When he got back to the hotel Port knocked on the door of the room opposite his. A male voice said: “Entrez,” and he walked in. Tunner had partially undressed and was unpacking his valises. He had not thought to unmake the bed, but Port did not notice this.
“What the hell!” said Port. “Don’t tell me they’ve given Kit the lousy back room I reserved for you.”
“I guess they must have. But thanks anyway.” Tunner laughed.
“You don’t mind changing, do you?”
“Why? Is the other room so bad? No, I don’t mind. It just seems like a lot of damned nonsense for just a day. No?”
“Maybe it’ll be more than a day. Anyway, I’d like Kit to be here across from me.”
“Of course. Of course. Better let her know too, though. She’s probably in the other room there in all innocence, thinking it’s the best in the hotel.”
“It’s not a bad room. It’s just on the back, that’s all. It was all they had yesterday when I reserved them.”
“Righto. We’ll get one of these monkeys to make the shift for us.”
At lunch the three were reunited. Kit was nervous; she talked steadily, mainly about post-war European politics. The food was bad, so that none of them was in a very pleasant humor.
“Europe has destroyed the whole world,” said Port.
“Should I be thankful to it and sorry for it? I hope the whole place gets wiped off the map.” He wanted to cut short the discussion, to get Kit aside and talk with her privately. Their long, rambling, supremely personal conversations always made him feel better. But she hoped particularly to avoid just such a tite-a-tite.
“Why don’t you extend your good wishes to all humanity, while you’re at it?” she demanded.
“Humanity?” cried Port. “What’s that? Who is humanity? I’ll tell you. Humanity is everyone but one’s self. So of what interest can it possibly be to anybody?”
Tunner said slowly: “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I’d like to take issue with you on that. I’d say humanity is you, and that’s just what makes it interesting.”
“Good, Tunner!” cried Kit.
Port was annoyed. “What rot!” he snapped, “You’re never humanity; you’re only your own poor hopelessly isolated self.” Kit tried to interrupt. He raised his voice and went on. “I don’t have to justify my existence by any such primitive means. The fact that I breathe is my Justification. If humanity doesn’t consider that a justification, it can do what it likes to me. I’m not going to carry a passport to existence around with me, to prove I have the right to be here! I’m here! I’m in the world! But my world’s not humanity’s world. It’s the world as I see it.”
“Don’t yell,” said Kit evenly. “If that’s the way you feel, it’s all right with me. But you ought to be bright enough to understand that not everybody feels the same way.”
They got up. The Lyles smiled from their corner as the trio left the room.
Tunner announced: “I’m off for a siesta. No coffee for me. See you later.”
When Port and Kit stood alone in the hall, he said to her: “Let’s have coffee out in the little café by the market.”
“Oh, please!” she protested. “After that leaden meal? I couldn’t ever walk anywhere. I’m still exhausted from the trip.”
“All right; up in my room?”
She hesitated. “For a few minutes. Yes, I’d love it.” Her voice did not sound enthusiastic. “Then I’m going to have a nap, too.”
Upstairs they both stretched out on the wide bed and waited for the boy to arrive with the coffee. The curtains were drawn, but the insistent light filtered through them, giving objects in the room a uniform, pleasant rose color. It was very quiet outside in the street; everything but the sun was having a siesta.
“What’s new?” said Port.
“Nothing, except as I told you, I,m worn out from the train trip.”
“You could have come with us in the car. it was a fine ride.”
“No, I couldn’t. Don’t start that again. Oh, I saw Mr. Lyle this morning downstairs. I still think he’s a monster. He insisted on showing me not only his own passport, but his mother’s, too. Of course they were both crammed with stamps and visas. I told him you’d want to see them, that you liked that sort of thing more than I did. She was born in Melbourne in t899 and he was born in 1925, 1 don’t remember where. Both British passports. So there’s all your information.”
Port glanced sideways at her admiringly. “God, how did you get all that without letting him see you staring?”
“Just shuffling the pages quickly. And she’s down as a journalist and he as a student. Isn’t that ridiculous? I’m sure he never opened a book in his life.”
“Oh, he’s a halfwit,” said Port absently, taking her hand and stroking it. “Are you sleepy, baby?”
“Yes, terribly, and I’m only going to take a tiny sip of coffee because I don’t want to get waked up. I want to sleep.”
“So do I, now that I’m lying down. If he doesn’t come in a minute I’ll go down and cancel the order.”
But a knock came at the door. Before they had time to reply, it was flung open, and the boy advanced bearing a huge copper tray. “Deux cafis,” he said grinning.
“Look at that mug,” said Port. “He thinks he’s come in on a hot romance.”
“Of course. Let the poor boy think it. He has to have some fun in life.”
The Arab set the tray down discreetly by the window and tiptoed out of the room, looking back once over his shoulder at the bed, almost wistfully, it seemed to Kit. Port got up and brought the tray to the bed. As they had their coffee he turned to her suddenly.
“Listen!” he cried, his voice full of enthusiasm.
Looking at him, she thought: “How like an adolescent he is.”
“Yes?” she said, feeling like a middle-aged mother.
“There’s a place that rents bicycles near the market. When you wake up, let’s hire a couple and go for a ride. It’s fairly flat all around Boussif.”
The idea appealed to her vaguely, although she could not imagine why.
“Perfect!” she said. “I’m sleepy. You can wake me at five, if you think of it.”
XIII
They rode slowly out the long street toward the cleft in the low mountain ridge south of the town. Where the houses ended the plain began, on either side of them, a sea of stones. The air was cool, the dry sunset wind blew against them. Port’s bicycle squeaked slightly as he pedaled. They said nothing, Kit riding a little ahead. In the distance, behind them, a bugle was being blown; a firm, bright blade of sound in the air. Even now, when it would be setting in a half-hour or so, the sun burned. They came to a village, went through it. The dogs barked wildly and the women turned away, covering their mouths. Only the children remained as they were, looking, in a paralysis of surprise. Beyond the village, the road began to rise. They were aware of the grade only from their pedaling; to the eye it looked flat. Soon Kit was tired. They stopped, looked back across the seemingly level plain to Boussif, a pattern of brown blocks at the base of the mountains. The breeze blew harder.
“It’s the freshest air you’ll ever smell,” said Port.
“It’s wonderful,” said Kit. She was in a dreamy, amiable state of mind, and she did not feel talkative.
“Shall we try and make the pass there?”
“In a minute. I just want to catch my breath.”