Close, in midst of this, thy hymn…

I fell ill somewhere between Casablanca and Adrar: a sickly fever that left me delirious and raving. It might have been something I’d eaten, or the foul, fetid water we were forced to drink along the way, or an insect bite, or the strangeness of our surroundings or nothing at all.

Rick, worried that I might inadvertently divulge our secrets, pulled us both off the train. He found lodging in a tumbledown hotel on the edge of some nameless desert town halfway between Hell and Algeria, and put me to bed.

I vomited until my stomach was empty of all I’d eaten in the past few days – precious little, because food was hard enough to come by and we didn’t want to attract undue attention by flashing any of the American bills we’d brought, or the healthy bundle of francs I’d taken from the safe in the Palais de Justice, right before we left. I lay for a long time, shuddering and sweating, convinced I was in Gallipoli with our old battalion from the legion etrangeres, that we were being shelled by the enemy, that Rick and I were both in mortal danger. I dreamed that the Germans were shelling us with mustard gas, which condensed in the air and fell down on me in drops like rain.

I was freezing to death.  “I’m so cold.”

“Louis, you’re burning up.”  Rick sponged cold water on my skin, trying to chase the heat away.  At some point, I realised, he’d stripped me naked, and this amused me.  Rick aspired to be  a libertine but could never really escape his innate puritanism.   It was too dark to tell if he was blushing.

“Ricky, please stop pouring water on me. I’m freezing.”    It came over me in waves, cold mounting upon cold.  I had gotten lost once as a boy in a snowstorm in the Auvergne, while hunting with mon oncle Michel.  The cold was torturous, hellish, unending…the world dissolved into a sea of white that went on and on forever.   “I’m freezing.”

I felt the lumpy mattress compress as he lay down beside me.  I could just barely make out his features, the outline of a bared shoulder, his hands.  He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him and held on to me throughout that awful night as I shivered and raved, drifting in and out of dreams, never entirely sure where I was, or when.  I lay like that for two whole days and it was early morning on the third day when I finally felt well enough to get up and wash, brush my teeth and swish a little cold water around in my mouth.  My stomach felt too tender to eat or drink anything, but the cold water tasted good, especially after the warm, brackish stuff we’d been drinking on the train.  As for Rick, he was still asleep, lying on his stomach with his cheek crushed into the bed and one hand curled next to his face.

I took advantage of the growing dawn to examine him.  In sleep he looked younger, and the lines of care that he wore nowadays were smoothed out.  His tousled hair, I think, added to the illusion.

I like looking at Rick.  I’ve always liked looking at Rick; I make no bones about it.  I fear I’ve embarrassed him on more than one occasion by commenting openly about his beauty, his allure, and my feelings for him.  I can still see the expression on Ilsa Lund’s face that night in the Cafe, when she asked me that immortal question, Monsieur, who is Rick?

If I were a woman, and if I were not around?  I should be in love with Rick.

I know now – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that all the lady heard were those final four words.  I know that. In retrospect, perhaps those four words were all I ought to have uttered, all I would have ever needed to say on the subject.

But he was awake, and watching me.  “How do you feel, Louis?”

“Much better, thank you.” There was not a lot of room on the bed; we were literally in each other’s faces. “You could have left me – gone on ahead yourself.”

“Nope.” He continued to gaze calmly at me and made no move to get up. “I couldn’t do that.”

“I rather think you could,” I said crisply, “especially once I’d become incapacitated – “

“Louis, you think you know me, but you got it all wrong.  You and everybody else.”  He shifted, tried in vain to fluff up the ratty pillow under his head. “You honestly think I’d go away and leave you here to fend for yourself?”

“In my state, I’d become a risk for you – “

“Not enough of a risk for me to leave you.”

“But -”

“But nothing, Louis.” He tried to grin. “I know how it feels to be left. I don’t recommend it.”

“So why the devil did – Ricky, I confess I don’t understand you – up until now we’ve never been anything to one another except – “

“Louis, shut up.”

As far as first kisses went, it was hardly remarkable.  There were no bursting fireworks, no angel choirs singing, no celestial trumpets.  His mouth was hot, and I felt the tip of his agile tongue coaxing my lips apart, and I think I might have groaned.  At any rate, someone did.

“Why?” I gazed into his eyes and saw nothing there but his usual grave good humour. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Maybe I wanted to.  You ask too many questions.” His thumb brushed my cheek; I leaned into the caress, his touch making me shiver.  “You feel well enough to go on?”

“Mm-hm.”  I wanted to ask him: why this, why now? but I couldn’t.  Maybe it was a bad idea, starting a love affair this way, on the run and in the middle of the desert, but I’ve always been an optimist.

Perhaps Rick is an optimist too.

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