He, for his part, didn't try to show off as much today as yesterday, so the going was easier. I discovered that maneuvers that were difficult and frightening when done slowly were much easier-- and much less frightening-- when done quickly. A rope bridge is steady enough when you lightly run across it-- but when you walk timidly it sways at every step.
When Teacher took a suspended rope with a knot in the end and swung easily from one platform to another, across an abyss that no one in his right mind would ever cross, I simply laughed, caught the rope he threw at me, and swung across just as quickly. At the other end, I pretended that I had jumped no farther than across a small stream, and let go, landing on the platform on my feet. It wasn't hard after all, and I said so.
"Of course not. Glad you're learning so fast."
But as we trotted along a sloping branch, it occurred to me to ask, "What would have happened if I hadn't reached the other platform? If my aim had been wrong or if I hadn't swung hard enough?"
He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, "We would have sent a boy down from the top, swinging all the way, to get the rope back to one platform or another."
"Could the rope support two people, doing that?" I asked.
"No," he answered, "but we wouldn't do it right away."
I tried not to think of myself swinging helplessly over nothing as dozens of Nkumai waited impatiently for me to let go and drop (though that word no longer had the same meaning for me) so that they could get their highway working.
"Don't worry," Teacher said at last. "A lot of those swings have a guy rope on them, so they can be pulled back."
I believed him at the time, but I never saw a swing with a guy rope. Must have been in another part of Nkumai.
Our first stop was at the Office of Social Services.
"I want to see the king," I said, after explaining who I was.
"Wonderful," said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the. corner pole of the house. "I'm glad for you."
That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. "Why are you so glad?" I asked.
"Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant."
I was nonplussed. At this point in Mueller, if I had been in Teacher's position, taking an emissary to a government office, I would have ordered that such a recalcitrant official be strangled on the spot. But Teacher just stood there, smiling. Thanks for the help, friend, I said silently, and proceeded to ask if this was the right place.
"For what?"
"For getting permission to see the king."
"Persistent, aren't you?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, determined to play the game by his rules, if necessary, but to win whatever the rules might be.
So it went all morning, until finally the man grimaced and said, "I'm hungry, and a man as poor and underpaid as I must take every opportunity to put some meager snack into his belly."
The hint was clear, and I took a gold ring from my pocket. "By chance, sir," I said, "I was given this as a gift. But I couldn't bear to own it, when a man such as you would make so much better use of it."
"I couldn't take that," he said, "poor and underpaid though I am. Yet part of my work is to feed those even less fortunate than I, in the name of the king. So I will accept your gift in order to pass it along to the poor."
Then he excused himself and went to another room to eat lunch.
"What do we do?" I asked Teacher. "Do we go? Do we wait? Did I just waste a perfectly good bribe?"
"Bribe? " he asked suspiciously. "What bribe? Bribery is punishable by death."
I sighed. Who could understand these people?
The official came back into the room, smiling. "Oh, my friend," he said to me, "dear Lady, I have just thought of something. Even though I can't help you, I know a man who can. He lives over there, and he sells carved wooden spoons. Just ask for Spooncarver Who Made the Spoon You Can See Light Through."
We left, and Teacher patted me on the shoulder. "Very well done. It only took you one day."
I was a bit angry. "If you knew this Spooncarver was the one I had to see, why did you bring me here?"
"Because," he said, smiling patiently, "Spooncarver won't talk to anyone who wasn't sent by Officer Who Earns Foreign Exchange."
Spooncarver Who Made the Spoon You Can See Light Through didn't have time to see me that day, but urged me to return tomorrow. As I followed Teacher through the maze of trees, he showed me a birdnet being strung among the trees. "In a week or so it'll be fully in place, ready to unfurl. It looks thick enough while it's rolled up, but when it's unrolled among the trees, the net is so fine it can hardly be seen." He showed me how the gaps in the net were just wide enough for a bird's head to pass through, and just small enough that unless the bird withdrew its head exactly backward, which was impossible for most birds, it would break its neck or strangle. "And at the end of the day, we draw up the net and distribute the food."
"Distribute?" I asked.
Then I got a lecture about how in Nkumai, everything belonged to everybody, and no money was ever used because nobody was ever paid.
However, I learned quickly that in fact everybody was paid. I could go to Spooncarver, for instance, and ask for a spoon, and he would readily agree, promising it to me within a week. But at the end of the week, he would have forgotten, or had so much other work to do that he just couldn't get to mine yet. He would keep promising and keep putting me off, until I did him a favor of equivalent value-- out of the goodness of my heart.
Mwabao Mawa's favor, which won her living, was that every now and then she stood at the edge of her house and sang morningsong, or eveningsong, or birdsong, or who knows what else. It was enough-- she was never hungry, and often had so much food and so many possessions she gave many things away.
The poor were those who had nothing of value to give. The stupid. The untalented. The lazy. They were tolerated; they were fed-- barely. They were not, however, considered to have any importance in life. And they all had names.
I was in Nkumai almost two weeks, long enough that the life was beginning to seem normal to me, when I finally got to see someone who had real power. He was Official Who Feeds All the Poor, and Teacher actually bowed slightly to him when we entered his house.
But the interview was pointless. Small talk, a discussion of Nkumai's social conscience, questions about my homeland. I had long since invented my own idea of what Bird was like, since I had no other way of answering the questions so many Nkumai put to me about the country. After all the empty chat, he invited me to dinner a few days hence. "When I burn two torches," he said. I left unsatisfied.
I was more unsatisfied when Teacher laughed at me and said that it looked like my climb upward through the government had reached an end. "What favor will you offer him?" he asked. I didn't point out that he was tacitly admitting that I was bribing Nkumai officials after all. I just smiled and showed him one of my precious iron rings.
He only smiled, and pulled open his robe to reveal a heavy amulet of iron hanging from his neck. The sight of so much iron wastefully used, for mere decoration, made my skin tingle.
"Iron?" he said. "We have so much of that. Iron would do with Spooncarver and Birdmaster, but with Official Who Feeds All the Poor?"
"What kind of gift would he appreciate?"