The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [85]
“As Chef de Poste,” he said, “I am more or less obliged to verify the identity of the persons who pass through Sba. Of course the arrivals are very infrequent. I regret having to trouble you at such a time, naturally. It is merely a question of seeing your identity papers. Ali!” The barman stepped silently to their chairs and refilled the glasses. Kit did not reply for a moment. The aperitif had made her violently hungry.
“I have my passport.”
“Excellent. Tomorrow I shall send for both passports and return them to you within the hour.”
“My husband has lost his passport. I can only give you mine.”
“Ah, ca!” cried the captain. It was as he had expected, then. He was furious; at the same time he felt a certain satisfaction in the reflection that his first impression had been correct. And how right he had been to forbid his inferior officers to have anything to do with her. He had expected just something of this sort, save that in such cases it was usually the woman’s papers which were difficult to get hold of, rather than the man’s.
“Madame,” he said, leaning forward in his seat, “please understand that I am in no way interested in probing matters which I consider strictly personal. It is merely a formality, but one which must be carried out. I must see both passports. The names are a matter of complete indifference to me. But two people, two passports, no? Unless you have one together.”
Kit thought he had not heard her correctly. “My husband’s passport was stolen in Ain Krorfa.”
The captain hesitated. “I shall have to report this, of course. To the commander of the territory.” He rose to his feet. “You yourselves should have reported it as soon as it happened.” He had had the servant lay a place at the table for Kit, but now he did not want to eat with her.
“Oh, but we did. Lieutenant d’Armagnac at Bou Noura knows all about it,” said Kit, finishing her glass. “May I have a cigarette, please?” He gave her a Chesterfield, lighted it for her, and watched her inhale. “My cigarettes are all gone.” She smiled, her eyes on the pack he held in his hand. She felt better, but the hunger inside her was planting its claws deeper each minute. The captain said nothing. She went on. “Lieutenant d’Armagnac did everything he could for my husband to try and get it back from Messad.”
The captain did not believe a word she was saying; he considered it all an admirable piece of lying. He was convinced now that she was not only an adventuress, but a truly suspicious character. “I see,” he said, studying the rug at his feet. “Very well, madame. I shall not detain you now.”
She rose.
“Tomorrow you will give me your passport, I shall prepare my report and we shall see what the outcome will be.” He escorted her back to the room and returned to eat alone, highly annoyed with her for having insisted upon trying to deceive him. Kit stood in the dark room a second, reopened the door slightly and watched the glow cast on the sand by his flashlight disappear. Then she went in search of Zina, who fed her in the kitchen.
When she had finished eating she went to the room and lighted the lamp. Port’s body squirmed and his face protested against the sudden light. She put the lamp in a corner behind some valises and stood a while in the middle of the room thinking of nothing. A few minutes later she took up her coat and went out into the courtyard.
The roof of the fort was a great, flat, irregularly shaped mud terrace whose varying heights were a projection, as it were, of the uneven ground below. The ramps and staircases between the different wings were hard to see in the dark. And although there was a low wall around the outer edge, the innumerable courtyards were merely open wells to be skirted with caution. The stars gave enough light to protect her against mishaps. She breathed deeply, feeling rather as if she were on shipboard. The town below was invisible-not a light showed-but to the north glimmered the white ereg, the vast ocean of sand with its frozen swirling crests, its unmoving silence. She turned slowly about, scanning the horizon. The air, doubly still now after the departure of the wind, was like something paralyzed. Whichever way she looked, the night