“Don’t you hear?” he said. “It is nearly twelve.”
Without looking at him, she said: “Does it matter? Does anything ever matter to you? Go away. Go back to the boat. I’ve nothing else to give you. Why don’t you go away?”
He said impatiently, “For God’s sake stop talking and get dressed.”
She shut her eyes and said nothing, so he left her. He walked out of the room with his confident tread and left her there.
When he had gone she got up and dressed. She remembered that she couldn’t look herself in the face as she stood before the mirror. She remembered thinking that she had behaved like a bitch, and she was ashamed.
She went back to the restaurant. The waiter who had served them looked at her curiously when she sat down at the table they had previously occupied. She didn’t care what he thought. She didn’t care about anything. She just felt a cold fury with herself for being such a bitch. She didn’t even think of Lacey any more. All she could think was that because this was Havana, because of the great yellow moon, and because of the blue-black water, studded with thousands of lights from the waterfront, she had behaved like a bitch with a horribly smooth ship’s Romeo. She deserved to be treated as a whore. She hadn’t even the satisfaction of knowing that she had been as efficient as a whore—she hadn’t. She had just wanted to be very sick and to cry, but she had done absolutely nothing.
She had ordered a lot of drink from the waiter. She had to get tight. She could do that. There was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t sit in the restaurant, knowing the ship was sailing with all her clothes, leaving her in Havana, where something was going to happen, without getting good and tight. So she got good and tight, and she might have been still sitting there if the waiter hadn’t very tactfully put her in a taxi and told the driver to take her to a hotel. She would go back one day and thank the waiter. It was the first act of kindness she had received in Havana.
At the hotel they didn’t seem to notice how very tight she was. The manager seemed to have something on his mind. He wasn’t even sorry when he heard that she had lost the boat. He just raised his hands, saying, “That is a very grave misfortune for you, senorita,” and gave instructions for her to be taken to a room on the third floor overlooking the waterfront.
She sat up in bed and ran her fingers through her thick wavy hair. She must do something now. She couldn’t stay in bed nursing her cold hatred.
Reaching out, she rang the bell at her side violently.