She goes in without hesitating, pushing open the glass door. The large dining room is dark, but on the round tables, the cloths make dazzling splashes. Lalla sees everything in a glance, very clearly: the bouquets of pink flowers in the crystal vases, the silver utensils, the cut-glass goblets, the immaculate napkins, and the chairs covered with dark blue velvet, the waxed hardwood floor over which the waiters dressed in white slip by. It is unreal and remote, and yet this is the place she has come into, walking slowly, silently, over the parquet, and holding Radicz the beggar’s hand very tightly.
“Come on,” says Lalla. “We’re going to sit over there.”
She points out a table, near a plate glass window. They cross the dining room. Men and women sitting at the round tables lift their heads from their plates and stop chewing, stop talking. The waiters are stopped short, the spoon sunk into the dish of rice, or the bottle of white wine slightly tilted, pouring into the glass a very fine trickle of wine tailing off at the end like a flame going out. Then Lalla and Radicz sit down at the round table, on either side of the lovely white tablecloth, separated by a bouquet of roses. So the people start chewing, talking again, but in lower voices, and the wine starts pouring again, the spoon serves the rice, and the voices whisper a little, drowned out by the commotion of the automobiles passing in front of the large plate glass windows like monstrous fish in an aquarium.
Radicz doesn’t dare look around. He’s keeping his eyes trained solely on Lalla’s face with all of his might. He has never seen a more beautiful, more luminous face. The light from the window shines on her heavy black hair, making a flame around Lalla’s face, on her neck, on her shoulders, all the way down to her hands laying flat on the white tablecloth. Lalla’s eyes are like two pieces of flint, the color of metal and fire, and her face is like a smooth copper mask.
A tall man is standing in front of their table. He’s dressed in a black suit, and his shirt is as white as the tablecloths. He has a large, bored, flabby face, with a lipless mouth. He is precisely just about to open that mouth of his and tell the children to leave immediately, without making a scene, when his sad eyes meet those of Lalla, and he suddenly forgets what he was going to say. Lalla’s stare is as hard as flint, filled with such strength that the man in black has to look away. He takes a step backward, as if he were going to leave, but then says, in a funny, slightly strangled voice, “Would … would you like something to drink?”
Lalla is still staring at him unblinkingly.
“We’re hungry,” she simply says. “Bring us something to eat.”
The man in black walks away and comes back with the menu, which he lays on the table. But Lalla hands the piece of cardboard back and keeps her eyes trained on his. Perhaps later he’ll remember his hatred and be ashamed of his fear.
“Bring us the same thing as they’re having,” Lalla orders. She motions to the group of people at the next table, the ones who are peering at them over their eyeglasses every now and again, turning halfway around in their seats.
The man goes and says something to one of the waiters, who comes up pushing a small cart loaded with dishes of all different colors. On the plates, the waiter places tomatoes, lettuce leaves, filets of anchovies, olives and capers, cold potatoes, eggs in a yellow powder, and still many more things. Lalla watches Radicz eating quickly, leaning over his plate like a dog gnawing at a bone, and she feels like laughing.
The light and the wind are still dancing for her, even here, on the glasses and the plates, in the mirrors on the walls, on the bouquets of flowers. The dishes are brought to the table one after the other, huge, flamboyant, filled with all sorts of delicacies with which Lalla isn’t familiar: fish swimming in orange sauces, mounds of vegetables, plates full of red, green, brown, covered with silver domes, which Radicz lifts to sniff at the smells. The maître d’hôtel ceremoniously pours them an amber-colored wine, then in another wide, very fragile glass, a ruby-colored, almost black wine. Lalla dips her lips into the drink, but it is rather the color that she drinks, looking at it against the light. They are more inebriated with the light and the colors and smells of the food than with the wine. Radicz eats rapidly, everything at the same time, and he drinks the glasses of wine one after the other. But Lalla hardly eats anything; she just watches the boy eating, and the other people in the room, who seem to be frozen in front of their plates. Time has slowed down, or maybe it’s her gaze, coupled with the light, that is immobilizing everything. Outside, the automobiles continue to drive past the windows, and you can glimpse the gray color of the sea between the boats.
When Radicz has finished eating everything in the dishes, he wipes his mouth with the napkin and leans back in the chair. He’s a little red, and his eyes are very bright.
“Was it good?” asks Lalla.
“Yes,” Radicz simply says. He’s eaten so much that he’s hiccupping a little. Lalla has him drink a glass of water and tells him to look her in the eye until his hiccups go away.
The big man in black comes over to their table.
“Coffee?”
Lalla shakes her head. When the maître d’hôtel brings the bill on a tray, Lalla holds it out to him.
“Read it.”
She takes the wad of wrinkled bills out of her coat pocket and unfolds them one after the other on the tablecloth. The maître d’hôtel takes the money. He starts to walk away and then changes his mind.
“There is a man who would like to speak with you over there, at the table near the door.”
Radicz takes hold of Lalla’s arm, gives her a hard jerk.
“Come on, let’s get out of this place!”
As she nears the door, Lalla sees a man around thirty with somewhat of a sad look about him sitting at a neighboring table. He stands and walks up to her. He stammers.
“I, excuse me for accosting you like this, but I — ”
Lalla looks straight at him, smiling.
“You see, I’m a photographer, and I’d like to take some pictures of you, whenever you like.”
Since Lalla doesn’t answer, and keeps smiling, he gets more and more muddled.
“It’s because — I saw you over there a little while ago, when you walked into the restaurant and it was — it was extraordinary, you are — it was really extraordinary.”
He takes a ballpoint pen out of his suit jacket and quickly scribbles his name and address on a scrap of paper. But Lalla shakes her head and doesn’t take the paper.
“I don’t know how to read,” she says.
“Then tell me where you live?” asks the photographer. He has very sad gray-blue eyes, very watery like those of dogs. Lalla looks at him with her eyes filled with light, and the man tries to think of something else to say.
“I live at the Hotel Sainte-Blanche,” says Lalla. And goes out hurriedly.
Outside, Radicz the beggar is waiting for her. The wind is blowing his long hair over his thin face. He doesn’t look happy. When Lalla talks to him he shrugs his shoulders.
Together, they walk till they reach the sea, not knowing where they are going. Here, the sea isn’t the same as at Naman the fisherman’s beach. It’s a big cement wall that runs along the coast, clinging to the gray rocks. The short waves come crashing into the hollows of the rocks, making explosions; the foam rises up like mist. But it’s great, Lalla loves to pass her tongue over her lips and taste the salt. She and Radicz climb down amongst the rocks till they get to a deep recess sheltered from the wind. The sun burns down very hot there; it sparkles out on the open sea and on the salty rocks. After the noise of the city, and after all those odd smells in the restaurant, it’s good to be out here, with nothing before you but the sea and the sky. Slightly westward, there are some small islands, a few black rocks sticking up out of the sea like whales — that’s what Radicz says. There are also some small boats with big white sails, and they look like children’s toys.