Paul Bowles: The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

Early the next morning he stood outside Nicolás’s hut. Each house in Tacaté had its own small temple: a few tree trunks holding up some thatch to shelter the offerings of fruit and cooked food. The pastor took care not to go near the one that stood near by; he already felt enough like a pariah, and Dr. Ramos had warned him against meddling of that sort. He called out.

A little girl about seven years old appeared in the doorway of the house. She looked at him wildly a moment with huge round eyes before she squealed and disappeared back into the darkness. The pastor waited and called again. Presently a man came around the hut from the back and told him that Nicolás would return. The pastor sat down on a stump. Soon the little girl stood again in the doorway; this time she smiled coyly. The pastor looked at her severely. It seemed to him she was too old to run about naked. He turned his head away and examined the thick red petals of a banana blossom hanging nearby. When he looked back she had come out and was standing near him, still smiling. He got up and walked toward the road, his head down, as if deep in thought. Nicolás entered through the gate at that moment, and the pastor, colliding with him, apologized.

“Good,” grunted Nicolás. “What?”

His visitor was not sure how he ought to begin. He decided to be pleasant.

“I am a good man,” he smiled.

“Yes,” said Nicolás. “Don Jesucristo is a good man.”

“No, no, no!” cried Pastor Dowe.

Nicolás looked politely confused, but said nothing.

Feeling that his command of the dialect was not equal to this sort of situation, the pastor wisely decided to begin again. “Hachakyum made the world. Is that true?”

Nicolás nodded in agreement, and squatted down at the pastor’s feet, looking up at him, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

“Hachakyum made the sky,” the pastor began to point, “the mountains, the trees, those people there. Is that true?”

Again Nicolás assented.

“Hachakyum is good. Hachakyum made you. True?” Pastor Dowe sat down again on the stump.

Nicolás spoke finally, “All that you say is true.”

The pastor permitted himself a pleased smile and went on. “Hachakyum made everything and everyone because He is mighty and good.”

Nicolás frowned. “No!” he cried. “That is not true! Hachakyum did not make everyone. He did not make you. He did not make guns or Don Jesucristo. Many things He did not make!”

The pastor shut his eyes a moment, seeking strength. “Good,” he said at last in a patient voice. “Who made the other things? Who made me? Please tell me.”

Nicolás did not hesitate. “Metzabok.”

“But who is Metzabok?” cried the pastor, letting an outraged note show in his voice. The word for God he had always known only as Hachakyum.

“Metzabok makes all the things that do not belong here,” said Nicolás.

The pastor rose, took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “You hate me,” he said, looking down at the Indian. The word was too strong, but he did not know how to say it any other way.

Nicolás stood up quickly and touched the pastor’s arm with’ his hand.

“No. That is not true. You are a good man. Everyone likes you.”

Pastor Dowe backed away in spite of himself. The touch of the brown hand was vaguely distasteful to him. He looked beseechingly into the Indian’s face and said, “But Hachakyum did not make me?”

“No.”

There was a long pause.

“Will you come next time to my house and hear me speak?”

Nicolás looked uncomfortable.

“Everyone has work to do,” he said.

“Mateo says you want music,” began the pastor.

Nicolás shrugged. “To me it is not important. But the others will come if you have music. Yes, that is true. They like music.”

“But what music?” cried the pastor in desperation.

“They say you have a bitrola.”

The pastor looked away, thinking: “There is no way to keep anything from these people.” Along with all his other house-hold goods and the things left behind by his wife when she died, he had brought a little portable phonograph. It was somewhere in the storeroom piled with the empty valises and cold-weather garments.

“Tell them I will play the bitrola,” he said, going out the gate.

The little girl ran after him and stood watching him as he walked up the road.

On his way through the village the pastor was troubled by the reflection that he was wholly alone in this distant place, alone in his struggle to bring the truth to its people. He consoled himself by recalling that it is only in each man’s own consciousness that the isolation exists; objectively man is always a part of something.

When he arrived home he sent Mateo to the storeroom to look for the portable phonograph. After a time the boy brought it out, dusted it and stood by while the pastor opened the case. The crank was inside. He took it out and wound the spring. There were a few records in the compartment at the top. The first he examined were “Let’s Do It,” “Crazy Rhythm,” and “Strike up the Band,” none of which Pastor Dowe considered proper accompaniments to his sermons. He looked further. There was a recording of Al Jolson singing “Sonny Boy” and a cracked copy of “She’s Funny That Way.” As he looked at the labels he remembered how the music on each disc had sounded. Unfortunately Mrs. Dowe had disliked hymn music; she had called it “mournful.”

“So here we are,” he sighed, “without music.”

Mateo was astonished. “It does not play?”

“I can’t play them this music for dancing, Mateo.”

Cómo nó, señorl They will like it very much!

“No, Mateo!” said the pastor forcefully, and he put on “Crazy Rhythm” to illustrate his point. As the thin metallic tones issued from the instrument, Mateo’s expression changed to one of admiration bordering on beatitude. “Qué bonitol” he said reverently. Pastor Dowe lifted the tone arm and the hopping rhythmical pattern ceased.

“It cannot be done,” he said with finality, closing the lid.

Nevertheless on Saturday he remembered that he had promised Nicolás there would be music at the service, and he decided to tell Mateo to carry the phonograph out to the pavilion in order to have it there in case the demand for it should prove to be pressing. This was a wise precaution, because the next morning when the villagers arrived they were talking of nothing but the music they were to hear.

His topic was “The Strength of Faith,” and he had got about ten minutes into the sermon when Nicolás, who was squatting directly in front of him, quietly stood up and raised his hand. Pastor Dowe frowned and stopped talking.

Nicolás spoke: “Now music, then talk. Then music, then talk. Then music.” He turned around and faced the others. “That is a good way.” There were murmurs of assent, and everyone leaned a bit farther forward on his haunches to catch whatever musical sounds might issue from the pavilion.

The pastor sighed and lifted the machine onto the table, knocking off the Bible that lay at the edge. “Of course,” he said to himself with a faint bitterness. The first record he came to was “Crazy Rhythm.” As it started to play, an infant nearby, who had been singsonging a series of meaningless sounds, ceased making its parrotlike noises, remaining silent and transfixed as it stared at the platform. Everyone sat absolutely quiet until the piece was over. Then there was a hubbub of approbation. “Now more talk,” said Nicolás, looking very pleased.

The pastor continued. He spoke a little haltingly now, because the music had broken his train of thought, and even by looking at his notes he could not be sure just how far he had got before the interruption. As he continued, he looked down at the people sitting nearest him. Beside Nicolás he noticed the little girl who had watched him from the doorway, and he was gratified to see that she was wearing a small garment which managed to cover her. She was staring at him with an expression he interpreted as one of fascinated admiration.