Henderson the Rain King

  He shook his head with melancholy. Yes, it was the frogs.

  “How did they ever get in here? Where do they come from?”

  These questions Itelo couldn’t answer. The whole thing was a mystery. All he could tell me was that these creatures, never before seen, had appeared in the cistern about a month ago and prevented the cattle from being watered. This was the curse mentioned before.

  “You call this a curse?” I said. “But you’ve been out in the world. Didn’t they ever show you a frog at school—at least a picture of one? These are just harmless.”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” said the prince.

  “So you know you don’t have to let your animals die because a few of these beasts are in the water.”

  But about this he could do nothing. He put up his large hands and said, “Mus’ be no ahnimal in drink wattah.”

  “Then why don’t you get rid of them?”

  “Oh, no, no. Nevah touch ahnimal in drink wattah.”

  “Oh, come on, Prince, pish-posh,” I said. “We could filter them out. We could poison them. There are a hundred things we could do.”

  He took his lip in his teeth and shut his eyes, meanwhile making loud exhalations to show how impossible my suggestions were. He blew the air through his nostrils and shook his head.

  “Prince,” I said, “let’s you and I talk this over.” I grew very intense. “Before long if this keeps up the town is going to be one continuous cow funeral. Rain isn’t likely. The season is over. You need water. You’ve got this reserve of it.” I lowered my voice. “Look here, I’m kind of an irrational person myself, but survival is survival.”

  “Oh, sir,” said the prince, “the people is frightened. Nobody have evah see such a ahnimal.”

  “Well,” I said, “the last plague of frogs I ever heard about was in Egypt.” This reinforced the feeling of antiquity the place had given me from the very first. Anyway it was due to this curse that the people, led by that maiden, had greeted me with tears by the wall of the town. It was nothing if not extraordinary. So now, when everything fitted together, the tranquil water of the cistern became as black to my eyes as the lake of darkness. There really was a vast number of these creatures woggling and crowding, stroking along with the water slipping over their backs and their mottles, as if they owned the medium. And also they crawled out and thrummed on the wet stone with congested, emotional throats, and blinked with their peculiarly marbled eyes, red and green and white, and I shook my head much more at myself than at them, thinking that a damned fool going out into the world is bound and fated to encounter damned fool phenomena. Nevertheless, I told those creatures, just wait, you little sons of bitches, you’ll croak in hell before I’m done.

  VI

  The gnats were spinning over the sun-warmed cistern, which was green and yellow and dark by turns. I said to Itelo, “You’re not allowed to molest these animals, but what if a stranger came along—me for instance—and took them on for you?” I realized that I would never rest until I had dealt with these creatures and lifted the plague.

  From his attitude I could tell that under some unwritten law he was not allowed to encourage me in my purpose, but that he and all the rest of the Arnewi would consider me their very greatest benefactor. For Itelo would not answer directly but kept sighing and repeating, “Oh, a very sad time. ’Strodinary bad time.” And I then gave him a deep look and said, “Itelo, you leave this to me,” and drew in a sharp breath between my teeth, feeling that I had it in me to be the doom of those frogs. You understand, the Arnewi are milk-drinkers exclusively and the cows are their entire livelihood; they never eat meat except ceremonially whenever a cow meets a natural death, and even this they consider a form of cannibalism and they eat in tears. Therefore the death of some of the animals was sheer disaster, and the families of the deceased every day were performing last rites and crying and eating flesh, so it was no wonder they were in this condition. As we turned away I felt as though that cistern of problem water with its algae and its frogs had entered me, occupying a square space in my interior, and sloshing around as I moved.

  We went toward my hut (Itelo’s and Mtalba’s hut), for I wanted to clean up a little before my introduction to the queen, and on the way I read the prince a short lecture. I said, “Do you know why the Jews were defeated by the Romans? Because they wouldn’t fight back on Saturday. And that’s how it is with your water situation. Should you preserve yourself, or the cows, or preserve the custom? I would say, yourself. Live,” I said, “to make another custom. Why should you be ruined by frogs?” The prince listened and said only, “Hm, very interestin’. Is that a fact? ’Strodinary.”

  We came to the house where Romilayu and I were to stay; it was within a courtyard and, like all the rest of the houses, round, made of clay, and with a conical roof. All inside seemed very brittle and light and empty. Smoke-browned poles were laid across the ceiling at intervals of about three feet and beyond them the long ribs of the palm leaves resembled whalebone. Here I sat down, and Itelo, who had entered with me and left his followers outside in the sunlight, sat opposite me while Romilayu began to unpack. The heat of the day was now at the peak and the air was perfectly quiet; only in the canes above us, that light amber cone of thatch from which a dry vegetable odor descended, I heard small creatures, beetles and perhaps birds or mice, which stirred and batted and bristled. At this moment I was too tired even for a drink (we carried a few canteens filled with bourbon) and was thinking only of the crisis, and how to destroy the frogs in the cistern. But the prince wanted to talk; and at first I took this for sociability, but presently it appeared that he was leading up to something and I became watchful.

  “I go to school in Malindi,” he said. “Wondaful, beautiful town.” This town of Malindi I later checked into; it was an old dhow port on the east coast famous in the Arab slave trade. Itelo spoke of his wanderings. He and his friend Dahfu, who was now king of the Wariri, had traveled together, taking off from the south. They shipped on the Red Sea in some old tubs and worked on the railroad built by the Turks to the Al Medinah before the Great War. With this I was slightly familiar, for my mother had been wrapped up in the Armenian cause, and from reading about Lawrence of Arabia I had long ago realized how much American education was spread through the Middle East. The Young Turks, and Enver Pasha himself, if I am not mistaken, studied in American schools—though how they got from “The Village Blacksmith” and “sweet Alice and laughing Allegra” to wars and plots and massacres would make an interesting topic. But this Prince Itelo of the obscure cattle tribe on the Hinchagara plateau had attended a mission school in Syria, and so had his Wariri friend. Both had returned to their remote home. “Well,” I said, “I guess it was great for you to go and find out what things are like.”

  The prince was smiling, but his posture had become very tense at the same time; his knees had spread wide apart and he pressed the ground with the thumb and knuckle of one hand. Yet he continued to smile and I realized that we were on the verge of something. We were seated face to face on a pair of low stools within the thatched hut, which gave the effect of a big sewing basket; and everything that had happened to me—the long trek, hearing zebras at night, the sun moving up and down daily like a musical note, the color of Africa, and the cattle and the mourners, and the yellow cistern water and the frogs, had worked so on my mind and feelings that everything was balanced very delicately inside. Not to say precariously.

  “Prince,” I said, “what’s coming off here?”

  “When stranger guest comes we allways make acquaintance by wrestle. Invariable.”

  “That seems like quite a rule,” I said, very hesitant. “Well, I wonder, can’t you waive it once, or wait a while, as I am completely tuckered out?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “New arrival, got to wrestle. Allways.”

  “I see,” I said, “and I reckon you must be the champion here.” This was a question I could answer for myself. Naturally, he was the champion, and this was why he
had come to meet me and why he had entered the hut. It explained also the excitement of the kids back in the river bed, who knew there would be a wrestling match. “Well, Prince,” I said, “I am almost willing to concede without a contest. After all, you have a tremendous build and, as you see, I am an older fellow.”

  This however he disregarded, and he put his hand to the back of my neck and began to pull me to the ground. Surprised, but still respectful, I said, “Don’t, Prince. Don’t do that. I think I have the weight advantage on you.” As a matter of fact, I didn’t know how to take this. Romilayu was standing by but revealed no opinion in answer to the look I shot him. My white helmet, with passport, money, and papers taped into it, fell off and the long-unbarbered karakul hair sprang up at the back of my neck as Itelo tugged me down with him. All the while I was trying—trying, trying, to classify this event. This Itelo was terribly strong, and he got astride me, in his roomy white pants and the short middy, and worked me down on the floor of the hut. But I kept my arms rigid as if they were tied to the sides and let him push and pull me at will. Now I lay on my belly, face in the dust and my legs dragging on the ground.

  “Come, come,” he kept saying, “you mus’ fight me, sir.”

  “Prince,” I said, “with respect, I am fighting.”

  You couldn’t blame him for not believing me, and he climbed over me in the low-hung white pants with his huge legs and bare feet of the same light color as his hands, and dropping onto his side he worked a leg under me as a fulcrum and caught me around the throat. Breathing very hard and saying (closer to my face than I liked), “Fight. Fight, you Henderson. What is the mattah?”

  “Your Highness,” I said, “I am a kind of commando. I was in the War, and they had a terrific program at Camp Blanding. They taught us to kill, not just wrestle. Consequently, I don’t know how to wrestle. But in man-to-man combat I am pretty ugly to tangle with. I know all kinds of stuff, like how to rip open a person’s cheek by hooking a finger in his mouth, and how to snap bones and gouge the eyes. Naturally I don’t care for that kind of conflict. It so happens I am trying to stay off violence. Why, the last time I just raised my voice it had very bad consequences. You understand,” I panted, as the dust had worked up into my nose, “they taught us all this dangerous know-how and I tell you I shrink from it. So let’s not fight. We’re too high,” I said, “on the scale of civilization—we should be giving all our energy to the question of the frogs instead.”

  As he still continued to pull me by the throat with his arm, I indicated that I wanted to say something really serious. And I told him, “Your Highness, I am really kind of on a quest.”

  He released me. I think I was not so impulsive or lively—responsive, you see—as he would have liked. I could read all this in his expression as I cleaned the dust from my face with a piece of indigo cloth belonging to the lady of the house. I had pulled it from the rafter. As far as he was concerned, we were now acquainted. Having seen something of the world, at least from Malindi in Africa all the way up into Asia Minor, he must have known what sad sacks were, and as of this moment, to judge by his looks, I belonged in that category. Of course it was true I had been very downcast, what with the voice that said I want and all the rest of it. I had come to look upon the phenomena of life as so many medicines which would either cure my condition or aggravate it. But the condition! Oh, my condition! First and last that condition! It made me go around with my hand on my breast like the old picture of Montcalm passing away on the Plains of Abraham. And I’ll tell you something, excessive sadness has made me physically heavy, whereas I was once light and fast, for my weight. Until I was forty or so I played tennis, and one season hung up a record of five thousand sets, practically eating and sleeping out of doors. I covered the court like a regular centaur and smashed everything in sight, tearing holes in the clay and wrecking the rackets and bringing down the nets with my volleys. I cite this as proof that I was not always so sad and slow.

  “I suppose you are the unbeaten champion here?” I said.

  And he said, “That is so. I allways win.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me one single bit.”

  He answered me carelessly with a glint from the corners of his eyes, for as I had submitted to being rolled in the dust on my face, he thought we had already made acquaintance thoroughly, concluding that I was huge but helpless, formidable in looks, but of one piece like a totem pole, or a kind of human Galápagos turtle. Therefore I saw that to regain his respect I must activate myself, and I decided to wrestle him after all. So I put aside my helmet and stripped off my T-shirt, saying, “Let’s give it a try for real, Your Highness.” Romilayu was no more pleased by this than he had been by Itelo’s challenge, but he was not the type to interfere, and merely looked forward with his Abyssinian nose, his hair making a substantial shadow over it. As for the prince, who had been sitting with a loose, indifferent expression, he livened up and began to laugh when I slipped off the T-shirt. He stood up and crouched, and fenced with his hands, and I did likewise. We revolved around the small hut. Next we began to try grips, and the muscles started into play all over his shoulders. At which I decided that I should make quick use of my weight advantage before my temper could be aroused, for if he punished me, and with those muscles it was very possible, I might lose my head and fall into those commando tricks at that. So I did a very simple thing; I gave him a butt with my belly (on which the name of Frances once tattooed had suffered some expansion) while putting my leg behind him and pushing him in the face, and by this elementary surprise I threw the man over. I was astonished myself that it had worked so easily, though I had hit him pretty brutally with both hands and abdomen, and thought he might be going to the ground only to pull some trick on me; thus I took no chances but followed through with all my bulk, while both my hands covered his face. In this way I shut off sight and breath and gave his head a good bang on the ground, knocking the wind out of him, big as he was. When he slammed to the ground under this assault I threw myself with my knees on his arms and so pinned him.

  Thankful that it had not been necessary to call on my murder technique, I let him up at once. I admit the element of surprise (or luck) was overwhelmingly on my side, and that it wasn’t a fair test. That he was angry I could see from the change in his color, though the frame of darkness about his eyes showed no change, and he never said a word, but took off his middy and green handkerchief and drew deep breaths which made his belly muscles work inward toward his backbone. We began once more to revolve and several times circled the hut. I concentrated on my footwork, for that’s where I am weakest and tend to pull forward like a plow horse with all the power in the neck, chest, belly, and, yes, face. As he now seemed to realize, his best chance was to get me on the mat, where I couldn’t use my bulk against him, and as I was stooping toward him, cautious, and with my elbows out crabwise, he ducked under with great speed and caught me beneath the chin, closing in fast behind me and trapping my head. Which he began to squeeze. It wasn’t a true headlock but more what your old-timers used to call the chancery grip. He had one arm free and could have used it to bang me across the face, but this didn’t seem to be in the rules. Instead he carried me toward the ground and tried to make me fall on my back, but I fell on my front, and very painfully, too, so that I thought I had split myself upward from the navel. Also I got a bad blow on the nose and was afraid the root of it had been parted; I could almost feel the air enter between the separated bones. But somehow I managed to keep a space clear in my brain for counsels of moderation, which was no small achievement in itself. Since that day of zero weather when I was chopping wood and was struck by the flying log and thought, “Truth comes with blows,” I had evidently discovered how to take advantage of such experiences, and this was useful to me now, only it took a different form; not “Truth comes with blows” but other words, and these words could not easily have been stranger. They went like this: “I do remember well the hour which burst my spirit’s sleep.”

  Pr
ince Itelo now took a grip high up on my chest with his legs; owing to my girth he could never have closed them about me lower down. As he tightened them, I felt my blood stop and my lips puffed out while my tongue panted and my eyes began to run. But my own hands were at work, and by applying pressure with both thumbs on his thigh near the knee, digging into the muscle (called the adductor, I believe) I was able to bend his leg straight and break his hold. Heaving upward, I snatched at his head; his hair was very short but gave all the grip I needed. Turning him by the hair I caught him at the back and spun him. I had him by the waistband of those loose drawers, my fingers inside, then I lifted him up high. I didn’t whirl him at all, as that would have knocked the roof off the place. I threw him on the ground and followed up again, knocking the breath out of him doubly.

  I suppose he had been very confident when he saw me, big but old, bulging out and sweating turbulently, heavy and sad. You couldn’t blame him for thinking he was the fitter man. And now I almost wish that he had been the winner, for as he was going down, head first, I saw, as you can sometimes glimpse a lone object like a bottle dashing over Niagara Falls, how much bitterness was in his face. He could not believe that a gross old human trunk like myself was taking his championship from him. And when I landed on him for the second time his eyes rolled upward, and this intensity was not caused altogether by the weight I flung upon him.

  It certainly did not behoove me to gloat or to act in any way like a proud winner, I can tell you. I felt almost as bad as he did. The whole straw case had almost come down about us when the prince’s back struck the floor. Romilayu was standing out of the way against the wall. Though it made my breast ache to win, and my heart winced when I did it, I knelt nevertheless on the prince to make sure he was pinned, for if I had let him up without pinning him squarely he would have been deeply offended.

  If the contest had taken place within nature he would have won, I am willing to bet, but he was not matched against mere bone and muscle. It was a question of spirit, too, for when it comes to struggling I am in a special class. From earliest times I have struggled without rest. But I said, “Your Highness, don’t take it so hard.” He had covered his face with his hands, the color of washed stone, and didn’t even try to rise from the ground. When I tried to comfort him I could think only of things such as Lily would have said. I know damned well that she would have flushed white and looked straight ahead and started to speak under her breath, fairly incoherent. She would have said that any man was only flesh and bone, and that everyone who took pride in his strength would be humbled by and by, and so on. I can tell you by the yard all that Lily would have said, but I myself could only feel for him, dumbly. It wasn’t enough that they should be suffering from drought and the plague of frogs, but on top of it all I had to appear from the desert—to manifest myself in the dry bed of the Arnewi River with my Austrian lighter—and come into town and throw him twice in succession. The prince now got on his knees, scooping dust on his head, and then he took my foot in the suede, rubber-soled desert boot and put it on his head. In this position he cried much harder than the maiden and the delegation who had greeted us by the mud-and-thorn wall of the town. But I have to tell you that it wasn’t the defeat alone that made him cry like this. He was in the midst of a great and mingled emotional experience. I tried to get my foot off the top of his head, but he held it there persistently, saying, “Oh, Mistah Henderson! Henderson, I know you now. Oh, sir, I know you now.”