The king was breathing hard as he returned, with that Francis I hat, as Titian might have painted it. He sat down. When he did so, the wives surrounded him with a sheet so that he might not be seen drinking in public. This was taboo. Then they dried his sweat and massaged the muscles of his great legs and his panting belly, loosening the golden drawstring of his purple trousers. I wished to tell him how great he had been. I was dying to say what I felt. Like, “Oh, King, that was royally done. Like a true artist. Goddammit, an artistl King, I love nobility and beautiful behavior.” But I couldn’t say a thing. I have this brutal reticence of character. Such is the slavery of the times. We are supposed to be cool-mouthed. As I told my son Edward — slavery! And he thought I was a square when I said I loved the truth. Oh, that hurt! Anyway, I often want to say things and they stay in my mind. Therefore they don’t actually exist; you can’t take credit for them if they never emerge. By mentioning the firmament, the king himself had shown me the way, and I might have told him a lot, right then and there. What? Well, for instance, that chaos doesn’t run the whole show. That this is not a sick and hasty ride, helpless, through a dream into oblivion. No, sir! It can be arrested by a thing or two. By art, for instance. The speed is checked, the time is redivided. Measure! That great thought. Mystery! The voices of angels! Why the hell else did I play the fiddle? And why were my bones molten in those great cathedrals of France so that I couldn’t stand it and had to booze up and swear at Lily? And I was thinking that if I spoke of this to the king and told him what was in my heart he might become my friend. But the wives were between us with their naked thighs, and their behinds turned toward me, which would have been the height of discourtesy except that they were wild savages. So I had no chance to speak to the king under those inspired conditions. A few minutes later, when I was able again to talk to him, I said, “King, I had a feeling that if either of you missed, the consequences would not be pretty.”
Before he answered he moistened his lips, and his chest still moved quickly. “I can explain to you, Mr. Henderson, why the factor of missing is negligible.” His teeth shone toward me and the panting made him seem to smile, though there was nothing to smile about. “Some day the ribbons will be tied through here.” With two fingers he pointed to his eyes. “My own skull will get the air.” He made a gesture of soaring, and said, “Flying.”
I said, “Were those the skulls of kings? Relatives of yours?” I didn’t have the nerve to ask a direct question about his kinship with those heads. At the thought of making a similar catch, the flesh of my hands pricked and tingled.
But there was no time to go into this. Too much was happening. Now the cattle sacrifices were made, and they were done pretty much without ceremony. A priest with ostrich feathers that sprayed out in every direction threw his arm about the neck of a cow, caught the muzzle, raised her head, and slit her throat as if striking a match on the seat of his pants. She fell to the ground and died. Nobody took much notice.
XIII
After this came tribal dances and routines that were strictly like vaudeville. An old woman wrestled with a dwarf, only the dwarf lost his temper and tried to hurt her, and she stopped and scolded. One of the amazons entered the field and picked up the tiny man; with a swinging stride she carried him away under her arm. Cheers and handclapping came from the grandstands. Next there was another performance of an unserious nature. Two guys swung at each other’s legs with whips, skipping into the air. Such Roman holiday highjinks were not reassuring to me. I was very nervous. I billowed with nervous feeling and a foreboding of coming abominations. Naturally I couldn’t ask Dahfu for a preview. He was breathing deeply and watched with impervious calm.
Finally I said, “In spite of all these operations, the sun is still shining, and there aren’t any clouds. I even doubt whether the humidity has increased, though it feels very close.”
The king answered me, “Your observation is true, to all appearance. I do not contest you, Mr. Henderson. Nevertheless, I have seen all expectation defied and rain come on days like this. Yes, precisely.”
I gave him a squinting, intense look. There was much meaning condensed into this, and I will not try to dilute it for you now. Maybe a certain amount of overweening crept in. But what it mostly expressed was, “Let us not kid each other, Your Royal H. Do you think it’s so easy to get what you want from Nature? Ha, ha! I never have got what I asked for.” Actually what I said was, “I would almost be willing to make you a bet, King.”
I didn’t expect the king to take me up so quickly on this. “Oh? Nice. Do you want to propose me a wager, Mr. Henderson?”
I found that my heart was hungry after provocation on this issue. I got involved. Something fierce. And naturally against reason. And I said, “Oh, sure, if you want to bet, I’ll bet.”
“I agree,” said the king, with a smiling look, but stubbornly, too.
“Why, King Dahfu, Prince Itelo said you were interested in science.”
“Did he tell you,” said the guy with evident pleasure, “did he say that I was in attendance at medical school?”
“No!”
“A true fact. I did two years of the course.”
“You didn’t! You don’t know how relevant that is, as a piece of information. But in that case, what sort of a bet are we making? You are just humoring me. You know, Your Highness, my wife Lily subscribes to the Scientific American, and so I am in on the rain problem. The technique of seeding the clouds with dry ice hasn’t worked out well. Some recent ideas are that, first of all, the rain comes from showers of dust which arrive from outer space. When that dust hits the atmosphere it does something. The other theory which appeals more to me is that the salt spray of the ocean, the sea foam in other words, is one of the main ingredients of rain. Moisture takes and condenses on these crystals carried in the air, as it has to have something to condense on. So, it’s a real wowzer, Your Highness. If there were no sea foam, there would be no rain, and if there were no rain there would be no life. How would all the wise guys like that? If the ocean didn’t have this peculiar form of beauty the land would be bare.” With increasing intimacy, as if confidentially, I laughed and said, “Your Majesty, you have no idea how the whole thing tickles me. Life comes from the cream of the seas. We used to sing a song in school, ‘O Marianina. Come O come and turn us into foam.’” I sang for him a little, sotto voce, almost. He liked it; I could tell.
“You do not have a common run of a voice,” he said, smiling and gay. I was beginning to feel that the fellow liked me.
“And the information is fascinating indeed.”
“Ha, I’m glad you see it that way. Boy! That’s something, isn’t it? But I guess that puts an end to our bet.”
“Not of the very least. Just the same, we shall bet.”
“Well, King Dahfu, I have opened my big mouth. Allow me to take back what I said about the rain. I am prepared to eat crow. Naturally, as the king you have to back the rain ceremony. So I apologize. So why don’t you just say, ‘Nuts to you, Henderson,’ and forget it?”
“Oh, by no means. No basis for that. We shall bet, and why not?” He spoke with such finality that I had no out to take.
“Okay, Your Highness, have it your way.”
“Word of honor. What shall we bet?” he said.
“Anything you want.”
“Very good. Whatever I want.”
“This is unfair of me. I have to give you good odds,” I said. He waved his hand, on which there was a large red jewel. His body had sunk back into the hammock, for he sat and lay by turns. I could see that it pleased him to gamble; he had the character of a betting man. Anyway, my eyes were on this ring of his, a huge garnet set in thick gold and encircled by smaller stones, and he said, “Does the ring appeal?”