I said to Itelo, “Prince, please forgive this shabby present. I hate like hell to bring a raincoat during a drought. It’s like a mockery, if you know what I mean?”
However, he said the present gave her happiness, and it evidently did. I had stocked up on trinkets and gimmicks through the back page of the Times Sunday sports section and along Third Avenue, in the hock shops and army-navy stores. To the prince I gave a compass with small binoculars attached, not much good even for bird watchers. For the queen’s fat sister, Mtalba, noticing that she smoked, I brought out one of those Austrian lighters with the long white wick. In some places, especially in the bust, Mtalba was so heavy that her skin had turned pink from the expansion. Women are bred like that in parts of Africa where you have to be obese to be considered a real beauty. She was all gussied up, for at such a weight a woman can’t go without the support of clothes. Her hands were dyed with henna and her hair stood up stiffly with indigo; she looked like a very happy and pampered person, the baby of the family perhaps, and she shone and sparkled with fat and moisture and her flesh was puckered or flowered like a regular brocade. At the hips under the flowing gown she was as broad as a sofa, and she too took my hand and placed it on her breast, saying, “Mtalba. Mtalba awhonto.” I am Mtalba. Mtalba admires you.
“I admire her, too,” I told the prince.
I tried to get him to explain to the queen that the coat which she had now put on was waterproof, and, as he seemed unable to find a word for waterproof, I took hold of the sleeve and licked it. Misinterpreting this she caught and licked me as well. I started to let out a shout.
“No yell, sah,” said Romilayu, and made it sound urgent. Whereupon I submitted, and she licked me on the ear and on the bristled cheek and then pressed my head toward her middle.
“All right, now, so what’s this?” I said, and Romilayu nodded his bush of hair, saying, “Kay, sah. Okay.” In short, this was a special mark of the old lady s favor. Itelo protruded his lips to show that I was expected to kiss her on the belly. To dry my mouth first, I swallowed. The fall I had taken while wrestling had split my underlip. Then I kissed, giving a shiver at the heat I encountered. The knot on the lion’s skin was pushed aside by my face, which sank inward. I was aware of the old lady’s navel and her internal organs as they made sounds of submergence. I felt as though I were riding in a balloon above the Spice Islands, soaring in hot clouds while exotic odors arose from below. My own whiskers pierced me inward, in the lip. When I drew back from this significant experience (having made contact with a certain power-unmistakable! — which emanated from the woman’s middle), Mtalba also reached for my head, wishing to do the same, as indicated by her gentle gestures, but I pretended I didn’t understand and said to Itelo, “How come when everybody else is in mourning, your aunts are both so gay?”
He said, “Two women o’ Bittahness.”
“Bitter? I don’t set up to be a judge of bitter and sweet,” I said, “but if this isn’t a pair of happy sisters, my mind is completely out of order. Why, they’re having one hell of a time.”
“Oh, happy! Yes, happy-bittah. Most bittah,” said Itelo. And he began to explain. A Bittah was a person of real substance. You couldn’t be any higher or better. A Bittah was not only a woman but a man at the same time. As the elder Willatale had seniority in Bittahness, too. Some of these people in the courtyard were her husbands and others her wives. She had plenty of both. The wives called her husband, and the children called her both father and mother. She had risen above ordinary human limitations and did whatever she liked because of her proven superiority in all departments. Mtalba was Bittah too and was on her way up. “Both my aunts like you. It is very good for you, Henderson,” said Itelo.
“Do they have a good opinion of me, Itelo? Is that a fact?” I said.
“Very good. Primo. Class A. They admire how you look, and also they know you beat me.”
“Boy, am I glad my physical strength is good for something,” I said, “instead of being a burden, as it mostly has been throughout life. Only, tell me this: can’t women of Bittahness do anything about frogs?”
At this he was solemn, and he said no.
Next it was the turn of the queen to ask questions, and first of all she said she was glad I had come. She could not hold still as she spoke, but her head was moved by many small tremors of benevolence, while her breath puffed from her lips and her open hand made passing motions before her face, and then she stopped and smiled, but without parting her mouth, while the live eye opened brightly toward me and the dry white hair rose and fell owing to the supple movement of her forehead.
I had two interpreters, for Romilayu couldn’t be left out of things. He had a sense of dignity and position, and was a model of correctness in an African manner as though bred to court life, speaking in a high-pitched drawl and tucking in his chin while he pointed upward ceremoniously with a single finger.
After the queen had welcomed me she wanted to know who I was and where I came from. And as soon as I heard this question a shadow fell on all the pleasure and lightheartedness of the occasion and I began to suffer. I wish I could explain why it oppressed me to tell about myself, but so it was, and I didn’t know what to say. Should I tell her that I was a rich man from America? Maybe she didn’t even know where America was, as even civilized women are not keen on geography, preferring a world of their own. Lily might tell you a tremendous amount about life’s goals, or what a person should or should not expect or do, but I don’t believe she could say whether the Nile flows north or south. Thus I was sure that a woman like Willatale didn’t ask such a question merely to be answered with the name of a continent. So I stood and considered what I should say, moody, thinking, with my belly hanging forth (scratched under the shirt by the contest with Itelo), my eyes wrinkling almost shut. And my face, I have to repeat, is no common face, but like an unfinished church. I was aware that women were tugging nursing infants from the nipple to hold them up and show them this memorable object. Nature going to extremes in Africa, I think they genuinely appreciated my peculiarities. And so the little kids were crying at the loss of the breast, reminding me of the baby from Danbury brought home by my unfortunate daughter Ricey. This again smote me straight on the spirit, and I had all the old difficulty, thinking of my condition. A crowd of facts came upon me with accompanying pressure in the chest. Who-who was I? A millionaire wanderer and wayfarer. A brutal and violent man driven into the world. A man who fled his own country, settled by his forefathers. A fellow whose heart said, I want, I want. Who played the violin in despair, seeking the voice of angels. Who had to burst the spirit’s sleep, or else. So what could I tell this old queen in a lion skin and raincoat (for she had buttoned herself up in it)? That I had ruined the original piece of goods issued to me and was traveling to find a remedy? Or that I had read somewhere that the forgiveness of sin was perpetual but with typical carelessness had lost the book? I said to myself, “You must answer the woman, Henderson. She is waiting. But how?” And the process started over again. Once more it was, Who are you? And I had to confess that I didn’t know where to begin.