The Stories of Paul Bowles (72 page)

I think a warning sign of creeping senility is the shortening of the attention span, which strikes me as a form of regression to childhood. We’ll see.

I HAVEN’T MENTIONED
the mounting hostility I’ve noted in your letters because I’ve assumed that it was directed at the world in general, and not at me. Now I see how mistaken I was. First you tell me that my letters are self-indulgent. I let that pass: it was merely a criticism of my method. But I can’t overlook the word “gloating.” On seeing that, I realize that I’d have done better to limit my correspondence to one necessarily cruel
Get Well
card, and let it go at that.

It seems to me that for this final period of your life it might be profitable to stop encouraging your masochistic tendencies. I can see that you don’t feel that way at all, and that on the contrary you intend to go on giving free rein to them. Too bad. There’s obviously nothing I can do from here to help you, so I may as well let it rest. But as you sink into your self-imposed non-being, I hope you’ll remember (you won’t) that I made this small and futile attempt to help you remain human.

Hasta el otro mundo,
as Rosa Lopez used to say.

A
DAZZLING ACCOMPLISHMENT
Kathleen Andrews has succeeded in forging a language capable of bearing her to the highest reaches of lyrical expressivity the poems soar above the stratosphere what idiotic reviews they write you know her mother has a certain amount of influence she’s also very rich so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’d been a bit of quid pro quo under the table publishers and critics are human too no I’m afraid I’m unconvinced I’ve read her poetry you see we were classmates at Sarah Lawrence I knew her well she’s not someone you’d forget easily either she was always impossible writing poetry even back then and publishing it right and left a lot of people were impressed she probably did have some talent but what a waste it was she could be held up as the classical example of the person who systematically ruins her own life purely self-destructive in college she would always go out of her way to say things nobody could possibly have agreed with she’d explain I’m for giving the world shock treatment that’s what it needs people enjoy being scandalized more than anything else yes that may be Kathleen I’d tell her but don’t you see that every time you shock them they put a little more distance between you and them can’t you see that in the end they’re not
going to take anything you say seriously you’re going to be some sort of freak as far as they’re concerned have you thought about it I used to argue with her almost plead with her you know the way you do when you see a friend doing everything wrong I took her seriously I thought I could help her but her reaction was oh if they want to think I’m a freak what difference does it make well this childish attitude was all right then I suppose but later on it wasn’t so amusing anyway as far as I could see she had no interest in men she was far too busy thinking about herself she did say she wanted the experience of having a child but wouldn’t dream of marrying I told her she’d better think twice before doing anything so scatterbrained actually she was pregnant the first year after graduation but she didn’t tell me I was about the only one of her old friends who kept on seeing her she simply shut herself off anyway as soon as she knew she was pregnant it seems she began holding long conversations with the baby she had this strange idea that she could influence it by talking to it all the time Kathleen I’d tell her come back to reality you can’t go on this way you’ve got to be serious a baby’s not an idea or a poem it’s real and you’re going to have to take care of it oh that’s all right she said I’ve got my trust fund it ought to be enough that’s not what I’m talking about I told her you’re going to be a mother a flesh-and-blood mother do you know what that means what it involves oh of course I’ll find out what it means all right when the time comes and I thought but will you and that poor child but she was stubborn she had an idea she liked and she was going to hold on to it come hell or high water she wouldn’t listen she’d just smile her superior smile and say my life is my own to do with as I please yes I said but not the life of your child that isn’t to do as you please with think about it and for God’s sake try to make sense it’s not a game Kathleen you know she was ashamed of being pregnant she didn’t want anyone to see her she wouldn’t go out at all she simply hid herself away in that little apartment in the Village month after month every two weeks or so I’d drop in to see her because we were really close friends practically everybody else was fed up with her nonsense but I guess I imagined I might be able to appeal to her common sense we always think we can help even when we ought to know better it would be sad if it hadn’t been so funny I remember that winter there was a blizzard and I walked all the way from Gramercy Park to Bank Street one day so that by the time I got to her place I was half frozen and my feet were soaked Little Missy had all the lights out she was lying in
bed with one candle burning on the table beside her and a book in her hand but she jumped up and turned on the lights she had only about a month to go I sat by the fireplace warming my feet while she brewed tea well she seemed to be making perfectly good sense but then she suddenly got back into bed and said excuse me I want to finish it’ll only take a minute I’m reading the Analects of Confucius to Alaric isn’t the name perfect isn’t it precisely what you’d expect her to choose no one’s been named Alaric for the past fifteen hundred years oh I love it and then my dear she began to read out loud looking down at herself the Master said this and the Master said that well it was grotesque it made my flesh crawl but I couldn’t very well interrupt her her voice was so sepulchral so I sat twiddling my toes by the fire after a while she shut the book and spoke up in a normal voice you see while he’s still with me I want to be as close to him as I can because once he’s born there’s no more I can do she said all this in such a reasonable tone of voice that I was suddenly furious Kathleen I said you ought to know you’re concerned tell me what are you trying to prove but she simply opened her eyes wide and said I don’t know what you mean well I said in the first place what makes you so sure it’s going to be a boy oh of course it’s a boy I decided that at the beginning the thing is I want to give him a good pre-natal education so when he’s born he won’t be so much at the mercy of outside negative influences it’s the most important part of a child’s upbringing but most mothers don’t feel close to their babies until they can actually see them human stupidity as always and she began to tell me what was wrong with everybody look I said I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that you might as well be reading to that table you know damned well it can’t even hear much less understand what you’re saying why do you insist on playing games with yourself can’t you just relax and be natural for a while oh she said of course he understands how can he help it we’re the same person I know once he’s born he won’t understand anything after all I’m not living in Fantasy Land so you see that’s why I have to spend all my time with him until then because once he’s left me he’s on his own and I can’t do anything more for him I must have had a strange expression on my face because she suddenly straightened up and said I’m sorry you feel so strongly about it I know most people think it’s their duty to press their own ideas on others but I’d always imagined you were more tolerant and she looked at me as if I’d been a great disappointment to her well Kathleen all I can say is I hope the baby’s healthy I have the feeling that when
you’ve taken care of it for a while you’ll see things differently and we talked a little and I told her Jack and I were off to Rio and I’d see her when I got back and not to worry worry she said what would I worry about I’m happy so I went out into the blizzard again and got a cab home thinking it would have been a lot better if I hadn’t gone my God not living in Fantasy Land indeed and I thought then I’m not going to go on seeing her when I get back it’s a lost cause and I really meant it but you know me curiosity killed a cat oh yes I looked her up again the next summer the baby must have been about five months old perfectly healthy as far as I could see although I noticed it didn’t smile once what got me was her offhand attitude toward it when she first showed it to me she said there he is the little horror and I thought here comes more of the same but for once I’m not going to react he’s lovely I said do you breastfeed him yes she said but once he’s weaned I’m going to take him to my mother’s in Lake Forest she’ll find a good nanny for him she said she didn’t ever want to have to correct or discipline him because it would destroy their relationship and it was so important for him to have confidence in her and she went on the whole thing getting more outrageous by the minute I should have realized long before that she was never going to change but somehow I’d thought having the baby might have done something of course I couldn’t have been more wrong as the twig is bent baby or no baby that’s it I thought well better for him to have a good nanny at least than to be left to the tender mercies of Kathleen seeing all this made me rather thankful that Jack and I had never had any children so she went off to her mother’s but the most incredible episode of all came several years later by then I’d more or less stopped thinking about her once in a while I did wonder what had become of her well one fine day I got a letter covered with Moroccan stamps from Kathleen she’d left her mother’s and gone to Europe with Alaric her mother paid for the trip probably to get rid of her she’d been living here and there and had ended up in Tangier being Kathleen she was in the native quarter of course and Alaric was learning about life with his peers playing with the Moroccan boys in the neighborhood and she thought it was wonderful and wanted to stay forever and hoped sometime I’d pass through Tangier it all sounded suspiciously like a continuation of the pattern anyway a year or so later when Jack and I were in Europe I decided to fly down to Tangier for a weekend and look in on Kathleen I was intrigued American girl living alone in the native quarter well Jack
didn’t want to go so he stayed in London and I went flying off down to Morocco I can’t tell you it was incredible the whole thing it took me hours to find her house I finally had to go back to the hotel and get a guide and we went through all the dark alleys eventually we came to the door it was wide open to the street I told the guide to wait outside I’d never have found my way back to the hotel well she was there dressed in some sort of flashy native costume the place had no furniture in it just mats and cushions and a big table in the middle of the room and here’s the payoff on the table was an enormous pile a mountain of marijuana I saw it from the street before I went in without knowing what it was Kathleen I said that stuff is forbidden you know that how can you leave it out in plain sight like that anyone going past can see it my guide must have seen it I was feeling damned nervous sitting there can’t you shut the door please she shrugged and went to shut it I asked her where Alaric was I was curious to see how he’d turned out she looked vague oh outside he has lots of friends this made me think of the awful kids I’d just seen playing in the street each time we saw a crowd of them the guide would say hold on to your handbag madame it’s nice he has friends I said and you how are you I was thinking how can she possibly live like this it smelled exactly like a stable she began to walk back and forth looking preoccupied and once she stood and stared down at the table this stuff’s not mine she said it’s Todd’s Todd’s staying with me he’s gone to the store he’ll be back in a minute oh I see I said and pretty soon Todd came in about six foot three and jet black this was interesting I thought it showed a new side of Kathleen not a very original one I admit but still something different from before anyway I was sitting there trying to make conversation with the two of them and suddenly there was this terrible gurgling animal sound in the next room it echoed my God what’s that I asked her she was perfectly matter-of-fact about it it’s just our sheep we’ve had it now a month fattening it up for the festival next week Alaric is all excited about it he lives for that sheep it’s hard to get him away from it but in the house I said how can you stand it well the boy finally came in and he had a whole crew of other kids with him all jabbering in Arabic it must have been but at least he looked healthy through the dirt he was as filthy as the rest of them and hadn’t had his hair cut in a year incredible they trooped in and all rushed to the room where the sheep was tied up and it began to make its awful bleat I decided this was a good moment to disappear I said I had to go because my guide was waiting
but I’d come back the next day Kathleen looked at me as if it were the end of the world but you just got here she kept saying then the kids all went out all except Alaric and he climbed onto Todd’s lap and began to hug him that kid was starved for affection I said to him Alaric it’s nice you have the sheep he can be your friend and follow you around wherever you go and that kid looked straight at me and said oh no we’re going to cut his throat next Tuesday I thought he was making it up but Kathleen said yes Tuesday’s the day of the sacrifice as I went out she said she’d been writing lots of poetry and I thought I’ll bet you have and what a blessing I don’t have to read it I said good-bye see you tomorrow and I really meant to go back and try to talk with her just the two of us but it was all so abject and sordid and she was so childish it was really depressing I couldn’t face looking for that alley again the next morning I got a plane out to London I’ve never heard from her since what a waste I don’t think she has any idea of what she’s done to herself I suppose I’m getting less tolerant but I have no patience with people who refuse to abide by the rules of the game and that boy of hers I’d be willing to bet he ends up behind bars it’s inevitable but she has no one to blame she’s brought it all on herself the sad part is that she’ll never realize how much harm she’s caused it’ll never cross her mind that her life has been one great mistake from the beginning pretty ridiculous isn’t it

(1986)