LA MIMOSA.
Maurice Rowdon,
Via Giulia 102,
Rome, Italy.


MIMOSA
The engineer and I walked up the hill from the sea, slowly, to
A prevent ourselves sweating. We were dressed in silk shirts and sharts,
with white handkerchiefs knotted at each corner on our heads. We
walked up to the studded door of La Mimosa, in sunshine that was ab-
solutely white and dlinding against the stone wall.
The engineer was a smaller man than me, and plumper. He had a
strong flushed face and pouting lips, and when he spoke he tended to
snap his words out, with his chin thrust forward.
His stride was
hurried and rather ungainly, his feet pointing outwards and rising
with each step as if he were treading things down infront of him.
He seemed to say to himself, "I have more important things to think
of in life than grace of movement.."
He liked to talk a great deal, especially about politics, archi-
tecture, military strategy and engineering, and he was a warm talker.
He paid little attention to his clothes, but he kept himself very
clean. Every day he used to wash himself down outside his tent, and
I would sit on the grass talking to him. He would tell me about his
wife, what a fighter she was, and how she disliked weak habits in a
man, - heavy smoking, for instance. She had not yet come out toghoin
him at the camp.
His manners were robust, deliberately so: he found any kind of
effete behaviour distasteful; he was himself the son of a quite wealthy
manufacturer in the north of England, wno had sent him into the mills


as a child, to work among thef poor, as a kind of hard grooming for
the world. Thus, the engineer took up rather a defiant and brusque
attitude, finding weaknesses in other people too easily, as if he
wished to prove above all that there was nothing soft in him, and that
his feet were very firmly on the earth. I used to sit on the grass
watching him as he shivered and rubbed himself all over, talking and
laughing. I remember the thin bliack hair over his chest and shoulders,
and on the back of his hands. In his presence I' felt, not a child,
but a kind of youthful talkative buck, a son even, but a son very much
in his father's confidence. For I knew he did not look on me as soft.
I was barely twenty-two at this time, and-must have been well over
thirty, so that between us there was a crucial gap of experience.
The door opened in the dark recess and wewalked into the shadows,
where at first we could see nothing. One of the waiters clad in white
closed the door behind us, and one of the girls on the other side of
the room jumped up from her chair and came across to us. Her name
was Badia. The great thick mauve curtains were drawn right across the
windows, and the lights were on. There were three of four girls sitting
in the armchairs at the other end, where the cubicles were. Every-
thing was still in this room, and every noise seemed smothered, be-
cause of the thick Persian carpet, the soft armchairs and settees, and
the curtain. Badia shook us both by the hand, smiling, and we sat
down before one of the little coffee-tables. We knew her far better
than we knew the others, since we found it easier to talk to her. We
stretched out. our legs, getting as much as possible of the breeze
from the whirring fans above us, while the sweat poured down from our
brows, our


arm-pits and from between our legs. This breeze from the fan was
cool and hot by turns, but it was an extraordinary reliof after our
long walk through the streets at the adge of the sea.
Badia was of French-Arab extraction, a Christian, while
most of the other girls were from Moslem families. Above-all, ahe
enjoyed talking to the engineer. The moment they sat down. they
began talking quietly to aach other, while the rest of us hardly
moved in our chairs. They talked about the politice of the country,
about the latest coup d'atat and the imprisonment of the former prine
minister and his favourite, a nere lackey with a fine face, and Badia
nodded slowly as the engineer told her his point of view; everything
he said she seemed to refleot over, very seriously. There was an #
of the queen about her, a special pallor and stillness, as if she
were a great distance from us, in breeding and a van body, so that
her gaze could sometimes be moat disturbing, s0 full of knowledge, so
cool and utterly calm. Her eyes were rather large for her face,
and their depth was emphasised by her pallor. She was not really -
pretty, far less beautiful, but there was some kind of strange
twist in her features, perhaps about the mouth, which madeone want
to watoh hur in Bilence and to be with her. The other girle were
especially polite to her, in deference to hor slow aloofneas.
The previous evening I had chosen her from among five girls.
There was mute thoughtfulness in her face, as if she had suffered
too much, and as 1f ahe knew too much about the world. It seemed
an insolence to touoh her. The previous avening she and I had been
away fron our arnohairg for hardly more than five or ten minutes, and
then I had left the cubicle feeling that I
done
hadynothing more
significant than alter the position of my legs, and that. I had naver
in faet been elose to her. When she was in her armohair
again,
dressed, her hair combed and a little acent
sprayed on the nape of


her neck and behind her ears, she was once more erect, withdrawn,
alone and proud, as she had been before. In the cubicle I had
she
more or less obeyed her will, and/had simulated Warmth, half
convincing me and half not, but always in oomimand, watohing and
biding her tine, then deciding for mes
thin white shaft of sunlight came onto the' carpet from
space between the curtains, so that our eyes, staring drowsily
down, shone with its reflection in the hot half-darkness. The
long, softly carpeted room seemed altogether without desire, but
full of a wistful, quiet dreaming, where there were no bodies, only
thoughts. We talkedy the five of us, as 1f we had all been children
together, and our words flowed out easily from the most private
imaginable memories.
Atter Bone time a young Frenchman who worked as an official
at the port came in, hardly disturbing the'hot ha.lr-sleep into whic h
the five of us seemed to have fallen, a eleep with words and calm
Bmilds. Badia turned in her chair and nouded to him as he stood
silently by the door, He bowed to her, a elim, pale young many very
shy-lookings but he did not glance at the rest of us. Badia callad
outs "Samia!" in' the direction of the kitchen, while he continued to
wait, standing. I had seen him once before, on the provious evening
and he had sat at the other end'of the room, quite apart from every one
else, with the youngest and quietest of the girls on his knee. They
seemed hardly to talk to each other, but eimply gazed into each othed
oyes, stroking eaeh other lightly with the tips of their fingers, and
kisaing eacl h othar on the brow, seldom on the lips. Now, when Sania
came fron the kitchen, ahe went straight aoross to him at the door,
altogether disregarding the rest of us, and'hand-in-hand they walked
to the same armohair as they had used the night before. The girls
who wers talking to the engineer and myself did not emile, but


seened quite acoustomed to thia behaviour.
One of them saw ne
watehing the couple.
"They are in love," she told me. "He wante to marry her."
I leaned forward and asked her why they never went into one
of the cubicles.
"Because he can't do 1t," she said. "But he is in love
with her. I have never seen two people more in love."
And when I looked across at him again I did see a dertain
paseive delicacy in hin, making his face Beem unduly tender, and
und uly hurtable. I did not 11ke to feel that he feared us all,
especially the engineer and ayself, both of whom he had seen go into
the cubicles on the previous evening. Yet he was BO cheerful with
the gi21 on his knee, 80 lovingly absorbed in hers that he must have
been able to ahut that fear out. I Bar him run the tips of his
fingers down her noses alowly, with a look that was full of pride,
pride in her existence, celebrating her awful nearness to him.
I turned away, not wanting to embarrass him, and olapped my
hands for ond of the waiters in the kitohen. After a few moments
he came, and I ordered coffée for the engineer and ayself. I
noticed that one of the girle, sitting nezt to Badia, was staring at
ne as I did so. She it. was I had watched on the previous evening.
The waiter. bent.down and asked me, "will you have milk?"
I thought for. a moment, then said, "Yes, bring me white
ooffee."
The girl sniled aorosa at me when I said this. ! She leaned
her head back against the armohair and emiled
drowsily, gazing at
ne, her eyee narrow, almost closed. Then she asked me, "Do you want
milk?* She put her hand under,her breast and lifted it slightly,
then said, "I have nilk."
She had pure, délicate Arab features, a slim face and black


hair down to her shoulders; especially her eyes were beautiful.
I smiled at her and pointed towards on of the cubioles:
"Ater the ooffee."
The previous vening we had hardly spoken to each other,
and I only remember that a French policeman from the port bad come
in and ordered her into one of the oubindes straight awas. I
was heavy and drowsy with the heat, but I wanted to go with her now
because I could not forget the pexpression in her eyes. It seemed
to mo that we needad the privaoy of one of the oubicles in order to
stare nore cle osely -into each other's faces, much as the silent
couple were doing at this moment. Icoula néver have believed that
this girl only wanted moneys because of the tenderness of her smile,
whic h had happened so auddenly, the moment the waiter had mentioned
milk. During that moment our eyes met and we understood each other,
in a amile that was altogether unsalacious. She leaned her head
back again, watching me, her elim body stretched out in her chair.
Badia got up and said," I must help with the.coffee."
None of the other girle visited tha kitchan, except Samia,
who helped with the cooking. Only Badia seemed to want to take full
responsibility for the guests.
If she liked their company, as abe
liked the engineer's, she would see that the waitera looked after
then and did not bring them dirty oups or weak coffee. In all this
she behaved with wonderful grace, very formal and withdrawn.
"Are you taking her?".the engineer asked me, pointing to
the girl who had just amiled at mo. I nodded, and he added: "She
is very beautiful. But I'm not interested An beauty."
I told'hin that he liked Badia, and he said, "Yos. I can
talk to her. I can imagine being with herfor whole hours together.
I can imagine her looking after me. What does beauty mean, compared
with that?"


oompared with that?"
I had forgotten which of the girls he had taken on the
previous evening. But the experience did not please him. He
oame baok to his seat looking stern. He wanted to get amay as soon
as possible. He was peremptory with the waiters when they came,
barking out his orders and stamping his feet. People were usually
in great awe of him when he was like this, and they tended to
bustle round him, especially if they were servants. He had small,
fierce eyes under bushy eyebrows, and one did not begrudge such eyes
feeling of awe, because there was warmth and mercy in them as well,
never steeliness. He had a patriarohal, hot fury. He told me no
more than that his experience in the cubicle had amounted to "nothing,
or as good as nothing."
But this afternoon there was no fury in him. He was
leaning back in his chair talking reminiscently and waiting for Badia
to return from the kitchen with our coffee.
When she had Bataown again and the coffee was before us on
the little tables, he asked her why she had ever come here, to La
Kinosa. She did not answer at onoe. Her gaze continued to be
distant, altogether devoid of any private message to other people.
Even though she looked you in the eyes, you did not feel that you
were being looked at so much as watohed, even judged, or simply
stared through as a carpet is stared through by thoungtful, adult
ey 7es.
She told us that it was just work far her. That work
had nothing to do with the body, much less with her
desires, for
she allowed herself no pleasure. I remembered how
she had
X whispered
angently to mo,
PR and I had instantly
obeyed
her.
r to finisk ce
The other girl who had smiled at me told her
something in


Badia said 6 kel
Waub
a law voce aud
airh lor. ghe han fallan ia lupe AiA
"Let me finish my coffee," I answered. Then I turned
to the engineer and asked him, "What will you do?" But he only
shrugged. I finished my ooffae and got up Blowly. I walked
aoross to the other girl and drew her by the hand to her feét, and
together we went into one of the cubicles. Befare we closed the
door the Madame, a silent, midale-aged woman, came ' in and I payed
her.
When we were alone again the girl turnad away from me and
began taking off her dress. She lay down naked on the bed and
looked up at me with the same tender, rather wondering smile I had
séen in the other room. She lay with 46/668/0600/006 her arms
held out on either side, offering herself up to me with no fear
whatsoever. I aid not feel shane as I gazed at her, but a kind
of smothered self-reproval, that no man should see anothar being
in this way, desiring and yet not desiring, a stranger yet not a
stranger, a lover and yet by no means a lover. Only in hér face
were there still the tender messages she had passed to me in smile
not long before. Her gaze wais the same, her nouth the same:
but her body was without any meaning for me.
I lay down over her, and she drew my head towarda hers,
gripping mo at the baok of the neck. From that monent, until we
left the roon, she became only touch for me. She became anyone,
and universal. Her face became great eyes, her hair a dark,
hot expanse in ny face, her 1ips quite nameloss, merely wet and
receiving, belonging to anyone. From the moment we touched eaoh
other we became strangers. When I grew excited, she pushad back
my head with the palm of her hand against ny brow and said to me
with a smile, "What is the matter? You are 1ike a enake." I
asked her, *why snake?" and she replied, "You are so long and
writhing, like a snake with a white ekin." We discovered each


other's strangeness, no more. It is rare that two strangers are
joined by a sudden,, engulfing familiarity, issuing from the dark;
speechless places beyond the world, like miracles. Bhe watched
me go through the ridic ulous mimicries of passions for there was
little desire in me, and. shé watched me with the same cool gaze
when I underwent my namehess secretion., We.got up from the bed,
and I wondered why it had been necessary for us to move from our
chairs in the other room, where at least we had been able to smile
at each other,
The engineer and Badia were still talking when we returned
to the other room. There was the same heavy, reminiscent air,
shorn of all desire, in this place. He was lolling baok in his
chair, eniling as he told her the end of a story about a job of his
in Caucasia.
They spoke very quietly. When we walked into the
room it was like coming back into a temple, suddenly withdrawn from
noiee and people into a half-dark hallowed st illnese, where no
appetites could be quickened or even recognised. I took the girl's
hand and helped har into a chair, then I walked across to my omn.
Badia aid not look up at mes and the engineer only nodded briefly,
atill in the silent aftermath of his story. The girl I had been
with now seemed tired. She looked up at the main door now and then,
waiting for newcomers. Badia was leaning forward, looking down
at the nails of her right hand, about to ask the enginear another
question. But she did not speak.
After a long silende he bent towards her and whispered
something. She nodded, and he took a wallet from his pocket.
She took séveral notes from him and vent into the kitchen, not
calling out for thé Madame as the girls ust ually did. He watched
her as she walked away with a half-stern, half-smiling expression.
When she returned he got up, and together they left the room and


went along the corridor to one of the furthest cubicles. The
girl opposite me had closed her eyes,, and I too stretched in ay
ahair, wanting to sleep. The young Frénchman was still whispering
to his girl in the corner; and the silence continued for more than
half-an-hour, as if each of us were paralysed in ite power,
transfixed into the motionless, furniture of the world, mere things
which happened to breathe.
Suddenly there was A noise behind usy the door of the distank
cubicle burst open, and the girl opposite me started. We could
hear the engineer's quick, loud step down the corridor, and his
cough. I turned round to wateh him enter the room. He was very
awake now. He looked, straight into ay eyes, and they Beemed to
tell me* "I have Just had a triumph.' # He walked quickly to his
Beat again, then olapped his hands and A shouted, "Boy! Boy!"
&t once the waiter. came running from the kitchen, and the engineer
gave him his order with fierce relish: "Bring me black coffee,
the blackest cotfee you have ever made!"
He no longer leaned baok in his chair, but tapped his feet
nervously on the floor, bent forward with his elbows on his knees.
He turned to me quickly.
"I made her enjoy it," he saide "She struggled a bit,
she criedy but I made her enjoy it. I broke her down in the end."
The other girl was wato hing hin strangely, her mouth a
little open. The young Frenchman had risen and was saying good-bye
to his lover. There was a noise from the kitohen, as the boys
hurried to and fro. Everything now seemed bustle and noiee.
All the stillness had gone, all the droweinese had left our oyea.
It was as if his sudden entrance had brought the whole world
tumbling back into our tomb-1ike room. He was twiddling his
thumbs round and round as he tapped his feet, whistling softly


to himself.
When Badia came she was no longer a queen. She oame
back tc the room like a child, shy and unwilling to enter the
company of strangers. She looked about the rocm nervously fron
the doorway. She walked with her shoulders slightly bowed, her
ha ir was still a little dishevelled, and it was easy to see that
she had been weeping. No longer was she in command here, ro
longer the capable one who liked to take responsibility for her
guests, no longer the sersible talker, watching coolly from a
distance. She glanoed down at me quickly, then went across to
the kitchen. Even her hody seemed to have changed. For while
préviously it had been slow and graceful and erect, all 1ts
movenents neasured, so that not a gesture Beemed by dhance or
whim, now it was the body of a rife, easy and loose, quite free
now, given up. without any resistance of will to pleasuré. In
the kitchan she began calling out to the boys to hurry with the
coffee, then a few momente latér she brought. in the tray herself.
She Bet 1t down in front of the engineer a nd looked him full in
the eyes, and the gaze they sbered cancalled out all the sest of
the room and pronounced a noment only they of all the people in
the world had known.
She sat down aga in and glanced about her quickly, lookang
for Bomething to do. She asked me whether I was comfortabla,
but without any aloofness in her expression: she looked at me
with her eyebrows raised, very young now, her eyes absolutely
genuine and open. She touched the engineer's arm and asked him
for a cigarette. He took the case from his pocket, chose one
fer
oarefully, then. put it to his lips. The moment he had ginished
his coffee she olapped her banda and told the boy to také away
the cupa. She did not trouble to comb her ha ir or
straighten her


dress; she no longer seemed to pay any attention to herself, but
behaved with a warm, rather carefree naturalness, flushed and keen-
eyed.
We all talked more loudly now, our words rushing in upon each other,
and we laughed constantly. The young Frenchman left, and his girl
came to join us, telling Badia in French all he had said to her. Badiia
was lively and talkative as I had never seen her before, All,the
mlf -
Eoom followed her mood: the place was no longer popndtreed E statues,
and it seemed to me thât in the last few moments, since the engineer
had burst from the cubicle at the end of the corridor, true blood had
come back into our veins. Where we sat was no longer a temple, in
hallowed stillness, with everyone a watcher, erect and wi thdrawn, but
a room at last with men and women, close together and endlessly talking,
full of desires.