The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (20 page)

“I like it,” he said.

“I feel like a—
ahem
—a virgin.”

“I guess you look like one.”

She regarded him a moment, pressing iodine to a cut. Then she said, “Virginity is one of those elusive things, honey. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Your account is well and truly spent.”

She stopped working on him, sat down, poured herself a small glass of rum from a bottle. She sipped it, watching him as she did so, seeming to tease him over the rim of the glass.

“Did I ever apologize for burning down your tavern?” he said.

“I can’t say you did. Did I ever thank you for getting me out of that burning plane?”

He shook his head. “We’re even. Maybe we should consider the past closed, huh?”

She was silent for a long time.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked tenderly.

“Everywhere.”

Marion softly kissed his left shoulder. “Here?”

Indy jumped a little in response. “Yes, there.”

Marion leaned closer to him. “Where
doesn’t
it hurt?” And she kissed his elbow. “Here?”

He nodded. She kissed the top of his head. Then he pointed to his neck and she kissed him there. Then the tip of his nose, his eyes. Then he touched his own lips and she kissed him, her mouth gently devouring his.

She was different; she had changed. This was no longer the wild touch he’d encountered in Nepal.

Something had touched her, softened her.

He wondered what it had been.

He wondered at the change.

The crated Ark lay in the hold of the ship. Its presence agitated the ship’s rats: they scurried back and forward pointlessly, trembling, whiskers shivering. Still silent as a whisper, the same faint humming sound emerged from the crate. Only the rats, their hearing hypersensitive, picked up on the sound; and it obviously scared them.

On the bridge, as the first light of dawn streaked the ocean, Captain Katanga smoked a pipe and watched the surface of the water as if he were trying to discern something that would have been invisible to landlocked men. He let the sun and the salt spray play against his face, streaks of salt leaving white crystalline traces on his black skin. There was something out there, something emerging from the dark, but he wasn’t sure what. He narrowed his eyes, stared, saw nothing. He listened to the faintly comforting rattle of the ship’s weary engines and thought of a failing heart trying to pump blood through an old body. He considered Indy and the woman a moment. He liked them both, and besides, they were friends of Sallah’s.

But something about the cargo, something about the crate, made him uneasy. He wasn’t sure what; he only knew he’d be glad to get rid of it when the time came. It was the same unease he experienced now as his eyes scanned the ocean. A vague pulse. A thing you just couldn’t put your finger on. But there was something out there just the same, something moving. He knew it even if he couldn’t see it.

He smelled, as certainly as the salt flecks in the air, the distinctive odor of danger.

He continued to watch, his body poised in the manner of a man about to jump from a high diving board. A man who cannot swim.

When Indy woke, he watched Marion for a time. She was still asleep, still looking virginal in the white dress. She had her face tilted to one side, and her mouth was slightly open. He rubbed at his bandages where his skin had begun to itch. Sallah had had the foresight to fetch his clothes, so he changed into his shirt now, made sure the bullwhip was secure at his back, then put on the leather jacket and played with the rim of the battered felt hat.

A lucky hat, he thought sometimes. Without it, he would have felt naked.

Marion turned over, her eyes opening.

“What a pleasant sight,” she said.

“I don’t feel pleasant,” he answered.

She stared at his bandages and asked, “Why do you always get yourself into such scrapes?”

She sat up, stroking her hair, looking round the cabin. “I’m glad to see you changed clothes. You weren’t convincing as an Arab, I’m afraid.”

“I did my best.”

She yawned and stretched and rose from the cot. He thought there was something delightful in the movement, a quality that touched him—touched him obliquely, in an off-center way. She reached for his hand, kissed the back of it, then moved around the cabin.

“How long are we going to be at sea?” she asked.

“Is that a literal or a metaphorical question?”

“Take it any way you like, Jones.”

He smiled at her.

And then he understood that something had happened: while he’d been so involved in the act of introspection, the ship’s engines had stopped and the vessel was no longer moving.

He rose and rushed to the door, clambering onto the deck and then the bridge, where Katanga was staring across the ocean. The captain’s pipe was unlit, his face solemn.

“You appear to have some important friends, Mr. Jones,” the man said.

Indy stared. At first he couldn’t make anything out. But then, following the sweep of the captain’s hand, he saw that the
Bantu Wind,
like a spinster courted by an unwanted entourage of voracious suitors, was surrounded by about a dozen German Wolf submarines.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“My sentiments exactly,” Katanga said. “You and the girl must disappear quickly. We have a place in the hold for you. But quickly! Get the girl!”

It was too late: both men noticed five rafts, with armed boarding parties, circle the steamer. Already the first Nazis were climbing the rope ladders that had been dropped. He turned, ran. Marion was uppermost in his mind now. He had to get her first. Too late—the air was filled with the sound of boots, German accents, commands. Ahead of him he saw Marion being dragged from the cabin by a couple of soldiers. The rest of the soldiers, boarding quickly, rounded the crew on deck, guns trained on them. Indy melted into the shadows, slipping through a doorway into the labyrinth of the ship.

Before he vanished, his brain working desperately for a way out, he heard Marion curse her assailants; and despite the situation, he smiled at her spirit. A good woman, he thought, and impossible to subdue entirely. He liked her for that.

He liked her a lot.

Dietrich came on board, followed by Belloq. The captain had already given his crew a signal not to resist the invaders. The men clearly wanted to fight, but the odds were against them. So they lined up sullenly under the German guns as Belloq and Dietrich strode past, shouting orders, sending soldiers scampering all over the ship for the Ark.

Marion watched as Belloq approached her. She felt something of the same vibrations as before, but this time she was determined to fight them, determined not to yield to whatever sensations the man might arouse in her.

“My dear,” Belloq said. “You must regale me with the tale—no doubt epic—of how you managed to escape from the Well. It can wait until later, though.”

Marion said nothing. Was there no end in sight to this whole sequence of affairs? Indy apparently had a marvelous talent for dragging wholesale destruction behind him. She watched Belloq, who touched her lightly under the chin. She pulled her face away. He smiled.

“Later,” he said, passing on to where Katanga stood.

He was about to say something when a sound seized his attention and he turned, noticing a group of soldiers raise the crated Ark from the hold. He fought the impatience he felt. The world, with all its mundane details, always intruded on his ambition. But that was going to be over soon. Slowly, reluctantly, he took his eyes from the crate as Dietrich gave the order for it to be placed aboard one of the submarines.

He looked at Katanga. “Where is Jones?”

“Dead.”

“Dead?” Belloq said.

“What good was he to us? We killed him. We threw him overboard. The girl has more value in the kind of marketplace in which I dabble. A man like Jones is useless to me. If his cargo was what you wanted, I only ask that you take it and leave us with the girl. It will reduce our loss on this trip.”

“You make me impatient,” Belloq said. “You expect me to believe Jones is dead?”

“Believe what you wish. I only ask that we proceed in peace.”

Dietrich had approached now. “You are in no position to ask anything, Captain. We will decide what we wish to decide, and then we must consider the question of whether we will blow this ancient ship out of the water.”

“The girl goes with me,” Belloq said.

Dietrich shook his head.

Belloq continued: “Consider her part of my compensation. I’m sure the Führer would approve. Given that we have obtained the Ark, Dietrich.”

Dietrich appeared hesitant.

“If she fails to please me, of course, you may throw her to the sharks, for all I care.”

“Very well,” Dietrich said. He noticed a brief expression of doubt on Belloq’s face, then signaled for Marion to be taken aboard the submarine.

Indy watched from his hiding place in an air ventilator, his body hunched and uncomfortable. Boots scraped the deck unpleasantly close to his face—but he hadn’t been discovered. Katanga’s lie seemed feeble to him, a desperate gesture if a kind one. But it had worked. He peered along the deck, thinking. He had to go with the submarine, he had to go with Marion, with the Ark. How? Exactly how?

Belloq was watching the captain closely. “How do I know you are telling the truth about Jones?”

Katanga shrugged. “I don’t lie.” He stared at the Frenchman; this one he didn’t like at all. He felt sorry for Indy for having an enemy like Belloq.

“Have your people found him on board?” the seaman asked.

Belloq considered this; Dietrich shook his head.

The German said, “Let us leave. We have the Ark. Alive or dead, Jones is of no importance now.”

Belloq’s face and his body went tense a moment; then he appeared to relax, following Dietrich from the deck of the tramp steamer.

Indy could hear the rafts leaving the sides of the
Bantu Wind.
Then he moved quickly, emerging from his place of concealment and running along the deck.

Aboard the submarine Belloq entered the communications room. He placed earphones on his head, picked up the microphone and uttered a call signal. After a time he heard a voice broken by static. The accent was German.

“Captain Mohler. This is Belloq.”

The voice was very faint, distant. “Everything has been prepared in accordance with your last communication, Belloq.”

“Excellent.” Belloq took the headphones off. Then he left the radio room, walking toward the small forward cabin, where the woman was being held. He stepped inside the room. She sat on a bunk, her expression glum. She didn’t look up as he approached her. He reached out, touched her lightly under the chin, raised her face.

“You have nice eyes,” he said. “You shouldn’t hide them.”

She twisted her face to the side.

He smiled. “I imagined we might continue our unfinished business.”

She got up from the bunk, went across the room. “We don’t
have
any unfinished business.”

“I think we do.” He reached out and tried to hold her hand; she jerked her arm free of him. “You resist? You didn’t resist before, my dear. Why the change of heart?”

“Things are a little different,” she answered.

He regarded her in silence for a time. Then he said, “You feel something for Jones? Is that it?”

She looked away, staring vacantly across the room.

“Poor Jones,” Belloq said. “I fear he’s destined never to win anything.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Belloq went toward the door. There, on his way out, he turned around. “You don’t even know, my dear, if he’s alive or dead. Do you?”

Then he closed the door and moved into the narrow passageway. Several seamen walked past him. They were followed by Dietrich, whose face was angry, stern. It amused Belloq to see this look: in his anger, Dietrich looked preposterous, like an enraged schoolmaster powerless to punish a recalcitrant pupil.

“Perhaps you would be good enough to explain yourself, Belloq.”

“What is there to explain?”

Dietrich seemed to be struggling with an urge to strike the Frenchman. “You have given specific orders to the captain of this vessel to proceed to a certain supply base—an island located off the African coast. It was my understanding that we would return to Cairo and then fly the Ark to Berlin on the first available flight. Why have you taken the liberty of changing the plan, Belloq? Are you suddenly under the impression that you are an admiral in the German navy? Is that it? Have your delusions of grandeur gone that far?”

“Delusions of grandeur,” Belloq said, still amused by Dietrich. “I hardly think so, Dietrich. My point is that we open the Ark before taking it to Berlin. Would you be comfortable, my friend, if your Führer found the Ark to be empty? Don’t you want to be sure that the Ark contains sacred relics
before
we return to Germany? I am trying to imagine the awful disappointment on Adolf’s face if he finds nothing inside the Ark.”

Dietrich stared at the Frenchman; his anger had passed, replaced by a look of doubt, incredulity. “I don’t trust you, Belloq. I have never trusted you.”

‘Thank you.”

Dietrich paused before going on: “I find it curious that you want to open the Ark on some obscure island instead of taking the more convenient route—namely Cairo. Why can’t you look inside your blessed box in Egypt, Belloq?”

“It wouldn’t be fitting,” Belloq said.

“Can you explain that?”

“I could—but you would not understand, I fear.”

Dietrich looked angry; he felt his authority once more had been undermined—but the Frenchman had the Führer as an ally. What could he do, faced with that fact?

He turned quickly and walked away. Belloq watched him go. For a long time the Frenchman didn’t move. He felt a great sense of anticipation all at once, thinking of the island. The Ark could have been opened almost anywhere—in that sense Dietrich was correct. But it was appropriate, Belloq thought, that it should be opened on the island. It should be opened in a place whose atmosphere was heavy with the distant past, a place of some historic importance. Yes, Belloq thought. The setting had to match the moment. There had to be a correspondence between the Ark and its environment. Nothing else would do.