Brian Aldiss - The Male Response

Feeling both at peace with the world and excited by it, Soames turned left and made his way upstream by a path along the bank of the river. It wound enticingly, hedged with flowers and sheltered from the piercing sun. Soon he had left the palace grounds behind; the growth on either side became thicker, the path more devious. He passed an almost naked hunter, who stood gravely aside for him without a word or gesture. The dappled shadows ahead, the silence, led Soames on as if under an enchantment; he walked dreamily, mind a blank.

When he reached a square-framed reed hut, Soames halted, telling himself there was no point in going further. Suddenly he was tired. The hut was empty, its interior cool and inviting. Inside was nothing but a bundle of rags in one corner and an old orange box in another; gratefully, Soames went in and sat on the box.

He mopped his brow, letting his chin droop on to his chest as he rested. Warm drowsiness overcame him.

A sudden sense of being watched jerked his head up. A man stood in the doorway, staring at him with unfriendly eyes; he must have come up with almost supernatural quietness.

‘You frightened me for a moment,’ Soames said, aware that his start had been observed.

‘I am Dumayami, chief witch doctor of Umbalathorp. I want speak with you,’ the stranger said soberly.

It invariably happens that in those parts of the world which, disregarding the opinions of their inhabitants, we call remote, the products of the white man are more welcome than his presence. They precede him, they succeed him. In the heart of Sumatra (as dangerous now to a pale-haired one as it was two hundred years ago), you may come upon old men drinking from little round tins which once contained fifty of Messrs John Player’s cigarettes; the petrol can of the Occident is the foundation stone of the Orient; Coke bottles clog the very source of the untamed Amazon. Knowing this, Soames felt little surprise to find Dumayami clad in an undoubted Church of England surplice with, pinned to it, a badge saying ‘I like Ike’, just possibly a souvenir of the recent Gunther safari.

Apart from this, the witch doctor was an impressive figure, a giant feather nodding over his scaphocephalic skull, his face notched with tribal marks and wormed with wrinkles. An air of confidence and a whiff of rotten eggs surrounded him. Soames’ alarmed thoughts took on a defensive tinge; alas, he was armed with nothing fiercer than a nail file.

‘I am resting,’ he said. ‘What is it you wish to say?’

‘I think you already know that,’ Dumayami told him. ‘The many spirits of Umbalathorp all speak out against your coming. They declare only ill will come from your visit.’

‘What am I supposed to have done? Do the spirits tell you that?’

‘Spirits tell Dumayami all things,’ the witch doctor said, squatting for comfort on the threshold of the hut. The pupils of his eyes held a malevolent, tigerish glint. ‘Spirits say you come with machine to make much trouble here.’

‘Of course,’ said Soames. ‘The Apostle will trespass on your pitch in some respects, eh?’

‘In Umbalathorp is room for only one law. Now you bring Christian devil box, cast wrong spells, make much trouble.’

‘My dear man, the Apostle Mk II does no more than juggle with given data,’ Soames said; this old man was clearly a bit of a loon. ‘You’d better come up and look at it when it’s installed and set your mind at rest.’

Dumayami performed his own equivalent of crossing himself at the very suggestion.

‘First Apostle Mark come,’ he said gloomily, ‘then other apostles, Luke, John, maybe Paul. You must not have success here.’

‘Oh, how are you going to stop us? Burn cockerel feathers or something? Progress, Dumayami, has reached Goya at last.’

‘Already spirits pull down your flying machine,’ Dumayami said darkly. ‘Next blow up Christian devil box machine.’

It was, Soames mentally conceded, a crafty point; some people might even have been impressed by it.

‘And me? What’s going to happen to me, Dumayami?’ he enquired.

The witch doctor rose lazily, shaking his head as if to say that it was better for Soames not to know that. Groping under his surplice, he produced what looked like a sharp bone. With two backward paces he was out of the hut. He bent down and used the bone to inscribe a sign in the dusty earth of the threshold.

‘If you do not step over this sign, you do not leave Africa,’ he said. Raising one hand, he stepped from view and was gone as noiselessly as he came.

‘Damned silly,’ Soames muttered aloud. ‘Of course I can step over it.’

He went over the doorway to examine the mark Dumayami had made. Before he got there, two little yellow and red birds had fallen squabbling and copulating on to the path outside. Their bright wings, fluttering in lust and anger, erased the witch doctor’s sign. Soames stood there blankly, not heeding them as they plunged away.

At last, taking a long step over the threshold, he emerged from the hut and hurried back to the palace. Of Dumayami there was neither sight nor sound.

‘And now with treble soft …’

Later that afternoon, the expedition to the wrecked plane returned. Wending its way through the corn patches and streets of Umbalathorp came a caterpillar of slow men bearing, across poles slung over their shoulders, the crates which bore the component parts of the Apostle Mk II, the generators, the cables. Leading this procession was the palace lorry, a dilapidated Dodge 3-tonner which looked as if it had just made the journey from Cape Town on foot. It was loaded up and weighed down with the heavier crates.

Grunting with disgust, it slewed round in front of the palace in a paddy of dust. Gradually it became motionless. From the passenger’s seat in the cab climbed Jimpo, easing his broken leg down. The twelve guards presented arms to him, their umbrellas trembling above them.

Now disorder broke out. The bearers jostled and vied with each other to dump their burdens as near to the Dodge as possible. Scores of pot-bellied children cheered them on. When Soames appeared on the scene, attracted by the noise, he found the lorry had nearly disappeared behind a wall of crates.

Timpleton was there, standing back from the mêlée, regarding it with a seraphic grin. Following his gaze, Soames saw he was looking at the boxes themselves, and his own heart quickened as he read the words stencilled boldly on their sides:

UNILATERAL LONDON ENGLAND.

It was a pleasant reminder of home.

Going over to Timpleton, Soames said, ‘It’s good to see them here. None of them looks damaged.’

Timpleton smiled. ‘Warms the cockles of your heart, don’t it? That’s what they need here, a spot of civilisation.’

Soames was about to enquire why the engineer should believe that something which had brought no happiness to Europe should work more beneficially here when he checked his tongue. No good would come of antagonising Timpleton. Already they had had a short, explosive altercation after the interview with King Landor, when Soames had protested against Timpleton’s using the King as a common tout. At least Timpleton showed no sign of umbrage now, for which Soames was glad.

‘Where were you at tiffin time?’ he asked conversationally.

Timpleton’s manner immediately became withdrawn.

‘Oh, knocking about,’ he said noncommittally. ‘What have you been doing, Soames?’

‘I, too, have been “knocking about”,’ Soames said, a little primly. Then he relented, and after a minute, told Timpleton of his encounter with the witch doctor.

Jimpo had now begun to restore order among the bearers, calling for Timpleton and Soames to help him. Skins of cool water having been carried out from the palace, the men refreshed themselves and then again shouldered their loads. The Dodge reappeared. The battleship grey boxes with their yellow, white and black stencilling were borne up the steps and into the building. Here, a large room facing out to the river Uiui had been set aside for the Apostle. Standing on the first packing case to arrive in this room, Timpleton began shouting instructions to the porters, cheerfully disregarding the fact that none of them spoke English.