Peter Rabe - The Box

Quinn sucked in his breath, trying not to feel shocked.

There was a small, low table and a very young girl lay on top of it. Quinn could tell that she was very young because her long robe was pushed all the way up. It was bunched up under her arms and under her chin where she held it with her hands. She had small, brown hands, like raccoon paws. One man stood at the end of the table where he held the girl by her hips.

“All of them?” said Quinn, and he heard himself whisper.

“It’s all right,” said Turk. “She goes on the boat.”

“The what?”

“Tonight’s boat. I told you that Remal trades in everything.”

The man at the table wore a wide burnoose which covered all of him. When he leaned more and gripped the girl hard, his shadow suddenly flapped up the wall like a bat, up the wall and over the ceiling. Then it collapsed again and went away. The man stepped away and there was shifting and murmuring. The girl stayed on the table.

“You are a guest,” said Turk. “They say if you would like to he next then you don’t have to wait.”

“No. Thank you,” said Quinn.

He didn’t say anything else but felt pressure inside from the sight he saw there-the girl on the table who acted as if she were not there, the men in the room, and things like ropes and wires, perhaps the most delicate parts of which they were made.

And Remal trades in this. I drop out of a box, thin-skinned like a maggot, and a cold bastard like Remal, moving the ropes and wires inside his anatomy, steps on me.

“Let’s go,” said Quinn, and looked for the door.

There was a door to the outside and Turk pushed it open. The girl looked up at Quinn when he walked past and then closed her eyes. There was sweat on her forehead and one of the men, with the end of his burnoose, gave a dab to her face.

And that doesn’t change anything either, thought Quinn. It looks almost human, that gesture, but it changes nothing.

He stood outside in the alley, wishing he could smell the desert which was not far away There probably is no smell to the desert, he thought. He shivered with a sensitivity which was painful. Like a goat, that’s what she looked like. Even after she closed her eyes. That’s how he treats everybody, like Quinn the goat, like a piece of meat hanging down from a nail “Perhaps you would like…” Turk started, but he didn’t get any further.

“When are they done in there, with the girl?”

“Done? I don’t know. The boat, I think, doesn’t leave until after midnight. If you would like…”

“I want her.”

“Alone? All right. But I could get you…”

“Shut up. Get that one. Borrow her. Pay the captain for the loan of the cargo he’s got on the table there.”

“That won’t be necessary, I don’t think. Just a little token, perhaps, but there is no real price.”

“But there will be,” Quinn said to no one in particular. “There most certainly will be,” and he wiped his face because he was sweating again, feeling a sharp, sudden anger.

Turk, of course, thought all along that Quinn meant to sleep with the girl.

“I understand,” he said, “how you, a civilized Westerner, might feel shy with a woman whom you love. But this one?” and he pointed at the girl who was walking between them. “This one, as you saw on the table…”

“Stop talking a minute,” said Quinn. “Now listen close.” They were leaving the quarter and turned down the main street, walking towards the lights which started a few blocks away. “You and me,” he said, “maybe we’ll do a thing or two together, and then maybe we won’t. I haven’t got a plan, I haven’t even got anything that amounts to a notion. All I’ve got right now is a bug itch and an annoyance.”

“If you’re worried about not having any money,” Turk said, when Quinn interrupted again.

“And don’t try doing my thinking for me, all right?”

“All right,” said Turk, “All right,” and he shrugged.

“I was going to say, if you and I should maybe do something together, seeing I’ll be here a month or so, then I’ll need your help.”

This was nothing new to Turk, but he was happy to see how Quinn, though still fresh out of the box in more than one way of speaking, how he was starting to move and think in a way Turk understood. Turk had known how Quinn would need help. What he hadn’t known came next.

“I’m not interested in money, Turk. I’m interested only in being left alone. I feel bugged and I itch. When I scratch myself it isn’t to make an income. You got that?”

Turk got none of it.

“All I want from you are two things. One, information.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Nothing right now. Just listen, huh?”

Turk didn’t understand that either.

“And two, I might need another set of eyes, like in the back of my head, so I don’t get jumped in some dark alley.”

“Ah, you are already afraid of Remal.”

“I got jumped once already,” said Quinn. “In return, seeing as you’re a greedy bastard, maybe I can help you in getting a slice or two out of Remal’s racket.” Quinn sighed, feeling tired. “I have a little background for it,” he said.

And so he had made another small move, still without seeing which way he was tending.

Quinn showed the way to Whitfield’s house, and when they got there he told Turk to wait downstairs, in the dark yard. He is shy with that child, thought Turk, as if she were a woman and he not too sure about being a man. It is a Western disease.

The light was on in the room with the couch and the door to the bedroom was closed. This meant, Quinn figured, that Whitfield was drunk and asleep in his bed and that he, Quinn, was to use the couch for the night. The couch was still full of books. The girl, who looked amorphous in her big, loose robe, stood in the middle of the room waiting for Quinn to show her what to do next.

“Sit down,” he said and waved at the couch.

She went to the couch and started to take the books off, to make room.

“No, no, just sit there, goddamit, sit,” and he showed her by pushing her down.

Her face stayed as always, mouth closed, eyes big and dumb. Her face was thin, which made her look old, and the skin was smooth, which made her look young. Quinn didn’t concern himself much with any of this.

“Now stay put. Sit. And no sound.” All this he showed her.

From the next room he heard a wild splashing. And then, “I say there, is that you, Quinn?”

He even sleeps in that tub, so help me “Yes, it’s me,” he said, “I just got in.”

“Are you dumping the books? I’m terribly sorry I forgot about those books.”

“That’s all right. Sorry I woke you.”

“Not at all, not at all. But you’ll need a pillow and a blanket. I say, Quinn, would you mind terribly getting the stuff yourself. Open the door.”

“I don’t need anything. Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t he ridiculous. Open the door.”

Quinn went and opened the door. The light was on in the bedroom, too, and of course Whitfield was not in his bed. Everybody seems to know about this boat tonight, Quinn thought, and looked at Whitfield in his tub, face wet, knees drawn up to make room for the black-haired girl who was in the water with him. This one did not have a child’s body. She was full-fleshed and she glistened. Quinn thought of wet rubber.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Whitfield was saying, “but you’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.”

“I understand fully,” said Quinn, and them he meant to tell Whitfield to go on with his bath and that he himself hadn’t meant to go to sleep right now, anyway. But Whitfield at that point spotted the girl on the couch and he was shocked.