Surgeon at Sea

Chapter Ten

There are few attractive cities in Brazil, and Santos is not one of them. In the centre is a fairly pleasant square with gardens in it, a new post office, and the Town Hall. It would pass for a little bastion of bourgeoisie in the South of France on a hot day. But the waterfront caters, efficiently, for different tastes. It is a tall line of buildings on a cobbled street that looks like the slums in Glasgow draped with neon.

The Third led us jauntily towards a lighted doorway with RITZ BAR-DRINKS AND GIRLS shining over it.

'Here we go lads!' he said. 'If our mothers could see us now!'

The three of us piled inside and took a table by the door. It was a long room, brightly lit, with a bar down one side, a small dance floor, and a band. The walls were lined with foreign flags and signs such as WELCOMES TO OUR BRITISH FRIENDS, HAVE A SWELL TIME BABY, and WE TAKE POUNDS AND DOLLARS. The room was full, but not with Brazilians. There seemed to be sailors there from every country with a seaboard. There were stiff blond Swedes and Norwegians, a crowd of drunk Greeks in the corner, some Dutchmen, a pack of Frenchmen arguing with Spaniards, blank-faced masticating Americans, and a good many small dark-eyed dangerous-looking men of unplaceable nationality. By the door, stroking his long moustache, stood a nervous Brazilian policeman.

'I say!' I exclaimed. I stared at the place like a child brought up to Town to see the lights. 'It looks a bit tough, doesn't it?'

'The Santos waterfront is the toughest in the world,' Archer said lightly. 'That's why we're sitting near the door. If anything starts don't wait to see what it's all about, but hop it. They have a habit of arresting everyone in sight down here. Ever been in jail?'

'Not yet.'

'This isn't the place to start. I got pinched two years ago for being drunk. They let me go next morning, luckily. Had to rub shoulders with some pretty queer birds. None of this single cell and bath business you get in Britain.'

A Brazilian girl, dark and rounded, in a black dress and a decorative lace apron came upon us.

'Trкs cerveja,' Trail said.

'Sure, baby.'

She strolled off, giving us the benefit of her hips.

'She brings the beer,' Trail explained. 'If you like you can dance with her. Look over there.'

There were about twenty of the girl's colleagues in the room, all similarly dressed. I watched one at the table next to ours being asked for a dance by an American, who used the technique of slapping her on the bottom and grabbing her arm as she passed. The girl smiled acquiescence, and they took the floor.

The band played only sambas and rumbas. The polite versions of these dances produced in London restaurants have the same relationship to Santos sambas as vintage Burgundy to raw applejack. Similarly with the dancing. The Brazilian girls, though languid in daytime, come to life like flashing electric signs at nightfall. Not only do they dance lustily, but they do so without any inhibitions whatever. If any couple in London were seen performing in the manner accepted as normally sociable in Brazil, they would be immediately asked to leave.

The girl brought our beers and opened them. Trail handed her a hundred-cruzeiro note and pinched her bottom. She grinned at him. I wondered what would have happened if he had tried the same technique in a Lyons' teashop.

'Don't reckon well stay here long,' Trail said, 'It's getting on. How do you like Brazilian beer?'

'It tastes like soapy water to me.'

'It carries a kick in it somewhere. Finish it up, we've got to look in at the Bidu.'

'Saw a chap get killed outside there last trip,' Archer said to me.

The Bidu Bar was exactly the same as the Ritz except that the signs round the walls were in Portuguese and the girls were fatter.

We didn't stay long. We had a couple more beers and left. Trail rubbed his hands. 'And now,' he said, 'for the Whores' Ball.'

The function to which Trail was so attracted was held on the top floor of an old building on one of the side streets. We could hear the music, the inescapable samba, blaring down the street from the open windows before turned the corner. The way in was through a narrow door with TAXI DANCING painted over the top of it and up a long, narrow, unbroken flight of stairs. At the foot of the stairs was a ticket office, inside which a fat man in his vest was barred up like the crown jewels.

We paid, and mounted the staircase. At the top were two solemn policemen, who immediately advanced on us. Archer's remarks about the carelessness of the police in arresting people flashed into my mind. I jumped nervously and began to walk backwards down the stairs.

'Don't be alarmed,' Archer said. 'In England you leave your hat and coat, don't you?'

By that time a policeman had grabbed hold of me, pulled aside my arms, and searched me for weapons. I caught sight of a table behind him that explained Archer's remarks. On it was neatly arranged a collection of revolvers, knives, blackjacks, knuckle-dusters, and razors.

'The Brazilian likes going around with a bit of cutlery in his belt,' Trail explained. 'Makes him feel big. Unfortunately he tends to be a bit on the excited side. These cops sometimes miss a knife or two, so we'd better keep near the windows. Don't mind a jump, do you?'

We went inside. Three girls immediately came up to us and told us they loved us. Trail waved them aside. 'We came to hear the music,' he told them affably.

We strode across the floor and sat down. It was bigger than the American Bar and had more space for dancing. The walls were bare of any decoration and the floor was rough boards polished only by the customers' feet. There were tables scattered round the floor, and girls scattered round the tables. The atmosphere was like a laundry with a breakdown in the ventilating system.

At one end was the band-on a platform six feet above the floor and surrounded by barbed wire.

'What's the barricade for?' I asked.

'If they dislike the music here they don't hide their feelings,' Trail explained.

'What about all these girls? What do they do?'

'If you pay fifty cruzeiros you'll find out.'

'Oh, I see. Let's have some beer.'

We sat and drank and watched the dancing. It was the sort that Trail described as 'the bumps and grinds.' I looked nervously at men sitting at the other tables, with an expectant sensation between my shoulder-blades. When they saw a girl they fancied they grabbed her and joined the jactitating couples on the floor. After the dance they either went off with her, dragged her back to their own tables, or left her, according to the strength of their inclination. I saw a party of our Liverpool greasers in the corner, their shirts unbuttoned and outside their trousers, throwing Merseyside witticisms at their neighbours. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

A warm brunette descended on my knee.

'Hallo darling!' she said. 'You come wit' me?'

'No!'

She laughed and ruffled my hair.

'You dance wit' me, no?'

'Go on, Doc,' Archer called. 'Give the girls a treat.'

'But I can't dance.'

'Come on, darling,' said the girl. She snatched hold of me and pulled me out of my chair. Then she clapped me to her bosom like a belladonna plaster and pushed me on the dance floor.

We jostled with the rest of the dancers. It was like being lashed to an upholstered pneumatic drill. I struggled round in her clammy embrace, trying to keep my feet, wriggling out of other men's way, and reflecting that I was a long way from home.

When the music stopped I disengaged myself and looked for our table. By this time the Third was talking earnestly to a thin, brown girl who had taken my chair.

'Thirty cruzeiros,' he said forcefully. 'Trinta. See?' He held up three fingers.

She shook her head. 'No!' she insisted. 'Cincoenta. Fifty, fifty, fifty!'

'Oh hell,' the Third said. 'Let's get out of here.'

We trooped down the stairs. 'Where now?' Archer asked when we were in the street.

'Madame Mimi's,' Trail said with finality. 'It's the only place where you can get a decent bottle of beer in town.'

'I think I'm going back to the ship,' I said.

'Come on, Doc! You don't have to sample the goods. Besides you'd get knifed walking back alone. Where is it, Second? Somewhere near the Rua Bittencourt, I think…'

He led us along threatening unlighted streets, where the pedestrians shuffled guiltily in the shadows like large rats.

'I think this is the number,' he said, stopping by the heavy door of an unlighted house. 'You fellows stay here and I'll go and see.'

He jumped up the steps and rang the bell. After a minute or so I saw him jab it again. The door opened. An old woman with her hair tied in a handkerchief stood against the inside light.

'Boa noite, senhora,' Trail began. He held a conversation in Portuguese with her, and I saw that he spoke the language rapidly and with great force, but unintelligibly. After he had delivered a string of sentences embellished heavily with gestures she held up a finger and disappeared to fetch help. A tall man in a dressing-gown came back with her. After a few words he pushed the Third abruptly down the steps, delivered a few hostile sentences, and slammed the door.

'Wrong place,' Trail explained, picking himself up. 'That seems to be the dentist's. It must be the house on the other corner.'

At the next door we were received with pleasure and shown immediately into the parlour.

Madame Mimi's was a sedate establishment. The parlour was furnished in the austere, grubby style popular with the Continental middle-class; it was a large apartment with big shuttered windows, containing several small tables and a larger one in the corner where Madame sat with three or four of her charges. On a dark, broken sideboard down one side were two unlighted candelabras, a sickly-looking plant, and a radio. Round the walls were pictures of the saints. Business was poor, and the room was quiet and inactive. One felt one had called on the vicar's daughters for tea.

Madame immediately recognized my companions and greeted them warmly.

'Ah, hello my little boys! Back so soon, eh? How goes it in cold England?'

She embraced the two of them. She was a big, over-powdered woman in a black dress, with a figure like a thawing snowman.

Not so dusty,' Archer said. 'Meet one of our shipmates.'

We embraced.

'Madame is a wonderful character,' Trail explained. 'Hails from France originally. She built up her own team here like a football manager.'

Now, boys,' Madame said. 'You would like some beer, no?'

'Lay it on, Madame,' Archer said, sitting down and slapping his knee. 'Lay on everything.'

Madame clapped her hands.

'Is that little girl Dina still here?' Trail asked.

Our hostess shrugged her shoulders powerfully.

'She is gone. She married a gentleman from Sгo Paulo.'

'Well, he hasn't done badly,' Trail observed. 'Let's have a look at the latest talent.'

Madame's assistant brought the tall green beer bottles and glasses, and three girls came over to sit with us. They were pretty girls-slim, dainty, smiling, glowing with cooperation.

'Americano?' asked the one next to me eagerly.

'No. Ingles.'

'Cigarette?' she asked, as winsomely as a schoolgirl appealing for pocket money. I gave her one, which she put carefully in her handbag. She began to stroke the back of my neck. I clasped my hands in front of me and stared defensively at the opposite wall.

'I lof you,' she said.

We sat like that for some time. Meanwhile, Trail and Archer had their girls on their knees and were conducting a conversation in a mixture of English, Portuguese, and giggles.

'You come with me?' the girl asked, playfully pulling a hair from my neck.

'No,' I said. 'I-I nгo gostar, or whatever it is. Nothing doing. Go and talk to my amigos…

I looked round and saw Trail and Archer disappearing up the stairs leading to the operational portion of the building.

'Hey!' I called, jumping up. 'Don't you fellows leave me!'

'It's all right, Doc. We won't be long.' Trail called over his shoulder. 'Finish the beer for us.

I sat gloomily down and bit my lip, feeling like a warning to young men. The girl, discouraged, got up and left me. I took my handkerchief out and wiped my forehead.

But Madame, ever solicitous, assumed immediately that my companion had for some reason not pleased me. She directed a large grinning blonde to take her place.

'No, no!' I said in alarm. 'No! Please…go away, there's a good girl.'

'Nгo?'

'No. Sorry and all that.'

I looked uncomfortably round me. I wanted to get out. But I didn't know the way back to the ship, and I was scared to walk out of the place on my own. I took a gulp of beer and sat biting my thumbnail.

I was hardly aware that another had joined me. She sat quietly beside me without speaking. I looked up. She was sitting demurely with her hands clasped in her lap, as pathetic as a wallflower at a village dance.

'Hop it! Vamos! Pronto!' I told her.

'Please…please!' she said.

'My dear young lady, I have no intention…'

Two tears rolled compellingly down her thin cheeks.

'Please come,' she urged softly. 'No one come with me this week. If you no come I get fired.'

I licked my lips. This was the sort of dilemma even Big White Carstairs would have had difficulty sorting out.

She laid a hand on my arm, as softly as an alighting butterfly.

'Please come,' she whispered.

I coughed, and ran my finger round my collar. My conscience strained to suppress my sense of gallantry. Just then two large tears followed the first.

'How much?' I heard. It was me.

'Hun'red cruzeiro.'

'Oh…ah…very well then..

I pulled the note from my pocket. Seizing it, she pulled me by the hand towards the staircase of sin.

We went into a bare room that contained only a bed, a basin, and several more pictures of the saints. She locked the door. I stood and scratched my left ear.

Deftly, as though peeling a banana, she stripped off her clothes. She jumped on the bed and gave me an inviting smile. Suddenly she held her right side and groaned.

'Hello,' I said, immediately interested. 'What's the trouble?'

She bit her lip for a moment, then said, 'Nada…nada.'

'Have you got a pain? Er-dor?'

She nodded.

'Where?'

She pointed under her right ribs.

'That's curious,' I said. Just let me have a look a minute, will you? By Jove, this is unusual…Deep breath, now.'

After five minutes' careful examination of her abdomen I concluded that the young lady was suffering from inflammation of the gallbladder.

'Look here,' I said, 'you ought to go to hospital.'

She smiled up at me from the pillow. 'Hospital…operacao, or whatever it is.'

I indicated with signs.

'Oh, nвo,' she said.

'Oh, yes,' I said firmly. 'Here'-I took a pencil and paper from my pocket and wrote on it-'you take that to the chemist-farmacкutico-and they'll give you something to make it better. Then you must go to hospital, see? O.K.?'

She took the prescription and grinned.

'Very well,' I said automatically, 'call me if you have any severe pain during the night. Good evening.'

I let myself out. Trail and Archer were waiting downstairs.

'Come on, you dirty old man,' Trail said, grabbing my arm. 'Time to get back to the ship.'

It occurred to me that was the only consultation I had ever paid for.