“If I were you, Czerny,” he thought, “I would not involve myself too deeply with the people of this city. There is always the danger that you may find people to like or, most deadly of all, to love. What should you do, having fallen in love with some rare woman, and then find yourself betrayed? Ah, I anticipate your outraged reply. We are both too far along to have that happen to us again. Perhaps you are right, though one can never be too careful. But what if you are not betrayed, eh, Czerny? What then? No final demarcations, however painful. You have forgotten that. Nothing to chop it off before weariness sets in. Lifetimes go by that way, Czerny. Boredom and angry frustration are only the first symptoms. No mistresses for you, no other men’s wives, no playful daughters of police commissioners. We find that we need them, sooner or later. And that is the first of the body’s spasms of death. Years, years, years in this city, with the same faces, yours and hers. Years, years, years. Do not stop for them, Czerny. Tend to your army.”
Czerny’s car drove away, and after a few moments Ernst saw that one of the two people walking toward him was the girl, Ieneth, without her knife-sharpening equipment. With her was another girl, taller and darker. Ernst rose from his chair by the railing, and the two girls joined him at his table. M. Gargotier, evidently expecting that Ernst would soon depart, did not come to take an order. He stood glaring in the bar’s doorway, obviously resenting the presence of the two lower-class women. Ernst made a flamboyant gesture to summon the proprietor. He switched his drinking to absinthe, and the girls ordered wine.
“What is her name, Ieneth?” he asked, staring at the new girl. She looked shyly at the table.
“She is called Ua. In her language it means ‘flower.’ She does not understand our speech.”
“How charming she is, and how lovely her name. Truly a flower. Convey to her my sincerest compliments.” Ieneth did so. “What language is that?” asked Ernst.
“It is a strange dialect, spoken by the black people beyond the desert and the mountains. It is called Swahili.”
“Black people? How interesting. I have only heard stories. They actually exist?”
“Yes, yaa Sidi,” said Ieneth.
“And how did she learn the tongue? And you, also, for that matter?”
Ieneth closed her eyes, fluttering her painted lashes, and smiled.
Ernst turned to Ua. “What is this called?” he said, pointing to her foot. Ieneth translated, and Ua replied.
“Mguu,” she said.
“And this?” said Ernst, pointing now to her ankle.
“Kifundo cha mguu.”
“What is this?”
“Jicho.” Eye.
“How do you say ‘mouth’?”
“Kinywa.”
Ernst sipped his drink nervously, although he labored to seem casual and urbane. “This?” he asked.
“Mkono.” Arm.
“This?” Ernst’s fingers lingered on her breast, feeling the rough material of the brassiere beneath the cotton blouse.
Ua blushed. “Ziwa,” she whispered.
“She is indeed very lovely,” Ernst said.
“And worthy of reward for her, ah, agent?” asked Ieneth.
“Certainly,” said Ernst absently, as he moved his hand down past Ua’s stomach, stopping at the juncture of her thighs. “Now, my love, what could this be?”
Ua said nothing, staring at the table. She blushed fiercely while she played with the base of her wineglass.
“Ask her what the word for this is,” he said. Ieneth did so.
“Mkunga,” Ua said at last, removing Ernst’s hand.
Ieneth laughed shrilly, clapping her hands. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rose from her seat. “Ah, your cosmopolitan tastes!” she said.
“What is so amusing?” asked Ernst.
“Mkunga!” said Ieneth. “Mkunga is the word for ‘eel’ Oh, enjoy your hour together, yaa Sidi. You and she will have much to discuss!” And she went out of the cafe, laughing as she walked away from Ernst’s disconcerted and savage glare.
It was late afternoon, and already the sun was melting behind the hotel across the street. Ernst sipped wine now, for he appreciated the effect of the slanting sun’s rays on the rich, dark liquid. He had discovered this by accident when he had first come to the city, strolling along the walled quarter’s single, huge avenue. He had seen the red shimmers reflecting on the impassive face of a shopworn working girl. How much better, he had thought then, how much better it would be to have that singularly fortunate play of light grace a true poet.
“It may be a bit naive of me, nonetheless,” he thought. “After all, if these loiterers of the city lack the verbal sophistication to appreciate the verses themselves, how can I expect them to have any greater regard for the wielder of the pen? But I must defeat that argument by ignoring it if by no more rigorous means. I cannot allow myself to be pulled down into the intellectual miasma of these Afric prisoners. The sun must burn out all wonder and delight at an early age; it is only we unlucky travelers who can deplore their sand-worn ignorance.” He took some more of the wine and held it in his mouth until he began to feel foolish. He swallowed it and pushed the glass away.
While Ernst sat there, sucking the taste of the wine from his teeth, a young boy walked by on the sidewalk. He was small, nearly hairless, and quite obviously had strayed from the neighborhood of his parents. He stopped when he saw Ernst. “Are you not Weinraub the wanderer, from Europe?”
“I am,” said Ernst. “I have been, for some time. Has my fame then spread as far as your unwashed ears?”
“I have heard much about you, yaa Sidi,” said the boy. “I never believed that I’d really see you.”
“And are your dreams confirmed?”
“Not yet,” said the boy, shaking his head. “Do you really kiss other men?”
Ernst spat at the boy, and the dark boy laughed, dancing into the street, hopping back on the sidewalk. “Come here,” said Ernst, “and I’ll wrap this chair around your skinny neck.”
“It was only a joke, yaa Sidi,” said the boy, not the least afraid.
“A joke. How old are you?”
“I am nine, yaa Sidi.”
“Then you should know the danger of mocking your betters. I have the power to do you great harm: I may draw a picture of you. I may touch you with my left hand. Your mother will beat you dead when she hears.”
“You are wrong,” said the boy, laughing again. “You are a Nazarene, yes, or a Jew. But I am no rug-squatter. Touch me with your left hand, yaa Sidi, and I will gnaw it off. Do you wish me to fetch your supper? I will not charge you this time.”
“I tend to doubt your offer. In any event, I have a regular boy who brings my food. What is your name, you young criminal?”
“I am Kebap,” said the boy. “It means ‘roast beef in the language of Turkey.”
“I can see why,” said Ernst dryly. “You will have to work hard to take the place of my regular boy, if you want this job.”
“I am sorry,” said Kebap. “I have no wish to perform that kind of service.” Then he ran away, shouting insults over his shoulder.
Ernst stared after him, his fists clenching. “Ieneth will pay for her joke,” he thought. “If only I could find a vulnerable spot in these people. Without possessions, inured against discomfort, hoping for nothing, they are difficult indeed to punish. Perhaps that is the reason I have stayed in this capital of lice so long. No other reason comes quickly to mind.”
He sipped his wine and stared at the smudged handwriting on a scrap of paper: an ebauche of his trilogy of novels. He had done the rough outline so long ago that he had forgotten its point. But he was certain that the reflected light from the wineglass shifted to good effect on the yellowed paper, too.