Genial, he gave me his hand to shake, in civilized manner, and laughed. He showed a broad, happy-looking, swollen tongue, dyed red as though he had been sucking candy. Adapting my mood to his, I laughed too, corpse or no corpse, and I poked Romilayu in the ribs and said, “See? See? What did I tell you?” Cautious, Romilayu refused to be reassured on such slight evidence. Villagers came about us, laughing with us, although more wildly than Horko, shrugging their shoulders and making pantomimes about me. Many-were drunk on pombo, the native beer. The amazons, dressed in sleeveless leather vests, pushed them away. They weren’t to get too close to Horko and myself. Corset-like vests were the only garments worn by these large women, who were rather heavy or bunchy in build, and unusually expanded behind.
“Shake, shake,” I said to Horko, and he invited me to take my place under the vacant umbrella. It was a real luxury article, a million-dollar umbrella if I ever saw one.
“The sun’s hot,” I said, “though it can’t be eight o’clock in the morning. I appreciate the courtesy.” I wiped my face, making looks of friendship, in other words exploiting the situation as much as possible and trying to put the greatest possible distance between us and the corpse.
“Me Horko,” he said. “Dahfu uncle.”
“Oh, you speak my language,” I said, “how lucky for me. And King Dahfu is your nephew, is he? Hey, what do you know? And are we going to visit him now? The gentlemen who questioned us last night said so.”
“Me uncle, yes,” he said. Then he gave a command to the amazons, who at once made an about-face which would have been noisy had they worn boots, and began to pummel out the same march rhythm on the bass drums. The great umbrellas began again to flash and sway and the light played beautifully on the watered silk as they wheeled. Even the sun seemed to lie down greedily on them. “Go to palace,” said Horko.
“Let’s,” I said. “Yes, I am eager. We passed it yesterday coming into town.”
Why shouldn’t I admit it, I was worried still. Itelo seemed to think the world and all of his old school friend, Dahfu, and had spoken of him as though he were one in a million, but on the basis of my experience thus far with the Wariri I had little reason to feel comfortable.
I said, above the drums, “Romilayu, where is my man Romilayu?” I was worried, you see, lest they decide to hold him in connection with the body. I wanted him by my side. He was allowed to walk behind me in the procession, carrying all the gear. Tried in strength and patience, he bent under his double burden; it was out of the question for me to carry anything. We marched. Considering the size of the umbrellas and the drums, it was marvelous what speed we made. We flew forward, the drumming amazons before us and behind. And how different the town was today. Our route was lined with spectators, some of them bending over to spy out my face under the combined cover of umbrella and helmet. Thousands of hands, of restless feet, I saw, and faces glaring with heat and curiosity or intensity or holiday feeling. Chickens and pigs rushed across the route of the march. Shrill noises, squeals, and monkey shrieks swirled over the pounding of drums.
“This is certainly a contrast,” I said, “to yesterday when everything was so quiet. Why was that, Mr. Horko?”
“Yestahday, sad day. All people fast.”
“Executions?” I suddenly said. From a scaffold at some distance to the left of the palace I saw, or thought I saw, bodies hanging upside down. Through a peculiarity of the light they were small, like dolls. The atmosphere sometimes will act as a reducing and not only as a magnifying glass. “I certainly hope those are effigies,” I said. But my misgiving heart said otherwise. It was no wonder they hadn’t made any inquiry about their corpse. What was one corpse to them? They appeared to deal in them wholesale. With this my feverishness increased, plus the scratchiness in my breast, and within my face itself a curious over-ripe sensation developed. Fear. I don’t hesitate to admit it. I turned my eyes backward toward Romilayu, but he was lagging under the weight of the equipment and we were separated by a rank of drumming amazons.
So I said to Horko, and was compelled to yell because of the drums, “Seem to be a lot of dead people.” We had left the narrow lanes and were in a large thoroughfare approaching the palace.
He shook his big head, smiling with his red-stained tongue, and touched one of his ears, from the lobe of which there dragged a red jewel. He did not hear me.
“Dead people!” I said. And then I told myself, “Don’t ask for information with such despair.” My face was indeed hot and huge and anxious.
Laughing, he could not admit that he had understood me, not even when I made a pantomime of hanging at the end of a rope. I would have paid four thousand dollars in spot cash for Lily to have been brought here for one single instant, to see how she would square such things with her ideas of goodness. And reality. We had had that terrific argument about reality as a consequence of which Ricey had run away and returned to school with the child from Danbury. I have always argued that Lily neither knows nor likes reality. Me? I love the old bitch just the way she is and I like to think I am always prepared for even the very worst she has to show me. I am a true adorer of life, and if I can’t reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.
It consoled me for my fears to imagine that Lily would be unable to reply. Though at the present moment I can’t for one instant believe that anything would stump her. She’d have an answer all right. But meanwhile we had crossed the parade ground and the sentries had opened the red gate. Here were the hollow stone bowls of yesterday with their hot flowers resembling geraniums, and here was the interior of the palace; it was three stories high with open staircases and galleries, quadrangular and barnlike. At ground level the rooms were doorless, like narrow stalls, open and bare. Here there could be no mistake about it-I heard the roar of a wild beast underneath. No creature but a lion could possibly make such a noise. Otherwise, relative to the streets of the town, the palace was quiet. In the yard were two small huts like doll-houses, each occupied by a horned idol, newly whitewashed this morning. Between these two was a trail of fresh calcimine. A rusty flag which had had too much sun was hung from the turret. It was diagonally divided by a meandering white line.
“Which way to the king?” I said.
But Horko was bound by the rules of etiquette to entertain me and visit with me before my audience with Dahfu. His quarters were on the ground floor. With high ceremony the umbrellas were planted and an old bridge table was brought out by the amazons. It was laid with a cloth of the type that Syrian peddlers used to deal in, red and yellow with fancy Arabic embroideries. Then a silver service was brought, teapot, jelly dishes, covered dishes, and the like. There was hot water, and a drink made of milk mixed with the fresh blood of cattle, which I declined, dates and pineapple, pombo, cold sweet potatoes, and other dishes-mouse paws eaten with a kind of syrup, which I also took a raincheck on. I ate some sweet potatoes and drank the pombo, a powerful beverage which immediately acted on my legs and knees. In my excitement and fever I swallowed several cups of this, since nothing external gave me support, the bridge table being highly rickety; I needed something inside, at least. Half hopefully I thought I was going to be sick. I cannot endure such excitement as I then felt. I did my best to perform the social rigmarole with Horko. He wished me to admire his bridge table, and to oblige him I made him several compliments on it, and said I had one just like it at home. As indeed I do, in the attic. I sat under it when attempting to shoot the cat. I told him it wasn’t as nice as his. Ah, it was too bad we couldn’t sit as two gentlemen of about the same age, enjoying the fine warm blur of a peaceful morning in Africa. But I was a fugitive and multiple wrong-doer and greatly worried because of the events of the night before. I anticipated that I could hear myself with the king, and several times I thought it was time to rise, and I stirred my large weight and made a start, but the protocol didn’t yet allow it. I tried to be patient, cursing the vain waste of fear. Horko, puffing, bent across the frail table, his knuckles like boles, clasping the handle of the silver pot. He poured a hot drink that tasted like steamed hay. Bound by a thousand restraints, I lifted the cup and sipped with utmost politeness.