The Sheltering Sky

by Paul Bowles

  At the hour when the sun shone its hottest, they came within sight of an oasis. The dunes here leveled off to make the terrain nearly flat. In a landscape made gray by too much light, the few hundred palms at first were no more than a line of darker gray at the horizon—a line which varied in thickness as the eye beheld it, moving like a slow-running liquid: a wide band, a long gray cliff, nothing at all, then once more the thin penciled border between the earth and the sky. She watched the phenomenon dispassionately, extracting a piece of bread from the pocket of her coat which lay spread across the ungainly shoulders of the mehari. The bread was completely dry.

  “Stenna, stenna. Chouïa, chouïa,” said the man.

  Soon a solitary thing detached itself from the undecided mass on the horizon, rising suddenly like a djinn into the air. A moment later it subsided, shortened, was merely a distant palm standing quite still on the edge of the oasis. Quietly they continued another hour or so, and presently they were among the trees. The well was enclosed by a low wall. There were no people, no signs of people. The palms grew sparsely; their branches, still more gray than green, shone with a metallic glister and gave almost no shade. Glad to rest, the camels remained lying down after the packs had been removed. From the bundles the servants took huge striped rugs, a nickel tea service, paper parcels of bread, dates and meat. A black goatskin canteen with a wooden faucet was brought out, and the three drank from it; the well water was considered satisfactory for the camels and drivers. She sat on the edge of the rug, leaning against a palm trunk, and watched the leisurely preparations for the meal. When it was ready she ate heartily and found everything delicious; still she did not down enough to please her two hosts, who continued to force food upon her long after she could eat no more.

  “Smitsek? Kuli!” they would say to her, holding small bits of food in front of her face; the younger tried to push dates between her teeth, but she laughed and shook her head, letting them fall onto the rug, whereupon the other quickly seized and ate them. Wood was brought from the packs and a fire was built so the tea could be brewed. When all this was done—the tea drunk, remade and drunk again it was mid-afternoon. The sun still burned in the sky.

  Another rug was spread beside the two supine mehara, and the men motioned to her to lie down there with them in the shade cast by the animals. She obeyed, and stretched out in the spot they indicated, which was between them. The younger one promptly seized her and held her in a fierce embrace. She cried out and attempted to sit up, but he would not let her go. The other man spoke to him sharply and pointed to the camel drivers, who were seated leaning against the wall around the well, attempting to hide their mirth.

  “Luh, Belqassim! Essbar!” he whispered, shaking his head in disapproval, and running his hand lovingly over his black beard. Belqassim was none too pleased, but having as yet no beard of his own, he felt obliged to subscribe to the other’s sage advice. Kit sat up, smoothed her dress, looked at the older man and said: “Thank you.” Then she tried to climb over him so that he would lie between her and Belqassim; roughly he pushed her back down on the rug and shook his head. “Nassi,” he said, signaling that she sleep. She shut her eyes. The hot tea had made her drowsy, and since Belqassim gave no further sign of intending to bother her, she relaxed completely and fell into a heavy slumber.

  She was cold. It was dark, and the muscles of her back and legs ached. She sat up, looked about, saw that she was alone on the rug. The moon had not yet risen. Nearby the camel drivers were building a fire, throwing whole palm branches into the already soaring flames. She lay down again and faced the sky above her, seeing the high palms flare red each time a branch was added to the blaze.

  Presently the older man stood at the side of the rug, motioning to her to get up. She obeyed, followed him across the sand a short way to a slight depression behind a clump of young palms. There Belqassim was seated, a dark form in the center of a white rug, facing the side of the sky where it was apparent that the moon would shortly rise. He reached out and took hold of her skirt, pulling her quickly down beside him. Before she could attempt to rise again she was caught in his embrace. “No, no, no!” she cried as her head was tilted backward and the stars rushed across the black space above. But he was there all around her, more powerful by far; she could make no movement not prompted by his will. At first she was stiff, gasping angrily, grimly trying to fight him, although the battle went on wholly inside her. Then she realized her helplessness and accepted it. Straightway she was conscious only of his lips and the breath coming from between them, sweet and fresh as a spring morning in childhood. There was an animal-like quality in the firmness with which he held her, affectionate, sensuous, wholly irrational—gentle but of a determination that only death could gainsay. She was alone in a vast and unrecognizable world, but alone only for a moment; then she understood that this friendly carnal presence was there with her. Little by little she found herself considering him with affection: everything he did, all his overpowering little attentions were for her. In his behavior there was a perfect balance between gentleness and violence that gave her particular delight. The moon came up, but she did not see it.

  “Yah, Belqassim!” cried a voice impatiently. She opened her eyes: the other man was standing above them, looking down at them. The moon shone full into his eagle-like face. An unhappy intuition whispered to her what would occur. Desperately she clung to Belqassim, covering his face with kisses. But a moment later she had with her a different animal, bristling and alien, and her weeping passed unnoticed. She kept her eyes open, staring at Belqassim who leaned idly against a nearby tree, his sharp cheekbones carved brightly by the moonlight. Again and again she followed the line of his face from his forehead down to his fine neck, exploring the deep shadows in search of his eyes, hidden in the darkness. At one point she cried aloud, and then she sobbed a little because he was so near and she could not touch him.

  The man’s caresses were brusque, his motions uncouth, unacceptable. At last he rose. “Yah latff! Yah latff!” he muttered, slowly walking away. Belqassim chuckled, stepped over and threw himself down at her side. She tried to look reproachful, but she knew beforehand that it was hopeless, that even had they had a language in common, he never could understand her. She held his head between her hands. “Why did you let him?” she could not help saying.

  “Habibi,” he murmured, stroking her cheek tenderly.

  Again she was happy for a while, floating on the surface of time, conscious of making the gestures of love only after she had discovered herself in the act of making them. Since the beginning of all things each motion had been waiting to be born, and at last was coming into existence. Later, as the round moon, mounting, grew smaller in the sky, she heard the sound of flutes by the fire. Presently the older merchant appeared again and called peevishly to Belqassim, who answered him with the same ill humor.

  “Baraka!” said the other, going away again. A few moments later Belgassim sighed regretfully and sat up. She made no effort to hold him. Presently she also rose and walked toward the fire, which had died down and was being used to roast some skewers of meat. They ate quietly without conversation, and shortly afterward the packs were closed and piled onto the camels. It was nearly the middle of the night when they set out, doubling back on their tracks to the high dunes, where they continued in the direction they had been traveling the previous day. This time she wore a burnous that Belqassim had tossed to her as they were about to start. The night was cold and miraculously clear.

  They continued until mid-morning, stopping at a place in the high dunes that had not a sign of vegetation, Again they slept through the afternoon, and again the double ritual of love was observed at a distance from the camping site when dark had fallen.

  And so the days went by, each one imperceptibly hotter than the one before it, as they moved southward across the desert. Mornings—the painful journey under the unbearable sun; afternoons—the soft hours beside Belqassim (the short interlude with the other no longer bothe
red her, since Belqassim always stood by); and nights—the setting forth under the now waning moon, toward other dunes and other plains, each more distant than the last and yet indistinguishable from it.

  But if the surroundings seemed always the same, there were certain changes appearing in the situation that existed among the three of them: the ease and lack of tension in their uncomplicated relationship began to be troubled by a noticeable want of good feeling on the part of the older man. He and Belqassim had endless argumentative discussions in the hot afternoons when the camel drivers were sleeping. She also would have liked to take advantage of the hour, but they kept her awake, and although she could not understand a word they said, it seemed to her that the older man was warning Belqassim against a course of action upon which the latter was stubbornly determined. In a perfect orgy of excitement he would go through a lengthy mimicry in which a group of people successively registered astonishment, indignant disapproval and rage. Belqassim would smile indulgently and shake his head with patient disagreement; there was something both intransigent and self-assured about his attitude in the matter that infuriated the other, who, each time it seemed that further expostulation would be useless, got up and took a few steps away, only to turn a moment later and renew the attack. But it was quite clear that Belqassim had made up his mind, that no threat or prophecy of which his companion was capable would succeed in altering the decision he had made. At the same time Belqassim was adopting an increasingly proprietary attitude toward Kit. Now he made it understood that he suffered the other to take his brief nightly pleasure with her only because he was being exceptionally generous. Each evening she expected that he finally would refuse to yield her up, fail to rise and walk over to lean against a tree when the other approached. And indeed, he had taken to grumbling objections when that moment arrived, but still he let his friend have her, and she supposed that it was a gentleman’s agreement, made for the duration of the voyage.

  During the middle of the day it was no longer the sun alone that persecuted from above—the entire sky was like a metal dome grown white with heat. The merciless light pushed down from all directions; the sun was the whole sky. They took to traveling only at night, setting out shortly after twilight and halting at the first sign of the rising sun. The sand had been left far behind, and so had the great dead stony plains. Now there was a gray, insect-like vegetation everywhere, a tortured scrub of hard shells and stiff hairy spines that covered the earth like an excrescence of hatred. The ashen landscape as they moved through it was flat as a floor. Day by day the plants grew higher, and the thorns that sprouted from them stronger and more cruel. Now some reached the stature of trees, flat-topped and wide, and always defiant, but a puff of smoke would have afforded as much protection from the sun’s attack. The nights were moonless and much warmer. Sometimes as they advanced across the dark countryside there was the startled sound of beasts fleeing from their path. She wondered what she would have seen if it had been daylight, but she did not feel any real danger, At this point, apart from a gnawing desire to be close to Belqassim all the time, it would have been hard for her to know what she did feel. It was so long since she had canalized her thoughts by speaking aloud, and she had grown accustomed to acting without the consciousness of being in the act. She did only the things she found herself already doing.

  One night, having stopped the caravan to go into the bushes for a necessary moment, and seeing the outline of a large animal in the dimness near her, she cried out, and was joined instantly by Belgassim, who consoled her and then forced her savagely to the ground where he made unexpected love to her while the caravan waited. She had the impression, notwithstanding the painful thorns that remained in various parts of her flesh, that this was a usual occurrence, and she suffered calmly the rest of the night. The next day the thorns were still there and the places had festered, and when Belqassim undressed her he saw the red welts and was angry because they marred the whiteness of her body, thus diminishing greatly the intensity of his pleasure. Before he would have anything to do with her, she was forced to undergo the excruciating extraction of every thorn. Then he rubbed butter all over her back and legs.

  Now that their love making was carried on in the daytime, each morning when it was definitely over, he left the blanket where she lay and took a gourba of water with him to a spot a few yards distant, where he stood in the early sunlight and bathed assiduously. Afterwards she, too, would fetch a gourba and carry it as far away as she could, but often she found herself washing in full view of the entire camp, because there was nothing behind which she could conceal herself. But the camel drivers paid her no more attention at such moments than did the camels themselves. For all that she was a topic of intense interest and constant discussion among them, she remained a piece of property that belonged to their masters, as private and inviolable as the soft leather pouches full of silver these latter carried slung across their shoulders.

  At last there came a night when the caravan turned into a well trodden road. In the distance ahead a fire blazed; when they came abreast of it they saw men and camels sleeping. Before dawn they stopped outside a village and ate. When morning came, Belqassim went on foot into the town, returning some time later with a bundle of clothing. Kit was asleep, but he woke her and spread the garments out on the blanket in the ambiguous shadow of the thorn trees, indicating that she undress and put them on. She was pleased to lay aside her own clothes, which were in an unrecognizable state of dishevelment at this point, and it was with growing delight that she pulled on the full soft trousers and got into the loose vests and the flowing robe. Belqassim watched her closely when she had finished and was walking about. He beckoned her to him, took up a long white turban and wound it around her head, hiding her hair completely. Then he sat back and watched her some more. He frowned, called her to him again and produced a woolen sash with which he bound the upper part of her body tightly, pressing it against her bare skin directly under her arms and tying it firmly in the back. She felt a certain difficulty in breathing, and wanted him to take it off, but he shook his head. Suddenly she understood that these were men’s garments and that she was being made to look like a man. She began to laugh; Belqassim joined her in her merriment, and made her walk back and forth in front of him several times; each time she passed he patted her on the buttocks with satisfaction. Her own clothes they left there in the bushes, and when an hour or so later Belqassim discovered that one of the camel drivers had appropriated them, presumably with the intention of selling them as they passed through the village presently, he was very angry, and wrenched them away from the man, bidding him dig a shallow hole and bury them then and there while he watched.

  She went to the camels and opened her bag for the first time, looked into the mirror on the inside of the lid, and discovered that with the heavy tan she had acquired during the past weeks she looked astonishingly like an Arab boy. The idea amused her. While she was still trying to see the ensemble effect in the small glass, Belqassim came up, and seizing her, bore her off bodily to the blanket where he showered kisses and caresses upon her for a long time, calling her “Ali” amid peals of delighted laughter.

  The village was an agglomeration of round mud huts with thatched roofs; it seemed strangely deserted. The three left the camels and drivers at the entrance and went on foot to the small market, where the older man bought several packets of spices. It was unbelievably hot; the rough wool against her skin and the tightness with which the sash was bound about her chest made her feel that at any moment she would collapse into the dust. The people squatting in the market were all very black, and most of them had old, lifeless faces. When a man addressed himself to Kit, holding up a pair of used sandals (she was barefoot), Belqassim pushed forward and answered for her, indicating with accompanying gestures that the young man with him was not in his right mind and must not be bothered or spoken to. This explanation was given several times during their walk through the village; everyone accepted it without comment. At on
e point an aged woman whose face and hands were partially devoured by leprosy reached up and seized Kit’s clothing, asking alms. She glanced down, shrieked, and clutched at Belqassim for protection. Brutally he pushed her away from him, so that she fell against the beggar; at the same time he poured forth a flood of scornful invective at her, spitting furiously on the ground when he had finished. The onlookers seemed amused; but the older man shook his head, and later when they were back at the edge of the town with the camels, he began to berate Belqassim, pointing wrathfully at each item of Kit’s disguise. Still Belqassim only smiled and answered in monosyllables. But this time the other’s anger was unappeasable, and she had the impression that he was delivering a final warning which he knew to be futile, that henceforth he would consider the matter outside the domain of his interest. And sure enough, neither that day or the next did he have anything to do with her.

  They started at dusk. Several times during the night they met processions of men and oxen, and they passed through two smaller villages where fires burned in the streets. The following day while they rested and slept there was a constant stream of traffic moving along the road. That evening they set out even before the sun had set. By the time the moon was well up in the sky they bad arrived at the top of a slight eminence from which they could see, spread out not far below, the fires and lights of a great flat city. She listened to the men’s conversation, hoping to discover its name, but without success.