The Sheltering Sky

“Would it disturb you very much to change your room?” he asked.

Tu

“The only rooms free now are the two on each side of you. An English lady has arrived with her son, and she wants him in the room next to her. She’s afraid to be alone.”

This picture of Mrs. Lyle, drawn by Abdelkader, did not coincide with his own conception of her. “All right,” he grumbled. “One room’s like another. Send the boys up to move me.” Abdelkader patted him on the shoulder with an affectionate gesture. The boys arrived, opened the door between his room and the next, and began to effect the change. In the middle of the moving Eric stepped into the room that was being vacated. He stopped short on catching sight of Tu

“Aha!” he exclaimed. “Fancy bumping into you, old man! I expected you’d be down in Timbuctoo by now.”

Tu

“Do forgive this silly whim of Mother’s. She’s just exhausted from the trip. It’s a ghastly lap from Messad here, and she’s in a fearful state of nerves.”

“That’s too bad.”

“You understand our putting you out.”

“Yes, yes,” said Tu

“Oh, quite. Have you heard from the Moresbys recently?”

Eric, when he looked at all into the face of the person with whom he was speaking, had a habit of peering closely, as if he placed very little importance on the words that were said, and was trying instead to read between the lines of the conversation, to discover what the other really meant. It seemed to Tu

“Yes,” said Tu

“God, what a slob!” he said aloud, and then, feeling angry with himself for having capitulated: “Who the hell do they think they are?” He hoped the Lyles would not press him for news of Kit and Port; he would be forced to tell them, and he did not want to, As far as they were concerned, he hoped to keep the tragedy private; their kind of commiseration would be unbearable.

Later in the afternoon he passed by the salon. The Lyles sat in the dim subterranean light clinking their teacups. Mrs. Lyle had spread out some of her old photographs, which were propped against the stiff leather cushions along the back of the divan; she was offering one to Abdelkader to hang beside the ancient gun that adorned the wall. She caught sight of Tu

“Mr. Tu

“It’s nice to see you again,” said Tu

“We’re motoring out to some very old Garamantic ruins tomorrow. You must come along. It’ll be quite thrilling.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Lyle—”

“Come and have tea!” she cried, seizing his sleeve.

But he begged off, and went out to the palmeraie and walked for miles between the walls under the trees, feeling that he never would get out of Bou Noura. For no reason, the likelihood of Kit’s turning up seemed further removed than ever, now that the Lyles were around. He started back at sunset, and it was dark by the time he arrived at the pension. Under his door a telegram had been pushed; the message was written in lavender ink in an almost illegible hand. It was from the American Consul at Dakar, in answer to one of his many wires: NO INFORMATION REGARDING KATHERINE MORESBY WILL ADVISE IF ANY RECEIVED. He threw it into the wastebasket and sat down on a pile of Kit’s luggage. Some of the bags had been Port’s; now they belonged to Kit, but they were all in his room, waiting.

“How much longer can all this go on?” he asked himself. He was out of his element here; the general inaction was telling on his nerves. It was all very well to do the right thing and wait for Kit to appear somewhere out of the Sahara, but suppose she never did appear? Suppose—the possibility had to be faced—she were already dead? There would have to be a limit to his waiting, a final day after which he would no longer be there. Then he saw himself walking into Hubert David’s apartment on East Fifty-fifth Street, where he had first met Port and Kit. All their friends would be there: some would be noisily sympathetic; some would be indignant; some just a little knowing and supercilious, saying nothing but thinking a lot; some would consider the whole thing a gloriously romantic episode, tragic only in passing. But he did not want to see any of them. The longer he stayed here the more remote the incident would become, and the less precise the blame that might attach to him—that much was certain.

That evening he enjoyed his chess game less than usual. Abdelkader saw that he was preoccupied and suddenly suggested they stop playing. He was glad of the opportunity to get to sleep early, and he found himself hoping that the bed in his new room would not prove to have something wrong with it. He told Abdelkader he would see him in the morning, and slowly mounted the stairs, feeling certain now that he would be staying in Bou Noura all winter. Living was cheap; his money would hold out.

The first thing he noticed on stepping into his room was the open communicating door. The lamps were lighted in both rooms, and there was a smaller, more intense light moving beside his bed. Eric Lyle stood there on the far side of the bed, a flashlight in his hand. For a second neither one moved. Then Eric said, in a voice trying to sound sure of itself: “Yes? Who is it?”

Tu

“Who—Don’t tell me I’m in the wrong room!” Eric laughed feebly; nevertheless the sound of it seemed to give him courage. “By the look of your face I expect I aml How awful! I just came in from outside. I thought everything looked a bit odd.” Tu

It was natural for Tu

Slowly Tu

“You God-damned little son of a bitch!” He grabbed the front of Eric’s shirt with his left hand and rocked him back and forth. Still holding it, he took a step sideways to a comfortable distance and swung at him, not too hard. Eric fell back against the wall and remained leaning there as if he were completely paralyzed, his bright eyes on Tu