I couldn’t say what I felt, which was: “No, you don’t. You never could. Grief has kept me in condition and that’s why this body is so tough. Lifting stones and pouring concrete and chopping wood and toiling with the pigs—my strength isn’t happy strength. It wasn’t a fair match. Take it from me, you are a better man.”
Somehow I could never make myself lose any contest, no matter how hard I tried. Even playing checkers with my little children, regardless how I maneuvered to let them win and even while their lips trembled with disappointment (oh, the little kids would be sure to hate me), I would jump all over the board and say rudely, “King me!” though all the while I would be saying to myself, “Oh, you fool, you fool, you fool!”
But I didn’t really understand how the prince felt until he rose and wrapped his arms about me and laid his dusty head on my shoulder, saying we were friends now. This hit me where I lived, right in the vital centers, both with suffering and with gratification. I said, “Your Highness, I’m proud. I’m glad.” He took my hand, and if this was awkward it was stirring also. I was covered with a strong flush which is the radiance an older fellow may allowably feel after such a victory. But I tried to deprecate the whole thing and said to him, “I have experience on my side. You’ll never know how much and what kind.”
He answered, “I know you now, sir. I do know you.”
VII
The news of my victory was given out as we left the hut by the dust on Itelo’s head and by his manner in walking beside me, so that the people applauded as I came into the sunshine, pulling on my T-shirt and setting the helmet back into place. The women flapped their hands at me from the wrist while opening their mouths to almost the same degree. The men made whistling noises on their fingers, spreading their cheeks wide apart. Far from looking hangdog or grudging, the prince himself participated in the ovation, pointing at me and smiling, and I said to Romilayu, “You know something? This is really a sweet bunch of Africans. I love them.”
Queen Willatale and her sister Mtalba were waiting for me under a thatched shed in the queen’s courtyard. The queen was seated on a bench made of poles with a red blanket displayed flagwise behind her, and as we came forward, Romilayu with the bag of presents on his back, the old lady opened her lips and smiled at me. To me she was typical of a certain class of elderly lady. You will understand what I mean, perhaps, if I say that the flesh of her arm overlapped the elbow. As far as I am concerned this is the golden seal of character. With not many teeth, she smiled warmly and held out her hand, a relatively small one. Good nature emanated from her; it seemed to puff out on her breath as she sat smiling with many small tremors of benevolence and congratulation and welcome. Itelo indicated that I should give the old woman a hand, and I was astonished when she took it and buried it between her breasts. This is the normal form of greeting here—Itelo had put my hand against his breast—but from a woman I didn’t anticipate the same. On top of everything else, I mean the radiant heat and the monumental weight which my hand received, there was the calm pulsation of her heart participating in the introduction. This was as regular as the rotation of the earth, and it was a surprise to me; my mouth came open and my eyes grew fixed as if I were touching the secrets of life; but I couldn’t keep my hand there forever and I came to myself and drew it out. Then I returned the courtesy, I held her hand on my chest and said, “Me Henderson. Henderson.” The whole court applauded to see how fast I caught on. So I thought, “Hurray for me!” and drew an endless breath into my lungs.
The queen expressed stability in every part of her body. Her head was white and her face broad and solid and she was wrapped in a lion’s skin. Had I known then what I know now about lions, this would have told me much about her. Even so, it impressed me. It was the skin of a maned lion, with the wide part not on the front where you would have expected it, but on her back. The tail came down over her shoulder while the paw was drawn up from beneath, and these two ends were tied in a knot over her belly. I can’t even begin to tell you how it pleased me. The mane with its plunging hair she wore as a collar, and on this grizzly and probably itching hair she rested her chin. But there was a happy light in her face. And then I observed that she had a defective eye, with a cataract, blueish white. I made the old lady a deep bow, and she began to laugh and her lion-bound belly shook and she wagged her head with its dry white hair at the picture I made bowing in those short pants while I presented my inflamed features, for the blood rushed into my face as I bent.
I expressed regret at the trouble they were having, the drought and the cattle and the frogs, and I said I thought I knew what it was to suffer from a plague and sympathized. I realized that they had to feed on the bread of tears and I hoped I wasn’t going to be a bother here. This was translated by Itelo and I think it was well received by the old lady but when I spoke of troubles she smiled right along, as steady as the moonlight at the bottom of a stream. Meanwhile my heart was all stirred and I swore to myself every other minute that I would do something, I would make a contribution here. “I hope I may die,” I said to myself, “if I don’t drive out, exterminate, and crush those frogs.”
I then told Romilayu to start with the presents. And first of all he brought out a plastic raincoat in a plastic envelope. I scowled at him, ashamed to offer this cheap stuff to the old queen, but as a matter of fact I had a perfectly good excuse, which was that I was traveling light. Moreover, I meant to render them a service here that would make the biggest present look silly. But the queen put her hands together at the wrists and flapped them at me more deliberately than the other ladies did, and smiled with marvelous constitutional gaiety. Some of the other women in attendance did the same and those who were holding infants lifted them up as if to impress the phenomenal visitor on their memories. The men drew their mouths wide, whistling on their fingers harmoniously. Years ago the chauffeur’s son, Vince, tried to teach me how to do this and I held my fingers in my mouth until the skin wrinkled, but could never bring out those shrieking noises. Therefore I decided that as my reward for ridding them of the vermin, I would ask them to teach me to whistle. I thought it would be thrilling to pipe on my own fingers like that.
I said to Itelo, “Prince, please forgive this shabby present. I hate like hell to bring a raincoat during a drought. It’s like a mockery, if you know what I mean?”
However, he said the present gave her happiness, and it evidently did. I had stocked up on trinkets and gimmicks through the back page of the Times Sunday sports section and along Third Avenue, in the hock shops and army-navy stores. To the prince I gave a compass with small binoculars attached, not much good even for bird watchers. For the queen’s fat sister, Mtalba, noticing that she smoked, I brought out one of those Austrian lighters with the long white wick. In some places, especially in the bust, Mtalba was so heavy that her skin had turned pink from the expansion. Women are bred like that in parts of Africa where you have to be obese to be considered a real beauty. She was all gussied up, for at such a weight a woman can’t go without the support of clothes. Her hands were dyed with henna and her hair stood up stiffly with indigo; she looked like a very happy and pampered person, the baby of the family perhaps, and she shone and sparkled with fat and moisture and her flesh was puckered or flowered like a regular brocade. At the hips under the flowing gown she was as broad as a sofa, and she too took my hand and placed it on her breast, saying, “Mtalba. Mtalba awhonto.” I am Mtalba. Mtalba admires you.
“I admire her, too,” I told the prince.
I tried to get him to explain to the queen that the coat which she had now put on was waterproof, and, as he seemed unable to find a word for waterproof, I took hold of the sleeve and licked it. Misinterpreting this she caught and licked me as well. I started to let out a shout.
“No yell, sah,” said Romilayu, and made it sound urgent. Where-upon I submitted, and she licked me on the ear and on the bristled cheek and then pressed my head toward her middle.
“All right, now, so what’s this?” I
said, and Romilayu nodded his bush of hair, saying, “Kay, sah. Okay.” In short, this was a special mark of the old lady’s favor. Itelo protruded his lips to show that I was expected to kiss her on the belly. To dry my mouth first, I swallowed. The fall I had taken while wrestling had split my underlip. Then I kissed, giving a shiver at the heat I encountered. The knot of the lion’s skin was pushed aside by my face, which sank inward. I was aware of the old lady’s navel and her internal organs as they made sounds of submergence. I felt as though I were riding in a balloon above the Spice Islands, soaring in hot clouds while exotic odors arose from below. My own whiskers pierced me inward, in the lip. When I drew back from this significant experience (having made contact with a certain power—unmistakable!—which emanated from the woman’s middle), Mtalba also reached for my head, wishing to do the same, as indicated by her gentle gestures, but I pretended I didn’t understand and said to Itelo, “How come when everybody else is in mourning, your aunts are both so gay?”
He said, “Two women o’ Bittahness.”
“Bitter? I don’t set up to be a judge of bitter and sweet,” I said, “but if this isn’t a pair of happy sisters, my mind is completely out of order. Why, they’re having one hell of a time.”
“Oh, happy! Yes, happy—bittah. Most bittah,” said Itelo. And he began to explain. A Bittah was a person of real substance. You couldn’t be any higher or better. A Bittah was not only a woman but a man at the same time. As the elder Willatale had seniority in Bittahness, too. Some of these people in the courtyard were her husbands and others her wives. She had plenty of both. The wives called her husband, and the children called her both father and mother. She had risen above ordinary human limitations and did whatever she liked because of her proven superiority in all departments. Mtalba was Bittah too and was on her way up. “Both my aunts like you. It is very good for you, Henderson,” said Itelo.
“Do they have a good opinion of me, Itelo? Is that a fact?” I said.
“Very good. Primo. Class A. They admire how you look, and also they know you beat me.”
“Boy, am I glad my physical strength is good for something,” I said, “instead of being a burden, as it mostly has been throughout life. Only, tell me this: can’t women of Bittahness do anything about frogs?”
At this he was solemn, and he said no.
Next it was the turn of the queen to ask questions, and first of all she said she was glad I had come. She could not hold still as she spoke, but her head was moved by many small tremors of benevolence, while her breath puffed from her lips and her open hand made passing motions before her face, and then she stopped and smiled, but without parting her mouth, while the live eye opened brightly toward me and the dry white hair rose and fell owing to the supple movement of her forehead.
I had two interpreters, for Romilayu couldn’t be left out of things. He had a sense of dignity and position, and was a model of correctness in an African manner as though bred to court life, speaking in a high-pitched drawl and tucking in his chin while he pointed upward ceremoniously with a single finger.
After the queen had welcomed me she wanted to know who I was and where I came from. And as soon as I heard this question a shadow fell on all the pleasure and lightheartedness of the occasion and I began to suffer. I wish I could explain why it oppressed me to tell about myself, but so it was, and I didn’t know what to say. Should I tell her that I was a rich man from America? Maybe she didn’t even know where America was, as even civilized women are not keen on geography, preferring a world of their own. Lily might tell you a tremendous amount about life’s goals, or what a person should or should not expect or do, but I don’t believe she could say whether the Nile flows north or south. Thus I was sure that a woman like Willatale didn’t ask such a question merely to be answered with the name of a continent. So I stood and considered what I should say, moody, thinking, with my belly hanging forth (scratched under the shirt by the contest with Itelo), my eyes wrinkling almost shut. And my face, I have to repeat, is no common face, but like an unfinished church. I was aware that women were tugging nursing infants from the nipple to hold them up and show them this memorable object. Nature going to extremes in Africa, I think they genuinely appreciated my peculiarities. And so the little kids were crying at the loss of the breast, reminding me of the baby from Danbury brought home by my unfortunate daughter Ricey. This again smote me straight on the spirit, and I had all the old difficulty, thinking of my condition. A crowd of facts came upon me with accompanying pressure in the chest. Who—who was I? A millionaire wanderer and wayfarer. A brutal and violent man driven into the world. A man who fled his own country, settled by his forefathers. A fellow whose heart said, I want, I want. Who played the violin in despair, seeking the voice of angels. Who had to burst the spirit’s sleep, or else. So what could I tell this old queen in a lion skin and raincoat (for she had buttoned herself up in it)? That I had ruined the original piece of goods issued to me and was traveling to find a remedy? Or that I had read somewhere that the forgiveness of sin was perpetual but with typical carelessness had lost the book? I said to myself, “You must answer the woman, Henderson. She is waiting. But how?” And the process started over again. Once more it was, Who are you? And I had to confess that I didn’t know where to begin.
But she saw that I was standing oppressed and, in spite of my capable appearance and rude looks, was dumb, and she changed the subject. By now she understood that the coat was waterproof, so she called over one of the long-necked wives and had her spit on the material and rub in the spittle, then feel inside. She was astonished and told everybody, wetting her finger and laying it against her arm, and again they started to chant, “Awho,” and whistle on the fingers and flap their hands, and Willatale embraced me again. A second time my face sank in her belly, that great saffron swelling with the knot of lion skin sinking also, and I felt the power emanating again. I was not mistaken. And one thing I kept thinking as before, which was the hour that burst the spirit’s sleep. Meanwhile the athletic-looking men continued piping musically, spreading their mouths like satyrs (not that they otherwise suggested satyrs). And the hand-flapping went on, exactly as when ladies are playing catch (they also bend their knees just as the ball comes in). So that at that first sight of the town I felt that living among such people might change a man for the better. It had done me some good already, I could tell. And I wanted to do something for them—my desire for this was something fierce. “At least,” I thought, “if I were a doctor I would operate on Willatale’s eye.” Oh, yes, I know what cataract operations are, and I had no intention of trying. But I felt singularly ashamed of not being a doctor—or maybe it was shame at coming all this way and then having so little to contribute. All the ingenuity and development and coordination that it takes to bring a fellow so quickly and so deep into the African interior! And then—he is the wrong fellow! Thus I had once again the conviction that I filled a place in existence which should be filled properly by someone else. And I suppose it was ridiculous that it should trouble me not to be a doctor, as after all some doctors are pretty puny characters, and not a few I have met are in a racket, but I was thinking mostly about my childhood idol, Sir Wilfred Grenfell of Labrador. Forty years ago, when I read his books on the back porch, I swore I’d be a medical missionary. It’s too bad, but suffering is about the only reliable burster of the spirit’s sleep. There is a rumor of long standing that love also does it. Anyway, I was thinking that a more useful person might have arrived at this time among the Arnewi, as, for all the charm of the two women of Bittahness, the crisis was really acute. And I remembered a conversation with Lily. I asked her, “Dear, would you say it was too late for me to study medicine?” (Not that she’s the ideal woman to answer a practical question like that.) But she said, “Why, no, darling. It’s never too late. You may live to be a hundred”—a corollary to her belief I was unkillable. So I said to her, “I’d have to live that long to make it worth-while. I’d be starting internship at sixty-three,
when other men are retiring. But also I am not like other men in this respect because I have nothing to retire from. However, I can’t expect to live five or six lives, Lily. Why, more than half the people I knew as a young fellow have passed on and here am I, still planning for the future. And the animals I used to have, too. I mean a man in his lifetime has six or seven dogs and then it’s time for him to go also. So how can I think about my textbooks and instruments and enrolling in courses and studying a cadaver? Where would I find the patience to learn anatomy now and chemistry and obstetrics?” But at least Lily didn’t laugh at me as Frances had. “If I knew science,” I was thinking now, “I could probably think of a simple way to eliminate those frogs.”