by Paul Bowles
“So I did. But I don’t call this a visit.”
The waiter had come in, set the tray on the table, and gone out.
“I know.” He was not sure which would be less impolite—to accept one drink and then go, or to leave without taking anything.
“One quick drink,” Eunice urged him. He accepted it.
Hadija had ordered a Coca-Cola. She was rather pleased to see her two protectors in the same room talking together. She wondered if it were dangerous. After all, Eunice knew about the man and did not seem to mind. It was possible that he would not care too much if he knew about Eunice. But she would certainly prefer him not to know. She became conscious of their words.
“Where you go?” she interrupted.
“Home,” he said, without looking at her.
“Where you live?”
Eunice smiled to herself: Hadija was doing her work for her. But then she clicked her tongue with annoyance. The girl had bungled it; he had been put off.
“Too far,” he had answered dryly.
“Why you go there?” Hadija pursued.
Now he turned to face her. “Curiosity killed a cat,” he said with mock sternness. “I’m going to a party, nosey.” He laughed. To Eunice he said: “What a girl, what a girl! But she’s nice in spite of it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Eunice replied, as if giving the matter thought. “I don’t think so, at all, as a matter of fact. I’ll talk to you about it some time. Did you say a party?” She remembered that the Beidaouis were at home on Sunday evenings. “Not at the Beidaoui palace?” she hazarded.
He looked surprised. “That’s right!” he exclaimed. “Do you know them?”
She had never met any of the Beidaoui brothers; however, they had been pointed out to her on various occasions. “I know them very well,” she said. “They’re the people of Tangier.” She had heard that their father had held a high official position of some sort. “The old Beidaoui who died a few years ago was the Grand Vizier to Sultan Moulay Hafid. It was he who entertained the Kaiser when he came here in 1906.”
“Is that right?” said Dyar, making his voice polite.
Presently he stood up and said goodbye. He hoped she would be better.
“Oh, it’s a chronic condition,” she said cheerfully. “It comes and goes. I never think about it. But as my grandmother in Pittsburgh used to say: ‘It’ll be a lot worse before it’s any better.’ ”
He was a little surprised to hear that she was American: he had not thought of her as having any nationality at all. And now he was worried about how to make another rendezvous with Hadija in the somewhat forbidding presence of Miss Goode. However, it had to be done if he was to see her again; he would never be able to get to the Bar Lucifer, where he supposed she was still to be found.
“How about another picnic next Sunday?” he said to her. He might be free all during the week, and then again Wilcox might telephone him tomorrow. Sunday was the only safe day.
“Sure,” said Hadija.
“Same place? Same time?”
“O.K.”
As soon as he had gone, Eunice sat up straight in the bed. “Hand me the telephone book,” she said.
“What you sigh?”
“The telephone book!”
She skimmed through it, found the name. Jouvenon, Pierre, ing. Ingénieur, engineer. It sounded much more impressive in French, being connected with such words as genius, ingenuity. Engineer always made her think of a man in overalls standing in a locomotive. She gave the number and said peremptorily to Hadija: “Get dressed quickly. Put on the new black frock we bought yesterday. I’ll fix your hair when I’m dressed.” She turned to the telephone. “Allô, allô? Qui est à l’appareil?” It was a Spanish maid; Eunice shrugged with impatience. “Quisiera hablar con la Señora Jouvenon. Sí! La señora!” While she waited she put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned again to Hadija. “Remember. Not a word of anything but English.” Hadija had gone into the bathroom and was splashing water in the basin.
“I know,” she called. “No spickin Arab. No spickin Espanish. I know.” They both took it as a matter of course that if Eunice went out, she went with her. At the back of her mind Eunice vaguely imagined that she was training the girl for Paris, where eventually she would take her to live, so that their successful ménage would excite the envy of all her friends.
“Ah, chère Madame Jouvenon!” she cried, and went on to tell the person at the other end of the wire that she hoped she was unoccupied for the next few hours, as she had something she wanted to discuss with her. Madame Jouvenon did not seem at all surprised by the announcement or by the fact that the proposed discussion would take several hours. “Vous êtes tr-rès aimable,” she said, purring the “r” as no French-woman would have done. It was agreed that they should meet in a half-hour at La Sevillana, the small tea-room at the top of the Siaghines.
Eunice hung up, got out of bed, and hurriedly put on an old, loosely draped tea-gown. Then she turned her attention to clothing Hadija, applying her make-up for her, and arranging her hair. She was like a mother preparing her only daughter for her first dance. And indeed, as they walked carefully side by side through the narrow alleys which were a short-cut to La Sevillana, sometimes briefly holding hands when the way was wide enough, they looked very much like doting mother and fond daughter, and were taken for such by the Jewish women watching the close of day from their doorways and balconies.
Madame Jouvenon was already seated in La Sevillana eating a meringue. She was a bright-eyed little woman whose hair, having gone prematurely white, she had unwisely allowed to be dyed a bright silvery blue. To complete the monochromatic colour scheme she had let Mademoiselle Sylvie dye her brows and lashes a much darker and more intense shade of blue. The final effect was not without impact.
Evidently Madame Jouvenon had only just arrived in the tea-room, as heads were still discreetly turning to get a better view of her. Characteristically, Hadija immediately decided that this lady was suffering from some strange disease, and she shook her hand with some squeamishness.
“We have very little time,” Eunice began in French, hoping that Madame Jouvenon would not order more pastry. “The little one here doesn’t speak French. Only Greek and some English. No pastry. Two coffees. Do you know the Beidaouis?”
Madame Jouvenon did not. Eunice was only momentarily chagrined.
“It doesn’t matter,” she continued. “I know them intimately, and you’re my guest. I want to take you there now because there’s someone I think you should meet. It’s possible that he could be very useful to you.”
Madame Jouvenon put down her fork. As Eunice continued talking, now in lower tones, the little woman’s shining eyes became fixed and intense. Her entire expression altered; her face grew clever and alert. Presently, without finishing her meringue, she reached for her handbag in a businesslike manner and laid some coins on the table. “Tr-rès bien,” she said tersely. “On va par-rtir.”
Book Two
* * *
FRESH MEAT AND ROSES
X
The Beidaouis’ Sunday evenings were unique in that any member of one of the various European colonies could attend without thereby losing face, probably because the fact that the hosts were Moslems automatically created among the guests a feeling of solidarity which they welcomed without being conscious of its origin. The wife of the French minister could chat with the lowest American lady tourist and no one would see anything extraordinary about it. This certainly did not mean that if the tourist caught sight of Madame D’Arcourt the next day and had the effrontery to recognize her, she in turn would be recognized. Still, it was pleasant and democratic while it lasted, which was generally until about nine. Very few Moslems were invited, but there were always three or four men of importance in the Arab world: perhaps the leader of the Nationalist Party in the Spanish Zone, or the editor of the Arabic daily in Casablanca, or a wealthy manufacturer from Algier, or the advisor to the Jalifa of Tetuan. In rea
lity the gatherings were held in order to entertain these few Moslem guests, to whom the unaccountable behaviour of Europeans never ceased to be a fascinating spectacle. Most of the Europeans, of course, thought the Moslem gentlemen were invited to add local colour, and praised the Beidaoui brothers for their cleverness in knowing so well just what sort of Arab could mix properly with foreigners. These same people, who prided themselves upon the degree of intimacy to which they had managed to attain in their relationships with the Beidaoui, were nevertheless quite unaware that the two brothers were married, and led intense family lives with their women and children in a part of the house where no European had ever entered. The Beidaoui would certainly not have hidden the fact had they been asked, but no one had ever thought to question them about such things. It was taken for granted that they were two debonair bachelors who loved to surround themselves with Europeans.
That morning, on one of his frequent walks along the waterfront, where he was wont to go when he had a hangover or his home life had grown too oppressive for his taste, Thami had met with an extraordinary piece of good luck. He had wandered out on to the breakwater of the inner port, where the fishermen came to unload, and was watching them shake out the black nets, stiff with salt. A small, old-fashioned motorboat drew alongside the dock. The man in it, whom Thami recognized vaguely, threw a rope to a boy standing nearby. As the boatman, who wore a turban that marked him as a member of the Jilala cult, climbed up the steps to the pier, he greeted Thami briefly. Thami replied, asking if he had been fishing. The man looked at him a little more closely, as if to see who it was he had spoken to so carelessly. Then he smiled sadly, and said that he never had used his little boat for fishing, and that he hoped the poor old craft would be spared such a fate until the day it fell to pieces. Thami laughed; he understood perfectly that the man meant it was a fast enough boat to be used for smuggling. He moved along the dock and looked down into the motor-boat. It must have been forty years old; the seats ran lengthwise and were covered with decaying canvas cushions. There was an ancient two-cylinder Fay and Bowen engine in the centre. The man noticed his scrutiny, and inquired if he were interested in buying the boat. “No,” said Thami contemptuously, but he continued to look. The other remarked that he hated to sell it but had to, because his father in Azemmour was ill, and he was going back there to live. Thami listened with an outward show of patience, waiting for a figure to be mentioned. He had no intention of betraying his interest by suggesting one himself. Eventually, as he tossed his cigarette into the water and made as if to go, he heard the figure: ten thousand pesetas. “I don’t think you’ll get more than five,” he replied, turning to move off. “Five!” cried the man indignantly. “Look at it,” said Thami, pointing down at it. “Who’s going to give more?” He started to walk slowly away, kicking pieces of broken concrete into the water as he went. The man called after him. “Eight thousand!” He turned around, smiling, and explained that he was not interested himself, but that if the Jilali really wanted to sell the boat, he should put a sensible price on it, one that Thami could quote to his friends in case one of them might know a possible buyer. They argued a while, and Thami finally went away with six thousand as an asking price. He felt rather pleased with himself, because although it was by no means the beautiful speed-boat he coveted, it was at least a tangible and immediate possibility whose realization would not involve either an import licence or any very serious tampering with his heritage. He had thought of asking the American, whom he liked, and who he felt had a certain sympathy for him, to purchase the boat in his name. It would have been a way around the licence. But he thought he did not know him well enough, and beyond a doubt it would have been a foolish move: he would have had to rely solely on the American’s honesty for proof of ownership. As to the price, it was negligible even at six thousand, and he was positive he could get it down to five. There was even a faint possibility, although he doubted it, really, that he could get Abdelmalek to lend him the sum. In any case, among his bits of property there was a two-room house without lights or water at the bottom of a ravine behind the Marshan, which ought to bring just about five thousand pesetas in a quick sale.
The end of the afternoon was splendid: the clouds had been blown away by a sudden wind from the Atlantic. The air smelled clean, the sky had become intense and luminous. As Dyar waited in front of the door of his hotel, a long procession of Berbers on donkeys passed along the avenue on their way from the mountains to the market. The men’s faces were brown and weather-burned, the women were surprisingly light of skin, with salient, round red cheeks. Dispassionately he watched them jog past, not realizing how slowly they moved until he became aware of the large American convertible at the end of the line, whose horn was being blown frantically by the impatient driver. “What’s the hurry?” he thought. The little waves on the beach were coming in quietly, the hills were changing colour slowly with the dying of the light behind the city, a few Arabs strolled deliberately along the walk under the wind-stirred branches of the palms. It was a pleasant hour whose natural rhythm was that of leisure; the insistent blowing of the trumpet-like horn made no sense in that ensemble. Nor did the Berbers on their donkeys give any sign of hearing it. They passed peacefully along, the little beasts taking their measured steps and nodding their heads. When the last one had come opposite Dyar, the car swung toward the kerb and stopped. It was the Marquesa de Valverde. “Mr. Dyar!” she called. As he shook her hand she said: “I’d have been here earlier, darling, but I’ve been bringing up the rear of this parade for the past ten minutes. Don’t ever buy a car here. It’s the most nerve-racking spot in this world to drive in. God!”
“I’ll bet,” he said; he went around to the other side and got in beside her.
They drove up through the modern town at a great rate, past new apartment houses of glaring white concrete, past empty lots crammed to bursting with huts built of decayed signboards, packing-cases, reed latticework and old blankets, past new cinema palaces and nightclubs whose sickly fluorescent signs already glowed with light that was at once too bright and too dim. They skirted the new market, which smelled this evening of fresh meat and roses. To the south stretched the sandy waste land and the green scrub of the foothills. The cypresses along the road were bent by years of wind. “This Sunday traffic is dreadful. Ghastly,” said Daisy, looking straight ahead. Dyar laughed shortly; he was thinking of the miles of strangled parkways outside New York. “You don’t know what traffic is,” he said. But his mind was not on what was being said, nor yet on the gardens and walls of the villas going past. Although he was not given to analysing his states of mind, since he never had been conscious of possessing any sort of apparatus with which to do so, recently he had felt, like a faint tickling in an inaccessible region of his being, an undefined need to let his mind dwell on himself. There were no formulated thoughts, he did not even day-dream, nor did he push matters so far as to ask himself questions like: “What am I doing here?” or “What do I want?” At the same time he was vaguely aware of having arrived at the edge of a new period in his existence, an unexplored territory of himself through which he was going to have to pass. But his perception of the thing was limited to knowing that lately he had been wont to sit quietly alone in his room saying to himself that he was here. The fact kept repeating itself to him: “Here I am.” There was nothing to be deduced from it; the saying of it seemed to be connected with a feeling almost of anaesthesia somewhere within him. He was not moved by the phenomenon; even to himself he felt supremely anonymous, and it is difficult to care very much what is happening inside a person one does not know. At the same time, that which went on outside was remote and had no relationship to him; it might almost as well not have been going on at all. Yet he was not indifferent—indifference is a matter of the emotions, whereas this numbness affected a deeper part of him.
They turned into a somewhat narrower, curving street. On the left was a windowless white wall at least twenty feet high which went on ahead, flush with
the street, as far as the eye could follow. “That’s it,” said Daisy, indicating the wall. “The palace?” said Dyar, a little disappointed. “The Beidaoui Palace,” she answered, aware of the crestfallen note in his voice. “It’s a strange old place,” she added, deciding to let him have the further surprise of discovering the decayed sumptuousness of the interior for himself. “It sure looks it,” he said with feeling. “How do you get in?”
“The gate’s a bit further up,” replied Daisy, and without transition she looked directly at him as she said: “You’ve missed out on a good many things, haven’t you?” His first thought was that she was pitying him for his lack of social advantages; his pride was hurt. “I don’t think so,” he said quickly. Then with a certain heat he demanded: “What sort of things? What do you mean?”
She brought the car to a stop at the kerb behind a string of others already parked there. As she took out the keys and put them into her purse she said: “Things like friendship and love. I’ve lived in America a good deal. My mother was from Boston, you know, so I’m part American. I know what it’s like. Oh, God, only too well!”
They got out. “I guess there’s as much friendship there as anywhere else,” he said. He was annoyed, and he hoped his voice did not show it. “Or love.”
“Love!” she cried derisively.
An elderly Arab swung the grilled gate. They went into a dark room where several other bearded men were stretched out on mats in a niche that ran the length of the wall. These greeted Daisy solemnly, without moving. The old Arab opened a door, and they stepped out into a vast dim garden in which the only things Dyar could identify with certainty were the very black, tall cypresses, their points sharp against the evening sky, and the very white marble fountains in which water splashed with an uneven sound. They went along the gravel walk in silence between the sweet and acid floral smells. There were thin strains of music ahead. “I expect they’re dancing to the gramophone,” said Daisy. “This way.” She led him up a walk toward the right, to a wide flight of marble stairs. “Evenings they entertain in the European wing. And in European style. Except that they themselves don’t touch liquor, of course.” Above the music of the tango came the chatter of voices. As they arrived at the top of the stairway a grave-faced man in a white silk gown stepped forward to welcome them.