Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [87]
he went round to the back of the statue and inserted his head under one of its arms. A small taut beard glittered about his round face. He spread his legs, feeling for position with sensitive feet, patting the dust. After this he wiped his hands on his own knees and told hold of Hummat, grasping him by the arm and from beneath in the fork. With huge, set eyes, which became humid from the static effort, he began to lift the great Hummat. From his mouth, distended until the jaws blended with the collar bones, the sinews set in like the thin spokes of a bicycle, and his hip muscles formed large knots at the groin, swelling beside the soiled pants of oilcloth. This was a good man, and I appreciated him. He was my own type. You put a burden in front of him and he clasped it, he threw his chest into it, he lifted, he went to the limit of his strength. "That's the ticket," I said. "Get your back muscles going." As everyone else was cheering, except Dahfu, I got up also and began to yell, "Yah, yaay for you! You got him. You'll do it. You're husky enough. Push--that's it! Now up! Yay, he's doing it. He's going to crack it. Oh, God bless the guy. What a sweetheart! That's a real man--that's the type I love. Go on. Heave-ho. Wow! There he goes. He did it. Ah, thank God!" Then I realized how I had been shouting and I sat down beside the king, wondering at my own fervor. The champion tipped Hummat back on his shoulder, and carried the mountain god twenty feet. Among the rest, he set him down on his base. Winded, the man now turned and looked back at Mummah, alone in the middle of the ring. She was even bigger than Hummat. Amid the applause the champion looked her over. And she awaited him. She was very obese, not to say hideous, this female power. They had made her very ponderous, and the strong man facing her seemed already daunted. Not that she forbade you to try. No, in spite of her hideousness she seemed pretty tolerant, even happy-go-lucky like most of the gods. However, she appeared to express confidence in her immovability. The crowd was egging him on, everyone standing; even Horko and his friends in their own box were on foot. His umbrella now threw a shadow of old rose, and in his tight red robe he held out his stout arm and pointed at Mummah with his thumb--that great, wooden, happy Mummah, whose knees gave a little under the weight of her breasts and belly so that she had to spread her fingers on her thighs for support. And, as gross women sometimes do, she had elegant, graceful hands. She awaited the man who would move her. "You can do her, guy," I too shouted. I asked the king, "What is this fellow's name?" "The strong man? Oh, that is Turombo." "What's the matter, doesn't he think he can move her?" "Evidently he lacks confidence. Every year he can move Hummat, but not Mummah." "Oh, he must be able to." "Just the contrary, I fear," said the king, in his curious, singsong, nasal, African English. His large, swelled lips were more red than was the case with others of his tribe. Consequently his mouth was more visible than mouths usually are. "This man, as you see, is powerful, and a good man, as I believe I overheard you to exclaim. But when he has moved Hummat, he is worn out, and this is annual. Do you see, Hummat has to be moved first, as otherwise he would not permit the clouds passage over the mountains." Benevolent Mummah, her fat face shone to the sun with splendor. Her tresses of wood were like a stork's nest and broadened upward--a homely, happy, stupid, patient figure, she invited Turombo or any other champion to try his strength. "You know what it is?" I said to the king. "It's the memory of past defeats--past defeats, you can ask _me__ about this problem of past defeats. Brother, I could really tell you. But that's what got him. I just know it." Turombo, a very short man for his girth and strength, really seemed to be bucking a whole lot of trouble. Those eyes of his, which had grown large and humid with strain when he took a grip on Hummat, now wore a duller light. He was prepared for failure and the motion of