Journey Into Fear (3 page)

But the audience was not looking at him, and when they had finished called loudly for an encore. It was given. The band played another “chord-on.” Mademoiselle Josette took a bow and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by Serge. She returned several times and bowed and kissed her hand.

“She is quite charming, isn’t she?” Kopeikin said in English as the lights went up. “I promised you that this place was amusing.”

“She’s quite good. But it’s a pity about the moth-eaten Valentino.”

“José? He does well for himself. Would you like to have her to the table for a drink?”

“Very much. But won’t it be rather expensive?”

“Gracious no! She does not get commission.”

“Will she come?”

“Of course. The
patron
introduced me. I know her well. You might take to her, I think. This Arab is a little stupid. No doubt Josette is stupid, too; but she is very attractive in her way. If I had not learned too much when I was too young, I should like her myself.”

Maria stared after him as he went across the floor, and remained silent for a moment. Then she said: “He is very good, that friend of yours.”

Graham was not quite sure whether it was a statement, a question, or a feeble attempt to make conversation. He nodded. “Very good.”

She smiled. “He knows the proprietor well. If you desire it, he will ask Serge to let me go when you wish instead of when the place closes.”

He smiled as regretfully as he could. “I’m afraid, Maria, that I have to pack my luggage and catch a train in the morning.”

She smiled again. “It does not matter. But I specially like the Swedes. May I have some more brandy, Monsieur?”

“Of course.” He refilled her glass.

She drank half of it. “Do you like Mademoiselle Josette?”

“She dances very well.”

“She is very sympathetic. That is because she has a success. When people have a success they are sympathetic. José, nobody likes. He is a Spaniard from Morocco, and very jealous. They are all the same. I do not know how she stands him.”

“I thought you said they were Parisians.”

“They have danced in Paris. She is from Hungary. She speaks languages—German, Spanish, English—but not Swedish, I think. She has had many rich lovers.” She paused. “Are you a business man, Monsieur?”

“No, an engineer.” He realised, with some amusement, that Maria was less stupid than she seemed, and that she knew exactly why Kopeikin had left them. He was being warned, indirectly but unmistakably, that Mademoiselle Josette was very expensive, that communication with her would be difficult, and that he would have a jealous Spaniard to deal with.

She drained her glass again, and stared vaguely in the direction of the bar. “My friend is looking very lonely,” she said. She turned her head and looked directly at him. “Will you give me a hundred piastres, Monsieur?”

“What for?”

“A tip, Monsieur.” She smiled, but in not quite so friendly a fashion as before.

He gave her a hundred piastre note. She folded it up, put it in her bag, and stood up. “Will you excuse me, please? I wish to speak to my friend. I will come back if you wish.” She smiled.

He saw her red satin dress disappear in the crowd gathered round the bar. Kopeikin returned almost immediately.

“Where is the Arab?”

“She’s gone to speak to her best friend. I gave her a hundred piastres.”

“A hundred! Fifty would have been plenty. But perhaps it is as well. Josette asks us to have a drink with her in her dressing-room. She is leaving Istanbul to-morrow, and does not wish to come out here. She will have to speak to so many people, and she has packing to do.”

“Shan’t we be rather a nuisance?”

“My dear fellow, she is anxious to meet you. She saw you while she was dancing. When I told her that you were an Englishman, she was delighted. We can leave these drinks here.”

Mademoiselle Josette’s dressing-room was a space about eight feet square, partitioned off from the other half of what appeared to be the proprietor’s office by a brown curtain. The three solid walls were covered with faded pink wall-paper with stripes of blue: there were greasy patches here and there where people had leaned against them. The room contained two bent-wood chairs and two rickety dressing tables littered with cream jars and dirty make-up towels. There was a mixed smell of stale cigarette smoke, face powder, and damp upholstery.

As they went in in response to a grunt of
“Entrez”
from the partner, José, he got up from his dressing table. Still wiping the grease paint from his face, he walked out without a glance at them. For some reason, Kopeikin winked at Graham. Josette was leaning forward in her
chair dabbing intently at one of her eyebrows with a swab of damp cotton-wool. She had discarded her costume, and put on a rose velvet house-coat. Her hair hung down loosely about her head as if she had shaken it out and brushed it. It was really, Graham thought, very beautiful hair. She began to speak in slow, careful English, punctuating the words with dabs.

“Please excuse me. It is this filthy paint. It … 
Merde!”

She threw the swab down impatiently, stood up suddenly, and turned to face them.

In the hard light of the unshaded bulb above her head she looked smaller than she had looked on the dance floor; and a trifle haggard. Graham, thinking of his Stephanie’s rather buxom good looks, reflected that the woman before him would probably be quite plain in ten years’ time. He was in the habit of comparing other women with his wife. As a method of disguising from himself the fact that other women still interested him, it was usually effective. But Josette was unusual. What she might look like in ten years’ time was altogether beside the point. At that moment she was a very attractive, self-possessed woman with a soft, smiling mouth, slightly protuberant blue eyes, and a sleepy vitality that seemed to fill the room.

“This, my dear Josette,” said Kopeikin, “is Mr. Graham.”

“I enjoyed your dancing very much, Mademoiselle,” he said.

“So Kopeikin told me.” She shrugged. “It could be better, I think, but it is very good of you to say that you like it. It is nonsense to say that Englishmen are not
polite.” She flourished her hand round the room. “I do not like to ask you to sit down in this filth, but please try to make yourself comfortable. There is Jose’s chair for Kopeikin, and if you could push José’s things away, the corner of his table will be for you. It is too bad that we cannot sit together in comfort outside, but there are so many of these men who make some
chichi
if one does not stop and drink some of their champagne. The champagne here is filthy. I do not wish to leave Istanbul with a headache. How long do you stay here, Mr. Graham?”

“I, too, leave to-morrow.” She amused him. Her posturing was absurd. Within the space of a minute she had been a great actress receiving wealthy suitors, a friendly woman of the world, and a disillusioned genius of the dance. Every movement, every piece of affectation was calculated: it was as if she were still dancing.

Now she became a serious student of affairs. “It is terrible, this travelling. And you go back to your war. I am sorry. These filthy Nazis. It is such a pity that there must be wars. And if it is not wars, it is earthquakes. Always death. It is so bad for business. I am not interested in death. Kopeikin is, I think. Perhaps it is because he is a Russian.”

“I think nothing of death,” said Kopeikin. “I am concerned only that the waiter shall bring the drinks I ordered. Will you have a cigarette?”

“Please, yes. The waiters here are filthy. There must be much better places than this in London, Mr. Graham.”

“The waiters there are very bad, too. Waiters are, I think, mostly very bad. But I should have thought you had been to London. Your English …”

Her smile tolerated his indiscretion, the depths of which he could not know. As well to have asked the Pompadour who paid her bills. “I learned it from an American and in Italy. I have a great sympathy for Americans. They are so clever in business, and yet so generous and sincere. I think it is most important to be sincere. Was it amusing dancing with that little Maria, Mr. Graham?”

“She dances very well. She seems to admire you very much. She says that you have a great success. You do, of course.”

“A great success! Here?” The disillusioned genius raised her eyebrows. “I hope you gave her a good tip, Mr. Graham.”

“He gave her twice as much as was necessary,” said Kopeikin. “Ah, here are the drinks!”

They talked for a time about people whom Graham did not know, and about the war. He saw that behind her posturing she was quick and shrewd, and wondered if the American in Italy had ever regretted his “sincerity.” After a while Kopeikin raised his glass.

“I drink,” he said pompously, “to your two journeys.” He lowered his glass suddenly without drinking. “No, it is absurd,” he said, irritably. “My heart is not in the toast. I cannot help thinking that it is a pity that there should be two journeys. You are both going to Paris. You are both friends of mine, and so you have”—he patted his stomach—“much in common.”

Graham smiled, trying not to look startled. She was certainly very attractive, and it was pleasant to sit facing her as he was; but the idea that the acquaintance might be extended had simply not occurred to him. He was confused
by it. He saw that she was watching him with amusement in her eyes, and had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew exactly what was passing through his mind.

He put the best face on the situation that he could. “I was hoping to suggest the same thing. I think you should have left me to suggest it, Kopeikin. Mademoiselle will wonder if I am as sincere as an American.” He smiled at her. “I am leaving by the eleven o’clock train.”

“And in the first class, Mr. Graham?”

“Yes.”

She put out her cigarette. “Then there are two obvious reasons why we cannot travel together. I am not leaving by that train and, in any case, I travel in the second class. It is perhaps just as well. José would wish to play cards with you all the way, and you would lose your money.”

There was no doubt that she expected them to finish their drinks and go. Graham felt oddly disappointed. He would have liked to stay. He knew, besides, that he had behaved awkwardly.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we could meet in Paris.”

“Perhaps.” She stood up and smiled kindly at him. “I shall stay at the Hotel des Belges near Trinité, if it is still open. I shall hope to meet you again. Kopeikin tells me that as an engineer you are very well known.”

“Kopeikin exaggerates—just as he exaggerated when he said that we should not hinder you and your partner in your packing. I hope you have a pleasant journey.”

“It has been so good to meet you. It was so kind of you, Kopeikin, to bring Mr. Graham to see me.”

“It was his idea,” said Kopeikin. “Good-bye, my dear Josette, and
bon voyage
. We should like to stay, but it is late, and I insisted on Mr. Graham’s getting some sleep. He would stay talking until he missed the train if I permitted it.”

She laughed. “You are very nice, Kopeikin. When I come next to Istanbul, I shall tell you first.
Au ’voir
, Mr. Graham, and
bon voyage.”
She held out her hand.

“The Hotel des Belges near Trinité,” he said: “I shall remember.” He spoke very little less than the truth. During the ten minutes that his taxi would take to get from the Gare de l’Est to the Gare St. Lazare, he probably would remember.

She pressed his fingers gently. “I’m sure you will,” she said.
“Au ‘voir
, Kopeikin. You know the way?”

“I think,” said Kopeikin, as they waited for their bill, “I think that I am a little disappointed in you, my dear fellow. You made an excellent impression. She was yours for the asking. You had only to ask her the time of her train.”

“I am quite sure that I made no impression at all. Frankly, she embarrassed me. I don’t understand women of that sort.”

“That sort of woman, as you put it, likes a man who is embarrassed by her. Your diffidence was charming.”

“Heavens! Anyway, I said that I would see her in Paris.”

“My dear fellow, she knows perfectly well that you have not the smallest intention of seeing her in Paris. It is a pity. She is, I know, quite particular. You were lucky,
and you chose to ignore the fact.”

“Good gracious, man, you seem to forget that I’m a married man!”

Kopeikin threw up his hands. “The English point of view! One cannot reason; one can only stand amazed.” He sighed profoundly. “Here comes the bill.”

On their way out they passed Maria sitting at the bar with her best friend, a mournful-looking Turkish girl. They received a smile. Graham noticed that the man in the crumpled brown suit had gone.

It was cold in the street. A wind was beginning to moan through the telephone wires bracketed on the wall. At three o’clock in the morning the city of Sulyman the Magnificent was like a railway station after the last train had gone.

“We shall be having snow,” said Kopeikin. “Your hotel is quite near. We will walk if you like. It is to be hoped,” he went on as they began to walk, “that you will miss the snow on your journey. Last year there was a Simplon Orient express delayed for three days near Salonika.”

“I shall take a bottle of brandy with me.”

Kopeikin grunted. “Still, I do not envy you the journey. I think perhaps I am getting old. Besides, travelling at this time …”

“Oh, I’m a good traveller. I don’t get bored easily.”

“I was not thinking of boredom. So many unpleasant things can happen in war time.”

“I suppose so.”

Kopeikin buttoned up his overcoat collar. “To give you only one example …

“During the last war an Austrian friend of mine was returning to Berlin from Zürich, where he had been doing some business. He sat in the train with a man who said that he was a Swiss from Lugano. They talked a lot on the journey. This Swiss told my friend about his wife and his children, his business, and his home. He seemed a very nice man. But soon after they had crossed the frontier, the train stopped at a small station and soldiers came on with police. They arrested the Swiss. My friend had also to leave the train as he was with the Swiss. He was not alarmed. His papers were in order. He was a good Austrian. But the man from Lugano was terrified. He turned very pale and cried like a child. They told my friend afterwards that the man was not a Swiss but an Italian spy and that he would be shot. My friend was upset. You see, one can always tell when a man is speaking about something he loves, and there was no doubt that all that this man had said about his wife and children was true: all except one thing—they were in Italy instead of Switzerland. War,” he added solemnly, “is unpleasant.”