The Stories of Paul Bowles (24 page)

Luz squeezed his arm. “You don’t care,” she declared. “They’re only Chinamen. You’re not afraid of them.”

He looked blankly at her. Then with scorn he answered: “No!”

They talked very little on the ride up in the rain. It was night by the time they arrived in the town. Wet and hungry, they went down the street toward the bridge, still without speaking. As they crossed the river Nicho turned to her and said: “Come and have dinner at my house.”

“My sister…”

But he pulled her roughly along with him. Even as he opened the front door and saw his aunt and Señor Ong sitting inside, he knew that Señor Ha had not been there.

“Why are you so late?” said his aunt. “You’re wet.” Then she saw Luz. “Shut the door,
niña,
” she said, looking pleased.

While they ate in the covered part of the patio, Señor Ong continued with what he apparently had been saying earlier in the evening. “…She looked directly at me without saying a word.”

“Who?” said his aunt, smiling at Luz.

“The Fernandez woman. This afternoon.” Señor Ong’s voice was edged with impatience. “For me that is proof enough. She’s getting it somewhere else.”

His aunt snorted. “Still you’re looking for proof!
Niña,
take more meat.” She piled extra food on Luz’s plate.

“Yes, there’s no doubt now,” Señor Ong continued.

“What beautiful hair!
Ay, Dias!
” She smoothed the top of the girl’s head. Nicho was ashamed: he knew that he had invited her to dinner because he had been afraid to come home alone, and he knew that his aunt was touching her hair only in order to bring herself good luck. He sighed miserably and glanced at Luz; she seemed perfectly content as she ate.

Suddenly there were several loud knocks on the front door. Señor Ong rose and went into the
sala.
There was a silence. A man’s voice said:
“Usted se llama Narciso Ong?”
All at once there followed a great deal of noise; feet scuffled and furniture scraped on the tile floor. Nicho’s aunt jumped up and ran into the kitchen where she began to pray very loudly. In the
sala
there was grunting and wheezing, and then as the racket grew less intense, a man said: “
Bueno.
I have it. A hundred grams, at least, right in his pocket. That’s all we needed, my friend.
Vámonos.
”

Nicho slid down from his chair and stood in the doorway. Two men in wet brown ponchos were pushing Señor Ong out the front door. But he did not seem to want to go. He twisted his head and saw Nicho, opened his mouth to speak to him. One of the men hit him in the side of the face with his fist. “Not in front of the boy,” said Señor Ong, wriggling his jaw back and forth to see if it was all right. “Not in front of the boy,” he said again thickly. The other man slammed the door shut. The
sala
was empty. There was no sound but his aunt’s wailing voice in the kitchen, crying aloud to God. He turned to look at Luz, who was sitting perfectly still.

“Do you want to go home?” he said to her.

“Yes.” She got up. His aunt came out of the kitchen wringing her hands. Going over to Luz she laid her hand briefly on the white hair, still muttering a prayer.

“
Adiós, niña.
Come back tomorrow,” she said.

There was still a light rain falling. A few insects sang from the wet leaves as the two silent children passed along the way to the house where Luz lived. When they rapped on the door it was opened immediately. A tall thin girl stood there. Without speaking she seized Luz with one arm and pulled her violently inside, closing the door with the other.

When Nicho got home and went into the
sala,
his first thought was that Señor Ong had returned, but the next instant he felt that he was in the middle of a bad dream. Señor Ha was sitting there talking with his aunt. She looked up tearfully. “Go to bed,” she commanded.

Señor Ha reached out from his chair as Nicho passed and caught his arm—caught it very tightly.
“Ay!”
said Nicho in spite of himself. “One moment,” said Señor Ha, still looking at Nicho’s aunt, and never for a second relaxing his grip. “Perhaps this one knows.” And without turning his face toward Nicho he said: “The police have taken Señor Ong to prison. He will not come back here. He hid something in this house. Where is it?”

It seemed as though the hard fingers would cut through his skin. His aunt looked up at him hopefully. He felt suddenly very important.

“There,” he said, pointing to the calendar.

Señor rose and yanked the pretty girl from the wall. In an instant he had the yellow envelope in his hand. As he examined its contents, he said: “Is there any more?”

“No,” said Nicho, thinking of the envelope lying in the safety of his tree out there in the rainy night. Señor Ha began to twist his arm, but the thought of his secret made him feel strong; his pain and his hatred flowed into that feeling of strength. He stood stiffly and let Señor Ha hurt him. A moment later Señor Ha let go of him and gave him a violent push that sent him halfway across the room. “Go to bed,” he said.

When Nicho had gone out and closed the door, Señor Ha turned to the aunt. “Tomorrow I shall come back with my clothes,” he said. “It is not good to have a boy around the house doing nothing; he gets into trouble. From now on he will deliver it; there will be no one coming to the house.”

“But if the police catch him…” she objected.

“There will be no trouble with them. It is all arranged. Fortunately I had nearly three thousand pesos on hand.” He picked up his briefcase and went to the door. She looked after him with frank admiration and sighed deeply. “You won’t stay tonight?” She said the words timidly, and they sounded strangely coquettish.

“No. The car is outside waiting for me. Tomorrow.” He opened the door. Rising, she went and took his hand, pressing it warmly between her two hands. “Tomorrow,” he repeated.

When the car had driven away and she could no longer hear it, she closed the door, turned off the light, and went out into the patio, where she got into a hammock and lay swinging gently back and forth.

“An intelligent man,” she said to herself. “What good luck!” She stopped swinging a moment. “Good luck! Of course! Dionisio must bring her to the house again one day very soon.”

The town went on being prosperous, the Indians kept coming down from the heights with money, the thick jungle along the way to Mapastenango was hacked away, the trail widened and improved. Nicho bought a packet of little envelopes. Far down the river he found another hollow tree. Here he kept his slowly increasing store of treasure; during the very first month he picked up enough money on the side to buy Luz a lipstick and a pair of dark glasses with red and green jewels all around the rims.

(1950)

P
AMÓN SIGNED ON
at Cádiz. The ship’s first call was at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a day and a half out. They put in at night, soon after dark. Floodlights around the harbor illumined the steep bare mountains and made them grass-green against the black sky. Ramón stood at the rail, watching. “It must have been raining here,” he said to a member of the crew standing beside him. The man grunted, looking not at the green slopes unnaturally bright in the electric glare, but at the lights of the town ahead. “Very green,” went on Ramón, a little less certainly; the man did not even grunt in reply.

As soon as the ship was anchored, scores of Hindu shopkeepers came aboard with laces and embroidered goods for the passengers who might not be going ashore. They stayed on the first-class deck, not bothering to go down below to third-class where Ramón was scullery boy in the passengers’
cocina.
The work so far did not upset him; he had held more exacting and tiring jobs in Cádiz. There was sufficient food, and although it was not very good, nevertheless it was better than what was taken out to the third-class passengers. It had never occurred to Ramón to want
privacy in his living quarters, so that he was unmoved by the necessity of sharing a cabin with a dozen or so shipmates. Still, he had been acutely unhappy since leaving Cádiz. Except for the orders they gave him in the kitchen, the sailors behaved as if he did not exist. They covered his bunk with their dirty clothes, and lay on it, smoking, at night when he wanted to sleep. They failed to include him in any conversation, and so far no one had even made an allusion, however deprecatory, to his existence. For them it appeared that he simply was not present. To even the least egocentric man such a state of affairs can become intolerable. In his sixteen years Ramón had not been in a similar situation; he had been maltreated but not wholly disregarded.

Most of the crew stood at the prow smoking, pointing out bars to one another, as they scanned the waterfront. Party out of perversity born of his grievance, and partly because he wanted to be by himself for a spell, Ramón walked to the stern and leaned heavily against the rail, looking down into the darkness below. He could hear an automobile horn being blown continuously as it drove along the waterfront. The hills behind backed up the sound, magnified it as they threw it across the water. From the other side came the dim roar of the sea’s waves against the breakwater. He was a little homesick, and as he stood there he became angry as well. It was inadmissible that this state of affairs should continue. A day and a half was too long; he was determined to force a change immediately, and to his undisciplined young mind kept recurring the confused image of a fight—a large-scale struggle with the entire crew, in which he somehow finished as the sole victor.

IT IS PLEASANT
to walk by the sea-wall of a foreign port at night, with the autumn wind gently pushing at your back. Ramón was in no hurry; he stopped before each café and listened to the guitars and shouting, without, however, allowing himself to be detained by the women who called to him from the darker doorways. Having had to clean up the galley after an extra meal had been served to sixty workmen who had just come aboard here at Santa Cruz, bound for South America, he had been the last to get off the ship, and so he was looking for his shipmates. At the Café del Teide he found several of them seated at a table sharing a bottle of rum. They saw him come in, but they gave no sign of recognition. There was no empty chair. He walked toward the table, slowed down a
bit as he approached it, and then continued walking toward the back of the cafe. The man behind the bar called out to him: “You were looking for something?” Ramón turned around and sat down suddenly at a small table. The waiter came and served him, but he scarcely noticed what he was drinking. He was watching the table with the six men from his ship. Like one fascinated, he let his eyes follow each gesture: the filling of the little glasses, the tossing down the liquor, the back of the hand wiping the mouth. And he listened to their words punctuated by loud laughter. Resentment began to swell in him; he felt that if he sat still any longer he would explode. Pushing back in his chair, he jumped up and strode dramatically out into the street. No one noticed his exit.

He began to walk fast through the town, paying no attention to where he was going. His eyes fixed on an imaginary horizon, he went through the
plaza,
along the wide Paseo de Ronda, and into the tiny streets that lie behind the cathedral. The number of people in the streets increased as he walked away from the center of town, until when he had come to what seemed an outlying district, where the shops were mere stalls, he was forced to saunter along with the crowd. As he slowed down his gait, he felt less nervous. Gradually he took notice of the merchandise for sale, and of the people around him. It suddenly occurred to him that he would like to buy a large handkerchief. Outside certain booths there were wires strung up; from these hung, clipped by their corners, a great many of the squares of cloth, their bright colors showing in the flare of the carbide lamps. As Ramón stopped to choose one at the nearest booth he became aware that in the next booth a girl with a laughing face was also buying a bandana. He waited until she had picked out the one she wanted, and then he stepped quickly over to the shopkeeper and pointing down at the package he was making, said: “Have you another handkerchief exactly like that?” The girl paid no attention to him and put her change into her purse. “Yes,” said the shopkeeper, reaching out over the counter to examine the bandanas. The girl picked up her little packet wrapped in newspaper, turned away, and walked along the street. “No, you haven’t!” cried Ramón, and he hurried after her so as not to lose sight of her in the crowd. For some distance he trailed her along the thoroughfare, until she turned into a side street that led uphill. It smelled here of drains and there was very little light. He quickened his pace for fear she would go into one of the buildings before he had had the opportunity to talk to her. Somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped to
persuade her to go with him to the Café del Teide. As he overtook her, he spoke quietly without turning his head: “Señorita.” To his surprise she stopped walking and stood still on the pavement. Although she was very near to him, he could not see her face clearly.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?”

He could not answer.

“I thought…” he stammered.

“What?”

There was a silence, and then as she laughed Ramón remembered her face: open and merry, but not a child’s face. In spite of the confidence its recalled image inspired in him, he asked: “Why do you laugh?”

“Because I think you’re crazy.”

He touched her arm and said boldly: “You’ll see if I’m crazy.”

“I’ll see nothing. You’re a sailor. I live here”; she pointed to the opposite side of the street. “If my father sees you, you’ll have to run all the way to your ship.” Again she laughed. To Ramón her laugh was music, faintly disturbing.

“I don’t want to bother you. I only wanted to talk to you,” he said, timid again.

“Good. Now you’ve talked.
Adiós.
” She began to walk on. So did Ramón, close behind her. She did not speak. A moment later, he remarked triumphantly: “You said you lived back there!”

“It was a lie,” she said in a flat voice. “I always lie.”

“Ah. You always lie,” echoed Ramón with great seriousness.

They came to a street light at the foot of a high staircase. The sidewalk became a series of stone steps leading steeply upward between the houses. As they slowly ascended, the air changed. It smelled of wine, food cooking, and burning eucalyptus leaves. Up above the city here, life was more casual. People leaned over the balconies, sat in dark doorways chatting, stood in the streets like islands among the moving dogs and children.

The girl stopped and leaned against the side of a house. She was a little out of breath from the climb.

“Tired?” he asked.

Instead of replying she turned swiftly and darted inside the doorway beside her. For a few seconds Ramón was undecided whether or not to follow her. By the time he had tiptoed into the dimly lit passageway she
had disappeared. He walked through into the courtyard. Some ragged boys who were running about stopped short and stared at him. A radio was playing guitar music above. He looked up. The building was four stories high; there were lights in almost all the windows.

On his way back to the waterfront a woman appeared from the shadows of the little park by the cathedral and took his arm. He looked at her; she was being brazenly coy, with her head tilted at a crazy angle as she repeated: “I like sailors.” He let her walk with him to the Café del Teide. Once inside, he was disappointed to see that his shipmates were gone. He bought the woman a
manzanilla
and walked out on her as she began to drink it. He had not said a word to her. Outside, the night seemed suddenly very warm. He came to the Blanco y Negro; a band was playing inside. Two or three of the men from the ship were on the dark dance floor, trying to instil a bit of life into the tired girls that hung to them. He did not even have a drink here, but hurried back to the ship. His bunk was piled with newspapers and bundles, but the cabin was empty, and he had several hours in the dark in which to brood and doze, before the others arrived. The boat sailed at dawn.

They skirted the island next day—not close enough to see the shore, but within sight of the great conical mountain, which was there all day beside them in the air, clear in distant outline. For two days the ship continued on a southwest course. The sea grew calm, a deep blue, and the sun blazed brighter in the sky. The crew had ceased gathering on the poopdeck, save in the early evening and at night, when they lay sprawled all over it, singing in raucous voices while the stars swayed back and forth over their heads.

For Ramón life continued the same. He could see no difference in the crew’s attitude toward him. It still seemed to him that they lived without him. The magazines that had been bought at Santa Cruz were never passed around the cabin. Afternoons when the men sat around the table in the third-class
comedor,
the stories that were recounted could never be interpreted by any gesture in their telling as being directed at a group that included him. And he certainly knew better than to attempt to tell any himself. He still waited for a stroke of luck that might impose him forcibly upon their consciousness.

In the middle of the fourth morning out from Santa Cruz he poked his head from the galley and noticed several of the men from his cabin gathered along the railing at the stern. The sun was blinding and hot, and
he knew something must be keeping them there. He saw one man pointing aft. Casually he wandered out across the deck to within a few feet of the group, searching the sea and the horizon for some object—something besides the masses of red seaweed that constantly floated by on top of the dark water.

“It’s getting nearer!”

“Qué fuerza!”

“It’s worn out!”

“Claro!”

Ramón looked over their heads, and between them when they changed position from time to time. He saw nothing. He was almost ready to be convinced that the men were baiting him, in the hope of being able to amuse themselves when his curiosity should be aroused to the point of making him ask: “What is it?” And so he was determined to be quiet, to wait and see.

Suddenly he did see. It was a small yellow and brown bird flying crookedly after the boat, faltering as it repeatedly fell back toward the water between spurts of desperate energy.

“A thousand miles from land!”

“It’s going to make it! Look! Here it comes!”

“No!”

“Next time.”

At each wild attempt to reach the deck, the bird came closer to the men, and then, perhaps from fear of them, it fluttered down toward the boiling sea, missing the wake’s maelstrom by an ever closer margin. And when it seemed that this time it surely would be churned under into the white chaos of air and water, it would surge feebly upward, its head turned resolutely toward the bright mass of the ship that moved always in front of it.

Ramón was fascinated. His first thought was to tell the men to step back a little from the rail so that the bird might have the courage to land. As he opened his mouth to suggest this, he thought better of it, and was immediately thankful for having remained quiet. He could imagine the ridicule that would have been directed at him later: in the cabin, at mealtime, evenings on the deck…Someone would have invented a shameful little ditty about Ramón and his bird. He stood watching, in a growing agony of suspense.

“Five pesetas it goes under!”

“Ten it makes it!”

Ramón wheeled about and ran lightly across to the galley. Almost immediately he came out again. In his arms he carried the ship’s mascot, a heavy tomcat that blinked stupidly in the sudden glare of the sun. This time he walked directly back to the railing where the others stood. He set the animal down at their feet.

“What are you doing?” said one.

“Watch,” said Ramón.

They were all quiet a moment. Ramón held the cat’s flanks and head steady, waiting for it to catch sight of the fluttering bird. It was difficult to do. No matter how he directed its head it showed no sign of interest. Still they waited. As the bird came up to the level of the deck at a few feet from the boat, the cat’s head suddenly twitched, and Ramón knew the contact had been made. He took his hands away. The cat stood perfectly still, the end of its tail moving slightly. It took a step closer to the edge, watching each movement of the bird’s frantic efforts.

“Look at that!”

“He sees it.”

“But the bird doesn’t see him.”

“If it touches the boat, the ten pesetas still go.”

The bird rose in the air, flew faster for a moment until it was straight above their heads. They looked upward into the flaming sun, trying to shade their eyes. It flew still farther forward, until, if it had dropped, it would have landed a few feet ahead of them on the deck. The cat, staring up into the air, ran quickly across the deck so that it was directly below the bird, which slowly let itself drop until it seemed that they could reach out and take it. The cat made a futile spring into the air. They all cried out, but the bird was too high. Suddenly it rose much higher; then it stopped flying. Swiftly they passed beneath it as it remained poised an instant in the air. When they had turned their heads back it was a tiny yellow thing falling slowly downward, and almost as quickly they lost sight of it.