The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [120]
Soon a servant knocked at the door, and she knew that her nightly glass of soporific had been handed in; a moment later the Negro woman opened the bed curtains, and seeing that her mistress was asleep, set the glass on the top step and went back to her pallet by the door. Kit did not move, but her heart was beating in an unaccustomed fashion. “It’s poison,” she told herself. They had been poisoning her slowly, which was the reason why they had not come to punish her. Much later, when she raised herself softly on one elbow and peered between the curtains, she saw the glass and shuddered at the nearness of it. The woman was snoring.
“I must get out,” she thought. She was feeling strangely wide awake. But when she climbed down from the bed she knew she was weak. And for the first time she noticed the dry, earthen smell of the room. From the cowhide chest nearby she took the jewelry Belqassim had given her, as well as all he had taken from the other three, and spread it out on the bed. Then she lifted her little valise out of the chest and quietly stepped over to the door. The woman still slept. “Poison!” whispered Kit furiously as she turned the key. With great care she managed to close the door silently behind her. But now she was in the absolute dark, trembling with weakness, holding the bag in one hand, and lightly running the fingers of the other along the wall beside her.
“I must send a telegram,” she thought. “It’s the quickest way of reaching them. There must be a telegraph office here.” But first it was necessary to get into the street, and the street was perhaps a long way off. Between her and the street, in the darkness ahead of her, she might meet Belqassim; now she never wanted to see him again. “He’s your husband,” she whispered to herself, and stood still a second in horror. Then she almost giggled: it was only a part of this ridiculous game she had been playing. But until she sent the telegram she would still be playing it. Her teeth began to chatter. “Can you possibly control yourself just until we get into the street?”
The wall at her left suddenly came to an end. She took two cautious steps forward and felt the soft edge of the floor beneath the tip of her slipper. “One of those damned stairwells without a railing!” she said. Deliberately she set down the valise, turned around, and stepped back to the wall, following it the way she had come until she felt the door beneath her hand. She opened it soundlessly and took up the little tin lamp. The woman had not moved. She managed to shut the door without a mishap. With the light she was surprised to see how near the valise was. It was at the edge of the drop, but close to the top of the stairs; she would not have fallen very far. She went down slowly, taking care not to twist her ankle on the soft, crooked steps. Below, she was in a narrow corridor with closed doors on either side. At the end it turned to the right and led into an open court whose floor was strewn with straw. A narrow moon above gave white light; she saw the large door ahead and the sleeping forms along the wall beside it, and put her lamp out, setting it on the ground. When she advanced to the door she found that she could not budge the giant bolt that fastened it.