It was a large room somewhat like a high-ceilinged hotel lobby. There were many small round tables placed in rows around the room. The place was quiet. There were no men there at all. At the further end of the large unheated room a group of women in bright-colored bathrobes and kimonos sat around talking and smoking. They all looked up as we came through the door and sat ourselves down carefully. There was a stir among them and a number of the women came toward our table.
Perry gave us his last warning. "Remember what I sez—we don't pick 'em now—we jes' looks 'em over."
They swarmed down on us chirping and chattering like a cloud of varicolored locusts. Perry carried on what must have been a brilliant repartee from the backslaps and chin-chucks the girls showered on him.
Joe gurgled and made some crack. A few of the girls who could understand his French broke away from the group around Perry. One of them tried to sit on Joe's lap. He laughed and warded her off with a gentle tap on her saggy quivery bottom—touche. Both Joe and Perry leered at me and gave me a quick wink.
A middle-aged lady with a massive, waved coiffure piled high on her head, resplendent with earrings and many necklaces, brooches, watches, clusters of bracelets and rings, joined our party. A big pocketbook swung from her belt. She was dressed, along with all the metal and stones, in sweaters, skirts, and a black apron. I couldn't tell how many of each—definitely more than one, I'm sure. She seemed well bundled up. That place was cold and those girls looked sort of blue and goose-pimply.
The Madame, the general contractor who took a percentage on the girls' earnings—some of the crew later said it was about fifty per cent—carried on a bit of banter with Perry. It was evident she urged him to go cavort with one of her kimono-clad, slop-bottomed charmers. Perry giggled and no-no'd and resisted a couple of the hustlers. Joe was having the same difficulty. One or two of the older women made a vague dab at me, and then concerned themselves with trying to help promote the affairs of their colleagues who were prospecting on Perry and Joe.
It's strange how much these girls looked like people I'd known before. It seemed to me some looked like schoolteachers I remembered—not any of my own schoolteachers, just some I'd seen before. Others like women who'd worked in stores or some I'd seen along the streets, respectable women I didn't know.
Perry had evidently convinced the Madame and her gentle little brood that we were gentlemen of taste, leisure, and discrimination, that we were not to be pushed, that we intended to study the fine points and qualities of all the girls in the houses of Rio Santiago before we came to any decision. Incidently, he talked quietly to her for a moment and found there had been no change in the rates from the last time he had visited this port. It still was two pesos for a short time, but for ten you remained with the girl of your choice after she was through her regular business of the evening (which might range from twenty to thirty engagements) and you might have her to yourself after that from midnight when the house closed until dawn —she and you alone!
Perry found that all out from the Madame and passed it on to us later as inside dope. We rose, pulled ourselves together, rearranged our hats which had been knocked askew with the ardor of their persuasion, and after much waving, laughter, and hoarse-voiced (many of the girls had colds and sniffles) invitations to come back, we walked toward the door that opened to the street. A few girls who hadn't mixed with the general gaiety at our table were sitting there talking among themselves, coughing and smoking cigarettes.
One dark-haired, slender girl in a tattered, red silk kimono rose as we passed. She was rather pretty with a broad, white forehead and a thin pointed face. She smiled and then called to us. Quickly she tripped across the floor and stopped in front of me!
"O-o-o — ve la pequina barba" and with her cold fingers she gently stroked my chin. She had recognized that I had a beard, that I just didn't need a shave!
Right there I knew I'd found my girl. No matter how many fat blonde or red-headed sirens I saw in the tour Perry planned through all the houses of the town, I'd return to her—this sweet, gentle brunette. We had something in common. She was the first person (outside of myself) who ever knew, who ever granted recognition to my first and favorite beard.
Perry, Joe and I strutted proudly out into the night. There, we'd proved it. We had character, stamina, stuff. There we were with all those women willing and eager and we had the wherewithal and the right, and we had stood up and walked out. We'd stuck to our resolve, not to rush. We'd been choosy and taken our time.
"Now—y'see." Perry was joyous. "What'd I tell ya? See, all dose women and all dose houses are just like that—oh boy."
"You betcha," said Joe. "Where we go now?"
"We-l-l-l, lessee—le's try dis one. But remember we're not gonna be dopes. Remember take it easy—take your time—"
A thought struck me and I tugged at Perry's arm just as he set his face with the proper expression of indifference and reached for the knob of that door.
"Look, Perry. Wait a minute—there's something screwy around here. How come there ain't any more guys around— you know, the gang from the packing houses, the steel works, and even our own crew. Where's everybody?"
There was no one along the streets, no men in that big house we had just left, no sound of men around anywhere. We stopped and took stock in the lights of the doorway. Joe brought out his watch and studied it a moment. Then he said, quietly:
"Y'know—I tink—it's suppertime now. Maybe everybody's eating supper now."
The smug expression of that debonair and patient epicurean. Perry, drained out of his mug and left it a bleached blank as he too realized we had been so eager not to rush, to take our time, we'd all forgotten about food completely. We hadn't stopped for that good dinner as we'd planned. Without a word he led us back to the main street. In a small, dull restaurant we ate our dull steak Caballero (again) and we chewed it slowly, quietly. We had another Martel cognac and Cafe Expresso and we lingered over it as if to prove that, although we had made the mistake of dashing off to the women ahead of all the men on the ship, the men from the packing houses, from the big steel works, the Argentine Navy yard and its whole Naval Academy personnel—for all that, we were in complete control of our passions—discriminating gentlemen who were very particular about their women.
For a little while longer we did penance.
We rose and walked up the darkened main street of the town. This time we didn't cut down one of those alleys, as we had before too quickly, to get to the bright-doored houses. None of us talked much. There was no one along the main streets. The few shops were dark. Now and then we'd see a dim light in the windows of one of the low wooden houses that lined the streets. About the center of the second block there was a shop with its windows lit up. We crossed the broad dirt road to look in.
Through the shop's window, lit by an unshaded bulb, we could see two round-cheeked young girls sitting on straight-backed chairs facing each other so that we saw them in profile. They were busily, silently, sewing some pinkish satin material. Both were dressed in long black clothes and looked very pretty, pale, and virtuous as they sat there plying their needles. Between them facing the window sat a corseted older woman also dressed in black. She too was sewing on some stuff that fell over her lap and down to the floor. Only the old woman talked —to one girl, then the other, and they didn't answer. They kept their heads bowed over their work. We could see their high young bosoms rising and falling as we watched.
It was a pretty picture—probably the town's seamstress and her daughters, or these round-armed, black-gowned sweet girls with their gentle, rounded pale faces might have been her assistants. In any case, they were her charges and she clucked to them like a fussy, pompous little hen.