Let It Come Down

by Paul Bowles

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just let me do the talking, and listen.” They sat down on the same divan where they had been sitting a half-hour ago. The fresh air had made him feel better, and he had decided not to take any more whisky. She laid her hand on his arm; the diamonds of her bracelets shone in the candlelight. “I’m practically certain Jack Wilcox is about to get himself into trouble. It seems most suspicious, the fact that he’s keeping you out of his office. The moment you told me that, I knew something peculiar was going on. He’s always been an ass in his business dealings, and he’s no less of one now. By ass I mean stupidly careless. God, the idiots and scoundrels he’s taken into his confidence! You know, everyone here’s got some little peccadillo he’s hoping to hide. You know, ça va sans dire. Everyone has to make a living, and here no one asks questions. But Jack practically advertises his business indiscretions. He can’t make a move now without the entire scum of the Zone knowing about it. Which would be all right if there were any protection, which obviously there can’t be in such cases. You just have to take your chances.”

  Dyar was listening, but at the same time he was uneasily watching the other end of the room where he had observed Hadija and Thami engaged in what appeared to be an intense and very private conversation. “What are you talking about?” he demanded rudely, turning suddenly to stare at her.

  Daisy misinterpreted his question. “My dear, certainly no one but an imbecile would think of trying to enlist the help of the police in such matters. I love Jack; I think he’s a dear. But I certainly think you should be warned. Don’t get involved in any of his easy money schemes. They crack up. There are plenty of ways of making a living here, and quite as easy, without risking getting stabbed or shot.”

  Now Dyar looked at her squarely and laughed.

  “I know I’m drunk,” she said. “But I also know what I’m saying. I can see you’re going to laugh even more at the other thing I’ve got to tell you.” Dyar cast a troubled glance behind him at Hadija and Thami.

  Daisy’s voice was suddenly slightly harsh. “Oh, stop breaking your neck. He’s not going to run off with your girl-friend.”

  Dyar turned his head back swiftly and faced her, his mouth open a little with astonishment. “What?”

  She laughed. “Why are you so surprised? I told you everyone knows everything here. What do you think I have a good pair of Zeiss field-glasses in my bedroom for, darling? You didn’t know I had such a thing? Well, I have, and they were in use today. There’s a short stretch of shore-line visible from one corner of the room. But that’s not what I was going to tell you,” she went on, as Dyar, trying to picture to himself just what incidents of his outing she might have seen, felt his face growing hot. “I’d like to sock her in that smug face,” he thought, but she caught the unspoken phrase. “You’re angry with me, darling, aren’t you?” He said nothing. “I don’t blame you. It was a low thing to do, but I’m making amends for it now by giving you some very valuable advice.” She began to speak more slowly and impressively. “Madame Jouvenon, that frightful little woman you went off into the other room with, is a Russian agent. A spy, if you like the word better.” She sat back and squinted at him, as if to measure the effect of that piece of news.

  It seemed to have brought him round to a better humour, for he chuckled, took her hand and smoothed the fingers slowly; she made no effort to withdraw it. “At least,” she continued, “I’ve heard it from two distinct sources, neither of which I have any reason to doubt. Of course, it’s a perfectly honourable way of making a living, and we all have our agents around, and I daresay she’s not even a particularly efficient one, but there you are. So those are my two little warnings for tonight, my dear young man, and you can take them or leave them, whichever you like.” She pulled her hand away to smooth her hair. “I shouldn’t have told you, really. God knows how much of a chatterbox you are. But if you quote me I shall deny ever having said a word.”

  “I’ll bet you would,” he said. “And the same goes for the room in Marrakech. Right?”

  She took the tip of one of his fingers between her thumb and forefinger, squeezed it hard, and looked at him seriously a moment before she said: “I suppose you think that was immoral.”

  The company was thinning; people were leaving now in groups. Abdelmalek and Hassan Beidaoui stood one on each side of the door, bowing and smiling. There were not more than ten guests left, including the Hollands, who had found an old swing record in the pile, and were now doing some very serious jitterbugging, alone on the floor. One of the two Arab gentlemen stood watching them, an expression of satisfaction on his face, as though at last he were seeing what he had come here to see.

  Thami and Hadija still conversed, but the important points in their talk had all been touched upon, with the result that Thami now suspected that the money for his boat might conceivably be donated by Eunice Goode. Many members of the lower stratum of society in Tangier naturally knew perfectly well who Hadija was, but there was next to no contact between that world of cast-off clothing, five-peseta cognac and cafés whose patrons sat on mats smoking kif and playing ronda, and this other more innocent world up here in which it was only one step from wanting a thing to having it. Nevertheless, he knew both worlds; he was the point of contact. It was a privileged position and he felt it could be put to serious use. Nothing of all this had been said to Hadija; encouraged by him she had told all the important facts. No Arab is foolish enough to let another Arab know that both are stalking the same prey—after all, there is only a certain amount of flesh on any given carcass. And while the tentative maximum set by Thami was only whatever the price of the boat should finally turn out to be, still, he knew that Hadija would consider as her rightful property every peseta that went to him. Like most girls with her training, basically Hadija thought only in terms of goods delivered and payment received; it did not occur to her that often the largest sums go to those who agree to do nothing more than stay out of the way. This is not to say that she was unaware of the position of power enjoyed by Thami in the present situation. “You won’t say a word?” she whispered anxiously.

  “We’re friends. More than friends,” he assured her, looking steadily into her eyes. “Like brother and sister. And Muslimin, both of us. How could I betray my sister?”

  She was satisfied. But he continued. “And tonight, what are you doing?” She knew what that meant. If it had to be, there was nothing to do about it, and tonight was the most likely time, with Eunice in her present state. Hadija glanced across at the massive body sprawled on the chair.

  “Call a taxi,” continued Thami. “Get the servants to put her in. Take her home and see that she’s in bed. Meet me outside the Wedad pastry shop in the dark part there at the foot of the steps to the garden. I’ll be there before you, so you won’t have to wait.”

  “Ouakha,” she agreed. She was going to get nothing for it, yet it had to be done. To remain Miss Kumari she must go back and be the Hadija of the pink room behind the Bar Lucifer. She looked at him with undissimulated hatred. He saw it and laughed; it made her more desirable.

  “Little sister,” he murmured, his lips so close to the lobe of her ear that they brushed it softly in forming the word.

  She got up. Save for Eunice they were alone in the room. The remaining guests had gone out, were being taken through the blue court, the jasmin court, the marble pavilion, to the vast, partially ruined ballroom where several sultans had dined. But Hadija was too perturbed to notice that she had not been invited to make the tour along with the others.

  “You call a taxi. The telephone is in there.” He indicated the little library. “I’ll take care of her.” He went out to the entrance lodge and got two of the guards to come in and carry Eunice to the gate, where they laid her on a mat along one of the niches until the cab arrived. He sat in front with the driver and went along as far as Bou Arakia, where he got out and after saying a word through the open window to Hadija, walked off into the dark in the direct
ion of the Zoco de Fuera.

  The European guests were not taken back into the European wing; Abdelmalek and Hassan led them directly to the gate on the street, bade them a gracious goodbye, and stepped behind the high portals which were closed and noisily bolted. It was a little like the expulsion from Eden, thought Daisy, and she turned and grinned at the Hollands.

  “May I drive you to your hotel?” she offered.

  They protested that it was nearby, but Daisy snorted with impatience. She knew she was going to take them home, and she wanted to start. “Get in,” she said gruffly. “It’s a mile at least to the Pension Acacias.”

  The final goodnights were called as the other guests drove off.

  “But it’s out of your way,” objected Richard Holland.

  “Stuff and nonsense! Get in! How do you know where I’m going? I’ve got to meet Luis more or less in that neighbourhood.”

  “Sh! What’s that?” Mrs. Holland held up a silencing finger. From somewhere in the dark on the other side of the street came a faint chorus of high, piercing mews.

  “Oh, God! It’s a family of abandoned kittens,” moaned Daisy. “The Moors are always doing it. When they’re born they simply throw them out in a parcel into the street like garbage.”

  “The poor things!” cried Mrs. Holland, starting across the pavement toward the sound.

  “Come back here!” shouted her husband. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She hesitated. Daisy had got into the car, and sat at the wheel.

  “I’m afraid it’s hopeless, darling,” she said to Mrs. Holland.

  “Come on!” Holland called. Reluctantly she returned and got in. When she was beside him in the back seat he said: “What did you think you were going to do?”

  She sounded vague. “I don’t know. I thought we might take them somewhere and give them some milk.” The car started up, skirting the wall for a moment and then turning through a park of high eucalyptus trees.

  Dyar, sitting in front with Daisy, and infinitely thankful to be out of the Beidaoui residence, felt pleasantly relaxed. He had been listening to the little scene with detached interest, rather as if it were part of a radio programme, and he expected now to hear an objection from Holland based on grounds of practicality. Instead he heard him say: “Why in hell try to keep them alive? They’re going to die, anyway, sooner or later.”

  Dyar turned his head sideways and shouted against the trees going by: “So are you, Holland. But in the meantime you eat, don’t you?”

  There was no reply. In the back, unprotected from the wet sea wind, the Hollands were shivering.

  XIII

  The next morning was cloudy and dark; the inescapable wind was blowing a gale from the east. Out in the harbour the few freighters moored there rocked crazily above the whitecaps, and the violent waves rolled across the wide beach in a chaos of noise and foam. Dyar got up early and showered. As he dressed he stood in the window, looking out at the agitated bay and the grey hills beyond it, and he realized with a slight shock that not once since he had arrived had he gone to inquire for his mail. It was hard to believe, but it simply had not occurred to him. In his mind the break with the past had been as complete and definitive as that.

  At the desk downstairs he inquired the way to the American Legation, and set out along the waterfront on foot, stopping after ten minutes or so of battling against the wind at a small café for breakfast. As he sat down at the teetering little table he noticed that his garments were sticky and wet with the salt spray in the air.

  He found the Legation without difficulty; it was just inside the native town, through an archway cut in the old ramparts. In the waiting-room he was asked by an earnest young man with glasses to sign the visitors’ register, whereupon he was handed one letter. It was from his mother. He wandered a while in the twisting streets, pushing through crowds of small screaming children, and looking vaguely for a place where he could sit down and read his letter. From a maze of inner streets he came out upon the principal thoroughfare for pedestrians, and followed it downhill. Presently he arrived at a large flat terrace edged with concrete seats, overlooking the docks. He sat down, oblivious of the Arabs who looked at him with their eternal insolent curiosity, and, already in that peculiarly unreal state of mind which can be induced in the traveller by the advent of a letter from home, tore open the envelope and pulled out the small, closely-written sheets.

  DEAR NELSON,

  I have neglected you shamefully. Since Tuesday for one reason or another I have put off writing, and here it is Saturday. Somehow after you left I didn’t have much “gumption” for a few days! Just sat around and read and sewed, and did what light housework I could without tiring myself too much. Also had one of my rip-roaring sick-headaches which knocked me out for 24 hours. However, I am fine now, and have been for several days. Let me tell you it was a terrible moment when they pulled up that gangplank! Do hope you had no unpleasant experiences with your cabin mates on the way over. They didn’t look too good to me. Your father and I both thought you were in for something, from the looks of them.

  We are planning on driving down to Wilmington for Aunt Ida’s birthday. Your father is quite busy these days and comes home tired, so I guess one trip will be enough for this winter. Don’t want him to get sick again.

  Tho’t you might be interested in the enclosed clipping. That Williams girl certainly didn’t lose any time finding a new fiancé, did she? Well, it seems as though practically all your old friends were married and settled down now.

  We were over at the Mott’s (Dr.) last evening after an early movie. He is in bed with a bad kidney and we have been several times to see them. Your father had a short visit upstairs with him, has two male nurses & is a very sick man. Louise, whom I don’t think you have seen in twenty years, had come down unexpectedly to see how things were going. She is a very attractive young woman, two children now. She is most interested in your doings. Says she once stopped at Tangier for an afternoon on a Mediterranean cruise when she was in college. Didn’t think much of it. She was reminiscing about the good times you all used to have, and wondered if I still made the coconut macaroons I used to make. Says she never forgot them and the cookies. Naturally I had forgotten.

  Well, I am getting this in the mail today.

  Please take care of your health, just for my sake. Remember if you lose that you lose everything. I have been reading up on Morocco in the encyclopædia and I must say it doesn’t sound so good to me. They seem to have practically every sort of disease there. If you let yourself get run down in any way you’re asking for trouble. I don’t imagine the doctors over there are any too good, either, and the hospital conditions must be very primitive.

  I shall be on tenterhooks until I hear from you. Please give Jack Wilcox my best. I hope he is able to make a go of his business. What with all the difficulties placed in the way of travel nowadays, both your father and I are very dubious about it. However, he must know whether he is making money or not. I don’t see how he can.

  May and Wesley Godfrey were in the other evening, told them all about your venture. They said to wish you good luck, as you’d probably need it. Your father and I join with them in the hope that everything goes off as you expect it to.

  Well, here is the end of my paper so I will quit.

  Love to you from

  MOTHER.

  PS. It seems it was Algiers that Louise Mott was in, not Tangier. Has never been in the latter. Your father told me just now when he came home for lunch. He is disgusted with me. Says I always get everything mixed up!

  Love again.

  When he had finished reading he folded the letter slowly and put it back into the envelope. He raised his head and looked around him. A little Arab boy, his face ravaged by a virulent skin disease, stood near him, studying him silently—his shoes, his raincoat, his face. A man wearing a tattered outmoded woman’s coat, high-waisted, with peaked shoulders and puffed sleeves, walked up and stopped near the boy, also to
stare. In one hand he carried a live hen by its wings; the hen was protesting noisily. Annoyed by its squawks, Dyar rose and went back into the street. Reading the letter had left him in an emotional no-man’s-land. The street looked insane with its cheap bazaar architecture, its Coca-Cola signs in Arabic script, its anarchic assortment of people in damp garments straggling up and down. It had begun to rain slightly. He put his hands into the pockets of his raincoat and walked ahead looking down at the pavement, slowly climbing the hill. An idea had been in his mind, he had intended to do something this morning, but now since reading his mother’s letter he did not have the energy to stop and try to recall what it had been. Nor was he certain whether or not he would keep the luncheon appointment with the unpleasant woman he had met last night. He felt under no particular obligation to put in an appearance; she had given him no chance to accept or refuse, had merely ordered him to be at the Empire at two o’clock. He would either go or not go when the time came. He did not really believe Daisy’s fantastic story about her being a Russian agent; as a matter of fact, he rather hoped she would turn out to be something of the sort, something a little more serious than the rest of the disparate characters he had met here so far, and a spy for the Soviet Government would certainly be that.