The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [36]
All the way back to town Kit had been turning an idea over and over in her head: “Somehow Port knows about Tunner and me.” At the same time she did not believe he was conscious of knowing it. But with a deeper part of his intelligence she was certain he felt the truth, felt what had happened. As they walked along the dark street she was almost tempted to ask him how he knew. She was curious about the functioning of a purely animal sense like that, in a man as complex as Port. But it would have done no good; as soon as he had been made aware of his knowledge he would have decided to be furiously jealous, immediately there would have been a scene, and all the implicit tenderness between them would have vanished, perhaps never to be recovered. To have not even that tenuous communion with him would be unbearable.
Port did a curious thing when dinner was over. Alone he went out to the market, sat in the cafe for a few minutes watching the animals and men by the flickering carbide lamps, and on passing the open door of the shop where he had rented the bicycles, went in. There he asked for a bicycle equipped with a headlight, told the man to wait for him until he returned, and quickly rode off in the direction of the gap. Up there among the rocks it was cold, the night wind blew. There was no moon; he could not see the desert in front of him, down below-only the hard stars above that flared in the sky. He sat on the rock and let the wind chill him. Riding down to Boussif he realized he never could tell Kit that he had been back there. She would not understand his having wanted to return without her. Or perhaps, he reflected, she would understand it too well.
Chapter 14
Two nights later they got on the bus for Ain Krorfa, having chosen the night car to avoid the heat, which is oppressive along that route. Somehow, too, the dust seems less heavy when one cannot see it. Daytime, as the bus makes its way across this part of the desert, winding down and up through the small canyons, one watches the trail of dust that rises in the car’s wake, sometimes breathing it in when the road doubles back on itself sharply. The fine powder piles up on every surface which is anywhere near to being horizontal, and this includes the wrinkles in the skin, the eyelids, the insides of the ears, and even, on occasions, hidden spots like the navel. And by day, unless the traveler is accustomed to such quantities of dust, he is supremely conscious of its presence, and is likely to magnify the discomfort it causes him. But at night, because the stars are bright in the clear sky, he has the impression, so long as he does not move, that there is no dust. The steady hum of the motor lulls him into a trance-like state in which his entire attention goes to watching the road move endlessly toward him as the headlights uncover it. That is, until he falls asleep, to be awakened later by the stopping of the bus at some dark, forsaken bordj, where he gets out chilled and stiff, to drink a glass of sweet coffee inside the gates.
Having received their places in advance, they had been able to get the most desirable seats in the bus, which were those in front with the driver. There was less dust here, and the heat from the motor, although excessive and a bit uncomfortable for the feet, was welcome by eleven O’clock, when the warmth of the day had totally disappeared and they became conscious of the dry, intense cold that always comes at night in this high region. And so all three of them were squeezed together with the driver, on the front seat. Tunner, who sat by the door, seemed to be asleep. Kit, with her head resting heavily against Port’s arm, stirred a little now and then, but her eyes were closed. Straddling the emergency brake, and with his ribs continually being prodded by the driver’s elbow as he steered, Port had by far the least comfortable spot, and consequently he was wide awake. He sat staring ahead through the windshield at the flat road that kept coming on, always toward him, and always being devoured by the headlights. Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. It was often on trips that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions that he could not reach when he was stationary.