Titin turned out of bed on the wrong side of life with a sore soul. Money had been getting scarcer and scarcer with him for too uncomfortably long a time. It appeared as if Aslima’s liaison with Lafala was incapacitating her as the hardiest hustler of Quayside. There was something gone wrong there. It was alright to work-and-wait on Lafala. He was entirely in agreement with that and always ready to give Aslima good advice. But there was no reason why that should change the good old way of Aslima’s life and deprive him of his regular daily bread and pocket money for apéritifs and the indispensable after-dinner cigar which was the protectors’ trademark at Quayside. And it was about time he should be getting a new suit. He had been feeling a little seedy of late among his comrades in arms. And now he was wondering—there was a possibility that Aslima might be betraying him with Lafala.
Things had come to such a pass that he had not even money to pay for his meals and was eating on credit at the Pig’s Tail—a little clan restaurant on Number One Quay. Formerly he used to be accompanied by Aslima, but now she was taking most of her meals with Lafala.
There was a subtle change in Aslima which did not escape him. However much she tried to be the same girl externally, she was a different person in their intimate relations. He did not feel in her body that desire and dependence upon him as a protector that had formerly been psychically communicated to him.
Today he was having lunch with Aslima. They went together to the Pig’s Tail and removed from a nail their serviettes1 knotted together and covered with flies and flyshit. They ate in silence. They had had an ugly dispute and for a couple of days there was acute nervous tension between them.
After lunch Titin went to a café where a group of his colleagues usually met to gamble. All he possessed was ten francs which he lost playing French poker. It was much the worse for his temper to sit there impotently hearing the clink and rustle of money and watching coins and notes piling up under the palms of his colleagues.
Late in the afternoon when he looked in on their lair Aslima was getting ready for a rendezvous with Lafala. From outside he had heard her humming an African melody, reiterating the monotonously wistful notes, and that increased his irritation.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“Why, you know I’m going to see Lafala,” Aslima replied shortly.
“It would be better you go and hustle some money elsewhere,” said Titin. “You’re wasting too much time with that guy.”
“I’ve got to jolly him along. It’s the only way to do. I promised him I’d come tonight.”
“But listen to me! I don’t think you’re playing the game right. You’re too easy. You ought to keep him guessing and worrying over you.”
“If you think you know this game better than me,” said Aslima, “you’d better put on a skirt.”
“Don’t you try to crap on me because of that Pied-Coupé, you snotty slut. You spend every evening with him and eat a swell meal and drink good liquor. And you don’t care a screw if I starve—if I can’t buy a drink.”
“I’ll stop going then if you don’t want me to,” Aslima said in a cold metallic tone.
“I didn’t say you should stop. But I don’t think you should be with him so often and not hustle on the side at all.”
Aslima shrugged and again began humming the African melody.
“You’re acting in such a way as to make me think you are in love with that damned stump,” said Titin.
“Suppose I am,” Aslima laughed mockingly. “It isn’t impossible.”
“Oh, it isn’t, eh? What would you do with it? Go and nurse him in the jungle? Guess it would be nice to go naked again. Just get rid of all your silk shifts and stockings and wear a banana leaf. Say goodbye to Quayside and all of us and be a good and naked squaw to Pied-Coupé in a hut in the bush!”
“You dirty rat!” Aslima cried, “Lafala is a better man than you although he has no feet. Do you think I am afraid of the jungle? I’d rather go back there than live like a dog here.”
“You would, eh?”
“Yes I would and I’m going.” And Aslima flung herself out of the room.
But instead of taking the way along the quay that led towards Lafala’s hotel, Aslima turned up an alley. The alley sloped up to a terrace which overlooked the beautiful bay. The terrace was shored up by a fine wall from which the main road dropped sheer down from a height of some fifty feet and ran for miles and miles along the waterfront.
The families of the houses around the terrace were taking the evening air before supper. Children played in the sand. Loving couples sat spaced apart with their backs to the sea.
Aslima sat on a bench and gazed out over the big bay. From up there Quayside was so charming a dream with the soft-gray buildings forming a fence along the water and the little fishing boats huddled together coloring the slightly moving waves. Farther off the big ships loomed upon the horizon in shadow and gloom.
The night came quickly down throwing a heavy cloak over the city and the sea. And Aslima was lost in it. The lights glimmered along Quayside and in rows and clusters in the town but the margin of the bay was in heavy obscurity.
The darkness became thicker and damp with dews and Aslima remained alone with it, inert as if her spirit had fled her body. And after a long strange interval a red light appeared in the horizon revealing to her a different scene. She was in the heart of an antique white-washed city. And there was loud mounting music of voices as if a thousand golden-throated muezzins were calling in one mighty chorus.
And there was a rushing movement of hurrying feet as if all the houses had brusquely emptied their inhabitants into the street. And started a great procession of loose-robed men and women and children marching as to a midnight ritual, stamping and dancing to barbaric music, the men brandishing swords and women chanting and keening and children capering and Aslima foremost among the hysterical women.
And the procession went winding into a vast marble and malachite court of beautiful balconies filled with kindred people and all the people marched around a gushing fountain dipping their hands in limpid water. And perfume was shed down upon them from on high.
There followed a loving feast.2 The people gathering unceremoniously together, old and young, men, women and children, kneeling and squatting upon magic-like carpets and piles of rainbow cushions under lights like variegated flowers and shrouded in clouds of rarest incense, there was a gorgeous gorging. . . .
When the feasting was finished the belly-moving beat of the drum roused the people again after an interval of rest to dancing and chanting over and over again repeating and reiterating from pattern to pattern unraveling the threads of life from the most intricate to the simplest to the naked bottom as if in evocation of the first gods who emerged out of the ancient unfathomed womb of Africa to procreate and spread over the vast surface of the land.
Dancing and dancing down into a deep darkness. . . . And when they came up into light again the court was transformed into a place of worship. And all bowed down together submissive in a warm circle. And timidly raising her head Aslima saw a beauty that dazzled her. Overshadowing all an immense dome studded with all the jewels of earth and reflecting all the colors of life.
And as she gazed she was repelled, fascinated and awed by a flaming sword suspended from the center of the dome. And a golden voice was chanting its praise: “The Sword of Life! The Sword of Life!”
All the people of the earth were assembled under that dome and worshipping that sword. Some were slaves and some were free; some were wanton and some were happy. Some were strange and some were sad; some were lighthearted and some were heavy-burdened.
But all were worshippers, subject creatures, making sacrifices to it: budding flower of childhood, fruit of adolescence, honey of maturity, wine of experience, vinegar of disillusion, bitter broth of cynicism, lamentation of blasted hopes.
And among the multitude was one group apart that was offering up body and soul as a sacrifice. And in the midst of that group was Aslima divided and struggling against herself. She did not want to surrender all of her, but she could not detach herself. Fighting for release, she saw Lafala among the free and cried out fearfully to him. But he could not go to her.
Lafala! Lafala! Lafala! But a high wall arose shutting her off and all was darkness.
“Oh, God, I’m free!” Aslima cried, springing up. The terrace was deserted and silent. “God! How long I’ve been here. What a vision! Awful and sweet! Oh, I wonder if it meant good or bad? I must go and tell Lafala about it right now.”