growing on me and tried to caution me against making any disturbance. But I told him, "Rustle up some kindling, I tell you, and make it snappy." Therefore he went out timidly to gather some sticks and dry manure. He may have thought I would burn down the town in revenge for the slight. By the fistful, rudely, I pulled out wisps from the thatch, after which I opened the package of dehydrated chicken noodle soup, mixing it with a little water and a stiffener of bourbon to help me sleep. I poured this in the aluminum cooking kit and Romilayu made a small blaze near the door. On account of the odors we did not dare to venture inside too far. The hut appeared to be a storehouse for odds and ends, worn-out mats and baskets with holes in them, old horns and bones, knives, nets, ropes, and the like. We drank the soup tepid, as it seemed it would never come to a boil owing to the poverty of the fire. The noodles went down almost unwillingly. After which Romilayu, on his shinbones, said his usual prayers. And my sympathy went out to him, as this did not seem a good place in which we were about to lay our heads. He pressed his collected fingertips close under the chin, groaning from his chest and bending down his credulous head with the mutilated cheeks. He was very worried, and I said, "Tonight you want to make an especially good job, Romilayu." I spoke largely to myself. But all at once I said, "Ah!" and the entire right side of me grew stiff as if paralyzed, and I could not even bring my lips together. As if the strange medicine of fear had been poured down my nose crookedly and I began to cough and choke. For by a momentary twisting upward of some of the larger chips from the flame I thought I saw a big smooth black body lying behind me within the hut against the wall. "Romilayu!" He stopped praying. "There's somebody in the hut." "No," he said, "dem nobody here. Jus' me--you." "I tell you, somebody's in there. Sleeping. Maybe this house belongs to somebody. They should have told us we were going to share it with another party." Dread and some of the related emotions will often approach me by way of the nose. As when you are given an injection of novocaine and feel the cold liquid inside the membranes and the tiny bones of that region. "Wait until I find my lighter," I said. And I ground the little wheel of the Austrian lighter with my thumb harshly. There was a flare, and when I advanced into the hut, holding it above me to spread light over the ground, I saw the body of a man. I was then afraid my nose would burst under the pressure of terror. My face and throat and shoulders were all involved in the swelling and trembling that possessed me, and my legs spindled under me, feeling very feeble. "Is he sleeping?" I said. "No. Him dead," said Romilayu. I knew that very well, better than I wished to. "They have put us in here with a corpse. What can this be about? What are they trying to pull?" "Wo! Sah, sah!" I spread my arms before Romilayu, trying to communicate firmness to him and I said, "Man, hold onto yourself." But I myself experienced a wrinkling inside the belly which made me very weak and faint. Not that the dead are strangers to me. I've seen my share of them and more. Nevertheless it took several moments for me to recover from this swamping by fear, and I thought (under my brows) what could be the meaning of this? Why was I lately being shown corpses--first the old lady on my kitchen floor and only a couple of months later this fellow lying in the dusty litter? He was pressed against the canes and raffia of which this old house was built. I directed Romilayu to turn him over. He wouldn't; he wasn't able to obey and so I handed him the lighter, which was growing hot, and did the job myself. I saw a tall person no longer young but still powerful. Something in his expression suggested that there had been an odor he didn't wish to smell and had averted his head, but the poor guy had to smell it at last. There may be something like that about it; till the moment comes we won't know. But he was scowling and had a wrinkle on his forehead somewhat like a high-water mark or a tidal line to show that life had reached the last flood and then receded. Cause of death not evident. "He hasn't been gone long," I said, "because the poor sucker isn't hard yet. Examine him, Romilayu. Can you tell anything about him?" Romilayu could not as the body was naked, and so revealed little. I tried to consult with myself as to what I should do, but I could not make sense, the reason being that I was becoming offended and angry. "They've done this on purpose, Romilayu," I said. "This is why they made us wait so long and why those broads with the torches were laughing. All the time they were working on this frame-up. If that little crook with the twisted stick was capable of sending us into an ambush, then I don't put it past them to rig up this, either. Boy, they're the children of darkness, all right, just as you said. Maybe this is their idea of a hot practical joke. At daybreak we were supposed to wake up and see that we had spent the night with a corpse. But listen, you go and tell them, Romilayu, that I refuse to sleep in a morgue. I have waked up next to the dead all right, but that was on the battlefield." "Who I tell?" said Romilayu. And I started to storm at him, "Go on," I said. "I've given you an order. Go, wake somebody. Judas! This is what I call brass." Romilayu cried, "Mistah Henderson, sah, whut I do?" "Do what I tell you," I yelled, and the loathing of the dead I felt and all the rage of a tired man who had broken his bridgework filled me. And so, unwillingly, Romilayu went out and probably sat down on a stone somewhere and prayed or wept that he had ever come with me or had been tempted by the jeep, and probably he repented of not having turned back to Baventai alone after the explosion of frogs. Certainly he was too timid to wake anyone with my complaint. And perhaps the thought had come to him, as it now did to me, that we were liable to be accused of a murder. I hurried to the door and leaned out into the thick night, which now smelled malodorous to me, and I said, as loud as I dared, and brokenly, "Come back, Romilayu, where are you? I've changed my mind. Come back, old fellow." For I was thinking that I shouldn't drive him from me as tomorrow we might have to defend our lives. When he came back we squatted down, the two of us, beside the dead man to deliberate and what I felt was not so much fear now as sadness, a regular drawing pain of sadness. I felt my mouth become very wide with the sorrow of it and the two of us, looking at the body, suffered silently for a while, the dead man in his silence sending a message to me such as, "Here, man, is your being, which you think so terrific." And just as silently I replied, "Oh, be quiet, dead man, for Christ's sake." Of one thing I presently became convinced, that the presence of this corpse was a challenge which had to be answered, and I said to Romilayu, "They aren't going to put this over on me." I told him what I thought we should do. "No, sah," he said intensely. "I have decided." "No, no, we sleep outside." "Never," I said. "It will make me look soft. They've unloaded this man on us and the thing for us to do is to give him right back to them." Romilayu began to moan again, "Wo, wo! Whut we do, sah?" "We'll do as I said. Now pay attention to me. I tell you I see through the whole thing. They may try to hang this on us. How would you like to stand trial?" Again I spun the lighter with my thumb, and Romilayu and I saw each other under the small pointed orange flame as I held it up. He suffered from terror of the dead, whereas it was the affront, the challenge, that got me most. It seemed to me absolutely necessary to exert myself, as I was horribly stirred. And my mind was resolute; I had decided to drag him out of the hut. "Okay, let's pull him out," I said. And Romilayu insisted, "No, no. Us go out. I mek you bed on the ground." "You'll do no such thing. I'm going to take him and stick him right in front of the palace. I can hardly believe that Itelo's friend the king could be involved in any such plot against a visitor." Romilayu began to moan again, "Wo, no, no, no! Them catch you." "Well, unloading him in front of the palace probably is too chancy," I conceded. "We'll lay him down somewhere else. But I can't bear not to do anything about it." "Why you mus'?" "Because I just must. It's practically constitutional with me. I can never take such things lying down. They just aren't going to do this to us," I said. I was too outraged to be reasoned with. Romilayu put his hands, which, with their shadows, looked like lobsters, to his wrinkled face. "Wo, dem be trouble." The provocation of this corpse to me thrust me to the spirit. I was maddened by his presence. The lighter had grown hot again and I blew it out and said to Romilayu, "This body goes, and right now." I myself, this time, went out to reconnoiter. Up in the heavens it was like a blue forest--so tranquil! Such a tapestry! The moon itself was yellow, an African moon in its peaceful blue forest, not only beautiful but hungering or craving to become even more beautiful. New ideas as to its beauty were coming back continually from the white heads of the mountain. Again I thought I could hear lions, but as though they were muffled in a cellar. However, everyone seemed asleep. I crept by the sleeping doors and about a hundred yards from the house the lane came to an end and I looked down into a ravine. "Good," I thought. "I'll dump him in here. Then let them blame me for his death." In the far end of the ravine burned a herdsman's fire; Otherwise the place was empty. No doubt rats and other scavenging creatures came and went; they always did but I couldn't try to bury the fellow. It was not for me to worry about what might happen to him in the darkness of this gully. The moonlight was a big handicap, but a still greater danger came from the dogs. One sniffed me as I was returning to the hut. When I stood still he went away. Dogs are peculiar, though, about the dead. This a subject which should be studied. Darwin proved that dogs could reason. He had one who watched a parasol float across the lawn and thought about it. But these African village hounds were reminiscent of hyenas. You might reason with an English dog, especially a family pet, but what would I do if these near-wild dogs came running as I carried the corpse to the ravine? How would I deal with them? It came into my head how Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, when he was adrift on an ice floe with his team of huskies, had to butcher some and wrap himself in the skins to save his life. He raised a sort of mast with the frozen legs and paws. This was irrelevant, however. But I thought, what if the dead man's own dog were to appear? Moreover, it was possible we were being watched. If it was no accident that we had been billeted with this corpse, perhaps the whole tribe was in on the joke; they might even now be spying, holding their mouths and killing themselves with laughter. While Romilayu wept and groaned and I was boiling with indignation. I sat down at the door of my hut and waited for the blue-white trailing clouds to dim the piecemeal moon, and for the sleep of the villagers, if they were asleep, to deepen. At last, not because the time was ripe, but because I couldn't bear waiting, I rose and tied a blanket under my chin, a precaution against stains. I had decided to carry the man on my back in case we had to run for it. Romilayu was not strong enough to shoulder the main burden. First I pulled the body away from the wall. Then I took it by the wrists and with a quick turn, bending, hauled it on my back. I was afraid lest the arms begin to exert a grip on my neck from behind. Tears of anger and repugnance began to hang from my eyes. I fought to stifle these feelings back into my chest. And I thought, what if this man should turn out to be a Lazarus? I believe in Lazarus. I believe in the awakening of the dead. I am sure that for some, at least, there is a resurrection. I was never better aware of my belief than when I stooped there with my heavy belly, my face far forward and tears of fear and sorrowful perplexity coming from my eyes. But this dead man on my back was no Lazarus. He was cold and the skin in my hands was dead. His chin had settled on my shoulder. Determined as only a man can be who is saving his life, I made huge muscles in my jaw and shut my teeth to hold my entrails back, as they seemed to be rising on me. I suspected that if the dead man had been planted on me and the tribe was awake and watching, when I was half way to the ravine they might burst out and yell, "Dead stealer! Ghoul! Give back our dead man!" and they would hit me on the head and lay me out for my sacrilege. Thus I would end--I, Henderson, with all my striving and earnestness. "You damned fool," I said to Romilayu, who stood off half-concealed. "Pick up this guy's feet, and help me carry him. If we see anybody you can just drop them and beat it. I'll run for it alone." He obeyed me, and, as if dressed in a second man and groaning, my head filled with flashes and thick noises, I went into the lane. And a voice within me rose and said, "Do you love death so much? Then here, have some." "I do not love it," I said. "Who told you that? That's a mistake." Near me I then heard the snarl of a dog and I became more dangerous to him than he could possibly be to me. I vowed that if he made trouble I would drop the corpse and tear the animal to pieces with my hands. When he came out bristling and I saw his scruff by moonlight, I made a threatening noise in my throat, and the animal was aghast and shrank from me. Giving a long whine, he beat it. His whining was so unnatural that it should have waked someone, but no, everyone went on sleeping. The huts gaped like open haystacks. Still, however like a heap of hay it may have looked, each was a careful construction, and inside the families of sleepers lay breathing. The air was more than ever like a blue forest, with the moon releasing soft currents of yellow. As I ran, the mountains were all turned over hugely, and the body was shaken, and Romilayu, his head averted, twisted aside, still obeyed me and carried the legs. The ravine was near but the added weight of the corpse sank my feet in the soft soil and the sand poured over my boot tops. I was wearing the type of shoe adopted by the British Infantry in North Africa, and I had improvised myself a new lace with a strip of canvas and it wasn't holding up well. I struggled hard on the short slope that rose to the edge of the ravine, and I said to Romilayu, "Come on. Can't you take just a little more of the weight?" Instead of raising, he pushed, and I stumbled and went down under the burden of the corpse. This was a hard fall and I lay caught in the dusty sand. To my wet eyes the stars appeared elongated, each like a yardstick. Then Romilayu said hoarsely, "Dem come, dem come." I got out from under and, when I had freed myself, pushed the body from me into the gully. Something with in me begged the dead man for his forgiveness--like, "Oh, you stranger, don't be sore. We have met and parted. I did you no harm. Now go your way and don't hold this against me." Closing my eyes I gave him a heave and he fell on the flat of his back, as it seemed from the thump I heard. Then on my knees I turned around to see who was coming. Near our hut were several torches and it appeared that someone was looking either for us or for the body. Should we jump into the ravine, too? This would have made fugitives of us, and it was lucky for me that I didn't have the strength to take this leap. I was too bushed, and I suffered pangs in the glands of my mouth. So we remained in the same place until we were discovered by moonlight and a fellow with a gun came running toward us. But his behavior was not hostile, and unless my imagination misled me it was even respectful. He told Romilayu that the examiner wanted to see us again and he did not even look over the edge of the ravine, and no mention of any corpse was made. We were marched back to the courtyard and without delay were brought before the examiner. Looking about for the two women, I discovered them asleep on some skins at either side of their husband's couch. The messengers he had sent for us entered with their torches. If they wanted to hang a rap of sacrilege on me, I was guilty all right, having disturbed the rest of their dead. I had some points on my side too, though I had no intention of defending myself. So I waited, one eye almost closed, to hear what this lean fellow in the hemp wig, the examiner, with his leopard-skin cuffs, would say. I was told to sit down and I did so, stooping onto the low stool with my hands on my knees and putting my face forward very attentively. Now the examiner made no mention of any corpse, but instead asked me a series of curious questions, such as my age and general health and was I a married man and did I have children. To all my answers, translated by poor Romilayu, whose voice showed the strain of terror, the examiner gave deep bows and he frowned, but favorably, and seemed to approve of what he heard. Because he didn't mention the dead man I felt gracious and obliging, if you please, and thought with a certain amount of satisfaction, and maybe even jubilation, that I had passed the ordeal they had set me. It had sickened me, it had wrung me, but in the end my boldness had paid off. Would I sign my name? For comparison with the passport signature, I supposed. Willingly I dashed the signature down with my liberated and light fingers, saying to myself within, "Ha, ha! Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! That's okay. You may have my autograph." Where were the ladies? Sleeping with those big contented horizontal mouths and round, shaved, delicate heads. And the torch bearers? Holding up the sizzling lights from which a hairy smoke was departing. "Well, is everything in order now? I guess it's okay." I was really highly pleased and felt I had accomplished something. Now the examiner made a curious request. Would I please take off my shirt? At this I balked a little and wanted to know What for. Romilayu couldn't tell me. I was somewhat worried and I said to him in low tones, "Listen, what's all this about?" "I no know." "Well, ask the guy." Romilayu did as I had bid him but only got a repetition of the request. "Ask him," I said, "if then he'll let us go to sleep peacefully." As if he understood my terms, the examiner nodded, and I stripped off my T-shirt, which was greatly in need of a wash. The examiner then came up to me and looked me over very closely, which made me feel awkward. I wondered whether I might be asked to wrestle among the Wariri as I had been by Itelo; I thought perhaps I had strayed into a wrestling' part of Africa, where it was the customary mode of introduction. However, this did not seem to be the case. "Well, Romilayu," I said, "it could be that they want to sell us into slavery. There are reports that they still keep Slaves in Saudi Arabia. God! What a slave I'd make. Ha. ha!" I was still in a jesting frame of mind, you see. "Or do they want to put me into a pit and cover me with coals and bake me? The pygmies do that with elephants. It takes about a week's time." While I was still kidding like this the examiner continued to size me up. I pointed to the name Frances, tattooed at Coney Island so many years ago, and explained that this was the name of my first wife. He did not seem much interested. I put on my sweaty shirt again and said, "Ask him if we can see the king." This time the examiner was willing to reply. The king, Romilayu translated, wanted to see me tomorrow and to talk to me in my own language. "That's wonderful," I said. "I have a thing or two to ask him." Tomorrow, Romilayu repeated, King Dahfu wanted to see me. Yes, yes. In the morning before the day-long ceremonies to end the drought were begun. "Oh, is that so?" I said. "In that case let's have a little sleep." So we were allowed at last to rest, not that much of the night remained. All too soon the roosters were screaming and I awoke and grew aware first of foaming red clouds and the huge channel of the approaching sunrise. I then sat up, remembering that the king wished to see us early. Just inside the doorway, against the wall, sitting in very much my own posture, was the dead man. Someone had fetched him back from the ravine.