Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [139]
swelled lips opened. He fitted the hat over his raised knee and said, smiling, "I suppose you gather what day it is." "I figure--" "Yes, it is the day. Lion day for me." "This is it, eh?" "Bait has been eaten by a young male. He fit the description of Gmilo." "Well, it must be great," I said, "to think you are going to be reunited with a dear parent. I only wish such a thing could happen to me." "Well, Henderson," he said (this morning he took an exceptional pleasure in my company and conversation), "do you believe in immortality?" "There's many a soul that would tell you it could never stay another round with life," I said. "Do you really say so? But you know more of the world than I do. However, Henderson, my good friend, this is a high occasion for me." "Is there a good chance that it is your dad, the late king? I wish I had known. I wouldn't have sent Romilayu away. He left this morning, Your Highness. Could we send a runner after him?" The king paid no attention to this, and I figured his excitement was running too high to allow him to consider my practical arrangements. What was Romilayu to him on a day like this? "You will share the hopo with me," he said, and, although I didn't know what this meant, I of course agreed. My own umbrella approached, this hollow or sheath of green with transverse fibers in the silk transparency which helped to convince me that it was no vision but an object, for why should a vision bother to have such transverse lines? Eh? The pole was held by big female hands. Bearers brought my hammock. "Do we go after the lion in a hammock?" I said. "When we reach the bush we will continue on our feet," he said. So I got into the hammock of the Sungo with one of those heavy utterances of mine, sinking into it. It looked to me as if the two of us were going out barehanded to capture the animal--this lion, that had eaten the old bull, and was sleeping deeply somewhere in the standing grass. Shaven-headed women flitted near us, shrill and nervous, and a gaudy crowd had collected, just as on the day of the rain ceremony--drummers, men in paint, shells, and feathers, and buglers who blew some practice blasts. The bugles were about a foot long and had big mouths of green oxide metal. They made a devil of a blast, like the taunt of fear, those instruments. So with the bugles and drums and rattles and noisemakers of the beaters' party gathered around us, we were carried through the gates of the palace. The arms of the amazons shook with the strain of lifting me. Various people came and looked at me as we were going into the town; they gazed down into the hammock. Among them were the Bunam and Horko, the latter expecting me, I felt, to say something to him. However, I didn't say a word. I looked back at them with my huge red face. The beard had begun to grow out like a broom and the fever, which had gone up again, affected my eyes and ears. A tremor in the cheeks occasionally surprised me; I could do nothing about this, and I reckoned that under the influence of lions the nerves of my jaws and nose and chin were undergoing an unsettling change. The Bunam had come in order to communicate with me or warn me; I could see that. I wanted to demand my H and H Magnum with the scope sights from him but of course I didn't have the words for "give" and "gun." The women struggled with my weight and the hammock bulged out greatly at the bottom and nearly touched the ground. The poles were almost too much for their shoulders as they carried the brutal white rain king with his swarthy, reddened face and dirty helmet and gaudy pants and big, hairy shins. The people whooped and clapped and leaped up and down in their rags and hides, flaunting pieces of dyed hair as pennants, women with babies that swung at their long spongy breasts and fellows with teeth broken or missing. As far as I could tell they were not enthusiastic for the king; they demanded that he bring home Gmilo, the right lion, and get rid of the sorceress, Atti. Without a sign he passed among them in his hammock. I knew his face was bathed by the shadow of the