by Paul Bowles
He kept looking at her. She was too old, that was all. Every now and then, in the midst of the constantly changing series of expressions assumed by the volatile features, there was a dead instant when he saw the still, fixed disappointment of age beneath. It chilled him. He thought of the consistency of Hadija’s flesh and skin, telling himself that to do so was scarcely just; the girl was not more than sixteen. Still, there were the facts. He considered the compensations of character and worldly refinement, but did they really count for much? He was inclined to think not, in such cases. “Nothing doing there,” he thought. Or perhaps yes, if he had a lot of liquor in him. But why bother? He wondered why the idea had ever come to him at all. There was no reason to think it had occurred to her, for that matter, save that he was sure it had.
The favour turned out to be absurdly simple, he thought. He was merely to fill out a certain form in her name; he would find plenty of such forms in the office. This he was to send, along with a letter written on paper with the agency’s letterhead, to the receptionist at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech, saying that a Madame Werth’s reservation for the twentieth of January had been cancelled and that the room was to be reserved instead for la Marquise de Valverde. He was then to send her the duplicate of the filled-out form.
“Can you remember all that?” she said, leaning over the table toward him. “I think you’re quite the most angelic man I know.” He was making notes on a tiny pad. “During the season the Mamounia is just a little harder to get into than heaven.”
When he had it all written down he drained his glass and leaned over toward her, so that their foreheads were only a few inches apart. “I’ll be delighted to do this for you——” He hesitated and felt himself growing red in the face. “I don’t know what to call you. You know—the title. It’s not Mrs. de Valverde. But I don’t know——”
“If you’re wise you’ll call me Daisy.”
He felt she was amusing herself at his expense. “Well, fine,” he said. “What I was going to say is, I’m only too glad to do this for you. But wouldn’t Jack be the man to do it? I’m just an ignoramus in the office so far.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Oh, my God! Don’t breathe a word of it to Jack, you silly boy! Why do you think I came to you in the first place? Oh, good God, no! He’s not to know about it, naturally. I thought you understood that.”
Dyar was disturbed. He said very slowly: “Oh, hell,” emphasizing the second word. “I don’t know about that.”
“Jack’s such an old maid about such things. It’s fantastic, the way he runs that office. No, no. I’ll give you the cheque for the deposit and you simply send it along with the letter and the form.” She felt in her bag and brought forth a folded cheque. “It’s all made out to the hotel. They’ll understand that that’s because the agency has already made its commission at the time the original reservation was made for Madame Werth. Don’t you see?”
What she was saying seemed logical, but none of it made any sense to him. If it had to be kept secret from Wilcox, then there was more to it than she admitted. She saw him running it over in his mind. “As I told you today,” she said softly, “you’re not to feel under the least pressure about it. It’s terribly unimportant, really, and I’m a beast even to have mentioned it to you. If someone else gets the reservation I can easily go to Agadir for my fortnight’s rest. Please don’t feel that I’m relying on your gallantry to do it for me.”
Brusquely he cut her short. “I’ll do it the first thing tomorrow morning and get it off my mind.” He was suddenly extremely tired. He felt a million miles away. She went on talking; it was inevitable. But eventually he caught the waiter’s eye and paid the bill.
“I have a car down the street,” she said. “Where would you like to go?” He thanked her and said he was going to stop into the nearest restaurant for dinner. When she had finally gone, he walked blindly along the street for a while, swearing under his breath now and then. After his dinner he managed to find his way to the Hotel de la Playa. Even with the electricity on the place was dim and shadowy. He went to bed and fell asleep listening to the waves breaking on the beach.
In the morning there was a watery sky; a tin-coloured gleam lay on the harbour. Dyar had awakened at eight-thirty and was rushing through his toilet, hoping not to arrive too late at the Atlantide. The Marquesa’s request still puzzled him; it was illogical. The idea occurred to him that perhaps it was merely part of some complicated scheme of hers—a scheme for encouraging what she imagined was a personal interest in her. Or maybe she thought she was flattering his vanity in appealing to him instead of to Wilcox. But even so, the mechanics of the procedure troubled him. He resolved not to think about it, merely to get it done as quickly as possible.
Wilcox looked perturbed, took no notice of his lateness. “Have some coffee?” he asked, and indicated his breakfast tray. There was no extra cup. “I’ll have it in a few minutes, thanks, across the street.” Wilcox did not press him, but got back into bed and lit a cigarette.
“I have an idea the best thing right now would be for you to learn a little something,” he said meditatively. “You’re not of much use to me in the office as you are.” Dyar stiffened, waited, not breathing. “I’ve got a lot of reading matter here that it would help a lot for you to know pretty much by heart. Take it on home and study it for a while—a week or so, let’s say—and then come back and I’ll give you a little test on it.” He saw Dyar’s face, read the question. “With salary. Don’t worry, you’re working. I told you that yesterday. As of yesterday.” Dyar relaxed a little, but not enough. “The whole thing smells,” he thought, and he wanted to say: “Can’t anyone in this town tell the truth?” Instead, he decided to be a little bit devious himself for a change, thinking that otherwise he would not be able to get Daisy de Valverde’s hotel reservation.
“I’d like to go over to the office for a few minutes and finish typing a letter I was writing last night. Shall I go and get those keys you’re having made for me?”
He thought Wilcox looked uncomfortable. “To tell the truth, I don’t think there’ll be time,” he said. “I’m going over there now, and I’ll be pretty busy there all day. For several days, in fact. A lot of unexpected work that’s come up. It’s another good reason for you to take this time off now and study up on the stuff. It fits in perfectly with my schedule. Those keys like as not wouldn’t be ready, anyway. They never have things when they promise them here.”
Dyar took the pile of papers and booklets Wilcox handed him, started to go out, and, standing in the open doorway, said: “What day shall I get in touch with you?” (He hoped that somehow the words would have ironic overtones; he also hoped Wilcox would say: “Ring me up every day and I’ll let you know how things are going.”)
“You’ll be staying on at the Playa?”
“As far as I know.”
“I’ll call you, then. That’s the best way.”
There was nothing to answer. “I see. So long,” he said, and shut the door.
Because he did not trust Wilcox, he felt he had been wronged by him. Feeling that, he had a natural and overwhelming desire to confide his trouble to someone. Accordingly, when he had eaten his breakfast and read a three-day-old copy of the Paris Herald, he decided to telephone Daisy de Valverde, believing that the true reason he was calling her was to tell her it would not be possible for him to do the little favour for her, after all. The annoyance he now felt with Wilcox made him genuinely sorry not to be able to help her in that particular fashion. He rang the Villa Hesperides: she was having breakfast. He told her the situation, and stressed Wilcox’s peculiar behaviour. She was silent a moment.
“My dear, the man’s a raving maniac!” she finally cried. “I must talk to you about this. When are you free?”
“Anytime, it looks like.”
“Sunday afternoon?”
“What time?” he said, thinking of the picnic with Hadija.
“Oh, sixish.”
“Sure.�
�� The picnic would be over long before that.
“Perfect. I’ll take you to a little party I know you’ll enjoy. It’s at the Beidaouis’. They’re Arabs, and I’m devoted to them.”
“A party?” Dyar sounded unsure.
“Oh, not a party, really. A gathering of a few old friends at the Beidaoui Palace.”
“Wouldn’t I be a little in the way?”
“Nonsense. They love new faces. Stop being anti-social, Mr. Dyar. It just won’t do in Tangier. My poor poached egg is getting cold.”
It was agreed that she would call for him at his hotel at six on Sunday. Again he apologized for his powerlessness to help her.
“Couldn’t care less,” she said. “Goodbye, my dear. Until Sunday.”
And as Sunday approached and the weather remained undecided, he was increasingly apprehensive. It would probably rain. If it did, they could not have a picnic and there would be no use in his going to the Parque Espinel to meet Hadija. Yet he knew he would go, anyway, on the chance that she might be waiting for him. Even if the weather were clear, he must be prepared for her not being there. He began to train inwardly for that eventuality and to repeat to himself that it was of no importance to him whether she appeared or not. She was not a real person; it could not matter what a toy did. But there was no inner argument he could provide that would remove the tense expectancy he felt when he thought of Sunday morning. He spent the days learning the facts in the material Wilcox had given him, and when he got up on Sunday morning it was not raining.
VIII
Where the little side street ended they came out at the top of a high cliff. It was a windy day and the sky was full of fast-moving clouds. Occasionally the sun came through, a patch of its light speeding along the dark water of the strait below. Half-way down, where the gradient was less steep and brilliant green grass covered the slope, a flock of black goats wandered. The odour of iodine and seaweed in the wind made Dyar hungry.
“This is the life,” he said.
“What you sigh?” inquired Hadija.
“I like this.”
“Oh, yes!” She smiled.
A long series of notches had been hewn in a diagonal line across the upper rock, forming a stairway. Slowly they descended the steps, he first, holding the picnic basket carefully, feeling a little dizzy, and wondering if she minded the steepness and height. “Probably not,” he thought presently. “These people can take anything.” The idea irritated him. As they got lower the sound of the waves grew louder.
On the way down, there was an unexpected grotto to their right, partially covered by a small growth of cane. A boy crouched there, the dark skin of his body showing through his rags. Hadija pointed.
“He got goats. The guarda.”
“He’s pretty young.” The boy looked about six years old.
Hadija did not think so. “All like that,” she said without interest.
Here and there in the strait, at varying distances from the shore, a seemingly static ship pointed eastward or westward. Dyar stopped a moment to count them: he could discern seven.
“All freighters,” he said, gesturing, but it was half to himself that he spoke.
“What?” Hadija had stopped behind him; she was scanning the beach below, doubtless for natives who might recognize her. She did not want to be seen.
“Boats!” he cried; it seemed hopeless to elaborate. He moved his hand back and forth.
“America,” said Hadija.
There were a few Moors fishing from the rocks. They paid no attention to the picnickers. It was high tide. Getting around certain of the points was not easy, since there was often very little space between the cliffs and the waves. At one spot they both got wet. Dyar was a little annoyed, because there was no sun to dry them, but Hadija thought it an amusing diversion.
Rounding a sharp corner of rock they came suddenly on a small stretch of sand where a dozen or more boys were running about stark naked. They were of an age when one would have expected them to want to cover their nudity at the arrival of a girl, but that seemed to be the last thing in their minds. As Dyar and Hadija approached, they set up a joyous cry, some assuming indecent postures as they called out, the others entering into group activities of an unmistakably erotic nature. Dyar was horrified and incensed. “Like monkeys,” he thought, and he automatically looked down for a stone to fling into their midst. He felt his face growing hot. Hadija took no notice of the antics. He wondered just what indignities they were shouting at her, but he did not dare ask. It was possible that she considered this frantic exhibitionism typical of male behaviour, but it hurt him to see a delicate creature like her being obliged to witness such things, and he would not believe that she could accept them with equanimity. For a second he wondered if by any chance she were so preoccupied with her thoughts that she had not noticed the boys. He stole a sidelong glance at her and was gratified at first to see that she was looking out across the strait, but then he caught the fixity of her stare.
“Son bitch,” she muttered.
“The hell with them,” he said, turning to smile at her. “Don’t look at them.”
They came to a long beach, completely deserted. Ahead of them rose a low mountain covered with cypress and eucalyptus; large villas sat comfortably among the trees toward the summit. The wind blew harder here. Dyar took her hand, from time to time lifted it to his lips and kissed the fingers lightly.
They rounded another rocky point. The wet wind blew with added force. A shore of boulders stretched before them into the distance. Dyar turned to her.
“Hey, where is this cave?”
“You tired now?”
“Do you know where it is or do you just think you know?”
She laughed gaily and pointed ahead to the farthest cliff jutting into the sea.
“Go past there.” And she indicated a left turn with her hand.
“Oh, for God’s sake! That’ll take us an hour. You realize that?”
“One hour. Maybe. Too much?” She looked up at him mockingly.
“I don’t care,” he said with bad grace. But he was annoyed.
They walked for several minutes without speaking, devoting all their attention to choosing the easiest way of getting past each boulder. When they climbed down to a tiny cove where there was a spring among the rocks, he decided to kiss her. It took a long time; her response was warm but calm. Finally he drew away and looked at her. She was smiling. It was impossible to tell what she felt.
D
“By God, I’ll get a rise out of you yet!” he said, and he pulled her to him violently. She tried to answer, but the sound of her voice came out into his mouth and died there. When he released her, the same smile was there. It was a bit disconcerting. He dug in his pockets and pulled out a pack of cigarettes which she took from him, tapping the bottom so that one cigarette appeared. She held up the pack to his mouth and let him take the end of the cigarette between his lips.
“Service,” he said. “But now I’ve got to light it myself. Let’s sit down a minute.”
“O.K.” She chose the nearest rock and he sat beside her, his left arm around her waist. They looked out across the strait.
He was glad she had chosen the shore of the strait here for their picnic, rather than the beach along the bay, although actually there would have been more assurance of privacy on the beach than here where one never knew what would appear around the next point or who might be hiding among the rocks. But he liked the idea of being able to see Europe across the way while knowing he was in Africa.
He pointed to the big sand-coloured crest directly opposite. “Spain.”
She nodded, drew her finger across her throat significantly. “Bad. They kill you.”
“What do you know about it?” he said banteringly.
“I know.” She shook her head up and down several times. “I got friends come here never go back. No fackin good place.”
He turned on her, his eyes fierce.
“Hadija! I don’t like to
hear that kind of talk from girls.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t say that again when I’m around, you hear?”
She looked innocent and crestfallen. “What’s the matter you?”
He tossed his cigarette away and got up. “Skip it. Come on, or we’ll never get there.” He picked up the basket. Conversation was by no means easy with Hadija. There were things he would have liked to tell her: that a group of American boys would never have behaved like the young Arabs they had passed a while ago. (But would she have believed him, her experience with Americans having been limited to the sailors who occasionally staggered into the Bar Lucifer, their faces smeared with lipstick and their hastily donned trousers held up by one button? He wondered.) He would have liked to tell her in his own way how lovely he thought she was, and why he thought so, and to make her understand how much more he wanted from her than she was used to having men want.
They came out onto a broad, flat shelf of land where on the side toward the cliffs there had at one time been a quarry. The surface was covered with dried thistle plants and a narrow path led straight across it. He still walked ahead of her, into the wind, feeling it push against him all the way from his face to his feet, like a great invisible, amorous body. The path, after it had traversed the field of thistles, rose and wound among the rocks. Suddenly they rounded a corner and looked out on the mountainous coastline to the west. Below them great blocks of stone rose sheer from the water.
“Be careful,” said Dyar. “You go ahead here so I can keep an eye on you.” Ahead to the left he could see the cave, high in the vertical wall of rock. Birds flew in and out of smaller crevices above it; the roar of the waves covered all sound.
He was surprised to see that the cave was not dirty. Someone had made a fire in the centre, and an empty tin can lay nearby. Towards the back of the cave in a corner there was a pallet of eucalyptus branches, probably arranged by some Berber fisherman months ago. Near the entrance there was one crumpled sheet of an old French newspaper. That was all. He set the basket down. Now, after all this, he felt shy.