The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [118]
Slowly her eyes grew accustomed to the terrible brightness. She fixed the objects beside her on the dirt floor: the bits of rags; the dried carcass of a strange gray lizard; the faded, broken matchboxes; and the piles of white chicken feathers stuck together with dark blood. There was somewhere she had to go; someone was expecting her. How could she let the people know she would be late? Because there was no question about it—she was going to arrive far behind schedule. Then she remembered that she had not sent her telegram. At that moment A-mar came through the little doorway and walked toward her. She struggled to her feet. “Wait here,” she said, pushing past him, and she went in because the sun made her feel ill. The man looked at the paper and then at her. “Where do you want to send it?” he repeated. She shook her head dumbly. He handed her the paper and she saw, written on it in her own hand, the words: “CANNOT GET BACK.” The man was staring at her. “That’s not right!” she cried, in French. “I want to add something.” But the man went on staring at her-not angrily, but expectantly. He had a small moustache and blue eyes. “Le destinataire, s’il vous plait, ” he said again. She thrust the paper at him because she could not think of the words she needed to add, and she wanted the message to leave immediately. But already she saw that he was not going to send it. She reached out and touched his face, stroked his cheek briefly. ‘Je vous en prie, monsieur,” she said imploringly. There was a counter between them; he stepped back and she could not reach him. Then she ran out into the street and Amar, the black man, was standing there. “Quick!” she cried, not stopping. He ran after her, calling to her. Wherever she ran, he was beside her, trying to make her stop. “Madame!” he kept saying. But he did not understand the danger, and she could not stop to explain anything. There was no time for that. Now that she had betrayed herself, established contact with the other side, every minute counted. They would spare no effort in seeking her out, they would pry open the wall she had built and force her to look at what she had buried there. She knew by the blue-eyed man’s expression that she had set in motion the mechanism which would destroy her. And now it was too late to stop it. “Vite! Vite!” she panted to Amar, perspiring and protesting beside her. They were in an open space by the road that led down to the river. A few nearly naked beggars squatted here and there, each one murmuring his own short sacred formula for them as they rushed by. No one else was in sight.
He finally caught up with her and took hold of her shoulder, but she redoubled her efforts. Soon, however, she slowed down, and then he seized her firmly and brought her to a stop. She sank to her knees and wiped her wet face with the back of her hand. The expression of terror was still strong in her eyes. He crouched down beside her in the dust and tried to comfort her with clumsy pats on the arm.
“Where are you going like this?” he demanded presently. “What’s the matter?”
She did not answer. The hot wind blew past. In the distance on the flat road to the river, a man and two oxen passed along slowly. Amar was saying: “That was Monsieur Geoffroy. He’s a good man. You should not be afraid of him. For five years he has worked at the Postes et Telegraphes.”
The sound of the last word was like a needle piercing her flesh. She jumped. “No, I won’t! No, no, no!” she wailed.
“And you know,” Amar went on, “that money you wanted to give him is not good here. It’s Algerian money. Even in Tessalit you have to have A.O.F. francs. Algerian money is contraband.”
“Contraband,” she repeated; the word meant absolutely nothing.
“Defendu!” he said laughing, and be attempted to get her up onto her feet. The sun was painful; he, too, was sweating. She would not move at present-she was exhausted. He waited a while, made her cover her head with her haik, and lay back wrapped in his burnous. The wind increased. The sand raced along the flat black earth like white water streaming sideways.