The Sheltering Sky - Bowles, Paul [59]
“My dear sir, please I would make to you remark-” Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves. The most unpleasant part of the situation to him was the fact that he would be in bed, while the American would be free to roam about the room, would enjoy all the advantages, physical and moral.
He groaned a little as he sat up to eat the soup Jacqueline had brought him. Outside the wind was blowing and the dogs of the nomad encampment up the road were barking; if the sun had not been shining so brightly that the moving palm branches by the window gleamed like glass, for a moment he would have said it was the middle of the night-the sounds of the wind and the dogs would have been exactly the same. He ate his lunch; when Jacqueline was ready to leave he said to her: “You will go to the Poste and tell Corporal Dupeyrier to bring the American here at three o’clock. He himself is to bring him, remember.”
“Oui, oui,” she said, still in a state of acute pleasure. If she had missed out on the infanticide, at least she was in on the new scandal at the start.
Chapter 19
Precisely at three o’clock Corporal Dupeyrier ushered the American into the lieutenant’s salon. The house was absolutely silent. “Un moment,” said the corporal, going to the bedroom door. He knocked, opened it, the lieutenant made a sign with his hand, and the corporal relayed the command to the American, who walked into the bedroom. The lieutenant saw what he considered to be a somewhat haggard adolescent, and he immediately decided that the young man was slightly peculiar, since in spite of the heat he was wearing a heavy turtle-neck sweater and a woolen jacket.
The American advanced to the bedside and, offering his hand, spoke in perfect French. The lieutenant’s initial surprise at his appearance turned to delight. He had the corporal draw up a chair for his guest and asked him to be seated. Then he suggested that the corporal go on back to the Poste; he had decided he could handle the American by himself. When they were alone he offered him a cigarette and said: “It seems you have lost your passport.”
“That’s exact,” replied Port.
“And you believe it was stolen-not lost?”
“I know it was stolen. It was in a valise I always keep locked.”
“Then how could it have been stolen from the valise?” said the lieutenant, laughing with an air of triumph. “Always is not quite the word.”
“It could have been,” pursued Port patiently, “because I left the valise open yesterday for a minute when I went out of my room to the bathroom. It was a foolish thing to do, but I did it. And when I returned to my door the proprietor was standing outside it. He claimed he had been knocking because lunch was ready. Yet he had never come himself before; it was always one of the boys. The reason I am sure it was the proprietor is that yesterday is the only time I have ever left the valise open when I have been out of the room, even for an instant. It seems clear to me.”
“Pardon. Not to me. Not at all. Shall we make a detective story out of it? When is the last time you saw your passport?”
Port thought for a moment. “When I arrived in Ain Krorfa,” he said finally.
“Aha!” cried the lieutenant. “In Ain Krorfa! And yet you accuse Monsieur Abdelkader, without hesitating. How do you explain that?”
“Yes, I accuse him,” Port said stubbornly, nettled by the lieutenant’s voice. “I accuse him because logic indicates him as the only possible thief. He’s absolutely the only