For Whom the Bell Tolls (57 page)

“I don't need a political commissar,” Robert Jordan told her.

She smiled at him again, smiling fairly and truly with the harsh lips and the wide mouth, and said, “I care for thee very much,
Inglés.
”

“I don't want that now,” he said. “
Ni tu, ni Dios.
”

“Yes,” Pilar said in that husky whisper. “I know. I only wished to tell thee. And do not worry. We will do all very well.”

“Why not?” Robert Jordan said and the very thinnest edge of the skin in front of his face smiled. “Of course we will. All will be well.”

“When do we go?” Pilar asked.

Robert Jordan looked at his watch.

“Any time,” he said.

He handed one of the packs to Anselmo.

“How are you doing, old one?” he asked.

The old man was finishing whittling the last of a pile of wedges he had copied from a model Robert Jordan had given him. These were extra wedges in case they should be needed.

“Well,” the old man said and nodded. “So far, very well.” He held his hand out. “Look,” he said and smiled. His hands were perfectly steady.

“
Bueno, y qué?
” Robert Jordan said to him. “I can always keep the whole hand steady. Point with one finger.”

Anselmo pointed. The finger was trembling. He looked at Robert Jordan and shook his head.

“Mine too,” Robert Jordan showed him. “Always. That is normal.”

“Not for me,” Fernando said. He put his right forefinger out to show them. Then the left forefinger.

“Canst thou spit?” Agustín asked him and winked at Robert Jordan.

Fernando hawked and spat proudly onto the floor of the cave, then rubbed it in the dirt with his foot.

“You filthy mule,” Pilar said to him. “Spit in the fire if thou must vaunt thy courage.”

“I would not have spat on the floor, Pilar, if we were not leaving this place,” Fernando said primly.

“Be careful where you spit today,” Pilar told him. “It may be some place you will not be leaving.”

“That one speaks like a black cat,” Agustín said. He had the nervous necessity to joke that is another form of what they all felt.

“I joke,” said Pilar.

“Me too,” said Agustín. “But
me cago en la leche,
but I will be content when it starts.”

“Where is the gypsy?” Robert Jordan asked Eladio.

“With the horses,” Eladio said. “You can see him from the cave mouth.”

“How is he?”

Eladio grinned. “With much fear,” he said. It reassured him to speak of the fear of another.

“Listen,
Inglés
—” Pilar began. Robert Jordan looked toward her and as he did he saw her mouth open and the unbelieving look come on her face and he swung toward the cave mouth reaching for his pistol. There, holding the blanket aside with one hand, the short automatic rifle muzzle with its flash-cone jutting above his shoulder, was Pablo standing short, wide, bristly-faced, his small red-rimmed eyes looking toward no one in particular.

“Thou—” Pilar said to him unbelieving. “Thou.”

“Me,” said Pablo evenly. He came into the cave.

“
Hola, Inglés,
” he said. “I have five from the bands of Elias and Alejandro above with their horses.”

“And the exploder and the detonators?” Robert Jordan said. “And the other material?”

“I threw them down the gorge into the river,” Pablo said still looking at no one. “But I have thought of a way to detonate using a grenade.”

“So have I,” Robert Jordan said.

“Have you a drink of anything?” Pablo asked wearily.

Robert Jordan handed him the flask and he swallowed fast, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“What passes with you?” Pilar asked.

“
Nada,
” Pablo said, wiping his mouth again. “Nothing. I have come back.”

“But what?”

“Nothing. I had a moment of weakness. I went away but I am come back.”

He turned to Robert Jordan. “
En el fondo no soy cobarde,
” he said. “At bottom I am not a coward.”

But you are very many other things, Robert Jordan thought. Damned if you're not. But I'm glad to see you, you son of a bitch.

“Five was all I could get from Elias and Alejandro,” Pablo said. “I have ridden since I left here. Nine of you could never have done it. Never. I knew that last night when the
Inglés
explained it. Never. There are seven men and a corporal at the lower post. Suppose there is an alarm or that they fight?”

He looked at Robert Jordan now. “When I left I thought you would know that it was impossible and would give it up. Then after I had thrown away thy material I saw it in another manner.”

“I am glad to see thee,” Robert Jordan said. He walked over to him. “We are all right with the grenades. That will work. The other does not matter now.”

“Nay,” Pablo said. “I do nothing for thee. Thou art a thing of bad omen. All of this comes from thee. Sordo also. But after I had thrown away thy material I found myself too lonely.”

“Thy mother—” Pilar said.

“So I rode for the others to make it possible for it to be successful. I have brought the best that I could get. I have left them at the top so I could speak to you, first. They think I am the leader.”

“Thou art,” Pilar said. “If thee wishes.” Pablo looked at her and said nothing. Then he said simply and quietly, “I have thought much since the thing of Sordo. I believe if we must finish we must finish together. But thou,
Inglés.
I hate thee for bringing this to us.”

“But Pablo—” Fernando, his pockets full of grenades, a bandolier
of cartridges over his shoulder, he still wiping in his pan of stew with a piece of bread, began. “Do you not believe the operation can be successful? Night before last you said you were convinced it would be.”

“Give him some more stew,” Pilar said viciously to Maria. Then to Pablo, her eyes softening, “So you have come back, eh?”

“Yes, woman,” Pablo said.

“Well, thou art welcome,” Pilar said to him. “I did not think thou couldst be the ruin thou appeared to be.”

“Having done such a thing there is a loneliness that cannot be borne,” Pablo said to her quietly.

“That cannot be borne,” she mocked him. “That cannot be borne by thee for fifteen minutes.”

“Do not mock me, woman. I have come back.”

“And thou art welcome,” she said. “Didst not hear me the first time? Drink thy coffee and let us go. So much theatre tires me.”

“Is that coffee?” Pablo asked.

“Certainly,” Fernando said.

“Give me some, Maria,” Pablo said. “How art thou?” He did not look at her.

“Well,” Maria told him and brought him a bowl of coffee. “Do you want stew?” Pablo shook his head.

“
No me gusta estar solo,
” Pablo went on explaining to Pilar as though the others were not there. “I do not like to be alone.
Sabes?
Yesterday all day alone working for the good of all I was not lonely. But last night.
Hombre! Qué mal lo pasé!
”

“Thy predecessor the famous Judas Iscariot hanged himself,” Pilar said.

“Don't talk to me that way, woman,” Pablo said. “Have you not seen? I am back. Don't talk of Judas nor nothing of that. I am back.”

“How are these people thee brought?” Pilar asked him. “Hast brought anything worth bringing?”

“
Son buenos,
” Pablo said. He took a chance and looked at Pilar squarely, then looked away.

“
Buenos y bobos.
Good ones and stupids. Ready to die and all.
A tu gusto.
According to thy taste. The way you like them.”

Pablo looked Pilar in the eyes again and this time he did not look away. He kept on looking at her squarely with his small, red-rimmed pig eyes.

“Thou,” she said and her husky voice was fond again. “Thou. I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains.”

“
Listo,
” Pablo said, looking at her squarely and flatly now. “I am ready for what the day brings.”

“I believe thou art back,” Pilar said to him. “I believe it. But,
hombre,
thou wert a long way gone.”

“Lend me another swallow from thy bottle,” Pablo said to Robert Jordan. “And then let us be going.”

In the dark they came up the hill through the timber to the narrow pass at the top. They were all loaded heavily and they climbed slowly. The horses had loads too, packed over the saddles.

“We can cut them loose if it is necessary,” Pilar had said. “But with that, if we can keep it, we can make another camp.”

“And the rest of the ammunition?” Robert Jordan had asked as they lashed the packs.

“In those saddlebags.”

Robert Jordan felt the weight of his heavy pack, the dragging on his neck from the pull of his jacket with its pockets full of grenades, the weight of his pistol against his thigh, and the bulging of his trouser pockets where the clips for the submachine gun were. In his mouth was the taste of the coffee, in his right hand he carried the submachine gun and with his left hand he reached and pulled up the collar of his jacket to ease the pull of the pack straps.

“
Inglés,
” Pablo said to him, walking close beside him in the dark.

“What, man?”

“These I have brought think this is to be successful because I have brought them,” Pablo said. “Do not say anything to disillusion them.”

“Good,” Robert Jordan said. “But let us make it successful.”

“They have five horses,
sabes
?” Pablo said cautiously.

“Good,” said Robert Jordan. “We will keep all the horses together.”

“Good,” said Pablo, and nothing more.

I didn't think you had experienced any complete conversion on the road to Tarsus, old Pablo, Robert Jordan thought. No. Your coming back was miracle enough. I don't think there will ever be any problem about canonizing you.

“With those five I will deal with the lower post as well as Sordo would have,” Pablo said. “I will cut the wire and fall back upon the bridge as we convened.”

We went over this all ten minutes ago, Robert Jordan thought. I wonder why this now—

“There is a possibility of making it to Gredos,” Pablo said. “Truly, I have thought much of it.”

I believe you've had another flash in the last few minutes, Robert Jordan said to himself. You have had another revelation. But you're not going to convince me that I am invited. No, Pablo. Do not ask me to believe too much.

Ever since Pablo had come into the cave and said he had five men Robert Jordan felt increasingly better. Seeing Pablo again had broken the pattern of tragedy into which the whole operation had seemed grooved ever since the snow, and since Pablo had been back he felt not that his luck had turned, since he did not believe in luck, but that the whole thing had turned for the better and that now it was possible. Instead of the surety of failure he felt confidence rising in him as a tire begins to fill with air from a slow pump. There was little difference at first, although there was a definite beginning, as when the pump starts and the rubber of the tube crawls a little, but it came now as steadily as a tide rising or the sap rising in a tree until he began to feel the first edge of that negation of apprehension that often turned into actual happiness before action.

This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be. This quality was destroyed by too much responsibility for others or the necessity of undertaking something ill planned or badly conceived. For in such things the bad ending, failure,
could not be ignored. It was not simply a possibility of harm to one's self, which
could
be ignored. He knew he himself was nothing, and he knew death was nothing. He knew that truly, as truly as he knew anything. In the last few days he had learned that he himself, with another person, could be everything. But inside himself he knew that this was the exception. That we have had, he thought. In that I have been most fortunate. That was given to me, perhaps, because I never asked for it. That cannot be taken away nor lost. But that is over and done with now on this morning and what there is to do now is our work.

And you, he said to himself, I am glad to see you getting a little something back that was badly missing for a time. But you were pretty bad back there. I was ashamed enough of you, there for a while. Only I was you. There wasn't any me to judge you. We were all in bad shape. You and me and both of us. Come on now. Quit thinking like a schizophrenic. One at a time, now. You're all right again now. But listen, you must not think of the girl all day ever. You can do nothing now to protect her except to keep her out of it, and that you are doing. There are evidently going to be plenty of horses if you can believe the signs. The best thing you can do for her is to do the job well and fast and get out, and thinking of her will only handicap you in this. So do not think of her ever.

Having thought this out he waited until Maria came up walking with Pilar and Rafael and the horses.

“Hi,
guapa,
” he said to her in the dark, “how are you?”

“I am well, Roberto,” she said.

“Don't worry about anything,” he said to her and shifting the gun to his left hand he put a hand on her shoulder.

“I do not,” she said.

“It is all very well organized,” he told her. “Rafael will be with thee with the horses.”

“I would rather be with thee.”

“Nay. The horses is where thou art most useful.”

“Good,” she said. “There I will be.”