Free Transfigurations by Michael Bishop Page A

himself.
    But The Bachelor wasn't there, and I had no idea where he could be.
    Crashing downward through the branches, the huri caught itself up and returned with blind devotion to the airspace over its master. An ugly joke, it sardonically defied gravity.
    I thought that at last the huri was going to feed, that its sole diet might well consist of Eisen Zwei's vomitings. I expected the starved creature to fall to earth upon these—but it did not.

    Somehow it kept itself aloft, flapping, flapping, waiting for the old man to finish.
    Finally, it was not the huri that waded into the vile pool of vomit, but the old man's shameless conspecifics. My curiosity overcame my revulsion, and I watched the Asadi carry away their portions of the half-digested mess as if each semisolid piece were an invaluable relic. No fighting, no elbowing, no eye-searing abuse. Each individual simply picked out his relic, took it a short distance into the jungle, and deposited it in some hidden place for temporary safekeeping.
    During the solemn recessional, the huri quickened the air with its wing beats and an anonymous Asadi supported Eisen Zwei by clutching—tenderly clutching—his mane. When everyone had taken away a chunk of regurgitated flesh, the chieftain's attendant laid him down in a dry place, and the huri descended to squat by its master's head.
    I should mention that The Bachelor was one of those who appeared in the mourning throng to select and depart with some memento of Eisen Zwei's illness. He came last, took only a palm-sized morsel, and retreated to the clearing's edge. Here he climbed into the tree above which the huri had flown its nearly disastrous mission only minutes before. Until sunset The Bachelor remained here, observing and waiting.
    On Days 121, 122, and 123, Eisen Zwei continued in his illness, and the Asadi paid him scant attention. They brought him water twice a day and considerately refrained from stepping on him. The huri sat by the old man's head. It seemed to be waiting for him to die. It never ate.
    At night the Asadi deserted their dying leader without a glance, and I was afraid he would die while they were gone. Several times, looking out at his inert silhouette, moonlight dripping through the fronds, I thought he had died, and a mild panic assailed me. Did I have a responsibility to the corpse?
    But the old man did not die, and on Day 124 another change occurred. Eisen Zwei sat up and stared at Denebola as it crossed

    the sky—but he stared at the angry sun through spread fingers, hands crooked into claws, and he tore impotently through the blur of light that Denebola must have seemed to him. The huri sat smug and blindly knowing, as always. But the Asadi noticed the change in the old man and reacted to it. As if his writhing dissatisfaction with the sun were a clue, they divided into two groups again and formed attentive semicircles to the north and south of Eisen Zwei. They watched him wrestling with the sun's livid corona, tearing at its indistinct streamers of gas with gnarled hands.
    At noon the old man rose to his feet, stretched out his arms, sobbed, clawed at the sky, and suddenly sank back to his knees. A pair of Asadi from each group went to his aid. They lifted him from the ground. Others on the clearing's edge selected large, lacquered palm leaves and passed these over the heads of their comrades to the place where the old man had collapsed. The Asadi supporting Eisen Zwei took these leaves, arranged them in the shape of a pallet, and then placed the old man's fragile body on the bed they had made.
    The second cooperative endeavor I had witnessed among the Asadi, the first having been the shaving of The Bachelor's mane. It was short-lived, though, for aimless shambling replaced chieftain-watching as the primary activity within the two groups on either side of his pallet. Denebola, finally free of the old man's gaze, fell toward the horizon.
    I walked unimpeded through the clearing and bent down