‘But, Jack –’
She opened the back door and started to take out the luggage. Over her shoulder, he saw the bright travel stickers, the storm of colour that had descended upon and covered the worn leather now after years of travel, after years of the best hotels in two dozen countries.
She tugged at the valises, perspiring, and he stopped her hands and they stood gasping there for a moment, in the open door of the car, looking at these fine rich suitcases, inside which were the beautiful tweeds and woollens and silks of their lives and living, the forty-dollar-an-ounce perfumes and the cool dark furs and the silvery golf shafts. Twenty years were packed into each of the cases; twenty years and four dozen parts they had played in Rio, in Paris, in Rome, and Shanghai, but the part they played most frequently and best of all was the rich and buoyant, amazingly happy Webbs, the smiling people, the ones who could make that rarely balanced Martini known as the Sahara.
‘We can’t carry it all into town,’ he said. ‘We’ll come back for it later.’
‘But …’
He silenced her by turning her away and starting her off down the road.
>
‘But we can’t leave it there, we can’t leave all our luggage and we can’t leave our car! Oh look here now, I’ll roll up the windows and lock myself in the car, while you go for the gas, why not?’ she said.
He stopped and glanced back at the three men standing by the car which blazed in the yellow sun. Their eyes were shining and looking at the woman.
‘There’s your answer,’ he said. ‘Come on.’
‘But you just don’t walk off and leave a four-thousand-dollar automobile!’ she cried.
He moved her along, holding her elbow firmly and with quiet decision. ‘A car is to travel in. When it’s not travelling, it’s useless. Right now, we’ve got to travel; that’s everything. The car isn’t worth a dime without gas in it. A pair of good strong legs is worth a hundred cars, if you use the legs. We’ve just begun to toss things overboard. We’ll keep dropping ballast until there’s nothing left to heave but our hides.’
He let her go. She was walking steadily now, and she fell into step with him. ‘It’s so strange. So strange. I haven’t walked like this in years.’ She watched the motion of her feet beneath her, she watched the road pass by, she watched the jungle moving to either side, she watched her husband striding quickly along, until she seemed hypnotized by the steady rhythm. ‘But I guess you can learn anything over again,’ she said, at last.
The sun moved in the sky and they moved for a long while on the hot road. When he was quite ready, the husband began to think aloud. ‘You know, in a way, I think it’s good to be down to essentials. Now instead of worrying over a dozen damned things, it’s just two items – you and me.’
‘Watch it, here comes a car – we’d better …’
They half turned, yelled, and jumped. They fell away from the highway and lay watching the automobile hurtle past at seventy miles an hour. Voices sang, men laughed, men shouted, waving. The car sped away into the dust and vanished around a curve, blaring its double horns again and again.
He helped her up and they stood in the quiet road.
‘Did you see it?’
They watched the dust settle slowly.
‘I hope they remember to change the oil and check the battery, at least. I hope they think to put water in the radiator,’ she said, and paused. ‘They were singing, weren’t they?’
He nodded. They stood blinking at the great dust cloud filtering down like yellow pollen upon their heads and arms. He saw a few bright splashes flick from her eyelids when she blinked.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘After all, it was only a machine.’
‘I loved it.’
‘We’re always loving everything too much.’
Walking, they passed a shattered wine bottle which steamed freshly as they stepped over it.
They were not far from the town walking single file, the wife ahead, the husband following, looking at their feet as they walked, when a sound of tin and steam and bubbling water made them turn and look at the road behind them. An old man in a 1929 Ford drove along the road at a moderate speed. The car’s fenders were gone, and the sun had flaked and burnt the paint badly, but he rode in the seat with a great deal of quiet dignity, his face a thoughtful darkness under a dirty Panama hat, and when he saw the two people he drew the car up, steaming, the engine joggling under the hood and opened the squealing door as he said, ‘This is no day for walking.’
‘Thank you,’ they said.
‘It is nothing.’ The old man wore an ancient yellowed white summer suit, with a rather greasy tie knotted loosely at his wrinkled throat. He helped the lady into the rear seat with a gracious bow of his head. ‘Let us men sit up front,’ he suggested, and the husband sat up front and the car moved off in trembling vapours.
‘Well. My name is García.’
There were introductions and noddings.