The Dividing Stream Read Free

to the sweating floors. What would she think if she knew that her son was walking above her—was at this moment standing outside one of the terrace suites while the American fumbled with his keys before they could enter? A strange feeling of pity, combined with resentment, shook him momentarily through his whole frame.
    While the boys went round the room, whistling their astonishment, Max unlocked his case, fetched out some Camels and threw them to Enzo. The Florentine clumsily drew out two cigarettes, one of which he gave to his friend, and then returned the packet.
    ‘‘Keep it,’’ Max said.
    ‘‘What?’’
    ‘‘Keep it, keep it,’’ said Rodolfo irritably. Finding his friend slow, he tended to bully him.
    ‘‘ Grazie, grazie .’’ Enzo pushed the cigarettes into one pocket of his shorts but at once they descended down the trouser-leg. Rodolfo guffawed, Enzo blushed and stooped to recover the gift.
    ‘‘His only pair of pants,’’ Rodolfo explained. ‘‘And he spent all this morning sewing them up. Look.’’ He turned his friend round like a dummy and showed the place where a rent in the seat had been untidily drawn together with a few large stitches. ‘‘Too small for him,’’ he said. ‘‘He never stops growing.’’ Suddenly his eye was caught by the open suit-case, in which lay Max’s passport and a heap of foreign money. He fingered a note:
    ‘‘French?’’
    ‘‘No, Swiss.’’
    ‘‘And this?’’
    ‘‘A florin.’’
    ‘‘How much is it worth?’’
    ‘‘About two hundred lire.’’
    Max shut the case and locked it.
    ‘‘He doesn’t trust us,’’ Rodolfo said to Enzo in an aside which none the less reached the American’s ears. He laughed:
    ‘‘I don’t blame him, with all that money.’’ He turned to Max: ‘‘You’re rich.’’ It was a statement, not a question, and of course it was true. But Max had never applied that word to himself, being, like most rich people, a little afraid of it. He now shrugged his shoulders, no less embarrassed than if the Italian had suddenly announced, ‘‘You’re good.’’
    ‘‘Nice stuff.’’ Rodolfo had begun to finger the material of the suit which, an hour previously, had been pressed by Enzo’s mother in the hotel laundry. He rubbed it against his cheek. ‘‘How much?’’
    ‘‘How much?’’ Max echoed.
    ‘‘How much did it cost?’’
    ‘‘Twenty-five guineas. It was made for me in England.’’
    ‘‘In lire?’’
    ‘‘Oh, I really don’t know,’’ Max said impatiently. For some reason he had already lied about the suit; it had, in fact, cost forty, not twenty-five, guineas.
    ‘‘And these brushes?’’ Rodolfo picked them up and began applying them to his hair which, according to the fashion of the moment, had been cut à l’Américain and stood up in a dense, coarse mat, black and slightly scurfy at the roots.
    ‘‘Please don’t use those.’’
    Rodolfo went on brushing his hair.
    ‘‘I said please don’t use those.’’
    When Max attempted to grab the brushes, the boy slithered away, with a giggle, and at once began to brush the hair of his friend. But seeing Max’s displeasure, Enzo grabbed Rodolfo’s right arm and slowly twisted it until the Tunisian squirmed and squealed in pain; the two ivory-backed brushes clattered to the floor. The Florentine picked them up, dusted them between his hands, and returned them to the dressing-table.
    ‘‘I think you’d better be going now.… And please don’t put your cigarette-end down the wash-basin,’’ Max added irritably.
    ‘‘Give it to me.’’ The Florentine took the cigarette from the Tunisian, went out on to the terrace, and there ground it beneath his heel. Evidently it had never occurred to either of the boys that the two crystal and gold dishes over which they had whistled when they had first come in, might really be ash-trays.
    ‘‘What are you doing there?’’ a voice demanded in English. ‘‘ Why are you