Пол Боулз - Let it come down

«How the hell did I think of that?» he wondered, looking behind him as he sat up, to see if the lights of Tangier had yet been hidden by Cape Malabata. They were still there, but the black ragged rocks were cutting across them slowly, covering them with the darkness of the deserted coast. Atop the cliff the lighthouse flashed again and again, automatically, becoming presently a thing he no longer noticed. He rubbed his fingers together with annoyance: somehow they had got resin on them, and it would not come off.

And as the small boat passed more certainly into a region of shadowed safety, farther from lights and the possibility of discovery, he found himself thinking of the water as a place of solitude. The boat seemed to be making less noise now. His mind turned to wondering what kind of man it was who sat near him on the floor, saying nothing. He had talked with Thami, sat and drunk with him, but during all the moments they had been in one another’s company it never had occurred to him to ask himself what thoughts went on behind those inexpressive features. He looked at Thami: his arms were folded around his tightly drawn-up knees, and his head, thrown back, rested against the gunwale. He seemed to be looking upward at the sky, but Dyar felt certain that his eyes were closed. He might even be asleep. «Why not?» he thought, a little bitterly. «He’s got nothing to lose. He’s risking nothing». Easy money for Thami — probably the easiest he ever would make with the little boat. «He doesn’t give a damn whether I get there or not. Of course he can sleep. I ought to have come alone». So he fumed silently, without understanding that the only reason why he resented this hypothetical sleep was that he would have no one to talk to, would feel more solitary out there under the winter sky.

The Jilali, standing in the bow, began to sing, a ridiculous song which to Dyar’s ears sounded like a prolonged and strident moaning. The noise it made had no relation to anything — not to the night, the boat, not to Dyar’s mood. Suddenly he had a sickeningly lucid glimpse of the whole unlikely situation, and he chuckled nervously. To be tossing about in a ramshackle old launch at three in the morning in the Strait of Gibraltar with a couple of idiotic barbarians, on his way God only knew where, with a brief case crammed with money — it made no sense. That is to say, he could not find a way of believing it. And since he could not believe it, he did not really have any part in it; thus he could not be very deeply concerned in any outcome the situation might present. It was the same old sensation of not being involved, of being left out, of being beside reality rather than in it. He stood up, and almost fell forward onto the floor. «Shut up!» he roared; the Jilali stopped singing and called something in a questioning voice. Then he resumed his song. But as Dyar sat down again he realized that the dangerous moment had passed: the vision of the senselessness of his predicament had faded, and he could not recall exactly why it had seemed absurd, « I wanted to do this,» he told himself. It had been his choice. He was responsible for the fact that at the moment he was where he was and could not be elsewhere. There was even a savage pleasure to be had in reflecting that he could do nothing else but go on and see what would happen, and that this impossibility of finding any other solution was a direct result of his own decision. He sniffed the wet air, and said to himself that at last he was living, that whatever the reason for his doubt a moment ago, the spasm which had shaken him had been only an instant’s return of his old state of mind, when he had been anonymous, a victim. He told himself, although not in so many words, that his new and veritable condition was one which permitted him to believe easily in the reality of the things his senses perceived — to take part in their existences, that is, since belief is participation. And he expected now to lead the procession of his life, as the locomotive heads the train, no longer to be a helpless incidental somewhere in the middle of the line of events, drawn one way and another, without the possibility or even the need of knowing the direction in which he was heading.

These certainties he pondered explain the fact that an hour or so later, when he could no longer bear the idea that Thami had not once shifted his position, Dyar lurched to his feet, stepped over, and kicked him lightly in the ribs. Thami groaned and murmured something in Arabic.

«What’s the idea? You can sleep later».

Thami groaned again, said: «What you want?» but the words were covered by the steady stream of explosions made by the motor. Dyar leaned down, and yelled. «It’s going to be light soon, for God’s sake! Sit up and keep an eye open. Where the hell are we?»

Thami pointed lazily toward the Jilali. «He knows. Don’t worry». But he rose and went to sit in the bow, and Dyar squatted down between the motor and the gunwale, more or less where Thami had been sitting. It was warmer here, out of the wind, but the smell of the gasoline was too strong. He felt a sharp emptiness in his stomach; he could not tell whether it was hunger or nausea, because it wavered between the two sensations. After a few minutes he rose and walked uncertainly to join Thami. The Jilali motioned to them both to go and sit in the stern. When Dyar objected, because the air was fresh here by the wheel, Thami said: «Too heavy. It won’t go fast this way,» and they stumbled aft to sit side by side back there on the wet canvas cushions. Long ago the moon had fallen behind a bank of towering, thick clouds in the west. Above were the stars, and ahead the sky presently assumed a colorless aspect, the water beneath melting smokelike, rising to merge momentarily with the pallid air. The Jilali’s turbaned head took on shape, became sharp and black against the beginning eastern light.

«You sure you know where we’re going?» Dyar said finally.

Thami laughed. «Yes. I’m sure».

«I may be wanting to stay up there quite a while, you know».

Thami did not speak for a moment. «You can stay all your life if you want,» he said sombrely, making it clear that he did not relish the idea of staying at all.

«What about you? How do you feel about it?»

«Me? Feel about what?»

«Staying».

«I have to go to Tangier with him». Thami indicated the Jilali.

Dyar turned to face him furiously. «The hell you do. You’re going to stay with me. How the hell d’you think I’m going to eat up there all by myself?»

It was not yet light enough to see the contours of Thami’s face, but Dyar had the feeling he was genuinely surprised. «Stay with you?» he repeated slowly. «But how long? Stay up there?» Then, with more assurance: «I can’t do that. I have to work. I’ll lose money. You’re paying me for the boat and to go with you and show you the house, that’s all».

«He knows I’ve got money here,» Dyar thought savagely. «Damn his soul».

«You don’t think I’m giving you enough?» He heard his own voice tremble.

Thami was stubborn. «You said only the boat. If I don’t work I lose money». Then he added brightly: «Why you think I bought this boat? Not to make money? If I stay with you at Agla I make nothing. He takes the boat to Tangier, everything is in Tangier. My boat, my house, my family. I sit in Agla and talk to you. It’s very good, but I make no money».

Dyar thought: «Why doesn’t he ask me why I want to stay up there? Because he knows. Plain, ordinary blackmail. A war of nerves. I’m God damned if I give in to him». But even as he formed the words in his mind, he knew that what Thami was saying had logic.

«So what d’you expect me to do?» he said slowly, proceeding with caution. «Pay you so much a day to stay up there?»