A Pound of Flesh

Nay, quoth Baboon, I do deny that strain;

I have more knavery in me than you twain.

-- Thomas Weelkes: Ayres or Phantasticke Spirites

We usually passed the torpid afternoon hours lolling about our private garden in pajamas, drinking arrack and savoring the after-thoughts of our nocturnal enormities.

Our conversations in those days took some pretty wild turns. Among other things, we worked out an elaborately detailed plan for importing Arab women into the States and playing impresario to a kind of floating bagnio. We would embellish it with dancing girls and other, more imaginative, exhibitions and book it for tours around the country. We were compiling a list of the more probable cities one July afternoon when Tahil approached through the stone archway from the street, stepping absently over the fly-covered Arab who always slept there in the afternoon. He was wearing that incessant mechanical smile which revealed a protruding semi-circle of almost horizontal upper teeth. I never could figure out why Sammy took such a shine to that bastard. He had eyes like a pawnbroker and the sense of humor of a barracuda.

Tahil sat down and had a slow drink with us. He even made lame attempts at conversation, which told us that he had something bigger on tap this time than a little hashish or some racy pictures. At the first lull in the conversation he began to feel us out. Would we, he asked, like our libidinous endeavors on a more domestic basis, with quality, sanitation and availability always assured?

We tried not to appear too enthusiastic, but we admitted that these considerations indeed had merit.

Well, it just so happened that a certain business acquaintance of his (a man of impeccable integrity on whose moral virtue and honesty Tahil would gladly swear a thousand oaths to Allah) had for sale a 15-year-old girl of the very highest quality. She was beautiful, obedient and willing to work and Tahil, in the name of his friend, was willing to haggle.

This was a sinful enterprise of such heroic proportions that our enthusiasm boiled over on the spot, a fatal mistake in the art of dickering with an Arab. After a little sober reflection, though, I was more skeptical. I could see more than one flaw in the project. There were practical considerations to be taken. When I voiced my doubts Sammy looked at me with the disillusioned eyes of a betrayed brother. The very thought of me hedging over the chance of a lifetime because of a few insignificant details disgusted him. He all but disowned me on the spot.

The absolute minimum sacrifice price, it developed (and this only because of Tahil's enormous affection and concern for us), would be the French currency equivalent of 86 dollars. Only half payable in advance, half on delivery.

I was still wary of the idea.

"Look at it this way," Sammy explained. "Suppose we go to a House once a day; OK; if we go to the better ones at two dollars a jump, that's more than 700 dollars a year. Almost 1500 for both of us. Man, look at the money we can save!!"

His logic was watertight, so the bargain was closed.

• • •

Like I remarked to Sammy later on, we were maybe the only sailors in the history of the U.S. Merchant Marine ever to purchase a 15-year-old girl, cash on the barrelhead. Not that either of us wanted a wife or kids, you understand. In those days of our youth when the hormones were coursing wildly through our veins, like the poets say, we were more interested in recreation than procreation.

No place on the face of the Earth could have been better suited for the raising of what little hell our psyches hankered after than the near-native quarter of Casablanca. The ways of fate and the Merchant Marine took us there in the summer of 1945, with the help of a German submarine that sank our ship off the coast of Morocco in late June.

The British destroyer that picked us up had deposited us in Casablanca. A harried American consular official took us in hand and found us temporary shelter in a hotel, but the bureaucratic wheels of the Merchant Marine could grind forever before our deliverance was effected, so most of us sought private quarters in other parts of the city.

It was only natural that Sammy and I should look for a place together; we had been all but inseparable aboard ship. On the surface, ours was an unlikely friendship. Sammy was the son of a wealthy Eastern family who had steeped him in the finest cultural traditions of Europe. I was a farmer from Indiana whose most consuming interests until a few months before had been football and pigs. But Sammy had been the proprietor of the most astonishing library of books I had ever seen. Not ordinary pornography (that would have been inconsistent with Sammy's good taste), but nobly written, dignifiedly bound volumes. Some were of a pseudo-medical or ethnological pretension, but exciting, breath-taking reading nevertheless. I had discovered this library, and, with it, Sammy, during the long and dreary weeks at sea.

Our friendship grew with those monotonous days and we did a pretty good job of snowing each other; from a perspective of ten years I can look back and see what innocent (but imaginative) kids we were. Our fabrications had been a harmless kind of vicarious indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh, but they grew into an eviler-than-thou game that eventually reached proportions that scared the hell out of both of us.

Sammy's library had been lost with the ship. But by now we had plans for diversions of a more direct nature, so we didn't really miss it. The success of our projected schemes to sample the sensual delights of the world depended largely upon private quarters, and we found them with the help of Jules, a delightful little French corporal we met at a tobacco counter.

As in other cities of North Africa, there are two sections of Casablanca, the European area and the native quarter. But there is also a kind of twilight zone where the two worlds meet. The more Westernized natives as well as the Europeans of shadier history dwell here in comparative peace. It was in this area, in a large white stucco building of Moorish architecture, that we found a surprisingly well-furnised apartment.

The building was surrounded by a high stone wall which also enclosed a Spanish garden of almost Isabellan splendor, with orange trees and fragrant bushes and grape arbors. Here we whiled away most of our idle afternoons, lounging on intricate wrought-iron garden furniture, drinking arrack and planning, with the help of Jules, hair-raising future depravities. Arrack is an Arab beverage of questionable composition and high muzzle velocity. Its principal virtues are that it is quite cheap and after a couple of slugs your taste buds are deadened enough so that drinking the stuff is fairly painless.

Sammy made some hashish fudge one day that almost turned out to be a big success. We had a hell of a giddy good time for the two hours it took us to eat it, but we both turned a lovely green and got sick as dogs before evening. The recipe for this concoction was furnished by Tahil, as was the powdered marijuana which was its main ingredient. It was also Tahil who volunteered to introduce us into some of the more scintillating soirees that were held nightly in the Arab sector. For days we planned a visit to the most notorious bordello in Casablanca; where, Tahil guaranteed, the "exhibitions" we would witness would be beyond our wildest fancies and we would have our own choice of the most desirable tail in North Africa. Unfortunately, we got so roaring drunk the night before our intended visit that our hangovers were unbearable and we decided to postpone the debauchery for a few days.

It was at this point that Tahil showed up with the girl for sale. And, like Sammy said, it was such a hell of a good bargain that we couldn't afford to turn it down.

I thought Jules was going to suffocate with laughter when, later on the afternoon of Tahil's visit, we told him excitedly of our business deal. At first he didn't believe us. When we finally convinced him that we had really given Tahil a $43 deposit on the merchandise, he folded his arms around his waist and howled. Through his tears he told us in gasps that we had just bitten at the oldest and most classic con game in North Africa. The Girl For Sale dodge, it seemed, was the Moroccan equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge Sale and the Snipe Hunt rolled into one.

We had just spent the afternoon in wildly excited conversation, but now we sank into a melancholy of hurt pride and injured dignity that was too terrible for Jules to behold for very long, so he left us alone in our garden to lick our respective wounds.

"Well, it was a good idea, anyway," Sammy said, and poured another glass.

• • •

Around midnight, through a fuzz of sadness and arrack, I became conscious of a commotion outside our front door. I yelled at Sammy to wake up. There was a knock at the door and we both jumped to our feet. Outside we found Tahil, furtive of manner and shifty of eye. He asked if we had the final payment ready. Sammy recovered his wits before I did and said something to the effect of habeas corpus. A form was brought out of the shadows, clothed rather heavily in what appeared to be an old mattress cover.

The payment was made and very suddenly we were alone in our front room with our purchase: two arms and two legs protruding from four jagged holes (continued overleaf) Pound of Flesh (continued from page 60) in a cotton sack. We had bought a pig in a poke and we were afraid to look.

Finally, Sammy unfolded the sackcloth. I stopped breathing for a moment. We found eyes that were liquid black with little flecks of gold in them, soft dark skin and long black hair, full lips that were pink and moist and a trifle nervous. The sackcloth, where it fell against her body, showed promising bulges. But the expression on her face was that of a trapped animal.

I was a little nervous myself and I gasped audibly when I first saw the loveliness and fear in her face.

Sammy spoke to her in French.

"We'll not hurt you," he said. "We want you to live here and take care of our house for us."

She seemed to understand and looked a little less likely to run off.

"Quick," Sammy told me in English, "make some tea."

• • •

Now that I think about it, I honestly believe that everything would have .worked out fine if I had only had the good judgment to turn out the lights that first night when I took her to my room. I had won the flip of the quarter so my turn came first. She was submissive enough; she didn't even object when I took off her robe when we were alone in my room. But, damn it, she just sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me. An unblinking, searching stare: it had something of pleading and something of wonder in it. She hadn't said a word since she arrived. But as she sat naked on the bed beside me there was something of the little girl in her aspect that dampened my ardor. Most of all, I guess, it was the trapped look on her face that stopped me cold.

I realized that I was confused. I sat and studied her for a long moment. She lowered her head and looked at the floor with such a depth of sadness and resignation that I did the most surprising thing of my life: I lifted the covers and tucked her into bed.

When I awoke next morning Sammy was shaking me.

"Hey, Lover Boy." he said with a glint of humor in his eye, "you must have really inspired that girl. She's been up since dawn cleaning up the whole place."

"You're kidding!" I said, bleary-eyed.

"Like hell I am." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "She must have been well-trained wherever she came from. She's been cleaning up and mopping and dusting like crazy. She's out in the kitchen cooking breakfast right now."

"Breakfast?" This was almost too much to believe.

"Well, I guess it's breakfast." He paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Say, have you ever eaten carrots stewed in Madiera wine for breakfast?"

"Good God, no!"

"Neither have I, come to think of it. Guess I'm not up on my French cookery. But I expect we better eat it anyway. She's trying awfully hard out there and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings the first day. Anyway, the hot buttered rolls she made look pretty good."

While I was getting into my clothes I could smell the fragrance of coffee coming from the kitchen. I found Sammy enthroned at the dining table lifting a napkin by the corner and reaching for the hot rolls. The table was all set and two cups of coffee were poured.

We made a pretty good show of eating breakfast. The carrots weren't so bad, after all. Not so bad.

While we ate she stood brooding in the corner of the room. We tried to get her to sit down with us but she refused. It was then that it occurred to us that we didn't know her name. Sammy questioned her in French but she wouldn't answer. She was either stubborn or she didn't understand.

So we had a long discussion over our arrack that morning about what to call her.

"Let's call her Sundae," Sammy finally suggested. "It's a nice twist On the Robinson Crusoe story."

• • •

A rainy spell descended upon Casablanca shortly before Sundae came to us and we were forced to spend most of our days indoors. There wasn't much to do, so we drank and talked. I guess the monotony of staying inside and the tedium of the endless rain caused us to get on each other's nerves. But, for me at least, there was an even more disturbing element. After all the big talk we had showered on each other, my pride would not let me tell Sammy that my conscience had gotten the better of me. Each night that Sundae slept peacefully and trustingly beside me I felt less and less capable of trying to make her. In fact, I found myself developing an intensely protective attitude toward her. This unexpected chivalric turn in my nature was outraged at the calm and lighthearted manner with which Sammy took her to his room every other night and the self-satisfied look on his face the morning after. I found myself being shocked at the unashamed lechery of his character.

My pride made me steer the conversation away from the events of the bedroom and I was relieved when Sammy didn't bring up the subject either. I didn't want to hear his smug reports.

But we did have some uproariously good times anyway. One day Sammy decided that the men's underwear and trousers Sundae had taken to wearing (she borrowed them from my bureau drawer) were not fitting in any sense of the word. So he came home that afternoon with an assortment of feminine lingerie complete with all the usual straps and hooks and elastic. Now, the geography of ladies' undergarments was something of a mystery to both of us. We sat around discussing the project and drinking arrack most of the afternoon before Sammy, fortified with alcoholic courage, undertook the task at hand. I sat in the corner and howled while he got her into the brassiere. He was a study in analytic concentration while he pulled elastic cords and hooked and fastened and clipped. I offered some inane suggestions but he ignored them. When he had finished she looked like a confused and resentful puppy that had just been put onto leash for the first time.

We knew, of course, that our jollity would have to come to an end some time. But when the news arrived -- five days after our purchase of Sundae -- we really weren't prepared for it. The American consul had arranged for us to leave for London the following Monday. There we would board a freighter for the States.

A pall of gloom settled over the apartment. And to it was added the ill feeling festering between Sammy and myself. His gamey, unabashed carnality was disturbing enough, not to mention the growing feeling of his resentment toward me. His irritability made it painfully obvious to me that he was jealous of my share of Sundae's affections. So another nasty facet of his nature was coming to the surface.

I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't been drunk. The tension and resentment had been building inside me for days, and one afternoon when we had been sitting around mostly in silence, drinking and looking out the French windows at the ceaseless rain, Sammy said something that rubbed my fur the wrong way.

"Why you vulgar son-of-a-bitch," I said, "you feel pretty proud of yourself, don't you ..."

He hit me in the mouth with the arrack bottle before I could finish. If that iron chair I threw at him had connected it would have killed him. It was soul-satisfying to throw my fist into his face.

Now, ordinarily I could whip Sammy. I'm bigger than he is, for one thing. But Sammy holds his alcohol better than I do and my equilibrium was in bad shape that day. He had me down on the floor pounding the daylights out of me when he suddenly stopped and looked across the room. Sundae was crouched in the corner, weeping hysterically. Sammy was over there in an instant putting his arms around her and trying to comfort her. I wiped the blood out of my eyes and then went into the bathroom to clean myself up. When I returned he was sitting on the floor with his arms around Sundae, talking quietly to her. She was whimpering; her little world had exploded unexpectedly and the shock must have been terrible.

I sat down on the floor beside them. Our antagonism was gone now. We were consciously friendly to each other, hoping, I guess, to reassure our frightened little girl.

There was still the question of what was to be done with her. That evening after supper we faced up to the problem for the first time. We didn't even discuss the possibility of selling her back to Tahil; it was important to us to see that she had a good home after we were gone. Our departure was only three days away, so we decided to take our problem to Jules. He could always be counted on for advice and help.

"Why don't you turn her over to the convent orphanage?" Jules suggested the (concluded on page 79) Pound of Flesh (continued from page 62) next afternoon. "You can make a contribution of, say, a hundred dollars or so. That should take care of her and give her a little education. I know a priest who knows the Mother Superior, and I think everything can be arranged with no questions asked."

We gave him the hundred, and he left to make negotiations. The next afternoon was as dismal a day as I have ever seen. The cab that drove us through the rainy streets was slow and rickety. Jules talked aimlessly of a dozen subjects, while Sammy and I, feeling very depressed, sat on either side of Sundae and held her hands.

At the front entrance of the convent school, Jules rang a little brass bell and we were received by a stout and stern-faced nun. Her authoritative manner gave warning that she would brook no nonsense, and during her brief conversation with Jules, this imposing woman, who reminded me vividly of my high school English teacher, sent looks flying in our direction that contained all the elements of eternal damnation.

At last she led Sundae away through an inner door. We almost ran back to the cab, hoping to be gone before Sundae realized that we had deserted her.

We dropped Jules off at his French Army post on our way home and then paid the cabbie outside a coffee shop near our apartment. We found a table and ordered coffee.

It was a dreary and rainy late afternoon and our depression had dropped to a painful level. We didn't feel like talking, but after a few minutes Sammy said, "I got something I want to get off my chest."

"Yeah? What?"

"Well," he said, hesitating, "damn it, I'm sorry if I've been hard to get along with lately. But I've been upset about a couple of things. To tell you the truth, I just couldn't get up the nerve to make that kid. I don't know why, exactly; maybe she looked too much like my kid sister."

I sipped my coffee and didn't say anything. He continued after a while: "I guess I really didn't have any right to be so peeved at you. After all, that's what we bought her for."

I still sipped my coffee and said nothing. We sat in despondent silence for about ten minutes.

"Say," he said at last, "I can't help but be curious. Tell me. How was it?"

I leaned back in my chair and looked real thoughtful for a moment, and then I took another sip of coffee before I answered nonchalantly, "Not bad for a young girl, I guess. Personally, I like them more mature."

• • •

It was an empty victory; our relationship for the next couple of days, while we were packing and vacating our apartment, was strained and cheerless. On the plane going to England Sammy sat beside me and read a book and gave the shortest possible answers to my conversation.

In London he was always busy; he had a number of friends to visit and somehow I was never included. Once, when he did introduce me to an acquaintance, he said of me, "This guy is a real devil with the women." He grinned when he said it, but there was bitterness in his voice.

I could never quite reach Sammy those last few days. He sailed from South-hampton before I did, and when I went to the dock with him to say goodbye he was preoccupied and didn't seem to want to look me in the eye. It was a depressing few minutes as we stood there by the gangplank; I felt the impending loss of one of the best friends I ever had.

I made what was perhaps the first mature decision of my life as he turned to leave. When he was halfway up the gangplank I yelled at him. He turned around with a bored now-what expression on his face.

"I didn't either!" I yelled. He looked puzzled for a moment, and then the smile on his face was pure sunshine.

He stood on the deck and waved as the ship pulled away from the dock, then I walked through terribly empty streets to a little restaurant and had a cup of coffee.

"All I require," said Tahil, "is a $43 deposit."