The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles Page B

ride backwards.”
    “Fine.” He rose, stretched, yawned, and sat down beside her very hard, bumping against her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I miscalculated the beast’s gyrations. God, what a train.” His right arm went around her, and he pulled her toward him a little. “Lean against me. You’ll be more comfortable. Relax! You’re all tense and tight.”
    “Tight, yes! I’m afraid so.” She laughed; to her it sounded like a titter. She reclined partially against him, her head on his shoulder. “This should make me feel comfortable,” she was thinking, “but it only makes everything worse. I’m going to jump out of my skin.”
    For a few minutes she made herself sit there without moving. It was difficult not to be tense, because it seemed to her that the motion of the train kept pushing her toward him. Slowly she felt the muscles of his arm tightening around her waist. The train came to a halt. She bounded up, crying: “I want to go to the door and see what it looks like outside.”
    He rose, put his arm around her again, held it there with insistence, and said: “You know what it looks like. Just dark mountains.”
    She looked up into his face. “I know. Please, Tunner.” She wriggled slightly, and felt him let go. At that moment the door into the corridor opened, and the ravaged-looking woman in black made as if to enter the compartment.
    “Ah, pardon. Je me suis trompée,”
she said, scowling balefully, and going on without shutting the door behind her.
    “What does that old harpy want?” said Tunner.
    Kit walked to the doorway, stood in it, and said loudly: “She’s just a voyeuse.” The woman, already halfway down the corridor, turned furiously and glared at her. Kit was delighted. The satisfaction she derived from knowing that the woman had heard the word struck her as absurd. Yet there it was, a strong, exultant force inside her. “A little more and I’ll be hysterical. And then Tunner will be helpless!”
    In normal situations she felt that Port was inclined to lack understanding, but in extremities no one else could take his place; in really bad moments she relied on him utterly, not because he was an infallible guide under such circumstances, but because a section of her consciousness annexed him as a buttress, so that in part she identified herself with him. “And Port’s not here. So no hysteria, please.” Aloud she said: “I’ll be right back. Don’t let the witch in.”
    “I’ll come with you,” he said.
    “Really, Tunner,” she laughed. “I’m afraid where I’m going you’d be just a little in the way.”
    He strove not to show his embarrassment. “Oh! Okay. Sorry.”
    The corridor was empty. She tried to see out the windows, but they were coated with dust and fingermarks. Up ahead she could hear the noise of voices. The doors onto the quai were closed. She went into the next coach; it was marked “ll,” and it was more brightly lighted, more populous, much shabbier. At the other end she met people coming into the car from outside. She crowded past them, got off and walked along the ground toward the front of the train. The fourth-class passengers, all native Berbers and Arabs, were milling about in the midst of a confusion of bundles and boxes, piled on the dirt platform under the faint light of a bare electric bulb. A sharp wind swept down from the nearby mountains. Quickly she slipped in among the people and climbed aboard.
    As she entered the car, her first impression was that she was not on the train at all. It was merely an oblong area, crowded to bursting with men in dun-colored burnouses, squatting, sleeping, reclining, standing, and moving about through a welter of amorphous bundles. She stood still an instant taking in the sight; for the first time she felt she was in a strange land. Someone was pushing her from behind, obliging her to go on into the car. She resisted, seeing no place to move to, and fell against a man with a white beard, who stared at