by Roald Dahl
The gold tooth shone brightly behind a big grin. "For me, I like this, fat," and a pair of podgy hands drew a big circle in the air.
"And your friend?" said William.
"For my frient," he answered, "I cannot speak."
"Pleess," said the friend. "Like this." He grinned and drew a fat girl in the air with his hands.
Stuffy said, "Why do you like them fat?"
Golden Tooth thought for a moment, then he said, "You like them slim, eh?"
"Please," said Stuffy. "I like them slim."
"Why you like them slim? You tell me."
Stuffy rubbed the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "William," he said, "why do we like them slim?"
"For me," said William, "I am accustomed."
"So am I," Stuffy said. "But why?"
William considered. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know why we like them slim."
"Ha," said Golden Tooth, "You don't know." He leaned over the table towards William and said triumphantly, "And me, I do not know either."
But that wasn't good enough for William. "The Stag," he said, "says that all rich people in Egypt used to be fat and all poor people were thin."
"No," said Golden Tooth, "No no no. Look those girls up there. Very fat; very poor. Look queen of Egypt, Queen Farida. Very thin; very rich. Quite wrong."
"Yes, but what about years ago?" said William.
"What is this, years ago?"
William said, "Oh all right. Let's leave it."
The Egyptians drank their coffee and made noises like the last bit of water running out of the bathtub. When they had finished, they got up to go.
"Going?" said the Stag.
"Pleess," said Golden Tooth.
William said, "Thank you." Stuffy said, "Pleess." The other Egyptian said, "Pleess" and the Stag said, "Thank you." They all shook hands and the Egyptians departed.
"Ropey types," said William.
"Very," said Stuffy. "Very ropey types."
The three of them sat on drinking happily until midnight, when the waiter came up and told them that the place was closing and that there were no more drinks. They were still not really drunk because they had been taking it slowly, but they were feeling healthy.
"He says we've got to go."
"All right. Where shall we go? Where shall we go, Stag?"
"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"
"Let's go to another place like this," said William. "This is a fine place."
There was a pause. Stuffy was stroking the back of his neck with his hand. "Stag," he said slowly, "I know where I want to go. I want to go to Madame Rosette's and I want to rescue all the girls there."
"Who's Madame Rosette?" William said.
"She's a great woman," said the Stag.
"She's a filthy old Syrian Jewess," said Stuffy.
"She's a lousy old bitch," said the Stag.
"All right," said William. "Let's go. But who is she?"
They told him who she was. They told him about their telephone calls and about Colonel Higgins, and William said, "Come on, let's go. Let's go and rescue all the girls."
They got up and left. When they went outside, they remembered that they were in a rather remote part of the town.
"We'll have to walk a bit," said Stag. "No gharries here."
It was a dark starry night with no moon. The street was narrow and blacked-out. It smelled strongly with the smell of Cairo. It was quiet as they walked along, and now and again they passed a man or sometimes two men standing back in the shadow of a house, leaning against the wall of the house, smoking.
"I say," said William, "ropey, what?"
"Very," said Stuffy. "Very bad types."
They walked on, the three of them walking abreast; square short ginger-haired Stag, tall dark Stuffy, and tall young William who went bareheaded because he had lost his cap. They headed roughly towards the centre of the town where they knew that they would find a gharry to take them on to Rosette.
Stuffy said, "Oh, won't the girls be pleased when we rescue them?"
"Jesus," said the Stag, "it ought to be a party."
"Does she actually keep them locked up?" William said.
"Well, no," said Stag. "Not exactly. But if we rescue them now, they won't have to work any more tonight anyway. You see, the girls she has at her place are nothing but ordinary shop girls who still work during the day in the shops. They have all of them made some mistake or other which Rosette either engineered or found out about, and now she has put the screws on them; she makes them come along in the evening, But they hate her and they do not depend on her for a living. They would kick her in the teeth if they got the chance."
Stuffy said, "We'll give them the chance."
They crossed over a street. William said, "How many girls will there be there, Stag?"
"I don't know. I suppose there might be thirty."
"Good God," said William. "This will be a party. Does she really treat them very badly?"
The Stag said, "Thirty-three squadron told me that she pays them nothing, about twenty akkers a night. She charges the customers a hundred or two hundred akkers each. Every girl earns for Rosette between five hundred and a thousand akkers every night."
"Good God," said William. "A thousand piastres a night and thirty girls. She must be a millionaire."
"She is. Someone calculated that not even counting her outside business, she makes the equivalent of about fifteen hundred pounds a week. That's, let me see, that's between five and six thousand pounds a month. Sixty thousand pounds a year."
Stuffy came out of his dream. "Jesus," he said, "Jesus Christ. The filthy old Syrian Jewess."
"The lousy old bitch," said William.
They were coming into a more civilized section of the town, but still there were no gharries.
The Stag said, "Did you hear about Mary's House?"
"What's Mary's House?" said William.
"It's a place in Alexandria. Mary is the Rosette of Alex."
"Lousy old bitch," said William.
"No," Stag said. "They say she's a good woman. But anyway, Mary's House was hit by a bomb last week. The navy was in port at the time and the place was full of sailors, nautic types."
"Killed?"
"Lots of them killed. And d'you know what happened? They posted them as killed in action."
"The Admiral is a gentleman," said Stuffy.
"Magnificent," said William.
Then they saw a gharry and hailed it.
Stuffy said, "We don't know the address."
"He'll know it," said Stag. "Madame Rosette," he said to the driver.
The driver grinned and nodded. Then William said, "I'm going to drive. Give me the reins, driver, and sit up here beside me and tell me where to go."
The driver protested vigorously, but when William gave him ten piastres, he gave him the reins. William sat high up on the driver's seat with the driver beside him. The Stag and Stuffy got in the back of the carriage.
"Take off," said Stuffy. William took off. The horses began to gallop.
"No good," shrieked the driver. "No good. Stop."
"Which way Rosette?" shouted William.
"Stop," shrieked the driver.
William was happy. "Rosette," he shouted. "Which way?"
The driver made a decision. He decided that the only way to stop this madman was to get him to his destination. "This way," he shrieked. "Left." William pulled hard on the left rein and the horses swerved around the corner. The gharry took it on one wheel.
"Too much bank," shouted Stuffy from the back seat.
"Which way now?" shouted William.
"Left," shrieked the driver. They took the next street to the left, then they took one to the right, two more to the left, then one to the right again and suddenly the driver yelled, "Here pleess, here Rosette. Stop."
William pulled hard on the reins and gradually the horses raised their heads with the pulling and slowed down to a trot.
; "(There?" said William.
"Here," said the driver. "Pleess." He pointed to a house twenty yards ahead. William brought the horses to a stop right in front of it.
"Nice work, William," said Stuffy.
"Jesus," said the Stag. "That was quick."
"Marvellous," said William. "Wasn't it?" He was very happy.
The driver was sweating through his shirt and he was too frightened to be angry.
William said, "How much?"
"Pleess, twenty piastres."
William gave him forty and said, "Thank you very much. Fine horses." The little man took the money, jumped up on to the gharry, and drove off. He was in a hurry to get away.
They were in another of those narrow, dark streets, but the houses, what they could see of them, looked huge and prosperous. The one which the driver had said was Rosette's was wide and thick and three storeys high, built of grey concrete, and it had a large thick front door which stood wide open. As they went in, the Stag said, "Now leave this to me. I've got a plan."
Inside there was a cold grey dusty stone hall, lit by a bare electric light bulb in the ceiling, and there was a man standing in the hall. He was a mountain of la man, a huge Egyptian with a flat face and two cauliflower ears. In his wrestling days he had probably been billed as Abdul the Killer or The Poisonous Pasha, but now he wore a dirty white cotton suit.
The Stag said, "Good evening. Is Madame Rosette here?"
Abdul looked hard at the three pilots, hesitated, then said, "Madame Rosette top floor."
"Thank you," said Stag. "Thank you very much." Stuffy noticed that the Stag was being polite. There was always trouble for somebody when he was like that. Back in the squadron, when he was leading a flight, when they sighted the enemy and when there was going to be a battle, the Stag never gave an order without saying "Please' and he never received a message without saying "Thank you.' He was saying "Thank you" now to Abdul.
They went up the bare stone steps which had iron railings. They went past the first landing and the second landing, and the place was as bare as a cave. At the top of the third flight of steps, there was no landing; it was walled off, and the stairs ran up to a door. The Stag pressed the bell. They waited a while, then a little panel in the door slid back and a pair of small black eyes peeked through. A woman's voice said, "What you boys want?" Both the Stag and Stuffy recognized the voice from the telephone. The Stag said, "We would like to see Madame Rosette." He pronounced the Madame in the French way because he was being polite.
"You officers? Only officers here," said the voice. She had a voice like a broken board.
"Yes," said Stag. "We are officers."
"You don't look like officers. What kind of officers?"
"IF."
There was a pause. The Stag knew that she was considering. She had probably had trouble with pilots before, and he hoped only that she would not see "William and the light that was dancing in his eyes; for William was still feeling the way he had felt when he drove the gharry. Suddenly the panel closed and the door opened.
"All right, come in," she said. She was too greedy, this woman, even to pick her customers carefully.
They went in and there she was. Short, fat, greasy, with wisps of untidy black hair straggling over her forehead; a large, mud-coloured face, a large wide nose and a small fish mouth, with just the trace of a black moustache above the mouth. She had on a loose black satin dress.
"Come into the office, boys," she said, and started to waddle down the passage to the left. It was a long wide passage, about fifty yards long and four or five yards wide. It ran through the middle of the house, parallel with the street, and as you came in from the stairs, you had to turn left along it. All the way down there were doors, about eight or ten of them on each side. If you turned right as you came in from the stairs, you ran into the end of the passage, but there was one door there too, and as the three of them walked in, they heard a babble of female voices from behind that door. The Stag noted that it was the girls' dressing-room.
"This way, boys," said Rosette. She turned left and slopped down the passage, away from the door with the voices. The three followed her, Stag first, then Stuffy, then William, down the passage which had a red carpet on the floor and huge pink lampshades hanging from the ceiling. They got about halfway down the passage when there was a yell from the dressing-room behind them. Rosette stopped and looked around.
"You go on, boys," she said, "into the office, last door on the left. I won't be a minute." She turned and went back towards the dressingroom door. They didn't go on. They stood and watched her, and just as she got to the door, it opened and a girl rushed out. From where they stood, they could see that her fair hair was all over her face and that she had on an untidy-looking green evening dress. She saw Rosette in front of her and she stopped. They heard Rosette say something, something angry and quick spoken, and they heard the girl shout something back at her. They saw Rosette raise her right arm and they saw her hit the girl smack on the side of the face with the palm of her hand. They saw her draw back her hand and hit her again in the same place. She hit her hard. The girl put her hands up to her face and began to cry. Rosette opened the door of the dressing-room and pushed her back inside.
"Jesus," said the Stag. "She's tough." William said, "So am I." Stuffy didn't say anything.
Rosette came back to them and said, "Come along, boys. Just a bit of trouble, that's all." She led them to the end of the passage and in through the last door on the left. This was the office. It was a medium-sized room with two red plush sofas, two or three red plush armchairs and a thick red carpet on the floor. In one corner was a small desk, and Rosette sat herself behind it, facing the room.
"Sit down, boys," she said.
The Stag took an armchair, Stuffy and William sat on a sofa.
"Well," she said, and her voice became sharp and urgent. "Let's do business."
The Stag leaned forward in his chair. His short ginger hair looked somehow wrong against the bright red plush. "Madame Rosette," he said, "it is a great pleasure to meet you. We have heard so much about you." Stuffy looked at the Stag. He was being polite again. Rosette looked at him too, and her little black eyes were suspicious. "Believe me," the Stag went on, "we've really been looking forward to this for quite a time now."
His voice was so pleasant and he was so polite that Rosette took it.
"That's nice of you boys," she said. "You'll always have a good time here. I see to that. Now business."
William couldn't wait any longer. He said slowly. "The Stag says that you're a great woman."
"Thanks, boys."
Stuffy said, "The Stag says that you're a filthy old Syrian Jewess."
William said quickly, "The Stag says that you're a lousy old bitch."
"And I know what I'm talking about," said the Stag.
Rosette jumped to her feet. "What's this?" she shrieked, and her face was no longer the colour of mud; it was the colour of red clay. The men did not move. They did not smile or laugh; they sat quite still, leaning forward a little in their seats, watching her.
Rosette had had trouble before, plenty of it, and she knew how to deal with it. But this was different. They didn't seem drunk, it wasn't about money and it wasn't about one of her girls. It was about herself and she didn't like it.
"Get out," she yelled. "Get out unless you want trouble." But they did not move.
For a moment she paused, then she stepped quickly from behind her desk and made for the door. But the Stag was there first and when she went for him, Stuffy and William each caught one of her arms from behind.
"We'll lock her in," said the Stag. "Let's get out."
Then she really started yelling and the words which she used cannot be written down on paper, for they were terrible words. They poured out of her small fish mouth in one long unbroken high-pitched stream, and little bits of spit and saliva came out with them. Stuffy and William pulled her back by the arms towards one of the big chairs and she fought a
nd yelled like a large fat pig being dragged to the slaughter. They got her in front of the chair and gave her a quick push so that she fell backwards into it. Stuffy nipped across to her desk, bent down quickly and jerked the telephone cord from its connection. The Stag had the door open and all three of them were out of the room before Rosette had time to get up. The Stag had taken the key from the inside of the door, and now he locked it. The three of them stood outside in the passage.
"Jesus," said the Stag. "What a woman!"
"Mad as hell," William said. "Listen to her."
They stood outside in the passage and they listened. They heard her yelling, then she began banging on the door, but she went on yelling and her voice was not the voice of a woman, it was the voice of an enraged but articulate bull.
The Stag said, "Now quick. The girls. Follow me. And from now on you've got to act serious. You've got to act serious as hell."
He ran down the passage towards the dressing room, followed by Stuffy and William. Outside the door he stopped, the other two stopped and they could still hear Rosette yelling from her office. The Stag said, "Now don't say anything. Just act serious as hell," and he opened the door and went in.
There were about a dozen girls in the room. They all looked up. They stopped talking and looked up at the Stag, who was standing in the doorway. The Stag clicked his heels and said, "This is the Military Police. Les Gendarmes Milltajres." He said it in a stern voice and with a straight face and he was standing there in the doorway at attention with his cap on his head. Stuffy and William stood behind him.
"This is the Military Police," he said again, and he produced his identification card and held it up between two fingers.
The girls didn't move or say anything. They stayed still in the middle of what they were doing and they were like a tableau because they stayed so still. One had been pulling on a stocking and she stayed like that, sitting on a chair with her leg out straight and the stocking up to her knee with her hands on the stocking. One had been doing her hair in front of a mirror and when she looked round she kept her hands up to her hair. One was standing up and had been applying lipstick and she raised her eyes to the Stag but still held the lipstick to her mouth. Several were just sitting around on plain wooden chairs, doing nothing, and they raised their heads and turned them to the door, but they went on sitting. Most of them were in some sort of shiny evening dress, one or two were half-clothed, but most of them were in shiny green or shiny blue or shiny red or shiny gold, and when they turned to look at the Stag, they were so still that they were like a tableau.