The Stories of Paul Bowles (53 page)

H
E ARRIVED IN
Tangier at noon and went straight to the house. In the rain the outer courtyard was uninviting. Several dead banana plants had fallen over and been left to rot on the tile floor. Even as old Amina, seeing him from the kitchen doorway, waddled out into the rain to greet him, he was aware of the piles of empty crates, and of the frame of an ancient garden swing looming behind her.

At lunch he tasted his childhood in Amina’s soup. The recipe had not changed; pumpkin and cumin still predominated. All at once he was aware of a cold wind blowing through the room. He called to Amina: the big window in the kitchen was broken. He reminded her that money had been sent to have it repaired. But the wind had come and blown it in again, she said, and this time they had simply left it that way. He told her to shut the door to the kitchen. When she had done it he could not see that it made any difference.

He went through the rooms. The place was only a shell of the house he remembered. Most of the furniture was gone, and there were no rugs or curtains. When he discovered that all six of the fireplaces belched smoke, he had his first doubts about the usefulness of the house as a place
to spend the Christmas holidays—at least, that year. It was the only bequest his mother had made him, and she had been reluctant even about that. “You don’t want the house in Tangier. You’ll never use it.” “But I love it,” he had objected. “I grew up in it, after all.” Once she had agreed to leave it to him, she had proceeded to strip it of everything of value. A rug went to one friend, a highboy to another, a chest to someone else, so that by the time she died, the house must have been in more or less its present state. Several times during the eight years since her death his wife had urged him to go and “take stock” of the house, but since her interest was based on the possibility of selling it, a thing he intended never to do, he had taken no action.

The house was in even worse condition than he had expected it to be. Ingenuously, he had assumed that because he paid their wages promptly each month, the servants would make an attempt to keep it in order. He hoped for some hot water to get the chimney soot off his hands, but Mohammed told him that the water heater had not functioned since the year before Madame had died. The man she called in to repair it had said it would have to be replaced by a new system, so she had used cold water after that. As he dried his hands on a flimsy linen guest-towel (she had given away all the bathtowels) he thought grimly: She could let old Madame Schreiber go off with a rug worth several thousand pounds, but she couldn’t afford to bathe in hot water.

He went out into the garden. The rain had stopped, but the wind moved the trees, so that large scattered drops still fell as they swayed. He looked up at the huge white façade, marvelling that he ever could have thought it majestic. Now it looked like a pavilion left over from a long-forgotten exposition.

By the end of the afternoon he was thoroughly chilled. The house was too close to the sea. The wind came up over the cliff laden with the salt mist of the waves, and sprayed it against the windows. If he looked out at the garden he saw it only confusedly through the curtain of salt that had coated the panes. In the library closet he found an electric heater. It was ancient, but it gave off a modest glow. With the shutters bolted and the door closed, he seized a book at random from the bookshelves and threw himself into a chair. He read for a moment, then turned to the back of the book and on a blank page began to compose a telegram to his wife.
CANCEL FLIGHT HOUSE DISASTROUS REPAIRS
IMPERATIVE RETURNING FIRST WEEK JANUARY ALAS NO CHRISTMAS TOGETHER PLAN FOR EASTER HERE BETTER SEASON ALL LOVE
. Early spring could be very cold, too, he suddenly remembered, but at least the fireplaces would be working.

He had instructed his Tangier bank to have the telephone connected; it was an agreeable surprise to hear the operator’s voice. The difficulties began as he tried to spell out the name and address.
“M comme en Marseille? R comme en Robert?”
There was an explosion of clicks, and the connection faded. He hung up and dialled the taxi service. The cab waited for him outside the post-office.

The first few nights he slept badly. The sheets were damp and there were not enough blankets. Even with the windows shut the sea wind raced through the big bedroom. Each morning well before dawn a pair of owls settled in the cypress trees beside the house and began to call back and forth. In his childhood he had heard the sound many times, but it never had kept him awake.

When the wind had turned and the days grew sunny, the workmen were able to start rebuilding the chimneys. The house was full of Moroccans in overalls and rubber boots. It was Ramadan; they worked without speaking, feeling their hunger and thirst in silence.

On the Sunday before Christmas the sky was bright blue and cloudless. The north wind had brought the mountains in Spain unusually near. Since no workmen would be coming, he decided to go out for a walk. The puddles in the road had dried. Plant odors and the scent of woodsmoke laced the wind. In a better mood, he conceived the idea of asking a few people to come by on Christmas Eve for drinks; it would be pleasanter than having to go out, and he could not envisage remaining alone in the house on that night.

A small white car came into view and drew up outside an irongrilled gate a hundred feet or so ahead of him. As he approached, he recognized Madame Dervaux. As soon as they had greeted one another, he mentioned Christmas Eve, suggesting that she bring along anyone she wished. She accepted immediately; she would try, she said, to be with interesting people. He was about to make a facetious reply, but seeing that she was perfectly serious, he held his tongue.

During the next few days he invited a few more people. Although he did not much care who came, since he wanted only to see someone in
the house on Christmas Eve, he reflected with satisfaction that not one of the prospective guests would have been asked to the house by his mother.

Christmas Eve was clear and almost windless. The moon, directly overhead, filled the courtyard with its hard light. Amina had just carried the last tray of glasses into the hall when the doctor arrived. Once he was seated, a gin and tonic in his hand, he looked around the room and frowned.

“Your mother had a great deal to put up with here in this house,” he said. “It was far too damp for her to live in, and far too big for her to manage.”

He heard the sharpness in his voice as he replied. “It was her own choice to go on living here. She loved it. She wouldn’t have agreed to live anywhere else.”

The rector came in, out of breath and smiling. This was his first winter in Morocco, so the doctor described the climate to him.

Leaving the two talking, he went into the library and lighted the fire Mohammed had laid in the fireplace there. Then he had Amina bring more candles and set them around the room, knowing that the library was where the guests eventually would gather. The other rooms had very little furniture in them.

The sound of laughter came from the courtyard. Madame Dervaux entered, with several younger people in her wake. Going straight up to her host, she presented him with a huge bunch of narcissus. “Smell,” she told him. “I picked them this afternoon at Sidi Yamani. The fields are covered.”

He hurried to the kitchen to have Amina put the flowers into water. Madame Dervaux followed, talking rapidly. She had come, she said, with a poet, a painter and a philosopher, all of them Moroccans. As an afterthought she added: “And a very charming Indian girl from Paris. So you see?”

Understanding this as a reference to her promise to bring “interesting” people, he set his jaw. Finally he murmured: “Aha.”

When they returned to the salon. Vandeventer stood in the middle of the room, slightly the worse for having just come from another party. The rector had gone with the younger people into the library. Madame Dervaux, hearing their laughter, walked quickly in their direction.

He settled Vandeventer near the doctor, poured himself a neat Scotch,
and wandered in the direction of the library. As he got to the doorway, the rector was saying playfully to one of the young Moroccans: “You’d better be careful. One of these mornings you may wake up and find yourself in Hell.”

“No, no,” the young man said easily. “Hell is only for people who haven’t suffered enough here.” The rector seemed taken aback.

Fearful that the conversation might be about to degenerate into a quasi-religious discussion among his guests, he went quickly toward the group. “And you,” he said, singling out the Moroccan, “you’ve suffered enough?”

“Too much,” he said simply.

Madame Dervaux rose to her feet and asked to be taken on a tour of inspection of the house. He protested that there was nothing to see but empty rooms.

“But we can see the rooms! And go up into the tower, and out onto the roof. The view is superb.”

“In the dark?”

“In the moonlight, in the moonlight,” she said rapturously. The Moroccans murmured with approval.

“Come,” he told them, and they all followed him out. A young Frenchman and his wife, both of whom taught at the Lycée Regnault, had arrived, bringing with them another couple from Casablanca. He had to leave his little party of sightseers at the foot of the stairs while he saw to it that the new arrivals were supplied with drinks. He poured himself another glass of whisky to take with him on the tour.

Some of the electric bulbs along the way failed to come on, so that there was more darkness than light on the stairways. Even before they got to the tower door they could hear the roar of the sea below.

He went ahead and opened one of the windows, so they could lean out and see the black cliffs of the coastline. The only lights in the landscape were a few twinkling points across the strait in Spain. “The end of the world,” the rector remarked as he drew in his head.

A moment later when they were back in the hallway, the young Moroccan with whom he had spoken in the library came up from behind and walked along beside him. “Letting me look at all these empty rooms is very bad,” he said. “Like showing food to a starving man.”

“How is that?” he asked absently.

“It’s only that I have to live with my family, and there’s no space
anywhere, so what I want most is a room. Nearly every night I dream that I have a room of my own where I can paint. So of course when I see so many rooms with no one in them, the saliva runs in my mouth. It’s natural.”

“I suppose it is.” He found the young man’s confidences embarrassing; they emphasized the disparities between them, and gave him a vague sense of guilt.

Now Madame Dervaux was clamoring to be taken out onto the roof. He refused. “There’s no railing.”

“We’ll just stand in the moonlight,” she insisted. “No one will go near the edge.”

He stopped walking and stared at her. “That’s exact, since no one is going onto the roof.”

She pouted for an instant, and then resumed her chatter.

On the way downstairs he turned to the painter, who was still beside him. “I ought to spend more time here,” he said, a note of apology in his voice. “But the truth is, the house isn’t very livable.”

“How can you say that? It’s a magnificent house.”

“The wind blows straight through it,” he went on, as though the other had not spoken. “There are rats in the walls, there’s no hot water, half the time the telephone doesn’t function.”

“But all houses here are like that. The difference is that this one has ten times as much space.”

So far he had pretended not to see where the painter was attempting to direct the conversation, but now he said: “I’d like nothing better than to be able to slice off a room for you and wrap it up, so you could take it home.”

The Moroccan smiled. “Why does it have to be taken home? It could be consumed on the premises just as well.”

He laughed, liking the Moroccan’s appropriation of his metaphor. “Ah yes, there’s that too,” he agreed as they arrived back at the library door. “Just pass by the bar,” he said to those behind him. “Mohammed will give you what you want.”

Beyond the library was a farther room, forming a separate wing of the house. In bygone days it had been referred to as the conservatory. Now there was nothing in it, and the door into it was kept shut because the many windows let in the sea-wind. When he returned from the bar
presently, he caught sight of Madame Dervaux striking a theatrical pose as she flung open the door.

“Mon dieu!”
she cried. “So
this
is where the corpses are buried!”

Now the library was crowded, so that he was unable to get to the door before she had led both the painter and poet into the dark room. He leaned in and called to them. “There’s no light in there, and we can’t have the door open. Please come back.” When they failed to answer, he shut the door.

He heard Madame Dervaux’s squeal, waited, then opened the door a crack and held it, so they could find their way back.

Madame Dervaux came out laughing, although she shot a resentful glance at him. The poet continued imperturbably to criticize Baudelaire, but the painter was not listening. “What a studio!” he murmured.

“It was terrifying, that horrible place, without a ray of light!” Madame Dervaux confided to the Indian girl.

She was insufferable. “But Madame,” he said. “Corpses are generally enjoyed in the dark.”

“A fantastic studio,” the painter went on. “North light, nothing but trees and the sea. A paradise!”

He faced the young man. “The ceiling is in shreds. The rain has come in everywhere. I doubt one could use it for anything.”

The doctor and the rector were leaving, and the two French couples were conferring on the shortest route to the site of the next party. Vandeventer, leaning against the wall for support, was arguing with the Indian girl. There was a general consulting of timepieces. “If we’re going to Midnight Mass we must leave now,” Madame Dervaux declared.

Vandeventer had begun to walk slowly toward the group. “Have you ever heard such nonsense?” he demanded of his host, indicating the others with his glass. “Three Moslems, one Hindu and one atheist, all running off to Midnight Mass? Ridiculous, no?”