Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

The old lady fastened her sharp eyes on the visitor, and she saw that they were heavily outlined in black. “Where is your husband?” she demanded.

“He’s traveling in the desert.”

“Selling things,” Zodelia put in. This was the popular explanation for her husband’s trips; she did not try to contradict it.

“Where is your mother?” the old lady asked.

“My mother is in our country in her own house.”

“Why don’t you go and sit with your mother in her own house?” she scolded. “The hotel costs a lot of money.”

“In the city where I was born,” she began, “there are many, many automobiles and many, many trucks.”

The women on the mattress were smiling pleasantly. “Is that true?” remarked the one in the center in a tone of polite interest.

“I hate trucks,” she told the woman with feeling.

The old lady lifted the bowl of meat off her lap and set it down on the carpet. “Trucks are nice,” she said severely.

“That’s true,” the women agreed, after only a moment’s hesitation. “Trucks are very nice.”

“Do you like trucks?” she asked Zodelia, thinking that because of their relatively greater intimacy she might perhaps agree with her.

“Yes,” she said. “They are nice. Trucks are very nice.” She seemed lost in meditation, but only for an instant. “Everything is nice,” she announced, with a look of triumph.

“It’s the truth,” the women said from their mattress. “Everything is nice.”

They all looked happy, but the old lady was still frowning. “Aicha!” she yelled, twisting her neck so that her voice could be heard in the patio. “Bring the tea!”

Several little girls came into the room carrying the tea things and a low round table.

“Pass the cakes to the Nazarene,” she told the smallest child, who was carrying a cut-glass dish piled with cakes. She saw that they were the ones she had bought for Zodelia; she did not want any of them. She wanted to go home.

“Eat!” the women called out from their mattress. “Eat the cakes.”

The child pushed the glass dish forward.

“The dinner at the hotel is ready,” she said, standing up.

“Drink tea,” said the old woman scornfully. “Later you will sit with the other Nazarenes and eat their food.”

“The Nazarenes will be angry if I’m late.” She realized that she was lying stupidly, but she could not stop. “They will hit me!” She tried to look wild and frightened.

“Drink tea. They will not hit you,” the old woman told her. “Sit down and drink tea.”

The child was still offering her the glass dish as she backed away toward the door. Outside she sat down on the black and white tiles to lace her shoes. Only Zodelia followed her into the patio.

“Come back,” the others were calling. “Come back into the room.”

Then she noticed the porcupine basket standing nearby against the wall. “Is that old lady in the room your aunt? Is she the one you were bringing the porcupine to?” she asked her.

“No. She is not my aunt.”

“Where is your aunt?”

“My aunt is in her own house.”

“When will you take the porcupine to her?” She wanted to keep talking, so that Zodelia would be distracted and forget to fuss about her departure.

“The porcupine sits here,” she said firmly. “In my own house.”

She decided not to ask her again about the wedding.

When they reached the door Zodelia opened it just enough to let her through. “Good-bye,” she said behind her. “I shall see you tomorrow, if Allah wills it.”

“When?”

“Four o’clock.” It was obvious that she had chosen the first figure that had come into her head. Before closing the door she reached out and pressed two of the dry Spanish cakes into her hand. “Eat them,” she said graciously. “Eat them at the hotel with the other Nazarenes.”

She started up the steep alley, headed once again for the walk along the cliff. The houses on either side of her were so close that she could smell the dampness of the walls and feel it on her cheeks like a thicker air.

When she reached the place where she had met Zodelia she went over to the wall and leaned on it. Although the sun had sunk behind the houses, the sky was still luminous and the blue of the wall had deepened. She rubbed her fingers along it: the wash was fresh and a little of the powdery stuff came off. And she remembered how once she had reached out to touch the face of a clown because it had awakened some longing. It had happened at a little circus, but not when she was a child.

When the traveler arrived at the pension the wind was blowing hard. Before going in to have the hot soup he had been thinking about, he left his luggage inside the door and walked a few blocks in order to get an idea of the town. He came to a very large arch through which, in the distance, he could see a plain. He thought he could distinguish figures seated around a far-away fire, but he was not certain because the wind made tears in his eyes.

“How dismal,” he thought, letting his mouth drop open. “But never mind. Brace up. It’s probably a group of boys and girls sitting around an open fire having a fine time together. The world is the world, after all is said and done, and a patch of grass in one place is green the way it is in any other.”

He turned back and walked along quickly, skirting the walls of the low stone houses. He was a little worried that he might not be able to recognize a door of his pension.

“There’s not supposed to be any variety in the U.S.A.,” he said to himself. “But this Spanish architecture beats everything, it’s so monotonous.” He knocked on one of the doors, and shortly a child with a shaved head appeared. With a strong American accent he said to her: “Is this the Pension Espinoza?”

“Sí!” The child led him inside to a fountain in the center of a square patio. He looked into the basin and the child did too.

“There are four fish inside here,” she said to him in Spanish. “Would you like me to try and catch one of them for you?”

The traveler did not understand her. He stood there uncomfortably, longing to go to his room. The little girl was still trying to get hold of a fish when her mother, who owned the pension, came out and joined them. The woman was quite fat, but her face was small and pointed, and she wore glasses attached by a gold chain to her dress. She shook hands with him and asked him in fairly good English if he had had a pleasant journey.

“He wants to see some of the fish,” explained the child.

“Certainly,” said Señora Espinoza, moving her hands about in the water with dexterity. “Soon now, soon now,” she said, laughing as one of the fish slipped between her fingers.

The traveler nodded. “I would like to go to my room,” he said.

* * *

The American was a little dismayed by his room. There were four brass beds in a row, all of them very old and a little crooked.

“God!” he said to himself. “They’ll have to remove some of these beds. They give me the willies.”

A cord hung down from the ceiling. On the end of it at the height of his nose was a tiny electric bulb. He turned it on and looked at his hands under the light. They were chapped and dirty. A barefoot servant girl came in with a pitcher and a bowl.

In the dining room, calendars decorated the walls, and there was an elaborate cut-glass carafe on every table. Several people had already begun their meal in silence. One little girl was speaking in a high voice.

“I’m not going to the band concert tonight, mamá,” she was saying.

“Why not?” asked her mother with her mouth full. She looked seriously at her daughter.