The Sheltering Sky

They sat on a concrete bench and she wept for a long time, her face buried in his lap, rubbing the rough wool of the burnous. From time to time he uttered consoling words, and as he found her shivering, he enveloped her in one great wing of the robe. She hated the salt sting of the tears, and even more she hated the ignominy of her being there, demanding comfort of Tu

The street led up a steep hill where the hot sun was shining, the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians looking in the shop windows. He had the feeling there was traffic in the side streets, but the shadows there were dark. An attitude of expectancy was growing in the crowd; they were waiting for something. For what, he did not know. The entire afternoon was tense, poised, ready to fall. At the top of the street a huge automobile suddenly appeared, glistening in the sunlight. It came careening over the crest and down the hill, swerving savagely from one curb to the other. A great yell rose up from the crowd. He turned and frantically sought a doorway. At the corner there was a pastry shop, its windows full of cakes and meringues. He fumbled along the wall. If he could reach the door.... He wheeled, stood transfixed. In the tremendous flash of sunlight reflected from the glass as it splintered he saw the metal pi

They were a row of mud wells in the desert. But how near were they? He could not tell: the debris had pi

Too late! There was only the endless black wall rising ahead of him, the rickety iron staircase he was obliged to take, knowing that above, at the top, they were waiting with the boulder poised, ready to hurl it when he came near enough. And as he got close to the top it would come hurtling down at him, striking him with the weight of the entire world. He cried out again as it hit, holding his hands over his abdomen to protect the gaping hole there. He ceased imaginin and lay still beneath the rubble. The pain could not go on. He opened his eyes, shut his eyes, saw only the thin sky stretched across to protect him. Slowly the split would occur, the sky draw back, and he would see what he never had doubted lay behind advance upon him with the speed of a million winds. His cry was a separate thing beside him in the desert. It went on and on.

The moon had reached the center of the sky when they arrived at the fort and found the gate locked. Holding Tu

He hesitated, and pointed to the mountain of sand above the fort. They climbed slowly upward along the dunes. The cold sand filled their shoes: they took them off and continued. Up here the brightness was intense; each grain of sand sent out a fragment of the polar light shed from above. They could not walk side by side—the ridge of the highest dune was too steep. Tu

“Down here!” said Tu

They let themselves slide forward into a great moonlit cup. Kit rolled over and the burnous slipped off; he had to dig into the sand and climb back after it. He tried to fold it and throw it down at her playfully, but it fell halfway. She let herself roll to the bottom and lay there waiting. When he came down he spread the wide white garment out on the sand. They stretched out on it side by side and pulled the edges up around them. What conversation had eventually taken place down in the garden had centered about Port. Now Tu

“Do you remember our night on the train?” he said. As she did not reply, he feared he had made a tactical error, and went on quickly: “I don’t think a drop of rain has fallen since that night, anywhere on the whole damned continent.”

Still Kit made no answer. His mention of the night ride to Boussif had evoked the wrong memories. She saw the dim lamps swinging, smelled the coal gas, and heard the rain on the windows. She remembered the confused horror of the freight car full of natives; her mind refused to continue further.

“Kit. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. You know how I am. Really, nothing’s wrong.” She pressed his hand.

His voice became faintly paternal. “He’s going to be all right, Kit. Only some of it’s up to you, you know. You’ve got to keep in good shape to take care of him. Can’t you see that? And how can you take care of him if you get sick?”

“I know, I know,” she said.

“Then I’d have two patients on my hands—”

She sat up. “What hypocrites we are, both of us!” she cried. “You know damned well I haven’t been near him for hours. How do we know he’s not already dead? He could die there all alone! We’d never know. Who could stop him?”

He caught her arm, held it firmly. “Now, wait a minute, will you? just for the record, I want to ask you: who could stop him even if we were both there beside him? Who?” He paused. “If you’re going to take the worst possible view of everything, you might as well follow it through with a little logic at least, girl. But he’s not going to die. You shouldn’t even think of it. It’s crazy.” He shook her arm Slowly, as one does to awaken a person from a deep sleep. “Just be sensible. You can’t get in to him until morning. So relax. Try and get a little rest. Come on.”

As he coaxed, she suddenly burst into tears once again, throwing both arms around him desperately. “Oh, Tu

In the moonlight he smiled.

His cry went on through the final image: the spots of raw bright blood on the earth. Blood on excrement. The supreme moment, high above the desert, when the two elements, blood and excrement, long kept apart, merge. A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky’s clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to repose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.