Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky

Momentarily taken aback, the man let go of his charge. Kit wheeled about automatically and started to walk toward the door, but he turned and seized her arm again. She tried to shake him off.

“She understands French!” exclaimed the woman, surprised. “So much the better.” Then she saw the valise. “What’s that?” she said,

“But it’s hers. She’s a French lady,” Amar explained, a note of indignation in his voice.

“Pas Possible,” murmured the woman. She came nearer and looked at her. Finally she said: “Ah, pardon, madame. But with those clothes—” She broke off, and suspicion entered her voice again. “You know, this is a decent hotel.” She was undecided, but she shrugged her shoulders, adding with bad grace: “Enfin, entrez si vous voulez.” And she stepped aside for Kit to pass.

Kit, however, was making frantic efforts to disengage herself from the man’s grasp.

“Non, non, non! A ne veux pas!” she cried hysterically, clawing at his hand. Then she put her free arm around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing.

The woman stared at her, then at Amar. Her face grew hard. “Take that creature out of here!” she said furiously. “Take her back to the bordel where you found her! Et ne viens plus m’emmerder avec tes sales putains! Va! Salaud!”

Outside the sun seemed more dazzling than before. The mud walls and the shining black faces went past. There was no end to the world’s intense monotony.

“I’m tired,” she said to Amar.

They were in a gloomy room sitting side by side on a long cushion. A Negro wearing a fez stood before them handing them each a glass of coffee.

“I want it all to stop,” she said to them both, very seriously.

“Oui, madame,” said Amar, patting her shoulder.

She drank her coffee and lay back against the wall, looking at them through half-closed eyes. They were talking together, they talked interminably. She did not wonder what it was about. When Amar got up and went outside with the other, she waited a moment, until their voices were no longer audible, and then she too jumped up and walked through a door on the other side of the room. There was a tiny stairway. On the roof it was so hot she gasped. The confused babble from the market was almost covered by the buzzing of the flies around her. She sat down. In another moment she would begin to melt. She shut her eyes and the flies crawled quickly over her face, alighting, leaving, re-alighting with frantic intensity. She opened her eyes and saw the city out there on all sides of her. Cascades of crackling light poured over the terraced roofs.

Slowly her eyes grew accustomed to the terrible brightness. She fixed the objects beside her on the dirt floor: the bits of rags; the dried carcass of a strange gray lizard; the faded, broken matchboxes; and the piles of white chicken feathers stuck together with dark blood. There was somewhere she had to go; someone was expecting her. How could she let the people know she would be late? Because there was no question about it—she was going to arrive far behind schedule. Then she remembered that she had not sent her telegram. At that moment Amar came through the little doorway and walked toward her. She struggled to her feet. “Wait here,” she said, pushing past him, and she went in because the sun made her feel ill. The man looked at the paper and then at her. “Where do you want to send it?” he repeated. She shook her head dumbly. He handed her the paper and she saw, written on it in her own hand, the words: “CANNOT GET BACK.” The man was staring at her. “That’s not right!” she cried, in French. “I want to add something.” But the man went on staring at her—not angrily, but expectantly. He had a small moustache and blue eyes. “Le destinataire, s’il vous plait,” he said again. She thrust the paper at him because she could not think of the words she needed to add, and she wanted the message to leave immediately. But already she saw that he was not going to send it. She reached out and touched his face, stroked his cheek briefly. “Je vous en prié, monsieur,” she said imploringly. There was a counter between them; he stepped back and she could not reach him. Then she ran out into the street and Amar, the black man, was standing there. “Quick!” she cried, not stopping. He ran after her, calling to her. Wherever she ran, he was beside her, trying to make her stop. “Madame!” he kept saying. But he did not understand the danger, and she could not stop to explain anything. There was no time for that. Now that she had betrayed herself, established contact with the other side, every minute counted. They would spare no effort in seeking her out, they would pry open the wall she had built and force her to look at what she had buried there. She knew by the blue-eyed man’s expression that she had set in motion the mechanism which would destroy her. And now it was too late to stop it. “Vite! Vite!” she panted to Amar, perspiring and protesting beside her. They were in an open space by the road that led down to the river. A few nearly naked beggars squatted here and there, each one murmuring his own short sacred formula for them as they rushed by. No one else was in sight.

He finally caught up with her and took hold of her shoulder, but she redoubled her efforts. Soon, however, she slowed down, and then he seized her firmly and brought her to a stop. She sank to her knees and wiped her wet face with the back of her hand. The expression of terror was still strong in her eyes. He crouched down beside her in the dust and tried to comfort her with clumsy pats on the arm.

“Where are you going like this?” he demanded presently. “What’s the matter?”

She did not answer. The hot wind blew past. In the distance on the flat road to the river, a man and two oxen passed along slowly. Amar was saying: “That was Monsieur Geoffroy. He’s a good man. You should not be afraid of him. For five years he has worked at the Postes et Télégraphes .”

The sound of the last word was like a needle piercing her flesh. She jumped. “No, I won’t! No, no, no!” she wailed.

“And you know,” Amar went on, “that money you wanted to give him is not good here. It’s Algerian money. Even in Tessalit you have to have A.O.F. francs. Algerian money is contraband.”

“Contraband,” she repeated; the word meant absolutely nothing.

“Défendu!” he said laughing, and be attempted to get her up onto her feet. The sun was painful; he, too, was sweating. She would not move at present—she was exhausted. He waited a while, made her cover her head with her haik, and lay back wrapped in his burnous. The wind increased. The sand raced along the flat black earth like white water streaming sideways.

Suddenly she said: “Take me to your house. They won’t find me there.”

But he refused, saying that there was no room, that his family was large. instead he would take her to the place where they had had coffee earlier in the day.

“It’s a café,” she protested.

“But Atallah has many rooms. You can pay him. Even your Algerian money. He can change it. You have more?”

“Yes, yes. In my bag.” She looked around. “Where is it?” she said vacantly.

“You left it at Atallah’s. He’ll give it to you.” He grinned and spat. “Now, shall we walk a little?”

Atallah was in his café. A few turbaned merchants from the north sat in a corner talking. Amar and Atallah stood a moment conversing in the doorway. Then they led her into the living quarters behind the café. It was very dark and cool in the rooms, and particularly in the last one, where Atallah set her valise down and indicated a blanket in the corner on the floor for her to lie on. Even as he went out, letting the curtain fall across the doorway, she turned to Amar and pulled his face down to hers.