08/22/2026
He wanted space and freedom to use his own hands in order
to make his own primitive home and kingdom on earth, hands
that would rule everything, magical hands dispensing life
and death to their subjects as a witch doctor would or a tribal
god and judge.
“Is the way I make me living.” He scowled and looked at
the world for approval, like a man who conceals his dread
of his mistress turning into his witch and his widow.
He never wanted to conceal diamonds in his mouth and lodge
them between the toes of his feet after a day’s work in the pits.
Yet since everyone did it he accepted the principle and the practice.
At that moment he started hating the phantom that was himself.
Words came to him with great difficulty. He had schooled
himself into a condition of silent stoical fear that passed
for rare courage. He had schooled himself to keep his own
counsel, to fish in in difficult waters, to bow or steer his
vessel under the blinding sun and the cunning stars.
“After all I’ve earned a right here as well. I’m as native as
they, ain’t I? A little better educated maybe whatever in
hell that means. They call me sir and curse me when
I’m not looking.”
Jennings remained powerful, thrusting, the air of a primitive
republican boxer upon him, and Cameron stood, heavy and
bundled like rock, animal-wise, conscious of a rootless
superstition and shifting mastery he had once worshipped
in himself.
He smiled and his face wrinkled a little: a timeless, long-
suffering wrinkle of humour and scepticism and native
poetry that knew the guts of the world
* Extracts from Palace of The Peacock, Wilson Harris (1960)
~
