Eric Ambler: Journey Into Fear

“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?”