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

“They must never know I’ve seen it,” she said, grinding her teeth, and she leaned over the counter, crushing some canoes under her chest. “Quickly,” she whispered. “Go out your little door and meet me back of the booth.…”

A second later she found him there. “Listen!” She clutched his hand. “We must hurry … I didn’t mean to see you … I’m sorry … I’ve been trying not to look at you for years … for years and years and years.…” She gaped at him in horror. “Why are you standing there? We’ve got to hurry.… They haven’t caught me looking at you yet, but we’ve got to hurry.” She headed for the bridge, leading the Indian behind her. He followed quickly without saying a word.

The water’s roar increased in volume as they approached the opposite bank of the chasm, and Sadie found relief in the sound. Once off the bridge she ran as fast as she could along the path leading to the waterfall. The Indian followed close on her heels, his hand resting lightly in her own, as Harriet’s had earlier when they’d sped together through the grove. Reaching the waterfall, she edged along the wall of rock until she stood directly behind the water’s cascade. With a cry of delight she leaned back in the curve of the wall, insensible to its icy dampness, which penetrated even through the thickness of her woollen coat. She listened to the cataract’s deafening roar and her heart almost burst for joy, because she had hidden the Indian safely behind the cascade where he could be neither seen nor heard. She turned around and smiled at him kindly. He too smiled, and she no longer saw in his face any trace of the incongruity that had shocked her so before.

The foaming waters were beautiful to see. Sadie stepped forward, holding her hand out to the Indian.

* * *

When Harriet awakened that morning all traces of her earlier victorious mood had vanished. She felt certain that disaster would overtake her before she could start out for Pocahontas Falls. Heavyhearted and with fumbling hands, she set about making her pack. Luncheon with Sadie was an impossible cliff which she did not have the necessary strength to scale. When she came to three round cushions that had to be snapped into their rainproof casings she gave up with a groan and rushed headlong out of her cabin in search of Beryl.

Fortunately Beryl waited table on the second shift and so she found her reading a magazine, with one leg flung over the arm of her chair.

“I can’t make my pack,” Harriet said hysterically, bursting into Beryl’s cabin without even knocking at the door.

Beryl swung her leg around and got out of her chair, “I’ll make your pack,” she said in a calm voice, knocking some tobacco out of her pipe. “I would have come around this morning, but you said last night you wanted to make it alone.”

“It’s Sadie,” Harriet complained. “It’s that cursed lunch with Sadie. I can’t go through with it. I know I can’t. I shouldn’t have to in the first place. She’s not even supposed to be here.… I’m an ass.…”

“To hell with sisters,” said Beryl. “Give ’em all a good swift kick in the pants.”

“She’s going to stop me from going on my canoe trip … I know she is.…” Harriet had adopted the whining tone of a little girl.

“No, she isn’t,” said Beryl, speaking with authority.

“Why not?” Harriet asked. She looked at Beryl almost wistfully.

“She’d better not try anything…” said Beryl. “Ever hear of jujitsu?” She grunted with satisfaction. “Come on, we’ll go make your pack.” She was so pleased with Harriet’s new state of dependency that she was rapidly overcoming her original shyness. An hour later she had completed the pack, and Harriet was dressed and ready.

“Will you go with me to the souvenir booth?” she begged the waitress. “I don’t want to meet her alone.” She was in a worse state of nerves than ever.

“I’ll go with you,” said Beryl, “but let’s stop at my cabin on the way so I can change into my uniform. I’m on duty soon.”

They were nearly twenty minutes late arriving at the booth, and Harriet was therefore rather surprised not to see Sadie standing there. “Perhaps she’s been here and gone back to the lodge for a minute,” she said to Beryl. “I’ll find out.” She walked up to the souvenir counter and questioned the Indian, with whom she was slightly familiar. “Was there a woman waiting here a while ago, Timothy?” she asked.

“A dark middle-aged woman?”

“That’s right.”

“She was here for an hour or more,” he said, “never budged from this stall until about fifteen minutes ago.”

“She couldn’t have been here an hour!” Harriet argued. “Not my sister.… I told her one-thirty and it’s not yet two.”

“Then it wasn’t your sister. The woman who was here stayed more than an hour, without moving. I noticed her because it was such a queer-looking thing. I noticed her first from my chair at the bridge and then when I came up here she was still standing by the booth. She must have stood here over an hour.”

“Then it was a different middle-aged woman.”

“That may be,” he agreed, “but anyway, this one left about fifteen minutes ago. After standing all that time she turned around all of a sudden and bought a whole bunch of souvenirs from me … then just when I was punching my belt for the change she said something I couldn’t understand — it sounded like Polish — and then she lit out for the bridge before I could give her a penny. That woman’s got impulses,” he added with a broad grin. “If she’s your sister, I’ll give you her change, in case she don’t stop here on her way back.… But she sounded to me like a Polak.”

“Beryl,” said Harriet, “run across the bridge and see if Sadie’s behind the waterfall. I’m sure this Polish woman wasn’t Sadie, but they might both be back there.… If she’s not there, we’ll look in the lodge.”

* * *

When Beryl returned her face was dead white; she stared at Harriet in silence, and even when Harriet finally grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her hard, she would not say anything.

In the outskirts of the capital there was a low white house, very much like the other houses around it. The street on which it stood was not paved, as this was a poor section of the city. The door of this particular house, very new and studded with nails, was bolted inside and out. A large room, furnished with some modern chromium chairs, a bar, and an electric record machine, opened onto the empty patio. A fat little Indian boy was seated in one of the chairs, listening to the tune Good Night, Sweetheart, which he had just chosen. It was playing at full volume and the little boy was staring very seriously ahead of him at the machine. This was one of the houses owned and run by Señor Kurten, who was half Spanish and half German.

It was a gray afternoon. In one of the bedrooms Julia and Inez had just awakened. Julia was small and monkey-like. She was appealing only because of her extraordinarily large and luminous eyes. Inez was tall and high-breasted. Her head was a bit too small for her body and her eyes were too close together. She wore her hair in stiff waves.

Julia was moaning on her bed.

“My stomach is worse today,” she said to Inez. “Come over and feel it. The lump on the right side is bigger.” She twisted her head on the pillow and sighed. Inez was staring sternly into space.

“No,” she said to Julia. “I cannot bear to feel that lump. Santa María! With something like that inside me I should go wild.” She made a wry face and shuddered.

“You must not feel it if you do not want to,” said Julia drowsily. Inez poured herself some guaro. She was a heavy drinker but her vitality remained unimpaired, although her skin often broke out in pimples. She ate violet lozenges to cover the smell of liquor on her breath and often popped six or seven of them into her mouth at once. Being full of enterprise she often made more money outside the whorehouse than she did at her regular job.