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  The girl was in the bathroom scrubbing the floor; she sang shrilly as she pushed the wet rag back and forth on the tiles. «Jesus!» moaned Eunice after a moment. «Conchita,» she called. «Mande,» said the girl. «I want you to go and buy a lot of flowers in the market. Immediately». She gave her a hundred pesetas and sent her out in order to have solitude for a half-hour. She did not go out much herself these days; she spent most of her time lying in her bed. It was wide and the room was spacious. From her fortress of pillows she could see the activity of the small boats in the inner port, and she found it just enough of a diversion to follow with her eyes when she looked up from her writing. She began her day with gin, continuing with it until she went to sleep at night. When she had first come to Tangier she had drunk less and gone out more. Daytimes she had sunbathed on her balcony; evenings she had gone from bar to bar, mixing her drinks and having eventually to be accompanied to the entrance of her hotel by some disreputable individual who usually tried to take whatever small amount of money was left in the handbag she wore slung over her shoulder. But she never went out carrying more than she minded losing. The sunbathing had been stopped by the hotel management, because one day a Spanish lady had looked (with some difficulty) over the concrete partition that separated her balcony from the adjoining one, and had seen her massive pink body stretched out in a deckchair with nothing to cover it. There had been an unpleasant scene with the manager, who would have put her out if she had not been the most important single source of revenue for the hotel: she had all her meals served in bed and her door was always unlocked so the waiters could get in with drinks and bowls of ice. «It’s just as well,» she said to herself. «Sun is anti-thought. Lawrence was right». And now she found that lying in bed she drank more evenly; when night came she no longer had the urge to rush through the streets, to try to be everywhere at once for fear she would miss what was going to happen. The reason for this of course was that by evening she was too drunk to move very much, but it was a pleasant drunkenness, and it did not stop her from filling the pages of her notebooks with words — sometimes even with ideas.

  Volcanoes angered her. The talk about this one put her in mind of a scene from her own childhood. She had been on a boat with her parents, going from Alexandria to Genoa. Early one morning her father had knocked on the door of the cabin where she and her mother slept, calling excitedly for them to go immediately on deck. More asleep than awake they arrived there to find him pointing wildly at Stromboli. The mountain was vomiting flames and lava poured down its flanks, already crimson with the rising sun. Her mother had stared an instant, and then in a voice made hoarse by fury she had cried out one word: «Dis — gusting!» turned on her heel and taken Eunice below. In retrospect now, although she still could see her father’s crestfallen face, she shared her mother’s indignation.

  She lay back, closed her eyes, and thought a bit. Presently she opened them and wrote: «There is something in the silly human mind that responds beautifully to the idea of rarity — especially rarity of conditions capable of producing a given phenomenon. The less likely a thing is to happen, the more wonderful it seems when it does, no matter how useless or even harmful it may be. The fact of its having happened despite the odds makes it a precious event. It had no right to occur, yet it did, and one can only blindly admire the chain of circumstances that caused the impossible to come to pass».

  On reading over the paragraph she noted with a certain satisfaction that although it had been meant with reference to the volcano, it also had a distinct bearing upon her personal life at that moment. She was still a little awed by what seemed to her the incredible sequence of coincidences which had made it suddenly possible for her to be happy. A strange thing had happened to her about a fortnight back. She had awakened one bright morning and made a decision to take daily exercise of some kind. (She was constantly making decisions of one sort or another, each of which she was confident was going to revolutionize her life.) The exercise would be mentally stimulating and would help her to reduce. Accordingly she had donned an old pair of slacks which were too small around the waist to be fastened, and set out for the top of the Casbah. She went through the big gate and, using her cane, climbed down the steep path to the long dirty beach below where only Arabs bathed.

  From there she had followed the coastline to the west, along the foot of the Casbah’s lower buildings, past the stretch where all the sewers emptied and the stink was like a solid object in the air, to a further rocky beach which was more or less deserted. And here an old Arab fisherman had stopped her, holding forth a small piece of paper, and asked her with great seriousness in his halting Spanish to read him what was written on it.

  It said: «Will the finder kindly communicate with C. J. Burnett, Esq., 52, Ashurst Road, North Finchley, London, England. April 12, 1949». She translated the request, indicating the address, and could not restrain herself from asking him where he had got the paper.

  «Bottle in water,» he replied, pointing to the small waves that broke near their feet. Then he asked her what he should do. «Write the man, if you like,» she said, about to go on.

  Yes, mused the old man, stroking his beard, he must write him, of course. But how, since he couldn’t write? «A friend,» she said. He looked at her searchingly and in a hesitant voice asked her if she would do it. She laughed. «I’m going for a walk,» she said, pointing up the beach away from the town. «Perhaps when I come back». And she started walking again, leaving the old man standing there, holding his bit of paper, staring after her.

  She had forgotten the incident by the time she arrived back at the same spot, but there was the fisherman sitting on a rock in his rags, looking anxiously toward her as she approached. «Now you write it?» he said. «But I have no paper,» she objected. This was the beginning of a long episode in which he followed her at a distance of a few paces, all the way back along the shore, up the side hill and through the Casbah from one bacal to another in quest of an envelope and a sheet of paper.

  When they had finally found a shopkeeper able to provide them with the two objects, she tried to pay for them, but the old man proudly laid his own coins on the counter and handed hers back to her. By then she thought the whole incident rather fun; it would make an amusing story to tell her friends. But she also felt in need of an immediate drink, and so she refused his invitation to go into a neighboring Arab café for tea, explaining that she must sit in a European café in order to write the letter for him properly. «Do you know one near here?» she asked him; she hoped they would not need to resort to one of the cafés in the Zoco Chico, to reach which they would have to go down steep streets and innumerable steps. He led her along several extremely narrow alleys where the shade was a blessing after the midday sun, to a small dingy place called Bar Lucifer. An extremely fat woman sat behind the counter reading a French movie magazine. Eunice ordered a gin and the old man had a gaseosa. She wrote the letter quickly, in the first person, saying she had found the bottle off Ras el Ihud, near Tangier, and was writing as requested, signing herself Abdelkader ben Saïd ben Mokhtar and giving his address. The fisherman thanked her profusely and went off to post the letter, first having insisted on paying for his gaseosa; she however stayed on and had several more gins.

  The fat woman began to take an interest in her. Apparently she was not used to having women come into the bar, and this large foreigner who wore trousers and drank like a man aroused her curiosity. In French she asked Eunice a few questions about herself. Not being of a confiding nature, Eunice answered by improvising falsehoods, as she always did in similar circumstances. Then she countered with her own queries. The woman was only too eager to reply: she was Greek, her name was Madame Papaconstante, she had been eleven years in Tangier, the bar was a recent acquisition and had a few rooms in the back which were at the disposal of clients who required them. Presently Eunice thanked her and paid, promising to return that evening. She considered the place a discovery, because she was sure none of her friends knew about
it.

  At night the Bar Lucifer was quite a different matter. There were two bright gasoline lamps burning, so that the posters announcing bulls in San Roque and Melilla were visible, the little radio was going, and three Spaniards in overalls sat at the bar drinking beer. Madame Papaconstante, heavily made up and wearing an orange chiffon dress, walked to welcome her, her gold teeth glowing as she smiled. Behind the bar stood two Spanish girls with cheap permanent waves. Pretending to be following the men’s conversation, they simpered when the men laughed.

  «Are they your daughters?» asked Eunice. Madame Papaconstante said with some force that they were not. Then she explained that they served at the bar and acted as hostesses in the private rooms. A third girl stuck her head through the beaded curtain in the doorway that led into the back; she was very young and extraordinarily pretty. She stared at Eunice for a moment in some surprise before she came out and walked across to the entrance door.

  «Who’s that?» said Eunice.

  A fills indigène, said Madame Papaconstante — an Arab girl who worked for her. «Very intelligent. She speaks English,» she added. The girl turned and smiled at them, an unexpected smile, warming as a sudden ray of strong sunlight on a cloudy day.

  «She’s a delightful creature,» said Eunice. She stepped to the bar and ordered a gin. Madame Papaconstante followed with difficulty and stood at the end beaming, her fleshy hands spread out flat on the bar so that her numerous rings flashed.

  «Won’t you have something?» suggested Eunice.

  Madame Papaconstante looked astonished. It was an unusual evening in the Bar Lucifer when someone offered her a drink. «Je prendrais bien un machaquito,» she said, closing her eyes slowly and opening them again. They took their drinks to a small rickety table against the wall and sat down. The Arab girl stood in the doorway looking out into the dark, occasionally exchanging a word with a passerby.

  «Hadija, ven acá,» called Madame Papaconstante. The girl turned and walked lightly to their table, smiling. Madame Papaconstante took her hand and told her to speak some English to the lady.

  «You spickin English?» said the girl.

  «Yes, of course. Would you like a drink?»

  «I spickin. What you drink?»

  «Gin». Eunice held up her glass, already nearly empty. The girl made a grimace of disgust.

  «Ah no good. I like wan Coca-Cola».

  «Of course». She caught the eye of one of the girls at the bar, and shouted to her: «Una, Coca-Cola, un machaquito y un gin!» Hadija went to the bar to fetch the drinks.

  «She’s exquisite,» said Eunice quickly to Madame Papaconstante. «Where did you find her?»

  «Oh, for many years she has been playing in the street here with the other children. It’s a poor family».

  When she returned to the table with the glasses Eunice suggested she sit with them, but she pretended not to hear, and backed against the wall to remain there looking calmly down at them. There was a desultory conversation for twenty minutes or a half hour, during which Eunice ordered several more gins. She was beginning to feel very well; she turned to Madame Papaconstante. «Would you think me rude if I sat with her alone for a bit? I should like to talk with her».

  «Ça va,» said Madame Papaconstante. It was unusual, but she saw no reason to object.

  «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 pers
isted 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.