"Well," Pilar said to the girl. "It seems to agree with you."
Maria blushed and said nothing.
"Leave her alone," Robert Jordan said.
"No one spoke to thee," Pilar told him. "Maria," she said and her voice was hard. The girl did not look up.
"Maria," the woman said again. "I said it seems to agree with thee."
"Oh, leave her alone," Robert Jordan said again.
"Shut up, you," Pilar said without looking at him. "Listen, Maria, tell me one thing."
"No," Maria said and shook her head.
"Maria," Pilar said, and her voice was as hard as her face and there was nothing friendly in her face. "Tell me one thing of thy own volition."
The girl shook her head.
Robert Jordan was thinking, if I did not have to work with this woman and her drunken man and her chicken-crut outfit, I would slap her so hard across the face that--.
"Go ahead and tell me," Pilar said to the girl.
"No," Maria said. "No."
"Leave her alone," Robert Jordan said and his voice did not sound like his own voice. I'll slap her anyway and the hell with it, he thought.
Pilar did not even speak to him. It was not like a snake charming a bird, nor a cat with a bird. There was nothing predatory. Nor was there anything perverted about it. There was a spreading, though, as a cobra's hood spreads. He could feel this. He could feel the menace of the spreading. But the spreading was a domination, not of evil, but of searching. I wish I did not see this, Robert Jordan thought. But it is not a business for slapping.
"Maria," Pilar said. "I will not touch thee. Tell me now of thy own volition."
"_De tu propia voluntad_," the words were in Spanish.
The girl shook her head.
"Maria," Pilar said. "Now and of thy own volition. You hear me? Anything at all."
"No," the girl said softly. "No and no."
"Now you will tell me," Pilar told her. "Anything at all. You will see. Now you will tell me."
"The earth moved," Maria said, not looking at the woman. "Truly. It was a thing I cannot tell thee."
"So," Pilar said and her voice was warm and friendly and there was no compulsion in it. But Robert Jordan noticed there were small drops of perspiration on her forehead and her lips. "So there was that. So that was it."
"It is true," Maria said and bit her lip.
"Of course it is true," Pilar said kindly. "But do not tell it to your own people for they never will believe you. You have no _Cali_ blood, _Ingles?_"
She got to her feet, Robert Jordan helping her up.
"No," he said. "Not that I know of."
"Nor has the Maria that she knows of," Pilar said. "_Pues es muy raro_. It is very strange."
"But it happened, Pilar," Maria said.
"_Como que no, hija?_" Pilar said. "Why not, daughter? When I was young the earth moved so that you could feel it all shift in space and were afraid it would go out from under you. It happened every night."
"You lie," Maria said.
"Yes," Pilar said. "I lie. It never moves more than three times in a lifetime. Did it _really_ move?"
"Yes," the girl said. "Truly."
"For you, _Ingles?_" Pilar looked at Robert Jordan. "Don't lie."
"Yes," he said. "Truly."
"Good," said Pilar. "Good. That is something."
"What do you mean about the three times?" Maria asked. "Why do you say that?"
"Three times," said Pilar. "Now you've had one."
"Only three times?"
"For most people, never," Pilar told her. "You are sure it moved?"
"One could have fallen off," Maria said.
"I guess it moved, then," Pilar said. "Come, then, and let us get to camp."
"What's this nonsense about three times?" Robert Jordan said to the big woman as they walked through the pines together.
"Nonsense?" she looked at him wryly. "Don't talk to me of nonsense, little English."
"Is it a wizardry like the palms of the hands?"
"Nay, it is common and proven knowledge with _Gitanos_."
"But we are not _Gitanos_."
"Nay. But you have had a little luck. Non-gypsies have a little luck sometimes."
"You mean it truly about the three times?"
She looked at him again, oddly. "Leave me, _Ingles_," she said. "Don't molest me. You are too young for me to speak to."
"But, Pilar," Maria said.
"Shut up," Pilar told her. "You have had one and there are two more in the world for thee."
"And you?" Robert Jordan asked her.
"Two," said Pilar and put up two fingers. "Two. And there will never be a third."
"Why not?" Maria asked.
"Oh, shut up," Pilar said. "Shut up. _Busnes_ of thy age bore me."
"Why not a third?" Robert Jordan asked.
"Oh, shut up, will you?" Pilar said. "Shut up!"
All right, Robert Jordan said to himself. Only I am not having any. I've known a lot of gypsies and they are strange enough. But so are we. The difference is we have to make an honest living. Nobody knows what tribes we came from nor what our tribal inheritance is nor what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens to us in the nights. When it happens in the day though, it is something. Whatever happened, happened and now this woman not only has to make the girl say it when she did not want to; but she has to take it over and make it her own. She has to make it into a gypsy thing. I thought she took a beating up the hill but she was certainly dominating just now back there. If it had been evil she should have been shot. But it wasn't evil. It was only wanting to keep her hold on life. To keep it through Maria.
When you get through with this war you might take up the study of women, he said to himself. You could start with Pilar. She has put in a pretty complicated day, if you ask me. She never brought in the gypsy stuff before. Except the hand, he thought. Yes, of course the hand. And I don't think she was faking about the hand. She wouldn't tell me what she saw, of course. Whatever she saw she believed in herself. But that proves nothing.
"Listen, Pilar," he said to the woman.
Pilar looked at him and smiled.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Don't be so mysterious," Robert Jordan said. "These mysteries tire me very much."
"So?" Pilar said.
"I do not believe in ogres, soothsayers, fortune tellers, or chicken-crut gypsy witchcraft."
"Oh," said Pilar.
"No. And you can leave the girl alone."
"I will leave the girl alone."
"And leave the mysteries," Robert Jordan said. "We have enough work and enough things that will be done without complicating it with chicken-crut. Fewer mysteries and more work."
"I see," said Pilar and nodded her head in agreement. "And listen, _Ingles_," she said and smiled at him. "Did the earth move?"
"Yes, God damn you. It moved."
Pilar laughed and laughed and stood looking at Robert Jordan laughing.
"Oh, _Ingles_. _Ingles_," she said laughing. "You are very comical. You must do much work now to regain thy dignity."
The Hell with you, Robert Jordan thought. But he kept his mouth shut. While they had spoken the sun had clouded over and as he looked back up toward the mountains the sky was now heavy and gray.
"Sure," Pilar said to him, looking at the sky. "It will snow."
"Now? Almost in June?"
"Why not? These mountains do not know the names of the months. We are in the moon of May."
"It can't be snow," he said. "It _can't_ snow."
"Just the same, _Ingles_," she said to him, "it will snow."
Robert Jordan looked up at the thick gray of the sky with the sun gone faintly yellow, and now as he watched gone completely and the gray becoming uniform so that it was soft and heavy; the gray now cutting off the tops of the mountains.
"Yes," he said. "I guess you are right."
14
By the time they reached the camp it was snowing and the flakes were dropping diagonally through the pines. They slanted through the trees, sparse at first and circling as they fell, and then, as the cold wind came driving down the mountain, they came whirling and thick and Robert Jordan stood in front of the cave in a rage and watched them.
"We will have much snow," Pablo said. His voice was thick and his eyes were red and bleary.
"Has the gypsy come in?" Robert Jordan asked him.
"No," Pablo said. "Neither him nor the old man."
"Will you come with me to the upper post on the road?"
"No," Pablo said. "I will take no part in this."
"I will find it myself."
"In this storm you might miss it," Pablo said. "I would not go now."
"It's just downhill to the road and then follow it up."
"You could find it. But thy two sentries will be coming up now with the snow and you would miss them on the way."
"The old man is waiting for me."
"Nay. He will come in now with the snow.
Pablo looked at the snow that was blowing fast now past the mouth of the cave and said, "You do not like the snow, _Ingles?_"
Robert Jordan swore and Pablo looked at him through his bleary eyes and laughed.
"With this thy offensive goes, _Ingles_," he said. "Come into the cave and thy people will be in directly."
Inside the cave Maria was busy at the fire and Pilar at the kitchen table. The fire was smoking but, as the girl worked with it, poking in a stick of wood and then fanning it with a folded paper, there was a puff and then a flare and the wood was burning, drawing brightly as the wind sucked a draft out of the hole in the roof.
"And this snow," Robert Jordan said. "You think there will be much?"
"Much," Pablo said contentedly. Then called to Pilar, "You don't like it, woman, either? Now that you command you do not like this snow?"
"_A mi que?_" Pilar said, over her shoulder. "If it snows it snows."
"Drink some wine, _Ingles_," Pablo said. "I have been drinking all day waiting for the snow."
"Give me a cup," Robert Jordan said.
"To the snow," Pablo said and touched cups with him. Robert Jordan looked him in the eyes and clinked his cup. You bleary-eyed murderous sod, he thought. I'd like to clink this cup against your teeth. _Take it easy_, he told himself, _take it easy_.
"It is very beautiful the snow," Pablo said. "You won't want to sleep outside with the snow falling."
So _that's_ on your mind too is it? Robert Jordan thought. You've a lot of troubles, haven't you, Pablo?
"No?" he said, politely.
"No. Very cold," Pablo said. "Very wet."
You don't know why those old eiderdowns cost sixty-five dollars, Robert Jordan thought. I'd like to have a dollar for every time I've slept in that thing in the snow.
"Then I should sleep in here?" he asked politely.
"Yes."
"Thanks," Robert Jordan said. "I'll be sleeping outside."
"In the snow?"
"Yes" (damn your bloody, red pig-eyes and your swine-bristly swines-end of a face). "In the snow." (In the utterly damned, ruinous, unexpected, slutting, defeat-conniving, bastard-cessery of the snow.)
He went over to where Maria had just put another piece of pine on the fire.
"Very beautiful, the snow," he said to the girl.
"But it is bad for the work, isn't it?" she asked him. "Aren't you worried?"
"_Que va_," he said. "Worrying is no good. When will supper be ready?"
"I thought you would have an appetite," Pilar said. "Do you want a cut of cheese now?"
"Thanks," he said and she cut him a slice, reaching up to unhook the big cheese that hung in a net from the ceiling, drawing a knife across the open end and handing him the heavy slice. He stood, eating it. It was just a little too goaty to be enjoyable.
"Maria," Pablo said from the table where he was sitting.
"What?" the girl asked.
"Wipe the table clean, Maria," Pablo said and grinned at Robert Jordan.
"Wipe thine own spillings," Pilar said to him. "Wipe first thy chin and thy shirt and then the table."
"Maria," Pablo called.
"Pay no heed to him. He is drunk," Pilar said.
"Maria," Pablo called. "It is still snowing and the snow is beautiful."
He doesn't know about that robe, Robert Jordan thought. Good old pig-eyes doesn't know why I paid the Woods boys sixty-five dollars for that robe. I wish the gypsy would come in though. As soon as the gypsy comes I'll go after the old man. I should go now but it is very possible that I would miss them. I don't know where he is posted.
"Want to make snowballs?" he said to Pablo. "Want to have a snowball fight?"
"What?" Pablo asked. "What do you propose?"
"Nothing," Robert Jordan said. "Got your saddles covered up good?"
"Yes."
Then in English Robert Jordan said, "Going to grain those horses or peg them out and let them dig for it?"
"What?"
"Nothing. It's your problem, old pal. I'm going out of here on my feet."
"Why do you speak in English?" Pablo asked.
"I don't know," Robert Jordan said. "When I get very tired sometimes I speak English. Or when I get very disgusted. Or baffled, say. When I get highly baffled I just talk English to hear the sound of it. It's a reassuring noise. You ought to try it sometime."
