The Sheltering Sky / Let It Come Down / the Spider's House Read online

  “Have you had tea?” said Lyle.

  “Yes, only it was coffee.”

  “Aha!” He edged nearer to a valise, toyed with the straps. “You have some nice labels on your bags.” He lifted the leather tag with Port’s name and address on it. “Now I see your name. Mr. Porter Moresby.” He crossed the room. “You must forgive me if I snoop. Luggage always fascinates me. May I sit down? Now, look, Mr. Moresby. That is you, isn’t it? I’ve been talking at some length with Mother and she agrees with me that it would be much pleasanter for you and Mrs. Moresby—I suppose that’s the lady you were with last night—” he paused.

  “Yes,” said Port.

  “—if you both came along with us to Boussif. It’s only five hours by car, and the train ride takes ages; something like eleven hours, if I remember. And eleven hours of utter hell. Since the war the trains are completely impossible, you know. We think—”

  Port interrupted him. “No, no. We couldn’t put you out to that extent. No, no.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Lyle archly.

  “Besides, we’re three, you know.”

  “Ah, yes, of course,” said Lyle in a vague voice. “Your friend couldn’t come along on the train, I suppose?”

  “I don’t think he’d be very happy with the arrangement. Anyway, we couldn’t very well go off and leave him.”

  “I see. That’s a shame. We can scarcely take him along, with all the luggage there’d be, you know.” He rose, looked at Port with his head on one side like a bird listening for a worm, and said: “Come along with us; do. You can manage it, I know.” He went to the door, opened it, and leaned through toward Port, standing on tiptoe. “I’ll tell you what. You come by and let me know in an hour. Fifty-three. And I do hope your decision is favorable.” Smiling, and letting his gaze wander once more around the room, he shut the door.

  Kit literally had not slept at all during the night; at daybreak she had dozed off, but her sleep was troubled. She was not in a receptive mood when Port rapped loudly on the communicating door and opened it immediately afterward. Straightway she sat up, holding the sheet high around her neck with her hand, and staring wildly. She relaxed and fell back.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “I’m so sleepy.”

  “We have the invitation to drive to Boussif.”

  Again she bobbed up, this time rubbing her eyes. He sat on the bed and kissed her shoulder absently. She drew back and looked at him. “From the monsters? Have you accepted?”

  He wanted to say “Yes,” because that would have avoided a long discussion; the matter would have been settled for her as well as for him.

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh, you’ll have to refuse.”

  “Why? It’ll be much more comfortable. And quicker. And certainly safer.”

  “Are you trying to terrify me so I won’t budge out of the hotel?” She looked toward the window. “Why is it so dark out still? What time is it?”

  “It’s cloudy today for some strange reason.”

  She was silent; the haunted look came into her eyes.

  “They won’t take Tunner,” said Port.

  “Are you stark, raving mad?” she cried. “I wouldn’t dream of going without him. Not for a second!”

  “Why not?” said Port, nettled. “He could get there all right on the train. I don’t know why we should lose a good ride just because he happens to be along. We don’t have to stick with him every damned minute, do we?”

  “You don’t have to; no.”

  “You mean you do?”

  “I mean I wouldn’t consider leaving Tunner here and going off in a car with those two. She’s an hysterical old hag, and the boy—! He’s a real criminal degenerate if I ever saw one. He gives me the creeps.”

  “Oh, come on!” scoffed Port. “You dare use the word hysterical. My God! I wish you could see yourself this minute.”

  “You do exactly what you like,” said Kit, lying back. “I’ll go on the train with Tunner.”

  Port’s eyes narrowed. “Well, by God, you can go on the train with him, then. And I hope there’s a wreck!” He went into his room and dressed.

  KT RAPPED ON the door. “Entrez,” said Tunner with his American accent. “Well, well, this is a surprise! What’s up? To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

  “Oh, nothing in particular,” she said, surveying him with a vague distaste which she hoped she managed to conceal. “You and I’ve got to go alone to Boussif on the train. Port has an invitation to drive there with some friends.” She tried to keep her voice wholly inexpressive.

  He looked mystified. “What’s all this? Say it again slowly. Friends?”

  “That’s right. Some English woman and her son. They’ve asked him.”

  Little by little his face began to beam. This was not false now, she noted. He was just incredibly slow in reacting.

  “Well, well!” he said again, grinning.

  “What a dolt he is,” she thought, observing the utter lack of inhibition in his behavior. (The blatantly normal always infuriated her.) “His emotional maneuvers all take place out in the open. Not a tree or a rock to hide behind.”

  Aloud she said: “The train leaves at six and gets there at some God-forsaken hour of the morning. But they say it’s always late, and that’s good, for once.”

  “So we’ll just go together, the two of us.”

  “Port’ll be there long before, so he can get rooms for us. I’ve got to go now and find a beauty parlor, God forbid.”

  “What do you need of that?” protested Tunner. “Let well enough alone. You can’t improve on nature.”

  She had no patience with gallantry; nevertheless she smiled at him as she went out. “Because I’m a coward,” she thought. She was quite conscious of a desire to pit Tunner’s magic against Port’s, since Port had put a curse on the trip. And as she smiled she said, as if to nobody: “I think we can avoid the wreck.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, nothing. I’ll see you for lunch in the dining room at two.”

  Tunner was the sort of person to whom it would occur only with difficulty that he might be being used. Because he was accustomed to imposing his will without meeting opposition, he had a highly developed and very male vanity which endeared him, strangely enough, to almost everyone. Doubtless the principal reason why he had been so eager to accompany Port and Kit on this trip was that with them as with no one else he felt a definite resistance to his unceasing attempts at moral domination, at which he was forced, when with them, to work much harder; thus unconsciously he was giving his personality the exercise it required. Kit and Port, on the other hand, both resented even the reduced degree to which they responded to this somewhat obvious charm, which was why neither one would admit to having encouraged him to come along with them. There was no small amount of shame involved where they were concerned, since both of them were conscious of all the acting and formula-following in his behavior, and yet to a certain degree both were willingly ensnared by it. Tunner himself was an essentially simple individual irresistibly attracted by whatever remained just beyond his intellectual grasp. Contenting himself with not quite being able to seize an idea was a habit he had acquired in adolescence, and it operated in him now with still greater force. If he could get on all sides of a thought, he concluded that it was an inferior one; there had to be an inaccessible part of it for his interest to be aroused. His attention, however, did not spur him to additional thought. On the contrary, it merely provided him with an emotional satisfaction vis-à-vis the idea, making it possible for him to relax and admire it at a distance. At the beginning of his friendship with Port and Kit he had been inclined to treat them with the careful deference he felt was due them, not as individuals, but as beings who dealt almost exclusively with ideas, sacred things. Their discouraging of this tactic had been so categorical that he had been obliged to adopt a new one, in using which he felt even less sure of himself. This consisted of g
entle prods, ridicule so faint and unfocused that it always could be given a flattering turn if necessary, and the adoption of an attitude of amused, if slightly pained resignation, that made him feel like the father of a pair of impossibly spoiled prodigies.

  Light-hearted now, he moved about the room whistling at the prospect of being alone with Kit; he had decided she needed him. He was not at all sure of being able to convince her that the need lay precisely in the field where he liked to think it did. Indeed, of all the women with whom he hoped some day to have intimate relations he considered Kit the most unlikely, the most difficult. He caught a glimpse of himself as he stood bent over a suitcase, and smiled inscrutably at his image; it was the same smile that Kit thought so false.

  At one o’clock he went to Port’s room to find the door open and the luggage gone. Two maids were making the bed up with fresh linen. “Se ha marchao,” said one. At two he met Kit in the dining room; she was looking exceptionally well groomed and pretty.

  He ordered champagne.

  “At a thousand francs a bottle!” she remonstrated. “Port would have a fit!”

  “Port isn’t here,” said Tunner.

  Chapter IX

  A FEW MINUTES before twelve Port stood outside the entrance of the hotel with all his luggage. Three Arab porters, acting under the direction of young Lyle, were piling bags into the back of the car. The slow-moving clouds above were interspersed now with great holes of deep blue sky; when the sun came through its heat was unexpectedly powerful. In the direction of the mountains the sky was still black and frowning. Port was impatient; he hoped they would get off before Kit or Tunner happened by.

  Precisely at twelve Mrs. Lyle was in the lobby complaining about her bill. The pitch of her voice rose and fell in sharp scallops of sound. Coming to the doorway she cried: “Eric, will you come in here and tell this man I did not have biscuits yesterday at tea? Immediately!”

  “Tell him yourself,” said Eric absently. “Celle-là on va mettre ici en bas,” he went on to one of the Arabs, indicating a heavy pigskin case.

  “You idiot!” She went back in; a moment later Port heard her squealing: “Non! Non! Thé seulement! Pas gateau!”

  Eventually she appeared again, red in the face, her handbag swinging on her arm. Seeing Port she stood still and called: “Eric!” He looked up from the car, came over and presented Port to his mother.

  “I’m very glad you can come with us. It’s an added protection. They say in the mountains here it’s better to carry a gun. Although I must say I’ve never seen an Arab I couldn’t handle. It’s the beastly French one really needs protection from. Filthy lot! Fancy their telling me what I had yesterday for tea. But the insolence! Eric, you coward! You let me do all the fighting at the desk. You probably ate the biscuits they were charging me for!”

  “It’s all one, isn’t it?” Eric smiled.

  “I should think you’d be ashamed to admit it. Mr. Moresby, look at that hulking boy. He’s never done a day’s work in his life. I have to pay all his bills.”

  “Come on, Mother! Get in.” This was said despairingly.

  “What do you mean, get in?” Her voice went very high. “Fancy talking to me like that! You need a good slap in the face. That might help you.” She climbed into the front of the car. “I’ve never had such talk from anyone.”

  “We shall all three sit in front,” said Eric. “Do you mind, Mr. Moresby?”

  “I’m delighted. I prefer the front,” said Port. He was determined to remain wholly on the periphery of this family pattern; the best way of assuring that, he thought, would be to have no visible personality whatever, merely to be civil, to listen. It was likely that this ludicrous wrangling was the only form of conversation these two had ever managed to devise for themselves.

  They started up, Eric at the wheel, racing the motor first. The porters shouted: “Bon voyage!”

  “I noticed several people staring at me when I left,” said Mrs. Lyle, settling back. “Those filthy Arabs have done their work here, the same as everywhere else.”

  “Work? What do you mean?” said Port.

  “Why, their spying. They spy on you all the time here, you know. That’s the way they make their living. You think you can do anything without their knowing it?” She laughed unpleasantly. “Within an hour all the miserable little touts and under-secretaries at the consulates know everything.”

  “You mean the British Consulate?”

  “All the consulates, the police, the banks, everyone,” she said firmly.

  Port looked at Eric expectantly. “But—”

  “Oh, yes,” said Eric, apparently happy to reinforce his mother’s statement. “It’s a frightful mess. We never have a moment’s peace. Wherever we go, they hold back our letters, they try to keep us out of hotels by saying they have no rooms, and when we do get rooms they search them while we’re out and steal our things, they get the porters and chambermaids to eavesdrop—”

  “But who? Who does all this? And why?”

  “The Arabs!” cried Mrs. Lyle. “They’re a stinking, low race of people with nothing to do in life but spy on others. How else do you think they live?”

  “It seems incredible,” Port ventured timidly, hoping in this way to call forth more of the same, for it amused him.

  “Hah!” she said in a tone of triumph. “It may seem incredible to you because you don’t know them, but look out for them. They hate us all. And so do the French. Oh, they loathe us!”

  “I’ve always found the Arabs very sympathetic,” said Port.

  “Of course. That’s because they’re servile, they flatter you and fawn on you. And the moment your back is turned, off they rush to the consulate.”

  Said Eric: “Once in Mogador—” His mother cut him short.

  “Oh, shut up! Let someone else talk. Do you think anyone wants to hear about your blundering stupidities? If you’d had a little sense you’d not have got into that business. What right did you have to go to Mogador, when I was dying in Fez? Mr. Moresby, I was dying! In the hospital, on my back, with a terrible Arab nurse who couldn’t even give a proper injection—”

  “She could!” said Eric stoutly. “She gave me at least twenty. You just happened to get infected because your resistance was low.”

  “Resistance!” shrieked Mrs. Lyle. “I refuse to talk any more. Look, Mr. Moresby, at the colors of the hills. Have you ever tried infra-red on landscapes? I took some exceptionally fine ones in Rhodesia, but they were stolen from me by an editor in Johannesburg.”

  “Mr. Moresby’s not a photographer, Mother.”

  “Oh, be quiet. Would that keep him from knowing about infra-red photography?”

  “I’ve seen samples of it,” said Port.

  “Well, of course you have. You see, Eric, you simply don’t know what you’re saying, ever. It all comes from lack of discipline. I only wish you had to earn your living for one day. It would teach you to think before you speak. At this point you’re no better than an imbecile.”

  A particularly arid argument ensued, in which Eric, apparently for Port’s benefit, enumerated a list of unlikely sounding jobs he claimed to have held during the past four years, while the mother systematically challenged each item with what seemed convincing proof of its falsity. At each new claim she cried: “What lies! What a liar! You don’t even know what the truth is!” Finally Eric replied in an aggrieved tone, as if capitulating: “You’d never let me stick at any work, anyway. You’re terrified that I might become independent.”

  Mrs. Lyle cried: “Look, look! Mr. Moresby! That sweet burro! It reminds me of Spain. We just spent two months there. It’s a horrible country,” (she pronounced it hawibble) “all soldiers and priests and Jews.”

  “Jews?” echoed Port incredulously.

  “Of course. Didn’t you know? The hotels are full of them. They run the country. From behind the scenes, of course. The same as everywhere else. Only in Spain they’re very clever about it. They will not admit to being Jewish. In
Córdoba—this will show you how wily and deceitful they are. In Córdoba I went through a street called Judería. It’s where the synagogue is. Naturally it’s positively teeming with Jews—a typical ghetto. But do you think one of them would admit it? Certainly not! They all shook their fingers back and forth in front of my face, and shouted: ‘Católico! Católico!’ at me. But fancy that, Mr. Moresby, their claiming to be Roman Catholics. And when I went through the synagogue the guide kept insisting that no services had been held in it since the fifteenth century! I’m afraid I was dreadfully rude to him. I burst out laughing in his face.”

  “What did he say?” Port inquired.

  “Oh, he merely went on with his lecture. He’d learned it by rote, of course. He did stare. They all do. But I think he respected me for not being afraid. The ruder you are to them the more they admire you. I showed him I knew he was telling me the most fearful lot of lies. Catholics! I daresay they think that makes them superior. It was too funny, when they were all most Jewy; one had only to look at them. Oh, I know Jews. I’ve had too many vile experiences with them not to know them.”

  The novelty of the caricature was wearing off. Port was beginning to feel smothered sitting there between them; their obsessions depressed him. Mrs. Lyle was even more objectionable than her son. Unlike him, she had no exploits, imaginary or real, to recount; her entire conversation consisted of descriptions in detail of the persecutions to which she believed she had been subjected, and of word-by-word accounts of the bitter quarrels in which she had been engaged with those who harassed her. As she spoke, her character took shape before him, although already he was far less inclined to be interested in it. Her life had been devoid of personal contacts, and she needed them. Thus she manufactured them as best she could; each fight was an abortive attempt at establishing some kind of human relationship. Even with Eric, she had come to accept the dispute as the natural mode of talking. He decided that she was the loneliest woman he had ever seen, but he could not care very much.