«Benzekri».
«Yes».
«You didn’t have to meet him. Ashcombe-Danvers is a fussy old buzzard. Be sure the window’s shut, the door’s locked and the lights are off. Stick around until six-thirty». Wilcox put on his coat. «Come by the Atlantide in the morning about nine and I’ll give you the address where they’re making the keys. If anyone calls tell ’em I had to go out and to call back tomorrow. See you».
VII
The door closed. Dyar sat looking around the room. He stood up and studied the maps a while, searched in the waiting room for magazines, and rinding none, went and sat down again at the desk. A wild impatience kept him from feeling really alone in the room, an impatience merely to be out of it. «This isn’t it,» he told himself mechanically; he was not really sitting alone in the room because he did not believe he would ever work there. He was unable to visualize himself sitting day after day in this unventilated little box pretending to look after a non-existent business. In New York he had imagined something so different that now he had quite forgotten how he had thought it would be. He asked himself whether, knowing ahead of time what it would be like, he would have wanted to come, and he decided he would have, anyway, in spite of the profound apathy the idea of the job induced in him. Besides, the job was too chimerical and absurd to last. When it stopped, he would be free. He snorted, faintly. Free, with probably a hundred dollars between him and starvation. It was not a pleasant thought: it made him feel tense all over. He listened. Above the noise made by the automobile horns outside was the soft sound of rain falling.
He looked in the top drawer for a sheet of stationery, found it, and began to type a letter. The paper was headed EUROPE-AFRICA TOURIST SERVICE. «Dear Mother: Just a note. Arrived safely last night». He felt like adding: it seems like a month, but she would misunderstand, would think he was not happy. «The trip over was fine. We had fairly smooth weather all the way and I was not sick at all in spite of all you said. The Italians were not too bad». His parents had come to see him off, and had been upset to discover that he was to share a cabin with two Italians. «As you can see, I am writing this from the office. Jack Wilcox has gone for the day and I am in charge». He pondered a moment, wondering if the expression «in charge» looked silly, and decided to leave it. «I hope you’re not going to worry about me, because there is no reason to. The climate is not tropical at all. In fact, it is quite chilly. The town seems to be clean, although not very modern». He ceased typing and gazed at a map of Africa in front of him, thinking of the crazy climb up through the dark alleys with the Arab, on the way to the bar. Then he saw Hadija’s face, and frowned. He could not allow himself to think of her while he was writing his mother; there was a terrible disloyalty in that. But the memory, along with others more vivid, persisted. He leaned back in his chair and smoked a cigarette, wondering whether or not he would be able to find the bar by himself, in case he wanted to go back. Even if he were able, he felt it would be a bad idea. He had a date to meet Hadija in the Parque Espinel Sunday morning and it would be best to leave it at that; she might resent his trying to see her before then. He abandoned the attempt to write his letter, removed the paper from the machine, folded it and put it into his pocket to be continued the next day. The telephone rang. An Englishwoman was not interested in whether Mr. Wilcox was in or out, wanted a reservation made, single with bath, at the Hotel Balima in Rabat for the fourteenth through the seventeenth. She also wanted a round-trip plane passage, but she dared say that could be had later. The room however must be reserved immediately and she was counting on it. When she had hung up he wrote it all down and began studying a sheaf of papers marked Hotels — French Zone. At six-ten the telephone rang again. It was Wilcox. «Checking up on me,» Dyar thought with resentment as he heard his voice. He wanted to know if anyone had stopped in. «No,» said Dyar. «Well, that’s all I wanted». He sounded relieved. Dyar told him about the Englishwoman. «I’ll take care of that tomorrow. You might as well close up now. It’s ten after six». He hesitated. «In fact, I wish you would. As soon as you can. Just be sure the catch is on the door».
«Right».
«Good night».
«What gives? What gives?» he murmured aloud as he slipped into his raincoat. He turned off the lights and stepped out into the corridor, shut the door and tried it vigorously.
At the pastry shop downstairs he stopped to inquire the way to the Faro Bar. When the proprietress saw him approaching the counter she greeted him pleasantly. «Guten Abend,» she said, and was a bit taken aback when he spoke to her in English. She understood, however, and directed him in detail, adding that it was only one minute’s walk.
He found it easily. It was a very small bar, crowded with people most of whom seemed to know each other; there was a certain amount of calling from table to table. Since there was not room at the bar itself, even for those who were already there, and all the tables were occupied, he sat down on a bench in the window and waited for a table to be vacated. Two Spanish girls, self-conscious in their Paris models, and wearing long earrings which removed all trace of chic from their clothes, came in and sat next to him in the bench. At the table in front of him was a French couple drinking Bacardis. To his left sat two somewhat severe-looking middle-aged English ladies, and on his right, a little further away, was a table full of American men who kept rising and going back to the bar to talk with those installed there. In a far corner a small, bespectacled woman was seated at a tiny piano, singing in German. No one was listening to her. He rather liked the place; it seemed to him definitely high-class without being stuffy, and he wondered why the Marquesa had said that Wilcox would refuse to be caught dead in it.
«Y pensábamos irnos a Sevilla para la Semana Santa». «Ay, qué hermoso!»
«Jesus, Harry, you sure put that one down quick!»
«Alors, tu ne te décides pas? Mais tu es marrante, toi!»
«I expect she’s most frightfully unhappy to be returning to London at this time of year».
The woman at the piano sang: «Wunderschön muss deine Liebe sein».
«Y por fin nos quedamos aqúi». «Ay, que lástima!»
«Ne t’en fais pas pour moi».
«Hey there, waiter! Make it the same, all the way around».
He waited, ordered a whiskey, drank it, and waited. The woman sang several old Dietrich songs. No one heard them. It was quarter past seven; he wished she would come. The Americans were getting drunk. Someone yelled: «Look out, you dumb bastard!» and a glass crashed on the tile floor. The English ladies got up, paid, and left. He decided they had timed their exit to show their disapproval. The two Spanish girls saw the empty table and gathering their things, made for it, but by the time they got there Dyar was already sitting in one of the chairs. «I’m waiting for a lady,» he explained, without adding that he had arrived at the bar before they had, in any case. They did not bother to look at him, reserving all their energy for the registering of intense disgust. Presently another glass was broken. The woman in the corner played «God Bless America,» doubtless with satirical intent. One of the Americans heard it and began to sing along with the music in a very loud voice. Dyar looked up: the Marquesa de Valverde was standing by the table in faded blue slacks and a chamois jacket.
«Don’t get up,» she commanded, as he hastily rose. «Ça va?» she called to someone at another table. He looked at her: she seemed less formidable than she had the preceding night. He thought it was because she was not made up, but he was mistaken. Her outdoor make-up was even more painstaking than the one she used for the evening. It merely did not show. Now she was all warmth and charm.