The Stories of Paul Bowles (14 page)

I was temporizing, but I was desperate.

Perhaps a week later—(it is only when one is not fully happy that one is meticulous about time, so that it may have been more or less)—we were having breakfast. Isiah stood by, in the shade, waiting to pour us more coffee.

“I noticed you had a letter from Uncle Charley the other day,” said Racky. “Don’t you think we ought to invite him down?”

My heart began to beat with great force.

“Here? He’d hate it here,” I said casually. “Besides, there’s no room. Where would he sleep?” Even as I heard myself saying the words, I knew that they were the wrong ones, that I was not really participating in the conversation. Again I felt the fascination of complete helplessness that comes when one is suddenly a conscious on-looker at the shaping of one’s fate.

“In my room,” said Racky. “It’s empty.”

I could see more of the pattern at that moment than I had ever suspected existed. “Nonsense,” I said. “This is not the sort of place for Uncle Charley.”

Racky appeared to be hitting on an excellent idea. “Maybe if I wrote and invited him,” he suggested, motioning to Isiah for more coffee.

“Nonsense,” I said again, watching still more of the pattern reveal itself, like a photographic print becoming constantly clearer in a tray of developing solution.

Isiah filled Racky’s cup and returned to the shade. Racky drank slowly, pretending to be savoring the coffee.

“Well, it won’t do any harm to try. He’d appreciate the invitation,” he said speculatively.

For some reason, at this juncture I knew what to say, and as I said it, I knew what I was going to do.

“I thought we might fly over to Havana for a few days next week.”

He looked guardedly interested, and then he broke into a wide grin. “Swell!” he cried. “Why wait till next week?”

THE NEXT MORNING
the servants called “Good-bye” to us as we drove up the cinder road in the McCoigh car. We took off from the airport at six that evening. Racky was in high spirits; he kept the stewardess engaged in conversation all the way to Camagüey.

He was delighted also with Havana. Sitting in the bar at the Nacional, we continued to discuss the possibility of having C. pay us a visit at the island. It was not without difficulty that I eventually managed to persuade Racky that writing him would be inadvisable.

We decided to look for an apartment right there in Vedado for Racky. He did not seem to want to come back here to Cold Point. We also decided that living in Havana he would need a larger income than I. I am already having the greater part of Hope’s estate transferred to his name in the form of a trust fund which I shall administer until he is of age. It was his mother’s money, after all.

We bought a new convertible, and he drove me out to Rancho Boyeros in it when I took my plane. A Cuban named Claudio with very white teeth, whom Racky had met in the pool that morning, sat between us.

We were waiting in front of the landing field. An official finally unhooked the chain to let the passengers through. “If you get fed up, come to Havana,” said Racky, pinching my arm.

The two of them stood together behind the rope, waving to me, their shirts flapping in the wind as the plane started to move.

THE WIND BLOWS
by my head; between each wave there are thousands of tiny licking and chopping sounds as the water hurries out of the crevices and holes; and a part-floating, part-submerged feeling of being in the water haunts my mind even as the hot sun burns my face. I sit here and I read, and I wait for the pleasant feeling of repletion that follows a good meal, to turn slowly, as the hours pass along, into the even more delightful, slightly stirring sensation deep within, which accompanies the awakening of the appetite.

I am perfectly happy here in reality, because I still believe that nothing very drastic is likely to befall this part of the island in the near future.

MS Ferncape

(1949)

P
ASTOR DOWE DELIVERED
his first sermon in Tacaté on a bright Sunday morning shortly after the beginning of the rainy season. Almost a hundred Indians attended, and some of them had come all the way from Balaché in the valley. They sat quietly on the ground while he spoke to them for an hour or so in their own tongue. Not even the children became restive; there was the most complete silence as long as he kept speaking. But he could see that their attention was born of respect rather than of interest. Being a conscientious man he was troubled to discover this.

When he had finished the sermon, the notes for which were headed “Meaning of Jesus,” they slowly got to their feet and began wandering away, quite obviously thinking of other things. Pastor Dowe was puzzled. He had been assured by Dr. Ramos of the University that his mastery of the dialect was sufficient to enable his prospective parishioners to follow his sermons, and he had had no difficulty conversing with the Indians who had accompanied him up from San Gerónimo. He stood sadly on the small thatch-covered platform in the clearing before his house and watched the men and women walking slowly away in different directions. He had the sensation of having communicated absolutely nothing to them.

All at once he felt he must keep the people here a little longer, and he called out to them to stop. Politely they turned their faces toward the pavilion where he stood, and remained looking at him, without moving. Several of the smaller children were already playing a game, and were darting about silently in the background. The pastor glanced at his wrist watch and spoke to Nicolás, who had been pointed out to him as one of the most intelligent and influential men in the village, asking him to come up and stand beside him.

Once Nicolás was next to him, he decided to test him with a few questions. “Nicolás,” he said in his dry, small voice, “what did I tell you today?”

Nicolás coughed and looked over the heads of the assembly to where an enormous sow was rooting in the mud under a mango tree. Then he said: “Don Jesucristo.”

“Yes,” agreed Pastor Dowe encouragingly. “
Bai,
and Don Jesucristo what?”

“A good man,” answered Nicolás with indifference.

“Yes, yes, but what more?” Pastor Dowe was impatient; his voice rose in pitch.

Nicolás was silent. Finally he said, “Now I go,” and stepped carefully down from the platform. The others again began to gather up their belongings and move off. For a moment Pastor Dowe was furious. Then he took his notebook and his Bible and went into the house.

At lunch Mateo, who waited on table, and whom he had brought with him from Ocosingo, stood leaning against the wall smiling.

“Señor,” he said, “Nicolás says they will not come again to hear you without music.”

“Music!” cried Pastor Dowe, setting his fork on the table. “Ridiculous! What music? We have no music.”

“He says the father at Yalactín used to sing.”

“Ridiculous!” said the pastor again. “In the first place I can’t sing, and in any case it’s unheard of!
Inaudito!
”

“Sí, verdad?”
agreed Mateo.

The pastor’s tiny bedroom was breathlessly hot, even at night. However, it was the only room in the little house with a window on the outside; he could shut the door onto the noisy patio where by day the servants invariably gathered for their work and their conversations. He lay under the closed canopy of his mosquito net, listening to the barking
of the dogs in the village below. He was thinking about Nicolás. Apparently Nicolás had chosen for himself the role of envoy from the village to the mission. The pastor’s thin lips moved. “A troublemaker,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow.”

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 for 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 the 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 household 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 through 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 no, señor!
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 bonito!”
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.

Presently, when he felt that his audience was about to grow restive (even though he had to admit that they never would have shown it outwardly) he put on “Sonny Boy.” From the reaction it was not difficult to guess that this selection was finding less favor with its listeners. The general expression of tense anticipation at the beginning of the record soon relaxed into one of routine enjoyment of a less intense degree. When the piece was finished, Nicolás got to his feet again and raised his hand solemnly, saying: “Good. But the other music is more beautiful.”

The pastor made a short summation, and, after playing “Crazy Rhythm” again, he announced that the service was over.

In this way “Crazy Rhythm” became an integral part of Pastor Dowe’s weekly service. After a few months the old record was so badly
worn that he determined to play it only once at each gathering. His flock submitted to this show of economy with bad grace. They complained, using Nicolás as emissary.

“But the music is old. There will be no more if I use it all,” the pastor explained.

Nicolás smiled unbelievingly. “You say that. But you do not want us to have it.”

The following day, as the pastor sat reading in the patio’s shade, Mateo again announced Nicolás, who had entered through the kitchen and, it appeared, had been conversing with the servants there. By now the pastor had learned fairly well how to read the expressions on Nicolás’s face; the one he saw there now told him that new exactions were at hand.

Nicolás looked respectful. “Señor,” he said, “we like you because you have given us music when we asked you for it. Now we are all good friends. We want you to give us salt.”

“Salt?” exclaimed Pastor Dowe, incredulous. “What for?”

Nicolás laughed good-naturedly, making it clear that he thought the pastor was joking with him. Then he made a gesture of licking. “To eat,” he said.

“Ah, yes,” murmured the pastor, recalling that among the Indians rock salt is a scarce luxury.

“But we have no salt,” he said quickly.

“Oh, yes, señor. There.” Nicolás indicated the kitchen.

The pastor stood up. He was determined to put an end to this haggling, which he considered a demoralizing element in his official relationship with the village. Signaling for Nicolás to follow, he walked into the kitchen, calling as he entered, “Quintina, show me our salt.”

Several of the servants, including Mateo, were standing in the room. It was Mateo who opened a low cupboard and disclosed a great stack of grayish cakes piled on the floor. The pastor was astonished. “So many kilos of salt!” he exclaimed.
“Cómo se bace?”