"A Distant Episode" (1947)

[possible spoilers] This short story by Paul Bowles is shocking enough that it probably warrants some sort of trigger warning. I'm also wary of the way he uses the generic greater Arabia as the seat of all human mystery and cruelty, particularly the latter. Much the same is also seen in Bowles's novel The Sheltering Sky. They are nonetheless thrilling experiences to read. In this story the main character, known only as "the Professor," travels to a small village as part of his study of linguistics. From the references, per Wikipedia, the region is likely Morocco or Algeria in the Western Sahara. The Professor is European and his facility with local languages alone shows he is not a typical tourist. Yet in many ways he has the typical problems, a mixture of arrogance, condescension, and sheer naivete that is famous for getting travelers into trouble. The Professor wants to look up a casual old native acquaintance in the village but finds the man has died. Mostly in an attempt to make a new acquaintance, he presses the man who knew the fate of his old friend for certain goods, "camel-udder boxes." The man says they aren't for sale in town but he can help the Professor get them. I didn't have the impression these camel-udder boxes were black market goods so much as something made by a clan that was not on good terms with the clan in the village. Very quickly, they are taking off on foot into the evening on a journey that does not look that promising for the Professor. Yet he pushes on, following the man and taking it as a kind of adventure. Like many travelers to risky areas, he thinks the worst he might find can be handled by a cooperative manner and a willingness to give up cash. At a certain point beyond the village, the Professor's guide leaves him. "The path begins here," he says. "The rock is white and the moon is strong. So you can see well." To our inevitable question, What could possibly go wrong? Bowles has a fiendish answer. And not only that but a calmly vivid and elaborate way of playing it out. The events are there to be discovered in this immaculate tale of human cruelty. Trigger warnings. Trigger warnings. It's deadly swift too, hurling you before you know it into a kind of numbed shock. I'm doing you a favor by raising your expectations so high because maybe then it won't hurt so much. Also, as a word from the PC police, again, I'm not entirely comfortable with the way Bowles uses the alien Arab world as an excuse for the stuff he dreams up. Other horror writers do similar things with Haiti. I didn't look that hard, but I couldn't find any basis in historical accounts connected to Arabs for the things that happen here. As a shocking story, however, with perhaps deeper things to say about alienation, colonialism, and human psychology, it's practically magnificent.

In case it's not at the library.