Let it come down

by Пол Боулз

  «Tea!»

  She laughed merrily. «It’s absolutely essential».

  To Dyar, who had pulled his left cuff up so he could glance surreptitiously now and then at his watch, the time was creeping by with incredible slowness. Daisy talked about black magic, about exhibitions of hatta-yoga she had seen in Travancore, about the impossibility of understanding Islamic legal procedure in Morocco unless one took for granted the everyday use of spells and incantations. At length the tea came, and they each had three cups. Dyar listened apathetically; it all sounded to him like decoration, like the Pekineses, incense-burners and Spanish shawls with which certain idle women filled their apartments, back in New York. He let her talk for a while. Then he said: «But what’s the story about that candy? What is it? Some kind of dope, isn’t it? I think you were cheated. I don’t feel anything».

  She smiled. «Yes, I know. Everyone says that. But it’s very subtle. One must know which direction to look in for the effect. If you expect to feel drunk, you’re looking the wrong way, it takes twice as long, and you miss half the pleasure».

  «But what is the pleasure? Do you feel anything, right now?»

  She closed her eyes and remained silent a moment, a slightly beatific expression coming to rest on her upturned face. «Yes,» she answered at length. «Definitely».

  «You do?» The incredulity in his voice made her open her eyes and look at him an instant reproachfully. «You don’t believe me? I’m not just imagining things. But I’ve had it before and I know exactly what to expect. Darling, you’re not comfortable there on the edge of the bed. Draw up that big chair and relax».

  When he was sprawled in the chair facing the bed, he said to her: «Well, then, suppose you try and tell me what it feels like. I might as well get some benefit out of the stuff, even if it comes second-hand».

  «Oh, at the moment it’s nothing very exciting. Just a slight buzzing in my ears and an accelerated pulse».

  «Sounds like fun,» he scoffed. For a few minutes he had forgotten that this evening he was waiting above all for time to pass. Now he turned his arm a bit, to see the face of his watch; it was eight-twenty. He had set the meeting with Thami for no definite hour, not knowing exactly when he would be able to get away, but he had assured him it would not be after midnight. The understanding was that the Jilali would go back to town to the port, and would bring the boat to a small beach just west of Oued el Ihud, also not later than twelve o’clock. In the meantime Thami was to sit and wait, a little below the far end of the garden, so that when Dyar left the house he could lead him down across the face of the mountain, directly to the beach. Thami had insisted he would not be bored by waiting so long: he had his supper and his kif pipe with him.

  «Yes,» Daisy was saying. «If I let too much time go by, I shan’t be able to tell you anything at all. One becomes fantastically inarticulate at a certain point. Not always, but it can happen. One thinks one’s making sense, and so one is, I daresay, but in a completely different world of thought».

  It seemed to him that the wind outside was rising a little, or else a window had opened a minute ago to let the sound in. He turned his head; the drawn curtains did not move. «What are you looking at?» she asked. He did not answer. At the same time he had a senseless desire to turn his head in the other direction and look at the other wall, because he thought he had seen a slight movement on that side of the room. Instead, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one.

  «No thanks, darling. I couldn’t. You have a house. You see?»

  «What?» He stared at her.

  «I’m explaining, darling, or at least trying to. You have a house. In the middle of some modest grounds, where you’re used to walking about». She waited, apparently to be certain he was following her argument. Since he said nothing, she went on. «You can always see the house. At least, from most parts of the property, but in any case, you know it’s there. It’s the center of your domain. Call it your objective idea about yourself».

  He toyed with the pack of cigarettes, extracted one and lighted it, frowning.

  «Say it’s the idea of yourself by which you measure what’s real. You have to keep it straight in your mind, keep it in working order. Like a compass».

  He was making an effort to go along with the sense of what she was saying, but all he could follow was the words. «Like a compass,» he repeated, as if he thought that might help.

  «And so. You know every path, every plant, every stone on the grounds. But one day while you’re out walking you suddenly catch sight of what looks like a path in a spot where you’ve never noticed, nor even suspected one before». Slowly her voice was taking on dramatic fervor. «The entrance is perhaps half hidden by a bush. You go over and look, and find there actually is a path there. You pull the bush aside, take a few steps down the path, and see ahead of you a grove of trees you never before knew existed. You’re dumfounded! You go through the grove touching the tree trunks to be sure they’re really there, because you can’t believe it…»

  This time he jerked his head quickly to the left, to catch whatever was over there by the windows, staring at the blank expanse of unmoving white curtain with disbelief. «Just relax,» he said to himself, as he turned back to see if she had noticed him; she seemed not to have. «Relax, and be careful. Be careful». Why he was adding the second admonition he did not know, save that he was conscious of an overwhelming sense of uneasiness, as if a gigantic hostile figure towered above him, leaning over his shoulder, and he believed the only way to combat the feeling was to remain quite calm so that he could control his movements.

  «…Then through the trees you see that the path leads up a hill. „But there is no hill!“ you exclaim, probably aloud by this time, you’re so excited and muddled. So you hurry on, climb the hill, which is rather high, and when you get to the top you see the countryside, perfectly familiar on all sides. You can identify every detail. And there’s your house below, just where it should be. Nothing is wrong. It’s not a dream and you’ve not gone mad. If you hadn’t seen the house, of course, you’d know you’d gone mad. But it’s there. Everything is all right». She sighed deeply, as if in relief. «It’s just upsetting to find that grove of trees and that strange hill in the middle of your land. Because it can’t be there, and yet it is. You’re forced to accept it. But it’s how you think once you’ve accepted it that makes what I call the forbidden way of thought. Forbidden, of course, by your own mind, until the moment you accept the fact of the hill. That’s majoun for you. You find absolutely new places inside yourself, places you feel simply couldn’t be a part of you, and yet there they are. Does what I said mean anything at all to you, or have I been ranting like a maniac?»

  «Oh, no. Not at all». All his effort was going to giving a sincere ring to the words. An intense silence followed, which he felt he was also making, as he had uttered the words, only it went on for an endless length of time, like telegraph wires across miles of waste land. A pole, a pole, a pole, a pole, the wires strung between, the flat horizon lying beyond the eyes’ reach. Then someone said: «Not at all» again, and it was he who had said it.

  «What the hell is this?» he asked himself in a sudden rage. He had promised himself not to get drunk; it was the most important thing to remember while he was at the Villa Hesperides this evening. «I’m not drunk,» he thought triumphantly, and he found himself on his feet, stretching. «It’s stuffy in here,» he remarked, wondering if she would think he was being rude.

  She laughed. «Come, now, darling. Admit you’re feeling the majoun at last».

  «Why? Because I say it’s stuffy? Nope. I’m damned if I feel anything». He was not being obstinate; already he had forgotten the little side-trip his mind had made a moment ago. Now that he was standing up the air in the room did not seem close. He walked over to a window, pulled the heavy curtain aside, and peered out into the dark.

  «You don’t mind being alone here at night?» he said.

  «Sometimes,» she answered vague
ly, wondering if his question would be followed by others. «Stop thinking like that,» she told herself with annoyance.

  He still stood by the window. «You’re pretty high up here».

  «About six hundred feet».

  «Have you ever been down to the bottom?»

  «Over those rocks? God, no! Do you think I’m a chamois?»

  He began to walk around the room slowly, his hands behind him, stepping from one zebra skin to the next as if they were rocks in a stream. There was no doubt that he felt strange, but it was not any way he had expected to feel, and so he laid it to his own perturbation. The evening was going to be agonizingly long. «I’d like to be saying good night right now,» he thought. Everything he took the trouble to look at carefully seemed to be bristling with an intense but undecipherable meaning: Daisy’s face with its halo of white pillows, the light pouring over the array of bottles on the table, the glistening black floor and the irregular black and white stripes on the skins at his feet, the darker and more distant parts of the room by the windows where the motionless curtains almost touched the floor. Each thing was uttering a wordless but vital message which was a key, a symbol, but which there was no hope of seizing or understanding. And inside himself, now that he became conscious of it, in his chest more than anywhere else, there was a tremendous trembling pressure, as though he were about to explode. He breathed in various ways to see if he could change it, and then he realized that his heart was beating too fast. «Ah, hell,» he said aloud, because he was suddenly frightened.

  «Come and sit down, darling. What’s the matter with you? You’re as restless as a cat. Are you hungry? Or has the majoun got you?»

  «No,» he said shortly. «Nothing’s got me». He thought that sounded absurd. «If I go and sit down,» he thought, «I’ll get up again, and she’ll know something’s the matter». He felt he must make every effort to prevent Daisy from knowing what was going on inside him. The objects in the room, its walls and furniture, the air around his head, the idea that he was in the room, that he was going to eat dinner, that the cliffs and the sea were below, all these things were playing a huge, inaudible music that was rising each second toward a climax which he knew would be unbearable when it was reached. «It’s going to get worse».

  He swallowed with difficulty. «Something’s got to happen in a minute. Something’s got to happen». He reached the chair and stood behind it, his hands on the back. Daisy looked at him distraughtly. She was thinking: «Why have I never dared tell Luis about majoun?» She knew he would disapprove, if only because it was a native concoction. But that was not why she had kept silent. She had never told anyone about it; the taking of it was a supremely private ritual. The experience was such a personal one that she had never wanted to share it with another. And here she was, undergoing it with someone she scarcely knew. All at once she wanted to tell him, so that he might know he was the first to be invited into this inner chamber of her life. She took a deep breath, and instead, said petulantly: «For God’s sake, sit down. You look like a Calvinist rector telling his flock about Hell».

  He laughed and sat in the chair. Under the table in the shadow he saw his brief case. The tremulous feeling inside him suddenly expressed a great elation; it was still the same sensation, but it had changed color. The relief made him laugh again.

  «Really!» exclaimed Daisy. «You may as well admit you’re feeling the majoun. Because I know damned well you are. At least admit it to yourself. You’ll have more fun with it. You’ve been fighting it for the past ten minutes. That’s not the way to treat it. Just sit back and let it take its course. It’s in you, and you can’t get rid of it, so you may as well enjoy it».

  «How about you?» He would not admit it.

  «I told you long ago I was feeling it. At the moment I’m about to take off on a non-stop flight to Arcturus».

  «You are, are you?» His voice was unfriendly. «Personally, I think the stuff is a fake. I’m not saying it has no effect at all, but I don’t call feeling jumpy and having my heart beat twice too fast, I don’t call that a kick, myself».

  She laughed commiseratingly. «You should have drunk your whiskey, darling. You’d have felt more at home with it. Mais enfin…» She sat up and rang the bell. «I expect the kitchen is in a turmoil because we’re taking so long with our tea».

  XIX

  All during the dinner Daisy talked unceasingly; often Dyar found himself replying in monosyllables, not because he was uninterested, although occasionally he had very little idea what she was saying, but because half the time he was off somewhere else in a world of his own. He did not know what he was thinking about, but his brain was swarming with beginnings of thoughts fastened on to beginnings of other thoughts. To receive so many took all his attention; even had they not been incommunicable he would have had no desire to impart them to Daisy. It was as if his mind withdrew to a remote, dark corner of his being. Then it would come out into the light again, and he would find himself actually believing that he sat having dinner at a small table in a quiet room while a woman lay in bed nearby eating the same food from a tray.

  «You’re awfully untalkative,» Daisy said presently. «I’d never have given the majoun to you if I’d known it was going to make a statue out of you».

  Her words made him uncomfortable. «Oh,» he said. And what seemed to him a long time later: «I’m all right».

  «Yes, I daresay you are. But you make a God-damned unsatisfactory dinner partner».

  Now he became fully present, began to stammer apologies more florid than the occasion warranted. «I couldn’t feel worse,» he said finally, «if I’d kicked you. I don’t know what was the matter with me. It must be that stuff that did something crazy to me».

  «It’s all my fault. Don’t give it another thought, poor darling».

  He would not have it that way. «No, no, no,» he said. «There’s no excuse». And in an excess of contrition he rose and sat down heavily on the bed beside her. The tray tipped perilously.

  «Be careful, darling!» she exclaimed. «I shall have peas and wine all over me in another moment». But he had already seized her hand and was covering it with quick kisses. He was floating in the air, impelled by a hot, dry wind which enveloped him, voluptuously caressed him. For the space of two long breaths she was silent, and he heard his own breathing, and confused it with the sound of the wind that was blowing him along, above the vast, bare, sunlit valley. The skin of her arm was smooth, the flesh was soft. He pulled her further toward him, over the balancing tray.

  «Be careful!» she cried again in alarm, as the tray tilted in his direction. «No, no!»

  The wine glass went over first; the icy stain on his thigh made him jump convulsively. Then, very slowly it seemed to him, plates slid and tumbled toward him as the tray overturned and buried the lower part of his body in a confusion of china, glassware and warm food. «Oh!» she cried. But he held her more tightly with one arm, sweeping the tray and some of the dishes onto the floor with the other. And he scrambled up to be completely near her, so that there were only a few thicknesses of wet cloth, a fork and a spoon or two between them, and presently, after a short struggle with pieces of clinging clothing, nothing but a few creamed mushrooms.

  «For God’s sake, no! Not like this!» she was on the point of shouting, but as if she sensed how tenuous was the impulse that moved him, she thought: «At this very moment you’re hoping desperately that nothing will happen to stop this. So you did want it to happen. Why wouldn’t you admit it? Why can’t you be frank? You wanted it; let it happen, even this way. Even this way». And so she said nothing, reaching out and turning off the light beside the bed. A word, she told herself, could have broken the thread by which he hung suspended from the sky; he would have fallen with a crash into the room, a furiously embarrassed young man with no excuse for his behavior, no escape from his predicament, no balm for his injured pride. «He’s very sweet. And a little mad. So compact. Not at all like Luis. But could I really love any man I don’t
respect? I don’t respect him at all. How can one respect an impersonal thing? He’s scarcely human. He’s not conscious of me as me. As another natural force, perhaps, yes. But that’s not enough. I could never love him. But he’s sweet. God knows, he’s sweet».

  The soft endless earth spread out beneath him, glowing with sunlight, untouched by time, uninhabited, belonging wholly to him. How far below it lay, he could not have said, gliding soundlessly through the pure luminous air that admitted no possibility of distance or dimension. Yet he could touch its smooth resilient contours, smell its odor of sun, and even taste the salt left in its pores by the sea in some unremembered age. And this flight — he had always known it was to be made, and that he would make it. This was a corner of existence he had known was there, but until now had not been able to reach; at present, having discovered it, he also knew he would be able to find his way back another time. Something was being completed; there would be less room for fear. The thought filled him with an ineffable happiness. «Ah, God,» he murmured aloud, not knowing that he did so.

  Beyond the windows the rising wind blew through the cypresses, bringing with it occasionally the deeper sound of the sea below. Regularly the drawn white curtains on one side of the room glowed white as the lighthouse’s beam flashed across it. Daisy coughed.