The Delicate Prey (22 page)

“Don't you consider Negores as good as you?” she asked.

“It's not a question of being as good, but of being as beautiful,” he answered firmly.

They had come out into a clearing on the hillside. He stopped and looked closely at her. He pulled his shirt off over his head. His body was white.

“My brother has blond hair,” he said with pride. Then confusedly he put the shirt back on and laid his arm about her shoulder. “You are beautiful because you have blue eyes. But even some of us have blue eyes. In any case, you are
magnificent!”
He started ahead again, singing a song in Spanish.

They came to a cactus fence, with a small gate of twisted barbed wire. A yellow puppy rushed up to the gate and barked delightedly.

“Don't be afraid,” said Mjid, although she had given no sign of fear. “You are my sister. He never bites the family.” Continuing down a dusty path between stunted palms which were quite dried-up and yellow, they came presently to a primitive bower made of bamboo stalks. In the center was a tiny bench beside a wall, and around the edges several dessicated rose plants grew out of the parched earth. From these he picked two bright red roses, placing one in her hair and the other under his
chechia,
so that it fell like a lock of hair over his forehead. The thick growth of thorny vines climbing over the trellises cast a shadow on the bench. They sat awhile in silence in the shade.

Mjid seemed lost in thought. Finally he took her hand. “I'm thinking,” he said in a whisper. “When one is far away from the town, in one's own garden, far from everyone, sitting where it is quiet, one always thinks. Or one plays music,” he added.

Suddenly she was conscious of the silence of the afternoon. Far in the distance she heard the forlorn crow of a cock. It made her feel that the sun would soon set, that all creation was on the brink of a great and final sunset. She abandoned herself to sadness, which crept over her like a chill.

Mjid jumped up. “If Ghazi wakes!” he cried. He pulled her arm impatiently. “Come, we'll take a walk!” They hurried down the path, through the gate, and across a bare stony plateau toward the edge of the mountain.

“There's a little valley nearby where the brother of the caretaker lives. We can go there and get some water.”

“Way down there?” she said, although she was encouraged by the possibility of escaping from Ghazi for the afternoon. Her mood of sadness had not left her. They were running downhill, leaping from one rock to the next. Her rose fell off and she had to hold it in her hand.

The caretaker's brother was cross-eyed. He gave them some foul-smelling water in an earthen jug.

“Is it from the well?” she inquired under her breath to Mjid.

His face darkened with displeasure. “When you're offered something to drink, even if it's poison, you should drink it and thank the man who offers it.”

“Ah,” she said. “So it is poison. I thought so.”

Mjid seized the jug from the ground between them, and taking it to the edge of the cliff, flung it down with elegant anger. The cross-eyed man protested, and then he laughed. Mjid did not look at him, but walked into the house and began a conversation with some of the Berber women inside, leaving her to face the peasant alone and stammer her dozen words of Arabic with him. The afternoon sun was hot, and the idea of some water to drink had completely filled her mind. She sat down perversely with her back to the view and played with pebbles, feeling utterly useless and absurd. The cross-eyed man continued to laugh at intervals, as if it provided an acceptable substitute for conversation.

When Mjid finally came out, all his ill-humor had vanished. He put out his hand to help her up, and said: “Come, we'll climb back up and have tea at the farm. I have my own room there. I decorated it myself. You'll look at it and tell me if you have as pleasant a room in your house in America for drinking tea.” They set off, up the mountain.

The woman at the villa was obsequious. She fanned the charcoal fire and fetched water from the well. The children were playing a mysterious, quiet game at a far end of the enclosure. Mjid led her into the house, through several dim rooms, and finally into one that seemed the last in the series. It was cooler, and a bit darker than the others.

“You'll see,” said Mjid, clapping his hands twice. Nothing happened. He called peevishly. Presently the woman entered. She smoothed the mattresses on the floor, and opened the blinds of the one small window, which gave onto the sea. Then she lit several candles which she stuck onto the tile floor, and went out.

His guest stepped to the window. “Can you ever hear the sea here?”

“Certainly not. It's about six kilometers away.”

“But it looks as though you could drop a stone into it,” she objected, hearing the false inflection of her voice; she was not interested in the conversation, she had the feeling that everything had somehow gone wrong.

“What am I doing here? I have no business here. I said I wouldn't come.” The idea of such a picnic had so completely coincided with some unconscious desire she had harbored for many years. To be free, out-of-doors, with some young man she did not know—
could
not know—that was probably the important part of the dream. For if she could not know him, he could not know her. She swung the little blind shut and hooked it. A second later she opened it again and looked out at the vast expanse of water growing dim in the twilight.

Mjid was watching her. “You are crazy,” he said at last despairingly. “You find yourself here in this beautiful room. You are my guest. You should be happy. Ghazi has already left to go to town. A friend came by with a horse and he got a ride in. You could lie down, sing, drink tea, you could be happy with me . . .” He stopped, and she saw that he was deeply upset.

“What's the matter? What's the matter?” she said very quickly.

He sighed dramatically; perhaps it was a genuine sigh. She thought: “There is nothing wrong. It should have been a man, not a boy, that's all.” It did not occur to her to ask herself: “But would I have come if it had been a man?” She looked at him tenderly, and decided that his face was probably the most intense and beautiful she had ever seen. She murmured a word without quite knowing what it was.

“What?” he said.

She repeated it: “Incredible.”

He smiled inscrutably.

They were interrupted by the sound of the woman's bare feet slapping the floor. She had a tremendous tray bearing the teapot and its accessories.

While he made the tea, Mjid kept glancing at her as if to assure himself that she was still there. She sat perfectly still on one of the mattresses, waiting.

“You know,” he said slowly, “If I could earn money I'd go away tomorrow to wherever I could earn it. I finish school this year anyway, and my brother hasn't the money to send me to a Medersa at Fez. But even if he had it, I wouldn't go. I always stay away from school. Only my brother gets very angry.”

“What do you do instead? Go bathing?”

He laughed scornfully, sampled the tea, poured it back into the pot, and sat up on his haunches. “In another minute it will be ready. Bathing? Ah, my friend, it has to be something important for me to risk my brother's anger. I make love those days, all day long!”

“Really? You mean all day?” She was thoughtful.

“All day and most of the night. Oh, I can tell you it's marvelous, magnificent. I have a little room,” he crawled over to her and put his hand on her knee, looking up into her face with an eagerness born of faith. “A room my family knows nothing about, in the Casbah. And my little friend is twelve. She is like the sun, soft, beautiful, lovely. Here, take your tea.” He sipped from his glass noisily, smacking his lips.

“All day long,” she reflected aloud, settling back against the cushions.

“Oh, yes. But I'll tell you a secret. You have to eat as much as you can. But that's not so hard. You're that much hungrier.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. A little gust of wind blew along the floor and the candles flickered.

“How good it is to have tea and then lie down to rest!” he exclaimed, pouring her more tea and stretching out beside her on the mattress. She made a move as if to spring up, then lay still.

He went on. “It's curious that I never met you last year.”

“I wasn't in town very much. Only evenings. And then I was at the beach. I lived on the mountain.”

He sat up. “On this mountain here? And I never saw you! Oh, what bad luck!”

She described the house, and since he insisted, told him the rent she had paid. He was ferociously indignant. “For that miserable house that hasn't even a good well? You had to send your Mohammed down the road for water! I know all about that house. My poor friend, you were robbed! If I ever see that dirty bandit I'll smash his face. I'll demand the money you paid him, and we'll make a trip together.” He paused. “I mean, I'll give it to you of course, and you can decide what you want to do with it.”

As he finished speaking he held up her handbag, opened it, and took out her fountain pen. “It's a beautiful one,” he murmured. “Do you have many?”

“It's the only one.”

“Magnificent!” He tossed it back in and laid the bag on the floor.

Settling against the pillows he ruminated. “Perhaps some day I shall go to America, and then you can invite me to your house for tea. Each year we'll come back to Morocco and see our friends and bring back cinema stars and presents from New York.”

What he was saying seemed so ridiculous to her that she did not bother to answer. She wanted to ask him about the twelve-year-old girl, but she could find no excuse for introducing the subject again.

“You're not happy?” He squeezed her arm.

She raised herself to listen. Wit h the passing of the day the countryside had attained complete silence. From the distance she could hear a faint but clear voice singing. She looked at Mjid.

“The
muezzin?
You can hear it from here?”

“Of course. It's not so far to the Marshan. What good is a country house where you can't hear the
muezzin?
You might as well live in the Sahara.”

“Sh. I want to listen.”

“It's a good voice, isn't it? They have the strongest voices in the world.”

“It always makes me sad.”

“Because you're not of the faith.”

She reflected a minute and said: “I think that's true.” She was about to add: “But your faith says women have no souls.” Instead she rose from the mattress and smoothed her hair. The
muezzin
had ceased. She felt quite chilled. “This is over,” she said to herself. They stumbled down the dark road into town, saying very little on the way.

He took her to her small hotel. The cable she had vaguely expected for weeks was there. They climbed the stairs to her room, the concierge looking suspiciously after them. Once in the room, she opened the envelope. Mjid had thrown himself onto the bed.

“I'm leaving for Paris tomorrow.”

His face darkened, and he shut his eyes for an instant. “You must go away? All right. Let me give you my address.” He pulled out his wallet, searched for a piece of paper, and finding none, took a calling card someone had given him, and carefully wrote.

“Fuente Nueva,” he said slowly as he formed the letters. “It's my little room. I'll look every day to see if there's a letter.”

She had a swift vision of him, reading a letter in a window flooded with sunshine, above the city's terraced roofs, and behind him, in the darkness of the room, with a face wise beyond its years, a complacent child waiting.

He gave her the card. Underneath the address he had written the word “Incredible,” enclosed in quotation marks and underlined twice. She glanced quickly to see his face, but it betrayed nothing.

Below them the town was blue, the bay almost black.

“The lighthouse,” said Mjid.

“It's flashing,” she observed.

He turned and walked to the door. “Good-bye,” he said. “You will come back.” He left the door open and went down the stairs. She stood perfectly still and finally moved her head up and down a few times, as if thoughtfully answering a question. Through the open window in the hallway she heard his rapid footsteps on the gravel in the garden. They grew fainter.

She looked at the bed; at the edge, ready to fall to the floor, was the white card where she had tossed it. She wanted more than anything to lie down and rest. Instead, she went downstairs into the cramped little salon and sat in the corner looking at old copies of
L'Illustration.
It was almost an hour before dinner would be served.

By the Water

The melting snow dripped from the balconies. People hurried through the little street that always smelled of frying fish. Now and then a stork swooped low, dragging his sticklike legs below him. The small gramophones scraped day and night behind the walls of the shop where young Amar worked and lived. There were few spots in the city where the snow was ever cleared away, and this was not one of them. So it gathered all through the winter months, piling up in front of the shop doors.

But now it was late winter; the sun was warmer. Spring was on the way, to confuse the heart and melt the snow. Amar, being alone in the world, decided it was time to visit a neighboring city where his father had once told him some cousins lived.

Early in the morning he went to the bus station. It was still dark, and the empty bus came in while he was drinking hot coffee. The road wound through the mountains all the way.

When he arrived in the other city it was already dark. Here the snow was even deeper in the streets, and it was colder. Because he had not wanted to, Amar had not foreseen this, and it annoyed him to be forced to wrap his burnous closely about him as he left the bus station. It was an unfriendly town; he could tell that immediately. Men walked with their heads bent forward, and if they brushed against a passer-by they did not so much as look up. Excepting the principal street, which had an arc-light every few meters, there seemed to be no other illumination, and the alleys that led off on either side lay in utter blackness; the white-clad figures that turned into them disappeared straightway.

“A bad town,” said Amar under his breath. He felt proud to be coming from a better and larger city, but his pleasure was mingled with anxiety about the night to be passed in this inimical place. He abandoned the idea of trying to find his cousins before morning, and set about looking for a fondouk or a bath where he might sleep until daybreak.

Only a short distance ahead the street-lighting system terminated. Beyond, the street appeared to descend sharply and lose itself in darkness. The snow was uniformly deep here, and not cleared away in patches as it had been nearer the bus station. He puckered his lips and blew his breath ahead of him in little clouds of steam. As he passed over into the unlighted district he heard a few languid notes being strummed on an oud. The music came from a doorway on his left. He paused and listened. Someone approached the doorway from the other direction and inquired, apparently of the man with the oud, if it was “too late.”

“No,” the musician answered, and he played several more notes.

Amar went over to the door.

“Is there still time?” he said.

“Yes.”

He stepped inside the door. There was no light, but he could feel warm air blowing upon his face from the corridor to the right. He walked ahead, letting his hand run along the damp wall beside him. Soon he came into a large dimly lit room with a tile floor. Here and there, at various angles, figures lay asleep, wrapped in gray blankets. In a far comer a group of men, partially dressed, sat about a burning brazier, drinking tea and talking in low tones. Amar slowly approached them, taking care not to step on the sleepers.

The air was oppressively warm and moist.

“Where is the bath?” said Amar.

“Down there,” answered one of the men in the group, without even looking up. He indicated the dark comer to his left. And, indeed, now that Amar considered it, it seemed to him that a warm current of air came up from that part of the room. He went in the direction of the dark comer, undressed, and leaving his clothes in a neat pile on a piece of straw matting, walked toward the warmth. He was thinking of the misfortune he had encountered in arriving in this town at nightfall, and he wondered if his clothes would be molested during his absence. He wore his money in a leather pouch which hung on a string about his neck. Feeling vaguely of the purse under his chin, he turned around to look once again at his clothing. No one seemed to have noticed him as he undressed. He went on. It would not do to seem too distrustful. He would be embroiled immediately in a quarrel which could only end badly for him.

A little boy rushed out of the darkness toward him, calling: “Follow me, Sidi, I shall lead you to the bath.” He was extremely dirty and ragged, and looked rather more like a midget than a child. Leading the way, he chattered as they went down the slippery, warm steps in the dark. “You will call for Brahim when you want your tea? You're a stranger. You have much money. . . .”

Amar cut him short. “You'll get your coins when you come to wake me in the morning. Not tonight.”

“But, Sidi! I'm not allowed in the big room. I stay in the doorway and show gentlemen down to the bath. Then I go back to the doorway. I can't wake you.”

“I'll sleep near the doorway. It's warmer there, in any case.”

“Lazrag will be angry and terrible things will happen. I'll never get home again, or if I do I might be a bird so my parents will not know me. That's what Lazrag does when he gets angry.”

“Lazrag?”

“It is his place here. You'll see him. He never goes out. If he did the sun would burn him in one second, like a straw in the fire. He would fall down in the street burned black the minute he stepped out of the door. He was bom down here in the grotto.”

Amar was not paying strict attention to the boy's babble. They were descending a wet stone ramp, putting one foot before the other slowly in the dark, and feeling the rough wall carefully as they went. There was the sound of splashing water and voices ahead.

“This is a strange
hammam,”
said Amar. “Is there a pool full of water?”

“A pool! You've never heard of Lazrag's grotto? It goes on forever, and it's made of deep warm water.”

As the boy spoke, they came out onto a stone balcony a few meters above the beginning of a very large pool, lighted beneath where they stood by two bare electric bulbs, and stretching away through the dimness into utter dark beyond. Parts of the roof hung down, “Like gray icicles,” thought Amar, as he looked about in wonder. But it was very warm down here. A slight pall of steam lay above the surface of the water, rising constantly in wisps toward the rocky ceiling. A man dripping with water ran past them and dove in. Several more were swimming about in the brighter region near the lights, never straying beyond into the gloom. The plunging and shouting echoed violently beneath the low ceiling.

Amar was not a good swimmer. He turned to ask the boy: “Is it deep?” but he had already disappeared back up the ramp. He stepped backward and leaned against the rock wall. There was a low chair to his right, and in the murky light it seemed to him that a small figure was close beside it. He watched the bathers for a few minutes. Those standing at the edge of the water soaped themselves assiduously; those in the water swam to and fro in a short radius below the lights. Suddenly a deep voice spoke close beside him. He looked down as he heard it say: “Who are you?”

The creature's head was large; its body was small and it had no legs or arms. the lower part of the trunk ended in two flipper-like pieces of flesh. From the shoulders grew short pincers. It was a man, and it was looking up at him from the floor where it rested.

“Who are you?” it said again, and its tone was unmistakably hostile.

Amar hesitated. “I came to bathe and sleep,” he said at last.

“Who gave you permission?”

“The man at the entrance.”

“Get out. I don't know you.”

Amar was filled with anger. He looked down with scorn at the little being, and stepped away from it to join the men washing themselves by the water's edge. But more swiftly than he moved, it managed to throw itself along the floor until it was in front of him, when it raised itself again and spoke.

“You think you can bathe when I tell you to get out?” It laughed shortly, a thin sound, but deep in pitch. Then it moved closer and pushed its head against Amar's legs. He drew back his foot and kicked the head, not very hard, but with enough firmness to send the body off balance. The thing rolled over in silence, making efforts with its neck to keep from reaching the edge of the platform. The men all looked up. An expression of fear was on their faces. As the little creature went over the edge it yelled. The splash was like that of a large stone. Two men already in the water swam quickly to the spot. The others started up after Amar, shouting: “He hit Lazrag!”

Bewildered and frightened, Amar turned and ran back to the ramp. In the blackness he stumbled upward. Part of the wall scraped his bare thigh. The voices behind him grew louder and more excited.

He reached the room where he had left his clothing. Nothing had changed. The men still sat by the brazier talking. Quickly he snatched the pile of garments, and struggling into his burnous, he ran to the door that led into the street, the rest of his clothes tucked under his arm. The man in the doorway with the oud looked at him with a startled face and called after him. Amar ran up the street barelegged toward the center of the town. He wanted to be where there were some bright lights. The few people walking in the street paid him no attention. When he got to the bus station it was closed. He went into a small park opposite, where the iron bandstand stood deep in snow. There on a cold stone bench he sat and dressed himself as unostentatiously as possible, using his burnous as a screen. He was shivering, reflecting bitterly upon his poor luck, and wishing he had not left his own town, when a small figure approached him in the half-light.

“Sidi,” it said, “come with me. Lazrag is hunting for you.”

“Where to?” said Amar, recognizing the urchin from the bath.

“My grandfather's.”

The boy began to run, motioning to him to follow. They went through alleys and tunnels, into the most congested part of the town. The boy did not bother to look back, but Amar did. They finally paused before a small door at the side of a narrow passageway. The boy knocked vigorously. From within came a cracked voice calling:
“Chkoun?”

“Annah!
Brahim!” cried the boy.

With great deliberation the old man swung the door open and stood looking at Amar.

“Come in,” he finally said; and shutting the door behind them he led them through the courtyard filled with goats into an inner room where a feeble light was flickering. He peered sternly into Amar's face.

“He wants to stay here tonight,” explained the boy.

“Does he think this is a
fondouk?”

“He has money,” said Brahim hopefully.

“Money!” the old man cried with scorn. “That's what you learn in the
hammam!
How to steal money! How to take money from men's purses! Now you bring them here! What do you want me to do? Kill him and get his purse for you? Is he too clever for you? You can't get it by yourself? Is that it?” The old man's voice had risen to a scream and he gestured in his mounting excitement. He sat down on a cushion with difficulty and was silent a moment.

“Money,” he said again, finally. “Let him go to a
fondouk
or a bath. Why aren't you at the
hammam?”
He looked suspiciously at his grandson.

The boy clutched at his friend's sleeve. “Come,” he said, pulling him out into the courtyard.

“Take him to the
hammam!”
yelled the old man. “Let him spend his money there!”

Together they went back into the dark streets.

“Lazrag is looking for you,” said the boy. “Twenty men will be going through the town to catch you and take you back to him. He is very angry and he will change you into a bird.”

“Where are we going now?” asked Amar gruffly. He was cold and very tired, and although he did not really believe the boy's story, he wished he were out of the unfriendly town.

“We must walk as far as we can from here. All night. In the morning we'll be far away in the mountains, and they won't find us. We can go to your city.”

Amar did not answer. He was pleased that the boy wanted to stay with him, but he did not think it fitting to say so. They followed one crooked street downhill until all the houses had been left behind and they were in the open country. The path led down a narrow valley presently, and joined the highway at one end of a small bridge. Here the snow was packed down by the passage of vehicles, and they found it much easier to walk along.

When they had been going down the road for perhaps an hour in the increasing cold, a great truck came rolling by. It stopped just ahead and the driver, an Arab, offered them a ride on top. They climbed up and made a nest of some empty sacks. The boy was very happy to be rushing through the air in the dark night. Mountains and stars whirled by above his head and the truck made a powerful roaring noise as it traveled along the empty highway.

“Lazrag has found us and changed us both into birds,” he cried when he could no longer keep his delight to himself. “No one will ever know us again.”

Amar grunted and went to sleep. But the boy watched the sky and the trees and the cliffs for a long time before he closed his eyes.

Some time before morning the truck stopped by a spring for water.

In the stillness the boy awoke. A cock crowed in the distance, and then he heard the driver pouring water. The cock crowed again, a sad, thin arc of sound away in the cold murk of the plain. It was not yet dawn. He buried himself deeper in the pile of sacks and rags, and felt the warmth of Amar as he slept.

When daylight came they were in another part of the land. There was no snow. Instead, the almond trees were in flower on the hillsides as they sped past. The road went on unwinding as it dropped lower and lower, until suddenly it came out of the hills upon a spot below which lay a great glittering emptiness. Amar and the boy watched it and said to each other that it must be the sea, shining in the morning light.

The spring wind pushed the foam from the waves along the beach; it rippled Amar's and the boy's garments landward as they walked by the edge of the water. Finally they found a sheltered spot between rocks, and undressed, leaving the clothes on the sand. The boy was afraid to go into the water, and found enough excitement in letting the waves break about his legs, but Amar tried to drag him out further.