Пол Боулз - Let it come down

«Speaking of monsters, now that I recall your first evening here, I remember. God! You’re the greatest monster of all. Of course! With that great emptiness in your hand. But my God! Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what I told you?»

«Not very much of it,» he said, annoyed to see his chance of escape being pulled further away from him. «I don’t take much stock in that sort of stuff, you know».

«Stock, indeed!» she snorted. «Everyone knows it’s perfectly true and quite scientific. But in any case, whether you take stock or not — what an expression! — just remember, you can do what you want. If you know what you want!» she added, a little harshly. «You have an empty hand, and vacuums have a tendency to fill up. Be careful what goes into your life».

«I’ll be careful,» he said, standing up. «I’m afraid I’ve got to be going. It’s getting late».

«It’s not late, darling,» she said, but she made no effort to persuade him to stay on. «Call a cab». She pointed to the telephone. «It’s 24–80».

He had not thought of that complication. «I’ll walk,» he said. «I need the exercise».

«Nonsense! It’s five miles. You can’t».

«Sure I can,» he said smiling.

«You’ll get lost. You’re mad». She was thinking: «He probably wants to save the money. Shall I tell him to have it put on our bill?» She decided against it. «Do as you like,» she said, shrugging.

As he took up his briefcase, she said: «I shall see you down to the door,» and despite his protestations she walked ahead of him down the stairs into the hall where a few candles still burned. The house was very still.

«The servants are all in bed, I guess,» he said.

«Certainly not! I haven’t dismissed Hugo yet». She opened the door. The wind blew in, rippling her peignoir.

«You’d better go up to bed. You’ll catch cold».

He took the hand she held forth. «It was a wonderful evening,» he declared.

«Luis will be back in a few days. You must come to dinner then. I’ll call you, darling».

«Right». He backed away a few steps along the gravel walk.

«Turn to your left there by that clump of bamboo. The gate’s open».

«Good night».

«Good night».

Stepping behind the bamboo thicket, he waited to hear her close the door. Instead, he heard her say: «Ah, Hugo. There you are! You may lock the gate after Mr. Dyar».

«Got to do something about that ,» he thought, walking quickly to the right, around the side of the house to the terrace where the swimming pool reflected the stars in its black water. It was a chance to take, because she would probably have been watching, to see him go out through the gate. But she might think he already had slipped out when she was not looking; otherwise it would be very bad. The idea of just how bad it could be struck him with full force as he hesitated there by the pool, and as he hurried ahead down the steps into the lower garden he understood that he had committed an important tactical error. «But I’d have been locked out of the garden, God damn it,» he thought. «There was nothing else I could do».

He had now come out from behind the shadow of the house into the open moonlight. Ahead of him something which had looked like part of the vegetation along the path slowly rose and walked toward him. «Let’s go,» said Thami.

«Shut up,» Dyar whispered furiously. At the moment they were in full view of the house.

And as she strained to identify the second person, even to the point of opening one of the doors and silently stepping out onto the terrace to peer down through the deforming moonlight, the two men hurried along the path that led to the top of the cliff, and soon were hidden from her sight.

Dyar lay on his back across the rear seat of the boat, his hands beneath his head, looking up at the stars, vaguely wishing that at some time or another he had learned a little about astronomy. The rowboat they had brought along to get aboard and ashore in scudded on top of the dark waves a few feet behind him, tied to a frayed towing rope that was too short. He had started out by arguing about the rope, back at Oued el Ihud when they were bobbing around out there a hundred feet or so from the cliffs, trying to attach the two craft together, but then he had decided to save his words for other, more important, things. And in any case, now that the Jilali was away from the land, he paid no attention to what was said to him, feeling, no doubt, that he was master of the immediate situation, and could afford to disregard suggestions made by two such obvious landlubbers as Thami and the crazy Christian gentleman with him. The moment of greatest danger from the police had been passed when the Jilali was rounding the breakwater, before the others had ever got into the boat. Now they were a good mile and a half from shore; there was little likelihood of their being seen.

From time to time the launch passed through choppy waters where the warmer Mediterranean current disagreed with the waves moving in from the Atlantic. Small whitecaps broke and hissed in the dark alongside, and the boat, heaving upward, would remain poised an instant, shuddering as its propeller left the water, and then plunging ahead like a happy dolphin. To the right, cut out by a razor blade, the black mountains of Africa loomed against the bright sky behind them. «This lousy motor’s going to give us trouble yet,» thought Dyar: the smell of gasoline was too strong. An hour ago the main thing had been to get aboard; now it was to get ashore. When he felt the land of the Spanish Zone under his feet he supposed he would know what the next step was to be; there was no point in planning unless you knew what the possibilities were. He relaxed his body as much as he could without risking being pitched to the floor. «Smoke?» called Thami.

«I told you no!» Dyar yelled, sitting up in fury, gesturing. «No cigarettes, no matches in the boat. What’s the matter with you?»

«He wants one,» Thami explained, even as the Jilali, who was steering, struck a match and tried to shelter the flame from the wind. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Thami managed to dissuade him from lighting another. «Tell him he’s a God-damned fool,» called Dyar, hoping thus to enlist Thami on his side, but Thami said nothing, remaining hunched up on the floor near the motor.

There was no question of sleeping; he was much too alert for that, but as he lay there in a state of enforced inactivity, thinking of nothing at all, he found himself entering a region of his memory which, now that he saw it again, he thought had been lost forever. It began with a song, brought back to him, perhaps, by the motion of the boat, and it was the only song that had ever made him feel really happy. «Go. To sleep. My little pickaninny. Mammy’s goin’ to slap you if you don’t. Hushabye. Rockabye. Mammy’s little baby. Mammy’s little Alabama coon». Those could not have been the words, but they were the words he remembered now. He was covered by a patchwork quilt which was being tucked in securely on both sides — with his fingers he could feel the cross-stitching where the pieces were joined — and his head was lying on the eiderdown pillow his grandmother had made for him, the softest pillow he had ever felt. And like the sky, his mother was spread above him; not her face, for he did not want to see her eyes at such moments because she was only a person like anyone else, and he kept his eyes shut so that she could become something much more powerful. If he opened his eyes, there were her eyes looking at him, and that terrified him. With his eyes closed there was nothing but his bed and her presence. Her voice was above, and she was all around; that way there was no possible danger in the world.