by Paul Bowles
(1986)
An Inopportune Visit
AFTER SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS of traveling in space Santa Rosenda conceived a desire to return to Earth. Recently she had been homesick for her native land, and she had an unreasoning belief that feeling the Spanish earth beneath her feet once more would make her happy. She did not announce her arrival. If she were recognized, the attention she would attract would make the peace she sought an impossibility.
Yet for Santa Rosenda to feel entirely in touch with the Earth, it was necessary for her to materialize; only then could she be persuaded of the reality of what was around her. This of course made her visible—a drawback, partially because of her anachronistic clothing, and even more because the slight aura around her head bore the unmistakable form of a halo.
Her arrival was sudden: she simply appeared one afternoon from behind a clump of bushes in the public garden of a provincial Spanish city. A woman who taught chemistry at the nearby college was sitting on a bench. When she saw Santa Rosenda she sprang up in a panic and ran off. This did not augur well for a restful time on Earth, and Santa Rosenda realized then that she must avoid cities.
Accordingly she made a landing in a field outside a small village on the island of Menorca. She had chosen to come down in the field because the contours of the landscape pleased her, and she believed it to be deserted. But a village girl was crouched there gathering greens, and the sudden arrival of Santa Rosenda made her spring up in amazement. At this, Santa Rosenda quickly dematerialized, but it was too late. The girl rushed back to the village crying that she had witnessed a miracle. Her story was given complete credence. Several hundred people hurried to the field hoping for a glimpse of the saintly presence. Hovering above, Santa Rosenda observed them with distaste, and determined to transfer herself to the mainland. The problem was to find a pleasant spot where she could stay without fear of being seen.
Considering the various difficulties with which she had to contend, it is surprising that she did not renounce her project and return to space. She had no means of communicating with people, even if she had desired to do so, since she was without a voice. She could neither read nor write, for in her time literacy had not been considered necessary, even for saints.
These were not ideal conditions under which to return to her homeland, but she had no choice in the matter. If she wanted to be on Earth she must accept them. Such minor disadvantages, however, were more than outweighed by her having no need either to eat or to sleep, and above all by her ability to dematerialize at any moment if necessary, much as she disliked the sensation. In any case, she had not returned in order to converse with people; on the contrary, she hoped to avoid all contact with them.
Thus when she found an inviting cave in the side of a hill, she established herself not far from its entrance where she could gaze out at the sunlit landscape, and then close her eyes and meditate upon the differences which had come about since she had last left the earth. She knew that stasis did not exist on the planet, that everything was in a state of constant flux, thus she was not astonished by the extraordinary changes which she could sense had come about during her absence. Her clothing preoccupied her principally, for she realized that more than anything else it was the garments she wore which called attention to the disparity between her appearance and that of other women. She would not find the peace she sought until somehow she had managed to make herself indistinguishable from them. With this in mind, she wrapped her head in a rag she had found there in the cave. At least, she thought, the halo would not show.
One afternoon when she opened her eyes for a moment, she discovered two small boys playing not far from the entrance to the cave. They had seen her, she realized, but they appeared to take no particular notice of her. Reassured, she shut her eyes again. The next time she opened them, the boys were gone. They came nearly every day, always remaining at some distance from the cave.
What she did not know was that the boys had told their parents about the strange woman who was always seated there in the same spot, day after day. Since there was a military barracks with an airstrip on the other side of the hill, the public had been requested to report any suspicious-looking individuals in the vicinity.
The boys’ father spoke to a civil guard about the continued presence of a woman in the cave, with the result that Santa Rosenda was visited by a group of soldiers, who obliged her to accompany them to a jeep waiting in the road on the other side of the woods. They plied her with questions which she heard and partially understood, but could not answer. Impelled largely by curiosity, she decided to acquiesce and go along with them; perhaps she could discover what they wanted of her. Besides, it seemed to her that there would be something highly indelicate about effecting a transformation and disappearing in front of them. She preferred to do that in private.
She was taken first to a police station, where she understood nothing of what was going on around her. From there they took her to a hospital, explaining to the nurse at the entrance that their charge was a deafmute. Another nurse led her to a small room and left her there by herself, locking the door. The doctor who was to examine her had caught a glimpse of her as she was brought into the building, and because of the outlandish clothing and the rag wrapped around her head, immediately suspected her of being a man in disguise. Hearing from the nurse that she could not speak merely strengthened his suspicion.
Vamos a ver, he said to himself as he opened the door of the room where she had been left. A moment earlier, Santa Rosenda, incensed at being shut into so tiny a room and wearied by the entire senseless procedure, had dematerialized. The room was empty. The doctor, in a fury, called the nurse and told her that her carelessness had allowed what was probably a dangerous criminal to escape. The nurse replied that the door had been locked, and that in any case, her opinion was that the woman was mentally deficient, nothing more. Nevertheless, the police were alerted and a search was inaugurated, beginning inside the hospital.
As the nurses and interns went through the building, looking in all the rooms, Santa Rosenda watched them, thinking that they were behaving like idiots. She could not imagine what they wanted of her, but she mistrusted their intentions. As she floated around the building, observing the turmoil she had caused, she came upon a cloakroom where the nurses left their street clothes before donning their uniforms. This was the stroke of good luck she had been hoping for. Dresses, sweaters and coats hung on hooks along the wall, and many of the lockers were open, disclosing more garments for her examination. It took her only about ten minutes to choose the pieces of clothing she wanted. There were shoes in which her feet were comfortable, and she discovered a large Italian silk kerchief to wind around her head in place of the rag. Now, it seemed to her, she could move through any street without attracting attention. To test her anonymity she walked out of the main entrance gate of the hospital, and passed unnoticed.
The city resembled no city she had ever seen. Its streets were thronged with people, and although they did not appear to be in a festive mood, she assumed they were celebrating a holiday of some sort. The automobiles (which she thought of as wagons) all emitted an unpleasant smoke as they passed. A few minutes of contact with the crowd to persuade her that she was truly anonymous, and then she would leave for a quiet spot in the country, and would not set foot again in a city.
All at once, mixed with the smells of the street, she recognized the faint odor of resin burning in a censer. To her left a doorway opened into a church. Santa Rosenda turned and entered.
Immediately she knew that everything was wrong. The illumination within was almost like sunlight, and it did not come from candles. The music was not what it should have been. She listened until the priest began to speak. She could not understand the words. Suddenly she realized with horror that he was speaking, not in Latin, but in the language of the street.
Without a thought in her head save that of reaching the man and stemming the flow of sacrilege, Santa Rosenda began to run toward the a
ltar. The few who noticed her did not try to stop her. Even when she was in front of the priest and he was staring into her face, he continued mechanically to intone the hateful words.
With both hands she pushed him in the chest, and for an instant they grappled, as people hurried in their direction. In the momentary struggle the silk kerchief was pulled from Santa Rosenda’s head, and before the eyes of everyone the circle of light shone above her hair. She did not wait to see the reaction of the priest or the congregation, but resumed her normal state of invisibility. The degradation of the Mass was one metamorphosis she was not prepared to accept, and she no longer had any desire to be on Earth. In a few more centuries she might return; she hoped that by then matters would have been set straight.
(1987)
In Absentia
(sent to Pamela Loeffler)
I’LL TRY TO KEEP this short so it won’t take you too much time to read it. I know how women worry when they have to settle into a new house, with new servants to take charge of, and when they’re faced with all those terrible decisions about how to place the furniture and where to store things.
This is a beautiful sunny day for a change. It’s been raining on and off this past week, so that the sudden appearance of bright sunlight is a tonic. And the sun made me think of you, who have always loved it as much as I. Do you still sunbathe, out there where you are, or is it too hot? I gave up the practice years ago. Too many of my friends developed skin cancer from it.
So this morning I woke up thinking: I shall write to Pamela today. I know it’s been a long time since we saw each other or communicated, but I’ve followed your activities from afar via what are admittedly unreliable sources: Time and the International Herald Tribune. And I can now congratulate you. (Nothing is sacred; everyone knows how much you got. But even that amount won’t ruin old Loeffler, so don’t ever feel guilt.) I can only remark that occasionally the scale tips in favor of justice, and I’m happy that you’ve been able to experience the phenomenon concretely.
