by Shlomo Kalo
I admit without shame that for the first time in my life I observed at close quarters the outstanding intelligence of the horse, although I was considered, and not only by myself, an eminent expert in all matters pertaining to this noble beast, the truest friend of mankind since the first days of creation.
And why do I say this?
The riders, who obviously guessed that we were living creatures, despite our resemblance to specimens of the taxidermist’s art, tried with all their might and main, all their strength and the instinct for fun ingrained in them, to force their beasts to kick our faces. The obedient creatures, to our surprise and the annoyance of their riders, refused absolutely to play any part in such an entertainment, not distinguished by any hint of chivalry. And they did this most cleverly, placing their hooves very close to our faces, that were bathed in cold sweat behind the tight and dense coils of rope, tensing their legs as if about to kick – but not kicking, despite the none too sophisticated spurs with which their riders urged them on and the lashing with whips made from the hair of scalped humans.
Eventually – the jollity came to an end, and an enthusiastic gang of yelling urchins hauled on the ropes and dragged us into the interior of a dark wigwam. From the depths of the wigwam a genial-looking Indian suddenly appeared, smiling from ear to ear, a smile never to be erased, being the unexpected result of a special kind of operation, without anesthetic and using a simple cleaver; as for its purpose – it certainly was not to perpetuate that broad and good-natured smile on his stern features.
The latter approached and cut the ropes, with ostentatious skill bordering on rapture, and when we had been given the opportunity to inhale air into lungs that until now had been pressed hard against the backbone – the nice Indian raised his shining cleaver, clearly intending to perform on us, the wearer of the poncho which had been reduced to something about the size of a lady’s hanky, and me – a facial operation of the kind once performed on him. But a deep voice rising from the dim interior of the spacious wigwam stopped him just in time.
The affable Indian was forced to halt the sweeping movement of the cleaver, to turn towards the deep-voiced speaker, bow to him, and leave the interior of the wigwam, walking backwards.
From the darkness emerged the finely delineated form of the deep-voiced speaker, our savior. This was an elderly Indian calmly smoking a short-stemmed pipe.
The Indian spoke again and his words were actually directed at me, although, much to my shame, I was not acquainted with the Indian language, not a single syllable, with the exception of their clarion cry of "Hoohoo!" which they utter when scalping their enemies, to emphasize their incomparable professional expertise to themselves and in the ears of their comrades, and to make the procedure as enjoyable as possible.
Here the wearer of the poncho-hanky revealed himself as a man of more talent than had been assumed from the start, which is always a pleasant surprise. He spoke the Indian language fluently and without hesitation began translating the words of the one with the voice that was deep, authoritative and somehow reassuring:
"The chief says you’re a white man of great spirit and good heart!" – the poncho man tried to inject some barbed notes into the tone of his voice, which I picked up at once and it seemed I wasn’t the only one – the chief turned to the translator again and rebuked him with some trenchant remarks which didn’t augur well, and as a result of this the poncho man shuddered from head to foot, bowed obsequiously, straightened up slowly, turned to me and went on translating with all the emphatic dignity he could muster, taking care to avoid mistakes and even making prodigious efforts to imitate the deep voice of the speaker, without any success at all:
"He says it’s possible that you saved his life today, though he doesn’t see it as his life, as it has been dedicated, since the day he came of age, to the sun god, Af-Balloon… The chief is aware of the fact that in comparison with you, the man who wears the poncho (meaning me) is nothing other than the lowest of all wretches in the world that is ruled by Af-Balloon… on account of the Indian skulls that he drags around with him, and he is going to be very sorry for this…"
On declaring this, the poncho man burst into bitter weeping, bowed down and prostrated himself at the bare, calloused feet of the chief, kissed the compacted earth of the wigwam floor and tried to crawl, in fawning fashion, around the speaker. The latter put a stop to this with two decisive syllables, which sounded like murderous gunshots from a high caliber magnum, a firearm yet to be invented at that time. These "shots" had the crawler jumping to his unsteady feet, while on his face, with all the layers of dirt ingrained, big and heavy and clearly visible droplets of cold sweat began streaming from his chin, ears and the end of his nose like a dripping roof in wet weather.
"They’re going to tie me to the drum!" the man with the glass eye informed me in a cracked and quavering voice and he was close to returning to his bitter weeping.
I was racked with shame on his behalf, and tried as hard as I could to console him with words of encouragement, but this was to no avail, only intensifying his misery and plunging him into the deepest depths of humiliation and dejection. Fighting back the nausea, I told him categorically, and still in a low voice, that I was prepared to do everything possible to extricate him from the predicament he had got himself into, if only he would stop bringing dishonor on all his fellow white men.
"You would even be tied to the drum in my place?" he asked through the ugly tears, with the kind of wild hope that follows despair, and his voice returning to its normal timbre.
"That too!" I replied emphatically, without giving much consideration to the danger I was inviting upon myself, having not the faintest shadow of an idea what the "drum" was supposed to be, or the significance of being "tied" to it.
Meanwhile, the chief was speaking again and the poncho-hanky man hurried to translate in a tone of fawning obedience:
"After the drum," the chief informed me, "if your friend is still alive, he will be smeared with an ancient ointment which protects against bullets, he and you both. And then all the men of the tribe will come out of their wigwams, take rifles and ammunition and shoot at you, to test the ointment and observe its remarkable properties at close range. To this day, two hundred and seventy-three white men have been smeared with it, thirteen redskins from a hostile tribe, four men of mixed race and two Negroes – and for all of them the ointment was no more effective than any other. The bodies of the whites were thrown into the valley of the jackals, where their bones are bleaching to this very day. The bodies of the redskins were returned to their families, and the mixed race and Negro bodies were half-buried in the floor of the black canyon. Deadly ringed snakes have taken over their skulls, for dwelling places during the day and hiding places at night…"
At this point I saw fit to interrupt the instructive words of the esteemed chief with a reasonably simplistic comment, required by honest intellect and healthy logic, and conveyed to him via the services of the nimble translator:
"If that is indeed the result – then the ancient ointment has no protective properties whatsoever, or perhaps – this is not the same ancient ointment as the one that the esteemed chief graciously described to us. Of course, these words of mine are nothing more than speculation, the speculation of an ignorant and primitive person!" – I hastened to palliate my remark.
Bat-Feather (as the chief was known) began his reply, his voice shaking this time, a sign that the attempt at palliation had failed to achieve its goal – which may or may not have been the fault of the translator – saying that he was well acquainted with the ointment and in former times his grandfather had been smeared with it, becoming immune to the bullets fired by every conceivable variety of weapon, for a period of twenty-five successive years. "You should know, paleface," he turned emphatically to me – "insolent as you are, that the ointment does not protect those who are corrupt at heart. The man whose heart is pure – it gives him protection from any bullet that is fired, for twenty-five successive ye
ars, and is conclusive proof that he has the favor of the gods and is nothing other than the direct incarnation of Af-Balloon, all-powerful God of the Sun!" At this point, the chief drew himself up to his full, majestic height, and with measured tread he crossed the wigwam, stepped on the face of my partner in destiny, who had just had time to prostrate himself at his feet, and left the tent. The door-flap made of poorly worked deerskin was pushed aside for a moment, and I caught sight of the upright forms of two sentries armed with gleaming Winchester rifles, the very latest models, and saluting the chief as he left, with all the dignity and style of the guardsmen at Buckingham Palace.
So I was left with the poncho-wearer of the battered face, who finally gave free rein to his gloomy fears, whimpering piteously and howling stridently in the most aggravating fashion, and making no attempt whatsoever to stifle this outburst. Overloaded as he was by the lavish helping of fears – the man with the hanky-poncho lost all control of his bowels and his bladder, and the full contents of both spilled on the floor of the wigwam, or more specifically – in the corners, since during the process poncho-man was running around in a circle, as if trying, with commendable zeal, to learn one of the more fascinating dances of our red-skinned captors – fascinating and impressive too, from the socio-cultural viewpoint and also as an exercise in pure choreography.
As a result of these antics of my partner in destiny, I was obliged to move both my hands alternately to the right and the left and back again, for the continuous blocking of my nostrils.
Breathing through the mouth was a considerable effort for me, and my thinking, perhaps for the first time since I emerged into the bright light of the world, was dulled and blunted. In fact, I was on the point of losing consciousness, and the only thing that spurred on my willpower and stopped me keeling over in a dead faint was the awful possibility of falling in one of the puddles of urine or piles of excrement that the poncho man was still distributing assiduously. But I could not be immune for ever, and the moment of decision was approaching: I must choose between losing consciousness for lack of oxygen and losing my wits on account of the stench…
I calculated feverishly, trying to work out which was the preferable option… and then two muscular Indians came into the tent to take one of us out.
The Indians too, despite their celebrated powers of resilience, had difficulty coping with the smell and were forced to block their nostrils. As they retreated to the door of the wigwam, they commanded the skull man to come out with them. In his typical style he prostrated himself, panic-stricken, at their feet, and kissed whatever he could kiss, and was rewarded with a mighty kick which sent him reeling, straight into the mounds of turds, in their various tasteful shades of brown, still exuding their pungent fragrance.
At that moment I made my decision, and with an agile leap advanced to stand facing the muscular Indians and asked them (using the sign language in which I am an unrivalled master – capable without the slightest difficulty of reciting the full text of the works of Shakespeare to an audience of deaf-mutes, and not omitting so much as a single stately comma of the inspired creation) to take me instead of my companion, if only to get me out of the stinking wigwam before I died of suffocation, a death without the least shred of dignity according to the tradition of all people, since the day of Creation.
They clearly understood my meaning and with predictable and natural haste they pulled me out of the wigwam, which could have competed with the public conveniences of Panama, which are left uncleaned until the building becomes such a public nuisance it has to be closed and a new one built alongside it.
I filled my polluted lungs with human air, rich in oxygen, fresh and invigorating. And then they made me stand before Bat-Feather, the mighty and awesome Chief, and he demanded an explanation which was given to him in fulsome terms, again using the versatile and vibrant sign language which is understood by all.
I explained to him that my partner in destiny was a weak man, and there was no point in attaching him to any kind of "drum", or even making him ride an old mule, as he was on the verge of an apoplectic fit, and the spectators’ enjoyment would be severely curtailed and justice not exacted. I, on the other hand, was ready and willing to take on his role, and they could take me wherever they pleased and attach me to whatever object took their fancy – anything rather than return to the wigwam and have to sit beside that malodorous wretch, for even a fraction of a second… Thus I conveyed my explicit will, hoping that attention would be paid to my desperate plight and my entreaty…
Bat-Feather scanned me with a prolonged, sharp and penetrating look and suddenly addressed me, replying in the sign language in which he showed expertise almost equal to mine, declaring that he understood my meaning and recognized my feelings and respected my motives… Indeed, as I desired so it would be, and I would most assuredly be bound to the "drum"… (at this I nodded vigorously), and he dared to express the speculation that if after the "drum" anything was left of me – I had a reasonable prospect of surviving the shooting following treatment with the ointment…
At the conclusion of this speech of his, the Chief came closer to me and as an exceptionally chivalrous gesture, let me into the secret of an ancient Indian liturgical hymn which grants immunity – to anyone singing it to himself – from sorrow and grief, from depression, exhaustion and fatigue and dulling of the senses, and most important of all – he will not feel even the most cruel of torments and pain reckoned beyond human endurance, if with the aid of this anthem he succeeds in detaching himself utterly from his senses and neutralizing his nervous system…
I took in his simple rendition of the song, and thanked him profusely for his goodwill and sincerity.
While he was still grimacing at me with his sharply chiseled features and nodding his huge head, adorned with those ceremonial feathers, to the rhythm of the above-mentioned, pleasing and melodious song, reminiscent of a Yiddish lullaby, two of his disciplined warriors seized me by the arms and lifted me, placing me on a huge, cylindrical tree-trunk, evidently one of those ancient sequoia trees, with room on it to accommodate another one or two persons of my size.
The "fixing" was done in a very simple way – by means of ropes threaded through holes prepared in advance and matching in admirable fashion the two joints of the splayed feet, likewise the joints of the wrists, themselves set wide apart. The neck also enjoyed generous treatment. The holes and the spaces between them were such that it was possible to adapt the threaded ropes to fit any human dimensions, from the tiniest of midgets to the greatest of giants.
So I was tied to that broad slab of wood, dating from the times of our patriarch Abraham, and then they rolled me into the center of the camp, a broad open space, round and open to all the four winds, where all the members of the tribe waited for me – from the baby in a cradle made from the hide of cougar cubs, hanging from his mother’s shoulder, to the old man so shriveled and shrunken he was approaching the dimensions of the baby and was likewise encased in a kind of living cradle, consisting of the strong, interlinked arms of his great-great-grandchildren, an arrangement which immediately aroused my admiration, from a purely mechanical point of view.
They mounted the "drum" on a thick and strong pole, its other end inserted in another drum, a smaller one, with no man or beast placed on it. The pole, or axis, they placed on trestles of crossed posts, thus allowing free movement to the drum on which I was trussed, with the use of the other drum. It was not a particularly ingenious idea and if they had asked for my advice, I could there and then have suggested eleven alternative arrangements, superior in quality and in ease of operation to the clumsy apparatus which they were displaying before the public. And were it not for the pressure of time, and if they had allowed me an hour’s respite – I would have come up with at least one hundred and eleven original and aesthetic ideas, infinitely more attractive. But evidently they felt that time was pressing, something not typical of native populations in general and of Indians in particular, and no one deigned to co
nsult me.
When the work of assembling the parallel drum had been completed, and the apparatus hoisted on the clumsy trestles, at the height of an average man – the whole tribe erupted with a roar of spontaneous, quite unrehearsed enthusiasm. Immediately after this impassioned chorus, the men took up their weapons, some of them brandishing Winchester rifles, reckoned the very latest thing, and others with their traditional bows and their poisoned arrows, and surrounded the "drum" occupied by me, in a semi-circle, in exemplary order, which impressed me favorably, and in a calm spirit which I also considered admirable.
I hummed to myself a few of those simple notes which the Chief, Bat-Feather, had confided to me in his nobility and generosity of heart and mind. And sure enough, they worked wonders, and all that I felt in those moments was nothing more than a distant pleasure, overwhelming the heart, as serene as the baby in his soft cradle, made from the hide of young cougars…
And then I was approached from two directions by two gigantic Indians, who in the civilized world could have earned a fortune playing basketball, and passing by me they went to the parallel drum, and began rotating it on its solid axis with a vigorous movement, making the drum to which I was tied spin at giddying speed. I soon felt the air sealing my ears, both ears simultaneously, so that I was barely aware of the repeated yells of the assembled company, mingling with the constant and explosive sound of gunfire.
Indeed, the particular sound of bullets penetrating the solid flesh of the drum, very close to my own flesh – and sometimes, with impressive finesse, scorching the outermost layer of my skin – I effectively absorbed and heard without any recourse to my ears, sealed as they were by the rapid rotation of the drum. What interested me most was the way that the arrows made precisely the same sound, on impact, as the bullets; scientists researching the phenomena of ballistics and sound-waves and human evolution – should give some attention to this. Perhaps behind all this lurks a stunning revelation that might yet restore the lost salvation of the human race.
