“I’ll pay you a drink,” said the Arab. And immediately on that: “What’s your name?”
“Jean,” said Port.
The Arab repeated the name twice, as if considering its merits. “Me,” tapping his chest, “Smail. So, do we go and drink?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“You don’t feel like it. What do you feel like doing?”
“Nothing.”
All at once the conversation began again from the beginning. Only the now truly outraged inflection of the Arab’s voice marked any difference: “Qu’est-ce ti_fi Ia? Qu’est-ce ti cherches?” Port rose and started to climb up the slope, but it was difficult going. He kept sliding back down. At once the Arab was beside him, tugging at his arm. “Where are you going, Jean?” Without answering Port made a great effort and gained the top. “Au revoir,” he called, walking quickly up the middle of the street. He heard a desperate scrambling behind him; a moment later the man was at his side.
“You didn’t wait for me,” he said in an aggrieved tone.
“No. I said good-bye.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Port did not answer. They walked a good distance in silence. When they came to the first street light, the Arab reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn wallet. Port glanced at it and continued to walk.
“Look!” cried the Arab, waving it in his face. Port did not look.
“What is it?” he said flatly.
“I was in the Fifth Battalion of Sharpshooters. Look at the paper! Look! You’ll see!”
Port walked faster. Soon there began to be people in the street. No one stared at them. One would have said that the presence of the Arab beside him made him invisible. But now he was no longer sure of the way. It would never do to let this be seen. He continued to walk straight ahead as if there were no doubt in his mind. “Over the crest of the hill and down,” he said to himself, “and I can’t miss it.”
Everything looked unfamiliar: the houses, the streets, the cafés, even the formation of the town with regard to the hill. Instead of finding a summit from which to begin the downward walk, he discovered that here the streets all led perceptibly upward, no matter which way he turned; to descend he would have had to go back. The Arab walked solemnly along with him, now beside him, now slipping behind when there was not enough room to walk two abreast. He no longer made attempts at conversation; Port noticed with relish that he was a little out of breath.
“I can keep this up all night if I have to,” he thought, “but how the hell will I get to the hotel?”
All at once they were in a street which was no more than a passageway. Above their heads the opposite walls jutted out to within a few inches of each other. For an instant Port hesitated: this was not the kind of street he wanted to walk in, and besides, it so obviously did not lead to the hotel. In that short moment the Arab took charge. He said: “You don’t know this street? It’s called Rue de la Mer Rouge. You know it? Come on. There are cafis arabes up this way. Just a little way. Come on.”
Port considered. He wanted at all costs to keep up the pretense of being familiar with the town.
“Je ne sais pas si je veux y aller ce soir,” he reflected, aloud.
The Arab began to pull Port’s sleeve in his excitement. “Si, si!” he cried. “Viens! I’ll pay you a drink.”
“I don’t drink. It’s very late.”
Two cats nearby screamed at each other. The Arab made a hissing noise and stamped his feet; they ran off in opposite directions.
“We’ll have tea, then,” he pursued.
Port sighed. “Bien,” he said.
The café had a complicated entrance. They went through a low arched door, down a dim hall into a small garden. The air reeked of lilies, and it was also tinged with the sour smell of drains. In the dark they crossed the garden and climbed a long flight of stone steps. The staccato sound of a hand drum came from above, tapping indolent patterns above a sea of voices.
“Do we sit outside or in?” the Arab asked.
“Outside,” said Port. He sniffed the invigorating smell of hashish smoke, and unconsciously smoothed his hair as they arrived at the top of the stairs. The Arab noticed even that small gesture. “No ladies here, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
Through a doorway he caught a glimpse of the long succession of tiny, brightly-lit rooms, and the men seated everywhere on the reed matting that covered the floors. They all wore either white turbans or red chechias on their heads, a detail which lent the scene such a strong aspect of homogeneity that Port exclaimed: “Ah!” as they passed by the door. When they were on the terrace in the starlight, with an oud being plucked idly in the dark nearby, he said to his companion: “But I didn’t know there was anything like this left in this city.” The Arab did not understand. “Like this?” he echoed. “How?”
“With nothing but Arabs. Like the inside here. I thought all the cafés were like the ones in the street, all mixed up; Jews, French, Spanish, Arabs together. I thought the war had changed everything.”
The Arab laughed. “The war was bad. A lot of people died. There was nothing to eat. That’s all. How would that change the cafés? Oh no, my friend. It’s the same as always.” A moment later he said: “So you haven’t been here since the war! But you were here before the war?”
“Yes,” said Port. This was true; he had once spent an afternoon in the town when his boat had made a brief call there.
The tea arrived; they chatted and drank it. Slowly the image of Kit sitting in the window began to take shape again in Port’s mind. At first, when he became conscious of it, he felt a pang of guilt. Then his fantasy took a hand, and he saw her face, tight-lipped with fury as she undressed and flung her flimsy pieces of clothing across the furniture. By now she had surely given up waiting and gone to bed. He shrugged his shoulders and grew pensive, rinsing what was left of his tea around and around in the bottom of the glass, and following with his eyes the circular motion he was making.
“You’re sad,” said Smail.
“No, no.” He looked up and smiled wistfully, then resumed watching the glass.
“You live only a short time. Il faut rigoler.”
Port was impatient; he was not in the mood for café philosophizing.
“Yes, I know,” he said shortly, and he sighed. Smail pinched his arm. His eyes were shining.
“When we leave here, I’ll take you to see a friend of mine.”
“I don’t want to meet him,” said Port, adding: “Thank you anyway.”
“Ah, you’re really sad,” laughed Smail. “It’s a girl. Beautiful as the moon.”
Port’s heart missed a beat. “A girl,” he repeated automatically, without taking his eyes from the glass. He was perturbed to witness his own interior excitement. He looked at Smail.
“A girl?” he said. “You mean a whore.”
Smail was mildly indignant. “A whore? Ah, my friend, you don’t know me. I wouldn’t introduce you to that. Cest de la saloperie, ca! This is a friend of mine, very elegant, very nice. When you meet her, you’ll see.”
The musician stopped playing the oud. Inside the café they were calling out numbers for the lotto game: “Ouahad aou tletine! Arbaine!”
Port said: “How old is she?”
Smail hesitated. “About sixteen. Sixteen or seventeen.”
“Or twenty or twenty-five,” suggested Port, with a leer.
Again Smail was indignant. “What do you mean, twenty-five? I tell you she’s sixteen or seventeen. You don’t believe me? Listen. You meet her. If you don’t like her, you just pay for the tea and we’ll go out again. Is that all right?”
“And if I do like her?”
“Well, you’ll do whatever you want.”
“But I’ll pay her?”
“But of course you’ll pay her.”
Port laughed. “And you say she’s not a whore.”
Smail leaned over the table towards him and said with a great show of patience: “Listen, Jean. She’s a dancer. She only arrived from her bled in the desert a few weeks ago. How can she be a whore if she’s not registered and doesn’t live in the quartier? Eh? Tell me! You pay her because you take up her time. She dances in the quartier, but she has no room, no bed there. She’s not a whore. So now, shall we go?”