XV
Then he noticed that his head was sheltered under a little canopy formed by a piece of blue cotton, supported by a series of small sticks planted in the sand, the whole erection casting upon him a clear-cut, ashen shadow with grotesque contours....
The patterns of the piece of cotton seemed to him familiar. He turned his head and saw Fatou-gaye seated behind him, rolling her mobile eyeballs.
She it was who had followed him and had spread her festal garment above his head.
Had it not been for this shelter he would undoubtedly have died of sunstroke sleeping on those sands.
She it was who for several hours had been crouching there in ecstasy, very gently kissing Jean’s eyelids when no one was passing, dreading to wake him lest she should send him away, and no longer have him all to herself; trembling, too, at times lest Jean should be dead, yet happy, perchance, had it been so. For then she would have dragged him far away, very far away, and would have stayed with him always until she died by his side, clasping him tight, so that none should separate them again.
“It is I, my white man,” she said, “I did this, because I know that the sun of St Louis is not good for the toubabs of France.... I knew very well,” continued the little creature with tragic solemnity, in an indescribable jargon, “that there was another toubab who came to see her. I did not go to bed last night so that I might listen. I was hidden on the staircase among the calebashes. When you fell down by the door, I saw you. I watched over you the whole time. And then when you got up, I followed you.”
Jean gazed up at her, his eyes wide with astonishment, and full of kindness and gratitude. He was touched to the heart.
“Do not tell anyone, child.... Go home now quickly, and do not tell anyone that I came and lay down on the beach. Go back to your mistress at once, little Fatou. And I, I will go back to the spahi’s house.”
And he caressed her, patting her gently with his hand, with precisely the same emotion as he felt when he used to scratch the neck of the big, coaxing Tom cat, who at night in barracks would come and curl himself up on Jean’s soldier’s cot.
Quivering under Jean’s innocent caress, with hanging head, half-closed eyes, and heaving bosom, she took up her festal garment and went away trembling all over with joy.