Up Above the World by Paul Bowles

Author:Paul Bowles [Bowles, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241542255
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2021-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

20

THERE IS A COLD wind blowing along the floor; it is that way in all the rooms so far. It comes from the patio. The doors are shut but it blows under them. He can feel it on his ankles. He is walking without shoes, wearing a bathrobe, but he is not thinking about that. Thus far he has found a door from each room into the next, so that he has not had to go out into the patio. There are dim lights out there among the bushes. The rooms are in darkness. That is good, because it is safer in the dark, even though he bumps into things sometimes as he feels his way along.

He listens and hears frogs singing, but they sound far away. The rooms smell old; they have that inner stillness found only in ancient houses. As he passes an open door into the patio, he looks out for an instant and sees stone pillars and arches. He moves ahead, but with such caution that even when he comes suddenly upon a piece of furniture, he makes no sound as he touches it.

He does not know where he is trying to go; he only wants to get as far as possible from the bed. The dream he has left there was so terrible he cannot remember it. But this could still be part of the dream, he thinks, bristling with fear, this unchanging silent house with the men somewhere in it waiting to catch him. In a dream, what does it matter? Strike out, smash the furniture, yell. Let them come rushing through the rooms.

He holds his breath, listens again. Frogs. A dog yaps in the distance. Now he knows that he wants to get out of the house. When he starts to move again he is less cautious, and comes up short against a chair. To keep as far as he can from the patio, he makes his way toward the opposite wall. On the far side of one of the rooms he may find a door, and the door could open onto the garden. When his outstretched hand touches a curtain, his fingers follow the cloth to its end; he pulls the curtain back a bit and steps behind its folds. The window is high and has iron grillwork over it. But the sight of the stars excites him. They’re still there, he thinks. At the same instant a twinge of fear makes him peer around, back into the room. He had forgotten fear for a while; he had merely been on his way. He remembers: it began as a nightmare. Now it is beginning to turn back into one. He waits for the signs of transformation, and because there is no change in the silence and darkness of the room, he suddenly becomes aware that neither the silence nor the darkness is complete. There is the sound of leaves being moved by a faint breeze in the patio; the basic glow of

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