And I said, “Romilayu, I’m learning more about your good points all the time. You’re right, I’ve got to wait. I’m in a position and don’t have a glimmer as to what it is.”
Then he, too, prepared for sleep and got down on his shin-bones, clasping his hands with the muscles beginning to jump under his skin and the groans of prayer arising from his chest. I must admit I took some comfort from this.
I said to him, “Pray, pray. Oh, pray, pal, pray like anything. Pray about the situation.”
So when he was done he wound himself into the blanket and drew up his knees, slipping his hand under his cheek as usual. But before closing his eyes he said, “Whut fo’ you did it, sah?”
“Oh, Romilayu,” I said, “if I could explain that I wouldn’t be where I am today. Why did I have to blast those holy frogs without looking left or right? I don’t know why it is I have such extreme intensity. The whole thing is so peculiar the explanation will have to be peculiar too. Figuring will get me nowhere, it’s only illumination that I have to wait for.”
And thinking of how black things were and how absent any illumination was I sighed and moaned again.
Instead of troubling himself that I hadn’t been able to give a satisfactory answer, Romilayu fell asleep, and presently I passed out too while the rain whirled and the lion or lions roared beneath the palace. Mind and body went to rest. It was like a swoon. I had a ten-days’ growth of beard on my face. Dreams and visions came to me but I don’t need to speak of them; all that is necessary to say is that nature was kind to me and I must have slept twelve hours without stirring, sore in body as I was, with cut feet and a bruised face.
When I awoke the sky was clear and warm, and Romilayu was up and about. Two women, amazons, were in the small room with me. I washed myself and shaved and did my business in a large basin placed in the corner, I assumed, for that purpose. Then the women, whom I had ordered out, came back with some articles of clothing which Romilayu said were the Sungo’s, or rain king’s, outfit. He insisted that I had better wear them as it might make trouble to refuse. For I was now the Sungo. Therefore I examined these garments. They were green and made of silk, and cut to the same pattern as King Dahfu’s-the drawers were, I mean.
“Belong Sungo,” said Romilayu. “Now you Sungo.”
“Why, these damned pants are transparent,” I said, “but I suppose I’d better wear them.” I was wearing my stained jockey shorts above-mentioned, and I slipped on the green trousers over them. In spite of my rest I was not in top condition. I still had fever. I suppose it is natural for white men to be ill in Africa. Sir Richard Burton was as close to iron as the flesh can be, and he was taken badly with fever. Speke was even sicker. Mungo Park was sick and staggered around. Dr. Livingstone day in, day out was sick. Hell! Who was I to be immune? One of the amazons, Tamba, who had ugly whiskers growing from her chin, got behind me, lifted my helmet, and combed at my head with a primitive wooden instrument. These women were supposed to render me service.
She said to me, “Joxi, joxi?”
“What does she want? What is this joxi? Breakfast? I have no appetite. I feel too emotional to swallow anything.” I drank a little whisky instead from one of the canteens, merely to keep my digestive tract open; I thought it might help my fever as well.
“Dem show you joxi,” said Romilayu.
Face downward, Tamba stretched herself on the ground and the other woman, whose name was Bebu, stood upon her back and with her feet she kneaded and massaged her and cracked her vertebrae into place. After she had plied her with those ugly feet-and to judge from the face of Tamba, the process was bliss-they changed positions. Afterward they tried to show me how beneficial it was and how it set them up. Together they tapped their chests with their knuckles.
“Tell them thanks for their good intentions,” I said. “It’s probably wonderful therapy, but I think I’ll pass it by today” After this Tamba and Bebu lay on the ground and took turns in saluting me formally. Each took my foot and placed it on her head as Itelo had done to acknowledge my supremacy. The women moistened their lips so that the dust should stick to them. When they were done Tatu the generaless came to conduct me to King Dahfu and she went through the identical abasement, with the garrison cap on her head. After this the two women brought me a pineapple on a wooden platter and I forced myself to swallow a slice of it.
Then I went up the stairs with Tatu, who today allowed me to take the lead. Grins, cries, blessings, handclapping, and chanting met me; the older people were especially earnest in speaking to me. I wasn’t as yet used to the green costume; it felt both wide and loose about the legs. From the upper gallery I looked out and saw the mountains. The air was exceptionally clear and the mountains were gathered together lap over lap, brown and soft as the coat of a Brahma bull. Also the green looked as fine as fur today. The trees were clear and green, too, and the blossoms underneath were fresh and red in the bowls of white rock. I saw the Bunam’s wives pass under us with their short teeth, turning their dainty big shaven heads. I guess I must have caused them to smile in those billowing, swelling, green drawers of the Sungo and the pith helmet and my rubber-soled desert boots.
Indoors, we passed through the anterooms and entered the king’s apartment. His big tufted couch was empty, but the wives lay on their cushions and mats gossiping and combing their hair and trimming their fingernails and toes. The atmosphere was very social and talkative. Most of the women lay resting, and their form of relaxation was peculiar; they folded their legs as we might our arms and lay back, perfectly boneless. Amazing. I stared at them. The odor of the room was tropical, like certain parts of the botanical garden, or like charcoal fumes and honey, like hot buckwheat. No one looked at me, they pretended I was nonexistent. To me this appeared kind of impossible, like refusing to see the Titanic. Besides, I was the sensation of the place, the white Sungo who had picked up Mummah. But I figured it was improper for me to visit their quarters, and they had no alternative but to ignore me.
We left the apartment by a low door and I found myself then in the king’s private chamber. He was sitting on a low backless seat, a square of red leather stretched over a broad frame. A similar seat was brought forward for me, and then Tatu withdrew and sat obscurely near the wall. Once more he and I were face to face. There was no tooth-bordered hat, there were no skulls. He had on the close-fitting trousers and the embroidered slippers. Beside him on the floor was a whole stack of books; he had been reading when I entered, and he folded down the corner of his page, pressed it several times with his knuckle, and put the volume on top of the pile. What sort of reading would interest such a mind? But then what sort of mind was it? I didn’t have a clue.
“Oh,” he said, “now you have shaved and rested you make a very good appearance.”
“I feel like a holy show, that’s what I feel like, King. But I understand that you want me to wear this rig, and I wouldn’t like to welsh on a bet. I can only say that if you’d let me out I’d be grateful as anything.”
“I understand,” he said. “I would very much like to do so, but the clothing of the Sungo really is requisite. Except for the helmet.”
“I have to be on my guard against sunstroke,” I said. “Anyway, I always have some headpiece or other. In Italy during the war I slept in my helmet, too. And it was a metal helmet.”
“But surely a headcover indoors is not necessary,” he said.
However, I refused to take the hint. I sat before him in my white pith hat.
Of course the king’s extreme blackness of color made him fabulously strange to me. He was as black as-as wealth. By contrast his lips were red, and they swelled; and on his head the hair lived (to say that it grew wouldn’t be sufficient). Like Horko’s, his eyes revealed a red tinge. And even seated on the backless leather chair he was still, as on the sofa or in the hammock, sumptuously at rest.