The Crystal World

Thinking of the small, intelligent microbiologist and his wife, tall and dark-haired, with her high forehead and calm eyes, Dr. Sanders remembered their sudden departure from Fort Isabelle three months earlier. Sanders's affair with Suza

On second thought, Sanders recognized that a far more sinister explanation for their departure from the hospital was at hand. When Suza

From Suza

As he began to fold Suza

"I beg your pardon, Doctor. My bag." He added: "The customs people are here."

A

Deciding to leave Ventress alone so that he could slip the weapon through the porthole, Dr. Sanders picked up his two suitcases.

"Well, goodbye, Doctor." Ventress was smiling, his face even more skull-like behind the beard. He held the door open. "It's been very interesting, a great pleasure to share a cabin with you."

Dr. Sanders nodded. "And perhaps something of a challenge too, M. Ventress? I hope all your victories come as easily."

"Touché, Doctor!" Ventress saluted him, then waved as Sanders made his way down the corridor. "But I gladly leave you with the last laugh-the old man with the scythe, eh?"

Without looking back, Dr. Sanders climbed the companionway to the saloon, aware of Ventress watching him from the door of the cabin. The other passengers were sitting in the chairs by the bar, Father Balthus among them, as a prolonged harangue took place between the first officer, two customs officials and a police sergeant. They were consulting the passenger list, scrutinizing everyone in turn as if searching for some missing passenger.

As Dr. Sanders lowered his two bags to the floor he caught the phrase: "No journalists allowed…" and then one of the customs men beckoned him over.

"Dr. Sanders?" he asked, putting a particular emphasis into the name as if he half hoped it might be an alias. "From Libreville University…?" He lowered his voice. "The Physics Department…? May I see your papers?"

Dr. Sanders pulled out his passport. A few feet to his left, Father Balthus was watching him with a sharp eye. "My name is Sanders, of the Fort Isabelle _léproserie_."

After apologizing for their mistake, the customs men glanced at each other and then cleared Dr. Sanders, chalking up his suitcases without bothering to open them. A few moments later he walked down the gangway. On the jetty the native soldiers lounged around the staff car. The rear seat remained vacant, presumably for the missing physicist from Libreville University.

As he handed his suitcases to a porter with _Hotel d'Europe_ stenciled across his peaked cap, Dr. Sanders noticed that a far more thorough inspection was being made of the baggage of those leaving Port Matarre. A group of thirty to forty steerage passengers was herded together at the far end of the jetty, and the police and customs men were searching them one by one. Most of the natives carried bedrolls with them, and the police were unwinding these and squeezing the padding.

By contrast with this activity, the town was nearly deserted. The arcades on either side of the main street were empty, and the windows of the Hotel d'Europe hung listlessly in the dark air, the narrow shutters like coffin lids. Here, in the center of the town, the faded white façades made the somber light of the jungle seem even more pervasive. Looking back at the river as it turned like an immense snake into the forest, Dr. Sanders felt that it had sucked away all but a bare residue of life.

As he followed the porter up the steps into the hotel, he saw the black-robed figure of Father Balthus farther down the arcade. The priest was walking swiftly, his small traveling bag held in one hand. He turned between two columns, then crossed the road and disappeared among the shadows in the arcade facing the hotel. At intervals Sanders saw him again, his dark figure lit by the sunlight, the white columns of the arcade framing him like the shutter of a defective stroboscopic device. Then, for no apparent reason, he crossed the Street again, the skirt of his black robe whipping the dust around his heels. His high face passed Sanders without turning, like the pale, half-remembered profile of someone glimpsed in a nightmare.

Sanders pointed after him. "Where's he off to?" he asked the porter: "The priest-he was on the steamer with me."

"To the seminary. The Jesuits are still there."

"Still? -what do you mean?"

Sanders moved toward the swinging doors, but at that moment a dark-haired young Frenchwoman stepped out. As her face was reflected in the moving panes, Sanders had a sudden glimpse of Suza

"What's going on here?" Sanders said. "Have they found a new diamond field?"

The explanation seemed to make sense of the censorship and the customs search, but something about the porter's studied shrug made him doubt it. Besides, the references in Suza

The clerk at the reception desk was equally evasive. To Sanders's a

"Doctor, you understand there is no boat, the service has been suspended. It will be cheaper for you if I charge you by the weekly tariff. But as you wish."

"All right." Dr. Sanders signed the register. As a precaution he gave as his address the university at Libreville. He had lectured several times at the medical school, and mail would be forwarded from there to Fort Isabelle. The deception might be useful at a later date.