“Yes.” And starting afresh, she said: “Monsieur Daoud Zozeph, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Your favor is granted, madame,” he said gallantly. She felt that he had bowed in the darkness.
“A great favor,” she warned.
Daoud Zozeph, thinking that perhaps she wanted to borrow money, began to rattle objects on the counter, saying: “But we are talking in the dark. Wait. I shall light a lamp.”
“No! Please!” exclaimed Kit.
“But we don’t see each other!” he protested.
She put her hand on his arm. “I know, but don’t light the lamp, please. I want to ask you this favor immediately. May I spend the night with you and your wife?”
Daoud Zozeph was completely taken aback—both astonished and relieved. “Tonight?” he said.
“Yes.”
There was a short silence.
“You understand, madame, we should be honored to have you in our house. But you would not be comfortable. You know, a house of poor people is not like a hotel or a poste militaire. . . .”
“But since I ask you,” she said reproachfully, “that means I don’t care. You think that matters to me? I have been sleeping on the floor here in Sba.”
“Ah, that you would not have to do in my house,” said Daoud Zozeph energetically.
“But I should be delighted to sleep on the floor. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”
“Ah, no! No, madame! Not on the floor! Quand même!” he objected. And as he struck a match to light the lamp, she touched his arm again.
“Écoutez, monsieur,” she said, her voice sinking to a conspiratorial whisper, “my husband is looking for me, and I don’t want him to find me. We have had a misunderstanding. I don’t want to see him tonight. It’s very simple. I think your wife would understand.”
Daoud Zozeph laughed. “Of course! Of course!” Still laughing, he closed the door into the street, bolted it, and struck a match, holding it high in the air. Lighting matches all the way, he led her through a dark inner room and across a small court. The stars were above. He paused in front of a door. “You can sleep here.” He opened the door and stepped inside. Again a match flared: she saw a tiny room in disorder, its sagging iron bed covered with a mattress that vomited excelsior.
“This is not your room, I hope?” she ventured, as the match went out.
“Ah, no! We have another bed in our room, my wife and I,” he answered, a note of pride in his voice. “This is where my brother sleeps when he comes from Colomb-Béchar. Once a year he visits me for a month, sometimes longer. Wait. I shall bring a lamp.” He went off, and she heard him talking in another room. Presently he returned with an oil lamp and a small tin pail of water.
With the arrival of the light, the room took on an even more piteous aspect. She had the feeling that the floor had never yet been swept since the day the mason had finished piling the mud on the walls, the ubiquitous mud that dried, crumbled, and fell in a fine powder day and night. . . . She glanced up at him and smiled.
“My wife wants to know if you like noodles,” said Daoud Zozeph.
“Yes, of course,” she answered, trying to look into the peeling mirror over the washstand. She could see nothing at all.
“Bien. You know, my wife speaks no French.”
“Really. You will have to be my interpreter.”
There was a dull knocking, out in the shop. Daoud Zozeph excused himself and crossed the court. She shut the door, found there was no key, stood there waiting. It would have been so easy for one of the guards at the fort to follow her. But she doubted that they had thought of it in time. She sat down on the outrageous bed and stared at the wall opposite. The lamp sent up a column of acrid smoke.
The evening meal at Daoud Zozeph’s was unbelievably bad. She forced down the amorphous lumps of dough fried in deep fat and served cold, the pieces of cartilaginous meat, and the soggy bread, murmuring vague compliments which were warmly received, but which led her hosts to press more of the food upon her. Several times during the meal she glanced at her watch. Tunner would be waiting in the public garden now, and when he left there he would go up to the fort. At that moment the trouble would begin; Daoud Zozeph could not help hearing of it tomorrow from his customers.
Madame Daoud Zozeph gestured vigorously for Kit to continue eating; her bright eyes were fixed on her guest’s plate. Kit looked across at her and smiled.
“Tell madame that because I am a little upset now I am not very hungry,” she said to Daoud Zozeph, “but that I should like to have something in my room to eat later. Some bread would be perfect.”
“But of course. Of course,” he said.
When she had gone to her room, Madame Daoud Zozeph brought her a plate piled high with pieces of bread. She thanked her and said good night, but her hostess was not inclined to leave, making it clear that she was interested in seeing the interior of the traveling case. Kit was determined not to open it in front of her; the thousand-franc notes would quickly become a legend in Sba. She pretended not to understand, patted the case, nodded and laughed. Then she turned again toward the plate of bread and repeated her thanks. But Madame Daoud Zozeph’s eyes did not leave the valise. There was a screeching and fluttering of wings outside in the court. Daoud Zozeph appeared carrying a fat hen, which he set down in the middle of the floor.
“Against the vermin,” he explained, pointing at the hen.
“Vermin?” echoed Kit.
“If a scorpion shows its head anywhere along the floor—tac! She eats it!”
“Ah!” She fabricated a yawn.
“I know madame is nervous. With our friend here she will feel better.”
“This evening,” she said, “I am so sleepy that nothing could make me nervous.”
They shook hands solemnly, Daoud Zozeph pushed his wife out of the room and shut the door. The hen scratched a minute in the dust, then scrambled up onto the rung of the washstand and remained motionless. Kit sat on the bed looking into the uneven flame of the lamp; the room was full of its smoke. She felt no anxiety—only an overwhelming impatience to put all this ludicrous décor behind her, out of her consciousness. Rising, she stood with her ear against the door. She heard the sound of voices, now and then a distant thud. She put on her coat, filled the pockets with pieces of bread, and sat down again to wait.
From time to time she sighed deeply. Once she got up to turn down the wick of the lamp. When her watch said ten o’clock, she went again to the door and listened. She opened it: the court glowed with reflected moonlight. Stepping back inside, she picked up Tunner’s burnous and flung it under the bed. The resultant swirl of dust almost made her sneeze. She took her handbag and the valise and went out, taking care to shut the door after her. On her way through the inner room of the shop she stumbled over something and nearly lost her balance. Going more slowly, she moved ahead into the shop, around the end of the counter, feeling lightly along its top with the fingers of her left hand as she went. The door had a simple bolt which she drew back with difficulty; eventually it made a heavy metallic noise. Quickly she swung the door open and went out.
The light of the moon was violent-walking along the white street in it was like being in the sunlight. “Anyone could see me.” But there was no one. She walked straight to the edge of town, where the oasis straggled over into the courtyards of the houses. Below, in the wide black mass formed by the tops of the palms, the drums were still going. The sound came from the direction of the ksar, the Negro village in the middle of the oasis.
She turned into a long, straight alley bordered by high walls. On the other side of them the palms rustled and the running water gurgled. Occasionally there was a white pile of dried palm branches stacked against the wall; each time she thought it was a man sitting in the moonlight. The alley swerved toward the sound of the drums, and she came out upon a square, full of little channels and aqueducts running paradoxically in all directions; it looked like a very complex toy railway. Several walks led off into the oasis from here. She chose the narrowest, which she thought might skirt the ksar rather than lead to it, and went on ahead between the walls. The path turned this way and that.