Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [74]
My wife's a grand person, and we have a very spiritual union. I am not blind to her faults; I sometimes tell her she is the altar of my ego. She is a good woman, but something of a blackmailer. There is such a thing as scolding nature too much. Ha, ha." I have told you I was feeling a little displaced in my mind. And now I said, "Why do I envy you? You are in the bosom of your people. They need you. Look how they stick around and attend to your every need. It's obvious how much they value you." "While I am in possession of my original youthfulness and strength," he said, "but have you any conception of what will take place when I weaken?" "What will �?" "These same ladies, so inordinate of attention, will report me and then the Bunam who is chief priest here, with other priests of the association, will convey me out into the bush and there I will be strangled." "Oh, no, Christ!" I said. "Indeed so. I am telling you with utmost faithfulness what a king of us, the Wariri, may look forward to. The priest will attend until a maggot is seen upon my dead person and he will wrap it in a slice of silk and bring it to the people. He will show it in public pronouncing and declaring it to be the king's soul, my soul. Then he will re-enter the bush and, a given time elapsing, he will carry to town a lion's cub, explaining that the maggot has now experienced a conversion into a lion. And after another interval, they will announce to the people the fact that the lion has converted into the next king. This will be my successor." "Strangled? You? That's ferocious. What sort of an outfit is this?" "Do you still envy me?" said the king, making the words softly with his large, warm, swollen-seeming mouth. I hesitated, and he observed, "My deduction from brief observation I give you as follows--that you are probably prone to such a passion." "What passion? You mean I'm envious?" I said touchily, and forgot myself with the king. Hearing a note of anger, the amazons of the guard who were arrayed behind the wives along the walls of the room, began to stir and grew alert. One syllable from the king quieted them. He then cleared his throat, raising himself upon his sofa, and one of the naked beauties held a salver so that he might spit. Having drawn some tobacco juice from his pipe, he was displeased and threw the thing away. Another lady retrieved it and cleaned the stem with a rag. I smiled, but I am certain my smile looked like a grievance. The hairs about my mouth were twisted by it. I was aware, however, that I could not demand an explanation of that remark. So I said, "Your Highness, something very irregular happened last night. I don't complain of having fallen into a trap on arrival or my weapons being swiped, but in my hut last night there was a dead body. This is not exactly in the nature of a complaint, as I can handle myself with the dead. Nevertheless I thought you ought to know about it." The king looked really put out over this; there wasn't the least flaw of insincerity in his indignation and he said, "What? I am sure it is a confusion of arrangements. If intentional, I will be very put out. This is a matter I must have looked into." "I'm obliged to confess, Your Highness, I felt a certain amount of inhospitality and _I__ was put out. My man was reduced to hysterics. And I might as well make a clean breast. Though I didn't want to tamper with your dead, I took it upon myself to remove the body. Only what does it signify?" "What can it?" he said. "As far as I am aware, nothing." "Oh, then I am relieved," I said. "My man and I had a very bad hour or two with it. And during the night it was brought back." "Apologies," said the king. "My most sincere. Genuine. I can see it was horrible and also discommoding." He didn't ask me for any particulars. He did not say, "Who was it? What was the man like?" Nor did he even seem to care whether it was a man, a woman, or a child. I was so glad to escape the anxiety of the thing that at the time I didn't note this peculiar lack of interest. "There must be quite a number of deaths among you at this