The Sheltering Sky

“Katherine Moresby,” said the sister, pronouncing the name slowly and all wrong. “C’est bien vous, n’est-ce pas?”

“They took everything but the passport, and we were lucky to find that.”

“Open your eyes, madame.”

“Drink it. It’s cool. It’s lemonade. It won’t hurt you.” A hand smoothed her forehead.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

“Try to lie still.”

“The Consul at Dakar advises sending her back to Oran. I’m waiting for a reply from Algiers.”

“It’s morning.”

“No, no, no!” she moaned, biting the pillowcase. She would never let any of it happen.

“It’s taking this long to feed her only because she refuses to open her eyes.”

She knew that the constant references to her closed eyes were being made only in order to trap her into protesting: “But my eyes are open.” Then they would say: “Ah, your eyes are open, are they? Then—look!” and there she would be, defenseless before the awful image of herself, and the pain would begin. This way, sometimes for a brief moment she saw Amar’s luminous black body near her in the light of the lamp by the door, and sometimes she saw only the soft darkness of the room, but it was an unmoving Amar and a static room; time could not arrive there from the outside to change his posture or split the enveloping silence into fragments.

“It’s arranged. The Consul has agreed to pay the Transafricaine for her passage. Demouveau goes out tomorrow morning with Estienne and Fouchet.”

“But she needs a guard.”

There was a significant silence.

“She’ll sit still, I assure YOU.”

“Fortunately I understand French,” she heard herself saying, in that language. “Thank you for being so explicit.” The sound of such a sentence coming from her own lips struck her as unbelievably ridiculous, and she began to laugh. She saw no reason to stop laughing: it felt good, There was an irresistible twitching and tickling in the center of her that made her body double up, and the laughs rolled out. it took them a long time to quiet her, because the idea of their trying to stop her from doing something so natural and delightful seemed even funnier than what she had said.

When it was all over, and she was feeling comfortable and sleepy, the sister said: “Tomorrow you are going on a trip. I hope you will not make things more difficult for me by obliging me to dress you. I know you are capable of dressing yourself.”

She did not reply because she did not believe in the trip. She intended to stay in the room lying next to Amar.

The sister made her sit up, and slipped a stiff dress over her head; it smelled of laundry soap. Every so often she would say: “Look at these shoes. Do you think they will fit you?” Or: “Do you like the color of your new dress?” Kit made no answer. A man had hold of her shoulder and was shaking her.

“Will you do me the favor of opening your eyes, madame?” he said sternly.

“Vous lui faites mal,” said the sister.

She was moving with others in a slow procession down an echoing corridor. The feeble church bell clanged and a cock crowed nearby. She felt the cool breeze on her cheek. Then she smelled gasoline. The men’s voices sounded small in the immense morning air. Her heart began to race when she got into the car. Someone held her arm tightly, never letting go for an instant. The wind blew through the open windows, filling the car with the pungent odor of wood-smoke. As they jolted along, the men kept up a constant conversation, but she did not listen to it. When the car stopped there was a very brief silence in which she heard a dog barking. Then she was taken out, car doors were slammed, and she was led along stony ground. Her feet hurt: the shoes were too small. Occasionally she said in a low voice, as if to herself. “No.” But the strong hand never let go of her arm. The smell of gasoline was very heavy here. “Sit down.” She sat, and the hand continued to hold her.

Each minute she was coming nearer to the pain; there would be many minutes before she would actually have reached it, but that was no consolation. The approach could be long or short—the end would be the same. For an instant she struggled to break free.

“Raoul! Ici!” cried the man with her. Someone seized her other arm. Still she fought, sliding almost down to the ground between them. She scraped her spine on the tin molding of the packing case where they sat.

“Elie est costaude, cette garce!”

She gave up, and was lifted again to a sitting position, where she remained, her head thrown far backward. The sudden roar of the plane’s motor behind her smashed the walls of the chamber where she Jay. Before her eyes was the violent blue sky—nothing else. For an endless moment she looked into it. Like a great overpowering sound it destroyed everything in her mind, paralyzed her. Someone once had said to her that the sky hides the night behind it, shelters the person beneath from the horror that lies above. Unblinking, she fixed the solid emptiness, and the anguish began to move in her. At any moment the rip can occur, the edges fly back, and the giant maw will be revealed.