I was seated on my bed, with my legs up, and Salamano on a chair beside the table, facing me, his hands spread on his knees. He had kept on his battered felt hat and was mumbling away behind his draggled yellowish mustache. I found him rather boring, but I had nothing to do and didn’t feel sleepy. So, to keep the conversation going, I asked some questions about his dog—how long he had had it and so forth.
He told me he had got it soon after his wife’s death. He’d married rather late in life. When a young man, he wanted to go on the stage; during his military service he’d often played in the regimental theatricals and acted rather well, so everybody said. However, finally, he had taken a job in the railway, and he didn’t regret it, as now he had a small pension. He and his wife had never hit it off very well, but they’d got used to each other, and when she died he felt lonely.
One of his mates on the railway whose bitch had just had pups had offered him one, and he had taken it, as a companion. He’d had to feed it from the bottle at first. But, as a dog’s life is shorter than a man’s, they’d grown old together, so to speak.
“He was a cantankerous brute,” Salamano said. “Now and then we had some proper set-tos, he and I. But he was a good mutt all the same.”
I said he looked well bred, and that evidently pleased the old man.
“Ah, but you should have seen him before his illness!” he said. “He had a wonderful coat; in fact, that was his best point, really. I tried hard to cure him; every mortal night after he got that skin disease I rubbed an ointment in. But his real trouble was old age, and there’s no curing that.”
Just then I yawned, and the old man said he’d better make a move. I told him he could stay, and that I was sorry about what had happened to his dog. He thanked me, and mentioned that my mother had been very fond of his dog. He referred to her as “your poor mother,” and was afraid I must be feeling her death terribly. When I said nothing he added hastily and with a rather embarrassed air that some of the people in the street said nasty things about me because I’d sent my mother to the Home. But he, of course, knew better; he knew how devoted to my mother I had always been.
I answered—why, I still don’t know—that it surprised me to learn I’d produced such a bad impression. As I couldn’t afford to keep her here, it seemed the obvious thing to do, to send her to a home. “In any case,” I added, “for years she’d never had a word to say to me, and I could see she was moping, with no one to talk to.”
“Yes,” he said, “and at a home one makes friends, anyhow.”
He got up, saying it was high time for him to be in bed, and added that life was going to be a bit of a problem for him, under the new conditions. For the first time since I’d known him he held out his hand to me—rather shyly, I thought—and I could feel the scales on his skin. Just as he was going out of the door, he turned and, smiling a little, said:
“Let’s hope the dogs won’t bark again tonight. I always think it’s mine I hear. …”
VI
IT was an effort waking up that Sunday morning; Marie had to jog my shoulders and shout my name. As we wanted to get into the water early, we didn’t trouble about breakfast. My head was aching slightly and my first cigarette had a bitter taste. Marie told me I looked like a mourner at a funeral, and I certainly did feel very limp. She was wearing a white dress and had her hair loose. I told her she looked quite ravishing like that, and she laughed happily.
On our way out we banged on Raymond’s door, and he shouted that he’d be with us in a jiffy. We went down to the street and, because of my being rather under the weather and our having kept the blind down in my room, the glare of the morning sun hit me in the eyes like a clenched fist.
Marie, however, was almost dancing with delight, and kept repeating, “What a heavenly day!” After a few minutes I was feeling better, and noticed that I was hungry. I mentioned this to Marie, but she paid no attention. She was carrying an oilcloth bag in which she had stowed our bathing kit and a towel. Presently we heard Raymond shutting his door.
He was wearing blue trousers, a short-sleeved white shirt, and a straw hat. I noticed that his forearms were rather hairy, but the skin was very white beneath. The straw hat made Marie giggle.
Personally, I was rather put off by his getup. He seemed in high spirits and was whistling as he came down the stairs. He greeted me with, “Hello, old boy!” and addressed Marie as “Mademoiselle.”
On the previous evening we had visited the police station, where I gave evidence for Raymond—about the girl’s having been false to him. So they let him off with a warning. They didn’t check my statement.
After some talk on the doorstep we decided to take the bus. The beach was within easy walking distance, but the sooner we got there the better. Just as we were starting for the bus stop, Raymond plucked my sleeve and told me to look across the street. I saw some Arabs lounging against the tobacconist’s window.
They were staring at us silently, in the special way these people have—as if we were blocks of stone or dead trees. Raymond whispered that the second Arab from the left was “his man,” and I thought he looked rather worried However, he assured me that all that was ancient history. Marie, who hadn’t followed his remarks, asked, “What is it?”
I explained that those Arabs across the way had a grudge against Raymond. She insisted on our going at once. Then Raymond laughed, and squared his shoulders. The young lady was quite right, he said. There was no point in hanging about here. Halfway to the bus stop he glanced back over his shoulder and said the Arabs weren’t following. I, too, looked back. They were exactly as before, gazing in the same vague way at the spot where we had been.
When we were in the bus, Raymond, who now seemed quite at ease, kept making jokes to amuse Marie. I could see he was attracted by her, but she had hardly a word for him. Now and again she would catch my eye and smile.
We alighted just outside Algiers. The beach is not far from the bus stop; one has only to cross a patch of highland, a sort of plateau, which overlooks the sea and shelves down steeply to the sands. The ground here was covered with yellowish pebbles and wild lilies that showed snow-white against the blue of the sky, which had already the hard, metallic glint it gets on very hot days.
Marie amused herself swishing her bag against the flowers and sending the petals showering in all directions. Then we walked between two rows of little houses with wooden balconies and green or white palings. Some of them were half hidden in clumps of tamarisks; others rose naked from the stony plateau. Before we came to the end of it, the sea was in full view; it lay smooth as a mirror, and in the distance a big headland jutted out over its black reflection.
Through the still air came the faint buzz of a motor engine and we saw a fishing boat very far out, gliding almost imperceptibly across the dazzling smoothness.
Marie picked some rock irises. Going down the steep path leading to the sea, we saw some bathers already on the sands.
Raymond’s friend owned a small wooden bungalow at the near end of the beach. Its back rested against the cliffside, while the front stood on piles, which the water was already lapping. Raymond introduced us to his friend, whose name was Masson.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and thick-set; his wife was a plump, cheerful little woman who spoke with a Paris accent.
Masson promptly told us to make ourselves at home. He had gone out fishing, he said, first thing in the morning, and there would be fried fish for lunch. I congratulated him on his little bungalow, and he said he always spent his week ends and holidays here. “With the missus, needless to say,” he added. I glanced at her, and noticed that she and Marie seemed to be getting on well together; laughing and chattering away. For the first time, perhaps, I seriously considered the possibility of my marrying her.
Masson wanted to have a swim at once, but his wife and Raymond were disinclined to move. So only the three of us,
