Paul Bowles - The Delicate Prey - And Other Stories

“My sister . . .”

But he pulled her roughly along with him. Even as he opened the front door and saw his aunt and Señor Ong sitting inside, he knew that Señor Ha had not been there.

“Why are you so late?” said his aunt. “You’re wet.” Then she saw Luz. “Shut the door, niña,” she said, looking pleased.

While they ate in the covered part of the patio, Señor Ong continued with what he apparently had been saying earlier in the evening . . . “She looked directly at me without saying a word.”

“Who?” said his aunt, smiling at Luz.

“The Fernandez woman. This afternoon.” Señor Ong’s voice was edged with impatience. “For me that is proof enough. She’s getting it somewhere else.”

His aunt snorted. “Still you’re looking for proof! Niña, take more meat.” She piled extra food on Luz’s plate.

“Yes, there’s no doubt now,” Señor Ong continued.

“What beautiful hair! Ay, Dios!” She smoothed the top of the girl’s head. Nicho was ashamed: he knew that he had invited her to dinner because he had been afraid to come home alone, and he knew that his aunt was touching her hair only in order to bring herself good luck. He sighed miserably and glanced at Luz; she seemed perfectly content as she ate.

Suddenly there were several loud knocks on the front door. Señor Ong rose and went into the sala. There was a silence. A man’s voice said: “Usted se llama Narciso Ong?” All at once there followed a great deal of noise; feet scuffled and furniture scraped on the tile floor. Nicho’s aunt jumped up and ran into the kitchen where she began to pray very loudly. In the sala there was grunting and wheezing, and then as the racket grew less intense, a man said: “Bueno. I have it. A hundred grams, at least, right in his pocket. That’s all we needed, my friend. Vamonos.”

Nicho slid down from his chair and stood in the doorway. Two men in wet brown ponchos were pushing Señor Ong out the front door. But he did not seem to want to go. He twisted his head and saw Nicho, opened his mouth to speak to him. One of the men hit him in the side of the face with his fist. “Not in front of the boy,” said Señor Ong, wriggling his jaw back and forth to see if it was all right. “Not in front of the boy,” he said again thickly. The other man slammed the door shut. The sala was empty. There was no sound but his aunt’s wailing voice in the kitchen, crying aloud to God. He turned to look at Luz, who was sitting perfectly still.

“Do you want to go home?” he said to her.

“Yes.” She got up. His aunt came out of the kitchen wringing her hands. Going over to Luz she laid her hand briefly on the white hair, still muttering a prayer.

“Adiós, niña. Come back tomorrow,” she said.

There was still a light rain falling. A few insects sang from the wet leaves as the two silent children passed along the way to the house where Luz lived. When they rapped on the door it was opened immediately. A tall thin girl stood there. Without speaking she seized Luz with one arm and pulled her violently inside, closing the door with the other.

When Nicho got home and went into the sala, his first thought was that Señor Ong had returned, but the next instant he felt that he was in the middle of a bad dream. Señor Ha was sitting there talking with his aunt. She looked up tearfully. “Go to bed,” she commanded.

Señor Ha reached out from his chair as Nicho passed and caught his arm—caught it very tightly. “Ay!” said Nicho in spite of himself. “One moment,” said Señor Ha, still looking at Nicho’s aunt, and never for a second relaxing his grip. “Perhaps this one knows.” And without turning his face toward Nicho he said: “The police have taken Señor Ong to prison. He will not come back here. He hid something in this house. Where is it?”

It seemed as though the hard fingers would cut through his skin. His aunt looked up at him hopefully. He felt suddenly very important.

“There,” he said, pointing to the calendar.

Señor Ha rose and yanked the pretty girl down from the wall. In an instant he had the yellow envelope in his hand. As he examined its contents, he said: “Is there any more?”

“No,” said Nicho, thinking of the envelope lying in the safety of his tree out there in the rainy night. Señor Ha began to twist his arm, but the thought of his secret made him feel strong; his pain and his hatred flowed into that feeling of strength. He stood stiffly and let Señor Ha hurt him. A moment later Señor Ha let go of him and gave him a violent push that sent him halfway across the room. “Go to bed,” he said.

When Nicho had gone out and closed the door, Señor Ha turned to the aunt. “Tomorrow I shall come back with my clothes,” he said. “It is not good to have a boy around the house doing nothing; he gets into trouble. From now on he will deliver it; there will be no one coming to the house.”

“But if the police catch him . . .” she objected.

“There will be no trouble with them. It is all arranged. Fortunately I had nearly three thousand pesos on hand.” He picked up his briefcase and went to the door. She looked after him with frank admiration and sighed deeply. “You won’t stay tonight?” She said the words timidly, and they sounded strangely coquettish.

“No. The car is outside waiting for me. Tomorrow.” He opened the door. Rising, she went and took his hand, pressing it warmly between her two hands. “Tomorrow,” he repeated.

When the car had driven away and she could no longer hear it, she closed the door, turned off the light, and went out into the patio, where she got into a hammock and lay swinging gently back and forth.

“An intelligent man,” she said to herself. “What good luck!” She stopped swinging a moment. “Good luck! Of course! Dionisio must bring her to the house again one day very soon.”

The town went on being prosperous, the Indians kept coming down from the heights with money, the thick jungle along the way to Mapastenango was hacked away, the trail widened and improved. Nicho bought a packet of little envelopes. Far down the river he found another hollow tree. Here he kept his slowly increasing store of treasure; during the very first month he picked up enough money on the side to buy Luz a lipstick and a pair of dark glasses with red and green jewels all around the rims.

The abandoned monastery stood on a slight eminence of land in the middle of a vast clearing. On all sides the ground sloped gently downward toward the tangled, hairy jungle that filled the circular valley, ringed about by sheer, black cliffs. There were a few trees in some of the courtyards, and the birds used them as meeting-places when they flew out of the rooms and corridors where they had their nests. Long ago bandits had taken whatever was removable out of the building. Soldiers had used it once as headquarters, had, like the bandits, built fires in the great windy rooms so that afterward they looked like ancient kitchens. And now that everything was gone from within, it seemed that never again would anyone come near the monastery. The vegetation had thrown up a protecting wall; the first story was soon quite hidden from view by small trees which dripped vines to lasso the cornices of the windows. The meadows roundabout grew dank and lush; there was no path through them.

At the higher end of the circular valley a river fell off the cliffs into a great cauldron of vapor and thunder below; after this it slid along the base of the cliffs until it found a gap at the other end of the valley, where it hurried discreetly through with no rapids, no cascades—a great thick black rope of water moving swiftly downhill between the polished flanks of the canyon. Beyond the gap the land opened out and became smiling; a village nestled on the side hill just outside. In the days of the monastery it was there that the friars had got their provisions, since the Indians would not enter the circular valley. Centuries ago when the building had been constructed the Church had imported the workmen from another part of the country. These were traditional enemies of the tribes thereabouts, and had another language; there was no danger that the inhabitants would communicate with them as they worked at setting up the mighty walls. Indeed, the construction had taken so long that before the east wing was completed the workmen had all died, one by one. Thus it was the friars themselves who had closed off the end of the wing with blank walls, leaving it that way, unfinished and blind-looking, facing the black cliffs.