Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [23]
�?" "These same ladies, so inordinate of attention, will report me and then the Bunam who is chief priest here, with other priests of the association, will convey me out into the bush and there I will be strangled." "Oh, no, Christ!" I said. "Indeed so. I am telling you with utmost faithfulness what a king of us, the Wariri, may look forward to. The priest will attend until a maggot is seen upon my dead person and he will wrap it in a slice of silk and bring it to the people. He will show it in public pronouncing and declaring it to be the king's soul, my soul. Then he will re-enter the bush and, a given time elapsing, he will carry to town a lion's cub, explaining that the maggot has now experienced a conversion into a lion. And after another interval, they will announce to the people the fact that the lion has converted into the next king. This will be my successor." "Strangled? You? That's ferocious. What sort of an outfit is this?" "Do you still envy me?" said the king, making the words softly with his large, warm, swollen-seeming mouth. I hesitated, and he observed, "My deduction from brief observation I give you as follows--that you are probably prone to such a passion." "What passion? You mean I'm envious?" I said touchily, and forgot myself with the king. Hearing a note of anger, the amazons of the guard who were arrayed behind the wives along the walls of the room, began to stir and grew alert. One syllable from the king quieted them. He then cleared his throat, raising himself upon his sofa, and one of the naked beauties held a salver so that he might spit. Having drawn some tobacco juice from his pipe, he was displeased and threw the thing away. Another lady retrieved it and cleaned the stem with a rag. I smiled, but I am certain my smile looked like a grievance. The hairs about my mouth were twisted by it. I was aware, however, that I could not demand an explanation of that remark. So I said, "Your Highness, something very irregular happened last night. I don't complain of having fallen into a trap on arrival or my weapons being swiped, but in my hut last night there was a dead body. This is not exactly in the nature of a complaint, as I can handle myself with the dead. Nevertheless I thought you ought to know about it." The king looked really put out over this; there wasn't the least flaw of insincerity in his indignation and he said, "What? I am sure it is a confusion of arrangements. If intentional, I will be very put out. This is a matter I must have looked into." "I'm obliged to confess, Your Highness, I felt a certain amount of inhospitality and _I__ was put out. My man was reduced to hysterics. And I might as well make a clean breast. Though I didn't want to tamper with your dead, I took it upon myself to remove the body. Only what does it signify?" "What can it?" he said. "As far as I am aware, nothing." "Oh, then I am relieved," I said. "My man and I had a very bad hour or two with it. And during the night it was brought back." "Apologies," said the king. "My most sincere. Genuine. I can see it was horrible and also discommoding." He didn't ask me for any particulars. He did not say, "Who was it? What was the man like?" Nor did he even seem to care whether it was a man, a woman, or a child. I was so glad to escape the anxiety of the thing that at the time I didn't note this peculiar lack of interest. "There must be quite a number of deaths among you at this time," I said. "On the way over to the palace I could have sworn I saw some fellows hanging." He did not answer directly, but only said, "We must get you out of the undesirable lodging. So please be my guest in the palace." "Thank you." "Your things will be sent for." "My man, Romilayu, has already brought them, but he hasn't had breakfast." "Be assured, he will be taken care of." "And my gun �" "Whenever you have occasion to shoot, it will be in your hands." "I keep hearing a lion," I said. "Does this have anything to do with the information you gave me about the death of �" I did not complete the question. "What brings you here to us, Mr. Henderson?" I had an impulse to confide in him--that was how he made me feel, trusting--but as he had steered away the subject from the roaring of the lions, which I clearly heard beneath, I couldn't very well start, just like that, to speak openly and so I said, "I am just a traveler." My position on the three-legged stool suggested that I was crouching there in order to avoid questioning. The situation required an amount of equipoise or calm of mind which I lacked. And I kept wiping or rubbing my nose with my Woolworth bandanna. I tried to figure, "Which of these women might be the queen?" Then, as it might not be polite to stare at the different members of the harem, most of them so soft, supple, and black, I turned my eyes to the floor, aware that the king was watching me. He seemed all ease, and I all limitation. He was extended, floating; I was contracted and cramped. The undersides of my knees were sweating. Yes, he was soaring like a spirit while I sank like a stone, and from my fatigued eyes I could not help looking at him grudgingly (thus becoming actually guilty of the passion he had seen in me), in his colors surrounded by cherishing attention. Suppose there was ultimately such a price to pay? To me it seemed that he was getting full value. "Do you mind a further inquiry, Mr. Henderson? What kind of traveler are you?" "Oh