Let it come down Read online

  Dyar slept fitfully for a while, his mind weighted down with half-thoughts. About four he sat up, feeling very wide-awake, and noticed the brightness outside. The air in the room was close. He went to the window, opened it, and leaned out, studying the moonlit details on the hills across the harbor: a row of black cypresses, a house which was a tiny cube of luminous white halfway between the narrow beach and the sky, in the middle of the soft brown waste of the hillside. It was all painted with meticulous care. He went back to his bed and got between the warm covers. «This is no good,» he said to himself, thinking that if he were going to feel like this he would rather remain a victim always. At least he would feel like himself, whereas at the moment he was all too conscious of the pressure of that alien presence, clamoring to be released. «It’s no good. It’s no good». Miserable, he turned over. Soon the fresh air coming in the window put him to sleep. When he opened his eyes again the room was pulsing with sunlight. The sun was out there, huge and clear in the morning sky, and its light was augmented by the water, thrown against the ceiling, where it moved like fire. He jumped up, stood in the window, stretched, scratched, yawned and smiled. If you got up early enough, he reflected, you could get on board the day and ride it easily, otherwise it got ahead of you and you had to push it along in front of you as you went. But however you did it, you and the day came out together into the dark, over and over again. He began to do a few setting-up exercises there in front of the open window. For years he had gone along not being noticed, not noticing himself, accompanying the days mechanically, exaggerating the exertion and boredom of the day to give him sleep for the night, and using the sleep to provide the energy to go through the following day. He did not usually bother to say to himself: «There’s nothing more to it than this; what makes it all worth going through?» because he felt there was no way of answering the question. But at the moment it seemed to him he had found a simple reply: the satisfaction of being able to get through it. If you looked at it one way, that satisfaction was nothing, but if you looked at it another way, it was everything. At least, that was the way he felt this morning; it was unusual enough so that he marveled at the solution.

  The air’s clarity and the sun’s strength made him whistle in the shower, made him note, while he was shaving, that he was very hungry. Wilcox came at five minutes of nine, pounded heavily on the door and sat down panting in the chair by the window.

  «Well, today’s the big day,» he said, trying to look both casual and jovial. «Hated to get you up so early. But it’s better to get these things done as fast as possible».

  «What things?» said Dyar into his towel as he dried his face.

  «Ashcombe-Danvers’s money is here. You’re taking it from Ramlal’s to the Crédit Fonder. Remember?»

  «Oh». An extra and unwelcome complication for the day. He did not sound pleased, and Wilcox noticed it.

  «What’s the matter? Business breaking into your social life?»

  «No, no. Nothing’s the matter,» Dyar said, combing his hair in front of the mirror. «I’m just wondering why you picked me to be messenger boy».

  «What d’you mean?» Wilcox sat up straight. «It’s been understood for ten days that you were going to take the job off my hands. You’ve been raising hell to start work. The first definite thing I give you to do, and you wonder why I give it to you! I asked you to do it because it’ll be a lot of help to me, that’s why!»

  «All right, all right, all right. I haven’t raised any objection, have I?»

  Wilcox looked calmer. «But Jesus, you’ve got a screwy attitude about the whole thing».

  «You think so?» Dyar stood in the sunlight looking down at him, still combing his hair. «It could be the whole thing’s a little screwy».

  Wilcox was about to speak. Then, thinking better of it, he decided to let Dyar continue. But something in his face must have warned Dyar, for instead of going ahead and bringing in the British currency restrictions as he had intended, just to let Wilcox see that by «screwy» he meant «illegal» (since Wilcox seemed to think he was wholly ignorant of even that detail), said only: «Well, it ought not to take long, at any rate».

  «Five minutes,» said Wilcox, rising. «Have you had coffee?» Dyar shook his head. «Let’s get going, then».

  «God, what sun!» Dyar cried as they stepped out of the hotel. It was the first clear morning he had seen, it made a new world around him, it was like emerging into daylight after an endless night. «Smell that air,» he said, stopping to stand with one hand on the trunk of a palm tree, facing the beach, sniffing audibly.

  «For Christ’s sake, let’s get going!» Wilcox cried, making a point of continuing to walk ahead as fast as he could. He was letting his impatience run away with him. Dyar caught up with him, glanced at him curiously; he had not known Wilcox was so nervous. And in his insistence upon taking great strides, Wilcox stepped into some dog offal and slipped, coming down full length on the pavement. Picking himself up, even before he was on his feet, he snarled at Dyar. «Go on, laugh, God damn you! Laugh!» But Dyar merely looked concerned. There was no way of laughing in such a situation. (The sudden sight of a human being deprived of its dignity did not strike him as basically any more ludicrous and absurd than the constant effort required for the maintenance of that dignity, or than the state itself of being human in what seemed an undeniably non-human world.) But this morning, to be agreeable, he smiled as he helped dust off Wilcox’s topcoat. «Did it get on me?» demanded Wilcox.

  «Nope».

  «Well, come on, God damn it».

  They stopped for coffee at the place where Dyar had taken breakfast the previous day, but Wilcox would not sit down.

  «We haven’t got time».

  «We? Where are you going?»

  «Back to the Atlantide as soon as I know you’re really on your way to Ramlal’s, and not down onto the beach to sun-bathe».

  «I’m on my way. Don’t worry about me».

  They walked to the door. «I’ll leave you, then,» Wilcox said. «You got everything straight?»

  «Don’t worry about me!»

  «Come up to the hotel when you’re finished. We can have some breakfast then».

  «Fine».

  Wilcox walked up the hill feeling exhausted. When he got to the Metropole he undressed and went back to bed. He would have time for a short nap before Dyar’s arrival.

  Following the Avenida de Espaiia along the beach toward the old part of town, Dyar toyed with the idea of going to the American Legation and laying the whole story of Madame Jouvenon before them. But who would «they» be? Some sleek-jowled individual out of the Social Register who would scarcely listen to him at first, and then would begin to stare at him with inimical eyes, put a series of questions to him in a cold voice, making notes of the replies. He imagined going into the spotless office, receiving the cordial handshake, being offered the chair in front of the desk.

  «Good morning. What can I do for you?»

  The long hesitation. «Well, it’s sort of hard. I don’t quite know how to tell you. I think I’ve gotten into some trouble».

  The consul or vice-consul would look at him searchingly. «You think?» A pause. «Perhaps you’d better begin by telling me your name». Whereupon he would give him not only his name, but the whole stupid story of what had happened yesterday noon at the Empire. The man would look interested, clear his throat, put his hand out on the desk, say: «First of all, let’s have the check».

  «I haven’t got it. I deposited it in the bank».

  «That was bright!» (Angrily.) «Just about ten times as much work for us».

  «Well, I needed money».

  The man’s voice would get unpleasant. «Oh, you needed money, did you? You opened an account and drew on it, is that it?»

  «That’s right».

  Then what would he say? «So now you’ve got cold feet and want to be sure you won’t get in trouble».

  Dyar imagined his own face growing hot with embarrassment, saying: «Wel
l, the fact that I came here to tell you about it ought to prove that I want to do the right thing».

  The other would say: «Mr. Dyar, you make me laugh».

  Where would it get him, an interview like that? Beyond making him an object of suspicion for the rest of the time he was in the International Zone, just what would going to the Legation accomplish?

  As he started up the ramp that led to the taxi stand at the foot of the Castle Club he passed a doorway where a dog and a cat, both full-grown, lay in the sun, lazily playing together. He stopped and watched for a moment, along with several passers-by, all of whom wore the same half unbelieving, pleased smile. It was as if without their knowing it the spectacle served as proof that enmity was not inescapably the law which governed existence, that a cessation of hostilities was at least thinkable. He passed along up the street in the hot morning sun, through the Zoco Chico to Ramlal’s shop. The door was locked. He went back to the Zoco, into the Café Central, and telephoned Wilcox, standing at the bar beside the coffee machine, being buffeted by all the waiters.

  «Not open yet!» cried Wilcox, and he paused. «Well,» he said finally, «hang around until he is. That’s all you can do». He paused again. «But for God’s sake don’t hang around in front of the store! Just walk past every fifteen or twenty minutes and take a quick look».

  «Right. Right». Dyar hung up, paid the fat barman for the call, and walked out into the square. It was twenty minutes of ten. If Ramlal was not open now, why would he be any more likely to be open at ten-thirty, or eleven? «The hell with that,» he thought, starting to amble once more in the direction of the shop.

  It was still closed. For him that settled it. He would go down to the beach for a while and lie in the sun. It was Wilcox who had put the idea into his head. All he had to do was to get back up here a little before half-past twelve, which was when the Crédit Foncier closed. First he stopped and had coffee and several slices of toast with butter and strawberry jam.

  The beach was flat, wide and white, and it curved in a perfect semicircle to the cape ahead. He walked along the strip of hard sand that the receding tide had uncovered; it was a wet and flattering mirror for the sky, intensifying its brightness. When he had left behind the half-mile or so of boarded-up bathing cabins and bars, he took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers. Until now the beach had been completely empty, but ahead two figures and a donkey were approaching. When they drew near he saw that it was two very old Berber women dressed as if it were zero weather, in red and white striped wool. They paid him no attention. Out here where no hill followed the shore line there was a small sharp wind to chill whatever surface was not in the sun. Before him now he saw several tiny fishing boats beached side by side. He came up to them. They had been abandoned long ago: the wood was rotten and the hulls were filled with sand. There was no sign of a human being in any direction. The two women and the donkey had left the beach, gone inland over the dunes, and disappeared. He undressed and got into a boat that was half buried. The sand filled the bow and sloped toward the center of the boat, making a perfect couch that faced the sun.

  Outside the wind blew by; in here there was nothing but the beating of the hot sun on the skin. He lay a while, intensely conscious of the welcome heat, in a state of self-induced voluptuousness. When he looked at the sun, his eyes closed almost tight, he saw webs of crystalline fire crawling across the narrow space between the slitted lids, and his eyelashes made the furry beams of light stretch out, recede, stretch out. It was a long time since he had lain naked in the sun. He remembered that if you stayed long enough the rays drew every thought out of your head. That was what he wanted, to be baked dry and hard, to feel the vaporous worries evaporating one by one, to know finally that all the damp little doubts and hesitations that covered the floor of his being were curling up and expiring in the great furnace-blast of the sun. Presently he forgot about all that, his muscles relaxed, and he dozed lightly, waking now and then to lift his head above the worm-eaten gunwale and glance up and down the beach. There was no one. Eventually he ceased doing even that. At one point he turned over and lay face down on the hard-packed sand, feeling the sun’s burning sheet settle over his back. The soft, regular cymbal-crash of the waves was like the distant breathing of the morning; the sound sifted down through the myriad compartments of the air and reached his ears long afterward. When he turned back and looked straight at the sky it seemed farther away than he had ever seen it. Yet he felt very close to himself, perhaps because in order to feel alive a man must first cease to think of himself as being on his way. There must be a full stop, all objectives forgotten. A voice says «Wait,» but he usually will not listen, because if he waits he may be late. Then, too, if he really waits, he may find that when he starts to move again it will be in a different direction, and that also is a frightening thought. Because life is not a movement toward or away from anything; not even from the past to the future, or from youth to old age, or from birth to death. The whole of life does not equal the sum of its parts. It equals any one of the parts; there is no sum. The full-grown man is no more deeply involved in life than the newborn child; his only advantage is that it can occasionally be given him to become conscious of the substance of that life, and unless he is a fool he will not look for reasons or explanations. Life needs no clarifying, no justification. From whatever direction the approach is made, the result is the same: life for life’s sake, the transcending fact of the living individual. In the meantime you eat. And so he, lying in the sun and feeling close to himself, knew that he was there and rejoiced in the knowledge. He could pretend, if he needed, to be an American named Nelson Dyar, with four thousand pesetas in the pocket of the jacket that lay across the seat in the stern of the boat, but he would know that it was a remote and unimportant part of the entire truth. First of all he was a man lying on the sand that covered the floor of a ruined boat, a man whose left hand reached to within an inch of its sun-heated hull, whose body displaced a given quantity of the warm morning air. Everything he had ever thought or done had been thought or done not by him, but by a member of a great mass of beings who acted as they did only because they were on their way from birth to death. He was no longer a member: having committed himself, he could expect no help from anyone. If a man was not on his way anywhere, if life was something else, entirely different, if life was a question of being for a long continuous instant that was all one, then the best thing for him to do was to sit back and be, and whatever happened he still was. Whatever a man thought, said or did, the fact of his being there remained unchanged. And death? He felt that some day, if he thought far enough, he would discover that death changed nothing, either.

  The pleasant bath of vague ideas in which his mind had been soaking no longer sufficed to keep him completely dormant. Making an effort, he raised his head a little and turned his wrist to see the time. It was ten minutes past twelve. He sprang up, dressed quickly save for his socks and shoes, and started back along the still-deserted beach. Even though he walked so fast that he was painfully out of breath, by the time he reached the first buildings it was quarter of one. The Crédit Foncier would be closed; he would have to do the job after lunch. He came opposite the Hotel de la Playa, crossed the beach, climbed the steps to the street and went in barefooted. The boy at the desk handed him a message. «Jack has been phoning; he’s going nuts,» he thought, as he looked at the slip. But it said: «Sr. Doan, 25–16. Inmedia.tamente». Still assuming that this was probably Wilcox trying frantically to reach him, perhaps from the office or home of someone else, he gave the boy the number and stood drumming with his fingers on the desk until the communication was made.

  He took the telephone, heard a man’s voice say: «American Legation». Quietly he hung up, and without explaining anything to the boy went and sat down in a corner where he put on his socks and shoes. After he had tied the second lace carefully he sat back and shut his eyes. Under the fingers of each hand he felt the smooth beveled wood of a chair-arm. A truck went
by slowly, backfiring. The lobby smelled faintly of chloride of lime. For the first few minutes he felt neither calm nor perturbation; he was paralyzed. Then when he opened his eyes he thought, almost triumphantly: «So this is what it’s like». And immediately afterward he was conscious for the second time that day of being extremely hungry. He had no plan of action; he wanted to eat, he wanted to get the Ramlal business over with and let Wilcox know it was finished. After that, depending on how he felt, he might call Mr. Doan at the Legation and see what he wanted. (It consoled him to think there was no certainty that the call had to do with the Jouvenon nonsense; as a matter of fact, at moments he was almost certain it could not be that at all.) But as to the dinner at Mme. Jouvenon’s apartment.

  He jumped up and shouted for the boy, who was hidden by the desk. «Taxi!» he cried, pointing at the telephone. He went to the door and stood looking up the avenue, trying to reassure himself by considering that if they had been going to handle the thing roughly they would not have begun by telephoning. But then he remembered something Daisy had said to him — that the Zone was so small it was generally possible for the police to put their finger on anyone in a few hours. The Legation could afford to sit back and be polite, at least until they saw how he intended to play it.

  The taxi came coasting down the side street from the town above, drew up before the entrance. He hurried to get in, and leaning forward from the back seat directed it along the Avenida de España to the foot of the Arab town.

  The day moved by; the city lay basking in the hot bright air. About noon, up on the mountain in the rose garden of the Villa Hesperides Daisy de Valverde did a bit of weeding. Then when the exertion became too much for her she had a rubber mattress put by the pool and lay on it in her bathing suit. There were far too few days like this in Tangier during the winter. When Luis came back from Casablanca she would talk with him again seriously about Egypt. Each year since the war they had spent part of the winter in Cairo, Luxor or Wadi Haifa, but this year for one reason and another they had not summoned the energy to set forth. Then she had tried at the last minute to get a room at the Mamounia in Marrakech, and finding it impossible, had hit on the idea of appropriating Mme. Werth’s reservation, arguing that in any case that lady, always in poor health, was likely to be unable to avail herself of it when the time came. That little plan had of course been frustrated by Jack Wilcox’s infuriating behavior.