The Sheltering Sky / Let It Come Down / the Spider's House

by Paul Bowles

  She was drenched through and shivering, but she still held on to the cold metal railing and looked straight ahead of her— sometimes into the face, and sometimes to one side into the gray, rain-filled air of the night behind it. It was a tête-à-tête which would last until they came to a station. The train was laboring slowly, noisily, up a steep grade. From time to time, in the middle of the shaking and racket, there was a hollow sound for a few seconds as it crossed a short bridge or a trestle. At such moments it seemed to her that she was moving high in the air and that far below there was water rushing between the rocky walls of the chasms. The driving rain continued. She had the impression of living a dream of terror which refused to come to a finish. She was not conscious of time passing; on the contrary, she felt that it had stopped, that she had become a static thing suspended in a vacuum. Yet underneath was the certainty that at a given moment it would no longer be this way—but she did not want to think of that, for fear that she should become alive once more, that time should begin to move again and that she should be aware of the endless seconds as they passed.

  And so she stood unmoving, always shivering, holding herself very erect. When the train slowed down and came to a stop, the lion-faced man was gone. She got off and hurried through the rain, back toward the end of the train. As she climbed into the second-class carriage, she remembered that he had stepped aside like any normal man, to let her pass. She began to laugh to herself, quietly. Then she stood still. There were people in the corridor, talking. She turned and went back to the toilet, locked herself in, and began to make up by the flickering lantern overhead, looking into the small oval mirror above the washstand. She was still trembling with cold, and water ran down her legs onto the floor. When she felt she could face Tunner again, she went out, down the corridor, and crossed over into the first-class coach. The door of their compartment was open. Tunner was staring moodily out the window. He turned as she went in, and jumped up.

  “My God, Kit! Where have you been?”

  “In the fourth-class carriage.” She was shaking violently, so that it was impossible for her to sound nonchalant, as she had intended.

  “But look at you! Come in here.” His voice was suddenly very serious. He pulled her firmly into the compartment, shut the door, helped her to sit down, and immediately began to go through his luggage, taking things out and laying them on the seat. She watched him in a stupor. Presently he was holding two aspirin tablets and a plastic cup in front of her face. “Take these,” he commanded. The cup contained champagne. She did as she was told. Then he indicated the flannel bathrobe on the seat across from her. “I’m going out into the passageway here, and I want you to take off every stitch you have on, and put on that. Then you rap on the door and I’ll come in and massage your feet. No excuses, now. Just do it.” He went out and rolled the door shut after him.

  She pulled down the shades at the outside windows and did as he had told her. The robe was soft and warm; she sat huddled in it on the seat for a while, her legs drawn up under her. And she poured herself three more cups of champagne, drinking them quickly one after the other. Then she tapped softly on the glass. The door opened a little. “All clear?” said Tunner.

  “Yes, yes. Come in.”

  He sat down opposite her. “Now, stick your foot out here. I’m going to give them an alcohol rub. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you crazy? Want to get pneumonia? What happened? Why were you so long? You had me nuts here, running up and down the place, in and out of cars asking everybody if they’d seen you. I didn’t know where the hell you’d gone to.”

  “I told you I was in the fourth-class with the natives. I couldn’t get back because there’s no bridge between the cars. That feels wonderful. You’ll wear yourself out.”

  He laughed, and rubbed more vigorously. “Never have yet.”

  When she was completely warm and comfortable he reached up and turned the lantern’s wick very low. Then he moved across and sat beside her. The arm went around her, the pressure began again. She could think of nothing to say to stop him.

  “You all right?” he asked softly, his voice husky.

  “Yes,” she said.

  A minute later she whispered nervously: “No, no, no! Someone may open the door.”

  “No one’s going to open the door.” He kissed her. Over and over in her head she heard the slow wheels on the rails saying: “Not now not now, not now not now . . .” And underneath she imagined the deep chasms in the rain, swollen with water. She reached up and caressed the back of his head, but she said nothing.

  “Darling,” he murmured. “Just be still. Rest.”

  She could no longer think, nor were there any more images in her head. She was aware only of the softness of the woolen bathrobe next to her skin, and then of the nearness and warmth of a being that did not frighten her. The rain beat against the window panes.

  Chapter XI

  THE ROOF OF the hotel in the early morning, before the sun had come from behind the nearby mountainside, was a pleasant place for breakfast. The tables were set out along the edge of the terrace, overlooking the valley. In the gardens below, the fig trees and high stalks of papyrus moved slightly in the fresh morning wind. Farther down were the larger trees where the storks had made their huge nests, and at the bottom of the slope was the river, running with thick red water. Port sat drinking his coffee, enjoying the rain-washed smell of the mountain air. Just below, the storks were teaching their young to fly; the rachet-like croaking of the older birds was mingled with shrill cries from the fluttering young ones.

  As he watched, Mrs. Lyle came through the doorway from downstairs. It seemed to him that she looked unusually distraught. He invited her to sit with him, and she ordered her tea from an old Arab waiter in a shoddy rose-colored uniform.

  “Gracious! Aren’t we ever picturesque!” she said.

  Port called her attention to the birds; they watched them until her tea was brought.

  “Tell me, has your wife arrived safely?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t seen her. She’s still asleep.”

  “I should think so, after that damnable trip.”

  “And your son. Still in bed?”

  “Good heavens, no! He’s gone off somewhere, to see some caïd or other. That boy has letters of introduction to Arabs in every town of North Africa, I expect.” She became pensive. After a moment she said, looking at him sharply: “I do hope you don’t go near them.”

  “Arabs, you mean? I don’t know any personally. But it’s rather hard not to go near them, since they’re all over the place.”

  “Oh, I’m talking about social contact with them. Eric’s an absolute fool. He wouldn’t be ill today if it hadn’t been for those filthy people.”

  “Ill? He looks well enough to me. What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s very ill.” Her voice sounded distant; she looked down toward the river. Then she poured herself some more tea, and offered Port a biscuit from a tin she had brought upstairs with her. Her voice more definite, she continued. “They’re all contaminated, you know, of course. Well, that’s it. And I’ve been having the most beastly time trying to make him get proper treatment. He’s a young idiot.”

  “I don’t think I quite understand,” said Port.

  “An infection, an infection,” she said impatiently. “Some filthy swine of an Arab woman,” she added, with astonishing violence.

  “Ah,” said Port, noncommittal.

  Now she sounded less sure of herself. “I’ve been told that such infections can even be transmitted among men directly. Do you believe that, Mr. Moresby?”

  “I really don’t know,” he answered, looking at her in some surprise. “There’s so much uninformed talk about such things. I should think a doctor would know best.”

  She passed him another biscuit. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to discuss it. You must forgive me.”

  “Oh, I have no objection at all,” he protested. “But I’m not a doctor. You understand.�
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  She seemed not to have heard him. “It’s disgusting. You’re quite right.”

  Half of the sun was peering from behind the rim of the mountain; in another minute it would be hot. “Here’s the sun,” said Port. Mrs. Lyle gathered her things together.

  “Shall you be staying long in Boussif?” she asked.

  “We have no plans at all. And you?”

  “Oh, Eric has some mad itinerary worked out. I believe we go on to Aïn Krorfa tomorrow morning, unless he decides to leave this noon and spend the night in Sfissifa. There’s supposed to be a fairly decent little hotel there. Nothing so grand as this, of course.”

  Port looked around at the battered tables and chairs, and smiled. “I don’t think I’d want anything much less grand than this.”

  “Oh, but my dear Mr. Moresby! This is positively luxurious. This is the best hotel you’ll find between here and the Congo. There’s nothing after this with running water, you know. Well, we shall see you before we go, in any case. I’m being baked by this horrible sun. Please say good morning to your wife for me.” She rose and went downstairs.

  Port hung his coat on the back of the chair and sat a while, pondering the unusual behavior of this eccentric woman. He could not bring himself to attribute it to mere irresponsibility or craziness; it seemed much more likely that her deportment was a roundabout means of communicating an idea she dared not express directly. In her own confused mind the procedure was apparently logical. All he could be certain of was that her basic motivation was fear. And Eric’s was greed; of that also he was sure. But the compound made by the two together continued to mystify him. He had the impression that the merest indication of a design was beginning to take shape; what the design was, what it might end by meaning, all that was still wholly problematical. He guessed however that at the moment mother and son were working at cross-purposes. Each had a reason for being interested in his presence, but the reasons were not identical, nor even complementary, he thought.

  He consulted his watch: it was ten-thirty. Kit would probably not be awake yet. When he saw her he intended to discuss the matter with her, if she were not still angry with him. Her ability to decipher motivations was considerable. He decided to take a walk around the town. Stopping off in his room, he left his jacket there and picked up his sun glasses. He had reserved the room across the hall for Kit. As he went out he put his ear against the door of her room and listened; there was no sound within.

  Boussif was a completely modern town, laid out in large square blocks, with the market in the middle. The unpaved streets, lined for the most part with box-shaped one-story buildings, were filled with a rich red mud. A steady procession of men and sheep moved through the principal thoroughfare toward the market, the men walking with the hoods of their burnouses drawn up over their heads against the sun’s fierce attack. There was not a tree to be seen anywhere. At the ends of the transversal streets the bare wasteland sloped slowly upward to the base of the mountains, which were raw, savage rock without vegetation. Except for the faces he found little of interest in the enormous market. At one end there was a tiny café with one table set outside under a cane trellis. He sat down and clapped his hands twice. “Ouahad atai,” he called; that much Arabic he remembered. While he sipped the tea, which he noticed was made with dried mint leaves instead of fresh, he observed that the same ancient bus kept passing the café, sounding its horn insistently. He watched it as it went by. Filled with native passengers, it made the tour of the market again and again, the boy on the back platform pounding its resonant tin body rhythmically, and shouting: “Arfâ! Arfâ! Arfâ! Arfâ!” without stopping.

  He sat there until lunchtime.

  Chapter XII

  THE FIRST THING Kit knew when she awoke was that she had a bad hangover. Then she noticed the bright sun shining into the room. What room? It was too much effort for her to think back. Something moved at her side on the pillow. She rolled her eyes to the left, and saw a shapeless dark mass beside her head. She cried out and sprang up, but even as she did so she knew it was only Tunner’s black hair. In his sleep he stirred, and stretched out his arm to embrace her. Her head pounding painfully, she jumped out of bed and stood staring at him. “My God!” she said aloud. With difficulty she aroused him, made him get up and dress, forced him out into the hall with all his luggage, and quickly locked the door after him. Then, before he had thought of finding a boy to help him with the bags, while he was still standing there stupidly, she opened the door and made a whispered demand for a bottle of champagne. He got one out, passed it in to her, and she shut the door again. She sat down on the bed and drank the whole bottle. Her need for the drink was partly physical, but particularly she felt she could not face Port until she had engaged in an inner dialogue from which she might emerge in some measure absolved for last night. She also hoped the champagne would make her ill, so that she could have a legitimate reason for staying in bed all day. It had quite the opposite effect: no sooner had she finished it than her hangover was gone, and she felt slightly tipsy, but very well. She went to the window and looked out onto the glaring courtyard where two Arab women were washing clothes in a large stone basin, spreading them out over the bushes to dry in the sun. She turned quickly and unpacked her overnight case, scattering the objects about the room. Then she began a careful search for any trace of Tunner that might be left in the room. A black hair on the pillow caused her heart to skip a beat; she dropped it out the window. Meticulously she made the bed, spread the woolen cover over it. Next she called the maid and asked her to have the fathma come and wash the floor. That way, if Port should arrive soon, it would look as though the maid had already finished the room. She dressed and went downstairs. The fathma’s heavy bracelets jangled as she scrubbed the tiles.

  When he got back to the hotel Port knocked on the door of the room opposite his. A male voice said: “Entrez,” and he walked in. Tunner had partially undressed and was unpacking his valises. He had not thought to unmake the bed, but Port did not notice this.

  “What the hell!” said Port. “Don’t tell me they’ve given Kit the lousy back room I reserved for you.”

  “I guess they must have. But thanks anyway.” Tunner laughed.

  “You don’t mind changing, do you?”

  “Why? Is the other room so bad? No, I don’t mind. It just seems like a lot of damned nonsense for just a day. No?”

  “Maybe it’ll be more than a day. Anyway, I’d like Kit to be here across from me.”

  “Of course. Of course. Better let her know too, though. She’s probably in the other room there in all innocence, thinking it’s the best in the hotel.”

  “It’s not a bad room. It’s just on the back, that’s all. It was all they had yesterday when I reserved them.”

  “Righto. We’ll get one of these monkeys to make the shift for us.”

  At lunch the three were reunited. Kit was nervous; she talked steadily, mainly about post-war European politics. The food was bad, so that none of them was in a very pleasant humor.

  “Europe has destroyed the whole world,” said Port. “Should I be thankful to it and sorry for it? I hope the whole place gets wiped off the map.” He wanted to cut short the discussion, to get Kit aside and talk with her privately. Their long, rambling, supremely personal conversations always made him feel better. But she hoped particularly to avoid just such a tête-à-tête.

  “Why don’t you extend your good wishes to all humanity, while you’re at it?” she demanded.