Fo'castle Waltz

The smug expression of that debonair and patient epicurean. Perry, drained out of his mug and left it a bleached blank as he too realized we had been so eager not to rush, to take our time, we'd all forgotten about food completely. We hadn't stopped for that good dinner as we'd planned. Without a word he led us back to the main street. In a small, dull restaurant we ate our dull steak Caballero (again) and we chewed it slowly, quietly. We had another Martel cognac and Cafe Expresso and we lingered over it as if to prove that, although we had made the mistake of dashing off to the women ahead of all the men on the ship, the men from the packing houses, from the big steel works, the Argentine Navy yard and its whole Naval Academy personnel—for all that, we were in complete control of our passions—discriminating gentlemen who were very particular about their women.

For a little while longer we did penance.

We rose and walked up the darkened main street of the town. This time we didn't cut down one of those alleys, as we had before too quickly, to get to the bright-doored houses. None of us talked much. There was no one along the main streets. The few shops were dark. Now and then we'd see a dim light in the windows of one of the low wooden houses that lined the streets. About the center of the second block there was a shop with its windows lit up. We crossed the broad dirt road to look in.

Through the shop's window, lit by an unshaded bulb, we could see two round-cheeked young girls sitting on straight-backed chairs facing each other so that we saw them in profile. They were busily, silently, sewing some pinkish satin material. Both were dressed in long black clothes and looked very pretty, pale, and virtuous as they sat there plying their needles. Between them facing the window sat a corseted older woman also dressed in black. She too was sewing on some stuff that fell over her lap and down to the floor. Only the old woman talked —to one girl, then the other, and they didn't answer. They kept their heads bowed over their work. We could see their high young bosoms rising and falling as we watched.

It was a pretty picture—probably the town's seamstress and her daughters, or these round-armed, black-gowned sweet girls with their gentle, rounded pale faces might have been her assistants. In any case, they were her charges and she clucked to them like a fussy, pompous little hen.

We stood watching them there.

"Betcha dose are virgins," Perry whispered.

"Yeah."

"Pretty, ain't they?" I said.

"You bet—dey're nice girls."

The old woman had lifted her head and saw us staring in at them. How she clucked and fussed at her little plump chickens. And those little darlings turned their heads, looked at us with a fleeting smile, and quickly turned back to their work. The old hen was having tantrums as she sat there, so we gave them a wave and left their window. We turned in at the very next alley and went down to the houses.

Those narrow streets had taken on a completely different character. Now they were filled with men walking in groups. Here and there, spotted among them, were young naval cadets in uniform and some ship's officers. They moved quietly; the gleam of their cigarettes flecked the street in a steady slow-moving stream. Occasionally a few would break off from the main flow and open the large doors of one of the houses and disappear into it.

In quick succession. Perry, Joe, and I walked in and out of a couple of the smaller places. There were usually only four or five mature-looking women in them. Our entrance would raise a flurry of activity, but we backed out quickly. Those houses weren't doing much business.

Perry led us into one of the biggest houses in the port, he said. There were a lot of women there—not the seventy or a hundred he'd promised and Joe had anticipated, but I'd judge about thirty or forty. It was pretty much like the first house we'd been in. There again was the big lobby-like room with the same little round tables, but in this house men sat at some of those tables and the girls talked to them or sat on their laps and gossiped across to girls sitting on some other customer's lap. Those guys were just seats.

One of the biggest, happiest, most docile seats for a frowzy, sandy-haired dame in a Paris-green kimono was our own Chips —the big Russian. His dame sat his lap as if she rode a wooden horse on a carousel. She rode sidesaddle with her knees crossed, exposing her heavy legs with sagging garterless stockings, and she was in the midst of a heated discussion with a skinny woman perched on the lap of a sad-faced little man a few tables away. We could see Chips' radiant face now and then through the swinging of her kimono sleeves as she jabbered to her girl friend. Chips smiled at us shyly. He wore his straw hat straight, his shoulders squared, and one of his big hands around her waist sank into the rolls of fat that graced her middle. His other hand shyly cupped her pudgy knee. Chips was having a good time.