Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [159]
go about it in the right way the lion would have to be in quarantine. I said I was willing to go to a vet and get some shots, but I told them, "I'm in a hurry to get home. I've been sick and I can't stand any delay. " The guys said they could see for themselves that I had been through quite a bit. They tried to pump me about my trip, and asked how I had lost all my stuff. "It's none of your lousy business," I said. "My passport is okay, isn't it? And I've got dough. My great-grandfather was head of your crummy outfit, and he was no cold-storage, Ivy League, button-down, broken-hipped civilian like you. All you fellows are just the same. You think U. S. citizens are dummies and morons. Listen, all I want from you is to expedite--Yes, I saw a few things in the interior. Yes, I did. I have had a look into some of the fundamentals, but don't expect me to tickle your idle curiosity. I wouldn't talk even to the ambassador, if he asked me." They didn't like this. I had the staggers in their office. The lion was on the fellows' desk and knocked down their stapler and nipped them through the clothes. They got rid of me the fastest way they could, and I flew into Cairo that same evening. There I called Lily on the transatlantic phone. "It's me, baby," I cried. "I'm coming home Sunday." I knew she must be pale and going paler, purer and purer in the face as she always did under great excitement, and that her lips must have moved five or six times before she could get out a word. "Baby, I'm coming home," I said. "Speak clearly, don't mumble now." "Gene!" I heard, and after that the waves of half the world, the air, the water, the earth's vascular system, came in between. "Honey, I aim to do better, can you hear? I've had it now." Of what she said I could make out no more than two or three words. Space with its weird cries came between. I knew she was speaking about love; her voice thrilled, and I guessed she was moralizing and calling me back. "For a big broad you sound very tiny," I kept saying. She could hear me all right. "Sunday, Idlewild. Bring Donovan," I said. This Donovan is an old lawyer who was a trustee of my father's estate. He must be eighty now. I thought I might need his legal help on account of the lion. This was Wednesday. On Thursday we flew to Athens. I thought I should see the Acropolis. So I hired a car and a guide, but I was too ill and in too much confusion to take in very much of it. The lion was with us, on a leash, and except for the suntans I had bought in Baktale I was dressed as in Africa, same helmet, same rubber shoes. My beard had grown out considerably; on one side it gushed out half white but with many streaks of blond, red, black, and purple. The embassy people had suggested a shave to make identification easier from the passport. But I did not take their advice. As far as the Acropolis went, I saw something on the heights, which was yellow, bonelike, rose-colored. I realized it must be very beautiful. But I couldn't get out of the automobile, and the guide didn't even suggest it. Altogether he said very little, almost nothing; however, his eyes showed what he thought. "There are reasons for it all," I said to him. On Friday I got to Rome. I bought a corduroy outfit, burgundy colored, and an alpine hat with Bersagliere feathers, plus a shirt and underpants. Except to buy this stuff I didn't leave my room. I wasn't eager to make a show of myself on the Via Veneto walking the cub on a leash. On Saturday we flew again by way of Paris and London, which was the only arrangement I could make. To see either place again I had no curiosity. Or any other place, for that matter. For me the best part of the flight was over water. I couldn't seem to get enough of it, as if I had been dehydrated--the water, combing along, endless, the Atlantic, deep. But the depth made me happy. I sat by the window, in the clouds. The sea was thickened by the late, awful, air-blind, sea-blanched sun. We were carried over the calm swarm of the water, the lead-sealed but expanding water, the heart of the water. Other passengers were