Prose Don Stoll

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DON STOLL

Don Stoll lives in the Southern California desert. His fiction has appeared three times here in the pages of A New Ulster and more recently in Terror House (tinyurl.com/3dsp9b9m) and Jupiter Review (jupiterreview.com/issueiv). In 2008, Don and his wife founded their nonprofit (karimufoundation.org) which continues to bring new schools, clean water, and medical clinics to several remote Tanzanian villages.

http://karimufoundation.org/

All the Ca ttle in the Wo rld

by Don Sto ll

Among the Maasai, as among the neighboring tribes who have always envied the wealth

and power of the Maasai, it is well known that they own all the cattle in th e world. Among

the Maasai it is also well known how this came to be. Every Maasai child knows the story.

But some of the Maasai say that every child knows the story only because the story has

been made suitable for children. They say there are things a child must not hear. They say

that one of these things is the true story of how the Maasai came to own all the cattle in the

world.

They are willing to tell this story if they have assurance that it will not fall upon the ears

of a child. Because I believe that I have this assurance, I will tell the story. If my trust is

betrayed so that I am made to look a fool, the betrayer will suffer the consequences.

The Maasai have their own name for God. They call him Enkai.

When the world was new, Enkai inspected it to make sure that it would satisfy him.

Often, a thing is not made correctly the first time. All good artisans review their creations

before sending them out into the world. The creation reflects upon the creator and the

creator does not desire embarrassment.

Enkai’s inspection revealed one feature that he thought he might correct: men had to

obtain their food from wild beasts because Enkai had neglected to bestow any tamed

animals upon them. There were cattle, but Enkai had reserved them for his own use.

He might have acted right away to correct this but he did not. He worried that if he

were to bestow tamed animals upon men, the men would grow weak. Strength was better.

The strongest and best men were the Maasai. Therefore Enkai did not observe all men

equally. He observed the Maasai more than he observed others. To observe the Maasai gave

him pleasure.

He also observed the Maasai women. He took delight in their jewelry. They festooned

themselves with much jewelry. The beads rattled and clinked against one another when they

performed their leaping dances. Their jewelry was beautiful to both eye and ear.

But Enkai did not observe all Maasai women equally. Observing that one Maasai

woman was more beautiful than the others, he put the others out of his mind and observed

only her. He listened when her parents spoke to her. He learned that her name was Naserian.

He asked some Maasai what the name meant. They said it meant the peaceful one. This

amused him. He thought of her constantly. Thereby he was denied peace.

For souls capable of being moved by great passion, love is a bounty. However, the

bounty is not one of peace. It is a bounty of turbulent joy.

Mortals believe that the gods cannot know disappointment or unhappiness. They do

not understand that eternal life multiplies the possibilities of disappointment and

unhappiness and other, similar feelings. Eternal life multiplies them infinitely.

Enkai’s love of Naserian produced a boundless desperation in his soul. He wished that

he might live with her and lie with her, as the mortal man to whom her parents would give

her could do some day. Yet his nature would prohibit him from doing so.

In his desperation he decided that he must breach the border between the realm of the

immortals and the realm of the mortals. Grasping the occasional moment of pleasure with

his beloved would be better than never at all to take pleasure with her.

One fine afternoon Enkai observed Naserian at her bath. Her courage equaled her

beauty if it did not surpass it. For she bathed in the Mara River during a crossing of the

wildebeests. Their hooves rent the water next to her yet she was unmoved. The crocodiles

were close by. Those that were nearest turned their attention away from the wildebeests to

look instead at her. Enkai feared for her life. He wondered if he would have time to act if

one of the terrifying beasts should lunge at her. But he was astonished to see them leave her

in peace.

He deliberated about the crocodiles’ refusal of an easy meal. He believed they had not

chosen to be merciful: the crocodile has no capacity for mercy. He saw that her beauty had

stunned them into inaction. Her beauty had engaged their faculty for disinterested

contemplation and they had forgotten that they must always seek the satisfaction of their

baser appetites.

She came out of the river. He had decided upon the moment when he must act. He

waited until she had dried herself, making use of the sunshine and a leaf of the banana tree.

As she prepared to dress, he executed his plan.

In the childish version of the story, Enkai lowered from the sky a bark rope or a leather

strap or some other similar long object. In truth, he lowered a part of his own body.

The part of Enkai’s body that he lowered toward Naserian bore no resemblance to a

bark rope or a leather strap. It was as thick and hard as the trunk of a young tree.

Naserian watched the descent in awe. Once the object had come within reach she

embraced it with both arms. Then she relaxed her grip. She had never been with a man. Yet

her mother had explained what she must do when her time came. She lay on her back.

She was a mortal woman. Hence she was not a perfect match for Enkai despite her

beauty. He was too big so he could not penetrate her. His excitement achieved its climax in

between the generous mounds that were her breasts. He emptied his seed into that hollow.

He did so much as a storm cloud will pass over a mountain peak and then spill its burden of

rain into the valley at the foot of the mountain. The valley is made grateful because it had

been parched. Naserian was likewise grateful. Her gratitude found expression in laughter.

Her laughter did not please Enkai. He asked why she laughed. Had he made a fool of

himself by behaving as an adolescent who did not understand how the act was performed or

who could not control himself for the correct performance of the act? She insisted that far

from making a fool of himself he had made her happy.

Placated, he told her that although he would be unable to achieve penetration he might

approximate it, touching her close to the spot where his touch would be most appreciated.

In this way he might provoke in her an excitement surpassing his own.

She said that she understood. She asked how long she must wait. He reminded her that

he was God so she need not wait at all. A mortal man cannot be forever prepared. But a

mortal man’s infirmity has no bearing on the capacities of God.

She announced herself also prepared and he made good on his promise.

The world was new so the Maasai were few in number. All people were few in number

so one could easily find privacy. Every afternoon Naserian came to bathe at the same place

in the river. Every afternoon she found herself alone until Enkai joined her there.

Enkai considered himself lucky but he feared that his good fortune could not endure.

You are a mortal woman, he said to Naserian one day. Do your mother and father not

ask why you have no husband?

They ask but I answer with a question of my own, she said. I ask them to explain why

they believe I must hurry. I remind them that I have many childbearing years ahead of me.

Enkai had an idea.

Suppose I made you immortal so we could be together always. Would you like that?

I am mortal and yet you desire me, she said, looking him in the eye. You need me and I

believe you would feel bereft without me. Does that not suggest that in mortality there is

something that the immortals miss? No, thank you. I choose to remain mortal.

Her words injured Enkai. She had not said that without him, she would likewise feel

bereft.

Nevertheless, for the time being she belonged only to him. He was lucky, indeed. He

told himself that his good luck ought to satisfy him.

One day the lovemaking seemed not to please the mortal woman as it had on other

days. Enkai asked her what was wrong. He feared that she would say she had grown tired of

him and wished to take a mortal man for a husband.

I worry for my father, she said. Yesterday when he tried to slay a Cape buffalo the beast

turned on him. His injuries are not serious but it might have been otherwise. And in time he

will be too old to hunt.

She stroked him and he became aroused. She pulled her hand away.

I want to satisfy you again, she said. But does my compliance not deserve some reward?

In vain he reached for her hand. She had concealed it behind her back.

Have you not kept a species of docile beast with you that would ease my father’s life?

He reached again for her hand. She took it from behind her back and crossed her arms.

If you bring us that docile beast, I will have something for you that will make you

regard my hand as a useless tool.

She stuck her tongue far out beyond her shapely lips. She waggled it back and forth.

Enkai understood that Naserian was proposing to do something that had never been

done in the history of the world. At that time the history of the world was so short that there

had been no need to record it in writing. Mortals had done so few things that they were able

to repeat to one another during the course of a single evening everything they had done.

They would do this over a fire and they would run out of tales to tell before the embers had

cooled. No one had ever spoken of what Naserian had suggested.

Enkai tried to be clever.

You are talking about something new, he said. How can I know it will give me

pleasure?

Just look at yourself, she laughed.

He saw that the mere thought had aroused him.

He said, I will permit one cow to descend, but before I send more I need a

demonstration.

Send two, she said. One for meat and one for milk.

A bull and a milk cow descended the entire length of Enkai.

Naserian pressed her tongue against him. She kept her tongue upon him as she walked

the circumference of his body part. When she stopped she wiped her mouth with her hand.

Slowly, Enkai recovered the power of speech.

He said, I shall send another bull and another milk cow.

The second bull and second milk cow descended the length of Enkai.

He waited for Naserian to resume. Instead, she spoke.

I have been observing the wild beasts. I have taken particular interest in the python.

From the python I have learned another thing that no mortal man or woman has ever done.

Promise that if I agree to show you, you will send all of your cattle to the Maasai.

Without deliberating, Enkai promised.

Amid the stampede, Naserian set to work. She ignored the thunder of the hooves while

the cattle made their way past her from the realm of the immortals to the realm of the

mortals.

The talent that Naserian had learned from the python brought astonishment to Enkai.

The widening of his eyes did not equal the widening of her mouth as she took him between

her lips and deep inside her, as the python takes inside itself the pig or antelope whose

breadth exceeds that of the great serpent.

The extent of Enkai’s arousal was such that Naserian had no need to be about her

business for long. After she had finished she had no more cause to brave the danger of the

stampede. She withdrew to a prudent distance.

Enkai needed much time to recover the power of speech.

Finally, he said, I am grateful.

His heart beat loudly like the hooves of the cattle upon the earth.

He said, You must do that again.

She coughed. So many cattle now dwelt in the Maasai homeland that the clouds of dust

rose nearly to the height of Enkai himself.

She said, It will be my pleasure.

Enkai had not regained the full possession of his faculties. He did not discern the tone

of indifference in her speech. For the truth is that Naserian had suddenly experienced the

desire to take a mortal man as her husband. For she and her husband could own many cattle

and their lives would be good.

The possibility that she had accepted Enkai’s advances with some measure of cynicism,

or with a view to the advantages that his affection might bring, did occur to Naserian. Yet

the possibility did not trouble her. To seek intimate relations with a mortal woman had been

Enkai’s idea. She had done what any mortal woman would have done when confronted by

an immortal’s awesome power. For to that power there would forever attach an implicit

threat.

Naserian returned to her boma to tell her parents of her plan to take a husband. Her

return attracted the attention of the tribes who were neighbors of the Maasai. For she

emerged from out of the tower of dust that the hooves of all the ca ttle in the wo rld had

kicked up and that the neighboring tribes observed with curiosity.

Some of the men of those trib es, seduced b y th e luster of her ebon y skin wh ich

even her coating of dust co uld not suppress, consp ired to ra vish her. But oth er men

restrain ed th em. Th ey a rgued that sh e might have some knowledge of th e bo unty of

cattle that ha d befa llen the Maasai. They ought to leave her in peace but follow her, that

they might learn what she knew. Subsequently, they might ravish her.

Naserian’s announ cement ga ve joy to her pa ren ts. Th ey had b een in con versa tio n

with th e family of an exemp la ry yo un g ma n from another boma. The wedding might

move forward immediately.

Her parents told her the name of the youn g man. She knew of h im. Sh e agreed that

he was a fin e cho ice. She said sh e would be pleased to meet h im b ut that first she must

go to the Mara River to bathe, otherwise the youn g man might chan ge h is mind.

She found Enkai wh ere sh e had left h im. He rema in ed in a condition of blissful

reverie. Sh e saw tha t this wo uld not be a good time to deliver her news. But sh e judged

that there wo uld n ever b e a good time. She went ahead.

Enkai wept. He to re his hair. He beat his b rea st. Fo r hun dreds of miles a roun d the

people loo ked to the sky beca use they believed th ey h eard th under yet the sky was clear.

The men who had followed Naserian had taken cover behind acacia trees and sausage

trees. Overhearing the conversation between the mortal woman an d the immo rta l, they

grew angry. A harlot had seduced God h imself. Beca use En kai wa s a man and they too

were men, as En kai wept th eir bitter tears flowed freely along with h is.

One of the men suggested a pun ishment for Enka i, who had fa iled to resist th e

harlo t’s seduction. The oth ers la ughed an d he fell silent. Th ey remin ded him tha t En kai

had done noth ing mo re than what is in a man’s nature, hen ce h e had in curred no guilt.

The punishment tha t the man had a dvocated was th e severing in two of En ka i’s

body part. Of co urse, the men declin ed to do this. However, the suggestion is in a ll

likelihood th e origin of the childish story about the severing of a bark rope or a leather

strap on which the cattle had descended. According to that story its severing accounts for

the separation between heaven and earth. In truth, heaven and earth had already been

separate. They remain so. Yet now, as always, certain forms of intercourse between heaven

and earth are possible.

When Naserian left Enka i, he wa s still weep ing. Sh e, too, sh ed some tea rs. Sh e ha d

not wish ed to h urt him but sh e believed th ere had been no other course of action in

front of her.

If the tears had not blurred her vision, she might have noticed the party of men who

waited to seize her. She might have avoided them. Instead, they overpowered her. Then they

debated her punishment. Those who wished to put her to death were a minority.

The horror of this story is otherwise. The men chose instead that form of mutilation,

which, the precedent having been set with Naserian, would become standard for Maasai

women.

Recently, many Maasai have renounced the practice, but among others it persists.

END