“What? What?” I said, holding my ear.
“Itelo.” He bowed.
Quickly, I too bent and bowed in the short pants and corky white helmet with my overheated face and great nose. My face can be like the clang of a bell, and because I am hard of hearing on the right side I have a way of swinging the left into position, listening in profile and fixing my eyes on some object to help my concentration. So I did. I waited for him to say more, sweating boisterously, for I was confounded down to the ground. I couldn’t believe it; I was so sure that I had left the world. And who could blame me, after that trip across the mountain floor on which there was no footprint, the stars flaming like oranges, those multimillion tons of exploding gas looking so mild and fresh in the dark of the sky; and altogether, that freshness, you know, that like autumn freshness when you go out of the house in the morning and find the flowers have waked in the frost with piercing life? When I experienced this in the desert, night and morning, feeling everything to be so simplified, I was quite sure that I had gone clean out of the world, for, as is common knowledge, the world is complex. And besides, the antiquity of the place had struck me so, I was sure I had got into someplace new. And the weeping delegation; but here was someone who obviously had been around, as he spoke English, and I had been boasting, “Show me your enemies and I’ll kil l them. Where is the man-eater, lead me to him.” And setting bushes on fire, and performing the manual of arms, and making like a regular clown. I felt extremely ridiculous, and I gave Romilayu a dark, angry look, as though it were his fault for not having briefed me properly.
But this native, Itelo, did not mean to work me over because of my behavior on arrival. It never seemed to enter his mind, even. He took my hand and placed it flat against his breast saying, “Itelo.”
I did likewise, saying, “Henderson.” I didn’t want to be a shit about it, you see, but I am not good at suppressing my feelings. Whole crowds of them, especially the bad ones, wave to the world from the galleries of my face. I can’t prevent them. “How do you do?” I said. “And say, what’s going on around here-everybody crying to beat the band? My man says it’s because of the cows. This isn’t a good time for a visit, eh? Maybe I should go and come back some other time?”
“No, you be guest,” said Itelo, and made me welcome. But he had observed that I was disappointed and that my offer to depart was not one hundred per cent gallantry and generosity and he said, “You thought first footstep? Something new? I am very sorry. We are discovered.”
“If I did expect it,” I said, “then it’s my own damn fault. I know the world has been covered. Hell, I’d have to be out of my mind. I’m no explorer, and anyway that’s not what I came for.” So, recalling to mind what I had come for, I started to look at this fellow more closely for what he might know about the greater or deeper facts of life. And first of all I recognized that his heaviness of expression was misleading and that he was basically a good-humored fellow. Only he was very dignified. Two large curves starting above his nostrils came down beside his mouth and gave him the look I had misinterpreted. He had a back-up posture which emphasized the great strength of his legs and knees, and in the corners of his eyes, which had the same frame of darkness as the others in the tribe, there was a glitter which made me think of gold leaf.
“Well,” I said. “I see you have been out in the world anyway. Or is English everybody’s second language here?”
“Sir,” he said, “oh, no, just only me.” Perhaps because of the breadth of his nose he had a tone which was ever so slightly nasal. “Malindi school. I went, and also my late brother. Lot of young fellows sent from all over to Malindi school. After that, Beirut school. I have traveled all over. So I alone speak. And for miles and miles around nobody else, but only Wariri king, Dahfu.”
I had completely forgotten to find out, and now I said, “Oh, excuse me, do you happen to be royalty yourself?”
“Queen is my auntie,” he said, “Willatale. And you will stay with other auntie, Mtalba. Sir, she lend you her house.”
“Oh, that’s great,” I said. “That’s hospitable. And so you’re a prince?”
“Oh, yes.”
That was better. Owing to his size and appearance I thought from the beginning that he must be distinguished. And then to console me he said that I was the first white visitor here in more than thirty years, so far as he knew. “Well, Your Highness,” I said, “you’re just as well off not to attract many outsiders. I think you’ve got a good thing here. I don’t know what it is about the place, but I’ve visited some of the oldest ruins in Europe and they don’t feel half as ancient as your village. If it worries you that I’m going to run and broadcast your whereabouts or that I want to take pictures, you can just forget about it. That’s not my line at all.” For this he thanked me but said there wasn’t much of value to attract travelers here. And I’m still not convinced that I didn’t penetrate beyond geography. Not that I care too much about geography; it’s one of those bossy ideas according to which, if you locate a place, there’s nothing more to be said about it.
“Mr. Henderson, sir. Please come in and enter the town,” he said.
And I said, “I suppose you want me to meet everyone.”
It was gorgeous weather, though far too dry, radiance everywhere, and the very dust of the place aromatic and stimulating. Waiting for us was a company of women, Itelo’s wives, naked, and with the dark color worked in deeply around the eyes as if by special action of the sun. The lighter skin of their hands reminded me continually of pink stone. It made both hands and fingers seem larger than ordinary. Later I saw some of these younger women stand by the hour with a piece of string and play cat’s cradle, and each pair of players usually had several spectators and they cried, “Awho!” when one of them took over a complicated figure. The women bystanders now laid their wrists together and flapped their hands, which was their form of applause. The men put their fingers in their mouths and whistled, sometimes in chorus. Now that the weeping had ended entirely, I stood laughing under the big soiled helmet, my mouth expanded greatly.
“Well,” said Itelo, “we will go to see the queen, my aunt, Willatale, and afterward or maybe the same time the other one, Mtalba.” By now a pair of umbrellas had come up, carried by two women. The sun was very rich, and I was sweating, and these two state umbrellas, about eight feet tall and shaped like squash flowers, gave very little shade from such a height. Everybody was extremely good-looking here; some of them would have satisfied the standards of Michelangelo himself. So we went along by twos with considerable ceremony, Itelo leading. I was grinning but pretended that it was a grimace because of the sun. Thus we proceeded toward the queen’s compound.