Stories by English Authors: Africa Part 13

"Who?"

"Xantippe. She came to me to-day, and I saw she had been crying. But I said nothing, because it is not always wise to ask questions. I thought she wept because she was hungry and because the baby was hungry. I offered her food and she took some, but so little, scarcely enough to cover a ten-piastre piece. 'That is for the baby,' I said; 'now some for you.' But she refused."

"Perhaps she had food for herself," said Gregorio, s.h.i.+fting uneasily in his chair.

"Perhaps," said the woman, and laughed again, more loudly than ever, till the table shook. "But she asked me for something else," she continued, when her merriment languished for want of breath; "she asked me to let her have an old dress of mine, a bright yellow-and-red dress, and she borrowed some ornaments. It is not right of you, Gregorio, to keep an old friend on the door-step when you have a fantasia."

Gregorio scowled savagely. After a pause he said, "I don't know why my wife wanted your dress and ornaments."

"Oh yes, you do, friend Gregorio." And she laughed again, this time a suppressed, chuckling laugh that threatened to choke her; and she supported her chin on her hands, while her eyes peered through the enveloping fat at the man who sat opposite to her. Suddenly she stood up, and taking Gregorio by the arm dragged him to the door.

"See, there she goes. My garments are cleverly altered and suit her finely, don't they? Ah, well, my friend, a man who cannot support a wife should marry a woman who can support him."

Gregorio did not stop to answer her, but pushed past her into the street. The woman watched him enter the house opposite, and then returned quietly to her work. But there was a smile hovering round her lips as she murmured to herself, "Ah, well, in time."

Gregorio meanwhile had run up to his room and entered it breathless with excitement. The first glance told him that Amos had seized all he could, for nothing remained save a wooden bench and one or two coa.r.s.e, half-disabled cooking utensils.

Gregorio swore a little as he realised what had happened. Then he saw in a corner by the window his son and Ahmed.

"She has gone," said Ahmed, as Gregorio's gaze rested on him. But she might have gone merely to market, or to see a neighbour, for all the imperturbable Arab face disclosed. As soon as he had spoken the man bent over the child, laughing softly as the youngster played with his beard.

For the Arab, as he is miscalled, is fond of children, and there are none to whom children take so readily as to the Egyptian fellahin.

Gregorio watched the two for a moment, and then placing his remaining piastres in the man's hand bade him bring food and wine. As soon as he was left alone with his son, he flung himself down on the floor and kissed, "You shall be a great man, ay, a rich man, my son."

He repeated the sentence over and over again, punctuating it with kisses, while the two-year-old regarded him wonderingly, until Ahmed returned.

When the meal was ended Gregorio took the boy in his arms and sang to him softly till at last the infant slept. Then he placed him gently on the floor, having first made of his coat a bed, and went to the window and flung back the shutters. He smoked quietly as the minutes went by, waiting impatiently for his wife to return. It seemed to him monstrous that the boy who was to inherit a fortune should be sleeping on the dirty floor wrapped in an old coat; that an Arab, a mere fellah, should amuse his son and play with him, when Greek nurses were to be hired in Alexandria had one only the money. Long after midnight he heard a step on the stairs, and a minute after the door opened. He recognised his wife's footsteps, and he rose to meet her. As she came into the room she looked quickly round, and seeing her son went toward him and kissed him.

Gregorio, half afraid, stood by the window watching her. She let her glance rest on him a minute, then she turned round and laid her cloak upon the floor.

"Xantippe!"

But she did not answer.

"Xantippe, I have fed our son. The good days are coming when we shall be rich and happy."

But Xantippe was too busy folding out the creases of her cloak to notice him. The moonlight streamed on to her, and her face shone like an angel's. Gregorio made one step toward her, ravished, for she had never appeared so beautiful to him. For the moment he forgot the whole hideous history of the last few days and the brief, horrible conversation of the night before. Fired with a desire to touch her, to kiss her, to whisper into her ear, in the soft Greek speech, all the endearments and tendernesses that had won her when he wooed her, he placed his hand upon her arm. As if stung by a venomous snake, the woman recoiled from his touch. With a quick movement she sprang back and flung at his face a handful of gold and silver coins.

"Take them; they're yours," she cried, huskily, and retreated into the farthest corner of the room.

With a savage curse Gregorio put his hand to his lips and wiped away the blood, for a heavy coin had cut him. Then he ran swiftly downstairs, and Xantippe, as she lay down wearily beside her boy, heard a woman laugh.

V--XANTIPPE LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW

The Penny-farthing Shop was full of customers, and Madam Marx, the fat woman who followed Gregorio to the bar, was for a long time busy attending to her clients. Some English war-s.h.i.+ps had entered the harbour at sunset, and many of the sailors had lost no time in seeking out their favourite haunt. Most of them knew Madam Marx well, as a good-natured woman who gave them plenty to drink for their money, and secreted them from the eyes of the police when the liquor overpowered them.

Consequently there was much laughter and shaking of hands, and many a rough jest, which Madam Marx responded to in broken English. Gregorio watched the sailors gloomily. He hated the English, for even their sailors seemed to have plenty of money, and he recalled the rich Englishman he had seen at the Cafe Paradiso, drinking champagne and buying flowers for the Hungarian woman who played the fiddle. The scene he had just left contrasted disagreeably with the fun and jollity that surrounded him. But he felt unable to shake off his gloom and annoyance, and Madam Marx's attentions irritated him. He felt that her eyes continually rested on him, that, however busy she might be, he was never out of her thoughts. Every few minutes she would come toward him with a bottle of wine and fill up his gla.s.s, saying, "Come, my friend; wine is good and will drown your troubles." And though he resented her patronage, knowing he could not pay, he nevertheless drank steadily.

Every few minutes he heard the sound of horses' hoofs on the hard roadway, and through the windows he saw the military police pa.s.s slowly on their rounds.

At last the strong drinks so amiably retailed by Madam Marx did their work, and the men lay about the floor asleep and breathing heavily. The silence succeeding the noise startled Gregorio from his sullen humour.

Madam Marx came and sat beside him, weary as she was with her long labours, and talked volubly. The wine had mounted to his head, and he answered her in rapid sentences, accompanying his words with gesture and grimace. What he talked about he scarcely knew, but the woman laughed, and he took an insane delight in hearing her. Just before daylight he fell asleep, resting his head on his arms, that were spread across the table. Madam Marx kissed him as he slept, murmuring to herself contentedly, "Ah, well, in time."

When Gregorio woke the sun was high in the heavens, blazing out of a brazen sky. Clouds of dust swept past the door from time to time, and cut his neck and face as he stood on the threshold smoking lazily. It was too late to go down to the quay, for his place must have long ago been filled by another. He was not sorry, since he by no means desired to toil again under the hot sun; the heavy drinking of the night had made him lethargic, and he was so thirsty the heat nearly choked him.

He called out to a water-carrier staggering along in the scanty shade on the opposite side of the street, and took eagerly a draught of water.

He touched the pigskin with his hand, and it was hot. The water was warm and made him sick; he spat it from his mouth hastily, and hearing a laugh behind him, turned round and saw Madam Marx.

"See, here is some wine, my friend; leave the water for the Arabs."

Gregorio gratefully seized the flagon and let the wine trickle down his throat, while Madam Marx, with arms akimbo, stood patiently before him.

"I must go now," he said, as he handed back the half-emptied flask.

"Why?"

"Because I must get some work."

"It is not easy to get work in the summer."

"I know, but I must get some. I owe money to Amos."

"Yes, I know. But your wife is making money now."

The man scowled at her. "How do you know that? Before G.o.d, I swear that she is not."

"Come, come, Gregorio. You were drunk last night, and your tongue wagged pretty freely. It's not a bit of use being angry with me, because I only know what you've told me. Besides, I'm your friend, you know that."

Gregorio flushed angrily at the woman's words, but he knew quite well it was no use replying to them, for she was speaking only the truth. But the knowledge that he had betrayed his secret annoyed him. He had grown used to the facts and could look at them easily enough, but he had not reckoned on others also learning them.

He determined to go out and find work, or at any rate to tramp the streets pretending to look for something to do. The woman became intolerable to him, and the Penny-farthing Shop, reeking with the odour of stale tobacco and spilled liquor, poisoned him. He took up his hat brusquely and stepped into the street.

Madam Marx, standing at the door, laughed at him as she called out, "Good-bye, Gregorio; when will you come back?"

He did not answer, but the sound of her laughter followed him up the street, and he kicked angrily at the stones in his path.

At last he pa.s.sed by the Ras-el-Tin barracks. He looked curiously at the English soldiers. Some were playing polo on the hard brown s.p.a.ce to the left, and from the windows of the building men leaned out, their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled up and their strong arms bared to the sun. They smoked short clay pipes, and innumerable little blue spiral clouds mounted skyward. Obviously the heat did not greatly inconvenience them, for they laughed and sang and drank oceans of beer.

The sight of them annoyed Gregorio. He looked at the pewter mugs s.h.i.+ning in the sunlight. He eyed greedily the pa.s.sage of one from hand to hand; and when one man, after taking a long pull, laughed and held it upside down to show him it was empty, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of anger, and shook his fist impotently at the soldiers, who chaffed him good-naturedly. As he went along by the stables, a friendly lancer, pitying him, probably, too, wearying of his own lonely watch, called to him, and offered him a drink out of a stone bottle. Gregorio drank again feverishly, and handed the bottle back to its owner with a grin, and pa.s.sed on without a word. The soldier watched him curiously, but said nothing.

When he reached the lighthouse Gregorio flung himself on to the pebble-strewn sand and looked across the bay. The blue water, calm and unruffled as a sheet of gla.s.s, spread before him. The s.h.i.+ps--Austrian Lloyd mail-boats, P. and O. liners, and grimy coal-hulks--lay motionless against the white side of the jetty.

The khedive's yacht was bright with bunting, and innumerable fis.h.i.+ng-boats near the breakwater made grateful oases in the glare whereon his eyes might rest. But he heeded them not. Angrily he flung lumps of stone and sand into the wavelets at his feet, and pushed back his hat that his face might feel the full heat of the sun. Then he lit a cigarette and began to think.

But what was the good of thinking? The thoughts always formed themselves into the same chain and reached the same conclusion; and ever on the gla.s.sy surface of the Levantine sea a woman poised herself and laughed at him.

When the sun fell behind the horizon, and the breakwater, after das.h.i.+ng up one flash of gold, became a blue blur, Gregorio rose to go. As he walked back toward the Penny-farthing Shop he felt angry and unsatisfied. The whole day was wasted. He had done nothing to relieve his wife, nothing to pay off Amos. Madam met him at the door, a flask of wine in her hand. Against his will Gregorio entered her cafe and smiled, but his smile was sour and malevolent.