The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [71]
Eventually there were steps in the garden. She listened to their sound grow in clarity and volume, until they came right up to the door. Without even turning her head she waited for it to be opened; but that did not happen.
“Qui est la?” said a woman’s voice.
Out of fear that the young Arab would speak and perhaps be refused entrance for being a native, Kit summoned all her strength and cried: “Vous ites la proprietaire?”
There was a short silence. Then the woman, speaking with a Corsican or Italian accent, began a voluble entreaty: “Ah, madame, allez vous en, je vous en supplie!… Vous ne pouvez pas entrer ici! I regret! It is useless to insist. I cannot let you in! No one has been in or out of the hotel for more than a week! It is unfortunate, but you cannot enter!”
“But, madame,” Kit cried, almost sobbing, “my husband is very ill!”
“Aie!” The woman’s voice rose in pitch and Kit had the impression that she had retreated several steps into the garden; her voice, a little farther away, now confirmed it. “Ah, mon dieu! Go away! There is nothing I can do!”
“But where?” screamed Kit. “Where can I go?”
The woman already had started back through the garden. She stopped to cry: “Away from El Ga’a! Leave the city! You cannot expect me to let you in. So far we are free of the epidemic, here in the hotel.”
The young Arab was trying to pull Kit away. He had understood nothing except that they were not to be let in. “Come. We find fondouk,” he was saying. She shook him off, cupped her hands, and called: “Madame, what epidemic?”
The voice came from still farther away. “But, meningitis. You did not know? Mais oui, madame! Partez! Partez!” The sound of her hurried footsteps became fainter, was lost. Around the corner of the passageway a blind man had appeared, and was advancing toward them slowly, touching the wall as he moved. Kit looked at the young Arab; her eyes had opened very wide. She was saying to herself. “This is a crisis. There are only a certain number of them in life. I must be calm, and think.” He, seeing her staring eyes, and still understanding nothing, put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder and said: “Come.” She did not hear him, but she let him pull her away from the wall just before the blind man reached them. And he led her along the street back into the town, as she kept thinking: “This is a crisis.” The sudden darkness of a tunnel broke into her self-imposed hypnosis. “Where are we going?” she said to him. The question pleased him greatly; into it he read a recognition of her reliance upon him. “Fondouk,” he replied, but some trace of his triumph must have been implicit in the utterance of his word, for she stopped walking and stepped away from him. “Balak!” cried a voice beside her, and she was jolted by a man carrying a bundle. The young Arab reached out and gently pulled her toward him. “The fondouk,” she repeated vaguely. “Ah, yes.” They resumed walking.
In his noisy stable Port seemed to be asleep. His hand still rested on the patch of camel dung-he had not moved at all. Nevertheless he heard them enter and stirred a little to show them he was conscious of their presence. Kit crouched in the straw beside him and smoothed his hair. She had no idea what she was going to say to him, nor, of course, what they were going to do, but it comforted her to be this near to him. For a long time she squatted there, until the position became too painful. Then she stood up. The young Arab was sitting on the ground outside the door.
“Port has not said a word,” she thought, “but he is expecting the men from the hotel to come and carry him there.” At this moment the most difficult part of her task was having to tell him that there was nowhere for him to stay in El Ga’a; she determined not to tell him. At the same time her course of action was decided for her. She knew just what she would do.
And it was all done quickly. She sent the young Arab to the market. Any car, any truck, any bus would do, she had said to him, and price meant nothing. This last enjoinder was wasted on him, of course-he spent nearly an hour haggling over the price three people would pay to be taken in the back of a produce truck that was going to a place called Sba that afternoon. But when he came back it was arranged. Once the truck was loaded, the driver would call with it at the New Gate, which was the gate nearest to the fondouk, and would send his mechanic-copain to let them know he was waiting for them, and to recruit the men necessary for carrying Port through the town to the vehicle.