“The end of the bottle,” she murmured. “Perhaps a perfect zero is something to reach.”
“Is it all gone? Hell. But we don’t reach it. It reaches us. It’s not the same thing.”
“He’s really drunker than I am,” she thought. “No, it isn’t,” she agreed.
And as he was saying: “You’re damned right,” and flopping violently over to lie on his stomach, she went on thinking of what a waste of energy all this talk was, and wondering how she could stop him from working himself up into an emotional state.
“Ah, I’m disgusted and miserable!” he cried in a sudden burst of fury. “I should never take a drop because it always knocks me out. But it’s not weakness the way it is with you. Not at all. It takes more will power for me to make myself take a drink than it does for you not to. I hate the results and I always remember what they’ll be.”
“Then why do you do it? Nobody asks you to.”
“I told you,” he said. “I wanted to be with you. And besides, I always imagine that somehow I’ll be able to penetrate to the interior of somewhere. Usually I get just about to the suburbs and get lost. I don’t think there is any interior to get to any more. I think all you drinkers are victims of a huge mass hallucination.”
“I refuse to discuss it,” said Kit haughtily, climbing down from the bed and struggling her way through the folds of netting that hung to the floor.
He rolled over and sat up.
“I know why I’m disgusted,” he called after her. “It’s something I ate. Ten years ago.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Lie down again and sleep,” she said, and went out of the room.
“I do,” he muttered. He crawled out of the bed and went to stand in the window. The dry desert air was taking on its evening chill, and the drums still sounded. The canyon walls were black now, the scattered clumps of palms had become invisible. There were no lights; the room faced away from the town. And this was what he meant. He gripped the windowsill and leaned out, thinking: “She doesn’t know what I’m talking about. It’s something I ate ten years ago. Twenty years ago.” The landscape was there, and more than ever he felt he could not reach it. The rocks and the sky were everywhere, ready to absolve him, but as always he carried the obstacle within him. He would have said that as he looked at them, the rocks and the sky ceased being themselves, that in the act of passing into his consciousness, they became impure. It was slight consolation to be able to say to himself: “I am stronger than they.” As he turned back into the room, something bright drew his eye to the mirror on the open door of the wardrobe. It was the new moon shining in through the other window. He sat down on the bed and began to laugh.
XX
Port spent the next two days trying assiduously to gather information about El Ga’a. It was astonishing how little the people of Bou Noura knew about the place. Everyone seemed in agreement that it was a large city—always it was spoken of with a certain respect—that it was far away, that the climate was warmer, and the prices high. Beyond this, no one appeared able to give any description of it, not even the men who had been there, such as the bus driver he spoke with, and the cook in the kitchen. One person who could have given him a somewhat fuller report on the town was Abdelkader, but intercourse between him and Port had been reduced to mere grunts of recognition. When he considered it, he realized now that it rather suited his fancy to be going off with no proof of his identity to a hidden desert town about which no one could tell him anything. So that he was not so much moved as he might have been when on meeting Corporal Dupeyrier in the street and mentioning El Ga’a to him, the corporal said:
“But Lieutenant d’Armagnac has spent many months there. He can tell you everything you want to know.” Only then did he understand that he really wanted to know nothing about El Ga’a beyond the fact that it was isolated and unfrequented, that it was precisely those things he had been trying to ascertain about it. He determined not to mention the town to the lieutenant, for fear of losing his preconceived idea of it.
The same afternoon Ahmed, who had reinstated himself in the lieutenant’s service, appeared at the pension and asked for Port. Kit, in bed reading, told the servant to send the boy to the hammam, where Port had gone to bask in the steam room in the hope of thawing out his chill once and for all. He was lying almost asleep in the dark, on a hot, slippery slab of rock, when an attendant came and roused him. With a wet towel around him he went to the entrance door. Ahmed stood there scowling; he was a light Arab boy from the ereg, and his face had the telltale, fiery gashes halfway down each cheek which debauchery sometimes makes in the soft skin of those too young to have pouches and wrinkles.
“The lieutenant wants you right away,” said Ahmed.
“Tell him in an hour,” Port said, blinking at the light of day.
“Right away,” repeated Ahmed stolidly. “I wait here.”
“Oh, he gives orders!” He went back inside and had a pail of cold water thrown over him—he would have liked more of it, but water was expensive here, and each pailful was a supplementary charge—and a quick massage before he dressed. It seemed to him that he felt a little better as he stepped out into the street. Ahmed was leaning against the wall talking with a friend, but he sprang to attention at Port’s appearance, and kept a few paces behind him all the way to the lieutenant’s house.
Dressed in an ugly bathrobe of wine-colored artificial silk, the lieutenant sat in his salon smoking.
“You will pardon me if I remain seated,” he said. “I am much better, but I feel best when I move least. Sit down. Will you have sherry, cognac or coffee?”
Port murmured that coffee would please him most. Ahmed was sent to prepare it.
“I don’t mean to detain you, monsieur. But I have news for you. Your passport has been found. Thanks to one of your compatriots, who had also discovered his passport missing, a search had already been instigated before I got in contact with Messad. Both documents had been sold to legionnaires. But fortunately both have been recovered.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a slip of paper. “This American, whose name is Tunner, says he knows you and is coming here to Bou Noura. He offers to bring your passport with him, but I must have your consent before notifying the authorities there to give it to him. Do you give your consent? Do you know this Monsieur Tunner?”
“Yes, yes,” said Port absently. The idea horrified him; faced with Tunner’s imminent arrival, he was appalled to realize that he had never expected really to see him again. “When is he coming?”
“I believe immediately. You are not in a hurry to leave Bou Noura?”
“No,” said Port, his mind darting back and forth like a cornered animal, trying to remember what day the bus left for the south, what day it was then, how long it would take for Tunner to get from Messad. “No, no. I am not pressed for time.” The words sounded ridiculous as he said them. Ahmed came in silently with a tray bearing two small tin canisters with steam rising from them. The lieutenant poured a glass of coffee from each and handed one to Port, who took a sip and sat back in his chair.
“But I do hope to get eventually to El Ga’a,” he went on, in spite of himself.
“Ah, El Ga’a. You will find it very impressive, very picturesque, and very hot. It was my first Saharan post. I know every alley. It’s a vast city, perfectly flat, not too dirty, but rather dark because the streets are built through the houses, like tunnels. Quite safe. You and your wife can wander wherever you please. It’s the last town of any size this side of the Soudan. And that’s a great distance away, the Soudan. Oh, là, là!”