The others, forty or fifty of them, spent most of their time sharpening knives and machetes, practicing hand-to-hand combat, combing their ancillary hair for lice, picking their noses, and scratching themselves. In the interests of verisimilitude I tried to be doing one or more of these things whenever anyone was looking my way. The only knife I had was distinctly out of place in that company, and if I got involved in their hand-to-hand contests the game would be up in no time at all, so that left lice hunting, nose picking, and general scratching. I didn’t mind hunting for lice, but I was more than a little disconcerted when I began finding them. I tried to console myself with the thought that this lent additional verisimilitude to the pose. This was relatively little consolation.
Shortly before sunset, they began preparing for the feast. Men piled mountains of brush and planks from a dilapidated hut in the center of the village and poured a can of some petroleum distillate on it. One of them struck a match – looting does provide one with the trappings of civilization – and the whole thing went up in a glorious whooshing blaze.
They let the fire burn down, then heaped more brush and boards on it and let them flame up and burn down until there was a deep bed of fiery coals. By this time the sun had dropped behind the trees and the glow of the campfire was the only available light. Three men carried a huge cast-iron kettle and set it atop the bed of coals. Various men began throwing things into the kettle. This went on for quite some time. Then Sheena came out of her quarters and said something which sounded like a remake of the Book of Judges, a section dealing with a triumph given for Samson, I think. It was hard to be sure. It was even harder to guess what she had in mind, but the general gist of it was that the warriors of the Lord could not rest on their laurels but must move from victory through the fruits of triumph to a fresh engagement with the enemy. There was an all-purpose feel to it, and it didn’t differ much in content from what Vince Lombardi used to tell the Packers the morning after they won a close one.
Bowman said a few words after that, but I could no more understand him than the others could tell what Sheena meant. I hate not being able to understand what someone else is saying. I really find it unendurable. It’s a situation I don’t face very often, and it was consequently particularly maddening.
After his speech, the Gray Panther followed Sheena into her shack and the chefs let the caldron bubble for a spell. I was squatting on my haunches in the doorway of our hut, and Plum came up and squatted beside me. Cooking smells wafted in our direction, and I said that it smelled very good indeed, which indeed it did.
“What do you suppose it is?”
“Oh, all different things,” I said. I had managed to identify some of the ingredients as they found their way into the pot. “They evidently massacred the mission livestock along with the human beings. A couple of hens went into the pot, and what must have been a goat or a sheep, and I think a hog. Plus a variety of fruits and vegetables. Some roots that looked like parsnips, although I suppose they could have been almost anything.”
“Almost anything,” she echoed.
“We’re both starving, all right. That food is going to taste damned good, Plum.”
“Damned good.”
“Nothing to eat since I can’t remember when. Except for the eggs, and you remember what a failure they were. Pretty horrible, huh?”
“Pretty horrible.”
“But from the smell, this stew or whatever you want to call it, it should be great. You must be hungry as a bear, huh? You didn’t even keep the eggs down, so you must be just about ready to faint from hunger. I’ll tell you, when they bring that stew around, it’s going to taste like a banquet.”
“Like a banquet.”
I looked at her. “Why do you keep repeating everything I say?”
“Because I am trying to believe you, Evan, almost as hard as you are trying to convince me. But it is not working out properly.”
“Why not?”
“Because we both know what is in that stew.”
“Pork and lamb and chicken, and what’s so bad about that? Nothing wrong with pork and lamb and chicken, is there? Oh, maybe it wasn’t lamb, maybe it was goat, and maybe you’ve never eaten goat, but it’s as good as lamb if not better. They call it chevon, which is a handy word if the thought of eating goat bothers you. What the hell, different people eat different things all over the world.” I was talking rapidly now, and my voice hadn’t been this high since it changed a couple of decades ago. “The Chinese eat dogs, did you know that? Young puppies are considered a great delicacy there. They also eat monkeys. Sounds terrible, but de gustibus and all that. Goat, now-”
“Evan, you know I am not talking about goat.”
“Er.”
“I am sure there are all the things you said in that stew, but I am sure there are also parts of human beings.”
“Uh.”
“The parts that had been removed.”
“Umm.”
“So do not talk of goats.”
“ Plum, we have to eat.” She made a face. “I know, I know, but we have to eat. We can’t let ourselves starve to death.” She went on making a face. “Well, look at it another way. I mean, how do you know you won’t like it? Remember the fuss you made about the dead antelope? Couldn’t stand the idea of eating it, you said. It was dead meat, meat just lying there on the ground, you said. Unrefrigerated, probably teeming with bacteria, you said. But once you tasted it-”
“Evan, please stop it.”
“You can’t starve yourself.”
“Human beings fast for a month or more without harming themselves. They gain religious insight and learn important truths.”
“The most important truth they learn is that eating is good for you.”
“That is not true, Evan.” She tossed her head. “I am not eating any of that.”
“You could just pick out bits of vegetable-”
“I am not eating. I am not hungry. I am tired, Evan, and I think I will lie down and go to sleep before it is discovered that I am neither black nor a man.” Her eyes welled with tears. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“When you told me I should stay in Griggstown.” All at once she threw her arms around my neck and sobbed.
“Oh, I’m afraid,” she said. “I am truly afraid.”
When she was asleep I slipped out of the hut and joined the crowd. The feast was getting into gear now, with the stew almost ready for serving. The young bloods were starting to tank up on a home-brewed malty liquor, and when someone passed me a gourd of it I didn’t pass it back. It smelled of moldy bread and spoiled fruit, but the taste wasn’t bad and the stuff had a reasonable kick to it. It couldn’t compare to the grain alcohol of the night before, which was probably just as well. I refilled my gourd a few times and mingled with my fellow soldiers, scratching and picking my nose and grunting amiably at them. I thought I looked like a short-haired white man who had stained his skin with roots and berries, but if they thought as much they were good enough to keep it to themselves. They didn’t even seem to notice my ignorance of their language. Every once in a while I would say “Banana Kropotkin Pulaski,” a phrase I kept hearing others use, and I guess it was always appropriate, because no one took a swing at me.
Of course the fact that they were all stoned out of their gourds may have helped a little.
Somewhere along the way I set the gourd aside and accepted a plate heaped high with stew. I had been drinking not only because I wanted to but also with the thought in mind that the stew would be easier to take after a couple of belts, and now I tried it, and it was great. I guess there was human flesh in it. When all is said and done, I don’t think there’s any way to avoid that conclusion. I’ve tried rationalizing my way out of it often enough, God knows, but it won’t hold up. There was human flesh in that fine kettle of flesh, and I ate a heaping plateful of crud served from that kettle, ate it without picking it over, ate it unselectively and voraciously, and the argument that I might well have actually consumed nothing more unorthodox than pork and chicken and lamb (or chevon) is pure sophistry.