The Sheltering Sky

Port laughed abruptly. “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tastes wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.”

“But I’m always conscious of the unpleasant taste and of the end approaching,” she said.

“Then you should give up smoking.”

“How mean you are!” she cried.

“I’m not mean!” he objected, almost upsetting his glass as he raised himself on his elbow to drink. “It seems logical, doesn’t it? Or I suppose living’s a habit like smoking. You keep saying you’re going to give it up, but you go right on.”

“You don’t even threaten to stop, as far as I can see,” she said accusingly.

“Why should I? I want to go on.”

“But you complain so all the time.”

“Oh, not about life; only about human beings.”

“The two can’t be considered separately.”

“They certainly can. All it takes is a little effort. Effort, effort! Why won’t anybody make any? I can imagine an absolutely different world. just a few misplaced accents.”

“I’ve heard it all for years,” said Kit. She sat up in the near-dark, cocked her head and said: “Listen!”

Somewhere outside, not far away, perhaps in the market place, an orchestra of drums was playing, little by little gathering up the loose strands of rhythmic force into one mighty compact design which already was revolving, a still imperfect wheel of heavy sounds, lumbering ahead toward the night. Port was silent awhile, and said in a whisper: “That, for instance.”

“I don’t know,” said Kit. She was impatient. “I know I don’t feel any part of those drums out there, however much I may admire the sounds they make. And I don’t see any reason why I should want to feel a part of them.” She thought that such a straightforward declaration would put a quick end to the discussion, but Port was stubborn that evening.

“I know, you never like to talk seriously,” he said, “but it won’t hurt you for once,”

She smiled scornfully, since she considered his vague generalities the most frivolous kind of chatter—a mere vehicle for his emotions. According to her, at such times there was no question of his meaning or not meaning what he said, because he did not know really what he was saying. So she was banteringly: “What’s the unit of exchange in this different world of yours?”

He did not hesitate. “The tear.”

“It isn’t fair,” she objected. “Some people have to work very hard for a tear. Others can have them just for the thinking.”

“What system of exchange is fair?” he cried, and his voice sounded as if he were really drunk. “And whoever invented the concept of fairness, anyway? Isn’t everything easier if you simply get rid of the idea of justice altogether? You think the quantity of pleasure, the degree of suffering is constant among all men? It somehow all comes out in the end? You think that? If it comes out even it’s only because the final sum is zero.”

“I suppose that’s a comfort to you,” she said, feeling that if the conversation went on she would get really angry.

“None at all. Are you crazy? I have no interest in knowing the final figure. But I am interested in all the complicated processes that make it possible to get that result inevitably, no matter what the original quantity was.”

“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.