“Will you join me in some coffee?” he asked. Then, seeing my hesitation, he assured me that it would be made with purified water. I said that would be very nice, though to be honest I would rather have skipped it. He asked in even greater detail about the pleasantness of my journey and the satisfactoriness of my stay in Kinshasa. To these inquiries, he was able to add new ones about my quarters in the Compound and my dinner the previous night, which for some reason he called a reception. Soon there was the coffee and the drinking of coffee. Then at last there was the getting down to business. He explained that he was sorry to seem to hurry me, but he was expecting a phone call from Paris in a few minutes. I said I understood and didn’t mind at all. He said that Mr. Owona had outlined my project to him. He asked me to present it in detail.
It was show time at last.
The gorilla Ishmael, I explained, was a celebrity in America, much the way the gorilla Gargantua had been in a previous generation. Gargantua had eventually died in captivity, but many things had changed among American animal lovers since that time. There was a strong desire to see Ishmael released in the wild, and his owners were willing to cooperate in effecting this outcome—not only to give up an animal that was worth a lot of money but to expend a lot of money to return him to his homeland in the rain forest of central west Africa. All we needed was assistance in moving Ishmael from the point of his arrival in Kinshasa to the point of his release in the Republic of Mabili.
Nkemi demonstrated a polite interest by asking if I thought an animal that had spent its life in captivity would be able to survive in the wild. This was one of many questions on which I’d been coached.
“If he were a predator, no,” I replied. “A full-grown lion, kept in a cage all its life, would almost certainly not have the hunting skills to stay alive in the wild. But a foraging animal like a gorilla will have no difficulty surviving in an appropriate habitat. Even so, his handlers will stay with him in the bush until they’re certain he’s successfully established. If he fails to become established, they’ll have to choose between bringing him back or giving him a painless death.” I didn’t much like mentioning this last point, but it had to be there.
Nkemi next wanted to know if the venture was being sponsored or at least endorsed by some international wildlife protection group like the World Wildlife Fund. I scored one for Art, who had predicted that this question would be asked. What Nkemi was angling for was the possibility of winning some nice headlines for himself in the world press. I told him we hadn’t as yet asked for such sponsorship or endorsement but would be glad to do so if that were an issue.
Nkemi asked why a child had been sent on this mission. This, in my opinion, was one of the weak elements in our fiction, but my only choice was to rattle off what we’d worked out. A national competition had been held in the schools, to be won by the student who wrote the best essay advocating Ishmael’s return to his homeland. I was the winner, and the prize was this journey and this responsibility of asking the president of the Republic of Mabili for his help. Nkemi’s opinion of this feeble tale didn’t seem much higher than mine, but he let it pass without comment.
“Tell me this, Miss Gerchak,” he said after a bit. “What reason do you think I would have for obliging you in this matter?”
“I’d hope that the opportunity to do a good thing would be reason enough.”
He nodded his approval of this diplomatic reply, but that wasn’t the end of it. “But suppose,” he went on, “that the mere opportunity to do a good thing were not sufficient.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can suppose that. Please tell me what would be sufficient.”
He shook his head. “I’m not fishing for a bribe, Miss Gerchak. I want you to find something in this venture that will make it worth my doing, for, to be quite honest, I don’t as yet see it. To be completely blunt, what’s in it for me? Or if there’s nothing in it for me, what’s in it for Mabili—or for Africa? I’m not a terribly greedy man, but I certainly expect to be paid in some coin or other for my cooperation. You’re getting something you want. The owners of this animal are getting something they want—or they would not be doing it, I can assure you. And if what you tell me is true, then all the animal lovers of America will get something they want. Out of all these people, why should I be the only one who doesn’t get something he wants?”
This was without doubt one helluva point, and since I hadn’t a ghost of an idea how to answer it, I could see nothing ahead but the failure of my whole mission. I was in the clutch of pure terror, and my brain locked up. “The trouble is,” I said, “I don’t know what you do want.”
He shook his head again, exactly the same way—painfully, sorrowfully. “The things I want are not the issue, Miss Gerchak. If, hearing of your desire to resettle this animal, I had invited you to come here so I could persuade you to allow me to help you, then you’d certainly expect to hear me explain why I should be granted this opportunity—rather than someone else. You’d want to know how giving me the nod (rather than someone else) would benefit you. And I would tell you that, because I would have worked that out at the very beginning, before inviting you here.”
I sat there gaping at him like a bumpkin.
“You’re a charming young person,” Nkemi went on, “and doubtless wrote a charming essay, but I’m afraid the organizers of this affair would have been wiser to send someone who actually knows how these things are done.”
“Many people will be disappointed,” I offered weakly.
“Making them happy is not my job.”
“But we’re asking for so little!” I bleated.
He shrugged. “If you only ask for a little, then of course you need only offer a little. But asking for little hardly justifies offering nothing.”
Luckily, it was at that moment that Nkemi’s secretary came in to tell him that his call to Paris had gone through. He asked if I’d mind waiting outside for a few minutes. Mind? I made for the door as if my shoes were on fire.
You’ll have some idea of my frame of mind if I tell you that I considered trying to reach Art by phone. I figured it was four-thirty in the morning where he was, so at least he’d be home. The trouble was, I didn’t know how long I had and I didn’t know how long it would take to get a call through. I decided the time would be better spent beating back my panic and coming up with some brilliant reply that was for the moment unimaginable to me.
Besides, I’d already heard what Art had to say on this subject. He was the author of the basic argument I’d just presented: We aren’t asking for very much, so why not give it to us? This argument had proved to be a washout. Ishmael had offered no argument on the point, but if he had, what would it be? Oddly enough, I didn’t know what argument he’d make, but I knew how he’d make it. He’d tell a story—a fable. A fable about a king and a foreign supplicant … About a king who is asked to assist in a restoration of some kind, but who somehow misses the point that this restoration is its own reward …
I’d seen Ishmael come up with a serviceable fable in a matter of minutes. It could be done. The problem was finding the right elements and getting them to work together.… I thought of a pearl. I thought of a gold coin. After getting warmed up on these, I ventured onward to the structure of the inner ear that controls equilibrium; if I’d known what the damn thing is called, I might have stuck with it. Final
ly I got an idea that I thought would be as good as any I was likely to get, and I went to work on it. After about five minutes I was ready for Nkemi, and Nkemi was ready for me.
“I’d like to tell you a story,” I said when I was again seated in his office. Nkemi gave me a little quirk of the head to indicate that this was an interesting and novel approach and that I should proceed.
“One day a prince was interrupted at court by a foreign visitor who had come to ask a favor. The prince drew the visitor into an inner chamber and asked what favor he wanted.
“ ‘I’d like you to open the gate of your castle so I can bring in a horse to lodge in your stable,’ the stranger said.
“ ‘What kind of horse?’ the prince asked.
“ ‘It’s a gray stallion, Your Highness, with a black star on its forehead.’