The Sheltering Sky

by Paul Bowles

  “I already feel sick,” he exclaimed. “I can’t go on forever taking precautions just because I’m cold all the time. Anyway, I think as soon as we get to El Ga’a I’ll be better. It’s a lot warmer there, you know.”

  “Again? We only just got here.”

  “But you can’t deny it’s chilly here at night.”

  “I certainly do deny it. But that’s all right. If we’ve got to go to El Ga’a, then let’s go, by all means, but let’s go soon, and stay awhile.”

  “It’s one of the great Saharan cities,” he said, as if he were holding it up for her to see.

  “You don’t have to sell it to me,” she said. “And even if you did, that wouldn’t be the way. You know that means very little to me. El Ga’a, Timbuctoo, it’s all the same to me, more or less; all equally interesting, but not anything I’m going to go mad about. But if you’ll be happier there—I mean healthier—we should go, by all means.” She made a nervous gesture with her hand, in the hope of driving away an insistent fly.

  “Oh. You think my complaint is mental. You said happier.”

  “I don’t think anything because I don’t know. But it seems awfully peculiar to me that anybody should be constantly cold in September in the Sahara desert.”

  “Well, it’ll have to seem peculiar,” he said with annoyance. Then he suddenly exclaimed: “These flies have claws! They’re enough to drive you completely off your balance. What do they want, to crawl down your throat?” He groaned and rose to his feet; she looked at him expectantly. “I’ll fix it so we’ll be safe from them. Get up.” He burrowed into a valise and presently pulled out a folded bundle of netting. At his suggestion Kit cleared the bed of her clothing. Over the headboard and footboard he spread the net, remarking that there was no good reason why a mosquito net could not become a fly net. When it was well fastened they slid underneath with the bottle and lay there quietly as the afternoon wore on. By twilight they were pleasantly drunk, disinclined to move out from under their tent. Perhaps it was the sudden appearance of the stars in the square of the sky framed by the window, which helped to determine the course of their conversation. Each moment, as the color deepened, more stars came to fill the spaces which up until then had been empty. Kit smoothed her gown at the hips and said: “When I was young—”

  “How young?”

  “Before I was twenty, I mean, I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus. It would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth—” She hesitated.

  Port laughed abruptly. “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tastes wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.”

  “But I’m always conscious of the unpleasant taste and of the end approaching,” she said.

  “Then you should give up smoking.”

  “How mean you are!” she cried.

  “I’m not mean!” he objected, almost upsetting his glass as he raised himself on his elbow to drink. “It seems logical, doesn’t it? Or I suppose living’s a habit like smoking. You keep saying you’re going to give it up, but you go right on.”

  “You don’t even threaten to stop, as far as I can see,” she said accusingly.

  “Why should I? I want to go on.”

  “But you complain so all the time.”

  “Oh, not about life; only about human beings.”

  “The two can’t be considered separately.”

  “They certainly can. All it takes is a little effort. Effort, effort! Why won’t anybody make any? I can imagine an absolutely different world. Just a few misplaced accents.”

  “I’ve heard it all for years,” said Kit. She sat up in the near-dark, cocked her head and said: “Listen!”

  Somewhere outside, not far away, perhaps in the market place, an orchestra of drums was playing, little by little gathering up the loose strands of rhythmic force into one mighty compact design which already was revolving, a still imperfect wheel of heavy sounds, lumbering ahead toward the night. Port was silent awhile, and said in a whisper: “That, for instance.”

  “I don’t know,” said Kit. She was impatient. “I know I don’t feel any part of those drums out there, however much I may admire the sounds they make. And I don’t see any reason why I should want to feel a part of them.” She thought that such a straightforward declaration would put a quick end to the discussion, but Port was stubborn that evening.

  “I know, you never like to talk seriously,” he said, “but it won’t hurt you for once,”

  She smiled scornfully, since she considered his vague generalities the most frivolous kind of chatter—a mere vehicle for his emotions. According to her, at such times there was no question of his meaning or not meaning what he said, because he did not know really what he was saying. So she was banteringly: “What’s the unit of exchange in this different world of yours?”

  He did not hesitate. “The tear.”

  “It isn’t fair,” she objected. “Some people have to work very hard for a tear. Others can have them just for the thinking.”

  “What system of exchange is fair?” he cried, and his voice sounded as if he were really drunk. “And whoever invented the concept of fairness, anyway? Isn’t everything easier if you simply get rid of the idea of justice altogether? You think the quantity of pleasure, the degree of suffering is constant among all men? It somehow all comes out in the end? You think that? If it comes out even it’s only because the final sum is zero.”

  “I suppose that’s a comfort to you,” she said, feeling that if the conversation went on she would get really angry.

  “None at all. Are you crazy? I have no interest in knowing the final figure. But I am interested in all the complicated processes that make it possible to get that result inevitably, no matter what the original quantity was.”

  “The end of the bottle,” she murmured. “Perhaps a perfect zero is something to reach.”

  “Is it all gone? Hell. But we don’t reach it. It reaches us. It’s not the same thing.”

  “He’s really drunker than I am,” she thought. “No, it isn’t,” she agreed.

  And as he was saying: “You’re damned right,” and flopping violently over to lie on his stomach, she went on thinking of what a waste of energy all this talk was, and wondering how she could stop him from working himself up into an emotional state.

  “Ah, I’m disgusted and miserable!” he cried in a sudden burst of fury. “I should never take a drop because it always knocks me out. But it’s not weakness the way it is with you. Not at all. It takes more will power for me to make myself take a drink than it does for you not to. I hate the results and I always remember what they’ll be.”

  “Then why do you do it? Nobody asks you to.”

  “I told you,” he said. “I wanted to be with you. And besides, I always imagine that somehow I’ll be able to penetrate to the interior of somewhere. Usually I get just about to the suburbs and get lost. I don’t think there is any interior to get to any more. I think all you drinkers are victims of a huge mass hallucination.”

  “I refuse to discuss it,” said Kit haughtily, climbing down from the bed and struggling her way through the folds of netting that hung to the floor.

  He rolled over and sat up.

  “I know why I’m disgusted,” he called after her. “It’s something I ate. Ten years ago.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Lie down again and sleep,” she said, and went out of the room.

  “I do,” he muttered. He crawled out of the bed and went to stand in the window. The dry desert air was taking on its evening chill, and the drums still sounded. The canyon walls were black now, the scattered clumps of palms had become invisible. There were no lights; the room faced away from the
town. And this was what he meant. He gripped the windowsill and leaned out, thinking: “She doesn’t know what I’m talking about. It’s something I ate ten years ago. Twenty years ago.” The landscape was there, and more than ever he felt he could not reach it. The rocks and the sky were everywhere, ready to absolve him, but as always he carried the obstacle within him. He would have said that as he looked at them, the rocks and the sky ceased being themselves, that in the act of passing into his consciousness, they became impure. It was slight consolation to be able to say to himself: “I am stronger than they.” As he turned back into the room, something bright drew his eye to the mirror on the open door of the wardrobe. It was the new moon shining in through the other window. He sat down on the bed and began to laugh.

  XX

  Port spent the next two days trying assiduously to gather information about El Ga’a. It was astonishing how little the people of Bou Noura knew about the place. Everyone seemed in agreement that it was a large city—always it was spoken of with a certain respect—that it was far away, that the climate was warmer, and the prices high. Beyond this, no one appeared able to give any description of it, not even the men who had been there, such as the bus driver he spoke with, and the cook in the kitchen. One person who could have given him a somewhat fuller report on the town was Abdelkader, but intercourse between him and Port had been reduced to mere grunts of recognition. When he considered it, he realized now that it rather suited his fancy to be going off with no proof of his identity to a hidden desert town about which no one could tell him anything. So that he was not so much moved as he might have been when on meeting Corporal Dupeyrier in the street and mentioning El Ga’a to him, the corporal said:

  “But Lieutenant d’Armagnac has spent many months there. He can tell you everything you want to know.” Only then did he understand that he really wanted to know nothing about El Ga’a beyond the fact that it was isolated and unfrequented, that it was precisely those things he had been trying to ascertain about it. He determined not to mention the town to the lieutenant, for fear of losing his preconceived idea of it.

  The same afternoon Ahmed, who had reinstated himself in the lieutenant’s service, appeared at the pension and asked for Port. Kit, in bed reading, told the servant to send the boy to the hammam, where Port had gone to bask in the steam room in the hope of thawing out his chill once and for all. He was lying almost asleep in the dark, on a hot, slippery slab of rock, when an attendant came and roused him. With a wet towel around him he went to the entrance door. Ahmed stood there scowling; he was a light Arab boy from the ereg, and his face had the telltale, fiery gashes halfway down each cheek which debauchery sometimes makes in the soft skin of those too young to have pouches and wrinkles.

  “The lieutenant wants you right away,” said Ahmed.

  “Tell him in an hour,” Port said, blinking at the light of day.

  “Right away,” repeated Ahmed stolidly. “I wait here.”

  “Oh, he gives orders!” He went back inside and had a pail of cold water thrown over him—he would have liked more of it, but water was expensive here, and each pailful was a supplementary charge—and a quick massage before he dressed. It seemed to him that he felt a little better as he stepped out into the street. Ahmed was leaning against the wall talking with a friend, but he sprang to attention at Port’s appearance, and kept a few paces behind him all the way to the lieutenant’s house.

  Dressed in an ugly bathrobe of wine-colored artificial silk, the lieutenant sat in his salon smoking.

  “You will pardon me if I remain seated,” he said. “I am much better, but I feel best when I move least. Sit down. Will you have sherry, cognac or coffee?”

  Port murmured that coffee would please him most. Ahmed was sent to prepare it.

  “I don’t mean to detain you, monsieur. But I have news for you. Your passport has been found. Thanks to one of your compatriots, who had also discovered his passport missing, a search had already been instigated before I got in contact with Messad. Both documents had been sold to legionnaires. But fortunately both have been recovered.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a slip of paper. “This American, whose name is Tunner, says he knows you and is coming here to Bou Noura. He offers to bring your passport with him, but I must have your consent before notifying the authorities there to give it to him. Do you give your consent? Do you know this Monsieur Tunner?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Port absently. The idea horrified him; faced with Tunner’s imminent arrival, he was appalled to realize that he had never expected really to see him again. “When is he coming?”

  “I believe immediately. You are not in a hurry to leave Bou Noura?”

  “No,” said Port, his mind darting back and forth like a cornered animal, trying to remember what day the bus left for the south, what day it was then, how long it would take for Tunner to get from Messad. “No, no. I am not pressed for time.” The words sounded ridiculous as he said them. Ahmed came in silently with a tray bearing two small tin canisters with steam rising from them. The lieutenant poured a glass of coffee from each and handed one to Port, who took a sip and sat back in his chair.

  “But I do hope to get eventually to El Ga’a,” he went on, in spite of himself.

  “Ah, El Ga’a. You will find it very impressive, very picturesque, and very hot. It was my first Saharan post. I know every alley. It’s a vast city, perfectly flat, not too dirty, but rather dark because the streets are built through the houses, like tunnels. Quite safe. You and your wife can wander wherever you please. It’s the last town of any size this side of the Soudan. And that’s a great distance away, the Soudan. Oh, là, là!”

  “I suppose there’s a hotel in El Ga’a?”

  “Hotel? A kind of hotel,” laughed the lieutenant. “You will find rooms with beds in them, and it may be clean. It is not so dirty in the Sahara as people say. The sun is a great purifier. With even a minimum of hygiene the people could be healthy here. But of course there is not that minimum. Unfortunately for us, d’ailleurs.”

  “No. Yes, unfortunately,” said Port. He could not bring himself back to the room and the conversation. He had just realized that the bus left that very night, and there would not be another for a week. Tunner would be there by then. With that realization, his decision seemed to have come automatically. Certainly he was not conscious of having made it, but a moment later he relaxed and began to question the lieutenant on the details of his daily life and work in Bou Noura. The lieutenant looked pleased; one by one the inevitable anecdotes of the colonist came out, all having to do with the juxtaposition, sometimes tragic, but usually ludicrous, of the two incongruous and incompatible cultures. Finally Port rose. “It’s too bad,” he said with a note of sincerity in his voice, “that I shan’t be staying here longer.”

  “But you will be here several days more. I count absolutely on seeing you and Madame before your departure. In another two or three days I shall be completely well. Ahmed will let you know when and call for you. So, I shall notify Messad to give your passport to Monsieur Tunner.” He rose, extended his hand; Port went out.

  He walked through the little garden planted with stunted palms, and out the gate into the dusty road. The sun had set, and the sky was rapidly cooling. He stood still a moment looking upward, almost expecting to hear the sky crack as the nocturnal chill pressed against it from outside. Behind him in the nomad encampment the dogs barked in chorus. He began to walk quickly, to be out of their hearing as soon as he could. The coffee had accelerated his pulse to an unusual degree, or else it was his nervousness at the thought of missing the bus to El Ga’a. Entering the town gate, he turned immediately to the left and went down the empty street to the offices of the Transports Generaux.

  The office was stuffy, without light. In the dimness behind the counter on a pile of burlap sacks sat an Arab, half asleep. Immediately Port said: “What time does the bus leave for El Ga’a?”

  “Eight o’clock, monsieur.”

  “Are there
seats still?”

  “Oh, no. Three days ago they were all sold.”

  “Ah, mon dieu!” cried Port; his entrails seemed to grow heavier. He gripped the counter.

  “Are you sick?” said the Arab, looking at him, and his face showed a little interest.

  “Sick,” thought Port. And he said: “No, but my wife is very sick. She must get to El Ga’a by tomorrow.” He watched the Arab’s face closely, to see if he were capable of believing such an obvious lie. Apparently here it was as logical for an ailing person to go away from civilization and medical care as to go in the direction of it, for the Arab’s expression slowly changed to one of understanding and sympathy. Still, he raised his hands in a gesture that denoted his inability to help.

  But already Port had pulled out a thousand-franc note and spread it on the counter with determination.

  “You will have to give us two seats tonight,” he said firmly. “This is for you. You persuade someone to go next week.” Out of courtesy he did not suggest that the persuasion be used on two natives, although he knew that would be the case. “How much is the passage to El Ga’a?” He drew out more money.

  The Arab rose to his feet and stood scratching his turban deliberately. “Four hundred and fifty francs each,” he answered, “but I don’t know—”

  Port laid another twelve hundred francs before him and said: “That’s nine hundred. And twelve hundred and fifty for you, after you take out for the tickets.” He saw that the man’s decision had been made. “I shall bring the lady at eight o’clock.”

  “Half-past seven,” said the Arab, “for the luggage.”

  Back at the pension, in his excitement, he rushed into Kit’s room without knocking. She was dressing, and cried with indignation: “Really, have you lost your mind?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Only I hope you can travel in that dress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have seats on the bus tonight at eight.”