Let It Come Down

by Paul Bowles

  Dyar sat, watching the strong moonlight flood the white surface of the plaza, letting his mind grow lucid and hard like the objects and their shadows around him. (At noon the kif had had a diffusing effect, softening and melting his thought, spreading it within him, but now it had tightened him; he felt alert and fully in touch with the world.) Since the situation was worse than he had imagined, because of the patent impossibility of his getting change for the notes anywhere in Agla, the only thing to do was to spend a little money improving that situation. It would mean taking Thami into his confidence, but it was simple, and if he could instil into him the idea that once a man has agreed to be an accomplice he is as guilty as his companion, he thought the risk would not be too great. The fact that he had already dismissed as childish and neurotic the fear which had driven him out of the house and along the mountainside all day, did not strike him as suspect or worthy of any particular scrutiny. The important thing, he thought, was to get over the border into French Morocco, which was many times larger than the Spanish Zone, where he would be less conspicuous (because, while he might be taken for French, he could never pass for a Spaniard), and where the police were less on the lookout for strangers. But before that they would have to have change for the banknotes. Feeling the need to walk as he made his plans, he rose and went across to the dark side of the plaza, where small trees lined the walk. Without paying attention to where he was going, he turned off into a side street.

  Every day for the next week he would send Thami down here to Agla for provisions, and each time he would give him a thousand peseta note with which to purchase them. He was confident Thami could get change. That way at the end of the week they would at least have enough to start south. He would also give Thami five hundred pesetas a day until they were across the border, with a promised bonus of an extra five thousand when they were in French territory, and a hundred on each thousand-peseta note Thami could change into francs for him once they were there. Assuming he were able to get it all changed, this project would cost him over two thousand dollars, but that was a small price to pay for being in the clear.

  From ahead came the noise of voices raised in angry dispute. Although the plaza out there was empty, the town was by no means entirely asleep. Turning a bend in the street, he came out upon a small square darkened by a trellis of vines overhead. A group of excited men had gathered around two small boys who apparently had been fighting; they had started by being onlookers, and then, inevitably, had entered into the altercation with all the passion of the original participants. The rectangles of yellow light that lay on the pavement came from the shops that were open; in contrast the mottles of moonlight in dark corners were blue. He did not stop to watch the argument: walking along the white street in the moon’s precise light was conducive to the unfolding of plans. The commotion was such that no one noticed him as he passed through the shady square. The shops, which seemed to belong primarily to tailors and carpenters, were empty at the moment, having been deserted at the first indication of a diversion in the street. The way twisted a little; there was one more stall open here, and beyond, only the moonlight. It was a carpenter’s shop, and the man had been working in the doorway, building a high wooden chest shaped like a steamer trunk. The hammer lay where he had left it. Dyar saw it without seeing it; then he looked at it hard, looked involuntarily for the nails. They too were there, a bit long, but straight and new, lying on a little square stool nearby. Only when he had passed the shouting group again and had got so far beyond that he could no longer hear the hoarse cries, the hammer and one big nail in his coat pocket, did he realize that for all his great clarity of mind sitting by the fountain smoking his kif, he had been unbelievably stupid. What were the hammer and nail for? To fix the door. What door? The door to the cottage, the rattling door that kept him from sleeping. And where was the cottage, how was he going to get there?

  He stood still, more appalled by the revelation of this incredible lapse in his mental processes than by the fact itself that he could not get to the house, that he had nowhere to sleep. This kif is treacherous stuff, he thought, starting ahead slowly.

  Back in the deserted plaza he seated himself once again on the edge of the fountain and pulled out the pipe. Treacherous or not, like alcohol it at least made the present moment bearable. As he smoked he saw a figure emerge from the shadows on the dark side of the plaza and come sauntering over in his direction. When it was still fairly far away, but near enough for him to see it was a man carrying a large basket, it said: “Salam”. Dyar grunted.

  “Andek es sebsi?”

  He looked up unbelieving. It was impossible. The stuff was treacherous, so he did not move, but waited.

  The man came nearer, exclaimed. Then Dyar jumped up. “You son of a bitch!” he cried, laughing with pleasure, clapping Thami’s shoulder several times.

  Thami was delighted, too. Dyar had eaten, was in a good humour. The return to the house with its attendant furious reproaches no longer had to be dreaded. He could broach the subject of the money. And there was his own kif-pipe, whose absence he had been so lately regretting, right in Dyar’s hand. But he was nervous about being here in the plaza.

  “You’re going to have trouble here,” he said. “It’s very bad. I told you not to come. If one moqaddem sees you, Oiga, señor, come on to the comisaría, we look at your papers, my friend.’ Let’s go.”

  The moonlight was very bright when they had left the town behind and were among the olive trees. Half-way up the mountain, among the ragged rocks, they sat down, and Thami took out the majoun.

  “You know what this is?” he asked.

  “Sure I know. I’ve had it before.”

  “This won’t make you drunk for an hour yet. Or more. When we get to the house I’ll make tea. Then you’ll see how drunk.”

  “I know. I’ve had it before, I said.”

  Thami looked at him with disbelief, and divided the cake into two unequal pieces, handing the larger to Dyar.

  “It’s soft,” Dyar remarked in some surprise. “The kind I had was hard.”

  “Same thing,” Thami said with indifference. “This is better.” Dyar was inclined to agree with him, as regarded the flavour. They sat, quietly eating, each one conscious in his own fashion that as he swallowed the magical substance he was irrevocably delivering himself over to unseen forces which would take charge of his life for the hours to come.

  They did not speak, but sat hearing the water moving downward in the gulf of moonlight and shadows that lay open at their feet.

  XXV

  “Home again!” DYAR said jovially as he went inside the house, greeted by the close mildewed smell he had said goodbye to so long ago. “Let’s make that fire before we blow our respective tops.” He tossed the briefcase into a corner, glad to be rid of it.

  Thami shut the door, locked it, and stared at him, not understanding. “You’re already hashish,” he said. “I know when I look at you. What are you talking about?”

  “The fire. The fire. Get some wood. Quick!”

  “Plenty of wood,” said Thami imperturbably, pointing to the patio with its crates. Dyar stepped out and began to throw them wildly into the centre of the room. “Break ’em up!” he shouted. “Smash ’em! It’s going to be goddam cold in here without any blanket. We’ve got to keep the fire going as long as we can.”

  Thami obeyed, wondering at the surprising transformation a little majoun could work in a Christian. He had never before seen Dyar in good spirits. When he had an enormous pile of slats, he pushed it to one side and spread the two mats, one on top of the other, in front of the fireplace. Then he went out into the kitchen and busied himself building a charcoal fire in the earthen brazier, in order to prepare the tea.

  “Ah!” he heard Dyar cry in triumph from the patio. “Just what we wanted!” He had unearthed several small logs in one corner, which he carried in and dumped beside the fireplace. He joined Thami in the kitchen. “Give me a match,” he said. “My candle’s gone out.”
Thami was squatting over the brazier, and he looked up smiling. “How do you feel now?” he asked.

  “I feel great. Why? How do you feel?”

  Thami handed him his box of matches. “I feel good,” he answered. He was not sure how to begin. Perhaps it would be better to wait until they were lying in front of the fire. But by then Dyar’s mood might have changed. “I wanted to buy a big bottle of cognac tonight, you know.” He paused.

  “Well, why didn’t you? I could do with a drink right now.”

  Thami rubbed his forefinger against his thumb, back and forth, expressively.

  “Oh,” said Dyar soberly. “I see.” He went back into the other room, stuffed some paper into the fireplace, put some crate wood on top, and lighted it. Then he walked over to the darkest corner of the room and, keeping his eye on the door into the patio, pulled out five notes from the inside of his shirt. “This’ll show him I’m playing straight with him,” he said to himself. He returned to the kitchen and handed the money to Thami, saying: “Here.”

  “Thank you,” Thami said. He stood up and patted him on the back lightly, three pats.

  “When you come in I’ll talk to you about the rest of it.” He went out into the patio and stood looking up at the huge globe of the full moon; never had he seen it so near or so strong. A night bird screamed briefly in the air overhead—a peculiar, chilly sound, not quite like anything he had heard before. He stood, hearing the sound again and again in his head, a long string of interior echoes that traced an invisible ladder across the black sky. The crackling of the fire inside roused him. He went in and threw on a log. He crouched down, looking into the fire, following the forms of the flames with his eyes. The fireplace drew well; no smoke came out into the room.

  They were putting their feet carefully on the square grey flagstones that led through the grass across the garden, having to step off them at one point onto the soaked turf to avoid the hose with a sprinkler attachment. It went around and around, unevenly. Mrs. Shields had pulled down all the shades in the big room, because the sun shone in and faded the drapes, she said. Once the windows were shut, the thunderstorm could come whenever it liked; it had been threatening all afternoon. Across the river it looked very dark. It was probably raining there already, but the rolling of the thunder was more distant. Far up the valley toward the gap it groaned. There was wild country up there, and the people did not have the same friendliness they had here where the land was good. Mrs. Shields had let the hose spot her dress. It was a shame, he thought, looking closely at the paisley design.

  He did not want to be in the house when they left. Turning to the empty rooms where the air still moved with the currents set up by their last-minute hurryings, feeling the seat of a chair in which one of them had sat, because of that a little warmer than the others, but the warmth still palpable after they had gone, seeing the cord of a window-shade still swinging almost imperceptibly—he could not bear any of those things. It was better to stay in the garden, say goodbye to them there, and wait to go in until the house was completely dead. And the storm would either break or it would growl around the countryside until evening. The grapes are getting ripe, she said as they passed under the arbour. And the sailboats will be making for the harbour. He stood against a cherry tree and watched the ants running up and down across the rough brown bark of the trunk, very near his face. That summer was in a lost region, and all roads to it had been cut.

  Thami came in, carrying the burning brazier. He set it down in the middle of the room, went and got the teapot and the glasses. While he waited for the water to boil, blowing from time to time on the glowing coals, Dyar told him of his plans. But when he came to the point of mentioning the sum he had, he found he could not do it. Thami listened, shook his head sceptically when Dyar had finished. “Pesetas are no good in the French Zone,” he said. “You can’t change them. You’d have to take them to the Jews if you did that.”

  “Well, we’ll take ’em to the Jews, then. Why not?”

  Thami looked at him pityingly. “The Jews?” he cried. “They won’t give you anything for them. They’ll give you five francs for one peseta. Maybe six.” Dyar knew the current rate was a little over eight. He sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.” But secretly he was determined to do it that way, even if he got only five.

  Thami poured the boiling tea into the glasses. “No mint this time,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s the heat that does it.”

  “Yes.” He blew out the candle and they sat by the light of the flames. Dyar settled back, leaning against the wall, but immediately Thami objected. “You’ll get sick,” he explained. “That wall is very wet. Last night I moved my bed, it was so wet there.”

  “Ah.” Dyar sat up, drew his legs under him, and continued to drink his tea. Was the hand on the briefcase explained away for all time? Why not? he asked himself. Believing or doubting is a matter of wanting to believe or doubt; at the moment he felt like believing because it suited his mood.

  “So, are you with me?” he said.

  “What?”

  “We stay a week, and you go every day and change a thousand pesetas?”

  “Whatever you say,” said Thami, reaching for his glass to pour him more tea.

  The room was getting taut and watchful around him; Dyar remembered the sensation from the night at the Villa Hesperides. But it was not the same this time because he himself felt very different. The bird outside cried again. Thami looked surprised. “I don’t know how you call that bird in English. We call it youca.”

  Dyar shut his eyes. A terrible motor had started to throb at the back of his head. It was not painful; it frightened him. With his eyes shut he had the impression that he was lying on his back, that if he opened them he would see the ceiling. It was not necessary to open them—he could see it, anyway, because his lids had become transparent. It was a gigantic screen against which images were beginning to be projected—tiny swarms of coloured glass beads arranged themselves obligingly into patterns, swimming together and apart, forming mosaics that dissolved as soon as they were made. Feathers, snow-crystals, lace and church windows crowded consecutively onto the screen, and the projecting light grew increasingly powerful. Soon the edges of the screen would begin to burn, and the fire would be on each side of his head. “God, this is going to blind me,” he said suddenly; he opened his eyes and realized he had said nothing.

  “Do you know what they look like?” Thami asked.

  “What what look like?”

  “Youcas.”

  “I don’t know what anything looks like. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Thami looked slightly aggrieved. “You’re hashish, my friend. Hashish bezef!”

  Each time Thami spoke to him, he raised his head and shook it slightly, opened his eyes, and made a senseless reply. Thami began to sing in a small, far-away voice. It was a sound you could walk on, a soft carpet that stretched before him across the flat blinding desert. Ijbed selkha men rasou. … But he came up against the stone walls of an empty house beside a mountain. The fire was raging behind it, burning wildly and silently, the door was open and it was dark inside. Cobwebs hung to the walls, soldiers had been there, and there were women’s silk underclothes strewn about the empty rooms. He knew that a certain day, at a certain moment, the house would crumble and nothing would be left but dust and rubble, indistinguishable from the talus of gravel that lay below the cliffs. It would be absolutely silent, the falling of the house, like a film that goes on running after the sound apparatus has broken. Bache idaoui sebbatou. … The carpet had caught on fire, too. Someone would blame him.

  “I’m goddam if I’ll pay for it,” he said. Regular hours, always superiors to give you orders, no security, no freedom, no freedom, no freedom.

  Thami said: “Hak. Take your tea.”

  Dyar reached forward and swam against the current toward the outstretched glass, shining with reflected firelight. “I’ve got it. Muchas gra
cias, amigo.” He paused, seemed to be listening, then with exaggerated care he set the glass down on the mat beside him. “I put it there because it’s hot, see?” (But Thami was not paying attention; already he was back in his own pleasure pavilion overlooking his miles of verdant gardens, and the water ran clear in blue enamel channels. Chta! Chta! Sebbatou aând al qadi!)

  “Thami, I’m in another world. Do you understand? Can you hear me?”

  Thami, his eyes shut, his body weaving slowly back and forth as he sang, did not answer. The perspective from his tower grew vaster, the water bubbled up out of the earth on all sides. He had ordered it all to be, many years ago. (The night is a woman clothed in a robe of burning stars ….) Ya, Leïla, lia ….

  “I can see you sitting there,” Dyar insisted, “but I’m in another world.” He began to laugh softly with delight.

  “I don’t know,” he said reflectively. “Sometimes I think the other way around. I think …” He spoke more slowly. “We … would be better … I think … if you can get through … if you can get through … Why can’t anyone get through?” His voice became so loud and sharp here that Thami opened his eyes and stopped singing.

  “Chkoun entina?” he said. “My friend, I’m hashish as much as you.”

  “You get here, you float away again, you come to that crazy place! Oh, my God!” He was talking very fast, and he went into a little spasm of laughter, then checked himself. “I’ve got nothing to laugh about. It’s not funny.” With a whoop he rolled over onto the floor and abandoned himself to a long fit of merriment. Thami listened without moving.

  After a long time the laughter stopped as suddenly as it had begun; he lay quite still. The little voice crept out again: “Ijbed selkha men rasou …” and went on and on. From time to time the fire stirred, as an ember shifted its position. Every small sound was razor-sharp, but inside there was a solid silence. He was trying not to breathe, he wanted to be absolutely motionless, because he felt that the air which fitted so perfectly around him was a gelatinous substance which had been moulded to match with infinite exactitude every contour of his person. If he moved ever so slightly he would feel it pushing against him, and that would be unbearable. The monstrous swelling and deflating of himself which each breath occasioned was a real peril. But that wave broke, receded, and he was left stranded for a moment in a landscape of liquid glassy light, greengold and shimmering. Burnished, rich and oily, then swift like flaming water. Look at it! Look at it! Drink it with your eyes. It’s the only water you’ll ever see. Another wave would roll up soon; they were coming more often. Ya Leïla, lia. … For a moment he was quite in his senses. He lay there comfortably and listened to the long, melancholy melodic line of the song, thinking: “How long ago was it that I was laughing?” Perhaps the whole night had gone by, and the effect had already worn off.