The Box (5 page)

When the drinks came there were only two—one for Quinn and the other for Whitfield. The woman, Beatrice, still had her own, and Remal was no longer at the table. And then Whitfield took a long gulp from his gin, which was cloudy with lemon juice, got up and said that he would be right back.

“Are you staring, sleeping, or thinking?” said the woman to Quinn.

“Uh, I’m sorry. None of those things,” and Quinn picked up his drink.

“But you were looking at me.”

“Oh yes. I was looking. Just that.”

She did not entirely understand that, but it was all Quinn had been doing. He saw that she was probably European: she had honey-colored hair, and she wore something short-sleeved and white, a cold white next to her skin which looked warm with tan. He looked down the row of little blue buttons on her front—how they ran down her round curve in front, tucked out of sight under her breasts, went straight down to her belt where the buttons ended.

“I feel touched,” she said.

He did not know why and had nothing to answer.

“I meant by your look. By your looking just now.”

“Oh. I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“I know you weren’t.”

She sipped her drink and looked beyond him. Quinn could see her neck, a nice round neck which showed a soft beat, a soft shadow which came and went to one side where her dress collar started. Then she sighed and looked back at him and smiled. Suddenly she seems very slow, thought Quinn. Like a cat in the sun.

“Mister Quinn,” she said, “are you always speechless like this?”

“I’m not speechless. I can talk.”

“Then talk to me a little.”

“Are you with this Turk?”

“With what? You mean Rental? He’s not a Turk,” and she had to laugh.

“Are you with him?”

She smiled and looked at him, as if she did not mind being asked such a question, or answering it, though she did not answer it.

“I meant something else when I asked you to talk. I wanted to hear about you.”

“You know about me.”

“Do you mind talking about it? I’m very curious, I’m really curious about you inside that box.”

“I don’t mind talking about it but I don’t know what to say.”

He meant that, she thought, and picked up her glass to take a slow sip. Quinn said nothing else. He looked out of the window where he could see a small slice of sea between the walls of two houses. This is just about like starting up from the bottom, he thought. When nothing happens it doesn’t matter, but sitting here it isn’t so easy. He felt annoyed and suddenly the light outside the window hurt his eyes. He thought that was the reason why he was annoyed. He looked briefly at the arch behind his back and then humped over the table and looked at his hands.

“They’ll be right back,” she said.

“Oh.” And then he said, “I asked you about you and—what’s his name?”

“Remal, the Turk.”

“I asked you about you and Remal before but I didn’t mean do you go to bed with him.”

“Oh? Why not?”

Then he knew why he felt annoyed. The two men’s sudden departure felt like something secret. Something I can’t deal with, he felt, something shut instead of open. And this was his first moment, since waking up in Okar, that he thought there must be some habits, old and dim right now, something to make all this newness less hard.

She saw that he had changed just a little, that he said just a little bit less than he thought.

“What I really wanted to know, I wanted to know why you’re sitting here at this table.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“I’m no zoo.”

“And I brought my car. You’re going to use it going to Tripoli.”

“Oh.”

She waited a moment but Quinn said nothing else. He thought, Whitfield is a friend of this Remal, and she is a friend of this Remal. Everybody is a friend of this Remal. He has no enemies.

“Just a friendly gesture,” she said. “Mine is the only good car in town, aside from Whitfield’s two trucks. You wouldn’t care to ride in one of those, on these roads. Quinn, you’re staring again.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged and smiled. “What did you see?”

“I like your tan.”

She did not answer anything but closed her eyes for a moment and kept smiling. She sat still like that as if feeling her own skin all over. Now she also has a face like a cat, thought Quinn. I can see her lie in the sun like a cat, the way they lie and you want to touch them. And the cat face, very quiet and content, with cat distance.

“You know,” she said, and opened her eyes, “I like to be looked at.”

Quinn finished his Scotch, put the glass down, and felt light-headed.

“In that case,” he said, “you, looking the way you do, should have a good time of it all day long.”

She laughed, because a laugh was now expected. This is the first time, she thought, that I’ve heard him say something flip. Maybe that’s how he used to be.

“Clever of you to say that,” she told him, “but you’re forgetting this is Okar.”

“You must have picked it, and not because of being broke or anything like that.”

“What made you say that?”

“You told me you got the only good car in town.”

“Oh.” She wondered whether he was being flip again. Then she said, “Yes. I’ve got enough. I’ve been married enough.”

“Often enough or long enough?”

“Often enough.”

Quinn looked the length of the hall again and wished he were leaving. He would have to leave anyway and Okar meant nothing to him.

“With your dough,” he said, “why sit here? Why not Rome, Madrid, Paris? That kind of thing.”

“Why here?” She had her hands on the table and looked at the backs of her hands and then turned them around and looked at her palms. “I don’t know why. Confusion. I came the way you came. In a box. What do you know when you come in a box?”

“Nothing.”

This stopped the conversation so abruptly that Beatrice felt she had to do something immediately.

“Anyway, what did you used to do, before nothing?”

“I was a lawyer. Which also means nothing. Right now I’ve got to know what to do next.”

“You’ll hang around. We all do.”

“I have no papers. And no money.”

“Money?” She looked at him as if she disliked him. “Well, there must be something you can do while you wait for papers. Don’t you Americans always have something to sell?”

He shrugged and didn’t answer.

“I used to be an American myself.” She felt embarrassed and laughed.

“And now?”

“All very confusing.” She sipped from her drink without liking it.

“You are sort of confusing right now.”

“I was born in Switzerland,” and she sounded like a document, “but I’m not Swiss. Parents from the States but I lived there only like a visitor. My last name is Rutledge, because of the British husband. Also Fragonard, because of the French one.” She took a breath and said, “I know. That’s only two of them.” But Quinn didn’t answer her.

“I could sell my cans,” he said.

“What was that?”

“The water cans I had in the box.”

Quinn, sitting opposite her, was as surprised by his sudden thought about the water cans as was the woman who did not know him at all.

The mayor and the clerk came down the stairs in the main hall, and when they could see Quinn and the woman from the arch that led into the dining hall they stopped, or rather the mayor stopped, holding the clerk by one arm.

“You understand, Whitfield,” he said, “the quicker the better.”

Whitfield peered along one leg of the arch at the couple in back and then straightened up again.

“You’re now worried she’ll go to bed with him.”

“Don’t be trivial, Whitfield.”

“All right,” said Whitfield, feeling bored. “I shall pressure the government of the United States of America to expedite this stowaway’s removal, because the mayor and so forth of Okar—I’ll have to explain to them where Okar is—that the mayor feels a certain shakiness in his position and…”

“You ignore this,” said Remal. “I am not shaky in my position and, besides, the outside officials are gone. But you ignore this. Our traveler was clearly part of a large organization. And they punished him. Or they tried. Once they find out, dear Whitfield, that he did not complete his tour, his tour of penitude…”

“I think you mean penitence.”

“His punishment, Whitfield, then they will look to see where he is.”

“And you would sooner have the officials hanging around than those American organization men.”

“Officials I can buy.”

“My fizz is getting warm, Remal.”

“Go take care of him,” said the mayor, “while he is still here.”

“No problem. He’s a lot like a child.”

Remal did not answer and left after making his habitual bow.

Whitfield went back to the table and sat down. He saw that Beatrice had her chin in her hand and was smoking her cigarette too short. He found that his fizz was warm, and he saw that Quinn sat with his hands in his lap, quiet and patient.

“I want to sell my cans,” said Quinn.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want to sell my water cans, the ones I brought in the box.”

A child, thought Whitfield. A child with the brain of an operator.

Chapter 6

They first walked to the house Beatrice had because the car was parked there. The car was a Giulietta, small and fast, and an Arab from Beatrice’s house stood by the garden wall to see that nobody stole anything out of the car or took off the wheels. The garden wall was very solid and high and the house behind was not visible.

“Come in for a drink,” said Beatrice. “You’ll have a long drive.”

“Which is why I don’t want to come in,” said Whitfield.

“I want to go down to the pier first,” said Quinn.

“All
right
,” said Whitfield.

“I think you could use the drink,” said Beatrice.

“Never mind, never mind. Siesta going to be shot and everything if we don’t get cracking.”

“I can drive,” said Quinn. “You can sleep in the car.”

“I take a bath during siesta. I don’t sleep.”

Whitfield got behind the wheel in a fair state of irritation, and when Quinn had slammed his own door Whitfield got the car down to the main street in something like leaps and bounds, as if inventing a new way to shift gears.

“You’re not turning towards the water,” said Quinn.

“Eh?”

“I want to check on those cans.”

“Preserve me, yes.”

“But you’re not turning…”

“Quinn, baby, listen. I must first stop by a store.”

“For what?”

“A preservative.” And then Whitfield shot down the main street until it petered out and stopped at the mouth of an alley where no car could enter.

“Native quarter,” said Whitfield. “Note the native craft of whitewash, the rustic filth on steps and cobbles, the aboriginal screams of joy and of anger as they chat in the street. Wait here, I’m buying me a bottle of wine.
If
you please.”

Quinn watched Whitfield go into a door. Or into a window, thought Quinn, because Whitfield had both to stoop down and step over a high stone sill all at the same time. Quinn got out and leaned by a stone wall and smelled the street and looked at the confusion of people. There were windows in the walls reminding one of gunslits, and a goat sat in the middle of the street looking at a butcher shop.

“Ah, the new one,” said somebody next to Quinn. Quinn gave a start which was close to fright.

“You’re Quinn, no?”

The Arab had a young face but an old-looking mouth because so many teeth were missing in the front. But he smiled just the same. He wore pants and an old army jacket.

“Now what?” said Quinn.

“I mean you just came, right?”

“You seem to know everything.”

“If I know your name, wouldn’t I know you are here?”

That sounds like an old Arab proverb, thought Quinn. And the guy looks like a cadaver which is still young. Quinn could think all this but he didn’t know what to say.

“Call me Turk,” said the Arab.

“That’s a fine old Arab name.”

“My good Arab name you couldn’t pronounce.”

“You want something?” asked Quinn. “You live here?”

Which he said to get just something or other straight.

“I live,” said Turk and kept smiling.

“Where’d you learn so much English?”

“Like this,” said Turk, and counted off on his fingers. “I once drove for the French. Then I went to France. There I soon moved to Paris. In Paris are Americans, and I learn to speak.”

“How’d you know who I was? You a friend of the mayor’s, too?”

“Who?”

“Remal.”

“Oh no.”

“That seems strange. All I ever meet…”

“He doesn’t trust me. Not at all,” and Turk laughed.

Quinn looked away to see if Whitfield was coming back yet.

“It always takes fifteen minutes,” said Turk. “Because of the talking you do with the purchase.”

“You sound like a guide,” said Quinn.

“Oh I could. Would you like to see the streets?”

“The mayor and I
both
don’t trust you,” said Quinn.

Turk shrugged and leaned by the wall, next to Quinn.

“You have a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke,” said Quinn.

“I meant for me, not you. Ah well,” and he scratched himself. “Anyway,” and now he looked earnest. “If you do want to see the native quarter, you know you should do it now.”

Quinn waited because he did not follow the man.

“You know that Remal won’t let you come here again.”

“What’s that?” said Quinn. He understood even less now. But somehow he felt he understood this Turk rather well, not the man perhaps, but the type. New arrival in town, little sucker play, a quick piaster or dinar or franc or whatever they use here, that type, and Quinn felt familiar with it. Not the pleasure of familiarity, just familiar—

“You don’t know anything, do you?” said Turk. He folded his arms, looked at the doorway Whitfield had taken, then back at Quinn. “You are a stranger,” said Turk, “and have upset him. Him, Remal.”

Quinn frowned and looked at the doorway again, wishing that Whitfield would show up.

“Leave me alone,” he said to the Arab. Quinn was almost mumbling.