Sin in Algiers

by Roland Graeme

  “And—these women—while they are dancers, before they get married—are they chaste?”

  Tarik shrugged. “Women are women. Some protect their virginity. Others take lovers, or sell themselves for money. But once they marry, all that is finished, and forgotten. From then on, the husband is the lord and master. Should a wife betray her husband with another man—”

  “He may divorce her?” Nigel guessed.

  “He may kill her.”

  Nigel remembered the story Daumier had told him, about Carnot the innkeeper, and his errant wife. “With impunity?”

  “No one would blame him. He would be blamed for not doing so.”

  “How barbaric,” Nigel murmured.

  Tarik smiled. “May I ask how such matters are handled in England?”

  “Well, there, if a husband and wife are sensible—they turn a blind eye to each other’s peccadillos,” Nigel admitted.

  “How civilized,” Tarik said.

  They rode through winding, crowded streets, past bazaars and mosques, barracks and cafés, until finally the carriage turned into an alley and began to ascend a steep hill. Suddenly, the driver pulled on the reins and brought the horses to a stop.

  “We are almost there,” Tarik explained. “But the carriage can go no farther. The street is too narrow from here on. We must walk. Pay the man, monsieur. We can easily find another carriage later, to take you back to the hotel.”

  They descended, and the two Europeans followed Tarik.

  The steep alley wound its way upward, with a crumbling stone rampart protecting one side of it. Looking over the rampart, Nigel saw the city spread out far below them—dark for the most part except for the lights of the streets, and the lights of the ships in the harbor.

  They shared the alley with many other pedestrians. Nigel and Mornay became objects of intense curiosity. Robed and hooded Arabs, rakish Zouaves resplendent in blue and red, tradesmen, peddlers, and beggars, veiled women covered with jewels which sparkled through their diaphanous coverings—they all stared at two young foreign men, pointed at them, and uttered remarks about them in French, Arabic, and other languages.

  Tarik, Nigel saw, simply ignored the people whom they passed, and so Nigel did his best to imitate the guide’s example.

  They found themselves at the top of the hill, in a small open space where the ground was strewn with pebbles underfoot. A crowd was loitering in front of one of the buildings. Through the lighted windows came drifts of tobacco smoke, along with the sound of laughter, almost drowned out by a din of wild music.

  “We have arrived. This is one of the largest and most popular dancing houses in the Kasbah,” Tarik declared. “Shall we go in? I must warn you, though, that it is likely to be a diverse—and in some cases, an unwashed—crowd.”

  “All right,” Nigel replied. He remembered what his mother had told him about the necessity of making personal sacrifices, for the sake of literature.

  A number of indolent-looking native soldiers were gathered around the entrance. Without ceremony, Tarik pushed his way through them, and Nigel and Mornay followed him inside.

  The interior of the café was a large open space, two stories tall. The ceiling was supported by massive white pillars. A double row of divans took up much of the space in the middle of the floor, and more divans rose in tiers all around. At the end farthest away from the street entrance was a raised wooden platform. On the upper level, a broad landing ran the length of the room. This landing was connected to the platform below by a staircase.

  Lit oil lamps, which sometimes emitted smoke as well as light, and pelargoniums planted in rough earthenware pots, were spaced at intervals around the perimeters of the platform, on the sides of the staircase, and along the upper landing. The flowers—red, white, and pink—glowed in the soft amber-yellowish lamplight.

  The landing was crowded with gorgeously dressed and elaborately painted women, who smoked cigarettes and allowed themselves to be admired by the men below while they waited their turn to dance.

  In one corner of the platform sat three musicians—a wild-looking man blowing a conical wind instrument with a flared bell at its end, and two other men beating tom-toms. They managed to produce a great deal of noise, with the shrill wailing of the pipe underlain by the steady beat of the drums.

  The audience, seated on the divans, or standing in the corners of the room, was exclusively male—mostly Arabs swaddled in their burnouses, with a few Europeans and soldiers here and there.

  Tarik showed Nigel and Mornay to one of the raised divans, where they sat and were served coffee, set before them on a small painted wooden table.

  The women, who were dressed in different shades of red, orange, pink, blue, and green, made a great show of descending the staircase, alone, in pairs, or in small groups. They wore elaborate headdresses, and they were festooned with jewelry, including coins pierced with holes and strung onto chains, to create necklaces, bracelets, and girdles. When they stepped out onto the platform, they danced, revolving in energetic, indeed violent, gyrations. They shook their hips and rolled their stomachs. They writhed, twirled about, and wriggled, all the while raising their arms and fluttering their hennaed fingers in the air like startled birds.

  In the course of their revolutions, the dancers came close to the spectators who were seated around the platform. Then they displayed what was apparently one of their specialties. Leaning over backward in seeming defiance of gravity, they continued to agitate their lower limbs, while they thrust their torsos and their heads virtually into the laps of the male patrons of the café. With their faces turned up toward the ceiling, and their arms and hands still fluttering, the dancers tantalized the men.

  Nigel soon realized that any man who found himself with a dancer flaunting herself thus in front of him was expected to give her money. The man would take a silver coin from his pocket—from his purse, if he was as Arab whose garb had no pockets—and press it firmly upon the dancer’s perspiring forehead. The coin adhered temporarily to the woman’s greasy flesh. As she moved on to the next customer, she deftly transferred the coin from her forehead to some secret cache, hidden away inside the folds of her costume. No coin ever seemed to fall to the floor.

  Nigel observed this barbaric spectacle, fascinated by the garishly clad figures in their golden crowns and ostrich plumes and jangling jewelry, who gyrated so shamelessly before the turbaned and hooded men and accepted their money.

  All the while, the musicians kept up their strident, relentless uproar. The dancers, too—even while they waited their turn to perform—added to the cacophony, by opening their mouths, extending their tongues, and shrieking in wild ululations.

  “Do the women please you?” Tarik asked.

  “They are like painted and gilded idols,” Nigel replied.

  “And yet, underneath their finery, they are flesh—warm flesh,” the guide purred. “There is not one of them who cannot be had—for a price.”

  “Speak decently,” the Englishman admonished him.

  “Forgive me, monsieur. I say no more than the truth. And,” he added, slyly, “I thought you wished to experience—wickedness.”

  “I do,” Nigel admitted. “But vicariously.”

  “Only vicariously?”

  “Well—”

  “We are men,” Tarik said, in that same soft, insinuating tone of voice. “And we men have our desires—our needs. Our secrets, as well. There is no need for embarrassment.”

  “I am not the least bit embarrassed,” Nigel lied. “However—I think I’ve seen enough—of this,” he added, a bit sullenly. Through the doorway, where the native soldiers still congregated, he could see the dark sand filtering into the narrow street from the desert, and the black leaves of a palm tree, silhouetted against the silver disc of the moon. “It’s stifling in here. Let’s go get some fresh air, shall we? If such a thing exists in this heat.”

  “Wait a moment,” Tarik urged, whispering in Nigel’s ear.

  “For what?” />
  “For Maleka. She is the most beautiful of the dancers. Ah—here she comes.”

  A girl, dressed in midnight purple embroidered with silver threads, and smothered in jewelry, slowly descended the staircase, and she began to dance—alone. She was very young, it seemed, although it was difficult to tell for sure because of her heavy makeup. In contrast to many of the other women, she was very beautiful. She had grace, seduction, mystery, and coquetry in her face and in all of her movements. Her black eyes smoldered with fire and dreams, her restless hands seemed to beckon the onlookers to the fabled realms of the thousand and one nights. She would not have been out of place in a sultan’s harem. Nigel remained seated beside Tarik and Mornay, and along with them he watched her.

  The girl slithered across the platform until she was dancing directly in front of Mornay. She writhed close to his knees, smiling with her immense dark eyes, which she fixed steadily upon him, and bending forward her graceful head, covered with a cloth of silver handkerchief.

  “Give her this,” Nigel advised his valet, who stared back at the girl blankly.

  Mornay took the five-franc coin which his master handed him, stuck it awkwardly against Maleka’s oval forehead, and watched as she pocketed the coin and moved on to Nigel. He, too, gave her a coin. Then it was Tarik’s turn to take the money from Nigel and offer it to the dancer.

  The richer by fifteen francs, she moved to the center of the platform, where she shook her body with real abandon.

  “We will leave now,” Nigel decreed, decisively, after Maleka had concluded her dance and retreated up the staircase.

  The three men rose and made their way back out into the street. Somewhat to Nigel’s surprise, they did not retrace their previous route. Instead, Tarik led them through another winding alleyway, which descended gradually, by twists and turns.

  “How do you ever find your way about within this maze?” Nigel asked.

  “By long experience,” Tarik replied. “And—there are certain signs, as you see.” He indicated some Arabic words scrawled at eye level upon one of the nearby whitewashed walls.

  At the foot of the hill, they stepped out into a broader, paved street.

  “Shall I find us a carriage, monsieur?” Tarik asked.

  “No, I believe we can walk back to the hotel from here,” Nigel replied. “It did not seem to be far. And I would like to see something of the city, by night.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Tell me, Tarik—” Nigel said, a little hesitantly, as they began to walk.

  “Monsieur?”

  “If a man wanted to hire the services of one of those dancing girls—to dance for him in private—or to entertain him in other ways—could that be arranged?”

  “Certainly, monsieur.”

  “And how, exactly, would that be done?”

  “You must not approach the woman directly. That is not done here, except—well, except in certain other places and situations. The business must be transacted through an intermediary, a man.” Tarik smiled his characteristic, rather secretive and knowing, smile. “Maleka pleased you, monsieur?”

  “The young lady has her attractions.”

  “If you would like to spend some time with her, or with another of those other dancers, in private—we can return to the dancing house, and I will arrange it,” Tarik said, with a pimp’s smoothness.

  “No, thank you, Tarik. I was speaking purely theoretically. I need to know how such things are done here. I will take the matter under advisement, and perhaps, on some later occasion—? For now, though, I am interested in what you said a moment ago. About other places and situations, in which a man may approach a woman directly?”

  “Would you like me not merely to explain that in words, but to show you? That can easily be done.”

  “Yes, show us,” Nigel agreed.

  “We must turn onto this street, and walk a little way farther, through the native quarter.”

  “Lead on.”

  Chapter Six: A Street of Women

  They entered a labyrinth of streets and alleys, all of which were once again too narrow to accommodate any horse-drawn vehicle. Foot traffic only was possible here. They often had to step aside and press themselves against the walls at one side of the street or the other, in order to let other pedestrians pass. They passed doorways and windows, most of which were dark. Here and there, though, a light could be glimpsed, flickering away inside a room which was closed off from view from the street by shutters or draperies.

  “I am glad we have our revolvers, sir,” Mornay whispered, in his master’s ear. “We may need them.”

  Tarik had overheard him. “You are with me, messieurs,” the guide said, serenely. “You will be quite safe. This is a respectable neighborhood. Families of the working class reside here, in these houses. As you see, most of them have shut up their houses and gone to bed. Follow me, without fear. We are almost at our destination.”

  “Which is?” Nigel inquired.

  “You will see it in a moment. Ah, here we are. We need only turn this corner.”

  They did so, and they entered yet another quiet street—which, at first glance, seemed indistinguishable from all the others. The three men did seem, however, to be the only pedestrians negotiating this street at the moment.

  The full moon, suspended high in the black sky overhead, cast its sickly, silvery light down upon the scene.

  “How odd,” Nigel exclaimed. “Suddenly, after so much noise, and so many other people—we seem to be alone, in a very quiet street.”

  “That is because this no ordinary street,” Tarik said.

  “In what way is it extraordinary?”

  “Monsieur may see and judge for himself.”

  “I am looking, but I see nothing unusual,” Nigel protested.

  He peered into the darkness.

  In this narrow alley, the balconies of the houses once again nearly met, almost touching each other high above the street. But what was exceptional, Nigel now realized, was that no figures leaned on the balconies’ railings. No chattering voices broke the dense, furtive silence which prevailed here, in contrast to elsewhere in this quarter of the city. The moonlight fell on the street more faintly here, obscured by the closely set buildings.

  At the moment, there was no Arab male in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was profound. Because the windows of the houses, protected by shutters and gratings, were dark, it seemed to Nigel that all of the inhabitants must be in bed and asleep. But, as he and his two companions walked on, he noticed faint illuminations here and there. The rooms nearest the windows overlooking the street were often lit by lamps, and in many of them veiled figures could be glimpsed through the gaps in the shutters. These enigmatic occupants stood or sat, motionless, peering out into the street.

  The three men had instinctively slowed their pace. They strolled past house after house. The dwellings were difficult to distinguish from one another. Each seemed to have the same narrow Moorish archway on its ground level, with a wooden door set back against the outer wall, the doorway opening to reveal a steep and narrow staircase leading up to the higher floors—which were lost from view in shadow and mystery.

  They passed one house where, upon the landing at the top of the stairs, a heavy, ornate brass candlestick stood, with a lit candle guttering in it. Next to the light, on the steps, sat a young woman—richly dressed, thickly painted, and covered with barbarous jewels. Her hands, tinted with henna, were folded demurely in her lap. Her eyes gleamed as she looked out impassively toward the street.

  The candle threw upon her a light which half revealed, half concealed her figure. Had it not been for the life in her eyes, she might have been mistaken for some pagan idol, placed outdoors to be worshipped by the passersby.

  Nigel stopped, and he turned his head to observe the woman more closely. His two companions followed his example. She gazed down upon the men impassively, not deigning to acknowledge their presence.

  Nigel was about to ask Tarik
a question, when he realized that they were no longer the only pedestrians in the street.

  A tall Arab, from the look of him one of the genuine desert tribesmen, strode toward them from the other end of the alley. As the man emerged from the shadows, Nigel saw that he wore a loose robe of some soft brown fabric, richly embroidered on its edges, and a waist sash and a turban. His face was almost coal black, with high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, an aquiline nose, and fierce, piercing eyes.

  Approaching the other three men, he nodded slightly, in acknowledgement of their presence. Then he slipped past them and entered the courtyard of the house. He climbed the staircase, where he spoke to the seated, immobile woman in a low voice, holding out something in his hand. The woman picked up the candle, held it close to the man’s open hand, and bent over, to count the coins which lay in his palm. Then she nodded. She rose, carrying the candle, and she led the man inside the house. The two figures disappeared into the darkness, leaving the staircase deserted, its white steps dimly lit by the moon.

  “You see? This is a street of women,” Tarik explained.

  “A street of women?” Nigel repeated. “What a curious concept. Are you saying that no men are allowed to live here?”

  “Men may come here for brief visits,” Tarik assured him. “For a price, as you have just seen.”

  Mornay spoke up. “What he is saying, sir, is that the women who live here are no better than they ought to be. To speak bluntly—they are all whores. Am I right?”

  “Yes, you are. They are women for sale, and all of them are at your disposal,” Tarik said, blandly. “If you care to indulge—?”

  “Well—so long as we are here—we might as well investigate, and see for ourselves what goes on in such premises,” Nigel suggested. “Would you like to have a woman tonight, Mornay?”

  “I wouldn’t refuse one, sir, if she was offered to me,” the doughty young Swiss said.

  “Very well. I will pay. I believe you deserve a treat. We will visit one of these houses,” Nigel decreed. “Which one do you recommend, Tarik?”