"And when the one with the clippers was finished he took a bottle of iodine from the shelf of the barber (they had shot the barber too for he belonged to a syndicate, and he lay in the doorway of the shop and they had lifted me over him as they brought me in) and with the glass wand that is in the iodine bottle he touched me on the ear where it had been cut and the small pain of that came through my grief and through my horror.
"Then he stood in front of me and wrote U. H. P. on my forehead with the iodine, lettering it slowly and carefully as though he were an artist and I saw all of this as it happened in the mirror and I no longer cried for my heart was frozen in me for my father and my mother and what happened to me now was nothing and I knew it.
"Then when he had finished the lettering, the Falangist stepped back and looked at me to examine his work and then he put down the iodine bottle and picked up the clippers and said, 'Next,' and they took me out of the barbershop holding me tight by each arm and I stumbled over the barber lying there still in the doorway on his back with his gray face up, and we nearly collided with Concepcion GracIa, my best friend, that two of them were bringing in and when she saw me she did not recognize me, and then she recognized me, and she screamed, and I could hear her screaming all the time they were shoving me across the square, and into the doorway, and up the stairs of the city hall and into the office of my father where they laid me onto the couch. And it was there that the bad things were done."
"My rabbit," Robert Jordan said and held her as close and as gently as he could. But he was as full of hate as any man could be. "Do not talk more about it. Do not tell me any more for I cannot bear my hatred now."
She was stiff and cold in his arms and she said, "Nay. I will never talk more of it. But they are bad people and I would like to kill some of them with thee if I could. But I have told thee this only for thy pride if I am to be thy wife. So thou wouldst understand."
"I am glad you told me," he said. "For tomorrow, with luck, we will kill plenty."
"But will we kill Falangists? It was they who did it."
"They do not fight," he said gloomily. "They kill at the rear. It is not them we fight in battle."
"But can we not kill them in some way? I would like to kill some very much."
"I have killed them," he said. "And we will kill them again. At the trains we have killed them."
"I would like to go for a train with thee," Maria said. "The time of the train that Pilar brought me back from I was somewhat crazy. Did she tell thee how I was?"
"Yes. Do not talk of it."
"I was dead in my head with a numbness and all I could do was cry. But there is another thing that I must tell thee. This I must. Then perhaps thou wilt not marry me. But, Roberto, if thou should not wish to marry me, can we not, then, just be always together?"
"I will marry thee."
"Nay. I had forgotten this. Perhaps you should not. It is possible that I can never bear thee either a son or a daughter for the Pilar says that if I could it would have happened to me with the things which were done. I must tell thee that. Oh, I do not know why I had forgotten that."
"It is of no importance, rabbit," he said. "First it may not be true. That is for a doctor to say. Then I would not wish to bring either a son or a daughter into this world as this world is. And also you take all the love I have to give."
"I would like to bear thy son and thy daughter," she told him. "And how can the world be made better if there are no children of us who fight against the fascists?"
"Thou," he said. "I love thee. Hearest thou? And now we must sleep, rabbit. For I must be up long before daylight and the dawn comes early in this month."
"Then it is all right about the last thing I said? We can still be married?"
"We are married, now. I marry thee now. Thou art my wife. But go to sleep, my rabbit, for there is little time now."
"And we will truly be married? Not just a talking?"
"Truly."
"Then I will sleep and think of that if I wake."
"I, too."
"Good night, my husband."
"Good night," he said. "Good night, wife."
He heard her breathing steadily and regularly now and he knew she was asleep and he lay awake and very still not wanting to waken her by moving. He thought of all the part she had not told him and he lay there hating and he was pleased there would be killing in the morning. But I must not take any of it personally, he thought.
Though how can I keep from it? I know that we did dreadful things to them too. But it was because we were uneducated and knew no better. But they did that on purpose and deliberately. Those who did that are the last flowering of what their education has produced. Those are the flowers of Spanish chivalry. What a people they have been. What sons of bitches from Cortez, Pizarro, Menendez de Avila all down through Enrique Lister to Pablo. And what wonderful people. There is no finer and no worse people in the world. No kinder people and no crueler. And who understands them? Not me, because if I did I would forgive it all. To understand is to forgive. That's not true. Forgiveness has been exaggerated. Forgiveness is a Christian idea and Spain has never been a Christian country. It has always had its own special idol worship within the Church. _Otra Virgen mas_. I suppose that was why they had to destroy the virgins of their enemies. Surely it was deeper with them, with the Spanish religion fanatics, than it was with the people. The people had grown away from the Church because the Church was in the government and the government had always been rotten. This was the only country that the reformation never reached. They were paying for the Inquisition now, all right.
Well, it was something to think about. Something to keep your mind from worrying about your work. It was sounder than pretending. God, he had done a lot of pretending tonight. And Pilar had been pretending all day. Sure. What if they were killed tomorrow? What did it matter as long as they did the bridge properly? That was all they had to do tomorrow.
It didn't. You couldn't do these things indefinitely. But you weren't supposed to live forever. Maybe I have had all my life in three days, he thought. If that's true I wish we would have spent the last night differently. But last nights are never any good. Last nothings are any good. Yes, last words were good sometimes. "_Viva_ my husband who was Mayor of this town" was good.
He knew it was good because it made a tingle run all over him when he said it to himself. He leaned over and kissed Maria who did not wake. In English he whispered very quietly, "I'd like to marry you, rabbit. I'm very proud of your family."
32
On that same night in Madrid there were many people at the Hotel Gaylord. A car pulled up under the _porte-cochere_ of the hotel, its headlights painted over with blue calcimine and a little man in black riding boots, gray riding breeches and a short, gray high-buttoned jacket stepped out and returned the salute of the two sentries as he opened the door, nodded to the secret policeman who sat at the concierge's desk and stepped into the elevator. There were two sentries seated on chairs inside the door, one on each side of the marble entrance hall, and these only looked up as the little man passed them at the door of the elevator. It was their business to feel every one they did not know along the flanks, under the armpits, and over the hip pockets to see if the person entering carried a pistol and, if he did, have him check it with the concierge. But they knew the short man in riding boots very well and they hardly looked up as he passed.
The apartment where he lived in Gaylord's was crowded as he entered. People were sitting and standing about and talking together as in any drawing room and the men and the women were drinking vodka, whiskey and soda, and beer from small glasses filled from great pitchers. Four of the men were in uniform. The others wore windbreakers or leather jackets.and three of the four women were dressed in ordinary street dresses while the fourth, who was haggardly thin and dark, wore a sort of severely cut militiawoman's uniform with a skirt with high boots under it.
When he came into the room, Karkov went at once to the woman in the uniform and bowed to her and shook hands. She was his wife and he said something to her in Russian that no one could hear and for a moment the insolence that had been in his eyes as he entered the room was gone. Then it lighted again as he saw the mahoganycolored head and the love-lazy face of the well-constructed girl who was his mistress and he strode with short, precise steps over to her and bowed and shook her hand in such a way that no one could tell it was not a mimicry of his greeting to his wife. His wife had not looked after him as he walked across the room. She was standing with a tall, good-looking Spanish officer and they were talking Russian now.
"Your great love is getting a little fat," Karkov was saying to the girl. "All of our heroes are fattening now as we approach the second year." He did not look at the man he was speaking of.
"You are so ugly you would be jealous of a toad," the girl told him cheerfully. She spoke in German. "Can I go with thee to the offensive tomorrow?"
"No. Nor is there one."
"Every one knows about it," the girl said. "Don't be so mysterious. Dolores is going. I will go with her or Carmen. Many people are going."
"Go with whoever will take you," Karkov said. "I will not."
Then he turned to the girl and asked seriously, "Who told thee of it? Be exact."
"Richard," she said as seriously.
Karkov shrugged his shoulders and left her standing.
"Karkov," a man of middle height with a gray, heavy, sagging face, puffed eye pouches and a pendulous under-lip called to him in a dyspeptic voice. "Have you heard the good news?"
Karkov went over to him and the man said, "I only have it now. Not ten minutes ago. It is wonderful. All day the fascists have been fighting among themselves near Segovia. They have been forced to quell the mutinies with automatic rifle and machine-gun fire. In the afternoon they were bombing their own troops with planes."
"Yes?" asked Karkov.
"That is true," the puffy-eyed man said. "Dolores brought the news herself. She was here with the news and was in such a state of radiant exultation as I have never seen. The truth of the news shone from her face. That great face--" he said happily.
"That great face," Karkov said with no tone in his voice at all.
"If you could have heard her," the puffy-eyed man said. "The news itself shone from her with a light that was not of this world. In her voice you could tell the truth of what she said. I am putting it in an article for _Izvestia_. It was one of the greatest moments of the war to me when I heard the report in that great voice where pity, compassion and truth are blended. Goodness and truth shine from her as from a true saint of the people. Not for nothing is she called La Pasionaria."
"Not for nothing," Karkov said in a dull voice. "You better write it for _Izvestia_ now, before you forget that last beautiful lead."
"That is a woman that is not to joke about. Not even by a cynic like you," the puffy-eyed man said. "If you could have been here to hear her and to see her face."
"That great voice," Karkov said. "That great face. Write it," he said. "Don't tell it to me. Don't waste whole paragraphs on me. Go and write it now."
"Not just now."
"I think you'd better," Karkov said and looked at him, and then looked away. The puffy-eyed man stood there a couple of minutes more holding his glass of vodka, his eyes, puffy as they were, absorbed in the beauty of what he had seen and heard and then he left the room to write it.
Karkov went over to another man of about forty-eight, who was short, chunky, jovial-looking with pale blue eyes, thinning blond hair and a gay mouth under a bristly yellow moustache. This man was in uniform. He was a divisional commander and he was a Hungarian.
"Were you here when the Dolores was here?" Karkov asked the man.
"Yes."
"What was the stuff?"
"Something about the fascists fighting among themselves. Beautiful if true."
"You hear much talk of tomorrow."
"Scandalous. All the journalists should be shot as well as most of the people in this room and certainly the intriguing German unmentionable of a Richard. Whoever gave that Sunday _fuggler_ command of a brigade should be shot. Perhaps you and me should be shot too. It is possible," the General laughed. "Don't suggest it though."
"That is a thing I never like to talk about," Karkov said. "That American who comes here sometimes is over there. You know the one, Jordan, who is with the _partizan_ group. He is there where this business they spoke of is supposed to happen."
"Well, he should have a report through on it tonight then," the General said. "They don't like me down there or I'd go down and find out for you. He works with Golz on this, doesn't he? You'll see Golz tomorrow."
"Early tomorrow."
"Keep out of his way until it's going well," the General said. "He hates you bastards as much as I do. Though he has a much better temper."
"But about this--"
"It was probably the fascists having manoeuvres," the General grinned. "Well, we'll see if Golz can manceuvre them a little. Let Golz try his hand at it. We manoeuvred them at Guadalajara."
"I hear you are travelling too," Karkov said, showing his bad teeth as he smiled. The General was suddenly angry.
"And me too. Now is the mouth on me. And on all of us always. This filthy sewing circle of gossip. One man who could keep his mouth shut could save the country if he believed he could."
"Your friend Prieto can keep his mouth shut."
"But he doesn't believe he can win. How can you win without belief in the people?"
"You decide that," Karkov said. "I am going to get a little sleep."
