“Should I, Your Highness?”
He raised his hand toward me from the door, and his fingers moved. I came forward one step and I cannot deny that there lay over my consciousness the shadow of the cat I had attempted to shoot under the bridge table. There was little besides the king’s arm that I could see. He kept beckoning and I took extremely small steps in my rubber-soled shoes. The snarls of the animal were now as sharp as thorns to me, and blind patches as big as silver dollars came and went before my eyes. Between these opaque interruptions I could see the body of the animal as it flowed back and forth before the opening—the calm, murderous face and clear eyes and the heavy feet. The king reached backward and touched me; he gathered my arm in his fingers and drew me to his side. He now held me in his arm. “King, what do you need me here for?” I said in a whisper. The lioness, in turning, then bumped into me and when I felt her I gave a sigh.
The king said, “Make no sign,” and he began again to speak to the lioness, saying, “Oh, my sweetheart, dolly girl, this is Henderson.” She rubbed herself against him so that I felt the stress of her weight through the medium of his body. She stood well above our hips in height. When he touched her her whiskered mouth wrinkled so that the root of each hair showed black. She then moved off, returned behind us, came back again, and this time began to investigate me. I felt her muzzle touch upward first at my armpits, and then between my legs, which naturally made the member there shrink into the shelter of my paunch. Clasping me and holding me up, the king still talked softly and calmingly to her while her breath blew out the green silk of the Sungo trousers. I was gripping the inside of my cheek with my teeth, including the broken bridgework, while my eyes shut, slowly, and my face became, as I was highly aware, one huge mass of acceptance directed toward fate. Suffering. (Here is all that remains of a certain life—take it away! was implied by my expression.) But the lioness withdrew her head from my crotch and began once more to walk back and forth, the king saying to me (my comforter), “Henderson-Sungo, it is all right. She is going to accept you easily.”
“How do you know?” I said, dry in the throat.
“How do I know!” He spoke with a peculiar stress of confidence. “How do I know?” He gave a low laugh, saying, “Why I know her—this is Atti.”
“That’s swell. It may seem obvious to you,” I said, “but me …” My words ended, for she was making her swing back and I caught a glance from her eyes. They were so great, so clear, like circles of wrath. Then she passed me, rubbing against Dahfu’s side; her belly swung softly, and she turned again and plunged her head under his hand, taking a caress from it. She went again to the far side of the den, this large, stone-walled room which filtered the gray and yellow light. She walked back along the walls, and when she snarled the freckles at the base of her whiskers were velvet and dark. The king, in a delighted, playful voice, nasal, African, and songlike, would call out after her, “Atti, Atti.” And he said, “Ain’t she the most beautiful?” Then he instructed me, “You will stand still, Mr. Henderson-Sungo.”
I said, whispering fiercely, “No, no, don’t move,” but he didn’t heed me. “King, for Christ’s sake,” I said. He tried to indicate that I should not worry, but was so taken up with his lioness, showing me how happy relations were between them, that in moving from me his step resembled the bounds he had made in the arena yesterday throwing the skulls. Yes, as he had done yesterday he danced and jumped, in his gold-embroidered white slippers, with powerful legs. There was something so proud and, seemingly, lucky about those legs in the neat, close trousers. Even through intensest fear it reached my mind that a man with such legs must be lucky. I wished that he would not push his luck, however, or demonstrate his relationship with her in just that way, since so much confidence may often be the prelude to a crash, or my experience isn’t worth a nickel. Still the lioness trotted near him, keeping her head under his fingers. He led her from me to the far side of the den, where a wooden platform or bench was raised against the wall on heavy posts. Here he sat down, taking her head on his knee, scratching and stroking, while she pretended to box at him. She sat on her haunches while her paws struck. I saw the action of her shoulders while he pulled her ears, which were small and round. Not an inch did I stir from the position I was left in, not even to reset my helmet when it sank over my brows with the wrinkling of my forehead that resulted from the intensity of my concentration. No, I stood there half deaf, half blind, with my throat closing and all the sphincters shut. Meanwhile the king had taken one of those easy positions of his, and was resting on his elbow. He had such a relaxed way about him, and every moment of his earthly life the extra shadow of brilliance was with him—the sign of an intenser gift of being. Atti stood with forepaws on the edge of the trestle, licking his breastbone; her tongue rasped and flexed against his skin and he raised one of his legs and laid it playfully over her back. At which I felt so smothered I almost passed out, and I don’t know whether the cause of this was fear for his safety or something else. I don’t know what—rapture, maybe. Admiration. He stretched himself out at full length on this platform, and lying down isn’t worth speaking of except as this king did it. It was a thing of art with him, and maybe he had not been joking when he said he kept strong by lying down, since it really seemed to add to his vitality. The animal with a soft, deep, ripping noise got set on her great, claw-hiding, hind paws and bounded up beside him. On the trestle she walked up and down, now and then glancing at me as if she were guarding him. When she looked at me it was with that round, clear stare out of the vast background of natural severity. There was no direct threat in this, it lacked anything personal; nevertheless it made my hair, though cramped by the helmet, stir all over my head. I continued to entertain the obscure worry that my intended crime against the cat world might somehow be known here. Also I was anxious about the hour that burst the spirit’s sleep. I might have misapprehended the nature of it completely. How did I know that it might not be the judgment hour for me?
However, there were no practical alternatives present. I could do nothing but stand. Which I did. Finally the king extended his hand from behind the lioness, who at that time was striding back and forth over him. He pointed to the door, calling, “Please shut it, Mr. Henderson.” And he added, “Open door makes her very uneasy.”
So I asked him, “Is it okay to move?” My throat sounded badly rusted.
“Very slow,” he said, “but do not worry, as she does what I tell her, precisely.”
I stole to the door, stepping backward, and when I had reached it in very slow motion I wanted to continue through it and sit down outside to wait. But under no circumstances, come hell or high water, could I afford to weaken my connection with the king. Therefore I leaned against the door and closed it with my weight, sighing inwardly as I sank against it. I was all broken up. I couldn’t take crisis after crisis after crisis, like this.
“Now move forward, Henderson-Sungo,” he said. “So far it is admirable. Just a little quicker, only not abrupt. You will be better on closer approach. Lion is far-sighted. Her eyes are meant for viewing at a distance. Come closer.”
I approached, cursing under my breath, him and his lion both, trembling and watching the tip of her tail as it swiped back and forth as regular as a metronome. In the middle of the floor I had no more support in all of God’s world than a stone.
“More, more. Nearer,” he said, and gestured with two fingers. “She will get used to you.”
“If I don’t die of it,” I said.
“Oh, no, Henderson, she will have an influence upon you as she has had upon me.”
When I was within reach he pulled me to him, meanwhile thrusting away the face of the animal with his left hand. With great difficulty I clambered up beside him. Then I wiped my face. Needlessly, for owing to the fever it was entirely dry. Atti paced to the end of the platform and swung back. The king fended her off from the back of my head which bristled like a sea urchin when she approached. She sniffed at my back. The king
was smiling and thought we were getting on famously. I cried a little. Then she went away and the king said, “Do not be so exceedingly troubled, Henderson-Sungo.”
“Oh, Your Highness, I can’t help myself. It’s what I feel. It’s not only that I’m scared of her, and I’m scared all right, but it isn’t that alone. It’s the richness of the mixture. That’s what’s getting me. The richness of the mixture. And what I can’t understand is why, when fear has taken me on and licked me so many times, I still am not able to stand it.” And I went on sobbing, but not too loud, as I didn’t want to provoke anything.
“Try, better, to appreciate the beauty of this animal,” he said. “Do not think I am attempting to submit you to any ordeal for ordeal’s sake. Do you think it is a nerve test? Wash your brain? Honor bright, such is not the case. If I were not positive of my control I would not lead you into such a situation. That would truly be scandalous.” He had his hand with the garnet ring on the beast’s neck, and he said, “If you will remain where you are, I will give you the fullest confidence.”
He jumped down from the platform, and the abruptness of this gave me a bad shock. I felt a burst of terror go off in my chest. The lioness leaped as soon as he did and the two of them together walked to the center of the den. He stopped and gave her an order. She sat. He spoke again and she stretched out on her back, opening her mouth, and then he crouched and pushed his arm into her jaws, bearing down against the wrinkled lips while her tail as she sprawled made a big arc on the stone, sweeping it with utmost power. Withdrawing the arm he made her stand again, and then he crept underneath her and put his legs about her back; his white-slippered feet crossed upon her haunches and his arms about her neck. Face to face she carried him up and down while he talked to her. She snarled, but not at him, seemingly. Together they went clear around the den and back to the platform, where she stood making her soft ripping noise and wrinkling her lips back. He hung on in his purple trousers, looking up at me. Till then I had only thought that I had seen the strangeness of the world. Obviously I had never even begun to see a thing! As he hung from her, smiling upside down into my face, with his high-swelled lips, I realized I had never even had a clue. Brother, this was what you call mastery—genius, that’s all. The animal herself was aware of it. On her own animal level it was clear beyond any need of interpretation that she loved the guy. Loved him! With animal love. I loved him too. Who could have helped it?
I said, “That beats anything I ever saw.”
He dropped from the animal and pushed her aside with his knee, then vaulted to the platform again. At the same moment Atti also returned and shook the trestle.
“Now is your opinion different, Mr. Henderson?”
“King, it’s different. It’s as different as can be.”
“However, I note,” he said, “you still are in fear.”
I tried to say I wasn’t but my face began to work and I couldn’t get those words out. Then I began to cough, with my fist placed, thumb in, before my mouth, and my eyes watered. I finally said, “It’s a reflex.”
The animal was pacing by and the king irresistibly took me by the wrist and pressed my hand on her flank. Slowly her fur passed under my fingertips and the nails became like five burning tapers. The bones of the hand became incandescent. After this a frightful shock passed right up the arm into the chest.
“Now you have touched her, and what do you think?”
“What I think?” I tried to get my lower lip under control by means of my teeth. “Oh, Your Majesty, please. Not everything in one day. I am doing my best.”
He admitted to me, “It is true I am attempting rapid progress. But I wish to overcome your preliminary difficulties in quick time.”
I smelled my fingers, which had taken a peculiar odor from the lioness. “Listen,” I said, “I suffer a lot from impatience myself. But I have to say that there is just so much I can take at one time. I still have wounds on my face from yesterday, and I’m afraid she’ll smell fresh blood. I understand nobody can control these animals once they scent it.”
This marvelous man laughed at me and said, “Oh, Henderson-Sungo, you are exquisite.” (That I never suspected of myself.) “You are real precious to me, and do you know,” he said, “not many persons have touched lions.”
“I could have lived without it,” was the answer I might have made. But as he thought so highly of lions I kept it to myself, mostly. I merely muttered.
“And how you are afraid! Really! In the highest degree. I am really delighted by it. I have never seen such a fear manifestation. It resembled anxious pleasure to me. Do you know, many strong people love this blended fear and satisfaction the most? I think you must be of that type. In addition, I love when your brows move. They are really ex-traordnary. And your chin gets like a peach stone, and you have a very strangulation color and facial swelling, and your mouth spread very wide. And when you cried! I adored when you began to cry.”
I knew that this was not really personal but came from his scientific or medical absorption in these manifestations. “What happens to your labium inferiorum?” he said, still interested in my chin. “How do you get so innumerable puckers in the flesh?” (This was extremely revealing to me.) He was so superior to me and overwhelmed me so with his presence, with the extra shadow or smoky brilliancy that he had, and with his lion-riding, that I let him say everything without challenge. When the king had made several more marveling observations about my nose and my paunch and the lines in my knees, he told me, “Atti and I influence each other. I wish you to become a party to this.”
“Me?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You must not feel because I make observations of your constitution that I do not appreciate how remarkable you are in other levels.”
“Do I understand you to say, Your Highness, that you have plans for me with this animal?”
“Yes, and shall explain them.”
“Well, I think we should proceed carefully,” I said. “I don’t know how much strain my heart can take. As my fainting fits indicate I can’t take too much. Moreover, how do you think she would behave if I keeled over?”
Then he said, “Perhaps you have had enough exposure to Atti for the first day.” He left the platform again, the animal following. There was a heavy gate raised by a rope that passed over a grooved wheel about eighteen feet above the ground by means of which the king let the lioness out of the den into a separate enclosure. I have never seen any member of the cat species pass through a door except on its own terms, and she was no exception. She needed to loiter in and out while the king hung on to the rope by which the gate was suspended. As she was in exit I wanted to suggest that he should give her a boot in the tail to help her with the decision, since obviously he was her master, but under those conditions I couldn’t really presume. At last, in that soft, narrow stride, so easy, so deliberate, so vigilant, she entered the next room. Releasing the hawser, the king let the great panel slide. It hit the stone with a loud noise and he rejoined me on the trestle looking very pleasant. Peaceful. He leaned backward and his lids, large-veined, sank a little and he breathed calmly, resting. Sitting close to him in my barbaric trousers with the jockey shorts visible under them, it seemed to me that something more than the planks beneath sustained him. For after all, I was on them, and I was not similarly sustained. At any rate I sat and waited for him to complete his rest. Once again I brought to mind that old prophecy Daniel made to Nebuchadnezzar. They shall drive thee from among men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. The lion odor was still very keen on my fingers. I smelled it repeatedly and there returned to my thoughts the frogs of the Arnewi, the cattle whom they venerated, the tenants’ cat I had tried to murder, to say nothing of the pigs I had bred. Sure enough, this prophecy had a peculiar relevance to me, implying perhaps that I was not entirely fit for human companionship.
The king, having completed a short rest, was ready to speak.
“Now, then, Mr. Henderson,” h
e began to say in his exotic and specially accented way.
“Well, King, you were going to explain to me why it was desirable to associate with this lion. So far I haven’t got a clue. Oh, am I confused!”
“I am to make the matter clear,” he said, “so first of all I shall tell you how and what about the lions. A year ago or more I captured Atti. There is a traditionary way among the Wariri for obtaining a lion if you need him. Beaters go forth and the animal is driven into what we call a hopo, and this is a very large affair embracing several miles out in the bush. The animals are aroused by noises with drums and horns and pursued into the wide end of the hopo and toward the narrow. At that narrow end is the trap, and I myself as king am obliged to make the capture. In this way Atti was obtained. I have to tell you that any lion except my father, Gmilo, is forbidden and illicit. Atti was brought here in a condition of severest disapproval and opposition, causing a great anxiety and partisanship. Especially the Bunam.”