Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [115]
never have started without it. Together with the plaster impressions it was in a box, and that box was in the trunk of my Buick. There was a spring that held the jack to the spare tire, and for safe-keeping I had put the box with the extra bridge in the same place. I could see it. I saw it just as if I were lying in that trunk. It was a gray cardboard box, filled with pink tissue paper and labeled "Buffalo Dental Manufacturing Company." Fearing to lose what remained of the bridgework, I chewed even the salty dumplings with extreme caution. The Bunam with that fanatical fold of deep thought ate like everybody else. He and the black-leather fellow looked very occult; the latter always seemed about to unfold a pair of wings and take off. He too was chewing, and as a matter of fact there was a certain amount of Alice-in-Wonderland jollity in the palace yard. Even a number of kids, all head and middle, like little black pumpernickels, were playing a pebble game in the dust. When Atti roared under the palace, there was no comment. Just Horko, of all people, gave a wince, but it merged rapidly again into his low-featured smile. He was always so gleaming, his very blood must have been like furniture polish. Like the king he had a rich physical gift, and the same eye tinge, only his eyes bulged. And I thought that during those years he had spent in Lamu, while his nephew was away at school in the north, he must have had himself a ball. He was certainly no church-goer, if I am any judge. Well, it was the same every day. After the ceremonies of the meal I went, attended by the amazons, to Mummah. She had been brought back to her shrine by six men who had carried her laid across heavy poles. I witnessed this myself. Her room, which she shared with Hummat, was in a separate courtyard of the palace where there were wooden pillars and a stone tank with some disagreeable water. This was our special Sungo's supply. My daily visit to Mummah cheered me up. For one thing, the worst part of the day was over (I shall explain in due time) and for another I developed a strong personal attachment to her, due not only to my success but to some quality in her, either as a work of art or as a divinity. Ugly as she was, with the stork-nest tresses and unreliable legs giving under the mass of her body, I attributed benevolent purposes to her. I would say, "Hi-de-do, old lady. Compliments of the season. How's your old man?" For I took Hummat to be married to her, the clumsy old mountain god that Turombo, the champion in the red fez, had lifted up. It looked like a good marriage, and they stood there contented with each other, near the stone tub of rank water. And while I gave Mummah the time of day, Tamba and Bebu filled a couple of gourds and we went through another passage where a considerable troop of the amazons with umbrella and hammock were waiting. Both of these articles were green, like my pants, the Sungo's own color. I was helped into this hammock and lay at the bottom of it, a bursting weight, looking up at the brilliant heaven made still by the force of afternoon heat, and the taut umbrella wheeling, now clockwise, now the other way, with lazy, sleepy fringes. Seldom did we leave the gate of the palace without a rumble from Atti, below, which always made the perspiring, laboring amazons stiffen. The umbrella bearer might waver then and I would catch a straight blow of the sun, one of those buffets of violent fire which made the blood leap into my brain like the coffee in a percolator. With this reminder of the experiments the king and I were engaged in, pursuing his special aim, we entered the town with one drum following. People came up to Tamba and Bebu with little cups and got a dole of water. Women especially, as the Sungo was also in charge of fertility; you see, it goes together with moisture. This expedition took place every afternoon to the beat of the idle, almost irregular single deep drum. It made a taut and almost failing sound of puncture which, however, was always approximately in rhythm. Out in the sun walked the women coming