The Spider's House by Paul Bowles Page A

to anyone, and change the way he felt. However, it was too late now. He sat down and ate the boiled oats with cinnamon bark and goat’s milk that his little sister brought him. She squatted in the doorway, looking slyly at him now and then out of the corner of her eye. There were streaks of henna on her temples and forehead, and her hands were brick red with the dye. She was old enough to be given in marriage; already two offers had come in, but old Si Driss would not hear of it, partly because he wanted to see her around the house a bit longer (it seemed only last year that she had been born), and partly because neither of the offers had been substantial enough to consider seriously. Amar’s mother was in complete agreement with her husband; the longer she could forestall the marriage the happier she would be. It was no pleasure to have sons because they were never home; they bolted their food and disappeared, and when they grew older one could not even know whether they would return to sleep or not. But a daughter, since she was not allowed to stir from the house alone, even to fetch a kilo of sugar from the shop next door, could always be counted on to be there when one needed her. In any case, each year that passed gave Halima more charms: her eyes seemed to grow larger and her hair thicker and glossier.
    When he had eaten, Amar got up and went out into the courtyard. There he petted his two pigeons for a while, watching his mother in the hope that she would go upstairs, so that his departure would be unnoticed by her. Finally he decided to go out anyway.
    “It may rain,” she called as he reached the door.

    “It’s not going to rain,” he said. “ B’slemah .” He knew she wanted to say more—anything at all, so long as the conversation kept him there. It was always this way when he came to go out. He smiled over his shoulder and shut the door behind him. There were three turnings in the alley before it got to the street. At the second he came face to face with his father. As Amar was stooping to kiss his hand, the old man pulled it quickly away.
    “How did you awaken, my boy?” he said. They exchanged greetings, and Si Driss looked penetratingly at his son. “I want to talk to you,” he said.
    “Naam, sidi.”
    “Where are you going?”
    Amar had no destination in his head. “Just for a walk.”
    “This is not a world just to go for a walk in. You’re a man, you know, not a boy any longer. Think this over, and be home for lunch, because this afternoon you’re going with me to see Abderrahman Rabati.”
    Amar inclined his head and walked on. But the joy of being in the street in the morning was gone. Rabati was a big, loudmouthed man who often got work for the boys of the quarter with the French in the Ville Nouvelle, and Amar had heard countless stories of how difficult the work was, how the French were constantly in a bad humor and found pretexts for not paying when the end of the week came, and as if that were not bad enough, how Rabati himself habitually extracted small tributes from the boys in return for having found them their jobs. Besides, Amar knew no French beyond “ bon jour, m’sieu,” “en trez ,” and “fermez la porte,” expressions taught him by a well-meaning friend, and it was common knowledge that the boys who did not understand French were treated even worse, made the butt of jokes not only by the French but by the boys who were fortunate enough to know the language.
    He turned into the principal street of the quarter, nodded to the mint-seller, and looked unhappily around him, not even sure any longer that he wanted to take a walk. His father’s words had spread a film of poison over the morning landscape.

    There was only one way out, and that was to find himself some sort of work immediately, so that when he went home for lunch he would be able to say: “Father, I’m working.”
    He turned left and went up the dusty hill past the great carved façade of the old