Henderson the Rain King

  “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 bridge-work 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 is 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 halfway 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. 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 within 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.

  XII

  I swore, “This is brain-washing.” And I resolved that they would never drive me out of my mind. I had seen dead men before this, plenty of them. In the last year of the war I shared the European continent with about fifteen million of them, though it’s always the individual case that’s the worst. The corpse was sadly covered with the dust into which I had thrown it, and now that they had fetched him back, my relations with him were no secret, and I decided to sit tight and await the outcome of events. There was nothing more for me to do. Romilayu was still asleep, his hand pressed between his knees, the other under his wrinkled cheek. I saw no reason to wake him. And leaving him in the hut with the dead man, I went into the open air. I was aware of a great peculiarity either in myself or in the day, or in both. I must have been getting the fever from which I was to suffer for a while. It was accompanied by a scratchy sensation in my bosom, a little like eagerness or longing. In the nerves between my ribs this was especially noticeable. It was one of those mixed sensations, comparable to what one feels when smelling the fumes of gasoline. The air was warm and swooning about my face; the colors were all high. Those colors were extraordinary. No doubt my impressions were a consequence of stress and of lac
k of sleep.

  As this was a day of festival the town was already beginning to jump, people were running about, and whether or not they knew whom Romilayu and I had in our hut was never revealed to me. A sweet, spicy smell of native beer burst from the straw walls. The drinking here began apparently at sunrise; there was also a certain amount of what seemed to be drunken noise. I took a cautious walk around and no one paid any particular attention to me, which I interpreted as a good sign. There appeared to be quite a few family quarrels, and some of the older people were particularly abusive and waspish. At which I marveled. A small stone struck me in the helmet, but I assumed it was not aimed at me, for kids were throwing pebbles at one another and tussling, rolling in the dust. A woman ran from her hut and swept them away, screaming and cuffing them. She did not seem particularly astonished to find herself face to face with me, but turned around and re-entered her house, I peeked in and saw an old fellow lying there on a straw mat. She trod on his back with her bare feet in a kind of massage calculated to straighten out his spinal column, after which she poured liquid fat on him and she skillfully rubbed him, ribs and belly. His forehead wrinkled and his grizzled beard parted. Baring his great old teeth he smiled at me, rolling his eyes toward the doorway where I was standing. “What gives here?” I was thinking, and I went about the small, narrow lanes and looked into the yards and over fences, cautiously, of course, and mindful of the sleeping Romilayu and the dead man sitting against the wall. Several young women were gilding the horns of cattle and painting and ornamenting one another too, putting on ostrich feathers, vulture feathers, and ornaments. Some of the men wore human jaw bones as neckpieces under their chins. The idols and fetishes were being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices. An ancient woman with hair in small and rigid braids had dumped yellow meal over one of these figures and was swinging a freshly killed chicken over it. Meanwhile the noise grew in volume, every minute something new added, a rattle, a snare drum, a deeper drum, a horn blast, or a gunshot.