“Port,” she said again, as softly as before. He went on breathing. She locked her handbag into a valise, looked at her wristwatch, and stepped forth once more into the bright courtyard, this time wearing dark glasses.
Dominating the town, the fort sat astride a high hill of sand, a succession of scattered buildings protected by a wandering outer rampart. It was a separate town, alien to the surrounding landscape and candidly military in aspect. The native guards at the gate looked at her with interest as she went through. The town, sand-color, was spread out below with its single-storied, flat-roofed houses. She turned in the other direction and skirted the wall, climbing for a brief distance until she was at the top of the hill. The heat and the light made her slightly dizzy, and the sand kept filling her shoes. From this point she could hear the clear, high-pitched sounds of the town below; children’s voices and dogs barking. In all directions, where the earth and sky met, there was a faint, rapidly pulsating haze.
“Sba,” she said aloud. The word meant nothing to her; it did not even represent the haphazard collection of formless huts below. When she returned to the room someone had left a mammoth white china chamber-pot in the middle of the floor. Port was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and he had pushed the covers off.
She hurried to the cot and pulled them up over him. There was no way of tucking him in. She took his temperature: it had fallen somewhat.
“This bed hurts my back,” he said unexpectedly, gasping a little. She stepped back and surveyed the cot: it sagged heavily between the head and the foot.
“We’ll fix that in a little while,” she said. “Now, be good and keep covered up.”
He looked at her reproachfully. “You don’t have to talk to me as if I were a child,” he said. “I’m still the same person.”
“It’s just automatic, I suppose, when people are sick,” she said, laughing uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”
He still looked at her. “I don’t have to be humored in any way,” he said slowly. Then he shut his eyes and sighed deeply.
When the mattress arrived, she had the Arab who had brought it go and get another man. Together they lifted Port off the cot and laid him onto the mattress which was spread on the floor. Then she had them pile some of the valises on the cot. The Arabs went out.
“Where are you going to sleep?” asked Port.
“On the floor here beside you,” she said.
He did not ask her any more. She gave him his pills and said: “Now sleep.” Then she went out to the gate and tried to speak with the guards; they did not understand any French, and kept saying: “Non, m’si.” As she was gesticulating with them, Captain Broussard appeared in a nearby doorway and looked at her with a certain suspicion in his eyes. “Do you want something, madame?” he said.
“I want someone to go with me to the market and help me buy some blankets,” said Kit.
“Ah, je regrette, madame,” he said. “There is no one in the post here who could render you that service, and I do not advise you to go alone. But if you like I can send you blankets from my quarters.”
Kit was effusive in her thanks. She went back into the inner courtyard and stood a moment looking at the door of the room, loath to enter. “It’s a prison,” she thought. “I’m a prisoner here, and for how long? God knows.” She went in, sat down on a valise just inside the door, and stared at the floor. Then she rose, opened a bag, pulled out a fat French novel she had bought before leaving for Boussif, and tried to read. When she had got to the fifth page, she heard someone coming through the courtyard. It was a young French soldier carrying three camel blankets. She got up and stepped aside for him to enter, saying: “Ah, merci. Comme vous etes amiable!” But he stood still just outside the door, holding his arm out toward her for her to take the blankets. She lifted them off and laid them on the floor at her feet. When she looked up he already had started away. She stared after him an instant, vaguely perplexed, and then set about collecting various odd pieces of clothing from among her effects, which could serve as a foundation to place underneath the blankets. She finally arranged her bed, lay down on it, and was pleasantly surprised to find it comfortable. All at once she felt an overwhelming desire to sleep. It would be another hour and a half before she must give Port his medicine. She closed her eyes and for a moment was in the back of the truck on her way from El Ga’a to Sba. The sensation of motion lulled her, and she immediately fell asleep.
She was awakened by feeling something brush past her face. She started up, saw that it was dark and that someone was moving about in the room. “Port!” she cried. A woman’s voice said: “Voici mangi, madame.” She was standing directly above her. Someone came through the courtyard silently bearing a carbide lamp. It was a small boy, who walked to the door, reached in, and set the light down on the floor. She looked up and saw a large-boned old woman with eyes that were still beautiful. “This is Zina,” she thought, and she called her by name. The woman smiled, and stooped down, putting the tray on the floor by Kit’s bed. Then she went out.
It was difficult to feed Port; much of the soup ran over his face and down his neck. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel like sitting up to eat,” she said as she wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. “Maybe,” he said feebly.
“Oh, my God!” she cried. She had overslept; the pills were long overdue. She gave them to him and had him wash them down with a swallow of tepid water. He made a face. “The water,” he said. She sniffed the carafe. It reeked of chlorine. She had put the Halazone tablets in twice by mistake. “It won’t hurt you,” she said.
She ate her food with relish: Zina was quite a good cook. While she was still eating, she looked over at Port and saw that he was already asleep. The pills seemed each time to have that effect. She thought of taking a short walk after the meal, but she was afraid that Captain Broussard might have given orders to the guards not to let her pass. She went out into the courtyard and walked around it several times, looking up at the stars. An accordion was being played somewhere at the other end of the fort; its sound was very faint. She went into the room, shut the door, locked it, undressed, and lay on her blankets beside Port’s mattress, pulling the lamp over near her head so she could read. But the light was not strong enough, and it moved too much, so that her eyes began to hurt, and the smell of it disgusted her. Reluctantly she blew out the flame, and the room fell back into the profoundest darkness. She had scarcely lain down before she sprang up again, and began to scrabble about the floor with her hand, searching for matches. She lit the lamp, which seemed to be smelling stronger than ever since she had blown it out, and said to herself, but moving her lips: “Every two hours. Every two hours.”
In the night she awoke sneezing. At first she thought it was the odor of the lamp, but then she put her hand to her face, and felt the grit on her skin. She moved her fingers along the pillow: it was covered with a coating of dust. Then she became conscious of the noise of the wind outside. It was like the roar of the sea. Fearful of waking Port, she tried to stifle the sneeze that was on its way; her effort was unsuccessful. She got up. It seemed cold in the room. She spread Port’s bathrobe over him. Then she got two large handkerchiefs out of a suitcase and tied one over the lower part of her face, bandit-fashion. The other one she intended to arrange for Port when she woke him up to give him his pills. It would be only another twenty minutes. She lay down, sneezing again as a result of the dust raised by moving the blankets. She lay perfectly still listening to the fury of the wind as it swept by outside the door.