The Sun Also Rises (21 page)

I walked around the harbor under the trees to the casino, and then up one of the cool streets to the Café Marinas. There was an orchestra playing inside the café and I sat out on the terrace and enjoyed the fresh coolness in the hot day, and had a glass of lemon juice and shaved ice and then a long whiskey and soda. I sat in front of the Marinas for a long time and read and watched the people, and listened to the music.

Later when it began to get dark, I walked around the harbor and out along the promenade, and finally back to the hotel for supper. There was a bicycle race on, the Tour du Pays Basque, and the riders were stopping that night in San Sebastian. In the dining room, at one side, there was a long table of bicycle riders, eating with their trainers and managers. They were all French and Belgians, and paid close attention to their meal, but they were having a good time. At the head of the table were two good looking French girls, with much Rue du Faubourg Montmartre chic. I could not make out whom they belonged to. They all spoke in slang at the long table and there were many private jokes and some jokes at the far end that were not repeated when the girls asked to hear them. The next morning at five o'clock the race resumed with the last lap, San Sebastian-Bilbao, The bicycle riders drank much wine, and were burned and browned by the sun. They did not take the race seriously except among themselves. They had raced among themselves so often that it did not make much difference who won. Especially in a foreign country. The money could be arranged.

The man who had a matter of two minutes lead in the race had an attack of boils, which were very painful. He sat on the small of his back. His neck was very red and the blond hairs were sunburned. The other riders joked him about his boils. He tapped on the table with his fork.

“Listen,” he said, “tomorrow my nose is so tight on the handlebars that the only thing touches those boils is a lovely breeze.”

One of the girls looked at him down the table, and he grinned and turned red. The Spaniards, they said, did not know how to pedal.

I had coffee out on the terrasse with the team manager of one of the big bicycle manufacturers. He said it had been a very pleasant race, and would have been worth watching if Bottechia had not abandoned it at Pamplona. The dust had been bad, but in Spain the roads were better than in France. Bicycle road racing was the only sport in the world, he said. Had I ever followed the Tour de France? Only in the papers. The Tour de France was the greatest sporting event in the world. Following and organizing the road races had made him know France. Few people know France. All spring and all summer and all fall he spent on the road with bicycle road racers. Look at the number of motor cars now that followed the riders from town to town in a road race. It was a rich country and more
sportif
every year. It would be the most
sportif
country in the world. It was bicycle road racing did it. That and football. He knew France.
La France Sportive.
He knew road racing. We had a cognac. After all, though, it wasn't bad to get back to Paris. There is only one Paname. In all the world, that is. Paris is the town the most
sportif
in the world. Did I know the
Chope de Negre?
Did I not. I would see him there some time. I certainly would. We would drink another
fine
together. We certainly would. They started at six o'clock less a quarter in the morning. Would I be up for the depart? I would certainly try to. Would I like him to call me? It was very interesting. I would leave a call at the desk. He would not mind calling me. I could not let him take the trouble. I would leave a call at the desk. We said good-bye until the next morning.

In the morning when I awoke the bicycle riders and their following cars had been on the road for three hours. I had coffee and the papers in bed and then dressed and took my bathing suit down to the beach. Everything was fresh and cool and damp in the early morning. Nurses in uniform and in peasant costume walked under the trees with children. The Spanish children were beautiful. Some bootblacks sat together under a tree talking to a soldier. The soldier had only one arm. The tide was in and there was a good breeze and a surf on the beach.

I undressed in one of the bath cabins, crossed the narrow line of beach and went into the water. I swam out, trying to swim through the rollers, but having to dive sometimes. Then in the quiet water I turned and floated. Floating I saw only the sky, and felt the drop and lift of the swells. I swam back to the surf and coasted in, face down, on a big roller, then turned and swam, trying to keep in the trough and not have a wave break over me. It made me tired, swimming in the trough, and I turned and swam out to the raft. The water was buoyant and cold. It felt as though you could never sink. I swam slowly, it seemed like a long swim with the high tide, and then pulled up on the raft and sat, dripping, on the boards that were becoming hot in the sun. I looked around at the bay, the old town, the casino, the line of trees along the promenade, and the big hotels with their white porches and gold-lettered names. Off on the right, almost closing the harbor, was a green hill with a castle. The raft rocked with the motion of the water. On the other side of the narrow gap that led into the open sea was another high headland. I thought I would like to swim across the bay but I was afraid of cramp.

I sat in the sun and watched the bathers on the beach. They looked very small. After a while I stood up, gripped with my toes on the edge of the raft as it tipped with my weight, and dove cleanly and deeply, to come up through the lightening water, blew the salt water out of my head, and swam slowly and steadily in to shore.

After I was dressed and had paid for the bath cabin, I walked back to the hotel. The bicycle racers had left several copies of
L'Auto
around, and I gathered them up in the reading room and took them out and sat in an easy chair in the sun to read about and catch up on French sporting life. While I was sitting there the concierge came out with a blue envelope in his hand.

“A telegram for you, sir.”

I poked my finger along under the fold that was fastened down, spread it open, and read it. It had been forwarded from Paris:

COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.

I tipped the concierge and read the message again. A postman was coming along the sidewalk. He turned in the hotel. He had a big moustache and looked very military. He came out of the hotel again. The concierge was just behind him.

“Here's another telegram for you, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I opened it. It was forwarded from Pamplona.

COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.

The concierge stood there waiting for another tip, probably.

“What time is there a train for Madrid?”

“It left at nine this morning. There is a slow train at eleven, and the Sud Express at ten tonight.”

“Get me a berth on the Sud Express. Do you want the money now?”

“Just as you wish,” he said. “I will have it put on the bill.”

“Do that.”

Well, that meant San Sebastian all shot to hell. I suppose, vaguely, I had expected something of the sort. I saw the concierge standing in the doorway.

“Bring me a telegram form, please.”

He brought it and I took out my fountain-pen and printed:

LADY ASHLEY HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
ARRIVING SUO EXPRESS TOMORROW LOVE
JAKE.

That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.

I did not sleep much that night on the Sud Express. In the morning I had breakfast in the dining car and watched the rock and pine country between Avila and Escorial. I saw the Escorial out of the window, gray and long and cold in the sun, and did not give a damn about it. I saw Madrid come up over the plain, a compact white skyline on the top of a little cliff away off across the sun-hardened country.

The Norte station in Madrid is the end of the line. All trains finish there. They don't go on anywhere. Outside were cabs and taxis and a line of hotel runners. It was like a country town. I took a taxi and we climbed up through the gardens, by the empty palace and the unfinished church on the edge of the cliff, and on up until we were in the high, hot, modern town. The taxi coasted down a smooth street to the Puerta del Sol, and then through the traffic and out into the Carrera San Jeronimo. All the shops had their awnings down against the heat. The windows on the sunny side of the street were shuttered. The taxi stopped at the curb. I saw the sign HOTEL MONTANA on the second Boor. The taxi driver carried the bags in and left them by the elevator. I could not make the elevator work, so I walked up. On the second Boor up was a cut brass sign: HOTEL MONTANA. I rang and no one came to the door. I rang again and a maid with a sullen face opened the door.

“Is Lady Ashley here?” I asked.

She looked at me dully.

“Is an Englishwoman here?”

She turned and called someone inside. A very fat woman came to the door. Her hair was gray and stiffly oiled in scallops around her face. She was short and commanding.

“Muy buenos,” I said. “Is there an Englishwoman here? I would like to see this English lady.”

“Muy buenos. Yes, there is a female English. Certainly you can see her if she wishes to see you.”

“She wishes to see me.”

“The chica will ask her.”

“It is very hot.”

“It is very hot in the summer in Madrid.”

“And how cold in winter.”

“Yes, it is very cold in winter.”

Did I want to stay myself in person in the Hotel Montana?

Of that as yet I was undecided, but it would give me pleasure if my bags were brought up from the ground floor in order that they might not be stolen. Nothing was ever stolen in the Hotel Montana. In other fondas, yes. Not here. No. The personages of this establishment were rigidly selectioned. I was happy to hear it. Nevertheless I would welcome the upbringal of my bags.

The maid came in and said that the female English wanted to see the male English now, at once.

“Good,” I said. “You see. It is as I said.”

“Clearly.”

I followed the maid's back down a long, dark corridor. At the end she knocked on a door.

“Hello,” said Brett. “Is that you, Jake?”

“It's me.”

“Come in. Come in.”

I opened the door. The maid closed it after me. Brett was in bed. She had just been brushing her hair and held the brush in her hand. The room was in that disorder produced only by those who have always had servants.

“Darling!” Brett said.

I went over to the bed and put my arms around her. She kissed me, and while she kissed me I could feel she was thinking of something else. She was trembling in my arms. She felt very small.

“Darling! I've had such a hell of a time.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Nothing to tell. He only left yesterday. I made him go.”

“Why didn't you keep him?”

“I don't know. It isn't the sort of thing one does. I don't think I hurt him any.”

“You were probably damn good for him.”

“He shouldn't be living with anyone. I realized that right away.”

“No.”

“Oh, hell!” she said, “let's not talk about it. Let's never talk about it.”

“All right.”

“It was rather a knock his being ashamed of me. He was ashamed of me for a while, you know.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes. They ragged him about me at the café, I guess. He wanted me to grow my hair out. Me, with long hair. I'd look so like hell.”

“It's funny.”

“He said it would make me more womanly. I'd look a fright.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, he got over that. He wasn't ashamed of me long.”

“What was it about being in trouble?”

“I didn't know whether I could make him go, and I didn't have a sou to go away and leave him. He tried to give me a lot of money, you know. I told him I had scads of it. He knew that was a lie. I couldn't take his money, you know.”

“No.”

“Oh, let's not talk about it. There were some funny things, though. Do give me a cigarette.”

I lit the cigarette.

“He learned his English as a waiter in Gib.”

“Yes.”

“He wanted to marry me, finally.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I can't even marry Mike.”

“Maybe he thought that would make him Lord Ashley.”

“No. It wasn't that. He really wanted to marry me. So I couldn't go away from him, he said. He wanted to make it sure I could never go away from him. After I'd gotten more womanly, of course.”

“You ought to feel set up.”

“I do. I'm all right again. He's wiped out that damned Cohn.”

“Good.”

“You know I'd have lived with him if I hadn't seen it was bad for him. We got along damned well.”

“Outside of your personal appearance.”

“Oh, he'd have gotten used to that.”

She put out the cigarette.

“I'm thirty-four, you know. I'm not going to be one of these bitches that ruins children.”

“No.”

“I'm not going to be that way. I feel rather good, you know. I feel rather set up.”

“Good.”

She looked away. I thought she was looking for another cigarette. Then I saw she was crying. I could feel her crying. Shaking and crying. She wouldn't look up. I put my arms around her.

“Don't let's ever talk about it. Please don't let's ever talk about it.”

“Dear Brett.”

“I'm going back to Mike.” I could feel her crying as I held her close. “He's so damned nice and he's so awful. He's my sort of thing.”

She would not look up. I stroked her hair. I could feel her shaking.