Dancing Girls Read Free Page B

printed in block letters. “Thank you,” she said.
    “You now write
your
name,” he said, extending the pen.
    Christine hesitated. If this had been a person from her own culture she would have thought he was trying to pick her up. But then, people from her own culture never tried to pick her up; she was too big. The only one who had made the attempt was the Moroccan waiter at the beer parlour where they sometimes went after meetings, and he had been direct. He had just intercepted her on the way to the Ladies’ Room and asked and she said no; that had been that. This man was not a waiter though, but a student; she didn’t want to offend him. In his culture, whatever it was, this exchange of names on pieces of paper was probably a formal politeness, like saying thank you. She took the pen from him.
    “That is a very pleasant name,” he said. He folded the paper and placed it in his jacket pocket with the map.
    Christine felt she had done her duty. “Well, goodbye,” she said. “It was nice to have met you.” She bent for her tennis racquet but he had already stooped and retrieved it and was holding it with both hands in front of him, like a captured banner.
    “I carry this for you.”
    “Oh no, please. Don’t bother, I am in a hurry,” she said, articulating clearly. Deprived of her tennis racquet she felt weaponless. He started to saunter along the path; he was not nervous at all now, he seemed completely at ease.
    “Vous parlez français?”
he asked conversationally.
    “Oui, un petit peu
,” she said. “Not very well.” How am I going to get my racquet away from him without being rude? she was wondering.
    “Mais vous avez un bel accent.”
His eyes goggled at her through the glasses: was he being flirtatious? She was well aware that her accent was wretched.
    “Look,” she said, for the first time letting her impatience show, “I really have to go. Give me my racquet, please.”
    He quickened his pace but gave no sign of returning the racquet. “Where you are going?”
    “Home,” she said. “My house.”
    “I go with you now,” he said hopefully.
    “No,” she said: she would have to be firm with him. She made a lunge and got a grip on her racquet; after a brief tug of war it came free.
    “Goodbye,” she said, turning away from his puzzled face and setting off at what she hoped was a discouraging jog-trot. It was like walking away from a growling dog: you shouldn’t let on you were frightened. Why should she be frightened anyway? He was only half her size and she had the tennis racquet, there was nothing he could do to her.
    Although she did not look back she could tell he was still following. Let there be a streetcar, she thought, and there was one, but it was far down the line, stuck behind a red light. He appeared at her side, breathing audibly, a moment after she reached the stop. She gazed ahead, rigid.
    “You are my friend,” he said tentatively.
    Christine relented: he hadn’t been trying to pick her up after all, he was a stranger, he just wanted to meet some of the local people; in his place she would have wanted the same thing.
    “Yes,” she said, doling him out a smile.
    “That is good,” he said. “My country is very far.”
    Christine couldn’t think of an apt reply. “That’s interesting,” she said.
“Très intéressant.”
The streetcar was coming at last; she opened her purse and got out a ticket.
    “I go with you now,” he said. His hand clamped on her arm above the elbow.
    “You … stay … 
here,”
Christine said, resisting the impulse to shout but pausing between each word as though for a deaf person. She detached his hand – his hold was quite feeble and could not compete with her tennis biceps – and leapt off the curb and up the streetcar steps, hearing with relief the doors grind shut behind her. Inside the car and a block away she permitted herself a glance out a side window. He was standing where she had left him; he seemed to be writing