«I guess we have,» he said. It was a solution, he thought, but it was not the right one, because it would undo everything he had done. It had to be his way, he said to himself. He knew what the other way was like.
«Do you think we could have some tea before we leave?» Daisy inquired suddenly. «It would help». («She doesn’t understand,» he thought.)
«I’m not going,» he said.
«Oh, darling, don’t be difficult». He had never seen her eyes so large and serious. «It’s late. You know God-damned well you’re going. There’s nothing else you can do. The trouble is you just can’t make up your mind to face Jack and Ronny. But you’ve got to face them, that’s all».
«I tell you I’m not going».
«Rot! Rubbish! Now come! Don’t disgust me with your fear. There’s nothing more revolting than a man who’s afraid».
He laughed unpleasantly.
«Come along, now,» she said in a comfortable voice, as though each sentence she had uttered until then had succeeded in persuading him a little. «Make some good hot tea and we’ll each have a cup. Then we’ll go back. It’s that simple». As a new idea occurred to her, she looked around the room for the first time. «Where’s the Beidaoui boy? Not that I can take him; he’ll have to get back by himself, but I daresay that offers no particular problem».
Because what had been going on for the past half-hour had been in a world so absolutely alien to the one he had been living in (where the mountain wind blew and rattled the door), that world of up here, like something of his own invention, had receded, become unlikely, momentarily effaced itself. He caught his breath, said nothing. At the same time he glanced swiftly over her shoulder toward the kitchen door, and felt his heart make a painful movement in his chest. For an instant his eyes opened very wide. Then he looked into her face, frowning and not letting his eyelids resume their natural position too quickly. «I don’t know,» he said, hoping that his expression could be interpreted as one of no more than normal concern. With the wind, the door had swung outward a little, and a helpless hand showed through the opening. «I haven’t seen him all day. He was gone when I woke up».
Now his heart was pounding violently, and the inside of his head pushed against his skull as if it would break through the fragile wall. He tried to play the old game with himself. «It’s not true. He’s not lying there». It would not work. He knew positively, even without looking again; games were finished. He sat in the room, he was the center of a situation of whose every detail he was aware; the very presence of the hand gave him his unshakable certainty, his conviction that his existence, along with everything in it, was real, solid, undeniable. Later he would be able to look straight at this knowledge without the unbearable, bursting anguish, but now, at the beginning, sitting beside Daisy in the room where the knowledge had been born, it was too much. He jumped to his feet.
«Tea?» he cried crazily. «Yeah, sure. Of course». He stepped to the front door and looked out: the chauffeur and the guide were still sitting down there in the gathering gloom, on opposite sides of the path. «I don’t know where he is,» he said. «He’s been gone all day». It was still raining a little, but in a moment it would fall harder. A dense cloud was drifting down from the invisible peaks above. In the wet gray twilight everything was colorless. He heard a sound behind him, turned and stood frozen as he watched Daisy rise slowly, deliberately, walk into the patio, her eyes fixed on the bottom of the kitchen door. She pulled it all the way open, and bent down, her back to him. He was not sure, but he thought he heard, a second later, a slight, almost inaudible cry. And she stayed crouching there a long time. Little by little the dead, flat sound of the falling rain spread, increased. He started to walk across the room toward the patio, thinking: «This is the moment to show her I’m not afraid. Not afraid of what she thinks». Because of the rain splattering from the eaves into the patio, she did not hear him coming until he was almost in the doorway. She looked up swiftly; there were tears in her eyes, and the sight of them was a sharp pain inside him.
He stood still.
«Did?» She did not try to say anything more. He knew the reason: she had looked at his face and did not need to finish her question. She stood only a second now in front of him, yet even in that flash many things must have crossed her mind, because as he stared into her eyes he was conscious of the instantaneous raising of a great barrier that had not been there a moment before, and now suddenly was there, impenetrable and merciless. Quickly she walked in front of him into the room and across to the door. Only when she had stepped outside into the rain did she turn and say in a smothered voice: «I shall tell Ronny I couldn’t find you». Then she moved out of his vision; where she had paused there was only the rectangle of grayness.
He stood there in the patio a moment, the cold rain wetting him. (A place in the world, a definite status, a precise relationship with the rest of men. Even if it had to be one of open hostility, it was his, created by him.) Suddenly he pushed the kitchen door shut and went into the room. He was tired, he wanted to sit down, but there was only the mat, and so he remained standing in the middle of the room. Soon it would be dark; stuck onto the floor was the little piece of candle the other had blown out last night when the fire was going. He did not know whether there was another candle in the kitchen, nor would he look to see. More to have something to do than because he wanted light, he knelt down to set the stub burning, felt in his pocket, in all his pockets, for a match. Finding none, he stood up again and walked to the door. Out in the murk there was no valley, there were no mountains. The rain fell heavily and the wind had begun to blow again. He sat down in the doorway and began to wait. It was not yet completely dark.
— Amrah, Tangier
Let It Come Down copyright 1952 by Paul Bowles.
Reprinted by permission of Black Sparrow Press.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1984.
Distributed to the trade in the United States by Penguin Putnam, Inc. and in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2002019453
For cataloging information, see end of Notes.
ISBN 1-931082-19-7
First Printing
The Library of America — 134
Manufactured in the United States of America