The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

“Down there,” answered one of the men in the group, without even looking up. He indicated the dark comer to his left. And, indeed, now that Amar considered it, it seemed to him that a warm current of air came up from that part of the room. He went in the direction of the dark comer, undressed, and leaving his clothes in a neat pile on a piece of straw matting, walked toward the warmth. He was thinking of the misfortune he had encountered in arriving in this town at nightfall, and he wondered if his clothes would be molested during his absence. He wore his money in a leather pouch which hung on a string about his neck. Feeling vaguely of the purse under his chin, he turned around to look once again at his clothing. No one seemed to have noticed him as he undressed. He went on. It would not do to seem too distrustful. He would be embroiled immediately in a quarrel which could only end badly for him.

A little boy rushed out of the darkness toward him, calling: “Follow me, Sidi, I shall lead you to the bath.” He was extremely dirty and ragged, and looked rather more like a midget than a child. Leading the way, he chattered as they went down the slippery, warm steps in the dark. “You will call for Brahim when you want your tea? You’re a stranger. You have much money. . . .”

Amar cut him short. “You’ll get your coins when you come to wake me in the morning. Not tonight.”

“But, Sidi! I’m not allowed in the big room. I stay in the doorway and show gentlemen down to the bath. Then I go back to the doorway. I can’t wake you.”

“I’ll sleep near the doorway. It’s warmer there, in any case.”

“Lazrag will be angry and terrible things will happen. I’ll never get home again, or if I do I might be a bird so my parents will not know me. That’s what Lazrag does when he gets angry.”

“Lazrag?”

“It is his place here. You’ll see him. He never goes out. If he did the sun would burn him in one second, like a straw in the fire. He would fall down in the street burned black the minute he stepped out of the door. He was bom down here in the grotto.”

Amar was not paying strict attention to the boy’s babble. They were descending a wet stone ramp, putting one foot before the other slowly in the dark, and feeling the rough wall carefully as they went. There was the sound of splashing water and voices ahead.

“This is a strange hammam,” said Amar. “Is there a pool full of water?”

“A pool! You’ve never heard of Lazrag’s grotto? It goes on forever, and it’s made of deep warm water.”

As the boy spoke, they came out onto a stone balcony a few meters above the beginning of a very large pool, lighted beneath where they stood by two bare electric bulbs, and stretching away through the dimness into utter dark beyond. Parts of the roof hung down, “Like gray icicles,” thought Amar, as he looked about in wonder. But it was very warm down here. A slight pall of steam lay above the surface of the water, rising constantly in wisps toward the rocky ceiling. A man dripping with water ran past them and dove in. Several more were swimming about in the brighter region near the lights, never straying beyond into the gloom. The plunging and shouting echoed violently beneath the low ceiling.

Amar was not a good swimmer. He turned to ask the boy: “Is it deep?” but he had already disappeared back up the ramp. He stepped backward and leaned against the rock wall. There was a low chair to his right, and in the murky light it seemed to him that a small figure was close beside it. He watched the bathers for a few minutes. Those standing at the edge of the water soaped themselves assiduously; those in the water swam to and fro in a short radius below the lights. Suddenly a deep voice spoke close beside him. He looked down as he heard it say: “Who are you?”

The creature’s head was large; its body was small and it had no legs or arms. the lower part of the trunk ended in two flipper-like pieces of flesh. From the shoulders grew short pincers. It was a man, and it was looking up at him from the floor where it rested.

“Who are you?” it said again, and its tone was unmistakably hostile.

Amar hesitated. “I came to bathe and sleep,” he said at last.

“Who gave you permission?”

“The man at the entrance.”

“Get out. I don’t know you.”

Amar was filled with anger. He looked down with scorn at the little being, and stepped away from it to join the men washing themselves by the water’s edge. But more swiftly than he moved, it managed to throw itself along the floor until it was in front of him, when it raised itself again and spoke.