Mariam nodded, and stood up. The corporal copped an eyeful, as was intended, and backed out. Mariam closed the door and slid the big wooden draw-bolt across, then crossed the room and got back into the bed. The women sat on its edge, and all three chatted quietly away as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Who knows, maybe it hadn’t?
I squeezed into the space on the floor between the bed and the cupboard, as if I was still scared – if I kept my head down it would afford me some cover if the bastards came back. Once in the next twenty minutes the door was rattled from the outside, followed by a raw guffaw. It sounded like the man Nesbit again, and I promised myself to do something about him if I ever came across him on the outside. After twenty minutes the noise of the search began to retreat. Car doors slammed. Engines revved outside in the street. And then there was silence.
A few minutes later Yassine was back in the room. His grin split his face from side to side. ‘You make a good woman, Charlie – you know that? It wouldn’t take much for me to find you attractive!’ He pulled the two other women up from the bed, and put his arms around them. One giggled.
I pulled off the women’s clothes over my head, and asked him, ‘Can we carry on this conversation tomorrow? I’m shagged out.’
He grinned again and wheeled his charges about. With one hand on the bum of one of them, he managed to wave to me with the other. As they threaded through the door one of the women laughed, and then the other. This time I made sure I bolted the door.
Mariam sat up, smiling, and asked me, ‘What was it like; being a woman for a change?’
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t know until I was flat on my back with someone bouncing up and down on my belly, would I?’
‘We can find out, Charlie.’
I’ve told you before: I’m weak-willed as far as women are concerned. When I remember Mariam now, I remember a lithe girl who always put her heart and soul into it. Several other bits as well. The problem with trying to turn over a new leaf is that it’s often worse than the one you hid under before.
‘You knew the riot was going to happen, didn’t you?’ Black coffee and brioches – very French. There are a lot of very French things along the Canal Zone. That’s because the bloody Frogs actually dug the thing in the first place. It would also explain some of the unnatural tricks the local girls could turn.
‘One hears things,’ Yassine told me. ‘One can hardly help it. Mainly pillow talk. The men talk to my girls . . .’
‘. . . and your girls talk to you, and you sell what they tell you to whoever wants to buy it. I get the picture. It sounds just like Berlin. I could learn to like it here if it wasn’t so full of soldiers.’
‘I knew we’d get on.’
‘Thank you for saving me from that British police patrol last night, but I still don’t know why you did it.’
‘Because when the authorities close me down this club becomes out of bounds. Any British serviceman caught here is arrested, and the closure of the club is extended . . . and the girls are dragged away for medical tests, which is humiliating for them. The British harass me. They will not be satisfied until they have closed me down.’
‘What will you do then?’
‘I have other clubs, but it will be a pity. I have good memories of this place.’
‘Has someone got it in for you? Something personal?’
‘Mr Watson told me that “prevailed has prevailed”, then he laughed at me and said I should work it out for myself. Perhaps you can tell me: you know how Englishmen think.’
‘We try never to, David – that’s the key to understanding us. Tell me something about Mariam before I go. Has she any . . . well, expectations of me?’
He laughed as if I’d asked a stupid question. You should know by now that it wouldn’t have been the first time.
‘Did you give her a present?’
‘I left her money: it’s the only thing I had.’
‘Send her a proper present – something made of gold to remember you by when she is an old lady. That will please her . . . but she has no romantic aspirations, if that is what you mean. She is saving up to get married to a nice Christian Lebanese boy, who happens to think that she is a maid in a very correct household.’
‘Will he be disappointed?’
‘On his wedding night, after his first surprise at the range of her abilities, I should imagine he will be delighted . . . and after that, in thrall to her as much as the rest of her friends are. What you must understand is that she knows she is getting more out of her relationship with you than you are. She is in charge; not you.’ He was actually stifling a laugh.
I asked him, ‘What?’
‘I probably shouldn’t tell you, but before you returned yesterday afternoon she asked me a question about you.’
‘What?’
‘She asked Do you think Charlie has any expectations of me? It would be sad to disappoint him. See: almost the same words, and the same concerns. You really are two very honourable young persons. Maybe you should develop expectations, after all.’
I knew that in the street outside they would be clearing up after the night before: and, in the Arab quarter, houses damaged beyond repair would be being pulled down and
