The Sheltering Sky

by Paul Bowles

  “An American?” echoed the lieutenant. “In Bou Noura?” Yes, said Jacqueline. He was here with his wife, they were at Abdelkader’s pension (which was the only place they could have been, since it was the only hostelry of any sort in the region), and they had already been in Bou Noura several days. She had even seen the gentleman: a young man.

  “Well,” said the lieutenant, “I’m hungry. How about a little rice today? Have you time to prepare it?”

  “Ah, yes, monsieur. But he told me to tell you that it is important you see the American today.”

  “What are you talking about? Why should I see him? I can’t find his passport for him. When you go back to the Mission, pass by the Poste and tell Corporal Dupeyrier to tell the American he must go to Algiers, to his consul. If he doesn’t already know it,” he added.

  “Ah, ce n’est pas pour ça! It’s because he accused Monsieur Abdelkader of stealing the passport.”

  “What?” roared the lieutenant, sitting up.

  “Yes. He went yesterday to file a complaint. And Monsieur Abdelkader says that you will oblige him to retract it. That’s why you must see him today.” Jacqueline, obviously delighted with the degree of his reaction, went into the kitchen and began to rattle the utensils loudly. She was carried away by the idea of her importance.

  The lieutenant slumped back into this bed and fell to worrying. It was imperative that the American be induced to withdraw his accusation, not only because Abdelkader was an old friend of his, and was quite incapable of stealing anything whatever, but particularly because he was one of the best known and highly esteemed men of Bou Noura. As proprietor of the inn he maintained close friendships with the chauffeurs of all the buses and trucks that passed through the territory; in the Sahara these are important people. Assuredly there was not one of them who at one time or another had not asked for, and received, credit from Abdelkader on his meals and lodgings; most of them had even borrowed money from him. For an Arab he was amazingly trusting and easy-going about money, both with Europeans and with his compatriots, and everyone liked him for it. Not only was it unthinkable that he should have stolen the passport—it was just as unthinkable that he should be formally accused of such a thing. For that reason the corporal was right. The complaint must be retracted immediately. “Another stroke of bad luck,” he thought. “Why must it be an American?” With a Frenchman he would have known how to go about persuading him to do it without any unpleasantness. But with an American! Already he could see him: a gorilla-like brute with a fierce frown on his face, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and probably an automatic in his hip pocket. Doubtless no complete sentences would pass between them because neither one would be able to understand enough of the other’s language. He began trying to recall his English: “Sir, I must to you, to pray that you will—” “My dear sir, please I would make to you remark—” Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves. The most unpleasant part of the situation to him was the fact that he would be in bed, while the American would be free to roam about the room, would enjoy all the advantages, physical and moral.

  He groaned a little as he sat up to eat the soup Jacqueline had brought him. Outside the wind was blowing and the dogs of the nomad encampment up the road were barking; if the sun had not been shining so brightly that the moving palm branches by the window gleamed like glass, for a moment he would have said it was the middle of the night—the sounds of the wind and the dogs would have been exactly the same. He ate his lunch; when Jacqueline was ready to leave he said to her: “You will go to the Poste and tell Corporal Dupeyrier to bring the American here at three o’clock. He himself is to bring him, remember.”

  “Oui, oui,” she said, still in a state of acute pleasure. If she had missed out on the infanticide, at least she was in on the new scandal at the start.

  XIX

  Precisely at three o’clock Corporal Dupeyrier ushered the American into the lieutenant’s salon. The house was absolutely silent. “Un moment,” said the corporal, going to the bedroom door. He knocked, opened it, the lieutenant made a sign with his hand, and the corporal relayed the command to the American, who walked into the bedroom. The lieutenant saw what he considered to be a somewhat haggard adolescent, and he immediately decided that the young man was slightly peculiar, since in spite of the heat he was wearing a heavy turtle-neck sweater and a woolen jacket.

  The American advanced to the bedside and, offering his hand, spoke in perfect French. The lieutenant’s initial surprise at his appearance turned to delight. He had the corporal draw up a chair for his guest and asked him to be seated. Then he suggested that the corporal go on back to the Poste; he had decided he could handle the American by himself. When they were alone he offered him a cigarette and said: “It seems you have lost your passport.”

  “That’s exact,” replied Port.

  “And you believe it was stolen—not lost?”

  “I know it was stolen. It was in a valise I always keep locked.”

  “Then how could it have been stolen from the valise?” said the lieutenant, laughing with an air of triumph. “Always is not quite the word.”

  “It could have been,” pursued Port patiently, “because I left the valise open yesterday for a minute when I went out of my room to the bathroom. It was a foolish thing to do, but I did it. And when I returned to my door the proprietor was standing outside it. He claimed he had been knocking because lunch was ready. Yet he had never come himself before; it was always one of the boys. The reason I am sure it was the proprietor is that yesterday is the only time I have ever left the valise open when I have been out of the room, even for an instant. It seems clear to me.”

  “Pardon. Not to me. Not at all. Shall we make a detective story out of it? When is the last time you saw your passport?”

  Port thought for a moment. “When I arrived in Aïn Krorfa,” he said finally.

  “Aha!” cried the lieutenant. “In Aïn Krorfa! And yet you accuse Monsieur Abdelkader, without hesitating. How do you explain that?”

  “Yes, I accuse him,” Port said stubbornly, nettled by the lieutenant’s voice. “I accuse him because logic indicates him as the only possible thief. He’s absolutely the only native who had access to the passport, the only one for whom it would have been physically possible.”

  Lieutenant d’Armagnac raised himself a little higher in bed. “And why precisely do you demand it be a native?”

  Port smiled faintly. “Isn’t it reasonable to suppose it was a native? Apart from the fact that no one else had the opportunity to take it, isn’t it the sort of thing that would naturally turn out to have been done by a native—charming as they may be?”

  “No, monsieur. To me it seems just the kind of thing that would not have been done by a native.”

  Port was taken aback. “Ah, really?” he said. “Why? Why do you say that?”

  The lieutenant said: “I have been with the Arabs a good many years. Of course they steal. And Frenchmen steal. And in America you have gangsters, I believe?” He smiled archly. Port was impassive: “That was a long time ago, the era of gangsters,” he said. But the lieutenant was not discouraged. “Yes, everywhere people steal. And here as well. However, the native here,” he spoke more slowly, emphasizing his words, “takes only money or an object he wants for himself. He would never take anything so complicated as a passport.”

  Port said: “I’m not looking for motives. God knows why he took it.” His host cut him short. “But I am looking for motives!” he cried. “And I see no reason for believing that any native has gone to the trouble of stealing your passport. Certainly not in Bou Noura. And I doubt very much in Aïn Krorfa. One thing I can assure you, Monsieur Abdelkader did not take it. You can believe that.”

  “Oh?” said Port, unconvinced.

  “Never. I have known him for several years—”

  “But you have no more proof that he didn’t tha
n I have that he did!” Port exclaimed, annoyed. He turned up his coat collar and huddled in his chair.

  “You aren’t cold, I hope?” said the lieutenant in surprise.

  “I’ve been cold for days,” answered Port, rubbing his hands together.

  The lieutenant looked at him closely for an instant. Then he went on: “Will you do me a favor if I do you one in return?”

  “I suppose so. What?”

  “I should be greatly obliged if you would withdraw your complaint against Monsieur Abdelkader at once—today. And I will try one thing to get you your passport back. On ne sait jamais. It may be successful. If your passport has been stolen, as you say, the only place for it logically to be now is Messad. I shall telegraph Messad to have a thorough search made of the Foreign Legion barracks.”

  Port was sitting quite still, looking straight ahead of him. “Messad,” he said.

  “You were not there, too, were you?”

  “No, no!” There was a silence.

  “And so, are you going to do me this favor? I shall have an answer for you as soon as the search has been carried out.”

  “Yes,” said Port. “I’ll go this afternoon. Tell me: there is a market for such things at Messad, then?”

  “But of course. Passports bring high prices in Legion posts. Especially an American passport! Oh là là!” The lieutenant’s spirits were soaring: he had attained his object; this could offset, at least partially, the damaging effects of the Yamina case to his prestige. “Tenez,” he said, pointing to a cupboard in the corner, “you are cold. Will you hand me that bottle of cognac over there? We shall each have a swallow.” It was not at all what Port wanted, but he felt he scarcely could refuse the hospitable gesture.

  Besides, what did he want? He was not sure, but he thought it was merely to sit quietly in a warm, interior place for a long time. The sun made him feel colder, made his head burn, seem enormous and top-heavy. If he had not had his normal appetite he would have suspected that perhaps he was not well. He sipped the cognac, wondering if it would make him warmer, or if he would regret having drunk it, for the heartburn it sometimes produced in him. The lieutenant appeared to have divined his thoughts, for he said presently: “It’s fine old cognac. It won’t hurt you.”

  “It’s excellent,” he replied, choosing to ignore the latter part of the remark,

  The lieutenant’s impression that here was a young man unhealthily preoccupied with himself was confirmed by Port’s next words. “It’s strange,” he said with a deprecatory smile, “how, ever since I discovered that my passport was gone, I’ve felt only half alive. But it’s a very depressing thing in a place like this to have no proof of who you are, you know.”

  The lieutenant stretched forth the bottle, which Port declined. “Perhaps after my little investigation in Messad you will recover your identity,” he laughed. If the American wished to extend him such confidences, he was quite willing to be his confessor for the moment.

  “You are here with your wife?” asked the lieutenant. Port assented absently. “That’s it,” said the lieutenant to himself “He’s having trouble with his wife. Poor devil!” It occurred to him that they might go together to the quartier. He enjoyed showing it off to strangers. But as he was about to say: “Fortunately my wife is in France—” he remembered that Port was not French; it would not be advisable.

  While he was considering this, Port rose and politely took his leave—a little abruptly, it is true, but he could hardly be expected to remain by the bedside the whole afternoon. Besides, he had promised to stop by and withdraw the complaint against Abdelkader.

  As he walked along the hot road toward the walls of Bou Noura he kept his head down, seeing nothing but the dust and the thousands of small sharp stones. He did not look up because he knew how senseless the landscape would appear. It takes energy to invest life with meaning, and at present this energy was lacking. He knew how things could stand bare, their essence having retreated on all sides to beyond the horizon, as if impelled by a sinister centrifugal force. He did not want to face the intense sky, too blue to be real, above his head, the ribbed pink canyon walls that lay on all sides in the distance, the pyramidal town itself on its rocks, or the dark spots of oasis below. They were there, and they should have pleased his eye, but he did not have the strength to relate them, either to each other or to himself, he could not bring them into any focus beyond the visual. So he would not look at them.

  On arriving back at the pension, he stopped by the little room that served as office, and found Abdelkader seated in a dark corner on the divan, playing dominoes with a heavily turbaned individual. “Good day, monsieur,” said Port. “I have been to the authorities and withdrawn the accusation.”

  “Ah, my lieutenant has arranged it,” murmured Abdelkader.

  “Yes,” said Port, although he was vexed to see that no credit was to be given him for acceding to Lieutenant d’Armagnac’s wishes.

  “Bon, merci.” Abdelkader did not look up again, and Port went on upstairs to Kit’s room.

  There he found that she had ordered all her luggage brought up and was unpacking it. The room looked like a bazaar: there were rows of shoes on the bed, evening gowns had been spread out over the footboard as if for a window display, and bottles of cosmetics and perfumes lined the night table.

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” he cried.

  “Looking at my things,” she said innocently. “I haven’t seen them in a long time. Ever since the boat I’ve been living in one bag. I’m so sick of it. And when I looked out that window after lunch,” she became more animated as she pointed to the window that gave onto the empty desert, “I felt I’d simply die if I didn’t see something civilized soon. Not only that. I’m having a Scotch sent up and I’m opening my last pack of Players.”

  “You must be in a bad way,” he said.

  “Not at all,” she retorted, but a bit too energetically. “It’d be abnormal if I were able to adapt myself too quickly to all this. After all, I’m still an American, you know. And I’m not even trying to be anything else.”

  “Scotch!” Port said, thinking aloud. “There’s no ice this side of Boussif. And no soda either, I’ll bet.”

  “I want it neat.” She slipped into a backless gown of pale blue satin and went to make up in the mirror that hung on the back of the door. He decided that she should be humored; in any case it amused him to watch her building her pathetic little fortress of Western culture in the middle of the wilderness. He sat down on the floor in the center of the room and watched her with pleasure as she flitted about, choosing her slippers and trying on bracelets. When the servant knocked, Port himself went to the door and in the hall took the tray from his hands, bottle and all.

  “Why didn’t you let him in?” demanded Kit, when he had closed the door behind him.

  “Because I didn’t want him running downstairs with the news,” he said, setting the tray on the floor and sitting down again beside it.

  “What news?”

  He was vague. “Oh, that you have fancy clothes and jewelry in your bags. It’s the sort of thing that would go on ahead of us wherever we went, down here. Besides,” he smiled at her, “I’d rather they didn’t get a look at how pretty you can be.”

  “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
legionnaires at Messad. In the bus coming from Aïn Krorfa he had already informed her of Mohammed’s discovery. She, showing no surprise, had repeated her story of having seen their passports, so that there was no doubt of their being mother and son. Nor was she surprised now. “I suppose he felt that since I’d seen theirs, he had a right to see yours,” she said. “But how’d he get it? When’d he get it?”

  “I know just when. The night he came to my room in Aïn 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 Tunner, because I had my wallet with me and it certainly never occurred to me the louse was after my passport. But beyond a doubt that’s what happened to it. The more I think about it the surer I am. Whether they find out anything at Messad or not, I’m convinced it was Lyle. I think he intended to steal it the first time he ever saw me. After all, why not? Easy money, and his mother never gives him any.”

  “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 Tunner into!” he said after a moment.

  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 can’t 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?”