The decks were silent now and Graham could hear the sounds within the ship: people talking, doors slamming, quick businesslike footsteps in the alleyways. There
was not long to wait now. Outside it was getting dark. He looked back upon a day which had seemed interminable, surprised that he could remember so little of it.
Most of it he had spent in Colonel Haki’s office, his brain hovering uncertainly on the brink of sleep. He had smoked innumerable cigarettes and read some fortnight old French newspapers. There had been an article in one of them, he remembered, about the French mandate in the Cameroons. A doctor had been, reported favourably on the state of his wound, dressed it and gone. Kopeikin had brought him his suitcase and he had made a bloody attempt to shave with his left hand. In the absence of Colonel Haki they had shared a cool and soggy meal from the restaurant. The Colonel had returned at two to inform him that there were nine other passengers travelling on the boat, four of them women, that none of them had booked for the journey less than three days previously, and that they were all harmless.
The gangway was down now and the last of the nine, a couple who sounded middle-aged and spoke French, had come aboard and were in the cabin next to his. Their voices penetrated the thin wooden bulkhead with dismaying ease. He could hear almost every sound they made. They had argued incessantly, in whispers at first as if they had been in church; but the novelty of their surroundings soon wore off and they spoke in ordinary tones.
“The sheets are damp.”
“No, it is simply that they are cold. In any case it does not matter.”
“You think not? You think not?” She made a noise
in her throat. “You may sleep as you wish, but do not complain to me about your kidneys.”
“Cold sheets do not harm the kidneys,
chérie.”
“We have paid for our tickets. We are entitled to comfort.”
“If you never sleep in a worse place you will be lucky. This is not the
Normandie.”
“That is evident.” The washing cabinet clicked open. “Ah! Look at this. Look! Do you expect me to wash in it?”
“It is only necessary to run the water. A little dust.”
“Dust! It is
dirty
. Filthy! It is for the steward to clean it. I will not touch it. Go and fetch him while I unpack the luggage. My dresses will be crushed. Where is the W.C.?”
“At the end of the corridor.”
“Then find the steward. There is no room for two while I unpack. We should have gone by train.”
“Naturally. But it is I who must pay. It is I who must give the steward a tip.”
“It is you who make too much noise. Quickly. Do you want to disturb everyone?”
The man went out and the woman sighed loudly. Graham wondered whether they would talk all night. And one or both of them might snore. He would have to cough loudly once or twice so that they would realise how thin the partition was. But it was strangely comforting to hear people talking about damp sheets and dirty wash basins and W.C.’s as if—the phrase was in his mind before he realised it—as if they were matters of life and death.
Life and death! He got to his feet and found himself staring at the framed instructions for lifeboat drill.
“CINTURE DI SALVATAGGIO, CEINTURES DE SAUVETAGE, RETRUNGSGÜRTEL
.
LIFEBELTS.…
In case of danger, the signal will be given by six short blasts on the whistle followed by one long blast and the ringing of alarm bells. Passengers should then put on their lifebelts and assemble at boat station number
4.”
He had seen the same sort of thing dozens of times before but now he read it carefully. The paper it was printed on was yellow with age. The lifebelt on top of the washing cabinet looked as if it had not been moved for years. It was all ludicrously reassuring.
“In case of danger.
…” In case! But you couldn’t get away from danger! It was all about you, all the time. You could live in ignorance of it for years: you might go to the end of your days believing that some things couldn’t possibly happen to
you
, that death could only come to you with the sweet reason of disease or an “act of God”: but it was there just the same, waiting to make nonsense of all your comfortable ideas about your relations with time and chance, ready to remind you—in case you had forgotten—that civilisation was a word and that you still lived in the jungle.
The ship swayed gently. There was a faint clanging from the engine room telegraph. The floor began to vibrate. Through the smeared glass of the porthole he saw a light begin to move. The vibration ceased for a moment or two; then the engines went astern and the water glass rattled in its bracket on the wall. Another
pause and then the engines went ahead again, slowly and steadily. They were free of the land. With a sigh of relief he opened the cabin door and went up on deck.
It was cold but the ship had turned and was taking the wind on her port side. She seemed stationary on the oily water of the harbour but the dock lights were sliding past them and receding. He drew the cold air into his lungs. It was good to be out of the cabin. His thoughts no longer seemed to worry him. Istanbul, Le Jockey Cabaret, the man in the crumpled suit, the Adler-Palace and its manager, Colonel Haki—they were all behind him. He could forget about them.
He began to pace slowly along the deck. He would, he told himself, be able to laugh at the whole business soon. It was already half-forgotten; there was already an air of the fantastic about it. He might almost have dreamed it. He was back in the ordinary world: he was on his way home.
He passed one of his fellow passengers, the first he had seen, an elderly man leaning on the rail staring at the lights of Istanbul coming into view as they cleared the mole. Now, as he reached the end of the deck and turned about, he saw that a woman in a fur coat had just come out of the saloon door and was walking towards him.
The light on the deck was dim and she was within a few yards of him before he recognised her.
It was Josette.
F
OR A MOMENT
they stared blankly at one another. Then she laughed. “Merciful God! It is the Englishman. Excuse me, but this is extraordinary.”
“Yes, isn’t it.”
“And what happened to your first-class compartment on the Orient Express?”
He smiled. “Kopeikin thought that a little sea air would do me good.”
“And you needed doing good?” The straw-coloured hair was covered with a woollen scarf tied under the chin, but she held her head back to look at him as if she were wearing a hat that shaded her eyes.
“Evidently.” On the whole, he decided, she looked a good deal less attractive than she had looked in her dressing-room. The fur coat was shapeless, and the scarf did not suit her. “Since we are talking about trains,” he added, “what happened to your second-class compartment?”
She frowned with a smile at the corners of her mouth. “This way is so much less expensive. Did I say that I was travelling by train?”
Graham flushed. “No, of course not.” He realised that he was being rather rude. “In any case, I am delighted to see you again so soon. I have been wondering what I should do if I found that the Hotel des Belges was closed.”
She looked at him archly. “Ah! You were really going to telephone me, then?”
“Of course. It was understood, wasn’t it?”
She discarded the arch look and replaced it with a pout. “I do not think that you are sincere after all. Tell me truthfully why you are on this boat.”
She began to walk along the deck. He could do nothing but fall in step beside her.
“You don’t believe me?”
She lifted her shoulders elaborately. “You need not tell me if you do not wish to. I am not inquisitive.”
He thought he saw her difficulty. From her point of view there could be only two explanations of his presence on the boat: either his claim to be travelling first class on the Orient Express had been a pretentious lie intended to impress her—in which case he would have very little money—or he had somehow discovered that she was travelling on the boat, and had abandoned the luxury of the Orient Express in order to pursue her—in which case he would probably have plenty of money. He had a sudden absurd desire to startle her with the truth.
“Very well,” he said. “I am travelling this way to avoid someone who is trying to shoot me.”
She stopped dead. “I think it is too cold out here,” she
said calmly. “I shall go in.”
He was so surprised that he laughed.
She turned on him quickly. “You should not make such stupid jokes.”
There was no doubt about it; she was genuinely angry. He held up his bandaged hand. “A bullet grazed it.”
She frowned. “You are very bad. If you have hurt your hand I am sorry, but you should not make jokes about it. It is very dangerous.”
“Dangerous!”
“You will have bad luck, and so shall I. It is very bad luck to joke in that way.”
“Oh, I see.” He grinned. “I am not superstitious.”
“That is because you do not know. I would sooner see a raven flying than joke about killing. If you wish me to like you, you must not say such things.”
“I apologise,” said Graham, mildly. “Actually I cut my hand with a razor.”
“Ah, they are dangerous things! In Algiers José saw a man with his throat cut from ear to ear with a razor.”
“Suicide?”
“No, no! It was his
petite amie
who did it. There was a lot of blood. José will tell you about it if you ask him. It was very sad.”
“Yes, I can imagine. José is travelling with you, then?”
“Naturally.” And then, with a sidelong look: “He is my husband.”
Her husband! That explained why she “put up with” José. It also explained why Colonel Haki had omitted to tell him that the “dancing blonde” was travelling on the boat. Graham remembered the promptitude with which
José had retired from the dressing-room. That, no doubt, had been a matter of business.
Attractions
at a place like Le Jockey Cabaret were not quite so attractive if they were known to have husbands in the vicinity. He said: “Kopeikin didn’t tell me that you were married.”
“Kopeikin is very nice, but he does not know everything. But I will tell you confidentially that with José and me it is an arrangement. We are partners, nothing more. He is jealous about me only when I neglect business for pleasure.”
She said it indifferently, as if she were discussing a clause in her contract.
“Are you going to dance in Paris now?”
“I do not know. I hope so; but so much is closed on account of the war.”
“What will you do if you can’t get an engagement?”
“What do you think? I shall starve. I have done it before.” She smiled bravely. “It is good for the figure.” She pressed her hands on her hips and looked at him, inviting his considered opinion. “Do you not think it would be good for my figure to starve a little? One grows fat in Istanbul.” She posed. “You see?”
Graham nearly laughed. The picture being presented for his approval had all the simple allure of a full-page drawing in
La Vie Parisienne
. Here was the “business man’s” dream come true: the beautiful blonde dancer, married but unloved, in need of protection: something expensive going cheap.
“A dancer’s must be a very hard life,” he said dryly.
“Ah, yes! Many people think that it is so gay. If they knew!”
“Yes, of course. It is getting a little cold, isn’t it? Shall we go inside and have a drink?”
“That would be nice.” She added with a tremendous air of candour: “I am so glad we are travelling together. I was afraid that I was going to be bored. Now, I shall enjoy myself.”
He felt that his answering smile was probably rather sickly. He was beginning to have an uncomfortable suspicion that he was making a fool of himself. “We go this way, I think,” he said.
The
salone
was a narrow room about thirty feet long, with entrances from the shelter deck and from the landing at the head of the stairs to the cabins. There were grey upholstered
banquettes
round the walls and, at one end, three round dining tables bolted down. Evidently there was no separate dining-room. Some chairs, a card table, a shaky writing desk, a radio, a piano and a threadbare carpet completed the furnishings. Opening off the room at the far end was a cubby hole with half doors. The lower door had a strip of wood screwed to the top of it to make a counter. This was the bar. Inside it, the steward was opening cartons of cigarettes. Except for him, the place was deserted. They sat down.
“What would you like to drink, Mrs.…,” began Graham tentatively.
She laughed. “José’s name is Gallindo, but I detest it. You must call me Josette. I would like some English whisky and a cigarette, please.”
“Two whiskies,” said Graham.
The steward put his head out and frowned at them. “Viski?
? molto caro,”
he said warningly;
“très cher
.
Cinque lire
. Five lire each. Vair dear.”
“Yes, it is, but we will have them just the same.”
The steward retired into the bar, and made a lot of noise with the bottles.
“He is very angry,” said Josette. “He is not used to people who order whisky.” She had obviously derived a good deal of satisfaction from the ordering of the whisky, and the discomfiture of the steward. In the light of the saloon her fur coat looked cheap and old; but she had unbuttoned it and arranged it round her shoulders as if it had been a thousand guinea mink. He began, against his better judgment, to feel sorry for her.
“How long have you been dancing?”
“Since I was ten. That is twenty years ago. You see,” she remarked, complacently, “I do not lie to you about my age. I was born in Serbia, but I say that I am Hungarian because it sounds better. My mother and father were very poor.”
“But honest, no doubt.”
She looked faintly puzzled. “Oh no, my father was not at all honest. He was a dancer, and he stole some money from someone in the troupe. They put him in prison. Then the war came, and my mother took me to Paris. A very rich man took care of us for a time, and we had a very nice apartment.” She gave a nostalgic sigh: an impoverished
grande dame
lamenting past glories. “But he lost his money, and so my mother had to dance again. My mother died when we were in Madrid, and I was sent back to Paris, to a convent. It was terrible there. I do not know what happened to my father. I think perhaps he was killed in the war.”