The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [31]
“I don’t think I quite understand,” said Port.
“An infection, an infection,” she said impatiently. “Some filthy swine of an Arab woman,” she added, with astonishing violence.
“Ah,” said Port, noncommittal.
Now she sounded less sure of herself. “I’ve been told that such infections can even be transmitted among men directly. Do you believe that, Mr. Moresby?”
“I really don’t know,” he answered, looking at her in some surprise. “There’s so much uninformed talk about such things. I should think a doctor would know best.”
She passed him another biscuit. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to discuss it. You must forgive me.”
“Oh, I have no objection at all,” he protested. “But I’m not a doctor. You understand.”
She seemed not to have heard him. “It’s disgusting. You’re quite right.”
Half of the sun was peering from behind the rim of the mountain; in another minute it would be hot. “Here’s the sun,” said Port. Mrs. Lyle gathered her things together.
“Shall you be staying long in Boussif?” she asked.
“We have no plans at all. And you?”
“Oh, Eric has some mad itinerary worked out. I believe we go on to Ain Krorfa tomorrow morning, unless he decides to leave this noon and spend the night in Sfissifa. There’s supposed to be a fairly decent little hotel there. Nothing so grand as this, of course.”
Port looked around at the battered tables and chairs, and smiled. “I don’t think I’d want anything much less grand than this.”
“Oh, but my dear Mr. Moresby! This is positively luxurious. This is the best hotel you’ll find between here and the Congo. There’s nothing after this with running water’ you know. Well, we shall see you before we go, in any case. I’m being baked by this horrible sun. Please say good morning to your wife for me.” She rose and went downstairs.
Port hung his coat on the back of the chair and sat a while, pondering the unusual behavior of this eccentric woman. He could not bring himself to attribute it to mere irresponsibility or craziness; it seemed much more likely that her deportment was a roundabout means of communicating an idea she dared not express directly. In her own confused mind the procedure was apparently logical. All he could be certain of was that her basic motivation was fear. And Eric’s was greed; of that also he was sure. But the compound made by the two together continued to mystify him. He had the impression that the merest indication of a design was beginning to take shape; what the design was, what it might end by meaning, all that was still wholly problematical. He guessed however that at the moment mother and son were working at cross-purposes. Each had a reason for being interested in his presence, but the reasons were not identical, nor even complementary, he thought.
He consulted his watch: it was ten-thirty. Kit would probably not be awake yet. When he saw her he intended to discuss the matter with her, if she were not still angry with him. Her ability to decipher motivations was considerable. He decided to take a walk around the town. Stopping off in his room, he left his jacket there and picked up his sun glasses. He had reserved the room across the hall for Kit. As he went out he put his ear against the door of her room and listened; there was no sound within.
Boussif was a completely modern town, laid out in large square blocks, with the market in the middle. The unpaved streets, lined for the most part with box-shaped one-story buildings, were filled with a rich red mud. A steady procession of men and sheep moved through the principal thoroughfare toward the market, the men walking with the hoods of their burnouses drawn up over their heads against the sun’s fierce attack. There was not a tree to be seen anywhere. At’ the ends of the transversal streets the bare wasteland sloped slowly upward to the base of the mountains, which were raw, savage rock without vegetation. Except for the faces he found little of interest in the enormous market. At one end there was a tiny cafe with one table set outside under a cane trellis. He sat down and clapped his hands twice.