The Sheltering Sky / Let It Come Down / the Spider's House

by Paul Bowles

  “But I am afraid,” protested Kit. “How can I change that? It’s impossible.”

  He looked at her and shook his head. “That is not the way to live,” he said.

  “I know,” she said sadly.

  An Arab entered the shop, bade her good evening, and purchased a pack of cigarettes. As he went out the door, he turned and spat just inside it on the floor. Then he gave a disdainful toss of his burnous over his shoulder and strode away. Kit looked at Daoud Zozeph.

  “Did he spit on purpose?” she asked him.

  He laughed. “Yes. No. Who knows? I have been spat upon so many thousand times that I do not see it when it happens. You see! You should be a Jew in Sbâ, and you would learn not to be afraid! At least you would learn not to be afraid of God. You would see that even when God is most terrible, he is never cruel, the way men are.”

  Suddenly what he was saying sounded ridiculous. She rose, smoothed her skirt, and said she must be going.

  “One moment,” he said, going behind a curtain into a room beyond. He returned presently with a small parcel. Behind the counter he resumed the anonymous air of a shopkeeper. He handed the parcel across to her, saying quietly: “You said you wanted to give your husband milk. Here are two cans. They were the ration for our baby.” He raised his hand as she tried to interrupt. “But it was born dead, last week, too soon. Next year if we have another we can get more.”

  Seeing Kit’s look of anguish, he laughed: “I promise you,” he said, “as soon as my wife knows, I will apply for the coupons. There will be no trouble. Allons! What are you afraid of now?” And as she still stood looking at him, he raised the parcel in the air and presented it again with such an air of finality that automatically she took hold of it. “This is one of those occasions where one doesn’t try to put into words what one feels,” she said to herself. She thanked him saying that her husband would be very happy, and that she hoped they would meet again in a few days. Then she went out. With the coming of night, the wind had risen somewhat. She shivered climbing the hill on the way to the fort.

  The first thing she did on arriving back in the room was to light the lamp. Then she took Port’s temperature: she was horrified to find it higher. The pills were no longer working. He looked at her with an unaccustomed expression in his shining eyes.

  “Today’s my birthday,” he murmured.

  “No, it isn’t,” she said sharply; then she reflected an instant, and asked with feigned interest: “Is it, really?”

  “Yes. This was the one I’ve been waiting for.”

  She did not ask him what he meant. He went on: “Is it beautiful out?”

  “No.”

  “I wish you could have said yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d have liked it to be beautiful out.”

  “I suppose you could call it beautiful, but it’s just a little unpleasant to walk in.”

  “Ah, well, we’re not out in it,” he said.

  The quietness of this dialogue made more monstrous the groans of pain which an instant later issued from within him. “What is it?” she cried in a frenzy. But he could not hear her. She knelt on her mattress and looked at him, unable to decide what to do. Little by little he grew silent, but he did not open his eyes. For a while she studied the inert body as it lay there beneath the covers, which rose and fell slightly with the rapid respiration. “He’s stopped being human,” she said to herself. Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary. It was the ultimate taboo stretched out there beside her, helpless and terrifying beyond all reason. She choked back a wave of nausea that threatened her for an instant.

  There was a knocking at the door: it was Zina with Port’s soup, and a plate of couscous for her. Kit indicated that she wanted her to feed the invalid; the old woman seemed delighted, and began to try to coax him into sitting up. There was no response save a slight acceleration in his breathing. She was patient and persevering, but to no avail. Kit had her take the soup away, deciding that if he wanted nourishment later she would open one of the tins of milk and mix it with hot water for him.

  The wind was blowing again, but without fury, and from the other direction. It moaned spasmodically through the cracks around the window, and the folded sheet moved a bit now and then. Kit stared at the spurting white flame of the lamp, trying to conquer her powerful desire to run out of the room. It was no longer the familiar fear that she felt—it was a steadily mounting sentiment of revulsion.

  But she lay perfectly still, blaming herself and thinking: “If I feel no sense of duty toward him, at least I can act as if I did.” At the same time there was an element of self-chastisement in her immobility. “You’re not even to move your foot if it falls asleep. And I hope it hurts.” Time passed, expressed in the low cry of the wind as it sought to enter the room, the cry rising and falling in pitch but never quite ceasing. Unexpectedly Port breathed a profound sigh and shifted his position on the mattress. And incredibly, he began to speak.

  “Kit.” His voice was faint but in no way distorted. She held her breath, as if her least movement might snap the thread that held him to rationality.

  “Kit.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been trying to get back. Here.” He kept his eyes closed.

  “Yes—”

  “And now I am.”

  “Yes!”

  “I wanted to talk to you. There’s nobody here?”

  “No, no!”

  “Is the door locked?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She bounded up and locked it, returning to her pallet, all in the same movement. “Yes, it’s locked.”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  She did not know what to say. She said: “I’m glad.”

  “There are so many things I want to say. I don’t know what they are. I’ve forgotten them all.”

  She patted his hand lightly. “It’s always that way.”

  He lay silent a moment.

  “Wouldn’t you like some warm milk?” she said cheerfully.

  He seemed distraught. “I don’t think there’s time. I don’t know.”

  “I’ll fix it for you,” she announced, and she sat up, glad to be free.

  “Please stay here.”

  She lay down again, murmuring: “I’m so glad you feel better. You don’t know how different it makes me feel to hear you talk. I’ve been going crazy here. There’s not a soul around—” She stopped, feeling the momentum of hysteria begin to gather in the background. But Port seemed not to have heard her.

  “Please stay here,” he repeated, moving his hand uncertainly along the sheet. She knew it was searching for hers, but she could not make herself reach out and let it take hold. At the same moment she became aware of her refusal, and the tears came into her eyes—tears of pity for Port. Still she did not move.

  Again he sighed. “I feel very sick. I feel awful. There’s no reason to be afraid, but I am. Sometimes I’m not here, and I don’t like that. Because then I’m far away and all alone. No one could ever get there. It’s too far. And there I’m alone.”

  She wanted to stop him, but behind the stream of quiet words she heard the entreaty of a moment back: “Please stay here.” And she did not have the strength to stop him unless she got up and moved about. But his words made her miserable; it was like hearing him recount one of his dreams—worse, even.

  “So alone I can’t even remember the idea of not being alone,” he was saying. His fever would go up. “I can’t even think what it would be like for there to be someone else in the world. When I’m there I can’t remember being here; I’m just afraid. But here I can remember being there. I wish I could stop remembering it. It’s awful to be two things at once. You know that, don’t you?” His hand sought hers desperately. “You do know that? You understand how awful it is? You’ve got to.” She let him take her hand, pull it towards his mouth. He rubbed his rough lips along it with a terrib
le avidity that shocked her; at the same time she felt the hair at the back of her head rise and stiffen. She watched his lips opening and shutting against her knuckles, and felt the hot breath on her fingers.

  “Kit, Kit. I’m afraid, but it’s not only that. Kit! All these years I’ve been living for you. I didn’t know it, and now I do. I do know it! But now you’re going away.” He tried to roll over and lie on top of her arm; he clutched her hand always tighter.

  “I’m not!” she cried.

  His legs moved spasmodically.

  “I’m right here!” she shouted, even louder, trying to imagine how her voice sounded to him, whirling down his own dark halls toward chaos. And as he lay still for a while, breathing violently, she began to think: “He says it’s more than just being afraid. But it isn’t. He’s never lived for me. Never. Never.” She held to the thought with an intensity that drove it from her mind, so that presently she found herself lying taut in every muscle without an idea in her head, listening to the wind’s senseless monologue. For a time this went on; she did not relax. Then little by little she tried to draw her hand away from Port’s desperate grasp. There was a sudden violent activity beside her, and she turned to see him partially sitting up.

  “Port!” she cried, pushing herself up and putting her hands on his shoulders. “You’ve got to lie down!” She used all her strength; he did not budge. His eyes were open and he was looking at her. “Port!” she cried again in a different voice. He raised one hand and took hold of her arm.

  “But Kit,” he said softly. They looked at each other. She made a slight motion with her head, letting it fall onto his chest. Even as he glanced down at her, her first sob came up, and the first cleared the passage for the others. He closed his eyes again, and for a moment had the illusion of holding the world in his arms—a warm world all tropics, lashed by storm. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he said. It was all he had the strength to say. But even if he had been able to say more, still he would have said only: “No, no, no, no.”

  It was not a whole life whose loss she was mourning there in his arms, but it was a great part of one; above all it was a part whose limits she knew precisely, and her knowledge augmented the bitterness. And presently within her, deeper than the weeping for the wasted years, she found a ghastly dread all formed and growing. She raised her head and looked up at him with tenderness and terror. His head had dropped to one side; his eyes were closed. She put her arms around his neck and kissed his forehead many times. Then, half-pulling and half-coaxing, she got him back down into bed and covered him. She gave him his pill, undressed silently and lay down facing him, leaving the lamp burning so she could see him as she fell asleep. The wind at the window celebrated her dark sensation of having attained a new depth of solitude.

  Chapter XXIII

  “MORE WOOD!” shouted the lieutenant, looking into the fire-place where the flames were dying down. But Ahmed refused to be prodigal with the wood, and brought in another small armful of the meager, gnarled branches. He remembered the early mornings of bitter cold when his mother and sister had got up long before dawn to set out across the high dunes toward Hassi Mokhtar; he remembered their return when the sun would be setting, and their faces, seamed with fatigue, as they came into the courtyard bent over double beneath their loads. The lieutenant would often throw on the fire as much wood as his sister had used to gather in the entire day, but he would not do it; he always brought in a scant amount. The lieutenant was quite aware that this was sheer recalcitrance on Ahmed’s part. He considered it a senseless but unalterable eccentricity.

  “He’s a crazy boy,” said Lieutenant d’Armagnac, sipping his vermouth-cassis, “but honest and faithful. Those are the prime qualities to look for in a servant. Even stupidity and stubbornness are acceptable, if he has the others. Not that Ahmed is stupid, by any means. Sometimes he has a better intuition than I. In the case of your friend, for instance. The last time he came to see me here at my house, I invited him and his wife for dinner. I told him I would send Ahmed to let him know exactly which day it would be. I was ill at the time. I think my cook had been trying to poison me. You understand everything I am saying, monsieur?”

  “Oui, oui,” said Tunner, whose ear was superior to his tongue. He was following the lieutenant’s conversation with only a slight amount of difficulty.

  “After your friend had left, Ahmed said to me: ‘He will never come.’ I said: ‘Nonsense. Of course he will, and with his wife.’ ‘No,’ said Ahmed. ‘I can tell by his face. He has no intention of coming.’ And you see he was right. That very evening they both left for El Ga’a. I heard only the next day. It’s astonishing, isn’t it?”

  “Oui,” said Tunner again; he was sitting forward in his chair, his hands on his knees, looking very serious.

  “Ah, yes,” yawned his host, rising to throw more wood on the fire. “A surprising people, the Arabs. Of course here there’s a very heavy admixture of Soudanese, from the time of slavery—”

  Tunner interrupted him. “But you say they’re not in El Ga’a now?”

  “Your friends? No. They’ve gone to Sbâ, as I told you. The Chef de Poste there is Captain Broussard; he is the one who telegraphed me about the typhoid. You’ll find him a bit curt, but he’s a fine man. Only the Sahara does not agree with him. Some it does, some not. Me, for example, I’m in my element here.”

  Again Tunner interrupted. “How soon do you think I can be in Sbâ?”

  The lieutenant laughed indulgently. “Vous êtes bien pressé! But there’s no hurry with typhoid. It will be several weeks before your friend will care whether he sees you or not. And he will not be needing that passport in the meantime! So you can take your time.” He felt warmly toward this American, whom he found much more to his liking than the first. The first had been furtive, had made him vaguely uneasy (but perhaps that impression had been due to his own state of mind at the time). In any case, in spite of Tunner’s obvious haste to leave Bou Noura, he found him a sympathetic companion, and he hoped to persuade him to stay a while.

  “You will remain for dinner?” said the lieutenant.

  “Oh,” said Tunner distraughtly. “Thank you very much.”

  FIRST OF ALL there was the room. Nothing could change the hard little shell of its existence, its white plaster walls and its faintly arched ceiling, its concrete floor and its windows across which a sheet had been tacked, folded over many times to keep out the light. Nothing could change it because that was all there was of it, that and the mattress on which he lay. When from time to time a gust of clarity swept down upon him, and he opened his eyes and saw what was really there, and knew where he really was, he fixed the walls, the ceiling and the floor in his memory, so that he could find his way back next time. For there were so many other parts of the world, so many other moments in time to be visited; he never was certain that the way back would really be there. Counting was impossible. How many hours he had been like this, lying on the burning mattress, how many times he had seen Kit stretched out on the floor nearby, had made a sound and seen her turn over, get up and then come toward him to give him water—things like that he could not have told, even if he had thought to ask them of himself. His mind was occupied with very different problems. Sometimes he spoke aloud, but it was not satisfying; it seemed rather to hold back the natural development of the ideas. They flowed out through his mouth, and he was never sure whether they had been resolved in the right words. Words were much more alive and more difficult to handle, now; so much so that Kit did not seem to understand them when he used them. They slipped into his head like the wind blowing into a room, and extinguished the frail flame of an idea forming there in the dark. Less and less he used them in his thinking. The process became more mobile; he followed the course of thoughts because he was tied on behind. Often the way was vertiginous, but he could not let go. There was no repetition in the landscape; it was always new territory and the peril increased constantly. Slowly, pitilessly, the number of dimensions was lessening.
There were fewer directions in which to move. It was not a clear process, there was nothing definite about it so that he could say: “Now up is gone.” Yet he had witnessed occasions when two different dimensions had deliberately, spitefully, merged their identities, as if to say to him: “Try and tell which is which.” His reaction was always the same: a sensation in which the outer parts of his being rushed inward for protection, the same movement one sometimes sees in a kaleidoscope on turning it very slowly, when the parts of the design fall headlong into the center. But the center! Sometimes it was gigantic, painful, raw and false, it extended from one side of creation to the other, there was no telling where it was; it was everywhere. And sometimes it would disappear, and the other center, the true one, the tiny burning black point, would be there in its place, unmoving and impossibly sharp, hard and distant. And each center he called “That.” He knew one from the other, and which was the true, because when for a few minutes sometimes he actually came back to the room and saw it, and saw Kit, and said to himself: “I am in Sbâ,” he could remember the two centers and distinguish between them, even though he hated them both, and he knew that the one which was only there was the true one, while the other was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  It was an existence of exile from the world. He never saw a human face or figure, nor even an animal; there were no familiar objects along the way, there was no ground below, nor sky above, yet the space was full of things. Sometimes he saw them, knowing at the same time that really they could only be heard. Sometimes they were absolutely still, like the printed page, and he was conscious of their terrible invisible motion underneath, and of its portent to him because he was alone. Sometimes he could touch them with his fingers, and at the same time they poured in through his mouth. It was all utterly familiar and wholly horrible—existence unmodifiable, not to be questioned, that must be borne. It would never occur to him to cry out.

  The next morning the lamp had still been burning and the wind had gone. She had been unable to rouse him to give him his medicine, but she had taken his temperature through his half-open mouth: it had gone much higher. Then she had rushed out to find Captain Broussard, had brought him to the bedside where he had been noncommittal, trying to reassure her without giving her any reason for hope. She had passed the day sitting on the edge of her pallet in an attitude of despair, looking at Port from time to time, hearing his labored breathing and seeing him twist in the throes of an inner torment. Nor could Zina tempt her with food.