The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories Page 4

  And then instead of going on to Arusha they turned left, he evidently figured that they had the gas, and looking down he saw a pink sifting cloud, moving over the ground, and in the air, like the first snow in a blizzard, that comes from nowhere, and he knew the locusts were coming up from the South. Then they began to climb and they were going to the East it seemed, and then it darkened and they were in a storm, the rain so thick it seemed like flying through a waterfall, and then they were out and Compie turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro. And then he knew that there was where he was going.

  Just then the hyena stopped whimpering in the night and started to make a strange, human, almost crying sound. The woman heard it and stirred uneasily. She did not wake. In her dream she was at the house on Long Island and it was the night before her daughter’s début. Somehow her father was there and he had been very rude. Then the noise the hyena made was so loud she woke and for a moment she did not know where she was and she was very afraid. Then she took the flashlight and shone it on the other cot that they had carried in after Harry had gone to sleep. She could see his bulk under the mosquito bar but somehow he had gotten his leg out and it hung down alongside the cot. The dressings had all come down and she could not look at it.

  “Molo,” she called, “Molo! Molo!”

  Then she said, “Harry, Harry!” Then her voice rising, “Harry! Please, Oh Harry!”

  There was no answer and she could not hear him breathing.

  Outside the tent the hyena made the same strange noise that had awakened her. But she did not hear him for the beating of her heart.

  A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE

  It was late and every one had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the café knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.

  “Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said.

  “Why?”

  “He was in despair.”

  “What about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How do you know it was nothing?”

  “He has plenty of money.”

  They sat together at a table that was close against the wall near the door of the café and looked at the terrace where the tables were all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind. A girl and a soldier went by in the street. The street light shone on the brass number on his collar. The girl wore no head covering and hurried beside him.

  “The guard will pick him up,” one waiter said.

  “What does it matter if he gets what he’s after?”

  “He had better get off the street now. The guard will get him. They went by five minutes ago.”

  The old man sitting in the shadow rapped on his saucer with his glass. The younger waiter went over to him.

  “What do you want?”

  The old man looked at him. “Another brandy,” he said.

  “You’ll be drunk,” the waiter said. The old man looked at him. The waiter went away.

  “He’ll stay all night,” he said to his colleague. “I’m sleepy now. I never get into bed before three o’clock. He should have killed himself last week.”

  The waiter took the brandy bottle and another saucer from the counter inside the café and marched out to the old man’s table. He put down the saucer and poured the glass full of brandy.

  “You should have killed yourself last week,” he said to the deaf man. The old man motioned with his finger. “A little more,” he said. The waiter poured on into the glass so that the brandy slopped over and ran down the stem into the top saucer of the pile. “Thank you,” the old man said. The waiter took the bottle back inside the café. He sat down at the table with his colleague again.

  “He’s drunk now,” he said.

  “He’s drunk every night.”

  “What did he want to kill himself for?”

  “How should I know.”

  “How did he do it?”

  “He hung himself with a rope.”

  “Who cut him down?”

  “His niece.”

  “Why did they do it?”

  “Fear for his soul.”

  “How much money has he got?”

  “He’s got plenty.”

  “He must be eighty years old.”

  “Anyway I should say he was eighty.”

  “I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o’clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?”

  “He stays up because he likes it.”

  “He’s lonely. I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me.”

  “He had a wife once too.”

  “A wife would be no good to him now.”

  “You can’t tell. He might be better with a wife.”

  “His niece looks after him. You said she cut him down.”

  “I know.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing.”

  “Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him.”

  “I don’t want to look at him. I wish he would go home. He has no regard for those who must work.”

  The old man looked from his glass across the square, then over at the waiters.

  “Another brandy,” he said, pointing to his glass. The waiter who was in a hurry came over.

  “Finished,” he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners. “No more tonight. Close now.”

  “Another,” said the old man.

  “No. Finished.” The waiter wiped the edge of the table with a towel and shook his head.

  The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leather coin purse from his pocket and paid for the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip.

  The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.

  “Why didn’t you let him stay and drink?” the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. “It is not half-past two.”

  “I want to go home to bed.”

  “What is an hour?”

  “More to me than to him.”

  “An hour is the same.”

  “You talk like an old man yourself. He can buy a bottle and drink at home.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No, it is not,” agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.

  “And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?”

  “Are you trying to insult me?”

  “No, hombre, only to make a joke.”

  “No,” the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the metal shutters. “I have confidence. I am all confidence.”

  “You have youth, confidence, and a job,” the older waiter said. “You have everything.”

  “And what do you lack?”

  “Everything but work.”

  “You have everything I have.”

  “No. I have never had confidence and I am not young.”

  “Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up.”

  “I am of those who like to stay late at the café,” the older waiter said. “With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night.”

  “I want to go home and into bed.”

  “We are of two different kinds,” the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. “It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each nigh
t I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café.”

  “Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long.”

  “You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves.”

  “Good night,” said the younger waiter.

  “Good night,” the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.

  “What’s yours?” asked the barman.

  “Nada.”

  “Otro loco mas,” said the barman and turned away.

  “A little cup,” said the waiter.

  The barman poured it for him.

  “The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished,” the waiter said.

  The barman looked at him but did not answer. It was too late at night for conversation.

  “You want another copita?” the barman asked.

  “No, thank you,” said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted café was a very different thing. Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.

  A DAY’S WAIT

  He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.

  “What’s the matter, Schatz?”

  “I’ve got a headache.”

  “You better go back to bed.”

  “No. I’m all right.”

  “You go to bed. I’ll see you when I’m dressed.”

  But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.

  “You go up to bed,” I said, “you’re sick.”

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  When the doctor came he took the boy’s temperature.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “One hundred and two.”

  Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative, the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.

  Back in the room I wrote the boy’s temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.

  “Do you want me to read to you?”

  “All right. If you want to,” said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.

  I read aloud from Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates; but I could see he was not following what I was reading.

  “How do you feel, Schatz?” I asked him.

  “Just the same, so far,” he said.

  I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.

  “Why don’t you try to go to sleep? I’ll wake you up for the medicine.”

  “I’d rather stay awake.”

  After a while he said to me, “You don’t have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”

  “It doesn’t bother me.”

  “No, I mean you don’t have to stay if it’s going to bother you.” I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o’clock I went out for a while.

  It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. I took the young Irish setter for a little walk up the road and along a frozen creek, but it was difficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and slithered and I fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.

  We flushed a covey of quail under a high clay bank with overhanging brush and I killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. Some of the covey lit in trees, but most of them scattered into brush piles and it was necessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times before they would flush. Coming out while you were poised unsteadily on the icy, springy brush they made difficult shooting and I killed two, missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.

  At the house they said the boy had refused to let any one come into the room.

  “You can’t come in,” he said. “You mustn’t get what I have.”

  I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.

  I took his temperature.

  “What is it?”

  “Something like a hundred,” I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.

  “It was a hundred and two,” he said.

  “Who said so?”

  “The doctor.”

  “Your temperature is all right,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I don’t worry,” he said, “but I can’t keep from thinking.”

  “Don’t think,” I said. “Just take it easy.”

  “I’m taking it easy,” he said and looked straight ahead. He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.

  “Take this with water.”

  “Do you think it will do any good?”

  “Of course it will.”

  I sat down and opened the Pirate book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.

  “About what time do you think I’m going to die?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “About how long will it be before I die?”

  “You aren’t going to die. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.”

  “People don’t die with a fever of one hundred and two. That’s a silly way to talk.”

  “I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can’t live with forty-four degrees. I’ve got a hundred and two.”

  He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o’clock in the morning.

  “You poor Schatz,” I said. “Poor old Schatz. It’s like miles and kilometers. You aren’t going to die. That’s a different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it’s ninety-eight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It’s like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?”