The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

by Paul Bowles

  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. Adios.” She began to walk on. So did Ramón, close beside 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 instill 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 nearerl”

  “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 mout
h 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 Ramon 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. Al-most 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.

  At the noonday meal they talked about it. After some argument the bets were paid. One of the oilers went to his cabin and brought out a bottle of cognac and a set of little glasses which he put in front of him and filled, one after the other.

  “Have some?” he said to Ramón.

  Ramón took a glass, and the oiler passed the rest around to the others.

  Pages from Cold Point

  Our civilization is doomed to a short life: its component parts are too heterogeneous. I personally am content to see everything in the process of decay. The bigger the bombs, the quicker it will be done. Life is visually too hideous for one to make the attempt to preserve it. Let it go. Perhaps some day another form of life will come along. Either way, it is of no consequence. At the same time, I am still a part of life, and I am bound by this to protect myself to whatever extent I am able. And so I am here. Here in the Islands vegetation still has the upper hand, and man has to fight even to make his presence seen at all. It is beautiful here, the trade winds blow all year, and I suspect that bombs are extremely unlikely to be wasted on this unfrequented side of the island, if indeed on any part of it.

  I was loath to give up the house after Hope’s death. But it was the obvious move to make. My university career always having been an utter farce (since I believe no reason inducing a man to “teach” can possibly be a valid one), I was elated by the idea of resigning, and as soon as her affairs had been settled and the money properly invested, I lost no time in doing so.

  I think that week was the first time since childhood that I had managed to recapture the feeling of there being a content in existence. I went from one pleasant house to the next, making my adieux to the English quacks, the Philosophy fakirs, and so on—even to those colleagues with whom I was merely on speaking terms. I watched the envy in their faces when I announced my departure by Pan American on Saturday morning; and the greatest pleasure I felt in all this was in being able to answer, “Nothing,” when I was asked, as invariably I was, what I intended to do.

  When I was a boy people used to refer to Charles as “Big Brother C.”, although he is only a scant year older than I. To me now he is merely “Fat Brother C.”, a successful lawyer. His thick, red face and hands, his back-slapping joviality, and his fathomless hypocritical prudery, these are the qualities which make him truly repulsive to me. There is also the fact that he once looked not unlike the way Racky does now. And after all, he still is my big brother, and disapproves openly of everything I do. The loathing I feel for him is so strong that for years I have not been able to swallow a morsel of food or a drop of liquid in his presence without making a prodigious effort. No one knows this but me—certainly not Charles, who would be the last one I should tell about it. He came up on the late train two nights before I left. He got quickly to the point—as soon as he was settled with a highball.

  “So you’re off for the wilds,” he said, sitting forward in his chair like a salesman.

  “If you can call it the wilds,” I replied. “Certainly it’s not wild like Mitichi.” (He has a lodge in northern Quebec.) “I consider it really civilized.”

  He drank and smacked his lips together stiffly, bringing the glass down hard on his knee.

  “And Racky. You’re taking him along?”

  “Of course.”

  “Out of school. Away. So he’ll see nobody but you. You think that’s good.”

  I looked at him. “I do,” I said.

  “By God, if I could stop you legally, I would!” he cried, jumping up and putting his glass on the mantel. I was trembling inwardly with excitement, but I merely sat and watched him. He went on. “You’re not fit to have custody of the kid!” he shouted. He shot a stern glance at me over his spectacles.

  “You think not?” I said gently.

  Again he looked at me sharply. “D’ye think I’ve forgotten?”

  I was understandably eager to get him out of the house at soon as I could. As I piled and sorted letters and magazines on the desk, I said: “Is that all you came to tell me? I have a good deal to do tomorrow and I must get some sleep. I probably shan’t see you at breakfast. Agnes’ll see that you eat in time to make the early train.”

  All he said was: “God! Wake up! Get wise to yourself! You’re not fooling anybody, you know.”

  That kind of talk is typical of Charles. His mind is slow and obtuse; he constantly imagines that everyone he meets is playing some private game of deception with him. He is so utterly incapable of following the functioning of even a moderately evolved intellect that he finds the will to secretiveness and duplicity everywhere.

  “I haven’t time to listen to that sort of nonsense,” I said, preparing to leave the room.

  But he shouted, “You don’t want to listen! No! Of course not! You just want to do what you want to do. You just want to go on off down there and live as you’ve a mind to, and to hell with the consequences!” At this point I heard Racky coming downstairs. C. obviously heard nothing, and he raved on. “But just remember, I’ve got your number all right, and if there’s any trouble with the boy I’ll know who’s to blame.”

  I hurried across the room and opened the door so he could see that Racky was there in the hallway. That stopped his tirade. It was hard to know whether Racky had heard any of it or not. Although he is not a quiet young person, he is the soul of discretion, and it is almost never possible to know any more about what goes on inside his head than he intends one to know.

  I was annoyed that C. should have been bellowing at me in my own house. To be sure, he is the only one from whom I would accept such behavior, but then, no father likes to have his son see him take criticism meekly. Racky simply stood there in his bathrobe, his angelic face quite devoid of expression, saying
: “Tell Uncle Charley good night for me, will you? I forgot.”

  I said I would, and quickly shut the door. When I thought Racky was back upstairs in his room, I bade Charles good night. I have never been able to get out of his presence fast enough. The effect he has on me dates from an early period of our lives, from days I dislike to recall.

  Racky is a wonderful boy. After we arrived, when we found it impossible to secure a proper house near any town where he might have the company of English boys and girls his own age, he showed no sign of chagrin, although he must have been disappointed. Instead, as we went out of the renting office into the glare of the street, he grinned and said: “Well, I guess we’ll have to get bikes, that’s all.”

  The few available houses near what Charles would have called “civilization” turned out to be so ugly and so impossibly confining in atmosphere that we decided immediately on Cold Point, even though it was across the island and quite isolated on its seaside cliff. It was beyond a doubt one of the most desirable properties on the island, and Racky was as enthusiastic about its splendors as I.

  “You’ll get tired of being alone out there, just with me,” I said to him as we walked back to the hotel.