The Stories of Paul Bowles

by Paul Bowles

  It was only when she began actually to put the crèche together that she realized how much work it was going to be. Early the next morning she asked Boufelja to find her an old wooden crate. Before she had been busy even a half-hour, she heard Slimane talking in the kitchen. Quickly she pushed everything under the bed and went out onto the terrace.

  “Slimane,” she said. “I’m very busy. Come in the afternoon.” And that afternoon she told him that since she was going to be working every morning until after the day of the Christ Child, they would not be making any more long trips during that time. He received the information glumly. “I know,” he said. “You are getting ready for the holy day. I understand.”

  “When the holy day comes, we will have a feast,” she assured him.

  “If Allah wills.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling.

  He shrugged. “Good-by,” he told her.

  Afternoons they still walked in the oasis or had tea on the roof, but her mornings she spent in her room sewing, hammering and sculpting. Once she had the platform constructed, she had to model the figures. She carried up a great mass of wet clay from the river to her room. It was two days before she managed to make a Virgin whose form pleased her. From an old strip of muslin she fashioned a convincing tent to house the Mother and the Child in its nest of tiny white chicken feathers. Shredded tamarisk needles made a fine carpet for the interior of the tent. Outside she poured sand, and then pushed the clay camels’ long legs deep into it; one animal walked behind the other over the dune, and a Wise Man sat straight on top of each, his white djellaba falling in long pointed folds to either side of the camel’s flanks. The Wise Men would come carrying sacks of almonds and very small liqueur chocolates wrapped in colored tinfoil. When she had the crèche finished, she put it on the floor in the middle of the room and piled tangerines and dates in front of it. With a row of candles burning behind it, and one candle on each side in front, it would look like a Moslem religious chromolithograph. She hoped the scene would be recognizable to Slimane; he might then be more easily persuaded of its poetic truth. She wanted only to suggest to him that the god with whom he was on such intimate terms was the god worshipped by the Nazarenes. It was not an idea she would ever try to express in words.

  An additional surprise for the evening would be the new flash-bulb attachment to her camera, which Slimane had not yet seen. She intended to take a good many pictures of the crèche and of Slimane looking at it; these she would enlarge to show her pupils. She went and bought a new turban for Slimane; he had been wearing none for more than a year now. This was a man’s turban, and very fine: ten meters of the softest Egyptian cotton.

  The day before Christmas she overslept, duped by the heavy sky. Each winter the oasis had a few dark days; they were rare, but this was one of them. While she still lay there in bed, she heard the roar of the wind, and when she got up to look out the window she found no world outside—only a dim rose-gray fog that hid everything. The swirling sand sprayed ceaselessly against the glass; it had formed in long drifts on the floor of the terrace. When she went for breakfast, she wore her burnoose with the hood up around her face. The blast of the wind as she stepped out onto the terrace struck her with the impact of a solid object, and the sand gritted on the concrete floor under her shoes. In the dining-room Boufelja had bolted the shutters; he greeted her enthusiastically from the gloom inside, glad of her presence.

  “A very bad day for your festival, alas, mademoiselle!” he observed as he set her coffee pot on the table.

  “Tomorrow’s the festival,” she said. “It begins tonight.”

  “I know. I know.” He was impatient with Nazarene feasts because the hours of their beginnings and ends were observed in so slipshod a manner. Moslem feasts began precisely, either at sundown or an hour before sunup, or when the new moon was first visible in the western sky at twilight. But the Nazarenes began their feasts whenever they felt like it.

  She spent the morning in her room writing letters. By noon the air outside was darker with still more sand; the wind shook the hotel atop its rock as if it would hurl it over the tips of the palms below into the river-bed. Several times she rose and went to the window to stare out at the pink emptiness beyond the terrace. Storms made her happy, although she wished this one could have come after Christmas. She had imagined a pure desert night—cold, alive with stars, and the dogs yapping from the oasis. It might yet be that; there was still time, she thought, as she slipped her burnoose over her head to go in to lunch.

  With the wind, the fireplace was an unsure blessing: besides the heat it gave, it provided the only light in the dining-room, but the smoke that belched from it burned her eyes and throat. The shutters at the windows rattled and pounded, covering the noise of the wind itself.

  She got out of the dining-room as soon as she had finished eating, and hurried back to her room to sit through the slowly darkening afternoon, as she continued with her letter-writing and waited for the total extinction of daylight, Slimane was coming at eight. There would be enough time to carry everything into the dining-room before that, and to set the crèche up in the dark unused wing into which Boufelja was unlikely to go. But when she came to do it, she found that the wind’s force was even greater than she had imagined. Again and again she made the trip between her room and the dining-room, carrying each object carefully wrapped in her burnoose. Each time she passed in front of the kitchen door she expected Boufelja to open it and discover her. She did not want him there when she showed the crèche to Slimane; he could see it tomorrow at breakfast.

  Protected by the noise of the gale she succeeded in transporting all the parts to the far dark corner of the dining-room without alerting Boufelja. Long before dinner time the crèche was in readiness, awaiting only the lighting of the candles to be brought alive. She left a box of matches on the table beside it, and hurried back to her room to arrange her hair and change her clothing. The sand had sifted through her garments and was now everywhere; it showered from her underwear and stuck like sugar to her skin. Her watch showed a few minutes after eight when she went out.

  Only one place had been laid at table. She waited, while the blinds chattered and banged, until Boufelja appeared carrying the soup tureen.

  “What a bad night,” he said.

  “You forgot to prepare for Slimane,” she told him. But he was not paying attention. “He’s stupid!” he exclaimed, beginning to ladle out the soup.

  “Wait!” she cried. “Slimane’s coming. I mustn’t eat until he comes.”

  Still Boufelja misunderstood. “He wanted to come into the dining-room,” he said. “And he knows it’s forbidden at dinner time.”

  “But I invited him!” She looked at the lone soup plate on the table. “Tell him to come in, and set another place.”

  Boufelja was silent. He put the ladle back into the tureen. “Where is he?” she demanded, and without waiting for him to reply she went on. “Didn’t I tell you he was going to have dinner with me tonight?” For suddenly she suspected that in her desire for secrecy she might indeed have neglected to mention the invitation to Boufelja.

  “You didn’t say anything,” he told her. “I didn’t know. I sent him home. But he’ll be back after dinner.”

  “Oh, Boufelja!” she cried. “You know Slimane never lies.”

  He looked down at her with reproach on his face. “I didn’t know anything about mademoiselle’s plans,” he said aggrievedly. This made her think for a swift instant that he had discovered the crèche, but she decided that if he had he would have spoken of it.

  “Yes, yes, I know. I should have told you. It’s my fault.”

  “That’s true, mademoiselle,” he said. And he served the remaining courses observing a dignified silence which she, still feeling some displeasure with him, did not urge him to break. Only at the end of the meal, when she had pushed back her chair from the table and sat studying the pattern of the flames in the fireplace, did he decide to speak. “Mademoiselle w
ill take coffee?”

  “I do want some,” she said, trying to bring a note of enthusiasm into her voice. “Bien,” murmured Boufelja, and he left her alone in the room. When he returned carrying the coffee, Slimane was with him, and they were laughing, she noted, quite as though there had been no misunderstanding about dinner. Slimane stood by the door an instant, stamping his feet and shaking the sand from his burnoose. As he came forward to take her hand, she cried: “Oh, Slimane, it’s my fault! I forgot to tell Boufelja. It’s terrible!”

  “There is no fault, madame,” he said gravely. “This is a festival.”

  “Yes, this is a festival,” she echoed. “And the wind’s still blowing. Listen!”

  Slimane would not take coffee, but Boufelja, ceding to her pressure, let her pour him out a cup, which he drank standing by the fireplace. She suspected him of being secretly pleased that Slimane had not managed to eat with her. When he had finished his coffee, he wished them goodnight and went off to bed in his little room next to the kitchen.

  They sat a while watching the fire, without talking. The wind rushed past in the emptiness outside, the blinds hammered. Fräulein Windling was content. Even if the first part of the celebration had gone wrong, the rest of the evening could still be pleasant.

  She waited until she was sure that Boufelja had really gone to bed, and then she reached into her bag and brought out a small plastic sack full of chocolate creams, which she placed on the table.

  “Eat,” she said carelessly, and she took a piece of candy herself. With some hesitation Slimane put out his hand to take the sack. When he had a chocolate in his mouth, she began to speak. She intended to tell him the story of the Nativity, a subject she already had touched upon many times during their excursions, but only in passing. This time she felt she should tell him the entire tale. She expected him to interrupt when he discovered that it was a religious story, but he merely kept his noncommittal eyes on her and chewed mechanically, showing that he followed her by occasionally nodding his head. She became engrossed in what she was saying, and began to use her arms in wide gestures. Slimane reached for another chocolate and went on listening.

  She talked for an hour or more, aware as from a distance of her own eloquence. When she told him about Bethlehem she was really describing Slimane’s own village, and the house of Joseph and Mary was the house down in the ksar where Slimane had been born. The night sky arched above the Oued Zousfana and its stars glared down upon the cold hammada. Across the erg on their camels came the Wise Men in their burnooses and turbans, pausing at the crest of the last great dune to look ahead at the valley where the dark village lay. When she had finished, she blew her nose.

  Slimane appeared to be in a state bordering on trance. She glanced at him, expected him to speak, but as he did not, she looked more closely at him. His eyes had an obsessed, vacant expression, and although they were still fixed on her face, she would have said that he was seeing something much farther away than she. She sighed, not wanting to make the decision to rouse him. The possibility she would have liked to entertain, had she not been so conscious of its unlikelihood, was that the boy somehow had been captivated by the poetic truth of the story, and was reviewing it in his imagination. “Certainly it could not be the case,” she decided; it was more likely that he had ceased some time back to listen to her words, and was merely sitting there, only vaguely aware that she had come to the end of her story.

  Then he spoke. “You’re right. He was the King of Men.”

  Fräulein Windling caught her breath and leaned forward, but he went on. “And later Satan sent a snake with two heads. And Jesus killed it. Satan was angry with Him. He said: ‘Why did you kill my friend? Did it hurt you, perhaps?’ And Jesus said: ‘I knew where it came from.’ And Satan put on a black burnoose. That’s true,” he added, as he saw the expression of what he took to be simple disbelief on her face.

  She sat up very straight and said: “Slimane, what are you talking about? There are no such stories about Jesus. Nor about Sidna Aissa either.” She was not sure of the accuracy of this last statement; it was possible, she supposed, that such legends did exist among these people. “You know those are just stories that have nothing to do with the truth.”

  He did not hear her because he had already begun to talk. “I’m not speaking of Sidna Aissa,” he said firmly. “He was a Moslem prophet. I’m talking about Jesus, the prophet of the Nazarenes. Everyone knows that Satan sent Him a snake with two heads.”

  She listened to the wind for an instant. “Ah,” she said, and took another chocolate; she did not intend to carry the argument further. Soon she dug into her bag again and pulled out the turban, wrapped in red and white tissue paper.

  “A present for you,” she said, holding it out to him. He seized it mechanically, placed it on his lap and remained staring down at it. “Aren’t you going to open it?” she demanded.

  He nodded his head twice and tore open the paper. When he saw the pile of white cotton he smiled. Seeing his face at last come to life, she jumped up. “Let’s put it on you!” she exclaimed. He gave her one end, which she pulled taut by walking all the way to the door. Then with his hand holding the other end to his forehead, he turned slowly round and round, going toward her all the time, arranging the form of the turban as it wound itself about his head. “Magnificent!” she cried. He went over to the row of black windows to look at himself.

  “Can you see?” she asked.

  “Yes, I can see the sides of it,” he told her. “It’s very beautiful.”

  She walked back toward the center of the room. “I’d like to take your picture, Slimane,” she said, seeing an immediate look of puzzlement appear in his face. “Would you do me a favor? Go to my room and get the camera.”

  “At night? You can take a picture at night?”

  She nodded, smiling mysteriously. “And bring me the yellow box on the bed.”

  Keeping the turban on his head, he got into his burnoose, took her flashlight and went out, letting the wind slam the door. She hoped the sound had not wakened Boufelja; for an instant she listened while there was no sound but the roar of air rushing through the corridor outside. Then she ran to the dark wing of the room and struck a match. Quickly she lighted all the candles around the crèche, straightened a camel in the sand, and walked back around the corner to the fireplace. She would not have thought the candles could give so much light. The other end of the room was now brighter than the end where she stood. In a moment the door burst open and Slimane came back in, carrying the camera slung over his shoulder. He put it down carefully on the table. “There was no yellow box on the bed,” he told her. Then his glance caught the further walls flickering with the unfamiliar light, and he began to walk toward the center of the room. She saw that this was the moment. “Come,” she said, taking his arm and pulling him gently around the corner to where the crèche was finally visible, bright with its multiple shuddering points of light. Slimane said nothing; he stopped walking and stood completely still. After a moment of silence, she plucked tentatively at his arm. “Come and see,” she urged him. They continued to walk toward the crèche; as they came up to it she had the impression that if she had not been there he would have reached out his hand and touched it, perhaps would have lifted the tiny gold-clad infant Jesus out of His bed of feathers. But he stood quietly, looking at it. Finally he said: “You brought all that from Switzerland?”

  “Of course not!” It was a little disappointing that he should not have recognized the presence of the desert in the picture, should not have sensed that the thing was of his place, and not an importation. “I made it all here,” she said. She waited an instant. “Do you like it?”

  “Ah, yes,” he said with feeling. “It’s beautiful. I thought it came from Switzerland.”

  To be certain that he understood the subject-matter, she began to identify the figures one by one, her voice taking on such an unaccustomed inflection of respect that he glanced up at her once in surprise. It was
almost as if she too were seeing it for the first time. “And the Wise Men are coming down out of the erg to see the child.”

  “Why did you put all those almonds there?” asked Slimane, touching some with his forefinger.

  “They’re gifts for the little Jesus.”

  “But what are you going to do with them?” he pursued.

  “Eat them, probably, later,” she said shortly. “Take one if you like. You say there was no yellow box on the bed?” She wanted to take the photographs while the candles were still of equal height.

  “There was nothing but a sweater and some papers, madame.”

  She left him there by the crèche, crossed the room and put on her burnoose. The darkness in the corridor was complete; there was no sign that Boufelja had awakened. She knew her room was in great disorder, and she played the beam of the flashlight around the floor before entering. In the welter of displaced things that strewed the little room there seemed small chance of finding anything. The feeble ray illumined one by one the meaningless forms made by the piling of disparate objects one on the other; the light moved over the floor, along the bed, behind the flimsy curtain of the armoire. Suddenly she stopped and turned the beam under the bed. The box was in front of her face; she had put it with the crèche.

  “I mustn’t fall,” she thought, running along the corridor. She forced herself to slow her pace to a walk, entered the dining-room and shut the door after her carefully. Slimane was on his knees in the middle of the room, a small object of some sort in his hand. She noted with relief that he was amusing himself. “I’m sorry it took me so long,” she exclaimed. “I’d forgotten where I’d put it.” She was pulling her burnoose off over her head; now she hung it on a nail by the fireplace, and taking up the camera and the yellow box, she walked over to join him.