For Whom the Bell Tolls (21 page)

This was no way to think; but who censored his thinking? Nobody but himself. He would not think himself into any defeatism. The first thing was to win the war. If we did not win the war everything was lost. But he noticed, and listened to, and remembered everything. He was serving in a war and he gave absolute loyalty and as complete a performance as he could give while he was serving. But nobody owned his mind, nor his faculties for seeing and hearing, and if he were going to form judgments he would form them afterwards. And there would be plenty of material to draw them from. There was plenty already. There was a little too much sometimes.

Look at the Pilar woman, he thought. No matter what comes, if there is time, I must make her tell me the rest of that story. Look at her walking along with those two kids. You could not get three better-looking products of Spain than those. She is like a mountain and the boy and the girl are like young trees. The old trees are all cut down and the young trees are growing clean like that. In spite of what has happened to the two of them they look as fresh and clean and new and untouched as though they had never heard of misfortune. But according to Pilar, Maria has just gotten sound again. She must have been in an awful shape.

He remembered a Belgian boy in the Eleventh Brigade who had enlisted with five other boys from his village. It was a village of about two hundred people and the boy had never been away from
the village before. When he first saw the boy, out at Hans' Brigade Staff, the other five from the village had all been killed and the boy was in very bad shape and they were using him as an orderly to wait on table at the staff. He had a big, blond, ruddy Flemish face and huge awkward peasant hands and he moved, with the dishes, as powerfully and awkwardly as a draft horse. But he cried all the time. All during the meal he cried with no noise at all.

You looked up and there he was, crying. If you asked for the wine, he cried and if you passed your plate for stew, he cried; turning away his head. Then he would stop; but if you looked up at him, tears would start coming again. Between courses he cried in the kitchen. Every one was very gentle with him. But it did no good. He would have to find out what became of him and whether he ever cleared up and was fit for soldiering again.

Maria was sound enough now. She seemed so anyway. But he was no psychiatrist. Pilar was the psychiatrist. It probably had been good for them to have been together last night. Yes, unless it stopped. It certainly had been good for him. He felt fine today; sound and good and unworried and happy. The show looked bad enough but he was awfully lucky, too. He had been in others that announced themselves badly. Announced themselves; that was thinking in Spanish. Maria was lovely.

Look at her, he said to himself. Look at her.

He looked at her striding happily in the sun; her khaki shirt open at the neck. She walks like a colt moves, he thought. You do not run onto something like that. Such things don't happen. Maybe it never did happen, he thought. Maybe you dreamed it or made it up and it never did happen. Maybe it is like the dreams you have when some one you have seen in the cinema comes to your bed at night and is so kind and lovely. He'd slept with them all that way when he was asleep in bed. He could remember Garbo still, and Harlow. Yes, Harlow many times. Maybe it was like those dreams.

But he could still remember the time Garbo came to his bed the night before the attack at Pozoblanco and she was wearing a soft silky wool sweater when he put his arm around her and when she leaned forward her hair swept forward and over his face and she said why had he never told her that he loved her when she had loved
him all this time? She was not shy, nor cold, nor distant. She was just lovely to hold and kind and lovely and like the old days with Jack Gilbert and it was as true as though it happened and he loved her much more than Harlow though Garbo was only there once while Harlow——maybe this was like those dreams.

Maybe it isn't too, he said to himself. Maybe I could reach over and touch that Maria now, he said to himself. Maybe you are afraid to he said to himself. Maybe you would find out that it never happened and it was not true and it was something you made up like those dreams about the people of the cinema or how all your old girls come back and sleep in that robe at night on all the bare floors, in the straw of the haybarns, the stables, the
corrales
and the
cortijos,
the woods, the garages, the trucks and all the hills of Spain. They all came to that robe when he was asleep and they were all much nicer than they ever had been in life. Maybe it was like that. Maybe you would be afraid to touch her to see if it was true. Maybe you would, and probably it is something that you made up or that you dreamed.

He took a step across the trail and put his hand on the girl's arm. Under his fingers he felt the smoothness of her arm in the worn khaki. She looked at him and smiled.

“Hello, Maria,” he said.

“Hello,
Inglés,
” she answered and he saw her tawny brown face and the yellow-gray eyes and the full lips smiling and the cropped sun-burned hair and she lifted her face at him and smiled in his eyes. It was true all right.

Now they were in sight of El Sordo's camp in the last of the pines, where there was a rounded gulch-head shaped like an upturned basin. All these limestone upper basins must be full of caves, he thought. There are two caves there ahead. The scrub pines growing in the rock hide them well. This is as good or a better place than Pablo's.

“How was this shooting of thy family?” Pilar was saying to Joaquín.

“Nothing, woman,” Joaquín said. “They were of the left as many others in Valladolid. When the fascists purified the town they shot first the father. He had voted Socialist. Then they shot the mother. She had voted the same. It was the first time she had ever
voted. After that they shot the husband of one of the sisters. He was a member of the syndicate of tramway drivers. Clearly he could not drive a tram without belonging to the syndicate. But he was without politics. I knew him well. He was even a little bit shameless. I do not think he was even a good comrade. Then the husband of the other girl, the other sister, who was also in the trams, had gone to the hills as I had. They thought she knew where he was. But she did not. So they shot her because she would not tell them where he was.”

“What barbarians,” said Pilar. “Where is El Sordo? I do not see him.”

“He is here. He is probably inside,” answered Joaquín and stopping now, and resting the rifle butt on the ground, said, “Pilar, listen to me. And thou, Maria. Forgive me if I have molested you speaking of things of the family. I know that all have the same troubles and it is more valuable not to speak of them.”

“That you should speak,” Pilar said. “For what are we born if not to aid one another? And to listen and say nothing is a cold enough aid.”

“But it can molest the Maria. She has too many things of her own.”

“
Qué va,
” Maria said. “Mine are such a big bucket that yours falling in will never fill it. I am sorry, Joaquín, and I hope thy sister is well.”

“So far she's all right,” Joaquín said. “They have her in prison and it seems they do not mistreat her much.”

“Are there others in the family?” Robert Jordan asked.

“No,” the boy said. “Me. Nothing more. Except the brother-in-law who went to the hills and I think he is dead.”

“Maybe he is all right,” Maria said. “Maybe he is with a band in other mountains.”

“For me he is dead,” Joaquín said. “He was never too good at getting about and he was conductor of a tram and that is not the best preparation for the hills. I doubt if he could last a year. He was somewhat weak in the chest too.”

“But he may be all right,” Maria put her arm on his shoulder.

“Certainly, girl. Why not?” said Joaquín.

As the boy stood there, Maria reached up, put her arms around
his neck and kissed him. Joaquín turned his head away because he was crying.

“That is as a brother,” Maria said to him. “I kiss thee as a brother.”

The boy shook his head, crying without making any noise.

“I am thy sister,” Maria said. “And I love thee and thou hast a family. We are all thy family.”

“Including the
Inglés,
” boomed Pilar. “Isn't it true,
Inglés
?”

“Yes,” Robert Jordan said to the boy, “we are all thy family, Joaquín.”

“He's your brother,” Pilar said. “Hey
Inglés
?”

Robert Jordan put his arm around the boy's shoulder. “We are all brothers,” he said. The boy shook his head.

“I am ashamed to have spoken,” he said. “To speak of such things makes it more difficult for all. I am ashamed of molesting you.”

“I obscenity in the milk of my shame,” Pilar said in her deep lovely voice. “And if the Maria kisses thee again I will commence kissing thee myself. It's years since I've kissed a bullfighter, even an unsuccessful one like thee, I would like to kiss an unsuccessful bullfighter turned Communist. Hold him,
Inglés,
till I get a good kiss at him.”

“
Deja,
” the boy said and turned away sharply. “Leave me alone. I am all right and I am ashamed.”

He stood there, getting his face under control. Maria put her hand in Robert Jordan's. Pilar stood with her hands on her hips looking at the boy mockingly now.

“When I kiss thee,” she said to him, “it will not be as any sister. This trick of kissing as a sister.”

“It is not necessary to joke,” the boy said. “I told you I am all right, I am sorry that I spoke.”

“Well then let us go and see the old man,” Pilar said. “I tire myself with such emotion.”

The boy looked at her. From his eyes you could see he was suddenly very hurt.

“Not thy emotion,” Pilar said to him. “Mine. What a tender thing thou art for a bullfighter.”

“I was a failure,” Joaquín said. “You don't have to keep insisting on it.”

“But you are growing the pigtail another time.”

“Yes, and why not? Fighting stock serves best for that purpose economically. It gives employment to many and the State will control it. And perhaps now I would not be afraid.”

“Perhaps not,” Pilar said. “Perhaps not.”

“Why do you speak in such a brutal manner, Pilar?” Maria said to her. “I love thee very much but thou art acting very barbarous.”

“It is possible that I am barbarous,” Pilar said. “Listen,
Inglés
. Do you know what you are going to say to El Sordo?”

“Yes.”

“Because he is a man of few words unlike me and thee and this sentimental menagerie.”

“Why do you talk thus?” Maria asked again, angrily.

“I don't know,” said Pilar as she strode along. “Why do you think?”

“I do not know.”

“At times many things tire me,” Pilar said angrily. “You understand? And one of them is to have forty-eight years. You hear me? Forty-eight years and an ugly face. And another is to see panic in the face of a failed bullfighter of Communist tendencies when I say, as a joke, I might kiss him.”

“It's not true, Pilar,” the boy said. “You did not see that.”

“
Qué va,
it's not true. And I obscenity in the milk of all of you. Ah, there he is.
Hola,
Santiago!
Qué tal?
”

The man to whom Pilar spoke was short and heavy, brown-faced, with broad cheekbones; gray haired, with wide-set yellow-brown eyes, a thin-bridged, hooked nose like an Indian's, a long upper lip and a wide, thin mouth. He was clean shaven and he walked toward them from the mouth of the cave, moving with the bow-legged walk that went with his cattle herdsman's breeches and boots. The day was warm but he had on a sheep's-wool-lined short leather jacket buttoned up to the neck. He put out a big brown hand to Pilar. “
Hola,
woman,” he said. “
Hola,
” he said to Robert Jordan and shook his hand and looked him keenly in the face. Robert Jordan saw his eyes were yellow as a cat's and flat as reptile's eyes are. “
Guapa,
” he said to Maria and patted her shoulder.

“Eaten?” he asked Pilar. She shook her head.

“Eat,” he said and looked at Robert Jordan. “Drink?” he asked, making a motion with his hand decanting his thumb downward.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Good,” El Sordo said. “Whiskey?”

“You have whiskey?”

El Sordo nodded. “
Inglés?
” he asked. “Not
Ruso
?”

“
Americano
.”

“Few Americans here,” he said. “Now more.”

“Less bad. North or South?”

“North.”

“Same as
Inglés
. When blow bridge?”

“You know about the bridge?”

El Sordo nodded.

“Day after tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” said El Sordo.

“Pablo?” he asked Pilar.

She shook her head. El Sordo grinned.

“Go away,” he said to Maria and grinned again. “Come back,” he looked at a large watch he pulled out on a leather thong from inside his coat. “Half an hour.”

He motioned to them to sit down on a flattened log that served as a bench and looking at Joaquín, jerked his thumb down the trail in the direction they had come from.

“I'll walk down with Joaquín and come back,” Maria said.

El Sordo went into the cave and came out with a pinch bottle of Scotch whiskey and three glasses. The bottle was under one arm, and three glasses were in the hand of that arm, a finger in each glass, and his other hand was around the neck of an earthenware jar of water. He put the glasses and the bottle down on the log and set the jug on the ground.

“No ice,” he said to Robert Jordan and handed him the bottle.