The Stories of Paul Bowles (80 page)

As she ate, Mme. Massot demanded suddenly: “Who is responsible for this delicious food, monsieur?You?”

“I’m afraid not. It was Johara.”

“How lucky you are to have that woman. As soon as you’re gone, I’m going to try to get her.”

“But you don’t need her. You can prepare any dish you want by yourself.”

“Yes, if I don’t mind spending the entire day in the kitchen. Besides, it’s less of a pleasure to eat the food one has cooked oneself.”

“I imagine she’ll be delighted to go from one job directly to another,” said Tom.

“Oh, you never know with these people. They’re not greedy. They’re not ambitious. What seems to be most important for them is their relationship with their employer. He may be impossibly severe or completely casual. If they like him, they like him. This dish is superb,” she went on. “I know how it’s made, but I haven’t had much luck with it so far.”

“How
is
it made?” asked Tom.

“The base is tiny millet cakes. The caramel sauce is no problem, but the cream over it is a bit difficult. It’s the white meat of the coconut, macerated in a little of the coconut milk. It’s hard to get the right consistency. But your cook has done it to perfection.”

Tom was busy removing his paintings from the metal case in which he kept them. “I’ll just bring out the most recent things. I think they’re the best, anyway.”

“Oh, no!” objected Mme. Massot. “I want to see everything. Whatever you’ve done here, in any case.”

“That would take all night. You don’t realize how prolific I am.”

“Just show me what you want to show me, and I’ll be happy.” He passed her a sheaf of gouaches done on paper.

She studied each piece intently and at length. Suddenly she cried out in delight. “But these paintings are phenomenal! Of a subtlety! And of a
beauty! Let me see more! They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen, I assure you.”

As she continued to look, from time to time she murmured:
“Invraisemblable.“

Anita, until now a spectator, spoke. “Show her
La Boucle du Niger,”
she urged Tom. “Can you get at it? I think it’s one of the most successful of all.”

He seemed annoyed by her declaration. “In what way successful?”

“I love the landscape on the far side of the river,” she explained.

“I’ll come to it,” he said gruffly. “I’ve got them arranged the way I want them.”

Mme. Massot continued to study the pictures. “I begin to understand your method,” she murmured. “It’s very clever. Often a question of letting pure chance in one detail decide the treatment of the entire painting. You remain flexible up to the final moment. Isn’t that true?”

“Sometimes,” he agreed, noncommittally. A moment later he said: “I think that’s enough to give you an idea of what I’ve been doing here.”

Mme. Massot’s eyes shone. “You’re a genius! You’ll surely have an enormous success with these. They’re irresistible.”

When Johara had cleared away the coffee cups, Mme. Massot rose. “I still intend to try to get that woman when you’ve gone,” she told them. “You’re going this week?”

“As soon as we can get out,” Anita said.

“Let’s go upstairs and see how the weather is behaving,” Tom suggested. “You haven’t got Monsieur Bessier to drive you home.”

He and Mme. Massot walked to the door. “You coming?” he asked Anita. She shook her head, and he shut the door from the outside.

They were gone longer than was necessary for determining whether or not the wind had diminished. She sat in the shut-in room, feeling that the lunch had been a waste of time. When they came down, Mme. Massot was insisting that it was unnecessary for Tom to accompany her home. Anita saw, however, that he was determined to go with her. “But everyone knows me here,” she was objecting, “and it’s not yet dark. No one would think of bothering me. Anyway, the wind has died down and there’s practically no dust in the air. Do stay here.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

WHEN MME. MASSOT HAD MADE
a somewhat formal adieu to Anita, they went out, and Anita hurried upstairs onto the roof, to breathe some fresh air. The wind was no longer raging, and the town’s soft landscape of mud was once more visible. It was very quiet; only an occasional dog barked to pierce the silence. The knowledge that very soon she would be leaving buoyed up her spirits, so that she was able to feel a certain sense of responsibility vis-à-vis the house. It seemed to her that it would be a good idea to go down and thank Johara for having taken such pains to prepare an excellent dinner for their guest. Johara, standing in the kitchen lighted by two candles, received the praise with her usual imperturbable dignity. Communication with her was difficult, so Anita smiled and went out into the courtyard, turning her flashlight in all directions. Then she went back to the room where they had eaten, and where the pressure lamp was roaring. She had left the door open when she had gone up onto the roof, and the room was now aired. She sat down on the cushions and began to read.

Sooner than she expected, he was back, his T-shirt completely wet.

“Why all the sweat?” she said. “It’s not that hot.”

“I practically jogged all the way back.”

“You didn’t have to do that. There’s no hurry.”

She read a few more lines, and put the book on the couch beside her. “Anyway, now we know she’s not a dyke,” she said.

“Are you out of your mind?” he cried. “Still thinking about that? Besides, why do we know now and didn’t before? Because she didn’t make a pass at you?”

She glanced at him an instant. “Ah, shut your beak! It was pretty clear to me that she’s interested in you.”

“What made it so clear?”

“Oh, the way she purred over your pictures, for one thing.”

“Just French manners.”

“Yes. I know. But no etiquette demands such fulsome praise as she was dishing out.”

“Fulsome? It was perfectly sincere. As a matter of fact, a lot of what she said was very much to the point.”

“I can see you respond to flattery.”

“You can’t believe that anyone could get excited about my painting, I know.”

“Oh, Tom, you’re impossible. I didn’t say that, but my personal opinion is that it wasn’t your pictures that excited her today.”

“You mean she has a sexual interest?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“Well, suppose she did, and suppose I reciprocated it, would that be important?”

“Obviously not. But I think it’s interesting.”

“You were just trying to keep me on the straight and narrow as far as my work is involved. You’re right, of course, and I ought to appreciate it. But I don’t. It’s too much fun to be told how good you are. You want to stay up there for a while, savoring all the nice things you’ve just been told.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I certainly didn’t mean to belittle your work, or depress you.”

“Probably you didn’t, but talking about it now depresses me.”

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry. “On the way to her house did Mme. Massot go on about your painting?”

He was angry. “She did not.” A moment later he continued. “She had a long complicated story to tell, about two students from Yale who were found dead last week out near Gargouna. We never hear anything here. Old Monsieur Bessier was called in. The police had heard that his truck had been seen out there a couple of days before they found them. Of course it had, because we were in it. The kids had a motorcycle, and they were trying to run it in the sand.”

“They had an accident?” She managed to keep her voice normal. “There’s no need,” she thought. “No one knows anything.”

“They went into some big rocks, and were pretty much cut up. But apparently it wasn’t their injuries that killed them.”

“What was it?” Her voice was much too feeble, but he did not notice. “I’ve got to continue this dialogue as though it meant absolutely nothing,” she told herself.

“It was insolation. The damn fools were wearing no clothes. Only shorts. Nobody’s sure when the accident happened, but they must have lain there naked for two or three days, getting more burned and scorched by the hour. It’s a mystery why nobody from the village saw them before that. But people don’t wander around in the dunes much, of course. And by the time somebody did see them, the sun had finished them off.”

“What a shame.” She saw the two again, the bright red and blue shorts, the blood on the bronzed bodies and the bent chromium cage above them. “The poor boys. How awful.”

Tom went on talking, but she did not hear him. A little later she murmured: “How terrible.”

NOW, WHEN THEY WERE
within a few days of leaving to go to Paris, Anita began to feel an acute need to clear her mind of the fog of doubts and fears that had been plaguing her since the day at Gargouna. The dream was of course at the core; she had not experienced it for several nights. There was also the question of Sekou. If she left here without a satisfactory explanation of his connection with the dream, she would consider it a major failure on her part. The monsters were dead. Sekou was alive; he might be of help.

“Is Sekou around?” she inquired of Tom. He looked surprised. “Why?You want to see him?”

“I’d like to take a walk along the river, and I thought he might go with me.”

Tom hesitated. “I don’t know whether he’s up to it. He’s been having trouble with an infected leg. I’ll see if he’s in the house somewhere and let you know.”

He found him sitting in a room near the kitchen, and suggested that he let him sterilize the wound again. Sekou became hesitant when he saw Anita standing outside the door.

“You can come in and watch, if you want,” Tom told her. He had no patience with the excessive prudery of the local males. “It’s a mean gash, all the way from the ankle up to the knee. I don’t wonder it got infected. But it’s a lot better.” He tore away the strips that held the bandage in place. “It’s all dry,” he announced. There’s no use asking him if it hurts, because he’ll say no, even if the pain is killing him.
“Tout va bien maintenant?”
Sekou smiled and said:
“Merci beaucoup. La plaie s’est fermée.”

“He’ll be able to walk with you,” Tom said.

Sekou seemed relieved when Tom pulled his gandoura down and covered the leg.

As they went along the edge of the river, Anita inquired what had
happened to cause such a deep cut. “You saw,” he said, surprised at the question. “You were there. You saw how the tourists ran their machine into me.”

“I thought so,” she said. “Oh, those two monsters.” It helped to speak of them thus, even knowing that she was partially responsible for their deaths.

The wind was beginning again to blow, and the air was being filled with dust. There were not many fishermen in the river today. It was twilight at mid-morning.

“You say they were devils,” proceeded Sekou. “But they weren’t devils. They were ignorant young men. I know you were very angry with them, and you put a curse on them.”

Anita was astonished. “What?” she cried.

“You said they were going to be in trouble and you would be happy to see them suffering. I think they have gone away.”

Her impulse was to say: “They’re dead,” but she held her tongue, thinking it strange that he had not heard the news.

“I had already forgiven them, but I know you had not. When my leg hurt very much, Monsieur Tom gave me an injection. I told myself maybe the pain would stop if you forgave them, too. One night I dreamed I went and spoke to you. I wanted to hear you say it. But you said: ‘No. They are devils. They nearly killed me. Why should I forgive them?’ Then I knew that you would never forgive them.”

“Monsters,” Anita murmured, “not devils.” He seemed not to have heard her.

“Then thanks to God, Monsieur Tom made my leg well again.”

“Shall we go back? The air is full of dust.” They turned and began to walk in the other direction. For some minutes they were silent. Eventually Anita said: “In your dream, did you want me to go and see them, tell them I forgave them?”

“It would have made me very happy, yes. But I did not dare ask you to do that. I thought it would be enough to hear you say ‘I forgive them.’”

“It doesn’t do any good for me to say now ‘I forgive them,’ does it? But I do forgive them.” Her voice was a bit tearful. He noticed it, and stood still.

“Of course it does! It does good for you. If you have anger inside yourself it’s poison for you. Everyone should always forgive everyone.”

During the rest of the walk she was silent, thinking of her own dream in which forgiveness played no part, for Yindall and Fambers could only be what she had decided they were beforehand. They were monsters, thus her unconscious had to supply a world for them where everything was monstrous.

She thought of Sekou’s interpretation of her furious words to the cyclists. In a sense it was quite accurate. Her behavior was exactly what constituted putting a curse on someone, although she would not have described the thing in those terms. Without understanding the words, he had seized their import. Basic emotions have their own language.

She had been right. Sekou’s intense desire had, through his dream, put him in contact with the dark side of her mind and forced her to seek out Yindall and Fambers. (She had no other names to give them.)

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
Tom, who had gone out early not to run beside the river, but to walk to the market, returned in a state of excitement. “A real stroke of luck!” he cried. “I ran into Bessier. His nephew’s here and he’s leaving tomorrow, and he says there’s room for us in his Land Rover. That way we’re sure of getting to Mopti before the rain starts.”

Anita, delighted by the prospect of going, nevertheless asked: “ Why Mopti before the rain?”

“Because the road between here and there is impassable once the rain begins. From Mopti on it’s relatively smooth sailing. The ride’ll save us a lot of worry. And I won’t have to pay out a fortune to rent a vehicle that would get us through. So, can you get packed?”

She laughed. “I’ve got practically nothing with me, you know. I can get it all together in a half hour.”

The idea of leaving, of seeing a landscape different from the endless lightstruck emptiness here stimulated her. She felt, however, a certain ambivalence. She had begun to care for the flat sand-colored town, knowing that she would never see another place quite like it. Nor, it occurred to her, would she ever find another person with the same uncomplicated purity of Sekou. (She knew that she would continue to think of him in the days to come.)