by Paul Bowles
“You had a good time at my brothers’ house yesterday?”
“Yes. It was very pleasant,” she said haughtily, wondering what horrors of misbehaviour he was remembering at the moment.
“My brothers like Miss Kumari, your friend. They think she’s a very nice girl.”
She looked at him. “Yes, she is.”
“Yes. They think so.” She heard the slight emphasis on the word think, but did not realize it was purposeful. He continued, “At the party Madame Vanderdonk ask me: Who is that girl?” (Madame Vanderdonk was the wife of the Dutch Minister.) “She says she looks like a Moorish girl.” (Eunice’s heart turned over.) “I told her that’s because she’s Greek.”
“Cypriot,” corrected Eunice tonelessly. He stared an instant, not understanding. Then he lit a cigarette and went on. “I know who this girl is, and you know, too. But my brothers don’t know. They think she’s a nice girl. They want to invite both of you to dinner next week, an Arab-style dinner with the British Minister, and Dr. Waterman and Madame de Saint Sauveur and a lot of many people, but I think that’s a bad idea.”
“Did you tell them so?” asked Eunice, holding her breath.
“Of course not!” he said indignantly. (Still safe! she thought; she was ready to go anywhere from here, at whatever cost, whatever hazard.) “That would be not nice to you. I wouldn’t do that.” Now his voice was full of soft reproof.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said. She felt so much better that she gave him a wry smile.
He had gone down to the port that afternoon and had managed to get the price of the boat down to five thousand seven hundred pesetas. When it came time to pay, he still hoped to be able to knock off the extra seven hundred, simply by refusing to give them.
There were roars of laughter from the next room, which was the bar.
“Will you be at the dinner party?” said Eunice, not because she was particularly interested to know.
“I’m going away, I think,” he said. “I want to go to Ceuta in my boat, do a little business.”
“Business? You have a boat?”
“No. I want to buy one. Tomorrow. It costs too much money. I want to get out.” He made the hideous grimace of disgust typical of the low-class Arab; he certainly had not learned that at the Beidaoui palace. “Tangier’s no good. But the boat costs a lot of money.”
There was a silence.
“How much?” said Eunice.
He told her.
A little over a hundred dollars, she calculated. It was surely worth it, even if he did not leave Tangier, the likelihood of which she strongly doubted. “I should like to help you,” she said.
“That’s very kind. I didn’t mean that.” He was grinning.
“I know, but I’d like to help. I can give you a cheque.” She wanted to finish the business and get rid of him.
In the bar someone began to play popular tunes on the piano, execrably. Several British sailors drinking in there looked into the reading-room with undisguised curiosity, one after the other, like children.
“I’ll write you a cheque. Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” She rose and went out the door into the foyer. With this native monster under control, and the American idiot out of the way, she told herself, life might begin to be bearable. She brought the cheque-book downstairs with her, and made out the cheque in his presence, asking him how he spelled his name.
“Suppose we make it out for six thousand,” she said. It was just as well to be generous.
“That’s very kind. Thank you,” said Thami.
“Not at all. I hope you have a good trip.” She got up and walked toward the bar. Before she got to the door she paused and called to him: “Don’t get drowned.”
“Good night, Miss Goode,” he said respectfully, her very personal irony having gone wide of the mark.
She went into the bar and ordered a gin fizz: the whole episode had been most distasteful. “What foul people they are!” she said to herself, finding it more satisfying to damn the tribe than the mere individual. The sailors moved a little away from her on each side when she ordered her drink.
Across the street Thami was back in the café, where he intended to stay in hiding until he saw Hadija return from her fruitless mission to the Cine Mauretania; he wanted to be sure and not meet her by accident in the street. With the eagerness of a small boy he looked forward to morning, when he could go to the bank, get the money, and rush to the waterfront to begin haggling once more for the boat. Watching the Metropole’s entrance, he suddenly caught sight of the American, Dyar, about to go into the hotel. There was one Nesrani he liked. He had no reason for liking him, but he did. With a joviality born of the flush of victory, he rose and rushed out into the narrow street, calling: “Hey! Hey!”
Dyar turned and saw him without enthusiasm. “Hi,” he said. They shook hands, but he did not let himself be enticed into the café by the other’s blandishments. “I have to go,” he explained.
“You want to see Miss Goode?” Thami guessed. Dyar was annoyed. “Yes,” he said shortly. Thami was not the one to whom he would confide his business: the picture of him and Hadija talking so intensely and at such length at the party was too fresh in his memory. He had decided then that Thami was trying to make her.
“You’ll be a long time in the hotel?”
“No, just a few minutes.”
“I’ll wait for you. When you come out you come in that café. You’ll see me.”
“Okay,” said Dyar reluctantly. On the way he had bought a bracelet for Hadija; he swung the box on one finger by the little loop the saleswoman had tied in the string. “I’ll look for you.”
It was an absurd-looking old hotel, a gaudy vestige of the days when England had been the important power in Tangier. Still, he had to admit it was a lot more comfortable and pleasant than the new ones like his own Hotel de la Playa. At the desk they told him they thought he would find Miss Goode in the bar. That was good luck: he would not have to see her alone in her room. They could have one drink and he would be on his way. As he went into the crowded bar one of the sailors was pounding out “Oh, Suzanna”. The room was full of sailors, but there was Eunice Goode in the midst of them, monumentally alone, sitting on a high stool staring straight in front of her.
“Good evening,” he said.
It was as though he had slapped her in the face. She drew her head back and stared at him. First the Moor, and now this one. She was horrified; in her imagination he was already out of the way, gone. And here he was, back from the dead, not even aware that he was a ghost.
“Oh,” she said finally. “Hello.”
“Drunk again,” he thought.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. She got down from the stool and stood leaning on the bar.
“I just thought I’d drop in and say hello.”
“Oh? Well, what are you drinking? Whisky?”
“What are you drinking? Have one with me, please.”
“Certainly not! Barman! One whisky and soda!” She rapped imperiously on the top of the bar. “I’m just on my way upstairs,” she explained. “I’m just having this one drink.” She felt that she would jump out of her skin if she had to stay and talk with him another minute.
Dyar was a bit nettled. “Well, wait’ll I’ve had my drink, can’t you? I wanted to ask you something.” The barman gave him his drink.
“What was that?” she said levelly. She was positive it had something to do with Hadija, and she looked at him waiting, mentally daring him to let it be that.
“Do you know where I can find Hadija, how I can get in touch with her? I know she comes by here every now and then to see you. Do you have her address, or anything?”
It was too much. Her face became redder than usual, and she stood perfectly still, scarcely moving her lips as she spoke.
“I do not! I don’t know where she lives and I care less! Why don’t you look for her in the whorehouse where you met her? Why do you come sneaking to me, trying t
o find her? Do you think I’m her madam? Well, I’m not! I’m not renting her out by the hour!”
Dyar could not believe his ears. “Now, wait a minute,” he said, feeling himself growing hot all over. “You don’t have to talk that way about her. All you have to say is no, you don’t know her address. That’s all I asked you. I didn’t ask you anything else. I’m not interested in what you have to say about her. For my money she’s a damned nice girl.”
Eunice snorted. “For your money, indeed! Very apt! That little bitch would sleep with a stallion if you made it worth her while. And I daresay she has, for that matter. A special act for tourists. They love it.” She was beginning to enjoy herself as she saw the fury spreading in his face. “I don’t mind naïveté,” she went on, “but when it’s carried to the point—— Aren’t you finishing your drink?” He had turned away.
“Shove it up,” he said, and walked out.
Considering the number of people in the street, he thought it might be possible for him to get by the café without being seen by Thami, but it was a vain hope. He heard him calling as he came opposite the entrance. Resignedly he stepped inside and sat down crosslegged on the mat beside Thami, who had had a few pipes of kif with friends, and felt very well. They talked a bit, Dyar refusing the pipe when it was passed him. Thami kept his eyes on the street, watching for Hadija. When presently he espied her walking quickly and angrily along in the drizzle, he called Dyar’s attention to a large chromolithograph on the wall beside them.
“Do you know what that is?” he demanded. Dyar looked, saw a design representing a city of minarets, domes and balustrades. “No,” he said.
“That’s Mecca.”
He saw the others watching him, awaiting his comment. “Very nice.”
From the corner of his eye Thami saw Hadija disappear into the Metropole. “Let’s go,” he said. “Fine,” agreed Dyar. They went out into the damp, and wandered up toward the Zoco Chico. In spite of the weather the streets were filled with Arabs standing in groups talking, or strolling aimlessly up and down.
“Do you want to go see some beautiful girls?” said Thami suddenly.
“Will you quit trying to sell this town to me?” demanded Dyar. “I don’t want to go and see anything. I’m all fixed up with one beautiful girl, and that’s enough.” He did not add that he would give a good deal to be able to find her.
“What’s in that?” Thami indicated the parcel containing the bracelet.
“A new razor.”
“What kind?”
“Hollywood,” said Dyar, improvising.
Thami approved. “Very nice razor.” But his mind was on other things.
“You like that girl? Only that one? Hadija?”
“That’s right.”
“You want only that one? I know another very nice one.”
“Well, you keep her, chum.”
“But what’s the difference, that one and another?”
“All right,” said Dyar. “So you don’t see. But I do. I tell you I’m satisfied.”
The trouble was that Thami, still tingling with memories of the preceding night, did see. He became momentarily pensive. To him it made perfect sense that he, a Moslem, should want Hadija to himself. It was his right. He wanted every girl he could get, all to himself. But it made no sense that a Nesrani, a Christian, should pick and choose. A Christian was satisfied with anything; a Christian saw no difference between one girl and another, as long as they were both attractive; he took what was left over by the Moslems, without knowing it, and without a thought for whether she was all his or not. That was the way Christians were. But not this one, who obviously not only wanted Hadija to himself, but was not interested in finding anyone else.
Dyar broke in on his reflections, saying: “Do you think she might be at that place we saw her in that night?” He thought he might as well admit that he would like to see her.
“Of course not——” began Thami, stopping when it occurred to him that if Dyar did not know she was living with Eunice Goode, he was not going to be the one to tell him. “It’s too early,” he said.
“So much the better,” Dyar thought. “Well, let’s go up there, anyway, and have a drink.”
Thami was delighted. “Fine!”
This time Dyar was determined to keep track of the turns and steps, so that he could find his way up alone after dinner. Through a short crowded lane, to the left up a steep little street lined with grocery stalls, out into the triangular plaza with the big green and white arch opposite, continue up, turn right down the dark level street, first turn left again into the very narrow alley which becomes a tunnel, and goes up steeply, out at top, turn right again, follow straight through paying no attention to juts and twists because there are no streets leading off, downhill to large plaza with fat hydrant in centre and cafés all the way around (only they might be closed later, and with their fronts boarded up they look like any other shop), cross plaza, take alley with no streetlight overhead, at end turn left into pitch black street …. He began to be confused. There were too many details to remember, and now they were climbing an endless flight of stone steps in the dark.
At the Bar Lucifer Madame Papaconstante leaned her weight on the bar, picking her teeth voluptuously. “Hello, boys,” she said. She had had her hair hennaed. The place reeked of fresh paint. It was an off night. Of course it was very early. They had two drinks and Dyar paid, saying he wanted to go to his hotel. Thami had been talking about his brothers’ stinginess, how they would not let him have any money—even his own. “But tomorrow I’ll buy that boat!” he ended triumphantly. Dyar did not ask him where he had got the money. He was mildly surprised to hear that the other had been born and brought up in the Beidaoui palace; he did not know whether he thought more or less of him now that he knew his origin. As they left, Thami reached across the bar and, seizing Madame Papaconstante’s brilliant head, kissed her violently on each flaming cheek. “Ay, hombre!” she cried, laughing delightedly, pretending to rearrange her undisturbed coiffure.
In the street Dyar attempted to piece together the broken thread of the itinerary, but it seemed they were going back down by another route, as he recognized no landmark whatever until they were suddenly within sight of the smoke-filled Zoco de Fuera.
“You know, Dare—”(Dyar corrected him) “—some night I’ll take you to my home and give you a real Moorish dinner. Couscous, bastila, everything. How’s that?”
“That would be fine, Thami.”
“Don’t forget,” Thami cautioned him, as if they had already arranged the occasion.
“I won’t.”
Just by the main gateway leading into the square, Thami stopped and indicated a native café, rather larger and more pretentious than most, inside which a very loud radio was roaring.
“I’m going here,” he said. “Any time you want to see me you can always find me inside here. In a few days we’ll go for a ride in my boat. So long.”
Dyar stood alone in the bustling square. From the far end, through the trees, came the sound of drums, beating out a complicated, limping Berber rhythm from up in the mountains. He found a small Italian restaurant in a street off the Zoco, and had an indifferent meal. In spite of his impatience to get back into the streets and look for the Bar Lucifer, he relaxed over a caffe espresso and had two cigarettes before rising to leave. There was no point in getting there too early.
He wandered vaguely downhill until he came to a street he thought might lead in the right direction. Girls walked by slowly in clusters, hanging together as if for protection, staring at him but pretending not to. It was easy to tell the Jewish girls from the Spanish, although the two looked and dressed alike: the former loped, straggled, hobbled, practically fell along the street, as if they had no control, and without a semblance of grace. And the Arab women pushed by like great white bundles of laundry, an eye peering out near the top. Ahead of him, under a street light, a crowd of men and boys was gathering around two angry youths, each of whom held th
e other at arm’s length by the lapels. The pose was as formal as a bit of frozen choreography. They glared, uttered insults, growled, and made menacing gestures with their free left hands. He watched a while; no blow was struck. Suddenly one jerked away. The other shot out of sight, and while the brief general conversation that followed was still in progress, returned from nowhere with a policeman—the classical procedure. The officer of the law separated the crowd and stepped in front of Dyar, tapping arms and shoulders very gently with his white billy. Dyar studied him: he wore an American GI uniform and a metal helmet painted white. In a white leather holster he carried a revolver wrapped carefully in tissue paper, like a Christmas present. As if he were a farmer urging his plough-horses, he murmured to the crowd softly: “Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh.” And the crowd slowly dispersed, the two antagonists already having lost themselves in its midst.
Slowly he moved ahead in what seemed to him the right direction. All he needed was one landmark and he would be set. Sweet temple-incense poured out of the Hindu silk shops, a whole Berber family crouched in the shadow of a small mountain of oranges, mechanically calling out the price of a kilo. And then all at once the dark streets began, and the few stalls that remained open were tiny and lighted by carbide lamps or candles. At one point he stopped a man in European clothes and said: “Bar Lucifer?” It was a long chance, and he did not really expect a useful answer. The man grunted and pointed back the way Dyar had just come. He thanked him and continued. It was rather fun, being lost like this; it gave him a strange sensation of security—the feeling that at this particular instant no one in the world could possibly find him. Not his family, not Wilcox, not Daisy de Valverde, not Thami, not Eunice Goode, not Madame Jouvenon, and not, he reflected finally, the American Legation. The thought of these last two somewhat lowered his spirits. At the moment he was further from being free than he had been yesterday at this time. The idea horrified him; it was unacceptable. Yesterday at this time he had been leaving the Beidaoui palace in a good humour. There had been the episode of the kittens, which now that he considered it seemed to have had something to do with that good humour. It was crazy, but it was true. As he walked on, noticing less and less where he was, he pursued his memory of yesterday evening further, like a film being run backwards. When he got to the cold garden with the stone bench where he had sat in the wind, he knew he had found the setting. It had happened while he sat there. What Holland had said had started him off, feeling rather than thinking, but Holland had not said enough, had not followed through. “Here I am and something’s going to happen.” No connection. He said to Holland: “You’re going to die too, but in the meantime you eat.” No connection whatever, and yet it was all connected. It was all part of the same thing.