Let it come down Page 13

  A few couples were moving discreetly about the small floor-space, doing more talking than dancing. As Dyar stood watching the fat Frenchman swaying back and forth on his feet, trying to lead an elderly English woman in a turban who had taken a little too much to drink, Abdelmalek Beidaoui came up to him bringing with him a tall Portuguese girl, cadaver-thin and with a cast in one eye. It was obvious that she wanted to dance, and she accepted with eagerness. Although she kept her hips against his as they danced, she leant sharply backward from the waist and peered at him fixedly while she told him bits of gossip about the people in the other part of the room. In speaking she kept her lips drawn back so that her gums were fully visible. «Jesus, I’ve got to get out of here,» Dyar thought. But they went on, record after record. At the close of a samba, he said to her, panting somewhat exaggeratedly: «Tired?» «No, no!» she cried. «You are marvelous dancer».

  Here and there candles had begun to go out; the room was chilly, and a damp wind came through the open door from the garden. It was that moment of the evening when everyone had arrived and no one had yet thought of going home; one could have said that the party was in full swing, save that there was a peculiar deadness about the gathering which made it difficult to believe that a party was actually in progress. Later, in retrospect, one might be able to say that it had taken place, but now, while it still had not finished, it was somehow not true.

  The Portuguese girl was telling him about Estoril, and how Monte Carlo even at its zenith never had been so glamorous. If at that moment someone had not taken hold of his arm and yanked on it violently he would probably have said something rather rude. As it was, he let go of the girl abruptly and turned to face Eunice Goode, who was by then well primed with martinis. She was looking at the frowning Portuguese girl with a polite leer. «I’m afraid you’ve lost your dancing partner,» she said, steadying herself by putting one hand against the wall. «He’s coming with me into the other room».

  Under ordinary circumstances Dyar would have told her she was mistaken, but right now the idea of sitting down with a drink, even with Eunice Goode along, seemed the preferable, the less strenuous of two equally uninteresting prospects. He excused himself lamely, letting her lead him away across the room into a small, dim library whose walls were lined to the ceiling with graying encyclopaedias, reference books and English novels. Drawn up around a fireplace with no fire in it were three straight-backed chairs, in one of which sat Mme. Jouvenon, staring ahead of her into the cold ashes. She did not turn around when she heard them come into the room.

  «Here we are,» said Eunice brightly, and she introduced the two, sitting down so that Dyar occupied the chair between them.

  XI

  For a few minutes Eunice valiantly made conversation; she asked questions of them both and answered for both. The replies were doubtless not the ones that either Mme. Jouvenon or Dyar would have given, but in their respective states of confusion and apathy they said: «Ah, yes» and «That’s right» when she took it upon herself to explain to each how the other felt. Dyar was bored, somewhat drunk, and faintly alarmed by Mme. Jouvenon’s expression of fierce preoccupation, while she, desperately desirous of gaining his interest, was casting about frantically in her mind for a proper approach. With each minute that passed, the absurd situation in the cold little library became more untenable. Dyar shifted about on his chair and tried to see behind him through the doorway into the other room; he hoped to catch sight of Hadija. Someone put on a doleful Egyptian record. The groaning baritone voice filled the air.

  «You have been to Cairo?» said Mme. Jouvenon suddenly.

  «No». It did not seem enough to answer, but he had no further inspiration.

  «You are inter-r-rested in the Middle East, also?»

  «Madame Jouvenon has spent most of her life in Constantinople and Bagdad and Damascus, and other fascinating places,» said Eunice.

  «Not Bagdad,» corrected Mme. Jouvenon sternly. «Bokhara».

  «That must be interesting,» said Dyar.

  The Egyptian record was interrupted in mid-lament, and a French music-hall song replaced it. Then there was the sound of one of the heavy candelabra being overturned, accompanied by little cries of consternation. Taking advantage of the moment, which he felt might not present itself again even if he waited all night, Dyar sprang to his feet and rushed to the door. Directly behind him came Mme. Jouvenon, picking at his sleeve. She had decided to be bold. If, as Eunice Goode claimed, the young man was short of funds, it was likely he would accept an invitation to a meal, and so she promptly extended one for the following day, making it clear that he was to be her guest. «That’s a splendid idea,» said Eunice hurriedly. «I’m sure you two will have a great deal to give each other. Mr. Dyar has been in the consular service for years, and you probably have dozens of mutual friends». He did not even bother to correct her: she was too far gone, he thought. He had just had a glimpse of Hadija dancing with one of the Beidaoui brothers, and he turned to Mme. Jouvenon to decline her kind invitation. But he was not quick enough.

  «At two tomorrow. At the Empire. You know where this is. The food is r-rather good. I will have the table at end, by where the bar is. This will give me gr-reat pleasure. We cannot speak here». And so it was settled, and he escaped to the table of drinks and got another.

  «You rather bungled that,» Eunice Goode murmured.

  Mme. Jouvenon looked at her. «You mean he will not come?»

  «I shouldn’t if I were he. Your behavior». She stopped on catching sight of Hadija engaged in a rumba with Hassan Beidaoui; they smiled fatuously as they wriggled about. «The little idiot,» she thought. The sight was all too reminiscent of the Bar Lucifer. «She’s surely speaking Arabic with him». Uneasily she walked toward the dance floor, and presently was gratified to hear Hadija cry: «Oh, yes!» to something Hassan had said.

  Without being invited this time, Dyar went and sat down beside Daisy. The room seemed immense, and much darker. He was feeling quite drunk; he slid down into a recumbent position and stretched his legs out straight in front of him, his head thrown back so that he was staring up at the dim white ceiling far above. Richard Holland sat in a chair facing Daisy, holding forth, with his wife nestling on the floor at his feet, her head on his knee. The old English lady with the turban was at the other end of the divan, smoking a cigarette in a very long, thin holder. Eunice Goode wandered over to the group, followed by Mme. Jouvenon, and stood behind Holland’s chair drinking a glass of straight gin. She looked down at the back of his head, and said in a soft but unmistakably belligerent voice: «I don’t know who you are, but I think that’s all sheer balls».

  He squirmed around and looked up at her; deciding she was drunk he ignored her, and went on talking. Presently Mme. Jouvenon whispered to Eunice that she must go, and the two went toward the door where Abdelmalek stood, his robes blowing in the breeze.

  «Who is that extraordinary woman with Miss Goode?» asked the English lady. «I don’t recall ever having seen her before». No one answered. «Don’t any of you know?» she pursued fretfully.

  «Yes,» said Daisy at length. She hesitated a moment, and then, her voice taking on a vaguely mysterious tone: «I know who she is».

  But Mme. Jouvenon had left quickly, and Eunice was already back, dragging a chair with her, which she installed as close as possible to Richard Holland’s, and in which she proceeded to sit suddenly and heavily.

  From time to time Dyar closed his eyes, only to open them again quickly when he felt the room sliding forward from under him. Looking at the multitude of shadows on the ceiling he did not think he felt the alcohol too much. But it became a chore to keep his eyes open for very long at a stretch. He heard the voices arguing around him; they seemed excited, and yet they were talking about nothing. They were loud, and yet they seemed far away. As he fixed one particular part of a monumental shadow stretching away into the darker regions of the ceiling, he had the feeling suddenly that he was seated there surrounded by dead people
— or perhaps figures in a film that had been made a long time before. They were speaking, and he heard their voices, but the actual uttering of the words had been done many years ago. He must not let himself be fooled into believing that he could communicate with them. No one would hear him if he should try to speak. He felt the cold rim of his glass on his leg where he held it; it had wet through his trousers. With a spasmodic movement he sat up and took a long drink. If only there had been someone to whom he could have said: «Let’s get out of here». But they all sat there in another world, talking feverishly about nothing, approving and protesting, each one delighted with the sound his own ideas made when they were turned into words. The alcohol was like an ever-thickening curtain being drawn down across his mind, isolating it from everything else in the room. It blocked out even his own body, which, like the faces around him, the candle flames and the dance music, became also increasingly remote and disconnected. «God damn it!» he cried suddenly. Daisy, intent on what Richard Holland was saying, distractedly reached out and took his hand, holding it tightly so he could not withdraw it without an effort. He let it lie in hers; the contact helped him a little to focus his attention upon the conversation.

  «Oh no!» said Holland. «The species is not at all intent on destroying itself. That’s nonsense. It’s intent on being something which happens inevitably to entail its destruction, that’s all».

  A man came through the door from the garden and walked quickly across the room to where Abdelmalek stood talking with several of his guests. Dyar was not alert enough to see his face as he moved through the patches of light in the center of the room, but he thought the figure looked familiar.

  «Give me a sip,» said Holland, reaching down and taking his wife’s glass out of her hand. «There’s nothing wrong in the world except that man has persuaded himself he’s a rational being, when really he’s a moral one. And morality must have a religious basis, not a rational one. Otherwise it’s just play-acting».

  The old English lady lit another cigarette, throwing the match on the floor to join the wide pile of ashes she had scattered there. «That’s all very well,» she said with a touch of petulance in her cracked voice, «but nowadays religion and rationality are not mutually exclusive. We’re not living in the Dark Ages».

  Holland laughed insolently; his eyes were malignant. «Do you want to see it get dark?» he shouted. «Stick around a few years». And he laughed again. No one said anything. He handed the glass back to Mrs. Holland. «I don’t think anyone will disagree if I say that religion all over the world is just about dead».

  «I certainly shall,» said the English lady with asperity. «But no matter».

  «I’m sorry, but in most parts of the world today, professing a religion is purely a matter of politics, and has practically nothing to do with faith. The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it’s more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don’t even have to mention Christianity or Judaism. At least, I hope not. But there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it. You can’t decide to be irrational. Man is rational now, and rational man is lost».

  «I suppose,» said the English lady acidly, «that you’re going to tell us we can no longer choose between good and evil: It seems to me that would come next on your agenda».

  «God, the man’s pretentious,» Daisy was thinking. As she grew increasingly bored and restive, she toyed with Dyar’s fingers. And to himself Dyar said: «I don’t want to listen to all this crap». He never had been one to believe that discussion of abstractions could lead to anything but more discussion. Yet he did listen, perhaps because in his profound egotism he felt that in some fashion Holland was talking about him.

  «Oh, that!» said Holland, pretending to sound infinitely patient. «Good and evil are like white and black on a piece of paper. To distinguish them you need at least a glimmer of light, otherwise you can’t even see the paper. And that’s the way it is now. It’s gotten too dark to tell». He snickered. «Don’t talk to me about the Dark Ages. Right now no one could presume to know where the white ends and the black begins. We know they’re both there, that’s all».

  «Well, I must say I’m glad to hear we know that much, at least,» said the English lady testily. «I was on the point of concluding that there was absolutely no hope». She laughed mockingly.

  Holland yawned. «Oh, it’ll work itself out, all right. Until then, it would be better not to be here. But if anyone’s left afterward, they’ll fix it all up irrationally and the world will be happy again».

  Daisy was examining Dyar’s palm, but the light was too dim. She dropped the hand and began to arrange her hair, preparatory to getting up. «Enfin, none of it sounds very hopeful,» she remarked, smiling.

  «It isn’t very hopeful,» Holland said pityingly; he enjoyed his role as diagnostician of civilization’s maladies, and he always arrived at a negative prognosis. He would happily have continued all night with an appreciative audience.

  «Excuse me. I’ve got to have another drink,» said Dyar, lunging up onto his feet. He took a few steps forward, turned partially around and smiled at Daisy, so as not to seem rude, and saw Mrs. Holland rise from her uncomfortable position on the floor to occupy the place on the divan which he had just vacated. Then he went on, found himself through the door, standing on the balcony in the damp night wind. There seemed to be no reason for not going down the wide stairs, and so he went softly down and walked along the path in the dark until he came to a wall. There was a bench; he sat down in the quiet and stared ahead of him at the nearby silhouettes of moving branches and vines. No music, no voices, not even the fountains could be heard here. But there were other closer sounds: the leaves of plants rubbed together, stalks and pods hardened by the winter rattled and shook, and high in a palmyra tree not far away the dry slapping of an enormous fanshaped branch (it covered and uncovered a certain group of stars as it waved back and forth) was like the distant slamming of an old screen door. It was difficult to believe a tree in the wind could make that hard, vaguely mechanical noise.

  For a while he sat quite still in the dark, with nothing in his mind save an awareness of the natural sounds around him; he did not even realize that he was welcoming these sounds as they washed through him, that he was allowing them to cleanse him of the sense of bitter futility which had filled him for the past two hours. The cold wind eddied around the shrubbery at the base of the wall; he hugged himself but did not move. Shortly he would have to rise and go back into the light, up the steps into the room whose chaos was only the more clearly perceived for the polite gestures of the people who filled it. For the moment he stayed sitting in the cold. «Here I am,» he told himself once again, but this time the melody, so familiar that its meaning was gone, was faintly transformed by the ghost of a new harmony beneath it, scarcely perceptible and at the same time, merely because it was there at all, suggestive of a direction to be taken which made those three unspoken words more than a senseless reiteration. He might have been saying to himself: «Here I am and something is going to happen». The infinitesimal promise of a possible change stirred him to physical movement: he unwrapped his arms from around himself and lit a cigarette.

  XII

  Back in the room Eunice Goode, on her way to being a little more drunk than usual (the presence of many people around her often led her to such excesses), was in a state of nerves. A recently arrived guest, a young man whom she did not know, and who in spite of his European attire was obviously an Arab, had come up to Hadija as she and Eunice stood together by the phonograph, and greeted her familiarly in Arabic. Fortunately Hadija had had the presence of mind to answer: «What you sigh?» before turning her back on him, but that had not ended the incident. A moment later, while Eunice was across the room having her glas
s replenished, the two had somehow begun to dance. When she returned and saw them she had wanted terribly to step in and separate them, but of course there was no way she could do such a thing without having an excuse of some sort. «I shall make a fearful scene if I start,» she said to herself, and so she hovered about the edge of the dance floor, now and then catching hold of a piece of furniture for support. At least, as long as she remained close to Hadija the girl would not be so likely to speak Arabic. That was the principal danger.

  Hadija was in misery. She had not wanted to dance (indeed, she considered that her days of enforced civility to strange men, and above all Moslem men, had come to a triumphant close), but he had literally grabbed her. The young man, who was squeezing her against him with such force that she had difficulty in breathing, refused to speak anything but Arabic with her, even though she kept her face set in an intransigent mask of hauteur and incomprehension. «Everyone knows you’re a Tanjaouia,» he was saying. But she fought down the fear that his words engendered. Only her two protectors, Eunice and the American gentleman, knew. Several times she tried to push him away and stop dancing, but he only held her with increased firmness, and she realized unhappily that any more vehement efforts on her part would attract the attention of the other dancers, of whom there were now only two couples. Occasionally she said in a loud voice: «O.K». or «Oh, yes!» so as to reassure Eunice, whom she saw watching her desperately.