“Why?”
“She likes Swedes, so I said you were a Swede.” He chuckled. “You cannot say that the Turkish agent does nothing for the company.”
She had been listening to them with an uncomprehending smile. Now, the music began again and, turning to Graham, she asked him if he would like to dance.
She danced well; well enough for him to feel that he, too, was dancing well. He felt less depressed and asked her to dance again. The second time she pressed her thin body hard against him. He saw a grubby shoulder strap begin to work its way out from under the red satin and smelt the heat of her body behind the scent she used. He found that he was getting tired of her.
She began to talk. Did he know Istanbul well? Had he been there before? Did he know Paris? And London? He was lucky. She had never been to those places. She hoped to go to them. And to Stockholm, too. Had he many friends in Istanbul? She asked because there was a gentleman who had come in just after him and his friend who seemed to know him. This gentleman kept looking at him.
Graham had been wondering how soon he could get away. He realised suddenly that she was waiting for him to say something. His mind had caught her last remark.
“Who keeps looking at me?”
“We cannot see him now. The gentleman is sitting at the bar.”
“No doubt he’s looking at you.” There seemed nothing else to say.
But she was evidently serious. “It is in you that he is interested, Monsieur. It is the one with the handkerchief in his hand.”
They had reached a point on the floor from which he could see the bar. The man was sitting on a stool with a glass of vermouth in front of him.
He was a short, thin man with a stupid face: very bony with large nostrils, prominent cheekbones, and full lips pressed together as if he had sore gums or were trying to keep his temper. He was intensely pale and his small, deep-set eyes and thinning, curly hair seemed in consequence darker than they were. The hair was plastered in streaks across his skull. He wore a crumpled brown suit with lumpy padded shoulders, a soft shirt with an almost invisible collar, and a new grey tie. As Graham watched him he wiped his upper lip with the handkerchief as if the heat of the place were making him sweat.
“He doesn’t seem to be looking at me now,” Graham said. “Anyway, I don’t know him, I’m afraid.”
“I did not think so, Monsieur.” She pressed his arm to her side with her elbow. “But I wished to be sure. I do not know him either, but I know the type. You are a stranger here, Monsieur, and you perhaps have money in your pocket. Istanbul is not like Stockholm. When such types look at you more than once, it is advisable to be careful. You are strong, but a knife in the back is the same for a strong man as for a small one.”
Her solemnity was ludicrous. He laughed; but he looked again at the man by the bar. He was sipping at his vermouth; an inoffensive creature. The girl was probably trying, rather clumsily, to demonstrate that her own intentions were good.
He said: “I don’t think that I need worry.”
She relaxed the pressure on his arm. “Perhaps not, Monsieur.” She seemed suddenly to lose interest in the subject. The band stopped and they returned to the table.
“She dances very nicely, doesn’t she?” said Kopeikin.
“Very.”
She smiled at them, sat down and finished her drink as if she were thirsty. Then she sat back. “We are three,” she said and counted round with one finger to make sure they understood; “would you like me to bring a friend of mine to have a drink with us? She is very sympathetic. She is my greatest friend.”
“Later, perhaps,” said Kopeikin. He poured her out another drink.
At that moment, the band played a resounding “chord-on” and most of the lights went out. A spotlight quivered on the floor in front of the platform.
“The attractions,” said Maria. “It is very good.”
Serge stepped into the spotlight and pattered off a long announcement in Turkish which ended in a flourish of the hand towards a door beside the platform. Two dark young men in pale blue dinner jackets promptly dashed out on to the floor and proceeded to do an energetic tap dance. They were soon breathless and their hair became dishevelled, but the applause, when they had finished, was lukewarm. Then they put on false beards and, pretending to be old men, did some tumbling. The audience was only slightly more enthusiastic. They retired, rather angrily Graham thought, dripping with perspiration. They were followed by a handsome coloured woman with long thin legs who proved to be a contortionist. Her contortions were ingeniously obscene and evoked gusts of laughter. In response to shouts, she followed her contortions with a snake dance. This was not so successful, as the snake, produced from a gilt wicker crate as cautiously as if it had been a fully grown anaconda, proved to be a small and rather senile python with a tendency to fall asleep in its mistress’s hands. It was finally bundled back into its crate while she did some more contortions. When she had gone, the proprietor stepped once more into the spotlight and made an announcement that was greeted with clapping.
The girl put her lips to Graham’s ear. “It is Josette and her partner, José. They are dancers from Paris. This is their last night here. They have had a great success.”
The spotlight became pink and swept to the entrance door. There was a roll of drums. Then, as the band struck up the Blue Danube waltz, the dancers glided on to the floor.
For the weary Graham, their dance was as much a part of the cellar convention as the bar and the platform for the band: it was something to justify the prices of the drinks: a demonstration of the fact that, by applying the laws of classical mechanics, one small, unhealthy looking man with a broad sash round his waist could handle an eight stone woman as if she were a child. Josette and her partner were remarkable only in that, although they carried out the standard “specialty” routine rather less efficiently than usual, they managed to do so with considerably more effect.
She was a slim woman with beautiful arms and shoulders and a mass of gleaming fair hair. Her heavily lidded eyes, almost closed as she danced, and the rather full lips, fixed in a theatrical half-smile, contradicted in a curious way the swift neatness of her movements. Graham saw that she was not a dancer but a woman who had been trained to dance and who did so with a sort of indolent sensuality, conscious of her young-looking body, her long legs, and the muscles below the smooth surfaces of her thighs and stomach. If her performance did not succeed as a dance, as an attraction at Le Jockey Cabaret it succeeded perfectly and in spite of her partner.
He was a dark, preoccupied man with tight, disagreeable lips, a smooth sallow face, and an irritating way of sticking his tongue hard in his cheek as he prepared to exert himself. He moved badly and was clumsy, his fingers shifting uncertainly as he grasped her for the lifts as if he were uncertain of the point of balance. He was constantly steadying himself.
But the audience was not looking at him, and when they had finished called loudly for an encore. It was given. The band played another “chord-on.” Mademoiselle Josette took a bow and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by Serge. She returned several times and bowed and kissed her hand.
“She is quite charming, isn’t she?” Kopeikin said in English as the lights went up. “I promised you that this place was amusing.”
“She’s quite good. But it’s a pity about the moth-eaten Valentino.”
“José? He does well for himself. Would you like to have her to the table for a drink?”
“Very much. But won’t it be rather expensive?”
“Gracious no! She does not get commission.”
“Will she come?”
“Of course. The patron introduced me. I know her well. You might take to her, I think. This Arab is a little stupid. No doubt Josette is stupid, too; but she is very attractive in her way. If I had not learned too much when I was too young, I should like her myself.”