by Paul Bowles
For a few days Aileen lay in bed listening to the water and the birds, and to the nearby, unfamiliar, domestic sounds. Her mother and Prue both had breakfast in bed, and generally appeared just before the midday meal for a few minutes of conversation until Concha brought the invalid’s lunch tray. In the afternoons she thumbed through old magazines and read at murder mysteries. Usually it began to rain about three; the sound at first would be like an augmentation of the waterfall in the distance, and then as its violence increased it came unmistakably nearer—a great roar all around the house that covered every other sound. The black clouds would close in tightly around the mountain, so that it seemed that night would soon arrive. She would ring a small bell for Concha to come and light the oil lamp on the table by the bed. Lying there looking at the wet banana leaves outside the window, with the rain’s din everywhere, she felt completely comfortable for the precarious moment. There was no necessity to question the feeling, no need to think—only the subsiding of the rain, the triumphant emergence of the sun into the steaming twilight and an early dinner to look forward to. Each evening after dinner her mother came for a lengthy chat, usually about the servants. The first three nights Prue had come too, carrying a highball, but after that her mother came alone.
Aileen had asked to be put into the old part of the house, rather than into a more comfortable room in the new wing. Her window looked onto the garden, which was a small square of lawn with young banana trees on either side. At the far end was a fountain; behind it was the disordered terrain of the mountainside with its recently cut underbrush and charred stumps, and still further beyond was the high jungle whose frontier had been sliced in a straight line across the slopes many years ago to make the plantation. Here in her room she felt at least that the earth was somewhere beneath her.
When her ankle ceased to pain her, she began going downstairs for lunch, which was served out on the terrace at a table with a beach umbrella stuck in its center. Prue was regularly late in coming from her studio, and she arrived in her blue jeans, which were caked with clay, with smears of dirt across her face. Because Aileen could not bring herself to think what she really felt, which was that Prue was ungracious, ugly and something of an interloper, she remained emotionally unconscious of Prue’s presence, which is to say that she was polite but bored, scarcely present in the mealtime conversations. Then, too, Aileen was definitely uncomfortable on the terrace. The emptiness was too near and the balustrade seemed altogether too low for safety. She liked the meals to be as brief as possible, with no unnecessary time spent sipping coffee afterward, but it never would have occurred to her to divulge her reasons. With Prue around she felt constrained to behave with the utmost decorum. Fortunately her ankle provided her with a convenient excuse to get back upstairs to her room.
She soon discovered a tiny patio next to the kitchen where heavy vines with sweet-smelling flowers grew up an arbor that had been placed at one side. The air was full of the humming of hundreds of bees that clung heavily to the petals and moved slowly about in the air. After lunch she would pull a deck chair into the arbor’s shade and read until the rain began. It was a stifling, airless spot, but the sound of the bees covered that of the waterfall. One afternoon Prue followed her there and stood with her hands in her hip pockets looking at her.
“How can you take this heat?” she asked Aileen.
“Oh, I love it.”
“You do?” She paused. “Tell me, do you really like it here, or do you think it’s a bloody bore?”
“Why, I think it’s absolutely wonderful.”
“Mm. It is.”
“Don’t you like it?”
Prue yawned. “Oh, I’m all for it. But I keep busy. Wherever I can work, I get on, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Aileen. Then she added, “Are you planning on staying long?”
“What the hell do you mean?” said Prue, leaning backward against the house, her hands still behind her. “I live here.”
Aileen laughed shortly. To anyone but Prue it would have sounded like a merry, tinkling laugh, but Prue narrowed her eyes and thrust her jaw forward a bit.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“I think you’re funny. You’re so tied up in knots. You get upset so easily. Perhaps you work too hard out there in your little house.”
Prue was looking at her with astonishment.
“God Almighty,” she said finally, “your I.Q.’s showing, gal.”
“Thank you,” said Aileen with great seriousness. “Anyway, I think it’s fine that you’re happy here, and I hope you go on being happy.”
“That’s what I came to say to you.”
“Then everything’s fine.”
“I can’t make you out,” said Prue, frowning.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Aileen, fingering the pages of her book impatiently. “It’s the most pointless conversation I’ve ever had.”
“That I don’t think,” Prue said, going into the kitchen.
The same evening, when her mother came for her usual after-dinner chat, she looked a little unhappy.
“You don’t seem to be getting on very well with Prue,” she said reproachfully, as she sat down at the foot of the bed.
“Why, we get on perfectly well. Oh. You’re talking about this afternoon, probably.”
“Yes, I am, probably. Really, Aileen. You simply can’t be rude to a woman her age. She’s my guest, and you’re my guest, and you’ve got to be civil to each other. But she’s always civil and I have a feeling you’re not.”
Aileen caught her breath and said, “I’m your guest…”
“I invited you here for your vacation and I want things pleasant, and I don’t see the slightest reason why they shouldn’t be.”
Suddenly Aileen cried, “She’s a maniac!”
Her mother rose and quickly left the room.
In the quiet days that followed, the incident was not mentioned by any of them. Aileen continued to haunt the little patio after lunch.
THERE CAME a morning sweeter than the rest, when the untouched early mist hung inside her bedroom, and the confusion of shrill bird cries came down with perfect clarity from the uncut forest. She dressed quickly and went out. There was a white radiance in the air that she had never seen before. She walked along the path that led by the native huts. There was life stirring within; babies were crying and captive parrots and songbirds laughed and sang. The path swung into a stretch of low trees that had been planted to shield the coffee bushes. It was still almost nocturnal in here; the air was streaked with chill, and the vegetable odors were like invisible festoons drooping from the branches as she walked through. A huge bright spider walked slowly across the path at her feet. She stood still and watched it until it had disappeared in the leaves at one side. She put her hand over her heart to feel how insistently it was beating. And she listened to its sound in her head for a moment, not wanting to break into its rhythm by starting to walk again. Then she began to walk ahead fast, following the path upward toward the lightest part of the sky. When it came out suddenly onto an eminence directly above the plantation, she could barely discern the cluster of roofs through the mist. But here the sound of the waterfall was stronger; she supposed she was near the gorge, although there was no sign of it. The path turned here and went along rough open ground upward. She climbed at a steady gait, breathing slowly and deeply, for perhaps half an hour, and was surprised to find that the jungle had been cut away on all sides in this portion of the mountainside. For a time she thought the sky was growing brighter, and that the sun was about to break through, but as the path leveled out and she was able to see for some distance ahead, she saw that the mist was even thicker up here than down below.
At certain points there was a steep declivity on each side of the path. It was impossible to see how deeply the land fell away. There were a few nearby plants and rocks, the highest fronds of a tree-fern a little beyond, and white emptiness after that. It was l
ike going along the top of a wall high in the air. Then the path would make a wide turn and go sharply upward and she would see a solitary tree above her at one side.
Suddenly she came up against a row of huts. They were less well made than those down at the plantation, and smaller. The mist was full of woodsmoke; there was the smell of pigs. She stood still. A man was singing. Two small naked children came out of the door of one hut, looked at her a moment in terror, and ran quickly back inside. She walked ahead. The singing came from behind the last hut. When she was opposite the hut, she saw that it was enclosed by a tangled but effective fence of barbed wire which left a runway about six feet wide all the way around. A young man appeared from the farther side of the closed-in space. His shirt and pants were tattered; the brown skin showed in many places. He was singing as he walked toward her, and he continued to sing, looking straight into her face with bright, questioning eyes. She smiled and said, “Buenos días.” He made a beckoning gesture, rather too dramatically. She stopped walking and stood still, looking hesitantly back at the other huts. The young man beckoned again and then stepped inside the hut. A moment later he came out, and still staring fascinatedly at her, made more summoning motions. Aileen stood perfectly quiet, not taking her eyes from his face. He walked slowly over to the fence and grasped the wire with both hands, his eyes growing wider as he pressed the barbs into his palms. And he leaned across, thrusting his head toward her, his eyes fixing hers with incredible intensity. For several seconds they watched each other; then she stepped a little nearer, peering into his face and frowning. At that point with a cry he emptied his mouth of the water he had been holding in it, aiming with force at Aileen’s face. Some of it struck her cheek, and the rest the front of her dress. His fingers unclenched themselves from around the wire, and straightening himself, he backed slowly into the hut, watching her face closely all the while.
She stood still an instant, her hand to her cheek. Then she bent down, and picking up a large stone from the path she flung it with all her strength through the door. A terrible cry came from within; it was like nothing she had ever heard. Or yes, she thought as she began to run back past the other huts, it had the indignation and outraged innocence of a small baby, but it was also a grown man’s cry. No one appeared as she passed the huts. Soon she was back in the silence of the empty mountainside, but she kept running, and she was astonished to find that she was sobbing as well. She sat down on a rock and calmed herself by watching some ants demolish a bush as they cut away squares of leaf and carried them away in their mouths. The sky was growing brighter now; the sun would soon be through. She went on. By the time she got back to the high spot above the plantation the mist had turned into long clouds that were rolling away down the mountainside into the ravines. She was horrified to see how near she stood to the ugly black edge of the gorge. And the house looked insane down there, leaning out over as if it were trying to see the bottom. Far below the house the vapor rose up from the pool. She followed the sheer sides of the opposite cliff upward with her eye, all the way to the top, a little above the spot where she stood. It made her feel ill, and she stumbled back down to the house with her hand to her forehead, paying no attention to the natives who greeted her from their doorways.
As she ran past the garden a voice called to her. She turned and saw Prue washing her hands in the fountain’s basin. She stood still.
“You’re up early. You must feel better,” said Prue, drying her hands on her hair. “Your mother’s been having a fit. Go in and see her.”
Aileen stared at Prue a moment before she said, “I was going in. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Oh, I thought I did.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything. I think I can manage all right without your help.”
“Help isn’t exactly what I’d like to give you,” said Prue, putting her hands into her pockets. “A swift kick in the teeth would be more like it. How do you think I like to see your mother worrying about you? First you’re sick in bed, then you just disappear into the goddamn jungle. D’you think I like to have to keep talking about you, reassuring her every ten minutes? What the hell d’you think life is, one long comingout party?”
Aileen stared harder, now with unmasked hatred. “I think,” she said slowly, “that life is pretty awful. Here especially. And I think you should look once in the mirror and then jump off the terrace. And I think Mother should have her mind examined.”
“I see,” said Prue, with dire inflection. She lit a cigarette and strode off to her studio. Aileen went into the house and up to her room.
Less than an hour later, her mother knocked at her door. As she came into the room, Aileen could see she had been crying only a moment before.
“Aileen darling, I’ve got something to say to you,” she began apologetically, “and it just breaks my heart to say it. But I’ve got to.”
She stopped, as though waiting for encouragement.
“Mother, what is it?”
“I think you probably know.”
“About Prue, I suppose. No?”
“It certainly is. I don’t know how I can ever make it right with her. She told me what you said to her, and I must say I found it hard to believe. How could you?”
“You mean just now in the garden?”
“I don’t know where you said it, but I do know this can’t go on. So I’m just forced to say this… You’ll have to go. I can’t be stirred up this way, and I can tell just how it’ll be if you stay on.”
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Aileen, making a show of calm. “When do you want me to leave?”
“This is terribly painful…”
“Oh, stop! It’s all right. I’ve had a vacation and I can get a lot of work done before the term starts. Today? Tomorrow?”
“I think the first of the week. I’ll go to Barranquilla with you.”
“Would you think I was silly if I had all my meals up here?”
“I think it’s a perfect idea, darling, and we can have nice visits together, you and I, between meals.”
Now, when the tension should have been over, somehow it was not. During the four nights before she was to leave, Aileen had endless excruciating dreams. She would wake up in the darkness too agonized even to move her hand. It was not fear; she could not recall the dreams. It was rather as if some newly discovered, innermost part of her being were in acute pain. Breathing quickly, she would lie transfixed for long periods listening to the eternal sound of the waterfall, punctuated at great intervals by some slight, nearby nocturnal noise in the trees. Finally, when she had summoned sufficient energy to move, she would change her position in the bed, sigh profoundly, and relax enough to fall back into the ominous world of sleep.
WHEN THE FINAL DAY came, there was a light tapping on her door just after dawn. She got up and unbolted it. Her mother was there, smiling thinly.
“May I come in?”
“Oh. Good morning. Of course. It’s early, isn’t it?”
Her mother walked across to the window and stood looking down at the misty garden.
“I’m not so well today,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t take you to Barranquilla. I’m not up to getting onto a horse today. It’s just too much, that three-hour trip to Jamonocal, and then the train and the boat all night. You’ll just have to forgive me. I couldn’t stand all three. But it won’t matter, will it?” she went on, looking up at last. “We’ll say good-bye here.”
“But, Mother, how can I go alone?”
“Oh, José’ll go all the way to Barranquilla with you and be back by Wednesday night. You don’t think I’d let you go off by yourself?”
She began to laugh intensely, then stopped suddenly and looked pensive.
“I rather hate to be here two nights without him, but I don’t see any other way to get you down there by tomorrow. You can go shipside to Panama. There’s usually a seat somewhere. Now, breakfast, breakfast…”
Patting Aileen’s cheek, she hurried out and downst
airs to the kitchen.
The birds’ morning song was coming down from the forest; the mist lay ragged in the tops of the great trees up there. Aileen shifted her gaze to the garden at her feet. Suddenly she felt she could not leave; in a sense it was as if she were leaving love behind. She sat down on the bed. “But what is it?” she asked herself desperately. “Not Mother. Not the house. Not the jungle.” Automatically she dressed and packed the remaining toilet articles in her overnight case. But the feeling was there, imperious and enveloping in its completeness.
She went downstairs. There was the sound of voices and the clatter of china in the kitchen. Concha and Luz were preparing her breakfast tray. She went out and watched them until everything was ready.
“Ya se va la señorita?” said Concha sadly.
She did not answer, but took the tray from her and carried it through the house, out onto the terrace, where she set it on the table. Everything on the terrace was wet with dew and moisture from the gorge. She turned the chair-cushion over and sat down to eat. The sound of the waterfall took her appetite away, but she thought, “This is the last time.” She felt choked with emotions, but they were too disparate and confused for her to be able to identify any one of them as outstanding. As she sat there eating intently, she was suddenly aware that someone was watching her. She started up and saw Prue standing in the doorway. She was wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, and in her hand she held a glass of water. She looked very sleepy.
“How are you?” she said, sipping her water.
Aileen stood up.
“We’re all up bright and early this morning,” Prue went on cheerily.
“I’m—leaving. I’ve got to go. Excuse me, it’s late,” mumbled Aileen, glancing about furtively.