The Sheltering Sky

“Yes,” said Lieutenant d’Armagnac. “You can’t very well go back to New York and have all your friends ask: ‘What have you done with Mrs. Moresby?’ That would be very embarrassing.”

Inwardly Tu

“Very embarrassing,” he agreed, laughing uncomfortably. Even Port’s death by itself would be difficult enough to account for, There would be those who would say: “For God’s sake, couldn’t you have gotten him into a plane and up to a hospital somewhere, at least as far as Algiers? Typhoid’s not that quick, you know.” And he would have to admit that he had left them and gone off by himself, that he hadn’t been able to “take” the desert. Still, he could envisage all that without too much misery; Port had neglected to be immunized against any sort of disease before leaving. But to go back leaving Kit lost was unthinkable from every point of view.

“Of course,” ventured the lieutenant, again remembering the possible complications should the lost American lady turn up in anything but perfect condition, and then be moved to Bou Noura because of Tu

“I know, I know,” said Tu

They talked on a little while. The lieutenant brought up the possibility of a visit some evening to the quartier reserve. “One of these days,” said Tu

“You need a little relaxation. Too much brooding is bad, I know just the girl—” He stopped, remembering from experience that explicit suggestions of that nature generally destroy the very interest they are meant to arouse. No hunter wants his prey chosen and run to earth for him, even if it means the only assurance of a kill.

“Good. Good,” said Tu

Soon he rose and took his leave. He would return tomorrow morning and the next, and every morning after that, until one day Lieutenant D’Armagnac would meet him at the door with a new light in his eyes, and say to him: “Enfin, mon ami! Good news at last!”

In the garden he looked down at the bare, baked earth. The huge red ants were rushing along the ground waving their front legs and mandibles belligerently in the air. Ahmed shut the gate behind him, and he walked moodily back to the pension.

He would have his lunch in the hot little dining room next to the kitchen, making the meal more digestible by drinking a whole bottle of vin rose. Then stupefied by the wine and the heat he would go upstairs to his room, undress, and throw himself on his bed, to sleep until the sun’s rays were more oblique and the countryside had lost some of the poisonous light that came out of its stones that midday. Walks to towns round about were pleasant: there were bright Igherm on the hill, the larger community of Beni Isguen down the valley, Tadjmout with its terraced pink and blue houses, and there was always the vast palmeraie where the town dwellers had built their toy-like country palaces of red mud and pale palm thatch, where the creak of the wells was constant, and the sound of the water gurgling in the narrow aqueducts belied the awful dryness of the earth and air. Sometimes he would merely walk to the great market place in Bou Noura itself, and sit along the side under the arcades, following the progress of some interminable purchase; both buyer and seller employed every histrionic device short of actual tears, in their struggle to lower and raise the price. There were days when he felt contempt for these absurd people; they were unreal, not to be counted seriously among the earth’s inhabitants. These were the same days he was so infuriated by the soft hands of the little children when they unconsciously clutched at his clothing and pushed against him in a street full of people. At first he had thought they were pickpockets, and then he had realized they were merely using him for leverage to propel themselves along more quickly in the crowd, as if he had been a tree or a wall. He was even more a

But there were other days when he felt less nervous, sat watching the calm old men walk slowly through the market, and said to himself that if he could muster that much dignity when he got to be their age he would consider that his life had been well spent. For their mien was merely a natural concomitant of i

In the evenings he sat in the salon playing chess with Abdelkader, a slow-moving but by no means negligible adversary. The two had become firm friends as a result of these nightly sessions, When the boys had put out all the lamps and lanterns of the establishment except the one in the corner where they sat at the chessboard, and they were the only two left awake, they would sometimes have a Pernod together, Abdelkader smiling like a conspirator afterward as he got up to wash the glasses himself and put them away; it would never do for anyone to know he had taken a drink of something alcoholic. Tu

The inevitable happened: after having made i

Now in the hall he heard Eric say in a hushed voice: “Oh, I say, Mother, what next? That Tu