The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

She stood still an instant, her hand to her cheek. Then she bent down, and picking up a large stone from the path she flung it with all her strength through the door. A terrible cry came from within; it was like nothing she had ever heard. Or yes, she thought as she began to run back past the other huts, it had the indignation and outraged innocence of a small baby, but it was also a grown man’s cry. No one appeared as she passed the huts. Soon she was back in the silence of the empty mountain-side, but she kept running, and she was astonished to find that she was sobbing as well. She sat down on a rock and calmed herself by watching some ants demolish a bush as they cut away squares of leaf and carried them away in their mouths. The sky was growing brighter now; the sun would soon be through. She went on. By the time she got back to the high spot above the plantation the mist had turned into long clouds that were rolling away down the mountainside into the ravines. She was horrified to see how near she stood to the ugly black edge of the gorge. And the house looked insane down there, leaning out over as if it were trying to see the bottom. Far below the house the vapor rose up from the pool. She followed the sheer sides of the opposite cliff upward with her eye, all the way to the top, a little above the spot where she stood. It made her feel ill, and she stumbled back down to the house with her hand to her fore-head, paying no attention to the natives who greeted her from their doorways.

As she ran past the garden a voice called to her. She turned and saw Prue washing her hands in the fountain’s basin. She stood still.

“You’re up early. You must feel better,” said Prue, drying her hands on her hair. “Your mother’s been having a fit. Go in and see her.”

Aileen stared at Prue a moment before she said, “I was going in. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Oh, I thought I did.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything. I think I can manage all right without your help.”

“Help isn’t exactly what I’d like to give you,” said Prue, putting her hands into her pockets. “A swift kick in the teeth would be more like it. How do you think I like to see your mother worrying about you? First you’re sick in bed, then you just disappear into the goddamn jungle. D’you think I like to have to keep talking about you, reassuring her every ten minutes? What the hell d’you think life is, one long coming-out party?”

Aileen stared harder, now with unmasked hatred. “I think,” she said slowly, “that life is pretty awful. Here especially. And I think you should look once in the mirror and then jump off the terrace. And I think Mother should have her mind examined.”

“I see,” said Prue, with dire inflection. She lit a cigarette and strode off to her studio. Aileen went into the house and up to her room.

Less than an hour later, her mother knocked at her door. As she came into the room, Aileen could see she had been crying only a moment before.

“Aileen darling, I’ve got something to say to you,” she began apologetically, “and it just breaks my heart to say it. But I’ve got to.”

She stopped, as though waiting for encouragement.

“Mother, what is it?”

“I think you probably know.”

“About Prue, I suppose. No?”

“It certainly is. I don’t know how I can ever make it right with her. She told me what you said to her, and I must say I found it hard to believe. How could you?”

“You mean just now in the garden?”

“I don’t know where you said it, but I do know this can’t go on. So I’m just forced to say this. . . . You’ll have to go. I can’t be stirred up this way, and I can tell just how it’ll be if you stay on.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” said Aileen, making a show of calm. “When do you want me to leave?”

“This is terribly painful . . .”

“Oh, stop! It’s all right. I’ve had a vacation and I can get a lot of work done before the term starts. Today? Tomorrow?”

“I think the first of the week. I’ll go to Barranquilla with you.”

“Would you think I was silly if I had all my meals up here?”

“I think it’s a perfect idea, darling, and we can have nice visits together, you and I, between meals.”

Now, when the tension should have been over, somehow it was not. During the four nights before she was to leave, Aileen had endless excruciating dreams. She would wake up in the darkness too agonized even to move her hand. It was not fear; she could not recall the dreams. It was rather as if some newly discovered, innermost part of her being were in acute pain. Breathing quickly, she would lie transfixed for long periods listening to the eternal sound of the waterfall, punctuated at great intervals by some slight, nearby nocturnal noise in the trees. Finally, when she had summoned sufficient energy to move, she would change her position in the bed, sigh profoundly, and relax enough to fall back into the ominous world of sleep.

When the final day came, there was a light tapping on her door just after dawn. She got up and unbolted it. Her mother was there, smiling thinly.

“May I come in?”