Cocaine Read Free Page B

diamond.
    Tito scrutinized the room before observing the people in it; natural curiosity should have made him do the opposite but, to avoid rousing unjustified suspicions and to create the impression of being already initiated into the mysteries of drugs, he took his seat on the divan next to his friend in an offhand and casual manner.
    Then he picked up a newspaper.
    Three women looked at him suspiciously and mumbled something inaudible. But the girl who had laughed noisily at his remark in the other room a short time before turned to the others and, nodding in his direction, said : “Pas bête le type.”
    Tito observed the four women one by one. He noticed that their dresses were made of good materials, but were old, worn and neglected; the white of the organdy was yellowed, the leather trimmings were cracked, the silk was split, the belt twisted, the shoes not worn out but misshapen as a result of careless walking. One of the women had not properly washed her neck and her polished fingernails offered a repulsive contrast of red enamel and black filth.
    They huddled together side by side like birds in a cage as if to keep themselves warm. Three of them rested their feet on the horizontal metal bar under the table; the fourth had her heels on the edge of the seat with her calves up against her thighs like a closed jack-knife, and rested her chin on her knees. There was a glassy look in their eyes, and their bloodless but cruelly rouged lips looked unreal against the pallor of their faces.
    These four taciturn women (or was their taciturnity the result of the two strangers’ arrival?) seemed to be awaiting sentence by an invisible court that might appear through the curtains at any moment; in fact the least stupefied of them kept looking in that direction, though nothing whatever happened.
    Under the big mirror two thin men were mechanically playing dice with the listless indifference of aging clerks working away in a dusty office and being paid a salary, not for the work they did, but for the time they spent. One of them had his coat collar turned up over the silk handkerchief he wore instead of a detachable collar and tie. All Tito could see of the other was his shoulders and the back of his neck. His neglected hair came down over the back of his neck and met in the middle as if to form an embryonic tail. When he turned to have a look at the newcomers, Tito saw his face. It was one of those ugly faces that are to be seen only on days when there’s a general strike: a long, thin face, disfigured by corrosion, and fleshless, like one of those ox-skull ornaments that architects call bucranes.
    The woman who had spoken rose and went and said something to one of the two players; she leaned over his shoulder and stroked his ear with her cheek, but he went on playing, unperturbed. She lifted his jacket, took his cigarette case from his trouser pocket and, on her way back to her friends with a lit cigarette, she raised one leg to the level of her shoulders and with defiant roguishness brought it down on the table, making the glasses tinkle.
    “Are you enjoying yourself?” she said to Tito, who had not yet said anything. “It’s not very cheerful here.”
    “So I see,” he replied. “It’s more cheerful in the morgue.”
    The woman was offended. “Why don’t you go there then?” she snarled.
    One of the dice players turned and exclaimed: “Christine!”
    “They probably take us for two policemen or something of the sort,” Tito’s friend suggested.
    Tito laughed, and turned to the least taciturn of the women. “Your friends and the gentlemen playing dice must have formed a strange idea of us,” he said. “I have the impression that you’re all a trifle embarrassed. But we’re not what you suppose. I’m a journalist, and this is a colleague of mine. There’s nothing to be afraid of, as you can see.”
    “Journalist?” one of the three silent women said. “And what are you doing here?”
    “What one