But she saw that I was standing oppressed and, in spite of my capable appearance and rude looks, was dumb, and she changed the subject. By now she understood that the coat was waterproof, so she called over one of the long-necked wives and had her spit on the material and rub in the spittle, then feel inside. She was astonished and told everybody, wetting her finger and laying it against her arm, and again they started to chant, “Awho,” and whistle on the fingers and flap their hands, and Willatale embraced me again. A second time my face sank in her belly, that great saffron swelling with the knot of lion skin sinking also, and I felt the power emanating again. I was not mistaken. And one thing I kept thinking as before, which was the hour that burst the spirit’s sleep. Meanwhile the athletic-looking men continued piping musically, spreading their mouths like satyrs (not that they otherwise suggested satyrs). And the hand-flapping went on, exactly as when ladies are playing catch (they also bend their knees just as the ball comes in). So that at that first sight of the town I felt that living among such people might change a man for the better. It had done me some good already, I could tell. And I wanted to do something for them-my desire for this was something fierce. “At least,” I thought, “if I were a doctor I would operate on Willatale’s eye.” Oh, yes, I know what cataract operations are, and I had no intention of trying. But I felt singularly ashamed of not being a doctor-or maybe it was shame at coming all this way and then having so little to contribute. All the ingenuity and development and coordination that it takes to bring a fellow so quickly and so deep into the African interior! And then-he is the wrong fellow! Thus I had once again the conviction that I filled a place in existence which should be filled properly by someone else. And I suppose it was ridiculous that it should trouble mc not to be a doctor, as after all some doctors are pretty puny characters, and not a few I have met are in a racket, but I was thinking mostly about my childhood idol, Sir Wilfred Grenfell of Labrador. Forty years ago, when I read his books on the back porch, I swore I’d be a medical missionary. It’s too bad, but suffering is about the only reliable burster of the spirit’s sleep. There is a rumor of long standing that love also does it. Anyway, I was thinking that a more useful person might have arrived at this time among the Arnewi, as, for all the charm of the two women of Bittahness, the crisis was really acute. And I remembered a conversation with Lily. I asked her, “Dear, would you say it was too late for me to study medicine?” (Not that she’s the ideal woman to answer a practical question like that.) But she said, “Why, no, darling. It’s never too late. You may live to be a hundred”—a corollary to her belief I was unkillable. So I said to her, “I’d have to live that long to make it worth while. I’d be starting internship at sixty-three, when other men are retiring. But also I am not like other men in this respect because I have nothing to retire from. However, I can’t expect to live five or six lives, Lily. Why, more than half the people I knew as a young fellow have passed on and here am I, still planning for the future. And the animals I used to have, too. I mean a man in his lifetime has six or seven dogs and then it’s time for him to go also. So how can I think about my textbooks and instruments and enrolling in courses and studying a cadaver? Where would I find the patience to learn anatomy now and chemistry and obstetrics?” But at least Lily didn’t laugh at me as Frances had. “If I knew science,” I was thinking now, “I could probably think of a simple way to eliminate those frogs.”
But anyhow, I felt pretty good, and it was now my turn to receive presents. I got a bolster covered with leopard skin from the sisters, and a basketful of cold baked yams was brought, covered with a piece of straw matting. Mtalba’s eyes grew bigger, while her brow rolled up softly and she appeared to suffer about the nose-all signs that she was gone on me. She licked my hand with her small tongue, and I withdrew it and wiped it on my shorts.
But I thought myself very lucky. This was a beautiful, strange, special place, and I was moved by it. I believed the queen could straighten me out if she wanted to; as if, any minute now, she might open her hand and show me the thing, the source, the germ-the cipher. The mystery, you know. I was absolutely convinced she must have it. The earth is a huge ball which nothing holds up in space except its own motion and magnetism, and we conscious things who occupy it believe we have to move too, in our own space. We can’t allow ourselves to lie down and not do our share and imitate the greater entity. You see, this is our attitude. But now look at Willatale, the Bittah woman; she had given up such notions, there was no anxious care in her, and she was sustained. Why, nothing bad happened! On the contrary, it all seemed good! Look how happy she was, grinning with her flat nose and gap teeth, the mother-of-pearl eye and the good eye, and look at her white head! It comforted me just to see her, and I felt that I might learn to be sustained too if I followed her example. And altogether I felt my hour of liberation was drawing near when the sleep of the spirit was liable to burst.
There was this happy agitation in me, which made me fix my teeth together. Certain emotions made my teeth itch. Esthetic appreciation especially does it to me. Yes, when I admire beauty I get these tooth pangs, and my gums are on edge. Like that autumn morning when the tuberous flowers were so red, when I was standing in my velvet bathrobe under the green blackness of the pine tree, when the sun was like the coat of a fox, and the animals were barking, when the crows were harsh on that golden decay of the stubble-my gums were hurting sharply then, and now similarly; and with this all my difficult, worried, threatening arrogance appeared to fade from me, and even the hardness of my belly kind of relented and sank down. I said to Prince Itelo, “Look, Your Highness, could you arrange it for me to have a real talk with the queen?”
“You don’t talk?” he said, somewhat surprised. “You do talk, Mistah Henderson.”
“Oh, a real talk, I mean. Not sociable fiddle-faddle. In earnest,” I said. “About the wisdom of life. Because I know she’s got it and I wouldn’t leave without a sample of it. I’d be crazy to.”
“Oh, yes. Very good, very good,” he said. “Oh, all right. As you have won me I do not refuse you a difficult interpretation.”
“So you know what I mean?” I said. “This is great. This is wonderful. I’ll be grateful till my dying day, Prince. You have no idea how this fills my cup.” The younger sister of Bittahness, Mtalba, meanwhile was holding my hand, and I said, “What does she want?”
“Oh, she have a strong affection for you. Don’ you see she is the most beautiful woman and you the strongest of strong men. You have won her heart.”
“Hell with her heart,” I said. Then I began to think how to open a discussion with Willatale. What should I concentrate on? Marriage and happiness? Children and family? Duty? Death? The voice that said I want? (How could I explain this to her and to Itelo?) I had to find the simplest, most essential points, and all my thinking happens to be complicated. Here is a sample of such thinking, which happens to be precisely what I had on my mind as I stood in that parched courtyard under the mild shade of the thatch; Lily, my after-all dear wife, and she is the irreplaceable woman, wanted us to end each other’s solitude. Now she was no longer alone, but I still was, and how did that figure? Next step: help may come either from other human beings or-from a different quarter. And between human beings there are only two alternatives, either brotherhood or crime. And what makes the good such liars? Why, they lie like fish. Evidently they believe there have to be crimes, and lying is the most useful crime, as at least it is on behalf of good. Well, when push comes to shove, I am for the good, all right, but I am very suspicious of them. So, in short, what’s the best way to live?