A half hour passed. There were sounds on the steps. The door opened. The Mexican appeared. He stood in the fog, lit a cigarette, and yawned. Then he smiled absently, shrugged, and walked away, the fog swooping upon him. Go ahead and smile. You stinking Greaser — what have you got to smile about? You come from a bashed and busted race, and just because you went to the room with one of our white girls, you smile. Do you think you would have had a chance, had I accepted on the church steps?

A moment later the steps sounded to the click of her heels, and the girl stepped into the fog. The same girl, the same green coat, the same scarf. She saw me and smiled. ‘Hello, honey. Wanna have a good time?’

Easy now, Bandini.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Maybe. And maybe not. Whatcha got?’

‘Come up and see, honey.’

Stop sniggering, Arturo. Be suave.

‘I might come up,’ I said. ‘And then, I might not.’

‘Aw honey, come on.’ The thin bones of her face, the odour of sour wine from her mouth, the awful hypocrisy of her sweetness, the hunger for money in her eyes.

Bandini speaking: ‘What’s the price these days?’

She took my arm, pulled me towards the door, but gently.

‘You come on up, honey. We’ll talk about it up there.’

‘I’m really not very hot,’ said Bandini. ‘I — I just came from a wild party.’

Hail Mary full of grace, walking up the stairs, I can’t go through with it. I’ve got to get out of it. The halls smelling of cockroaches, a yellow light at the ceiling, you’re too aesthetic for all this, the girl holding my arm, there’s something wrong with you, Arturo Bandini, you’re a misanthrope, your whole life is doomed to celibacy, you should have been a priest, Father O’Leary talking that afternoon, telling us the joys of denial, and my own mother’s money too, Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee — until we got to the top of the stairs and walked down a dusty dark hall to a room at the end, where she turned out the light and we were inside.

A room smaller than mine, carpetless, without pictures, a bed, a table, a washstand. She took off her coat. There was a blue print dress underneath. She was bare-legged. She took off the scarf. She was not a real blonde. Black hair grew at the roots. Her nose was crooked slightly. Bandini on the bed, put himself there with an air of casualness, like a man who knew how to sit on a bed.

Bandini: ‘Nice place you got here.’

My God I got to get out of here, this is terrible.

The girl sat beside me, put her arms around me, pushed her breasts against me, kissed me, flecked my teeth with a cold tongue. I jumped to my feet. Oh think fast, my mind, dear mind of mine please get me out of this and it will never happen again. From now on I will return to my Church. Beginning this day my life shall run like sweet water.