Chapter 15
Quinn did not leave that day. The first time he woke up he saw Bea asleep on the couch and his hangover was as bad as a disease. He closed the shutters of the window, took one violent drink straight from the bottle, then managed to go back to sleep.
The second time he woke up the shutters were open again and he could see the sun, low and red. He sat up carefully and localized the pains. One was in his head and one was in his back, but there was no more malaise like the first time when he had come to. He was alone in the room and sat looking at his clothes on the floor. They lay there in various ways, flat and wrinkled. I feel like they look, he thought. He put on his shorts and sat down again. The sun, he thought, was turning blue.
Bea came into the room holding a wrap around herself. She had a cigarette in one hand and when she closed the door she had to let go of the wrap. She did this without special haste, and without special slowness. The movements were simple and Quinn’s reaction was simple. She is beautiful, he thought. Then she came to sit on the couch.
“Bad?” she said.
“Not too bad. And you?”
She shrugged and smiled. Her face looked quiet and the eyes were a little bit swollen, but bright. She looks like a cat again, thought Quinn. She sits like a cat.
“I feel suddenly helpless not knowing the time,” said Quinn.
“Fifteen minutes and it will be dark. The light falls quickly now.”
“I came at noon?”
“Later.” She pulled on her cigarette and then did not exhale. When she did, she made a bluish feather of smoke and a sigh. “We drank, and argued, and made love, and then slept, and woke up, and Whitfield was here, and now we’ll have coffee, if you like.”
“Whitfield was here? You mean in here?”
“He comes sometimes.”
Quinn smelled the smoke from her cigarette and rubbed his nose.
“He comes sometimes,” be said. “Did you sleep with him too?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was too drunk. You feeling nasty again, Quinn?”
“ He was too drunk. Ha.”
She said nothing to that and just smoked. The smoke had an odor which reminded Quinn of queer teas, sweet liqueurs, and strange candies.
“Is that a reefer?” he asked.
“A local kind. Want one?”
“No.” He looked at her and how her skin showed through the stuff of the wrap where the wrap was tight over her. “No,” he said again. “I don’t think I want any more interference.”
He touched her arm with two fingers and stroked down the length of her arm, over her wrist and the hand. She watched, moving only her eyes, and then she did a sudden thing, like the one she had done once before with his shirt. She moved her hand and was suddenly holding his fingers. And then, like that other time, she was done moving as suddenly as she had started. She sat holding his fingers with no more pressure than to make him feel the warmth in her hand.
The old man with the bone hands came into the room and brought a tray with cups and a coffee urn. Nobody talked while the old man was there. He made sounds with his robe and once he made a sound when his hand touched the low table. It did sound like bones, thought Quinn. Then the old man closed the door and that sounded like wood.
“You going to pour?” said Quinn.
“Not yet.” She sat holding his fingers and watching smoke.
“You keep working that smoke like that,” he said, “and pretty soon you’re going to go up like that smoke.”
“Oh no. Try?”
“I told you why not.”
“It’s no interference, Quinn, it just slows everything down. Sometimes it slows things so much, nothing runs away any more.” She closed her eyes and held his fingers.
The sun was now halfway into the water, far away, very big and rich-looking, but far. The room was in shadow already.
She put out the cigarette when it was very short and had turned brown and then they drank coffee. She said a long ah, and that she enjoyed coffee more than anything now. Quinn looked at her over his cup, wanting her.
“You look greedy,” she said.
“I am. I like nothing better right now than feeling greedy.”
“Good. Because you owe me one.”
“What?”
“When we made love, you left me way behind.”
“I don’t remember, you know that?”
“You were full of tricks but it wasn’t any good.”
“Tricks,” he said and drank from his cup.
She put one hand on his leg just as the old man came back into the room. She left her hand there and pressed while the old man said something in Arabic and then he left the room.
“Whitfield is back, maybe?”
“No. He said he fixed the bath.”
“You got one of those tin things, too?”
“No. Mine is tile and all black. I look very white on the black,” she said and got up.
The sun was no sun any more but was all red water. She wanted to look out for a while or wanted to close the shutters, but he took her arm and said, “Come on. To hell with the shutters, come on,” and they went upstairs.
That room had a big white bed and was very dim. In a while Quinn did take the drug she had smoked and he smoked that while she took her bath. Quinn stayed that night, and the next day, and the night after that, but he knew this only in the end. What he knew was that the room was dark, that the room was light, that the woman smelled warm, that she was there or wasn’t. Once there was wild laughter, and then there were screams. He was sure he saw Whitfield one time and there were other people. He was holding a woman once and she turned out to be somebody he did not know. Then Bea came back again, crying, then laughing. God, you didn’t leave me behind that time, she said, then wept again. I feel like slush. God, how I hate slush. Some of this came and went in a way which reminded him of the time in the box, except this time it was really the opposite.
Chapter 16
The first thing Whitfield saw from his bed was Quinn, shaving. Whitfield did not have a hangover but he did have a delicate routine in the morning and the razor sounds went through him. He broke routine and started to talk while still lying in bed. This way he would not hear the razor sounds.
“Ah! Good morning!”
“Hum,” said Quinn, doing his chin.
The good morning had sickened Whitfield and he wished he had said hum instead.
“Why are you shaving?” said Whitfield. “Got a date?”
“Lend me some money.”
