The Sheltering Sky

Instead, he told himself, he would be practical, and the important thing now was to find Kit and get her back to New York. In the beginning he had felt that in some way the whole business of her vanishing was a nightmarish practical joke, that at the end of a week or so she would surely have reappeared, just as she had on the train ride to Boussif. And so he had determined to wait until she did. Now that time had elapsed and there was still no sign of her, he understood that he would wait much longer—indefinitely if necessary.

He put his glass on the coffee table beside him. Giving voice to his thoughts, he said: “I’m going to stay here until Mrs. Moresby is found.” And he asked himself why he was being so stubborn about it, why Kit’s return obsessed him so utterly. Assuredly he was not in love with the poor girl. His overtures to her had been made out of pity (because she was a woman) and out of vanity (because he was a man), and the two feelings together had awakened the acquisitive desire of the trophy collector, nothing more. In fact, at this point, he realized that unless he thought carefully he was inclined to pass over the entire episode of intimacy between them, and to consider Kit purely in terms of their first meeting, when she and Port had impressed him so deeply as being the two people in the world he had wanted to know. It was less of a strain on his conscience that way; for more than once he had asked himself what had happened that crazy day at Sba when she had refused to open the door of the sick chamber, and whether or not she had told Port of her infidelity. Fervently he hoped not; he did not want to think of it.

“Yes,” said Lieutenant d’Armagnac. “You can’t very well go back to New York and have all your friends ask: ‘What have you done with Mrs. Moresby?’ That would be very embarrassing.”

Inwardly Tunner winced. He definitely could not. Those who knew the two families might already be asking it of each other (since he had sent Port’s mother both items of unfortunate news in two cables separated in time by three days, in the hope that Kit would turn up), but they were there and he was here, and he did not have to face them when they said: “So both Port and Kit are gone!” It was the sort of thing that never did, couldn’t, happen, and if he remained here in Bou Noura long enough he knew she would be unearthed.

“Very embarrassing,” he agreed, laughing uncomfortably. Even Port’s death by itself would be difficult enough to account for, There would be those who would say: “For God’s sake, couldn’t you have gotten him into a plane and up to a hospital somewhere, at least as far as Algiers? Typhoid’s not that quick, you know.” And he would have to admit that he had left them and gone off by himself, that he hadn’t been able to “take” the desert. Still, he could envisage all that without too much misery; Port had neglected to be immunized against any sort of disease before leaving. But to go back leaving Kit lost was unthinkable from every point of view.

“Of course,” ventured the lieutenant, again remembering the possible complications should the lost American lady turn up in anything but perfect condition, and then be moved to Bou Noura because of Tunner’s presence there, “your staying or not staying will have nothing to do with her being found.” He felt ashamed as soon as he heard the words come out of his mouth, but it was too late; they had been spoken.

“I know, I know,” said Tunner vehemently. “But I’m going to stay.” There was no more to be said about it; Lieutenant d’Armagnac would not raise the question again.

They talked on a little while. The lieutenant brought up the possibility of a visit some evening to the quartier reserve. “One of these days,” said Tunner dispassionately.

“You need a little relaxation. Too much brooding is bad, I know just the girl—” He stopped, remembering from experience that explicit suggestions of that nature generally destroy the very interest they are meant to arouse. No hunter wants his prey chosen and run to earth for him, even if it means the only assurance of a kill.

“Good. Good,” said Tunner absently.

Soon he rose and took his leave. He would return tomorrow morning and the next, and every morning after that, until one day Lieutenant D’Armagnac would meet him at the door with a new light in his eyes, and say to him: “Enfin, mon ami! Good news at last!”

In the garden he looked down at the bare, baked earth. The huge red ants were rushing along the ground waving their front legs and mandibles belligerently in the air. Ahmed shut the gate behind him, and he walked moodily back to the pension.