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

by Paul Bowles

  “Port,” she said again, as softly as before. He went on breathing. She locked her handbag into a valise, looked at her wristwatch, and stepped forth once more into the bright courtyard, this time wearing dark glasses.

  Dominating the town, the fort sat astride a high hill of sand, a succession of scattered buildings protected by a wandering outer rampart. It was a separate town, alien to the surrounding landscape and candidly military in aspect. The native guards at the gate looked at her with interest as she went through. The town, sand-color, was spread out below with its single-storied, flat-roofed houses. She turned in the other direction and skirted the wall, climbing for a brief distance until she was at the top of the hill. The heat and the light made her slightly dizzy, and the sand kept filling her shoes. From this point she could hear the clear, high-pitched sounds of the town below; children’s voices and dogs barking. In all directions, where the earth and sky met, there was a faint, rapidly pulsating haze.

  “Sbâ,” she said aloud. The word meant nothing to her; it did not even represent the haphazard collection of formless huts below. When she returned to the room someone had left a mammoth white china chamber-pot in the middle of the floor. Port was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and he had pushed the covers off.

  She hurried to the cot and pulled them up over him. There was no way of tucking him in. She took his temperature: it had fallen somewhat.

  “This bed hurts my back,” he said unexpectedly, gasping a little. She stepped back and surveyed the cot: it sagged heavily between the head and the foot.

  “We’ll fix that in a little while,” she said. “Now, be good and keep covered up.”

  He looked at her reproachfully. “You don’t have to talk to me as if I were a child,” he said. “I’m still the same person.”

  “It’s just automatic, I suppose, when people are sick,” she said, laughing uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”

  He still looked at her. “I don’t have to be humored in any way,” he said slowly. Then he shut his eyes and sighed deeply.

  When the mattress arrived, she had the Arab who had brought it go and get another man. Together they lifted Port off the cot and laid him onto the mattress which was spread on the floor. Then she had them pile some of the valises on the cot. The Arabs went out.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” asked Port.

  “On the floor here beside you,” she said.

  He did not ask her any more. She gave him his pills and said: “Now sleep.” Then she went out to the gate and tried to speak with the guards; they did not understand any French, and kept saying: “Non, m’si.” As she was gesticulating with them, Captain Broussard appeared in a nearby doorway and looked at her with a certain suspicion in his eyes. “Do you want something, madame?” he said.

  “I want someone to go with me to the market and help me buy some blankets,” said Kit.

  “Ah, je regrette, madame,” he said. “There is no one in the post here who could render you that service, and I do not advise you to go alone. But if you like I can send you blankets from my quarters.”

  Kit was effusive in her thanks. She went back into the inner courtyard and stood a moment looking at the door of the room, loath to enter. “It’s a prison,” she thought. “I’m a prisoner here, and for how long? God knows.” She went in, sat down on a valise just inside the door, and stared at the floor. Then she rose, opened a bag, pulled out a fat French novel she had bought before leaving for Boussif, and tried to read. When she had got to the fifth page, she heard someone coming through the courtyard. It was a young French soldier carrying three camel blankets. She got up and stepped aside for him to enter, saying: “Ah, merci. Comme vous êtes aimable!” But he stood still just outside the door, holding his arm out toward her for her to take the blankets. She lifted them off and laid them on the floor at her feet. When she looked up he already had started away. She stared after him an instant, vaguely perplexed, and then set about collecting various odd pieces of clothing from among her effects, which could serve as a foundation to place underneath the blankets. She finally arranged her bed, lay down on it, and was pleasantly surprised to find it comfortable. All at once she felt an overwhelming desire to sleep. It would be another hour and a half before she must give Port his medicine. She closed her eyes and for a moment was in the back of the truck on her way from El Ga’a to Sbâ. The sensation of motion lulled her, and she immediately fell asleep.

  She was awakened by feeling something brush past her face. She started up, saw that it was dark and that someone was moving about in the room. “Port!” she cried. A woman’s voice said: “Voici mangi, madame.” She was standing directly above her. Someone came through the courtyard silently bearing a carbide lamp. It was a small boy, who walked to the door, reached in, and set the light down on the floor. She looked up and saw a large-boned old woman with eyes that were still beautiful. “This is Zina,” she thought, and she called her by name. The woman smiled, and stooped down, putting the tray on the floor by Kit’s bed. Then she went out.

  It was difficult to feed Port; much of the soup ran over his face and down his neck. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel like sitting up to eat,” she said as she wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. “Maybe,” he said feebly.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried. She had overslept; the pills were long overdue. She gave them to him and had him wash them down with a swallow of tepid water. He made a face. “The water,” he said. She sniffed the carafe. It reeked of chlorine. She had put the Halazone tablets in twice by mistake. “It won’t hurt you,” she said.

  She ate her food with relish; Zina was quite a good cook. While she was still eating, she looked over at Port and saw that he was already asleep. The pills seemed each time to have that effect. She thought of taking a short walk after the meal, but she was afraid that Captain Broussard might have given orders to the guards not to let her pass. She went out into the courtyard and walked around it several times, looking up at the stars. An accordion was being played somewhere at the other end of the fort; its sound was very faint. She went into the room, shut the door, locked it, undressed, and lay on her blankets beside Port’s mattress, pulling the lamp over near her head so she could read. But the light was not strong enough, and it moved too much, so that her eyes began to hurt, and the smell of it disgusted her. Reluctantly she blew out the flame, and the room fell back into the profoundest darkness. She had scarcely lain down before she sprang up again, and began to scrabble about the floor with her hand, searching for matches. She lit the lamp, which seemed to be smelling stronger than ever since she had blown it out, and said to herself, but moving her lips: “Every two hours. Every two hours.”

  In the night she awoke sneezing. At first she thought it was the odor of the lamp, but then she put her hand to her face, and felt the grit on her skin. She moved her fingers along the pillow: it was covered with a coating of dust. Then she became conscious of the noise of the wind outside. It was like the roar of the sea. Fearful of waking Port, she tried to stifle the sneeze that was on its way; her effort was unsuccessful. She got up. It seemed cold in the room. She spread Port’s bathrobe over him. Then she got two large handkerchiefs out of a suitcase and tied one over the lower part of her face, bandit-fashion. The other one she intended to arrange for Port when she woke him up to give him his pills. It would be only another twenty minutes. She lay down, sneezing again as a result of the dust raised by moving the blankets. She lay perfectly still listening to the fury of the wind as it swept by outside the door.

  “Here I am, in the middle of horror,” she thought, attempting to exaggerate the situation, in the hope of convincing herself that the worst had happened, was actually there with her. But it would not work. The sudden arrival of the wind was a new omen, connected only with the time to come. It began to make a singular, animal-like sound beneath the door. If she could only give up, relax, and live in the perfect knowledge that there was no hope. But there was never any knowing or any certitude; the time to c
ome always had more than one possible direction. One could not even give up hope. The wind would blow, the sand would settle, and in some as yet unforeseen manner time would bring about a change which could only be terrifying, since it would not be a continuation of the present.

  She remained awake the rest of the night, giving Port his pills regularly, and trying to relax in the periods between. Each time she woke him he moved obediently and swallowed the water and the tablet proffered him without speaking or even opening his eyes. In the pale, infected light of daybreak she heard him begin to sob. Electrified, she sat up and stared at the corner where his head lay. Her heart was beating very fast, activated by a strange emotion she could not identify. She listened a while, decided it was compassion she felt, and leaned over nearer to him. The sobs came up mechanically, like hiccups or belches. Little by little the sensation of excitement died away, but she remained sitting up, listening intently to the two sounds together: the sobs inside the room and the wind without. Two impersonal, natural sounds. After a sudden, short silence she heard him say, quite distinctly: “Kit. Kit.” As her eyes grew wide she said: “Yes?” But he did not answer. After a long time, clandestinely, she slid back down under the blanket and fell asleep for a while. When she awoke the morning had really begun. The inflamed shafts of distant sunlight sifted down from the sky along with the air’s fine grit; the insistent wind seemed about to blow away what feeble strands of light there were.

  She arose and moved about the room stiffly in the cold, trying to raise as little dust as possible while she made her toilet. But the dust lay thick on everything. She was conscious of a defect in her functioning—it was as if an entire section of her mind were numb. She felt the lack there: an enormous blind spot inside her—but she could not locate it. And as if from a distance she watched the fumbling gestures her hands made as they came in contact with the objects and the garments. “This has got to stop,” she said to herself. “This has got to stop.” But she did not know quite what she meant. Nothing could stop; everything always went on.

  Zina arrived, completely shrouded in a great white blanket, and slamming the door behind her against the blast, drew forth from beneath the folds of her clothing a small tray which bore a teapot and a glass. “Bonjour, madame. R’mleh bzef,” she said, with a gesture toward the sky, and set the tray on the floor beside the mattress.

  The hot tea gave her a little strength; she drank it all and sat a while listening to the wind. Suddenly she realized that there was nothing for Port. Tea would not be enough for him. She decided to go in search of Zina to see if there was any way of getting him some milk. She went out and stood in the courtyard, calling: “Zina! Zina!” in a voice rendered feeble by the wind’s fury, grinding the sand between her teeth as she caught her breath.

  No one appeared. After stumbling into and out of several empty niche-like rooms, she discovered a passageway that led to the kitchen. Zina was there squatting on the floor, but Kit could not make her understand what she wanted. With motions the old woman indicated that she would presently fetch Captain Broussard and send him to the room. Back in the semi-darkness she lay down on her pallet, coughing and rubbing away from her eyes the sand that had gathered on her face. Port was still sleeping.

  She herself was almost asleep when the captain came in. He removed the hood of his camel’s-hair burnous from around his face, and shook it, then he shut the door behind him and squinted about in the obscurity. Kit stood up. The expected queries and responses regarding the state of the patient were made. But when she asked him about the milk he merely looked at her pityingly. All canned milk was rationed, and that only to women with infants. “And the sheep’s milk is always sour and undrinkable in any case,” he added. It seemed to Kit that each time he looked at her it was as if he suspected her of harboring secret and reprehensible motives. The resentment she felt at his accusatory gaze helped her to regain a little of her lost sense of reality. “I’m sure he doesn’t look at everybody that way,” she thought. “Then why me? Damn his soul!” But she felt too utterly dependent upon the man to allow herself the satisfaction of letting him perceive anything of her reactions. She stood, trying to look forlorn, with her right hand outstretched above Port’s head in a compassionate gesture, hoping the captain’s heart might be moved; she was convinced that he could get her all the canned milk she wanted, if he chose.

  “Milk is completely unnecessary for your husband in any case, madame,” he said dryly. “The soup I have ordered is quite sufficient, and more digestible. I shall have Zina bring a bowl immediately.” He went out; the sand-laden wind still roared.

  Kit spent the day reading and seeing to it that Port was dosed and fed regularly. He was utterly disinclined to speak; perhaps he did not have the strength. While she was reading, sometimes she forgot the room, the situation, for minutes at a time, and on each occasion when she raised her head and remembered again, it was like being struck in the face. Once she almost laughed, it seemed so ridiculously unlikely. “Sbâ,” she said, prolonging the vowel so that it sounded like the bleat of a sheep.

  Toward late afternoon she tired of her book and stretched out on her bed, carefully, so as not to disturb Port. As she turned toward him, she realized with a disagreeable shock that his eyes were open, looking at her across the few inches of bedding. The sensation was so violently unpleasant that she sprang up, and staring back at him, said in a tone of forced solicitude: “How do you feel?” He frowned a little, but did not reply. Falteringly she pursued. “Do you think the pills help? At least they seem to bring the fever down a bit.” And now, surprisingly enough, he answered, in a soft but clear voice. “I’m very sick,” he said slowly. “I don’t know whether I’ll come back.”

  “Back?” she said stupidly. Then she patted his hot forehead, feeling disgusted with herself even as she uttered the words: “You’ll be all right.”

  All at once she decided she must get out of the room for a while before dark—even if just for a few minutes. A change of air. She waited until he had closed his eyes. Then without looking at him again for fear she would see them open once more, she got up quickly and stepped out into the wind. It seemed to have shifted a little, and there was less sand in the air. Even so, she felt the sting of the grains on her cheeks. Briskly she walked out beneath the high mud portal, not looking at the guards, not stopping when she reached the road, but continuing downward until she came to the street that led to the market place. Down there the wind was less noticeable. Apart from an inert figure lying here and there entirely swathed in its burnous, the way was empty. As she moved along through the soft sand of the street, the remote sun fell rapidly behind the flat hammada ahead, and the walls and arches took on their twilight rose hue. She was a little ashamed of herself for having given in to her nervous impatience to be out of the room, but she banished the sentiment by arguing with herself that nurses, like everyone else, must rest occasionally.

  She came to the market, a vast, square, open space enclosed on all four sides by whitewashed arcades whose innumerable arches made a monotonous pattern whichever way she turned her head. A few camels lay grumbling in the center, a few palm-branch fires flared, but the merchants and their wares were gone. Then she heard the muezzins calling in three distinct parts of the town, and saw those men who were left begin their evening prayer. Crossing the market, she wandered into a side street with its earthen buildings all orange in the momentary glow. The little shop doors were closed—all but one, in front of which she paused an instant, peering in vaguely. A man wearing a beret crouched inside over a small fire built in the middle of the floor, holding his hands fanwise almost in the flames. He glanced up and saw her, then rising, he came to the door. “Entrez, madame,” he said, making a wide gesture. For lack of anything else to do, she obeyed. It was a tiny shop; in the dimness she could see a few bolts of white cloth lying on the shelves. He fitted a carbide lamp together, touched a match to the spout, and watched the sharp flame spring up. “Daoud Zozeph,” he said, holding
forth his hand. She was faintly surprised: for some reason she had thought he was French. Certainly he was not a native of Sbâ. She sat on the stool he offered her, and they talked a few minutes. His French was quite good, and he spoke it gently in a tone of obscure reproof. Suddenly she realized he was a Jew. She asked him; he seemed astonished and amused at her question. “Of course,” he said. “I stay open during the hour of prayer. Afterward there are always a few customers.” They spoke of the difficulties of being a Jew here in Sbâ, and then she found herself telling him of her predicament, of Port who lay alone up in the Poste Militaire. He leaned against the counter above her, and it seemed to her that his dark eyes glowed with sympathy. Even this faint impression, unconfirmed as it was, made her aware for the first time of how cruelly lacking in that sentiment was the human landscape here, and of how acutely she had been missing it without realizing she was missing it. And so she talked on and on, even going into her feeling about omens. She stopped abruptly, looked at him a little fearfully, and laughed. But he was very serious; he seemed to understand her very well. “Yes, yes,” he said, stroking his beardless chin meditatively. “You are right about all that.”

  Logically she should not have found such a statement reassuring, but the fact that he agreed with her she found deliciously comforting. However, he continued: “The mistake you make is in being afraid. That is the great mistake. The signs are given us for our good, not for our harm. But when you are afraid you read them wrong and make bad things where good ones were meant to be.”