“Well, that’s okay then—but the rest, with the gods? I felt very bad, Your Highness, I don’t mind telling you. I could never claim that I led a very good life. I’m sure it’s written all over me….” The king nodded. “I’ve done a hell of a lot of things, too, both as a soldier and a civilian. I’ll say it straight out, I don’t even deserve to be chronicled on toilet paper. But when I saw them start to beat Mummah and Hummat and all the others, I fell to the ground. It got to be pretty dark out there and I don’t know whether you saw that or not.”
“I saw you. It is not my idea, Henderson, of how to be.” The king spoke softly. “I have far other ideas. You will see. But shall we speak only to each other?”
“You want to do me a favor, Your Highness, a big favor? The biggest favor possible?”
“Assuredly. Why certainly.”
“All right, then, this is it: will you expect the truth from me? That’s my only hope. Without it everything else might as well go bust.”
He began to smile. “Why, how could I refuse you this? I am glad, Henderson-Sungo, but you must let me make the same request, otherwise it will be worthless if not mutual. But do you have expectation as to the form the truth is to take? Are you prepared if it comes in another shape, unanticipated?”
“Your Majesty, it’s a deal. This is a pact between us. Oh, you don’t understand how great a favor you’re doing me. When I left the Arnewi (and I may as well tell you that I goofed there—maybe you know it) I thought that I had lost my last chance. I was just about to find out about the grun-tu-molani when this terrible thing happened, which was all my fault, and I left under a cloud. Christ, I was humiliated. You see, Your Highness, I keep thinking about the spirit’s sleep and when the hell is it ever going to burst. So yesterday, when I became the rain king—oh, what an experience! How will I ever communicate it to Lily (my wife)?”
“I do appreciate this, Mr. Henderson-Sungo. I intentionally wished to keep you with me a while hoping that exchanges of importance would be possible. For I do not find it easy to express myself to my own people. Only Horko has been in the world at all and with him I cannot freely exchange, either. They are against me here….”
This he said almost secretly, and after he spoke his broad lips closed and the room became still. The amazons lay on the floor as if asleep—Tatu in her hat and the other two naked save for the leather jerkin articles they wore. Their black eyes were only just open, but watchful. I could hear the wives behind the thick door of our inner room, stirring there.
“You are right,” I said. “It’s not just a question of expecting the truth. There’s another question, too, of solitude. As if a guy were his own grave. When he comes forth from this burial he doesn’t know good from bad. So for instance it has been going through my mind for some time that there is a connection between truth and blows.”
“How is that again? You thought what?”
“Well, it’s this way. Last winter as I was chopping wood a piece flew up from the block and broke my nose. So the first thing I thought was truth!”
“Ah,” said the king, and then he began to speak, intimate and low, of a variety of things I had never heard before, and I stared toward him with my eyes grown big. “As things are,” he said, “such may appear to be related to the case. I do not believe actually it is so. But I feel there is a law of human nature in which force is concerned. Man is a creature who cannot stand still under blows. Now take the horse—he never needs a revenge. Nor the ox. But man is a creature of revenges. If he is punished he will contrive to get rid of the punishment. When he cannot get rid of punishment, his heart is apt to rot from it. This may be—don’t you think so, Mr. Henderson-Sungo? Brother raises a hand against brother and son against father (how terrible!) and the father also against son. And moreover it is a continuity-matter, for if the father did not strike the son, they would not be alike. It is done to perpetuate similarity. Oh, Henderson, man cannot keep still under the blows. If he must, for the time, he will cast down his eyes and think in silence of the ways to clear himself of them. Those prime-eval blows everybody still feels. The first was supposed to be struck by Cain, but how could that be? In the beginning of time there was a hand raised which struck. So the people are flinching yet. All wish to rid themselves and free themselves and cast the blow upon the others. And this I conceive of as the earthly dominion. But as for the truth content of the force, that is a separate matter.”
The room was all shadow, but the heat with its odor of vegetable combustion pervaded the air.
“Wait a minute, now, sire,” I said, having frowned and bitten on my lips. “Let me see if I have got you straight. You say the soul will die if it can’t make somebody else suffer what it suffers?”
“For a while, I am sorry to say, it then feels peace and joy.”
I lifted up my brows, and with difficulty, as the whiplashes all over the unprotected parts of my face were atrocious. I gave him one of my high looks, from one eye, “You are sorry to say, Your Highness? Is this why me and the gods had to be beaten?”
“Well, Henderson, I should have notified you better when you wished to move Mummah. To that extent you are right.”
“But you thought I would be the fellow to do the job, and thought so before I laid eyes on them.” Then I cut out the reproaches. I said to him, “You want to know something, Your Highness, there are some guys who can return good for evil. Even I understand that. Crazy as I am,” I said. I began to tremble in all my length and breadth as I realized on which side of the issue I stood, and had stood all the time.
Curiously, I saw that he agreed with me. He was glad I had said this. “Every brave man will think so,” he told me. “He will not want to live by passing on the wrath. A hit B? B hit C?—we have not enough alphabet to cover the condition. A brave man will try to make the evil stop with him. He shall keep the blow. No man shall get it from him, and that is a sublime ambition. So, a fellow throws himself in the sea of blows saying he do not believe it is infinite. In this way many courageous people have died. But an even larger number who had more of impatience than bravery. Who have said, ‘Enough of the burden of wrath. I cannot bear my neck should be unfree. I cannot eat more of this mess of fear-pottage.’ ”
I wish to say at this place that the beauty of King Dahfu’s person prevailed with me as much as his words, if not more. His black skin shone as if with the moisture that gathers on plants when they reach their prime. His back was long and muscular. His high-rising lips were a strong red. Human perfections are short-lived, and we love them more than we should, maybe. But I couldn’t help it. The thing was involuntary. I felt a pang in my gums, where such things register themselves without my will and then I knew how I was affected by him.
“Yet you are right for the long run, and good exchanged for evil truly is the answer. I also subscribe, but it appears a long way off, for the human specie as a whole. Perhaps I am not the one to make a prediction, Sungo, but I think the noble will have its turn in the world.”
I was swayed; I thrilled when I heard this. Christ! I would have given anything I had to hear another man say this to me. My heart was moved to such an extent that I felt my face stretch until it must have been as long as a city block. I was blazing with fever and mental excitement because of the loftiness of our conversation and I saw things not double or triple merely, but in countless outlines of wavering color, gold, red, green, umber, and so on, all flowing concentrically around each object. Sometimes Dahfu seemed to be three times his size, with the spectrum around him. Larger than life, he loomed over me and spoke with more than one voice. I gripped my legs through the green silk trousers of the Sungo and I am sure I must have been demented at that time. Slightly. I was really sent, and I mean it. The king treated me with classic African dignity, and this is one of the summits of human behavior. I don’t know where else people can be so dignified. Here, in the midst of darkness, in a small room in a hidden fold near the equator, in this same town where I had struggled along with the cor
pse on my back under the moon and the blue forests of heaven. Why, if a spider should get a stroke and suddenly begin to do a treatise on botany or something—a transfigured vermin, do you follow me? This is how I embraced the king’s words about nobility’s having its turn in the world.
“King Dahfu,” I said, “I hope you will consider me your friend. I am deeply affected by what you say. Though I am a little woozy from all the novelty—the strangeness. Nevertheless I feel lucky here. Yesterday I took a beating. Well, all right. Since I am a suffering type of man anyhow, I am glad at least it served a purpose for a change. But let me ask you, when the noble gets its turn—how is that ever going to take place?”
“You would like to know what gives me such a confidence that my prediction will ultimately come?”
“Well, sure,” I said, “of course. I am curious as all get-out. I mean what practical approach do you recommend?”
“I do not conceal, Mr. Henderson-Sungo, that I have a conception about it. As a matter of fact I do not wish it to be a secret with me. I am most eager to advance it to you. I am glad you want to consider me as a friend. Without reserve, I am developing a similar attitude toward you. Your coming has made me joyful. About the Sungo trouble I am genuinely very sorry. We could not refrain from making use of you. It was because of the circumstances. You will pardon me.” This was practically an order, but I was only too glad to obey it, and I pardoned the guy, all right. I was not too corrupted or beat on the head by life to identify the extraordinary. I saw that he was some kind of genius. Much more than that. I realized that he was a genius of my own mental type.
“Well, sure, Your Highness. No question about that. I wanted you to make use of me yesterday. I said so myself.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Henderson-Sungo. So that is over. Do you know from the flesh standpoint you are something of a figure? You are rather monumental. I am speaking somatically.”
At this I became somewhat stiff, as it had a dubious sound, and I said, “Is that so?”
The king exclaimed, “Do not let us go backward on our truth agreement, Mr. Henderson.”
At this I got off my high horse. “Oh, no, Your Highness. That stands,” I said. “Come what may. That was no bull. I meant every word and I want you to hold me to it.”
This pleased him, and he told me, “I observed before, as to truth, a person may be unready to receive except what he has anticipated as true. However, I was referring to your outer man as a formation. It speaks for itself in many ways.”
With his eyes he referred to the pile of books beside his seat as though they had a bearing on the matter. I turned my head to read the titles but the room was too obscurely lighted for that.
He said, “You are very fierce-looking.”
This is no news to me; nevertheless, from him, this observation hurt me. “Well, what do you want?” I said. “I am the type of guy who couldn’t survive without disfigurement. Life has worked me over. It wasn’t just the war, either…. I got a bad wound, you know. But the shots of life …” I gave myself a bang on the breast. “Right here! You know what I mean, King? But naturally I don’t want even such a life as mine to be thrown away, the fact that I have sometimes threatened suicide to the contrary notwithstanding. If I can’t make an active contribution at least I should illustrate something. Even that I don’t know anything about. I don’t seem to illustrate a thing.”
“Oh, this is erroneous of you. You illustrate volumes,” he said. “To me you are a treasure of illustrations. I do not condemn your looks. Only I see the world in your constitution. In my medical study this became the greatest of fascinations to me and independently I have made a thorough study of the types, resulting in an entire classification system, as: The agony. The appetite. The obstinate. The immune elephant. The shrewd pig. The fateful hysterical. The death-accepting. The phallic-proud or hollow genital. The fast asleep. The narcissus intoxicated. The mad laughers. The pedantics. The fighting Lazaruses. Oh, Henderson-Sungo, how many shapes and forms! Numberless!”
“I see. This is quite a subject.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I have devoted years, and observed all the way from Lamu to Istanbul and Athens.”
“A big chunk of the world,” I said. “So tell me, what do I illustrate most?”
“Why,” he said, “everything about you, Henderson-Sungo, cries out, ‘Salvation, salvation! What shall I do? What must I do? At once! What will become of me?’ And so on. That is bad.”
At this moment I could not have concealed how astonished I was even if I had taken a Ph.D. degree in concealment, and I mused, “Yes. This was what Willatale was beginning to tell me, I guess. Grun-tu-molani was just a starter.”
“I know that Arnewi expression,” said the king. “Yes, I have been there, too, with Itelo. I understand what this grun-tu-molani implies. Indeed I do. And I know the lady also, a great success, a human gem, a triumph of the type—I refer to my system of classification. Granted, grun-tu-molani is much, but it is not alone sufficient. Mr. Henderson, more is required. I can show you something now—something without which you will never understand thoroughly my special aim nor my point of view. Will you come with me?”
“Where to?”
“I cannot say. You must trust me.”
“Well, sure. Okay. I guess….”
My consent was all he wanted and he rose, and Tatu, who had been sitting by the wall with the garrison cap over her eyes, got up too.
XVI
From this small room the door opened into a long gallery screened with thatch. Tatu, the amazon, let us out and then followed us. The king was already far ahead of me down this private gallery of his. I tried to keep up with him, and the necessity of walking faster made me feel how yesterday’s cuts had crippled my feet. So I hobbled and shambled while Tatu in her sturdy military stride came behind me. She had bolted the door of the small room from outside so that nobody could follow, and after we had crossed the gallery, which was about fifty feet long, she lifted another heavy wood bolt from the door at that end. This must have weighed like iron, for her knees sank, but the old woman had a powerful build and knew her job. The king went through, and I saw a staircase descending. It was wide enough, but dark—black ahead. A corrupt moldering smell rose from this darkness, which made me choke a little. But the king went right through into the moldering darkness and I thought, “What this calls for is a miner’s lamp or a cage of canaries,” trying to josh the fears out of my heart. “But okay,” I thought, “if I’ve got to go, down I go. One, two, three, and on your way, Captain Henderson.” You see, at such a moment, I would call on my military self. Thus I mastered my anxious feelings, chiefly by making my legs go, and entered this darkness. “King?” I said, when I was in. But there was no answer. My voice had a quaver, I heard it myself, and then I caught the rapid pounding of steps below. I extended both arms, but found no rail or wall. However, by the cautious use of my feet I discovered that the stairs were broad and even. All light from above was cut off when Tatu slammed the door. Next moment I heard a heavy bolt bump into place. Now I had no alternative except to follow downward or to sit down and wait until the king turned back to me. With which alternative I risked the loss of his respect and all the rest that I had gained yesterday by overcoming Mummah. Therefore I continued, while I told myself what a rare and probably great man that king was, how he must be nothing less than a genius, and how astonishing his personal beauty was, how the hum he made reminded me of that power station on 16th Street in New York on a hot night, how we were friends, and bound by a truth-telling agreement; finally, how he predicted that nobility had a greater future than ever. Of all the elements in the catalogue, this last had most appeal to me. Thus I groped with sore feet after him and kept saying to myself, “Have faith, Henderson, it’s about time you had some faith.” Presently there was some light and the end of the staircase came in view. The width of the stairs was due to the architectural crudeness of the palace. I was now beneath the building. Daylight came from a narrow openi
ng above my head; this light was originally yellow but became gray by contact with stones. In the opening two iron spikes were set to keep even a child from creeping through. Examining my situation I found a small passage cut from the granite which led downward to another flight of stairs, which were of stone too. These were narrower and ran to a great depth, and soon I found them broken, with grass springing and soil leaking out through the cracks. “King,” I called, “King, hey, are you down there, Your Highness?”
But nothing came from below except drafts of warm air that lifted up the spider webs. “What’s the guy’s hurry?” I thought, and my cheeks twitched and I continued to go down. Instead of cooling, the air appeared warmer, the light filled up the stony space like a gray and yellow fluid, the surfaces of the wall acting as a filter, for the atmosphere was distributed as evenly as water. I came to the bottom, the last few steps being of earth and the bases of the walls themselves mixed with soil. Which recalled to me the speckled vision of twilight at Banvules-sur-Mer in that aquarium, where I saw that creature, the octopus, pressing its head against the glass. But where I had felt coldness there, here I felt very warm. I proceeded, feeling my apparel—the helmet, of course, but even the green silk pants of the rain king, which were light and flimsy—as excessive, a drag on me. By and by the walls became more spacious and widened into a sort of cave. To the left the tunnel went off into darkness. This I certainly had no intention of entering. The other way, there stood a semicircular wall in which there was a large door barred with wood. It was partly open and on the edge of this door I saw Dahfu’s hand. For about the count of twenty, this was as much of him as I saw, but it wasn’t necessary now to ask myself where he had been leading me. A low ripping sound behind the door was self-explanatory. It was the lion’s den. And because the door was ajar I thought it advisable not to budge. I froze where I was, as there was only the king between me and the animal, of which I now began to see glimpses. This beast was not the one he had to capture. I didn’t yet understand exactly what his relations with it were, but I did realize that he himself had no hesitation about entering, but had to prepare the animal for me. I was expected to go into the den with him. There was no question about that. And now when I heard that ripping, soft, dangerous sound the creature made, I felt as if I had got astride a rope. Seemingly it passed between my knees. I was under strict orders to myself to have faith, but as a soldier I had to think of my line of retreat, and here I was in a bad way. If I went up the stairs, at the top I would encounter a bolted door. It would do no good to knock or cry. Tatu would never open, and I could see myself chased all the way up and lying there with the animal washing its face in my blood. I expected the liver to go first, as with beasts of prey it is like that, they eat the most nutritious and valuable organ immediately. My other course lay into that dark tunnel, and this I speculated led to another closed door, probably. So I stood in those sad green pants with the stained jockey shorts under them, trying to steel myself. Meanwhile the snarling and ripping rose and fell and I became also aware of the voice of the king; he was talking to the animal, sometimes in Wariri, and sometimes in English, perhaps for my benefit, in order to reassure me. “Easy, easy, sweetheart. Here, here, my dolly.” Thus it was a female, and he spoke low and steadily, calming her, and without raising his voice he said to me, “Henderson-Sungo, she now knows you are there. Gradually you must advance closer—little by little.”