"Yes," Robert Jordan said. "Run along a minute, will you?" he said to Maria without looking at her.
The girl walked away out of hearing and sat down, her hands clasped over her ankles.
"You see," Sordo said. "In that there is no problem. But to leave afterward and get out of this country in daylight presents a grave problem."
"Clearly," said Robert Jordan. "I have thought of it. It is daylight for me also."
"But you are one," El Sordo said. "We are various."
"There is the possibility of returning to the camps and leaving from there at dark," Pilar said, putting the glass to her lips and then lowering it.
"That is very dangerous, too," El Sordo explained. "That is perhaps even more dangerous."
"I can see how it would be," Robert Jordan said.
"To do the bridge in the night would be easy," El Sordo said. "Since you make the condition that it must be done at daylight, it brings grave consequences."
"I know it."
"You could not do it at night?"
"I would be shot for it."
"It is very possible we will all be shot for it if you do it in the daytime."
"For me myself that is less important once the bridge is blown," Robert Jordan said. "But I see your viewpoint. You cannot work out a retreat for daylight?"
"Certainly," El Sordo said. "We will work out such a retreat. But I explain to you why one is preoccupied and why one is irritated. You speak of going to Gredos as though it were a military manoeuvre to be accomplished. To arrive at Gredos would be a miracle."
Robert Jordan said nothing.
"Listen to me," the deaf man said. "I am speaking much. But it is so we may understand one another. We exist here by a miracle. By a miracle of laziness and stupidity of the fascists which they will remedy in time. Of course we are very careful and we make no disturbance in these hills."
"I know."
"But now, with this, we must go. We must think much about the manner of our going."
"Clearly."
"Then," said El Sordo. "Let us eat now. I have talked much."
"Never have I heard thee talk so much," Pilar said. "Is it this?" she held up the glass.
"No," El Sordo shook his head. "It isn't whiskey. It is that never have I had so much to talk of."
"I appreciate your aid and your loyalty," Robert Jordan said. "I appreciate the difficulty caused by the timing of the blowing of the bridge."
"Don't talk of that," El Sordo said. "We are here to do what we can do. But this is complicated."
"And on paper very simple," Robert Jordan grinned. "On paper the bridge is blown at the moment the attack starts in order that nothing shall come up the road. It is very simple."
"That they should let us do something on paper," El Sordo said. "That we should conceive and execute something on paper."
"'Paper bleeds little,'" Robert Jordan quoted the proverb.
"But it is very useful," Pilar said. "Es muy util. What I would like to do is use thy orders for that purpose."
"Me too," said Robert Jordan. "But you could never win a war like that."
"No," the big woman said. "I suppose not. But do you know what I would like?"
"To go to the Republic," El Sordo said. He had put his good ear close to her as she spoke. "Ya iras, mujer. Let us win this and it will all be Republic."
"All right," Pilar said. "And now, for God's sake let us eat."
12
They left El Sordo's after eating and started down the trail. El Sordo had walked with them as far as the lower post.
"Salud," he said. "Until tonight."
"Salud, Camarada," Robert Jordan had said to him and the three of them had gone on down the trail, the deaf man standing looking after them. Maria had turned and waved her hand at him and El Sordo waved disparagingly with the abrupt, Spanish upward flick of the forearm as though something were being tossed away which seems the negation of all salutation which has not to do with business. Through the meal he had never unbuttoned his sheepskin coat and he had been carefully polite, careful to turn his head to hear and had returned to speaking his broken Spanish, asking Robert Jordan about conditions in the Republic politely; but it was obvious he wanted to be rid of them.
As they had left him, Pilar had said to him, "Well, Santiago?"
"Well, nothing, woman," the deaf man said. "It is all right. But I am thinking."
"Me, too," Pilar had said and now as they walked down the trail, the walking easy and pleasant down the steep trail through the pines that they had toiled up, Pilar said nothing. Neither Robert Jordan nor Maria spoke and the three of them travelled along fast until the trail rose steeply out of the wooded valley to come up through the timber, leave it, and come out into the high meadow.
It was hot in the late May afternoon and halfway up this last steep grade the woman stopped. Robert Jordan, stopping and looking back, saw the sweat beading on her forehead. He thought her brown face looked pallid and the skin sallow and that there were dark areas under her eyes.
"Let us rest a minute," he said. "We go too fast."
"No," she said. "Let us go on."
"Rest, Pilar," Maria said. "You look badly."
"Shut up," the woman said. "Nobody asked for thy advice."
She started on up the trail but at the top she was breathing heavily and her face was wet with perspiration and there was no doubt about her pallor now.
"Sit down, Pilar," Maria said. "Please, please sit down."
"All right," said Pilar and the three of them sat down under a pine tree and looked across the mountain meadow to where the tops of the peaks seemed to jut out from the roll of the high country with snow shining bright on them now in the early afternoon sun.
"What rotten stuff is the snow and how beautiful it looks," Pilar said. "What an illusion is the snow." She turned to Maria. "I am sorry I was rude to thee, guapa. I don't know what has held me today. I have an evil temper."
"I never mind what you say when you are angry," Maria told her. "And you are angry often."
"Nay, it is worse than anger," Pilar said, looking across at the peaks.
"Thou art not well," Maria said.
"Neither is it that," the woman said. "Come here, guapa, and put thy head in my lap."
Maria moved close to her, put her arms out and folded them as one does who goes to sleep without a pillow and lay with her head on her arms. She turned her face up at Pilar and smiled at her but the big woman looked on across the meadow at the mountains. She stroked the girl's head without looking down at her and ran a blunt finger across the girl's forehead and then around the line of her ear and down the line where the hair grew on her neck.
"You can have her in a little while, Ingles," she said. Robert Jordan was sitting behind her.
"Do not talk like that," Maria said.
"Yes, he can have thee," Pilar said and looked at neither of them. "I have never wanted thee. But I am jealous."
"Pilar," Maria said. "Do not talk thus."
"He can have thee," Pilar said and ran her finger around the lobe of the girl's ear. "But I am very jealous."
"But Pilar," Maria said. "It was thee explained to me there was nothing like that between us."
"There is always something like that," the woman said. "There is always something like something that there should not be. But with me there is not. Truly there is not. I want thy happiness and nothing more."
Maria said nothing but lay there, trying to make her head rest lightly.
"Listen, guapa," said Pilar and ran her finger now absently but tracingly over the contours of her cheeks. "Listen, guapa, I love thee and he can have thee, I am no tortillera but a woman made for men. That is true. But now it gives me pleasure to say thus, in the daytime, that I care for thee."
"I love thee, too."
"Que va. Do not talk nonsense. Thou dost not know even of what I speak."
"I know."
"Que va, that you know. You are for the Ingles. That is seen and as
it should be. That I would have. Anything else I would not have. I do not make perversions. I only tell you something true. Few people will ever talk to thee truly and no women. I am jealous and say it and it is there. And I say it."
"Do not say it," Maria said. "Do not say it, Pilar."
"Por que, do not say it," the woman said, still not looking at either of them. "I will say it until it no longer pleases me to say it. And," she looked down at the girl now, "that time has come already. I do not say it more, you understand?"
"Pilar," Maria said. "Do not talk thus."
"Thou art a very pleasant little rabbit," Pilar said. "And lift thy head now because this silliness is over."
"It was not silly," said Maria. "And my head is well where it is."
"Nay. Lift it," Pilar told her and put her big hands under the girl's head and raised it. "And thou, Ingles?" she said, still holding the girl's head as she looked across at the mountains. "What cat has eaten thy tongue?"
"No cat," Robert Jordan said.
"What animal then?" She laid the girl's head down on the ground.
"No animal," Robert Jordan told her.
"You swallowed it yourself, eh?"
"I guess so," Robert Jordan said.
"And did you like the taste?" Pilar turned now and grinned at him.
"Not much."
"I thought not," Pilar said. "I thought not. But I give you back our rabbit. Nor ever did I try to take your rabbit. That's a good name for her. I heard you call her that this morning."
Robert Jordan felt his face redden.
"You are a very hard woman," he told her.
"No," Pilar said. "But so simple I am very complicated. Are you very complicated, Ingles?"
"No. Nor not so simple."
"You please me, Ingles," Pilar said. Then she smiled and leaned forward and smiled and shook her head. "Now if I could take the rabbit from thee and take thee from the rabbit."
"You could not."
"I know it," Pilar said and smiled again. "Nor would I wish to. But when I was young I could have."
"I believe it."
"You believe it?"
"Surely," Robert Jordan said. "But such talk is nonsense."
"It is not like thee," Maria said.
"I am not much like myself today," Pilar said. "Very little like myself. Thy bridge has given me a headache, Ingles."
"We can tell it the Headache Bridge," Robert Jordan said. "But I will drop it in that gorge like a broken bird cage."
"Good," said Pilar. "Keep on talking like that."
"I'll drop it as you break a banana from which you have removed the skin."
"I could eat a banana now," said Pilar. "Go on, Ingles. Keep on talking largely."
"There is no need," Robert Jordan said. "Let us get to camp."
"Thy duty," Pilar said. "It will come quickly enough. I said that I would leave the two of you."
"No. I have much to do."
"That is much too and does not take long."
"Shut thy mouth, Pilar," Maria said. "You speak grossly."
"I am gross," Pilar said. "But I am also very delicate. Soy muy delicada. I will leave the two of you. And the talk of jealousness is nonsense. I was angry at Joaquin because I saw from his look how ugly I am. I am only jealous that you are nineteen. It is not a jealousy which lasts. You will not be nineteen always. Now I go."
She stood up and with a hand on one hip looked at Robert Jordan, who was also standing. Maria sat on the ground under the tree, her head dropped forward.
"Let us all go to camp together," Robert Jordan said. "It is better and there is much to do."
Pilar nodded with her head toward Maria, who sat there, her head turned away from them, saying nothing.
Pilar smiled and shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly and said, "You know the way?"
"I know it," Maria said, not raising her head.
"Pues me voy," Pilar said. "Then I am going. We'll have something hearty for you to eat, Ingles."
She started to walk off into the heather of the meadow toward the stream that led down through it toward the camp.
"Wait," Robert Jordan called to her. "It is better that we should all go together."
Maria sat there and said nothing.
Pilar did not turn.
"Que va, go together," she said. "I will see thee at the camp."
Robert Jordan stood there.
"Is she all right?" he asked Maria. "She looked ill before."
"Let her go," Maria said, her head still down.
"I think I should go with her."
"Let her go," said Maria. "Let her go!"
13
They were walking through the heather of the mountain meadow and Robert Jordan felt the brushing of the heather against his legs, felt the weight of his pistol in its holster against his thigh, felt the sun on his head, felt the breeze from the snow of the mountain peaks cool on his back and, in his hand, he felt the girl's hand firm and strong, the fingers locked in his. From it, from the palm of her hand against the palm of his, from their fingers locked together, and from her wrist across his wrist something came from her hand, her fingers and her wrist to his that was as fresh as the first light air that moving toward you over the sea barely wrinkles the glassy surface of a calm, as light as a feather moved across one's lip, or a leaf falling when there is no breeze; so light that it could be felt with the touch of their fingers alone, but that was so strengthened, so intensified, and made so urgent, so aching and so strong by the hard pressure of their fingers and the close pressed palm and wrist, that it was as though a current moved up his arm and filled his whole body with an aching hollowness of wanting. With the sun shining on her hair, tawny as wheat, and on her gold-brown smooth-lovely face and on the curve of her throat he bent her head back and held her to him and kissed her. He felt her trembling as he kissed her and he held the length of her body tight to him and felt her breasts against his chest through the two khaki shirts, he felt them small and firm and he reached and undid the buttons on her shirt and bent and kissed her and she stood shivering, holding her head back, his arm behind her. Then she dropped her chin to his head and then he felt her hands holding his head and rocking it against her. He straightened and with his two arms around her held her so tightly that she was lifted off the ground, tight against him, and he felt her trembling and then her lips were on his throat, and then he put her down and said, "Maria, oh, my Maria."
Then he said, "Where should we go?"
She did not say anything but slipped her hand inside of his shirt and he felt her undoing the shirt buttons and she said, "You, too. I want to kiss, too."
"No, little rabbit."
"Yes. Yes. Everything as you."
"Nay. That is an impossibility."
"Well, then. Oh, then. Oh, then. Oh."
Then there was the smell of heather crushed and the roughness of the bent stalks under her head and the sun bright on her closed eyes and all his life he would remember the curve of her throat with her head pushed back into the heather roots and her lips that moved smally and by themselves and the fluttering of the lashes on the eyes tight closed against the sun and against everything, and for her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color. For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.
Then he was lying on his side, his head deep in the heather, smelling it and the smell of the r
oots and the earth and the sun came through it and it was scratchy on his bare shoulders and along his flanks and the girl was lying opposite him with her eyes still shut and then she opened them and smiled at him and he said very tiredly and from a great but friendly distance, "Hello, rabbit." And she smiled and from no distance said, "Hello, my Ingles."
"I'm not an Ingles," he said very lazily.
"Oh yes, you are," she said. "You're my Ingles," and reached and took hold of both his ears and kissed him on the forehead.
"There," she said. "How is that? Do I kiss thee better?"
Then they were walking along the stream together and he said, "Maria, I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee."
"Oh," she said. "I die each time. Do you not die?"
"No. Almost. But did thee feel the earth move?"
"Yes. As I died. Put thy arm around me, please."
"No. I have thy hand. Thy hand is enough."
He looked at her and across the meadow where a hawk was hunting and the big afternoon clouds were coming now over the mountains.
"And it is not thus for thee with others?" Maria asked him, they now walking hand in hand.
"No. Truly."
"Thou hast loved many others."
"Some. But not as thee."
"And it was not thus? Truly?"
"It was a pleasure but it was not thus."
"And then the earth moved. The earth never moved before?"
"Nay. Truly never."
"Ay," she said. "And this we have for one day."
He said nothing.
"But we have had it now at least," Maria said. "And do you like me too? Do I please thee? I will look better later."
"Thou art very beautiful now."
"Nay," she said. "But stroke thy hand across my head."
He did that feeling her cropped hair soft and flattening and then rising between his fingers and he put both hands on her head and turned her face up to his and kissed her.
"I like to kiss very much," she said. "But I do not do it well."
"Thou hast no need to kiss."
"Yes, I have. If I am to be thy woman I should please thee in all ways."
For Whom the Bell Tolls Page 17