The Sheltering Sky

“Well, really, Port! Make up your mind. Is it me you’re trying to protect? Or do you think they’ll add ten francs on to the bill downstairs?”

“Come here and have your lousy French whiskey. I want to tell you something.”

“I will not. You’ll bring it to me like a gentleman.” She made room among the objects on the bed and sat down.

“Fine.” He poured her a good-sized drink and took it to her.

“You’re not having any?” she said.

“No. I had some cognac at the lieutenant’s house, and it didn’t do any good. I’m as chilly as ever. But I have news, and that’s what I wanted to tell you. There’s not much doubt that Eric Lyle stole my passport.” He told her about the passport market for legio

“I know just when. The night he came to my room in Ain Krorfa and wanted to give me back the francs I’d let him have. I left my bag open and him in the room while I went in to see Tu

“I think she does,” said Kit, “on certain conditions. And I think he hates all that, and is only looking for a chance to escape, and will hook up with anybody, do anything, rather than that. And I think she’s quite aware of it and is terrified he’ll go, and will do everything she can to prevent his getting intimate with anybody. Remember what she told you about his being ‘infected.’”

Port was silent. “My God! What a mess I got Tu

Kit laughed. “What do you mean? He’ll weather it. It’ll be good for him. Besides, I can’t see him being very friendly with either one of them.”

“No.” He poured himself a drink. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said. “It’ll mess me up inside, with the cognac. But I can9t let you sit there and go away by yourself, float off on a few drinks.”

“You know I’m delighted to have company, but won’t it make you sick?” 

“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 a

“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.”