“Hold it, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I’m starting to wonder about you. You talk American, but that chick of yours never saw Ellis Island, I’ll bet.”
“Forget it,” the redhead said. “He won with our dominoes. So why’re you griping?”
“Maybe he’s a commie agent or something,” the sergeant said.
Beecher was trying to think, to plan, but his thoughts flitted through his mind like erratic bursts of light. He knew a fight or brawl would ruin everything; the Moroccan police would throw all of them into jail. They would want to look at passports. Someone would have seen his picture in the Tribune. And that would be the end of it.
“Keep your money, if you can’t afford to lose it,” he said. “But we had a word for guys like you when I was in the army. It wasn’t a cute one.”
“So you was in the service, eh?” The sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “Well, there’s something you can’t kid me about. What’d you do?”
“I was a flyer.”
“Yeah? What’d you fly?”
“B-17’s,” Beecher said wearily. “They’ve got four engines and a high tail fin.”
“Everybody knows B-17’s. What about your fighter support?”
“We had P-47’s. Its nose is oval-shaped and the leading edge of the wing tapers into a round tip.”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “What German fighter did it look like?”
“The Focke-Wolfe 190, except the 190 had a round engine nacelle.”
“Well, well,” the sergeant said. He looked uncomfortable. “So how come you’re on the bum down here? That’s why I offered to buy you a drink. You looked like you needed it.”
“Those things happen,” Beecher said. “Who knows why.”
“Damn, that’s the truth,” the sergeant said, nodding his head slowly. “The chick — the girl, I mean. She with you?”
“That’s right. I’ve given her a rough time.”
“Hell, she ain’t chained to you, far as I could see. They go along for the ride, they can’t complain about the bumps. How you’d like a lift as far as Casablanca? Me and brick-top are leaving early tomorrow.”
Beecher let out his breath slowly. “Let me buy you guys a drink.”
“Pick up your money. This is on me.” The sergeant stuck out a wide hand. “O’Doul’s the name. Like the old ballplayer Lefty O’Doul. Only my first name is Marty. Hemorrhage-head here we call Bricktop. Bricktop Ladley. But it should be Goldbricktop.”
The redhead grinned. “And up yours, too.”
“Okay, six o’clock out front of this dump,” the sergeant said. “You’re riding with the U.S. Army, Mac. You got no more worries.”
Beecher was discovering that an offer of sympathy could be a destructive gift; in some ways it was harder to take than a blow in the face. You could steel yourself against coldness and suspicion; find strength to fight it. But a warm smile drained all the bitterness and hardness out of you; he felt his eyes stinging, and knew he might make a fool of himself if he didn’t get out of there.
“Six o’clock,” he said.
The redhead suddenly shook the sergeant’s shoulder. “Look!” he said happily.
Two French girls had taken stools at the bar, slender twittering brunettes with foxy faces as empty and brilliant as painted masks, and shaved legs that gleamed like chalk in the soft light. Their wedge-soled sandals twisted with a promise of excitement as they smiled at the soldiers.
“An answer to a lonely soldier’s prayer,” the redhead said softly.
“Yeah,” the sergeant said, standing and straightening his tie. “The one that starts, now I lay me.”
Beecher picked up the paper from the floor and tucked it under his arm. “You won’t need Buchwald tonight, eh, Sarge?”
“Buchwald?” The sergeant looked at him with a frown. “What you talking about?”
Beecher tapped the newspaper. “I’ll take this along. Okay?”
“Sure.” The sergeant laughed explosively. “All of a sudden, I ain’t in a literary mood.”
Ilse had been crying, Beecher saw, when he entered the room.
“Where have you been?” she said, in a soft, rising voice. “What happened?”
Beecher sat wearily on the edge of the bed. The room was clean and large, the windowpanes black squares against the moonlit sky.
“Please,” she said. She stood with her back against the door, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“Everything’s okay,” he said.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to call again.”
It must have been rough, he thought, waiting here alone and helpless, anticipating the worst... But he hadn’t worried about her. He had come to a point where he couldn’t absorb any more emotion. That happened to people, he knew; he had seen it in war. They got filled up to the brim, and developed what amounted to a tolerance for horror.
“I ordered food,” Ilse said. “But you didn’t come. I started to feel afraid. But I didn’t cry. I knew it wouldn’t help.” She seemed very young and vulnerable in the heavy frame of the doorway, with her dark hair piled up on her head, and her throat as fragile as a child’s, ivory-white except for a faint blue vein pulsing against the smooth skin.
“I took a long bath,” she said. “I thought you would be here when I finished. But the room was empty.”
She wore one of Laura’s slips, a white nylon sheath with a delicate filigree of lace about the hemline and a border of tiny pink bows at the throat. Under the crown of thick black hair, her face was still and small and pale.
Beecher put an arm about her shoulders and rubbed her bare arms, comforting her as he might a cold and lonely child. “Everything’s all right,” he said. “We’ve got a ride to Casablanca tomorrow. And I’ve got some money.”
“Your food is here,” she said. “But I think the coffee is cold.”
“That’s okay.” She smelled of soap and toothpaste, and her body was warm and soft in his arms.
“Shall I put some water in the bath for you?” she asked him. But she clung close to him, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Yes,” Beecher said, and patted her arm gently. Then he walked to the table in the window alcove. He lifted the cover from a tray of chicken sandwiches, which were skewered with toothpicks and garnished with lettuce and pickle. The coffee was still hot, steaming in a thermos bottle. He ate two sandwiches and drank three cups of coffee, numb with weariness, and savoring the gradual release of tensions in his body. When Ilse told him his bath was ready, he rose with an effort, his muscles protesting the exertion, and pulled off his jacket and shirt.
The bathroom was large and old-fashioned, with a long tub standing on ball-and-claw feet, and a hand basin of gray-streaked marble. Steam rose from the hot water in the tub, and misted on the full-length mirror. Beecher rubbed the glass with his hand. No wonder the soldiers had stared, he thought. He had cut himself that morning with Lynch’s razor and a theatrical streak of black blood curled along the line of his jaw. His hair was stiff and gray with sand, standing out like spikes from his skull. But there was something in his face which surprised him. For years he had been accustomed to the mildness and resignation in his expression. But that was gone now. He couldn’t quite decide what had taken its place. There was a stubbornness in the set of his jaw, and a suggestion of anger and impatience in his eyes. But it was more than that, the sum of these things perhaps. It was quite simple, he realized finally. He looked alive. That’s all it amounted to.
Ilse had made a neat arrangement of Lynch’s shaving things on the hand basin. Beecher shaved himself, then soaked in the tub for half an hour, soaping the sand and grime from his scalp and body. He scrubbed his teeth with toothpaste spread on the hem of a hand towel. After rubbing himself dry, he twisted a fresh bathtowel around his waist and went into the bedroom.