Raiders Of the Lost Ark

This news, though he had somehow expected it, nev­ertheless shook him. For a time his mind was empty, thoughtless, as if all perceptions, all memories, had fled into some dark void. The Map Room at Tanis. And he thought of Abner Ravenwood after a while, of a lifetime spent searching for the Ark, of dying in madness because the Ark had possessed him. Then he considered himself and the strange jealous reac­ tion he had begun to experience, almost as if he should have been the first to break through into the Map Room, as if it were his right, like a legacy Ra­venwood had passed down to him in some obscure way. Irrational thinking, he told himself.

He looked at Sallah and said, 'They're moving fast.'

'The Nazis are well organized, Indy.'

'Yeah. At least they're good at something, even if it's only following orders.'

'Besides, they have the Frenchman in charge.'

'The Frenchman?'

'Belloq.'

Indy was silent, sitting upright in his chair. Belloq. Wasn't there anywhere in the world the bastard wouldn't turn up? He felt angry at first, and after that something else, a feeling he began to enjoy slowly, a sense of competition, the quiet thrill of seeing the opportunity to get even. He smiled for the first time. Belloq, I'll get you this time, he thought. And there was a hard determination in the prospect.

He took the medallion from his pocket and passed it to Sallah.

'They might have discovered the Map Room,' he said. 'But they won't get very far without this, will they?'

'I take it this is the headpiece of the Staff of Ra?'

'That's right. The markings on it are unfamiliar to me. What do you make of it?'

Sallah shook his head. 'Personally, nothing. But I know someone who would. I can take you to meet him tomorrow.'

'I'd appreciate that,' Indy said. He took the medal­lion back from Sallah and put it in his pocket. Safe, he thought. Without this, Belloq might just as well be blind. A fine sense of triumph there, he told himself. Rent, this one is all mine. If I can arrange some way to get around the Nazis.

He asked, 'How many Germans are involved in the dig?'

'A hundred or so,' Sallah said. 'They are also very well equipped.'

'I thought so.' Indy closed his eyes and sat back. He could feel sleep press in on him. I'll think of some­thing, he said to himself. Soon.

'It worries me, Indy,' Sallah said.

'What does?'

'The Ark. If it is there at Tanis . . .' Sallah lapsed into silence, an expression of suppressed anguish on his face. 'It is not something man was meant to dis­turb. Death has always surrounded it. Always. It is not of this world, if you understand what I mean.'

'I understand,' Indy said.

'And the Frenchman . . . he's clearly obsessed with the thing. I look in his eyes and I see something I cannot describe. The Germans don't like him. He doesn't care. He doesn't even seem to notice anything. The Ark, that's all he ever thinks about. And the way he watches everything-he misses nothing. When he entered the Map Room . . . how can I describe his face? He was transported into a place where I would have no desire to go myself.'

Out of nowhere, shaken out of the hot dark, there was an abrupt wind that blew grit and sand-a wind that died as sharply as it had risen.

'You must sleep now,' Sallah said. 'My house is yours, of course.'

'And I'm grateful.'

Both men went indoors; the house was quiet.

Indy walked past the room where Marion was sleeping; he paused outside the closed door, listening to the faint sound of her breathing. A child's breath­ing, he thought-and he had a flash of Marion years ago, when their affair, if that was the word, had taken place. But the desire he felt right then was a different thing altogether: it was a desire for the woman now.

He was pleased with the feeling.

He passed along the corridor, followed by Sallah.

The child is buried, he thought; only the woman lives now.

Sallahasked, 'You resist temptation, Indy?'

'Didn't you know about my puritan streak?'

Sallah shrugged, smiled in a mysterious way, as Indy closed the door of the guest room and went toward the bed. He heard Sallah move along the corridor, then the house was silent. He closed his eyes, expecting sleep to come in quickly-but it didn't. It remained an elusive shadow just beyond the range of his mind.

He turned around restlessly. Why couldn't he just let go and sleep? You resist temptation, Indy? He pressed his knuckles against his eyelids: he turned around some more, but what he kept seeing inside his head was a picture of Marion sleeping quietly in her room. He got out of bed and opened the door. Go back to bed, Indy, he said to himself. You don't know what you're doing.

He stepped out into the corridor and walked slowly -a burglar on tiptoe, he thought-toward Marion's room. Outside her door he paused. Turn around. Go back to your insomnia. He twisted the handle, en­tered the room and saw her lying on top of the bed covers. Moonlight flooded the room like a silver re­flection thrown by the wings of a vast night moth. She didn't move. She lay with her face to one side, arms across her stomach; the light made soft shadows around her mouth. Go back, he thought. Get back now.

Beautiful. She looked so beautiful, vulnerable, there. A sleeping woman and the touch of the moon-a dizzying combination. He found himself going toward the bed, then sitting on the edge of the mattress. He stared at her face, raised his hand, placed the tips of his fingers lightly against one cheek. Almost at once she opened her eyes.

She said nothing for a time. Her eyes seemed black in the room. He put a finger over her lips.

'You want to know why I'm sitting here, right?' he asked.

'I can hardly begin to guess,' she said. 'You've come to explain the intricacies of Mr. Roosevelt's New Deal? Or maybe you expect me to swoon in the moonlight.'

'I don't expect anything.'

She laughed. 'Everybody expects something. It's a little lesson I picked up along the way.'

He lifted her hand, felt it tremble a little.

She didn't say anything as he lowered his face and kissed her on the mouth. The kiss he received in re­turn was quick and hard and without emotion. He drew his face away and looked at her for a time. She sat up, drawing a bedsheet over herself. The nightdress was transparent and her breasts were vis­ible-firm breasts, not those of a child now.

'I'd like you to leave,' she said.

'Why?'

'I don't have to give reasons.'

Indy sighed. 'Do you really hate me that much?'

She stared at the window. 'Nice moon,' she said.

'I asked you a question.'

'You can't just trample your way back into my life, Indy. You can't just kick over all the props I've made for myself and expect me to pick up the pieces of the past. Don't you see that?'

'Yeah,' he said.

'That's my lecture. Now I need some sleep. So go.'

He got up slowly.

When he reached the door he heard her say, 'I want you too. Don't you think I do? Give it some time, okay? Let's see what happens.'

'Sure,' and then he stepped out into the corridor, unable to silence the echo of disappointment that seemed to roll inside his head. He stood in the moon­light that came in slivers through the window at the end of the hallway, and he wondered-as his desire began to fade-whether he'd made an ass of himself. It wouldn't be for the