«She is absolutely ravishing,» added Eunice, flinging her cigarette across the room so that it landed in the alley. She rose, put her arm around the girl, and said to her in English: «Have another Coca-Cola and bring it inside, into one of the rooms». She gestured. «Let’s sit in there where it’s private».
This suggestion, however, outraged Madame Papaconstante. «Ah, non!» she cried vehemently. «Those rooms are for gentlemen».
Eunice was unruffled. Since to her mind her aims were always irreproachable, she rarely hesitated before trying to attain them. «Come along, then,» she said to the girl. «We’ll go to my hotel». She let go of Hadija and stepped to the bar, fumbling in her handbag for money. While she was paying, Madame Papaconstante got slowly to her feet, wheezing painfully.
«She works here, vous savez!» she shouted. «She is not free to come and go». As an afterthought she added: «She owes me money».
Eunice turned and placed several banknotes in her hand, closing the fingers over them gently. The girls behind the bar watched, their eyes shining.
«Au revoir, madame,» she said with warmth. An expression of great earnestness spread over her face as she went on: «I can never thank you enough. It has been a charming evening. I shall stop by tomorrow and see you. I have a little gift I should like to bring you».
Madame Papaconstante’s large mouth was open, the words which had intended to come out remained inside. She let her gaze drop for a second to her hand, saw the corners of two of the bills, and slowly closed her mouth. «Ah,» she said.
«You must forgive me for having taken up so much of your time,» Eunice continued. «I know you are busy. But you have been very kind. Thank you».
By now Madame Papaconstante had regained control of herself. «Not at all,» she said. «It was a real pleasure for me».
During this dialogue Hadija had remained unmoving by the door, her eyes darting back and forth from Eunice’s face to that of her patronne, in an attempt to follow the meaning of their words. Now, having decided that Eunice had won in the encounter, she smiled tentatively at her.
«Good night,» said Eunice again to Madame Papaconstante. She waved brightly at the girls behind the bar. The men looked around for the first time, then resumed their talk. Eunice took Hadija’s arm and they went out into the dark street. Madame Papaconstante came to the door, leaned out, saying softly: «If she does not behave herself you will tell me tomorrow».
«Oh, she will, I’m certain,» said Eunice, squeezing the girl’s arm. «Merci mille fois, ma-dame. Bonne nuit».
«What he sigh you?» demanded Hadija.
«She said you were a very nice girl».
«Sure. Very fine». She slipped ahead, since there was not room for them to walk abreast.
«Don’t go too fast,» said Eunice, panting from her attempt to keep up with her. When they came out on to the crest of the hill at Amrah, she said: «Wait, Hadija,» and leaned against the wall. It was a moment she wanted to savor. She was suddenly conscious of the world outside herself — not as merely a thing that was there and belonged to other people, but as something in which she almost felt she could share. For the first time she smelled the warm odor of fulfillment on the evening air, heard the nervous beating of drums on the terraces with something besides indifference. She let her eyes range down over the city and saw clearly in the moonlight the minaret on the summit of the Charf with its little black cypress trees around it. She pounded her cane on the pavement with pleasure, several times. «I insist too hard on living my own life,» she thought. The rest of the world was there for her to take at any moment she wished it, but she always rejected it in favor of her own familiar little cosmos. Only sometimes as she came out of sleep did she feel she was really in life, but that was merely because she had not had time to collect her thoughts, to become herself once more.
«What a beautiful night,» she said dreamily. «Come and stand here a minute». Hadija obeyed reluctantly. Eunice grasped her arm again. «Listen to the drums».
«Drbouka. Women make».
«Aha». She smiled mysteriously, following with her eye the faint line of the mountains, range beyond range, blue in the night’s clarity. She did not hope Hadija would be able to share her sensations; she asked only that the girl act as a catalyst for her, making it possible for her to experience them in their pure state. As a mainspring for her behavior there was always the aching regret for a vanished innocence, a nostalgia for the early years of life. Whenever a possibility of happiness presented itself, through it she sought to reach again that infinitely distant and tender place, her lost childhood. And in Hadija’s simple laughter she divined a prospect of return.
The feeling had persisted through the night. She exulted to find she had been correct. At daybreak, while Hadija was still asleep beside her, she sat up and wrote in her notebook: «A quiet moment in the early morning. The pigeons have just begun to murmur outside the window. There is no wind. Sexuality is primarily a matter of imagination, I am sure. People who live in the warmer climates have very little of it, and so society there can allow a wide moral latitude in the customs. Here are the healthiest personalities. In temperate regions it is quite a different matter. The imagination’s fertile activity must be curtailed by a strict code of sexual behavior which results in crime and depravity. Look at the great cities of the world. Almost all of them are in the temperate zone». She let her eyes rest a moment on the harbor below. The still water was like blue glass. Moving cautiously so as not to wake Hadija, she poured herself a small amount of gin from the nearly empty bottle on the night table, and lit a cigarette. «But of course all cities are points of infection, like decayed teeth. The hypersensitivity of urban culture (its only virtue) is largely a reaction to pain. Tangier has no urban culture, no pain. I believe it never will have. The nerve will never be exposed».
She still felt an itch of regret at not having been allowed to go into a back room of the Bar Lucifer with Hadija. That would have given her a certain satisfaction; in her eyes it would have been a pure act. Perhaps another time, when she and Madame Papaconstante had come to know each other better, it would be possible.
Not until Hadija awoke did she telephone down for breakfast. It gave her great pleasure to see the girl, wearing a pair of her pyjamas, sitting up crosslegged in the bed daintily eating buttered toast with a knife and fork, to show that she knew how to manage those Western accessories. She sent her home a little before noon, so she would not be there when the Spanish maid arrived. In the afternoon she called by the Bar Lucifer with a small bottle of perfume for Madame Papaconstante. Since then almost every other night she had brought Hadija back with her to the hotel. She had never seen the old fisherman again — she could hardly expect to see him unless she returned to the beach, and she was not likely to do that. She had forgotten about getting exercise; her life was too much occupied at the moment with Hadija for her to be making resolutions and decisions for improving it. She taxed her imaginative powers devising ways of amusing her, finding places to take her, choosing gifts that would please her. Faintly she was conscious through all this that it was she herself who was enjoying these things, that Hadija merely accompanied her and accepted the presents with something akin to apathy. But that made no difference to her.
When she was happy she invariably invented a reason for not being able to remain so. And now, to follow out her pattern, she allowed an idea to occur to her which counteracted all her happiness. She had made an arrangement with Madame Papaconstante whereby it was agreed that on the nights when Hadija did not go with her to the Metropole she was to remain at home with her parents. Madame Papaconstante had assured her that the girl did not even put in appearance at the bar those evenings, and up until now Eunice had not thought to question the truth of her statements. But today, when Conchita returned from the market with her arms full of flowers, notwithstanding the fact that Hadija had left the room only three hours before and did not expect to return until tomorrow night, Eunice suddenly decided she wanted her back again that same evening. She would get her some very special gift in the Rue du Statut, and they would have a little extra celebration, surrounded by the lilies and poinsettias. She would go to the Bar Lucifer and have Madame Papaconstante send someone to fetch her.