The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [65]
They went out. The road to the bus station was dark; the new moon gave no light. Behind them a few of the village urchins still straggled hopefully, most of them having given up when they saw the entire staff of the pension’s boys accompanying the travelers.
“Too bad it’s windy,” said Port. “That means dust.”
Kit was indifferent to the dust. She did not answer. But she noticed the unusual inflection in his speaking: he was unaccountably exhilarated.
“I only hope there are no mountains to cross,” she said to herself, wishing again, but more fervently now, that they had gone to Italy, or any small country with boundaries, where the villages had churches and one went to the station in a taxi or a carriage, and could travel by daylight. And where one was not inevitably on display every time one stirred out of the hotel.
“Oh, my God, I forgot!” Port cried. “You’re a very sick woman.” And he explained how he had got the seats.
“We’re almost there. Let me put my arm around your waist. You walk as though you had a pain. Shuffle a little.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said crossly. “What’ll our boys think?”
“They’re too busy. You’ve turned your ankle. Come on. Drag a bit. Nothing simpler.” He pulled her against him as they walked along.
“And what about the people whose seats we’re usurping?”
“What’s a week to them? Time doesn’t exist for them.”
The bus was there, surrounded by shouting men and boys. The two went into the office, Kit walking with a certain real difficulty caused by the force with which Port was pressing her toward him. “You’re hurting me. Let up a little,” she whispered. But he continued to constrict her waist tightly, and they arrived at the counter. The Arab who had sold him the tickets said: “You have numbers twenty-two and twenty-three. Get in and take your seats quickly. The others don’t want to give them up.”
The seats were near the back of the bus. They looked at each other in dismay; it was the first time they had not sat in front with the driver.
“Do you think you can stand it?” he asked her.
“If you can,” she said.
And as he saw an elderly man with a gray beard and a high yellow turban looking in through the window with what seemed to him a reproachful expression, he said: “Please lie back and be fatigued, will you? You’ve got to carry this off to the end.”
“I hate deceit,” she said with great feeling. Then suddenly she shut her eyes and looked quite ill. She was thinking of Tunner. In spite of the firm resolution she had made in Ain Krorfa to stay behind and meet him according to their agreement, she was letting Port spirit her off to El Ga’a without even leaving a note of explanation. Now that it was too late to change the pattern of her behavior, suddenly it seemed incredible to her that she had allowed herself to do such a thing. But a second later she said to herself that if this was an unpardonable act of deceit toward Tunner, how much graver was the deception she still practiced with Port in not telling him of her infidelity. Immediately she felt fully justified in leaving; nothing Port asked of her could be refused at this point. She let her head fall forward contritely.
“That’s right,” said Port encouragingly, pinching her arm. He scrambled over the bundles that had just been piled into the aisle and got out to see that all the luggage was on top. When he got back in, Kit was still in the same attitude.
There were no difficulties. As the motor started up, Port glanced out and saw the old man standing beside a younger one. They were both close to the windows, looking wistfully in. “Like two children,” he thought, “who aren’t being allowed to go on a picnic with the family.”
When they started to move, Kit sat up straight and began to whistle. Port nudged her uneasily.
“It’s all over,” she said. “You don’t think I’m going to go on playing sick all the way, I hope? Besides, you’re mad. No one’s paying the slightest attention to us.” This was true. The bus was full of lively conversation; their presence seemed quite unnoticed.
The road was bad almost immediately. At each bump Port slid down lower in his seat. Noticing that he made no effort to avoid slipping more, Kit said at length: