We jostled with the rest of the dancers. It was like being lashed to an upholstered pneumatic drill. I struggled round in her clammy embrace, trying to keep my feet, wriggling out of other men's way, and reflecting that I was a long way from home.
When the music stopped I disengaged myself and looked for our table. By this time the Third was talking earnestly to a thin, brown girl who had taken my chair.
'Thirty cruzeiros,' he said forcefully. 'Trinta. See?' He held up three fingers.
She shook her head. 'No!' she insisted. 'Cincoenta. Fifty, fifty, fifty!'
'Oh hell,' the Third said. 'Let's get out of here.'
We trooped down the stairs. 'Where now?' Archer asked when we were in the street.
'Madame Mimi's,' Trail said with finality. 'It's the only place where you can get a decent bottle of beer in town.'
'I think I'm going back to the ship,' I said.
'Come on, Doc! You don't have to sample the goods. Besides you'd get knifed walking back alone. Where is it, Second? Somewhere near the Rua Bittencourt, I think…'
He led us along threatening unlighted streets, where the pedestrians shuffled guiltily in the shadows like large rats.
'I think this is the number,' he said, stopping by the heavy door of an unlighted house. 'You fellows stay here and I'll go and see.'
He jumped up the steps and rang the bell. After a minute or so I saw him jab it again. The door opened. An old woman with her hair tied in a handkerchief stood against the inside light.
'Boa noite, senhora,' Trail began. He held a conversation in Portuguese with her, and I saw that he spoke the language rapidly and with great force, but unintelligibly. After he had delivered a string of sentences embellished heavily with gestures she held up a finger and disappeared to fetch help. A tall man in a dressing-gown came back with her. After a few words he pushed the Third abruptly down the steps, delivered a few hostile sentences, and slammed the door.
'Wrong place,' Trail explained, picking himself up. 'That seems to be the dentist's. It must be the house on the other corner.'
At the next door we were received with pleasure and shown immediately into the parlour.
Madame Mimi's was a sedate establishment. The parlour was furnished in the austere, grubby style popular with the Continental middle-class; it was a large apartment with big shuttered windows, containing several small tables and a larger one in the corner where Madame sat with three or four of her charges. On a dark, broken sideboard down one side were two unlighted candelabras, a sickly-looking plant, and a radio. Round the walls were pictures of the saints. Business was poor, and the room was quiet and inactive. One felt one had called on the vicar's daughters for tea.
Madame immediately recognized my companions and greeted them warmly.
'Ah, hello my little boys! Back so soon, eh? How goes it in cold England?'
She embraced the two of them. She was a big, over-powdered woman in a black dress, with a figure like a thawing snowman.
Not so dusty,' Archer said. 'Meet one of our shipmates.'
We embraced.
'Madame is a wonderful character,' Trail explained. 'Hails from France originally. She built up her own team here like a football manager.'
Now, boys,' Madame said. 'You would like some beer, no?'
'Lay it on, Madame,' Archer said, sitting down and slapping his knee. 'Lay on everything.'
Madame clapped her hands.
'Is that little girl Dina still here?' Trail asked.
Our hostess shrugged her shoulders powerfully.
'She is gone. She married a gentleman from Sгo Paulo.'
'Well, he hasn't done badly,' Trail observed. 'Let's have a look at the latest talent.'
Madame's assistant brought the tall green beer bottles and glasses, and three girls came over to sit with us. They were pretty girls-slim, dainty, smiling, glowing with cooperation.
'Americano?' asked the one next to me eagerly.
'No. Ingles.'
'Cigarette?' she asked, as winsomely as a schoolgirl appealing for pocket money. I gave her one, which she put carefully in her handbag. She began to stroke the back of my neck. I clasped my hands in front of me and stared defensively at the opposite wall.
'I lof you,' she said.
We sat like that for some time. Meanwhile, Trail and Archer had their girls on their knees and were conducting a conversation in a mixture of English, Portuguese, and giggles.
'You come with me?' the girl asked, playfully pulling a hair from my neck.
'No,' I said. 'I-I nгo gostar, or whatever it is. Nothing doing. Go and talk to my amigos…
I looked round and saw Trail and Archer disappearing up the stairs leading to the operational portion of the building.
'Hey!' I called, jumping up. 'Don't you fellows leave me!'
'It's all right, Doc. We won't be long.' Trail called over his shoulder. 'Finish the beer for us.
I sat gloomily down and bit my lip, feeling like a warning to young men. The girl, discouraged, got up and left me. I took my handkerchief out and wiped my forehead.
