The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

“We are all installed. The weather has been wonderful, and if Luz could only learn a little more about what white people like to eat and how they like it served, the setup would really be perfect. I know you will enjoy being here with Prue. She and you have many things in common, even if you do claim to ’remember not liking her much.’ That was in Washington and you were, to put it mildly, at a difficult age. Now, as an adult (because you really are one by now), you’ll be more understanding, I’m sure. She loves books, especially on philosophy and psychology and .other things your poor mother just doesn’t try to follow her in. She has rigged up a kiln and studio in the old guest house which you probably don’t remember. She works at her ceramics out there all day, and I have all I can do keeping the house tidy and seeing that the marketing is done. We have a system by which Luz takes the list to her brother every afternoon, and he brings the things from town the following day. It just about keeps him fully busy getting up and down the mountain on his horse. The horse is a lazy old nag that has done nothing but plod back and forth between house and the valley all its life, so it doesn’t know the meaning of the word speed. But after all, why hurry, down here?

“I think you will find everything to your liking, and I’m sure you won’t require more than five minutes to see that Prue is a dear, and not at all ’peculiar,’ as you wrote in your letter. Wire me as soon as you receive this, and let me know just what week you’ll be finishing classes. Prue and I will meet you in Barranquilla. I have a list of things I want you to get me in New York. Will wire it to you as soon as I hear. Prue’s bath finished. Must close.

Love,

Mother.”

Aileen put the letter away, smiling a little, and watched the wings diving in and out of the small thick clouds that lay in the plane’s way. There was a slight shock each time they hit one, and the world outside became a blinding whiteness. She fancied jumping out and walking on such solid softness, like a character in an animated cartoon.

Her mother’s letter had put her in mind of a much earlier period in her life: the winter she had been taken to visit Jamonocal. All she could recall in the way of incidents was that she had been placed on a mule by one of the natives, and had felt a painful horror that the animal would walk in the wrong direction, away from the house toward the edge of the gorge. She had no memory of the gorge. Probably she had never seen it, although it was only a few paces from the house, through a short but thick stretch of canebrake. However, she had a clear memory of its presence, of the sensation of enormous void beyond and below that side of the house. And she recalled the distant, hollow sound of water falling from a great height, a constant, soft backdrop of sound that slipped into every moment of the day—between the conversations at mealtimes, in the intervals of play in the garden, and at night between dreams. She wondered if really it were possible to remember all that from the time when she had been only five.

In Panama there was a plane change to be made. It was a clear green twilight, and she took a short walk beyond the airport. Parakeets were fighting in the upper branches of the trees; suddenly they became quiet. She turned back and went inside, where she sat reading until it was time to go aboard.

There was no one there to meet her when she arrived at Barranquilla in the early hours of the morning. She decided to go into town and take a room in the hotel. With her two valises she stepped outside and looked about for a cab. They had all gone to the town with passengers, but a man sitting on a packing case informed her that they would soon be coming back. Then suddenly he said, “You want two ladies?”

“What? No. What do you mean?”

“You want two ladies look for you this night?”

“Where are they?” said Aileen, understanding.

“They want a drink,” he answered with an intimate grin.

“Where? Barranquilla?”

“No. Here.” He pointed down the dark road.

“Where? Can I walk?”

“Sure. I go you.”

“No! No thanks. You stay here. Thank you. I can go all right. Where is it? How far?”

“O.K.”

“What is it? A bar? What’s the name?”

“They got music. La Gloria. You go. You hear music. You look for two ladies. They drinking.”

She went inside again and checked the bags with an airline employee who insisted on accompanying her. They strode in silence along the back road. The walls of vegetation on each side sheltered insects that made an occasional violent, dry noise like a wooden ratchet being whirled. Soon there was the sound of drums and trumpets playing Cuban dance music.

“La Gloria,” said her escort triumphantly.

La Gloria was a brilliantly lighted mud hut with a thatch-covered veranda giving onto the road. The juke box was outside, where a few dnmken Negroes sprawled.

“Are they here?” she said out loud, but to herself.

“La Gloria,” he answered, pointing.