Dyar laughed abruptly; it must have sounded derisive, for Madame Werth said accusingly: «You think kindness does not matter?»
«Sure it matters. It’s very important». At the moment he felt expansive and a little reckless; it would be pleasurable to sit beside Daisy and worry her. She could not see whom he was talking to from where she sat, and he wanted to watch her reaction when he told her. Presently a Swiss gentleman joined them and began speaking with Madame Werth in French. Dyar slipped away, finishing his drink quickly and getting another before he went over to the divan where Daisy was.
«Two compatriots of yours,» she said, moving over so he could squeeze in beside her. «Mr. Dyar. Mrs. Holland, Mr. Richard Holland». The two acknowledged the introduction briefly, with what seemed more diffidence than coldness.
«We were talking about New York,» said Daisy. «Mr. and Mrs. Holland are from New York, and they say they feel quite as much at home here as they do there. I told them that was scarcely surprising, since Tangier is more New York than New York. Don’t you agree?»
Dyar looked at her closely; then he looked at Mrs. Holland, who met his gaze for a startled instant and began to inspect her shoes. Mr. Holland was staring at him with great seriousness, like a doctor about to arrive at a diagnosis, he thought. «I don’t think I see what you mean,» said Dyar. «Tangier like New York? How come?»
«In spirit,» said Mr. Holland with impatience. «Not in appearance, naturally. Are you from New York? I thought Madame de Valverde said you were». Dyar nodded. «Then you must see how alike the two places are. The life revolves wholly about the making of money. Practically everyone is dishonest. In New York you have Wall Street, here you have the Bourse. Not like the bourses in other places, but the soul of the city, its raison d’être. In New York you have the slick financiers, here the money changers. In New York you have your racketeers. Here you have your smugglers. And you have every nationality and no civic pride. And each man’s waiting to suck the blood of the next. It’s not really such a far-fetched comparison, is it?»
«I don’t know,» said Dyar. At first he had thought he agreed, but then the substance of Holland’s argument had seemed to slip away from him. He took a long swallow of whiskey. The phonograph was playing «Mamá Inez». «I guess there are plenty of untrustworthy people here, all right,» he said.
«Untrustworthy!» cried Mr. Holland. «The place is a model of corruption!»
«But darling,» Daisy interrupted. «Tangier’s a one-horse town that happens to have its own government. And you know damned well that all government lives on corruption. I don’t care what sort — socialist, totalitarian, democratic — it’s all the same. Naturally in a little place like this you come in contact with the government constantly. God knows, it’s inevitable. And so you’re always conscious of the corruption. It’s that simple».
Dyar turned to her. «I was just talking with Madame Werth over there». Daisy looked at him calmly for a moment. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Then she laughed. «I being the sort of person I am, and you being the sort of person you are, I think we can skip over that. Tell me, Mrs. Holland, have you read The Thousand and One Nights?»
«The Mardrus translation,» said Mrs. Holland without looking up.
«All of it?»
«Well, not quite. But most».
«And do you adore it?»
«Well, I admire it terribly. But Dick’s the one who loves it. It’s a little direct for me, but then I suppose the culture had no nuances either».
Dyar had finished his drink and was again thinking of getting in to where the dancing was going on. He sat still, hoping the conversation might somehow present him with a possibility of withdrawing gracefully. Daisy was addressing Mr. Holland. «Have you ever noticed how completely illogical the end of each one of those thousand and one nights actually is? I’m curious to know».
«Illogical?» said Mr. Holland. «I don’t think so».
«Oh, my dear! Really! Doesn’t it say, at the end of each night: ‘And Schahrazade, perceiving the dawn, discreetly became silent’?»
«Yes».
«And then doesn’t it say: ‘And the King and Schahrazade went to bed and remained locked in one another’s arms until morning’?»
«Yes».
«Isn’t that rather a short time? Especially for Arabs?»
Mrs. Holland directed an oblique upward glance at Daisy, and returned to the contemplation of her feet.
«I think you misunderstand the time-sequence,» said Mr. Holland, sitting up straight with a sudden spasmodic movement, as if he were getting prepared for a discussion. Dyar got quickly to his feet. He had decided he did not like Mr. Holland, who he imagined found people agreeable to the extent that they were interested in hearing him expound his theories. Also he was a little disappointed to find that Daisy had met his challenge with such bland complacency. «She didn’t bat an eyelash,» he thought. It had been no fun at all to confront her with the accusation. Or perhaps she had not even recognized his remark as such. The idea occurred to him as he reached the part of the room where the phonograph was, but he rejected it. Her reply could have meant only that she admitted she had been found out, and did not care. She was even more brazen than he had imagined. For no particular reason, knowing this depressed him, put him back into the gray mood of despair he had felt the night of his arrival on the boat, enveloped him in the old uneasiness.
A few couples were moving discreetly about the small floor-space, doing more talking than dancing. As Dyar stood watching the fat Frenchman swaying back and forth on his feet, trying to lead an elderly English woman in a turban who had taken a little too much to drink, Abdelmalek Beidaoui came up to him bringing with him a tall Portuguese girl, cadaver-thin and with a cast in one eye. It was obvious that she wanted to dance, and she accepted with eagerness. Although she kept her hips against his as they danced, she leant sharply backward from the waist and peered at him fixedly while she told him bits of gossip about the people in the other part of the room. In speaking she kept her lips drawn back so that her gums were fully visible. «Jesus, I’ve got to get out of here,» Dyar thought. But they went on, record after record. At the close of a samba, he said to her, panting somewhat exaggeratedly: «Tired?» «No, no!» she cried. «You are marvelous dancer».
Here and there candles had begun to go out; the room was chilly, and a damp wind came through the open door from the garden. It was that moment of the evening when everyone had arrived and no one had yet thought of going home; one could have said that the party was in full swing, save that there was a peculiar deadness about the gathering which made it difficult to believe that a party was actually in progress. Later, in retrospect, one might be able to say that it had taken place, but now, while it still had not finished, it was somehow not true.
The Portuguese girl was telling him about Estoril, and how Monte Carlo even at its zenith never had been so glamorous. If at that moment someone had not taken hold of his arm and yanked on it violently he would probably have said something rather rude. As it was, he let go of the girl abruptly and turned to face Eunice Goode, who was by then well primed with martinis. She was looking at the frowning Portuguese girl with a polite leer. «I’m afraid you’ve lost your dancing partner,» she said, steadying herself by putting one hand against the wall. «He’s coming with me into the other room».