Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [68]
fifteen million of them, though it's always the individual case that's the worst. The corpse was sadly covered with the dust into which I had thrown it, and now that they had fetched him back, my relations with him were no secret, and I decided to sit tight and await the outcome of events. There was nothing more for me to do. Romilayu was still asleep, his hand pressed between his knees, the other under his wrinkled cheek. I saw no reason to wake him. And leaving him in the hut with the dead man, I went into the open air. I was aware of a great peculiarity either in myself or in the day, or in both. I must have been getting the fever from which I was to suffer for a while. It was accompanied by a scratchy sensation in my bosom, a little like eagerness or longing. In the nerves between my ribs this was especially noticeable. It was one of those mixed sensations, comparable to what one feels when smelling the fumes of gasoline. The air was warm and swooning about my face; the colors were all high. Those colors were extraordinary. No doubt my impressions were a consequence of stress and of lack of sleep. As this was a day of festival the town was already beginning to jump, people were running about, and whether or not they knew whom Romilayu and I had in our hut was never revealed to me. A sweet, spicy smell of native beer burst from the straw walls. The drinking here began apparently at sunrise; there was also a certain amount of what seemed to be drunken noise. I took a cautious walk around and no one paid any particular attention to me, which I interpreted as a good sign. There appeared to be quite a few family quarrels, and some of the older people were particularly abusive and waspish. At which I marveled. A small stone struck me in the helmet, but I assumed it was not aimed at me, for kids were throwing pebbles at one another and tussling, rolling in the dust. A woman ran from her hut and swept them away, screaming and cuffing them. She did not seem particularly astonished to find herself face to face with me, but turned around and re-entered her house. I peeked in and saw an old fellow lying there on a straw mat. She trod on his back with her bare feet in a kind of massage calculated to straighten out his spinal column, after which she poured liquid fat on him and she skillfully rubbed him, ribs and belly. His forehead wrinkled and his grizzled beard parted. Baring his great old teeth he smiled at me, rolling his eyes toward the doorway where I was standing. "What gives here?" I was thinking, and I went about the small, narrow lanes and looked into the yards and over fences, cautiously, of course, and mindful of the sleeping Romilayu and the dead man sitting against the wall. Several young women were gilding the horns of cattle and painting and ornamenting one another too, putting on ostrich feathers, vulture feathers, and ornaments. Some of the men wore human jaw bones as neckpieces under their chins. The idols and fetishes were being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices. An ancient woman with hair in small and rigid braids had dumped yellow meal over one of these figures and was swinging a freshly killed chicken over it. Meanwhile the noise grew in volume, every minute something new added, a rattle, a snare drum, a deeper drum, a horn blast, or a gunshot. I saw Romilayu come from the door of our hut, and you didn't have to be a fine observer to see what a state he was in. I went toward him and when he caught sight of me above the gathering crowd, probably spotting that white shell on my head, the helmet, before any other portion, he put his hand to his cheek wincingly. "Yes, yes, yes," I said, "but what can we do? We'll just have to wait. It may not mean a thing. Anyway, the king--what's his name, Itelo's friend, we're supposed to see him this morning. Any minute now he'll send for us and I'll take it up with him. Don't you worry, Romilayu, I'll soon find out what gives. Don't you let on to a thing. Bring our stuff out of the hut and keep an eye on it." Then with a sort of fast march which was played on