The Garden of Allah Part 107

Hadj's face fell, and he showed his pointed teeth in a snarl. For a moment he hesitated, looking round at the other Arabs. Then he said:

"I am always happy, Madame."

Domini saw that she had made a mistake. She took out her purse and gave him five francs.

"A parting present," she said.

Hadj shook his head with recovered cheerfulness, tucked in his chin and laughed. Domini turned away, shook hands with all her dark acquaintances, and climbed up into the train, followed by Androvsky.

Batouch sprang upon the step as the porter shut the door.

"Madame!" he exclaimed.

"What is it, Batouch?"

"To-day you have put Hadj to shame."

He smiled broadly.

"I? How? What have I done?"

"Irena is dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert beyond Amara."

"Irena! But--"

"She could not live shut up in a room. She could not wear the veil for Hadj."

"But then--?"

"She has divorced him, Madame. It is easy here. For a few francs one can--"

The whistle sounded. The train jerked. Batouch seized her hand, seized Androvsky's, sprang back to the platform.

"Good-bye, Batouch! Good-bye, Ouardi! Good-bye, Smain!"

The train moved on. As it reached the end of the platform Domini saw an emaciated figure standing there alone, a thin face with glittering eyes turned towards her with a glaring scrutiny. It was the sand-diviner. He smiled at her, and his smile contracted the wound upon his face, making it look wicked and grotesque like the face of a demon. She sank down on the seat. For a moment, a hideous moment, she felt as if he personified Beni-Mora, as if this smile were Beni-Mora's farewell to her and to Androvsky.

And Irena was dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert.

She remembered the night in the dancing-house, Irena's attack upon Hadj.

That love of Africa was at an end. Was not everything at an end? Yet Larbi still played upon his flute in the garden of Count Anteoni, still played the little tune that was as the _leit motif_ of the eternal renewal of life. And within herself she carried G.o.d's mystery of renewal, even she, with her numbed mind, her tired heart. She, too, was to help to carry forward the banner of life.

She had come to Beni-Mora in the sunset, and now, in the sunset, she was leaving it. But she did not lean from the carriage window to watch the pageant that was flaming in the west. Instead, she shut her eyes and remembered it as it was on that evening when they, who now were journeying away from the desert together, had been journeying towards it together. Strangers who had never spoken to each other. And the evening came, and the train stole into the gorge of El-Akbara, and still she kept her eyes closed. Only when the desert was finally left behind, divided from them by the great wall of rock, did she look up and speak to Androvsky.

"We met here, Boris," she said.

"Yes," he answered, "at the gate of the desert. I shall never be here again."

Soon the night fell around them.

In the evening of the following day they reached Tunis, and drove to the Hotel d'Orient, where they had written to engage rooms for one night.

They had expected that the city would be almost deserted by its European inhabitants now the summer had set in, but when they drove up to the door of the hotel the proprietor came out to inform them that, owing to the arrival of a s.h.i.+p full of American tourists who, personally conducted, were "viewing" Tunis after an excursion to the East and to the Holy Land, he had been unable to keep for them a private sitting-room. With many apologies he explained that all the sitting-rooms in the house had been turned into bedrooms, but only for one night. On the morrow the personally-conducted ones would depart and Madame and Monsieur could have a charming salon. They listened silently to his explanations and apologies, standing in the narrow entrance hall, which was blocked up with piles of luggage. "Tomorrow," he kept on repeating, "to-morrow" all would be different.

Domini glanced at Androvsky, who stood with his head bent down, looking on the ground.

"Shall we try another hotel?" she asked.

"If you wish," he answered in a low voice.

"It would be useless, Madame," said the proprietor. "All the hotels are full. In the others you will not find even a bedroom."

"Perhaps we had better stay here," she said to Androvsky.

Her voice, too, was low and tired. In her heart something seemed to say, "Do not strive any more. In the garden it was finished. Already you are face to face with the end."

When she was alone in her small bedroom, which was full of the noises of the street, and had washed and put on another dress, she began to realise how much she had secretly been counting on one more evening alone with Androvsky. She had imagined herself dining with him in their sitting-room unwatched, sitting together afterwards, for an hour or two, in silence perhaps, but at least alone. She had imagined a last solitude with him with the darkness of the African night around them. She had counted upon that. She realised it now. Her whole heart and soul had been asking for that, believing that at least that would be granted to her. But it was not to be. She must go down with him into a crowd of American tourists, must--her heart sickened. It seemed to her for a moment that if only she could have this one more evening quietly with the man she loved she could brace herself to bear anything afterwards, but that if she could not have it she must break down. She felt desperate.

A gong sounded below. She did not move, though she heard it, knew what it meant. After a few minutes there was a tap at the door.

"What is it?" she said.

"Dinner is ready, Madame," said a voice in English with a strong foreign accent.

Domini went to the door and opened it.

"Does Monsieur know?"

"Monsieur is already in the hall waiting for Madame."

She went down and found Androvsky.

They dined at a small table in a room fiercely lit up with electric light and restless with revolving fans. Close to them, at an immense table decorated with flowers, dined the American tourists. The women wore hats with large hanging veils. The men were in travelling suits.

They looked sunburnt and gay, and talked and laughed with an intense vivacity. Afterwards they were going in a body to see the dances of the Almees. Androvsky shot one glance at them as he came in, then looked away quickly. The lines near his mouth deepened. For a moment he shut his eyes. Domini did not speak to him, did not attempt to talk.

Enveloped by the nasal uproar of the gay tourists they ate in silence.

When the short meal was over they got up and went out into the hall. The public drawing-room opened out of it on the left. They looked into it and saw red plush settees, a large centre table covered with a rummage of newspapers, a Jew with a bald head writing a letter, and two old German ladies with caps drinking coffee and knitting stockings.

"The desert!" Androvsky whispered.

Suddenly he drew away from the door and walked out into the street.

Lines of carriages stood there waiting to be hired. He beckoned to one, a victoria with a pair of small Arab horses. When it was in front of the hotel he said to Domini:

"Will you get in, Domini?"

She obeyed. Androvsky said to the mettse driver:

"Drive to the Belvedere. Drive round the park till I tell you to return."