Пол Боулз - Let it come down

They were putting their feet carefully on the square gray flagstones that led through the grass across the garden, having to step off them at one point onto the soaked turf to avoid the hose with a sprinkler attachment. It went around and around, unevenly. Mrs. Shields had pulled down all the shades in the big room, because the sun shone in and faded the drapes, she said. Once the windows were shut, the thunderstorm could come whenever it liked; it had been threatening all afternoon. Across the river it looked very dark. It was probably raining there already, but the rolling of the thunder was more distant. Far up the valley toward the gap it groaned. There was wild country up there, and the people did not have the same friendliness they had here where the land was good. Mrs. Shields had let the hose spot her dress. It was a shame, he thought, looking closely at the paisley design.

He did not want to be in the house when they left. Turning to the empty rooms where the air still moved with the currents set up by their last-minute hurryings, feeling the seat of a chair in which one of them had sat, because of that a little warmer than the others, but the warmth still palpable after they had gone, seeing the cord of a window-shade still swinging almost imperceptibly — he could not bear any of those things. It was better to stay in the garden, say good-bye to them there, and wait to go in until the house was completely dead. And the storm would either break or it would growl around the countryside until evening. The grapes are getting ripe, she said as they passed under the arbor. And the sailboats will be making for the harbor. He stood against a cherry tree and watched the ants running up and down across the rough brown bark of the trunk, very near his face. That summer was in a lost region, and all roads to it had been cut.

Thami came in, carrying the burning brazier. He set it down in the middle of the room, went and got the teapot and the glasses. While he waited for the water to boil, blowing from time to time on the glowing coals, Dyar told him of his plans. But when he came to the point of mentioning the sum he had, he found he could not do it. Thami listened, shook his head skeptically when Dyar had finished. «Pesetas are no good in the French Zone,» he said. «You can’t change them. You’d have to take them to the Jews if you did that».

«Well, we’ll take ’em to the Jews, then. Why not?»

Thami looked at him pityingly. «The Jews?» he cried. «They won’t give you anything for them. They’ll give you five francs for one peseta. Maybe six». Dyar knew the current rate was a little over eight. He sighed. «I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see». But secretly he was determined to do it that way, even if he got only five.

Thami poured the boiling tea into the glasses. «No mint this time,» he said.

«It doesn’t matter. It’s the heat that does it».

«Yes». He blew out the candle and they sat by the light of the flames. Dyar settled back, leaning against the wall, but immediately Thami objected. «You’ll get sick,» he explained. «That wall is very wet. Last night I moved my bed, it was so wet there».

«Ah». Dyar sat up, drew his legs under him, and continued to drink his tea. Was the hand on the brief case explained away for all time? Why not, he asked himself. Believing or doubting is a matter of wanting to believe or doubt; at the moment he felt like believing because it suited his mood.

«So, are you with me?» he said.

«What?»

«We stay a week, and you go every day and change a thousand pesetas?»

«Whatever you say,» said Thami, reaching for his glass to pour him more tea.

The room was getting taut and watchful around him; Dyar remembered the sensation from the night at the Villa Hes-perides. But it was not the same this time because he himself felt very different. The bird outside cried again. Thami looked surprised. «I don’t know how you call that bird in English. We call it youca ».

Dyar shut his eyes. A terrible motor had started to throb at the back of his head. It was not painful; it frightened him. With his eyes shut he had the impression that he was lying on his back, that if he opened them he would see the ceiling. It was not necessary to open them — he could see it anyway, because his lids had become transparent. It was a gigantic screen against which images were beginning to be projected — tiny swarms of colored glass beads arranged themselves obligingly into patterns, swimming together and apart, forming mosaics that dissolved as soon as they were made. Feathers, snow-crystals, lace and church windows crowded consecutively onto the screen, and the projecting light grew increasingly powerful. Soon the edges of the screen would begin to burn, and the fire would be on each side of his head. «God, this is going to blind me,» he said suddenly; he opened his eyes and realized he had said nothing.

«Do you know what they look like?» Thami asked.

«What what look like?»

« Youcas ».

«I don’t know what anything looks like. I don’t know what you’re talking about!»

Thami looked slightly aggrieved. «You’re hashish, my friend. Hashish bezef»

Each time Thami spoke to him, he raised his head and shook it slightly, opened his eyes, and made a senseless reply. Thami began to sing in a small, faraway voice. It was a sound you could walk on, a soft carpet that stretched before him across the flat blinding desert. Ijbed selkha men rasou . But he came up against the stone walls of an empty house beside a mountain. The fire was raging behind it, burning wildly and silently, the door was open and it was dark inside. Cobwebs hung to the walls, soldiers had been there, and there were women’s silk underclothes strewn about the empty rooms. He knew that a certain day, at a certain moment, the house would crumble and nothing would be left but dust and rubble, indistinguishable from the talus of gravel that lay below the cliffs. It would be absolutely silent, the falling of the house, like a film that goes on running after the sound apparatus has broken. Bache idaoui sebbatou . The carpet had caught on fire, too. Someone would blame him.

«I’m God damned if I’ll pay for it,» he said. Regular hours, always superiors to give you orders, no security, no freedom, no freedom, no freedom.

Thami said: « Hak . Take your tea».

Dyar reached forward and swam against the current toward the outstretched glass shining with reflected firelight. «I’ve got it. Muchas gracias, amigo ». He paused, seemed to be listening, then with exaggerated care he set the glass down on the mat beside him. «I put it there because it’s hot, see?» (But Thami was not paying attention; already he was back in his own pleasure pavilion overlooking his miles of verdant gardens, and the water ran clear in blue enamel channels. Chta! Chta! Sebbatou aând al qadi !)

«Thami, I’m in another world. Do you understand? Can you hear me?»

Thami, his eyes shut, his body weaving slowly back and forth as he sang, did not answer. The perspective from his tower grew vaster, the water bubbled up out of the earth on all sides. He had ordered it all to be, many years ago. (The night is a woman clothed in a robe of burning stars.) Ya, Leïla, Lia .

«I can see you sitting there,» Dyar insisted, «but I’m in another world». He began to laugh softly with delight.

«I don’t know,» he said reflectively. «Sometimes I think the other way around. I think». He spoke more slowly. «We. would be better. I think. if you can get through…. if you can get through…. Why can’t anyone get through?» His voice became so loud and sharp here that Thami opened his eyes and stopped singing.

« Chkoun entina ?» he said. «My friend, I’m hashish as much as you».