“It’s pretty nice,” I said, meaning that I was reluctant to specify any object.
“What are you betting?”
“I’ve got cash money on me, but I don’t suppose that would interest you. I have a pretty good Rolleiflex in my kit. Not that I’ve taken any pictures except by accident. I’ve been too busy out here in Africa. Then there is my gun, an H and H Magnum.375 with telescopic sights.”
“I do not foresee how it would be usable if won.”
“At home I’ve got some objects I would be glad to put up,” I said. “I’ve got some beautiful Tamworth pigs left.”
“Oh, indeed?”
“I can see you’re not interested.”
“It would be fitting to bet something personal,” he said.
“Oh, yes. The ring is personal. I get it. If I could detach my troubles I’d put them up. They’re personal. Ho, ho. Only I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy. Well, let’s see, what do I have that you might use; what have I got that would go with being a king? Carpets? I’ve got a nice one in my studio. Then there’s a velvet dressing gown that might look good on you. There’s even a Guarnerius violin. But hey! I’ve got it-paintings. There’s one of me and one of my wife. They’re oils.”
At this moment I wasn’t sure that he heard me, but he said, “You should not assume at all that you have a sure thing.”
Then I said, “So? What if I lose?”
“It will be interesting.”
This made me begin to worry.
“Well, it is settled. We may match ring against oil portraits. Or let us say that if I win you will remain a guest of mine, a length of time.”
“Okay. But how long?”
“Oh, it is too theoretical,” he said, looking away. “Let us leave it an open consideration for the moment.”
This arrangement made, we both looked upward. The sky was a bald, pale blue and rested on the mountains, windless. I figured that this king must have a lot of delicacy. He wanted to make it up to me for the corpse last night and also to indicate that he would appreciate it if I would visit him for a while. The discussion ended with the king making a florid African gesture, as if peeling off his gloves or rehearsing the surrender of the ring. I sweated hugely, but my body was not cooled. To try to assuage the heat, I held my mouth open.
Then I said, “Haw, haw! Your Majesty, this is a screwy bet.”
At this moment came furious or quarrelsome shouts, and I thought, “Ha, the light part of the ceremony is over.” Several men in black plumes, like beggarly bird men-the rusty feathers hung to their shoulders-began to lift the covers from the gods. Disrespectfully, they pulled them away. This irreverence was no accident, if you get what I mean. It was done to raise a laugh, and it did exactly that. These bird or plume characters, encouraged by the laughter, started to perform burlesque antics; they stepped on the feet of the statues, and bowled some of the smaller ones over and made passes at them, mockeries, and so on. The dwarf was set on the knees of one goddess and he rocked the crowd with laughter by pulling his lower lids down and sticking out his tongue, making like a wrinkled lunatic. The family of gods, all quite short in the legs and long in the trunk, was very tolerant about these abuses. Most of them had disproportionate, small faces set on tall necks. All in all, they didn’t look like a stern bunch. Just the same they had dignity-mystery; they were after all the gods, and they made the awards of fate. They ruled the air, the mountains, fire, plants, cattle, luck, sickness, clouds, birth, death. Damn it, even the squattest, kicked over onto his belly, ruled over something. The attitude of the tribe seemed to be that it was necessary to come to the gods with their vices on display, as nothing could be concealed from them anyway by ephemeral men. I grasped the idea, but basically I thought it was a big mistake. I wanted to say to the king, “You mean to tell me all this bad blood is necessary?” Also I marveled that such a man should be king over a gang like this. He took it all pretty calmly, however.
By and by they began to move the whole pantheon. Bodily, they started with the smaller gods, whom they handled very roughly and with a lot of wickedness. They let them fall or rolled them around, scolding them us if they were clumsy. Hell! I thought. To me it seemed like a pretty cheap way to behave, although I could see, to be objective about it, plenty of grounds for resentment against the gods. But anyway I didn’t care one bit for this. Grumbling, I sat under the shell of my helmet and tried to appear as if it was none of my business.
When this crew of ravens came to the larger statues, they tugged and pulled but couldn’t manage, and had to call for help from the crowd. One strong man after another jumped into the arena to pick up an idol, toting it from the original position to, let’s say, short center field, while cheers and rooting came from the stands. From the stature and muscular development of the champions who moved the larger idols I gathered that this display of strength was a traditional part of the ceremony. Some approached the bigger gods from behind and clasped arms about their middles, some backed up to them like men unloading flour from the tailgate of a truck and hauled them on their shoulders. One gave a twist to the arms of a figure as I had done to the corpse last night. Seeing my own technique applied, I gave a gasp.
“What is it, Mr. Henderson?” said the king.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” I said.
The group of gods remaining grew small. The strong men had carted them away, almost all of them. The last of these fellows were superb specimens, and I have a good eye for the points of strong men. During a certain period of my life I took quite an interest in weight-lifting and used to train on the barbells. As everyone knows, the development of the thighs counts heavily. I tried to get my son Edward interested; there might have been no Maria Felucca if I had been able to influence him to build his muscles. Although, when all that is said and done, I have grown this portly front and the other strange distortions that attend all the larger individuals of a species. (Like those mammoth Alaska strawberries.) Oh, my body, my body! Why have we never really got together as friends? I have loaded it with my vices, like a raft, like a barge. Oh, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Anyway, from these distortions owing to my scale and the work performed by my psyche. And sometimes a voice has counseled me, crazily, “Scorch the earth. Why should a good man die? Let it be some blasted fool who is dumped in the grave.” What wickedness! What perversity! Alas, what things go on within a person!
However-I was more and more intensely a spectator-when there were only two gods left, the two biggest (Hummat the mountain god and Mummah the goddess of clouds), there were several strong men who came out and failed. Yes, they flunked. They couldn’t stir this Hummat, who had whiskers like a catfish and spines all over his forehead, plus a pair of boulder-like shoulders. After several of them had quit on the job and been hooted and jeered, a fellow came forward wearing a red fez and a kind of jaunty jockstrap of oilcloth. He walked quickly, swinging his open hands, this man who was going to pick up Hummat, and prostrated himself before the god-the first devotional attitude yet shown. Then he went round to the back of the statue and inserted his head under one of its arms. A small taut beard glittered about his round face. He spread his legs, feeling for position with sensitive feet, patting the dust. After this he wiped his hands on his own knees and told hold of Hummat, grasping him by the arm and from beneath in the fork. With huge, set eyes, which became humid from the static effort, he began to lift the great Hummat. From his mouth, distended until the jaws blended with the collar bones, the sinews set in like the thin spokes of a bicycle, and his hip muscles formed large knots at the groin, swelling beside the soiled pants of oilcloth. This was a good man, and I appreciated him. He was my own type. You put a burden in front of him and he clasped it, he threw his chest into it, he lifted, he went to the limit of his strength. “That’s the ticket,” I said. “Get your back muscles going.” As everyone else was cheering, except Dahfu, I got up also and began to yell, “Yah, yaay for you! You got him. You’ll do it. You’re husky enough. Push-that’s it! Now up! Yay, he’s doing it. He’s going to crack it. Oh, God bless the guy. What a sweetheart! That’s a real man-that’s the type I love. Go on. Heave-ho. Wow! There he goes. He did it. Ah, thank God!” Then I realized how I had been shouting and I sat down beside the king, wondering at my own fervor.