Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow Read Free Book Online Page B

give away to lift the paper tops from milk bottles; and bushel baskets full of buttons and china door knobs. And on the walls, calendars and pennants and ancient photographs. And I thought, "Oh, shame, shame! Oh, crying shame! How can we? Why do we allow ourselves? What are we doing? The last little room of dirt is waiting. Without windows. So for God's sake make a move, Henderson, put forth effort. You, too, will die of this pestilence. Death will annihilate you and nothing will remain, and there will be nothing left but junk. Because nothing will have been and so nothing will be left. While something still _is--now!__ For the sake of all, get out." Lily wept over the poor old woman. "Why did you leave such a note?" she said. "So nobody should move her until the coroner came," I said. "That's what the law is. I barely felt her myself." I then offered Lily a drink, which she refused, and I filled the water tumbler with bourbon and drank it down. Its only effect was a heartburn. Whisky could not coat the terrible fact. The old lady had fallen under my violence as people keel over during heat waves or while climbing the subway stairs. Lily was aware of this and started to mutter something about it. She was very thoughtful, and became silent, and her pure white color began to darken toward the eyes. The undertaker in our town has bought the house where I used to take dancing lessons. Forty years ago I used to go there in my patent-leather shoes. When the hearse backed up the drive, I said, "You know, Lily, that trip that Charlie Albert is going to make to Africa? He'll be leaving in a couple of weeks, and I think I'll go along with him and his wife. Let's put the Buick in storage. You won't need two cars." For once she didn't object to one of my ideas. "Maybe you ought to go," she said. "I should do something." So Miss Lenox went to the cemetery, and I went to Idlewild and took a plane.
    V

I guess I hadn't taken two steps out into the world as a small boy when there was Charlie, a person in several ways like myself. In 1915 we attended dancing school together (in the house out of which Miss Lenox was buried), and such attachments last. In age he is only a year my junior and in wealth he goes me a little better, for when his old mother dies he will have another fortune. It was with Charlie that I took off for Africa, hoping to find a remedy for my situation. I guess it was a mistake to go with him, but I wouldn't have known how to go right straight into Africa by myself. You have to have a specific job to do. The excuse was that Charlie and his wife were going to film the Africans and the animals, for during the war Charlie was a cameraman with Patton's army--he could no more stay at home than I could--and so he learned the trade. Photography is not one of my interests. Anyway, last year I asked Charlie to come out and photograph some of my pigs. This opportunity to show how good he was at his work pleased him, and he made some first-rate studies. Then we came back from the barn and he said he was engaged. So I told him, "Well, Charlie, I guess you know a lot about whores, but what do you know about girls--anything?" "Oh," he said, "it's true that I don't know much, but I do know she is unique." "Yes, I know all about this unique business," I said. (I had heard all about it from Lily but now she was never even at home.) Nevertheless we went down to the studio to have a drink on his engagement, and he asked me to be his best man. He has almost no friends. We drank and kidded and reminisced about the dancing class, and made tears of nostalgia come to each other's eyes. It was then when we were both melted down that he invited me to come along to Africa where he and his wife would be going for their honeymoon. I attended the wedding and stood up for him. However, because I forgot to kiss the bride after the ceremony, there developed a coolness on her side and eventually she became my enemy. The expedition that Charlie organized had