The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

“No, no! The right!” he cried. The ring was of massive silver; it fitted her index finger. She was immensely pleased.

“But you are too nice. What can I give you?” She tried to look pained and helpless.

“The pleasure of having a true European friend,” said Mjid gravely.

“But I’m American,” she objected.

“All the better.”

Ghazi was looking silently toward the distant Riffian mountains. Prophetically he raised his arm with its silk sleeve blowing in the hot wind, and pointed across the cracked mud fields.

“Down that way,” he said softly, “there is a village where all the people are mad. I rode there once with one of my father’s assistants. It’s the water they drink.”

The carriage lurched They were climbing. Below them the sea began to spread out, a poster blue. The tops of the mountains across the water in Spain rose above the haze. Mjid started to sing. Ghazi covered his ears with his fat dimpled hands.

The summer villa was inhabited by a family with a large number of children. After dismissing the carriage driver and instructing him not to return, since he wanted to walk back down, Mjid took his guests on a tour of inspection of the grounds. There were a good many wells; Ghazi had certainly seen these countless times before, but he stopped as if in amazement at each well as they inspected it, and whispered: “Think of it!”

On a rocky elevation above the farm stood a great olive tree. There they spread the food, and ate slowly. The Berber woman in charge of the farm had given them several loaves of native bread, and olives and oranges. Ghazi wanted Mjid to decline this food.

“A real European picnic is what we should have.”

But she insisted they take the oranges.

The opening of the ham was observed in religious silence. It was no time before both cans were consumed. Then they attacked the wine.

“If my father could see us,” said Ghazi, draining a tin cup of it. “Ham and winel”

Mjid drank a cup, making a grimace of distaste. He lay back, his arms folded behind his head. “Now that I’ve finished, I can tell you that I don’t like wine, and everyone knows that ham is filthy. But I hate our severe conventions.”

She suspected that he had rehearsed the little speech.

Ghazi was continuing to drink the wine. He finished a bottle all by himself, and excusing himself to his companions, took off his gandoura. Soon he was asleep.

“You see?” whispered Mjid. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Now we can go to the rose garden.” He led her along the ledge, and down a path away from the villa. It was very narrow; thorny bushes scraped their arms as they squeezed through.

“In America we call walking like this going Indian fashion,” she remarked.

“Ah, yes?” said Mjid. “I’m going to tell you about Ghazi. One of his father’s women was a Senegalese slave, poor thing. She made Ghazi and six other brothers for her husband, and they all look like Negroes.”

“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.

“Es pa’ mi la màs bonita,

La mujer que yo màs quiero . . .”

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.