Surgeon at Sea

'If you pay fifty cruzeiros you'll find out.'

'Oh, I see. Let's have some beer.'

We sat and drank and watched the dancing. It was the sort that Trail described as 'the bumps and grinds.' I looked nervously at men sitting at the other tables, with an expectant sensation between my shoulder-blades. When they saw a girl they fancied they grabbed her and joined the jactitating couples on the floor. After the dance they either went off with her, dragged her back to their own tables, or left her, according to the strength of their inclination. I saw a party of our Liverpool greasers in the corner, their shirts unbuttoned and outside their trousers, throwing Merseyside witticisms at their neighbours. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

A warm brunette descended on my knee.

'Hallo darling!' she said. 'You come wit' me?'

'No!'

She laughed and ruffled my hair.

'You dance wit' me, no?'

'Go on, Doc,' Archer called. 'Give the girls a treat.'

'But I can't dance.'

'Come on, darling,' said the girl. She snatched hold of me and pulled me out of my chair. Then she clapped me to her bosom like a belladonna plaster and pushed me on the dance floor.

We jostled with the rest of the dancers. It was like being lashed to an upholstered pneumatic drill. I struggled round in her clammy embrace, trying to keep my feet, wriggling out of other men's way, and reflecting that I was a long way from home.

When the music stopped I disengaged myself and looked for our table. By this time the Third was talking earnestly to a thin, brown girl who had taken my chair.

'Thirty cruzeiros,' he said forcefully. 'Trinta. See?' He held up three fingers.

She shook her head. 'No!' she insisted. 'Cincoenta. Fifty, fifty, fifty!'

'Oh hell,' the Third said. 'Let's get out of here.'

We trooped down the stairs. 'Where now?' Archer asked when we were in the street.

'Madame Mimi's,' Trail said with finality. 'It's the only place where you can get a decent bottle of beer in town.'

'I think I'm going back to the ship,' I said.

'Come on, Doc! You don't have to sample the goods. Besides you'd get knifed walking back alone. Where is it, Second? Somewhere near the Rua Bittencourt, I think…'

He led us along threatening unlighted streets, where the pedestrians shuffled guiltily in the shadows like large rats.

'I think this is the number,' he said, stopping by the heavy door of an unlighted house. 'You fellows stay here and I'll go and see.'

He jumped up the steps and rang the bell. After a minute or so I saw him jab it again. The door opened. An old woman with her hair tied in a handkerchief stood against the inside light.

'Boa noite, senhora,' Trail began. He held a conversation in Portuguese with her, and I saw that he spoke the language rapidly and with great force, but unintelligibly. After he had delivered a string of sentences embellished heavily with gestures she held up a finger and disappeared to fetch help. A tall man in a dressing-gown came back with her. After a few words he pushed the Third abruptly down the steps, delivered a few hostile sentences, and slammed the door.

'Wrong place,' Trail explained, picking himself up. 'That seems to be the dentist's. It must be the house on the other corner.'

At the next door we were received with pleasure and shown immediately into the parlour.

Madame Mimi's was a sedate establishment. The parlour was furnished in the austere, grubby style popular with the Continental middle-class; it was a large apartment with big shuttered windows, containing several small tables and a larger one in the corner where Madame sat with three or four of her charges. On a dark, broken sideboard down one side were two unlighted candelabras, a sickly-looking plant, and a radio. Round the walls were pictures of the saints. Business was poor, and the room was quiet and inactive. One felt one had called on the vicar's daughters for tea.

Madame immediately recognized my companions and greeted them warmly.

'Ah, hello my little boys! Back so soon, eh? How goes it in cold England?'

She embraced the two of them. She was a big, over-powdered woman in a black dress, with a figure like a thawing snowman.

Not so dusty,' Archer said. 'Meet one of our shipmates.'

We embraced.

'Madame is a wonderful character,' Trail explained. 'Hails from France originally. She built up her own team here like a football manager.'

Now, boys,' Madame said. 'You would like some beer, no?'

'Lay it on, Madame,' Archer said, sitting down and slapping his knee. 'Lay on everything.'

Madame clapped her hands.

'Is that little girl Dina still here?' Trail asked.

Our hostess shrugged her shoulders powerfully.

'She is gone. She married a gentleman from Sгo Paulo.'

'Well, he hasn't done badly,' Trail observed. 'Let's have a look at the latest talent.'

Madame's assistant brought the tall green beer bottles and glasses, and three girls came over to sit with us. They were pretty girls-slim, dainty, smiling, glowing with cooperation.

'Americano?' asked the one next to me eagerly.

'No. Ingles.'

'Cigarette?' she asked, as winsomely as a schoolgirl appealing for pocket money. I gave her one, which she put carefully in her handbag. She began to stroke the back of my neck. I clasped my hands in front of me and stared defensively at the opposite wall.

'I lof you,' she said.

We sat like that for some time. Meanwhile, Trail and Archer had their girls on their knees and were conducting a conversation in a mixture of English, Portuguese, and giggles.

'You come with me?' the girl asked, playfully pulling a hair from my neck.

'No,' I said. 'I-I nгo gostar, or whatever it is. Nothing doing. Go and talk to my amigos…

I looked round and saw Trail and Archer disappearing up the stairs leading to the operational portion of the building.

'Hey!' I called, jumping up. 'Don't you fellows leave me!'

'It's all right, Doc. We won't be long.' Trail called over his shoulder. 'Finish the beer for us.

I sat gloomily down and bit my lip, feeling like a warning to young men. The girl, discouraged, got up and left me. I took my handkerchief out and wiped my forehead.

But Madame, ever solicitous, assumed immediately that my companion had for some reason not pleased me. She directed a large grinning blonde to take her place.

'No, no!' I said in alarm. 'No! Please…go away, there's a good girl.'

'Nгo?'

'No. Sorry and all that.'

I looked uncomfortably round me. I wanted to get out. But I didn't know the way back to the ship, and I was scared to walk out of the place on my own. I took a gulp of beer and sat biting my thumbnail.

I was hardly aware that another had joined me. She sat quietly beside me without speaking. I looked up. She was sitting demurely with her hands clasped in her lap, as pathetic as a wallflower at a village dance.

'Hop it! Vamos! Pronto!' I told her.

'Please…please!' she said.

'My dear young lady, I have no intention…'

Two tears rolled compellingly down her thin cheeks.

'Please come,' she urged softly. 'No one come with me this week. If you no come I get fired.'

I licked my lips. This was the sort of dilemma even Big White Carstairs would have had difficulty sorting out.

She laid a hand on my arm, as softly as an alighting butterfly.

'Please come,' she whispered.

I coughed, and ran my finger round my collar. My conscience strained to suppress my sense of gallantry. Just then two large tears followed the first.

'How much?' I heard. It was me.

'Hun'red cruzeiro.'

'Oh…ah…very well then..

I pulled the note from my pocket. Seizing it, she pulled me by the hand towards the staircase of sin.

We went into a bare room that contained only a bed, a basin, and several more pictures of the saints. She locked the door. I stood and scratched my left ear.

Deftly, as though peeling a banana, she stripped off her clothes. She jumped on the bed and gave me an inviting smile. Suddenly she held her right side and groaned.