История жизни. (Anamnesis vitae). 6 страница

"Thou art very young still," she said. "You will understand." Then, to the girl, "Come, Maria. We are not talking more."

The girl came over and Robert Jordan reached his hand out and patted her head. She stroked under his hand like a kitten. Then he thought that she was going to cry. But her lips drew up again and she looked at him and smiled.

"Thee would do well to go to bed now," the woman said to Robert Jordan. "Thou hast had a long journey."

"Good," said Robert Jordan. "I will get my things."

He was asleep in the robe and he had been asleep, he thought, for a long time. The robe was spread on the forest floor in the lee of the rocks beyond the cave mouth and as he slept, he turned, and turning rolled on his pistol which was fastened by a lanyard to one wrist and had been by his side under the cover when he went to sleep, shoulder and back weary, leg-tired, his muscles pulled with tiredness so that the ground was soft, and simply stretching in the robe against the flannel lining was voluptuous with fatigue. Waking, he wondered where he was, knew, and then shifted the pistol from under his side and settled happily to stretch back into sleep, his hand on the pillow of his clothing that was bundled neatly around his rope-soled shoes. He had one arm around the pillow.

Then he felt her hand on his shoulder and turned quickly, his right hand holding the pistol under the robe.

"Oh, it is thee," he said and dropping the pistol he reached both arms up and pulled her down. With his arms around her he could feel her shivering.

"Get in," he said softly. "It is cold out there."

 

"No. I must not."

"Get in," he said. "And we can talk about it later."

She was trembling and he held her wrist now with one hand and held her lightly with the other arm. She had turned her head away.

"Get in, little rabbit," he said and kissed her on the back of the neck.

"I am afraid."

"No. Do not be afraid. Get in."

"How?"

"Just slip in. There is much room. Do you want me to help you?"

"No," she said and then she was in the robe and he was holding her tight to him and trying to kiss her lips and she was pressing her face against the pillow of clothing but holding her arms close around his neck. Then he felt her arms relax and she was shivering again as he held her.

"No," he said and laughed. "Do not be afraid. That is the pistol."

He lifted it and slipped it behind him.

"I am ashamed," she said, her face away from him.

"No. You must not be. Here. Now."

"No, I must not. I am ashamed and frightened."

"No. My rabbit. Please."

"I must not. If thou dost not love me."

"I love thee."

"I love thee. Oh, I love thee. Put thy hand on my head," she said away from him, her face still in the pillow. He put his hand on her head and stroked it and then suddenly her face was away from the pillow and she was in his arms, pressed close against him, and her face was against his and she was crying.

He held her still and close, feeling the long length of the young body, and he stroked her head and kissed the wet saltiness of her eyes, and as she cried he could feel the rounded, firm-pointed breasts touching through the shirt she wore.

"I cannot kiss," she said. "I do not know how."

"There is no need to kiss."

"Yes. I must kiss. I must do everything."

"There is no need to do anything. We are all right. But thou hast many clothes."

"What should I do?"

"I will help you."

"Is that better?"

"Yes. Much. It is not better to thee?"

"Yes. Much better. And I can go with thee as Pilar said?"

"Yes."

"But not to a home. With thee."

"No, to a home."

"No. No. No. With thee and I will be thy woman."

Now as they lay all that before had been shielded was unshielded. Where there had been roughness of fabric all was smooth with a smoothness and firm rounded pressing and a long warm coolness, cool outside and warm within, long and light and closely holding, closely held, lonely, hollow-making with contours, happymaking, young and loving and now all warmly smooth with a hollowing, chest-aching, tight-held loneliness that was such that Robert Jordan felt he could not stand it and he said, "Hast thou loved others?"

"Never."

Then suddenly, going dead in his arms, "But things were done to me."

"By whom?"

"By various."

Now she lay perfectly quietly and as though her body were dead and turned her head away from him.

"Now you will not love me."

"I love you," he said.

But something had happened to him and she knew it.

"No," she said and her voice had gone dead and flat. "Thou wilt not love me. But perhaps thou wilt take me to the home. And I will go to the home and I will never be thy woman nor anything."

"I love thee, Maria."

"No. It is not true," she said. Then as a last thing pitifully and hopefully.

"But I have never kissed any man."

"Then kiss me now."

"I wanted to," she said. "But I know not how. Where things were done to me I fought until I could not see. I fought until-- until--until one sat upon my head--and I bit him--and then they tied my mouth and held my arms behind my head--and others did things to me."

"I love thee, Maria," he said. "And no one has done anything to thee. Thee, they cannot touch. No one has touched thee, little rabbit."

"You believe that?"

"I know it."

"And you can love me?" warm again against him now.

"I can love thee more."

"I will try to kiss thee very well."

"Kiss me a little."

 

"I do not know how."

"Just kiss me."

She kissed him on the cheek.

"No."

"Where do the noses go? I always wondered where the noses would go."

"Look, turn thy head," and then their mouths were tight together and she lay close pressed against him and her mouth opened a little gradually and then, suddenly, holding her against him, he was happier than he had ever been, lightly, lovingly, exultingly, innerly happy and unthinking and untired and unworried and only feeling a great delight and he said, "My little rabbit. My darling. My sweet. My long lovely."

"What do you say?" she said as though from a great distance away.

"My lovely one," he said.

They lay there and he felt her heart beating against his and with the side of his foot he stroked very lightly against the side of hers.

"Thee came barefooted," he said.

"Yes."

"Then thee knew thou wert coming to the bed."

"Yes."

"And you had no fear."

"Yes. Much. But more fear of how it would be to take my shoes off."

"And what time is it now? _lo sabes?_"

"No. Thou hast no watch?"

"Yes. But it is behind thy back."

"Take it from there."

"No."

"Then look over my shoulder."

It was one o'clock. The dial showed bright in the darkness that the robe made.

"Thy chin scratches my shoulder."

"Pardon it. I have no tools to shave."

"I like it. Is thy beard blond?"

"Yes."

"And will it be long?"

"Not before the bridge. Maria, listen. Dost thou--?"

"Do I what?"

"Dost thou wish?"

"Yes. Everything. Please. And if we do everything together, the other maybe never will have been."

"Did you think of that?"

"No. I think it in myself but Pilar told me."

"She is very wise."

"And another thing," Maria said softly. "She said for me to tell you that I am not sick. She knows about such things and she said to tell you that."

"She told you to tell me?"

"Yes. I spoke to her and told her that I love you. I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before and I told Pilar and she said if I ever told you anything about anything, to tell you that I was not sick. The other thing she told me long ago. Soon after the train."

"What did she say?"

"She said that nothing is done to oneself that one does not accept and that if I loved some one it would take it all away. I wished to die, you see."

"What she said is true."

"And now I am happy that I did not die. I am so happy that I did not die. And you can love me?"

"Yes. I love you now."

"And I can be thy woman?"

"I cannot have a woman doing what I ao. But thou art my woman now."

"If once I am, then I will keep on. Am I thy woman now?"

"Yes, Maria. Yes, my little rabbit."

She held herself tight to him and her lips looked for his and then found them and were against them and he felt her, fresh, new and smooth and young and lovely with the warm, scalding coolness and unbelievable to be there in the robe that was as familiar as his clothes, or his shoes, or his duty and then she said, frightenedly, "And now let us do quickly what it is we do so that the other is all gone."

"You want?"

"Yes," she said almost fiercely. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

It was cold in the night and Robert Jordan slept heavily. Once he woke and, stretching, realized that the girl was there, curled far down in the robe, breathing lightly and regularly, and in the dark, bringing his head in from the cold, the sky hard and sharp with stars, the air cold in his nostrils, he put his head under the warmth of the robe and kissed her smooth shoulder. She did not wake and he rolled onto his side away from her and with his head out of the robe in the cold again, lay awake a moment feeling the long, seeping luxury of his fatigue and then the smooth tactile happiness of their two bodies touching and then, as he pushed his legs out deep as they would go in the robe, he slipped down steeply into sleep.

He woke at first daylight and the girl was gone. He knew it as he woke and, putting out his arm, he felt the robe warm where she had been. He looked at the mouth of the cave where the blanket showed frost-rimmed and saw the thin gray smoke from the crack in the rocks that meant the kitchen fire was lighted.

A man came out of the timber, a blanket worn over his head like a poncho Robert Jordan saw it was Pablo and that he was smoking a cigarette. He's been down corralling the horses, he thought.

Pablo pulled open the blanket and went into the cave without looking toward Robert Jordan.

Robert Jordan felt with his hand the light frost that lay on the worn, spotted green balloon silk outer covering of the five-year-old down robe, then settled into it again. _Bueno_, he said to himself, feeling the familiar caress of the flannel lining as he spread his legs wide, then drew them together and then turned on his side so that his head would be away from the direction where he knew the sun would come. _Que mas da_, I might as well sleep some more.

He slept until the sound of airplane motors woke him.

Lying on his back, he saw them, a fascist patrol of three Fiats, tiny, bright, fast-moving across the mountain sky, headed in the direction from which Anselmo and he had come yesterday. The three passed and then came nine more, flying much higher in the minute, pointed formations of threes, threes and threes.

Pablo and the gypsy were standing at the cave mouth, in the shadow, watching the sky and as Robert Jordan lay still, the sky now full of the high hammering roar of motors, there was a new droning roar and three more planes came over at less than a thousand feet above the clearing. These three were Heinkel one-elevens, twin-motor bombers.

Robert Jordan, his head in the shadow of the rocks, knew they would not see him, and that it did not matter if they did. He knew they could possibly see the horses in the corral if they were looking for anything in these mountains. If they were not looking for anything they might still see them but would naturally take them for some of their own cavalry mounts. Then came a new and louder droning roar and three more Heinkel one-elevens showed coming steeply, stiffly, lower yet, crossing in rigid formation, their pounding roar approaching in crescendo to an absolute of noise and then receding as they passed the clearing.

Robert Jordan unrolled the bundle of clothing that made his pillow and pulled on his shirt. It was over his head and he was pulling it down when he heard the next planes coming and he pulled his trousers on under the robe and lay still as three more of the Heinkel bimotor bombers came over. Before they were gone over the shoulder of the mountain, he had buckled on his pistol, rolled the robe and placed it against the rocks and sat now, close against the rocks, tying his rope-soled shoes when the approaching droning turned to a greater clattering roar than ever before and nine more Heinkel light bombers came in echelons; hammering the sky apart as they went over.

Robert Jordan slipped along the rocks to the mouth of the cave where one of the brothers, Pablo, the gypsy, Anselmo, Agustin and the woman stood in the mouth looking out.

"Have there been planes like this before?" he asked.

"Never," said Pablo. "Get in. They will see thee."

The sun had not yet hit the mouth of the cave. It was just now shining on the meadow by the stream and Robert Jordan knew they could not be seen in the dark, early morning shadow of the trees and the solid shade the rocks made, but he went in the cave in order not to make them nervous.

"They are many," the woman said.

"And there will be more," Robert Jordan said.

"How do you know?" Pablo asked suspiciously.

"Those, just now, will have pursuit planes with them."

Just then they heard them, the higher, whining drone, and as they passed at about five thousand feet, Robert Jordan counted fifteen Fiats in echelon of echelons like a wild-goose flight of the V-shaped threes.

In the cave entrance their faces all looked very sober and Robert Jordan said, "You have not seen this many planes?"

"Never," said Pablo.

"There are not many at Segovia?"

"Never has there been, we have seen three usually. Sometimes six of the chasers. Perhaps three Junkers, the big ones with the three motors, with the chasers with them. Never have we seen planes like this."

It is bad, Robert Jordan thought. This is really bad. Here is a concentration of planes which means something very bad. I must listen for them to unload. But no, they cannot have brought up the troops yet for the attack. Certainly not before tonight or tomorrow night, certainly not yet. Certainly they will not be moving anything at this hour.

He could still hear the receding drone. He looked at his watch. By now they should be over the lines, the first ones anyway. He Pushed the knob that set the second hand to clicking and watched it move around. No, perhaps not yet. By now. Yes. Well over by now. Two hundred and fifty miles an hour for those one-elevens anyway. Five minutes would carry them there. By now they're well beyond the pass with Castile all yellow and tawny beneath them now in the morning, the yellow crossed by white roads and spotted with the small villages and the shadows of the Heinkels moving over the land as the shadows of sharks pass over a sandy floor of the ocean.

There was no bump, bump, bumping thud of bombs. His watch ticked on.

They're going on to Colmenar, to Escorial, or to the flying field at Manzanares el Real, he thought, with the old castle above the lake with the ducks in the reeds and the fake airfield just behind the real field with the dummy planes, not quite hidden, their props turning in the wind. That's where they must be headed. They can't know about the attack, he told himself and something in him said, why can't they? They've known about all the others.

"Do you think they saw the horses?" Pablo asked.

"Those weren't looking for horses," Robert Jordan said.

"But did they see them?"

"Not unless they were asked to look for them."

"Could they see them?"

"Probably not," Robert Jordan said. "Unless the sun were on the trees."

"It is on them very early," Pablo said miserably.

"I think they have other things to think of besides thy horses," Robert Jordan said.

It was eight minutes since he had pushed the lever on the stop watch and there was still no sound of bombing.

"What do you do with the watch?" the woman asked.

"I listen where they have gone."

"Oh," she said. At ten minutes he stopped looking at the watch knowing it would be too far away to hear, now, even allowing a minute for the sound to travel, and said to Anselmo, "I would speak to thee."

Anselmo came out of the cave mouth and they walked a little way from the entrance and stood beside a pine tree.

"_Que tal?_" Robert Jordan asked him. "How goes it?"

"All right."

"Hast thou eaten?"

"No. No one has eaten."

"Eat then and take something to eat at mid-day. I want you to go to watch the road. Make a note of everything that passes both up and down the road."

"I do not write."

"There is no need to," Robert Jordan took out two leaves from his notebook and with his knife cut an inch from the end of his pencil. "Take this and make a mark for tanks thus," he drew a slanted tank, "and then a mark for each one and when there are four, cross the four strokes for the fifth."

"In this way we count also."

"Good. Make another mark, two wheels and a box, for trucks. If they are empty make a circle. If they are full of troops make a straight mark. Mark for guns. Big ones, thus. Small ones, thus. Mark for cars. Mark for ambulances. Thus, two wheels and a box with a cross on it. Mark for troops on foot by companies, like this, see? A little square and then mark beside it. Mark for cavalry, like this, you see? Like a horse. A box with four legs. That is a troop of twenty horse. You understand? Each troop a mark."

"Yes. It is ingenious."

"Now," he drew two large wheels with circles around them and a short line for a gun barrel. "These are anti-tanks. They have rubber tires. Mark for them. These are anti-aircraft," two wheels with the gun barrel slanted up. "Mark for them also. Do you understand? Have you seen such guns?"

"Yes," Anselmo said. "Of course. It is clear."

"Take the gypsy with you that he will know from what point you will be watching so you may be relieved. Pick a place that is safe, not too close and from where you can see well and comfortably. Stay until you are relieved."

"I understand."

"Good. And that when you come back, I should know everything that moved upon the road. One paper is for movement up. One is for movement down the road."

They walked over toward the cave.

"Send Rafael to me," Robert Jordan said and waited by the tree. He watched Anselmo go into the cave, the blanket falling behind him. The gypsy sauntered out, wiping his mouth with his hand.

"_Que tal?_" the gypsy said. "Did you divert yourself last night?"

"I slept."

"Less bad," the gypsy said and grinned. "Have you a cigarette?"

"Listen," Robert Jordan said and felt in his pocket for the cigarettes. "I wish you to go with Anselmo to a place from which he will observe the road. There you will leave him, noting the place in order that you may guide me to it or guide whoever will relieve him later. You will then go to where you can observe the saw mill and note if there are any changes in the post there."

"What changes?"

"How many men are there now?"

"Eight. The last I knew."

"See how many are there now. See at what intervals the guard is relieved at that bridge."

"Intervals?"

"How many hours the guard stays on and at what time a change is made."

"I have no watch."

"Take mine." He unstrapped it.

"What a watch," Rafael said admiringly. "Look at what complications. Such a watch should be able to read and write. Look at what complications of numbers. It's a watch to end watches."

"Don't fool with it," Robert Jordan said. "Can you tell time?"

"Why not? Twelve o'clock mid-day. Hunger. Twelve o'clock midnight. Sleep. Six o'clock in the morning, hunger. Six o'clock at night, drunk. With luck. Ten o'clock at night--"

"Shut up," Robert Jordan said. "You don't need to be a clown. I want you to check on the guard at the big bridge and the post on the road below in the same manner as the post and the guard at the saw mill and the small bridge."

"It is much work," the gypsy smiled. "You are sure there is no one you would rather send than me?"

"No, Rafael. It is very important. That you should do it very carefully and keeping out of sight with care."

"I believe I will keep out of sight," the gypsy said. "Why do you tell me to keep out of sight? You think I want to be shot?"

"Take things a little seriously," Robert Jordan said. "This is serious."

 

"Thou askest me to take things seriously? After what thou didst last night? When thou needest to kill a man and instead did what you did? You were supposed to kill one, not make one! When we have just seen the sky full of airplanes of a quantity to kill us back to our grandfathers and forward to all unborn grandsons including all cats, goats and bedbugs. Airplanes making a noise to curdle the milk in your mother's breasts as they pass over darkening the sky and roaring like lions and you ask me to take things seriously. I take them too seriously already."

"All right," said Robert Jordan and laughed and put his hand on the gypsy's shoulder. "_Don't_ take them too seriously then. Now finish your breakfast and go."

"And thou?" the gypsy asked. "What do you do?"

"I go to see El Sordo."

"After those airplanes it is very possible that thou wilt find nobody in the whole mountains," the gypsy said. "There must have been many people sweating the big drop this morning when those passed."

"Those have other work than hunting guerillas."

"Yes," the gypsy said. Then shook his head. "But when they care to undertake that work."

"_Que va_," Robert Jordan said. "Those are the best of the German light bombers. They do not send those after gypsies."

"They give me a horror," Rafael said. "Of such things, yes, I am frightened."

"They go to bomb an airfield," Robert Jordan told him as they went into the cave. "I am almost sure they go for that."

"What do you say?" the woman of Pablo asked. She poured him a bowl of coffee and handed him a can of condensed milk.

"There is milk? What luxury!"

"There is everything," she said. "And since the planes there is much fear. Where did you say they went?"

Robert Jordan dripped some of the thick milk into his coffee from the slit cut in the can, wiped the can on the rim of the cup, and stirred the coffee until it was light brown.

"They go to bomb an airfield I believe. They might go to Escorial and Colmenar. Perhaps a!! three."

"That they should go a long way and keep away from here," Pablo said.

"And why are they here now?" the woman asked. "What brings them now? Never have we seen such planes. Nor in such quantity. Do they prepare an attack?"

"What movement was there on the road last night?" Robert Jordan asked. The girl Maria was close to him but he did not look at her.

"You," the woman said. "Fernando. You were in La Granja last night. What movement was there?"

"Nothing," a short, open-faced man of about thirty-five with a cast in one eye, whom Robert Jordan had not seen before, answered. "A few camions as usual. Some cars. No movement of troops while I was there."

"You go into La Granja every night?" Robert Jordan asked him.

"I or another," Fernando said. "Some one goes."

"They go for the news. For tobacco. For small things," the woman said.

"We have people there?"

"Yes. Why not? Those who work the power plant. Some others."

"What was the news?"

"_Pues nada_. There was nothing. It still goes badly in the north. That is not news. In the north it has gone badly now since the beginning."

"Did you hear anything from Segovia?"

"No, _hombre_. I did not ask."

"Do you go into Segovia?"

"Sometimes," Fernando said. "But there is danger. There are controls where they ask for your papers."

"Do you know the airfield?"

"No, _hombre_. I know where it is but I was never close to it. There, there is much asking for papers."

"No one spoke about these planes last night?"

"In La Gnanja? Nobody. But they will talk about them tonight certainly. They talked about the broadcast of Quiepo de Llano. Nothing more. Oh, yes. It seems that the Republic is preparing an offensive."

"That what?"

"That the Republic is preparing an offensive."

"Where?"

"It is not certain. Perhaps here. Perhaps for another pant of the Sierra. Hast thou heard of it?"

"They say this in La Granja?"

"Yes, _hombre_. I had forgotten it. But there is a!ways much talk of offensives."

"Where does this talk come from?"

"Where? Why from different people. The officers speak in the cafes in Segovia and Avila and the waiters note it. The rumors come running. Since some time they speak of an offensive by the Republic in these parts."

"By the Republic or by the Fascists?"

"By the Republic. If it were by the Fascists all would know of it. No, this is an offensive of quite some size. Some say there are two. One here and the other over the Alto del Leon near the Escorial. Have you heard aught of this?"

"What else did you hear?"

"_Nada, hombre_. Nothing. Oh, yes. There was some talk that the Republicans would try to blow up the bridges, if there was to be an offensive. But the bridges are guarded."

"Art thou joking?" Robert Jordan said, sipping his coffee.

"No, _hombre_," said Fernando.

"This one doesn't joke," the woman said. "Bad luck that he doesn't."

"Then," said Robert Jordan. "Thank you for all the news. Did you hear nothing more?"

"No. They talk, as always, of troops to be sent to clear out these mountains. There is some talk that they are on the way. That they Rave been sent already from Valladolid. But they always talk in that Way. It is not to give any importance to."

"And thou," the woman of Pablo said to Pablo almost viciously. "With thy talk of safety."

Pablo looked at her reflectively and scratched his chin. "Thou," he said. "And thy bridges."

"What bridges?" asked Fernando cheerfully.

"Stupid," the woman said to him. "Thick head. _Tonto_. Take another cup of coffee and try to remember more news."

"Don't be angry, Pilar," Fernando said calmly and cheerfully. "Neither should one become alarmed at rumors. I have told thee and this comrade all that I remember."