stopped at a gas station and after a minute, when the attendant did not appear, John Webb honked the horn. Then, appalled, he snapped his hand away from the horn-ring, looking at it as if it were the hand of a leper.
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
The attendant appeared in the shadowy doorway of the gas station. Two other men appeared behind him.
The three men came out and walked around the car, looking at it, touching it, feeling it.
Their faces were like burned copper in the daylight. They touched the resilient tires, they sniffed the rich new smell of the metal and upholstery.
‘Señor,’ said the gas attendant at last.
‘We’d like to buy some gas, please.’
‘We are all out of gas, señor.’
‘But your tank reads full. I see the gas in the glass container up there.’
‘We are all out of gas,’ said the man.
‘I’ll give you ten pesos a gallon!’
‘Gracias, no.’
‘We haven’t enough gas to get anywhere from here.’ Webb checked the gauge. ‘Not even a quarter gallon left. We’d better leave the car here and go into town and see what we can do there.’
‘I’ll watch the car for you, señor,’ said the station attendant. ‘If you leave the keys.’
‘We can’t do that!’ said Leonora. ‘Can we?’
‘I don’t see what choice we have. We can stall it on the road and leave it to anyone who comes along, or leave it with this man.’
‘That’s better,’ said the man.
They climbed out of the car and stood looking at it.
‘It was a beautiful car,’ said John Webb.
‘Very beautiful,’ said the man, his hand out for the keys. ‘I will take good care of it, señor.’
‘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 color 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 woolens 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. 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 traveling, 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 burned 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
