The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [33]
“Why don’t you extend your good wishes to all humanity, while you’re at it?” she demanded.
“Humanity?” cried Port. “What’s that? Who is humanity? I’ll tell you. Humanity is everyone but one’s self. So of what interest can it possibly be to anybody?”
Tunner said slowly: “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I’d like to take issue with you on that. I’d say humanity is you, and that’s just what makes it interesting.
“Good, Tunner!” cried Kit.
Port was annoyed. “What rot!” he snapped, ‘You’re never humanity; you’re only your own poor hopelessly isolated self.” Kit tried to interrupt. He raised his voice and went on. “I don’t have to justify my existence by any such primitive means. The fact that I breathe is my Justification. If humanity doesn’t consider that a justification, it can do what it likes to me. I’m not going to carry a passport to existence around with me, to prove I have the right to be here! I’m here! I’m in the world! But my world’s not humanity’s world. It’s the world as I see it.”
“Don’t yell,” said Kit evenly. “If that’s the way you feel, it’s all right with me. But you ought to be bright enough to understand that not everybody feels the same way.”
They got up. The Lyles smiled from their corner as the trio left the room.
Tunner announced: “I’m off for a siesta. No coffee for me. See you later.”
When Port and Kit stood alone in the hall, he said to her: “Let’s have coffee out in the little cafe by the market.”
“Oh, please!” she protested. “After that leaden meal? I couldn’t ever walk anywhere. I’m still exhausted from the trip.”
“All right; up in my room?”
She hesitated. “For a few minutes. Yes, I’d love it.” Her voice did not sound enthusiastic. “Then I’m going to have a nap, too.”
Upstairs they both stretched out on the wide bed and waited for the boy to arrive with the coffee. The curtains were drawn, but the insistent light filtered through them, giving objects in the room a uniform, pleasant rose color. It was very quiet outside in the street; everything but the sun was having a siesta.
“What’s new?” said Port.
“Nothing, except as I told you, I,m worn out from the train trip.”
“You could have come with us in the car. it was a fine ride.”
“No, I couldn’t. Don’t start that again. Oh, I saw Mr. Lyle this morning downstairs. I still think he’s a monster. He insisted on showing me not only his own passport, but his mother’s, too. Of course they were both crammed with stamps and visas. I told him you’d want to see them, that you liked that sort of thing more than I did. She was born in Melbourne in t899 and he was born in 1925, 1 don’t remember where. Both British passports. So there’s all your information.”
Port glanced sideways at her admiringly. “God, how did you get all that without letting him see you staring?Ó “Just shuffling the pages quickly. And she’s down as a journalist and he as a student. Isn’t that ridiculous? I’m sure he never opened a book in his life.”
“Oh, he’s a halfwit,” said Port absently, taking her hand and stroking it. “Are you sleepy, baby?”
“Yes, terribly, and I’m only going to take a tiny sip of coffee because I don’t want to get waked up. I want to sleep.”
“So do I, now that I’m lying down. If he doesn’t come in a minute I’ll go down and cancel the order.”
But a knock came at the door. Before they had time to reply, it was flung open, and the boy advanced bearing a huge copper tray. “Deux cafis,” he said grinning.
“Look at that mug,” said Port. “He thinks he’s come in on a hot romance.”
“Of course. Let the poor boy think it. He has to have some fun in life.”
The Arab set the tray down discreetly by the window and tiptoed out of the room, looking back once over his shoulder at the bed, almost wistfully, it seemed to Kit. Port got up and brought the tray to the bed. As they had their coffee he turned to her suddenly.
“Listen!” he cried, his voice full of enthusiasm.