Savage Coast (13 page)

“He said, ‘The Rebellion has been suffocated.' He praises the forces who fought so heroically for the republican regime,” relayed the lady.

The short man looked into his brother's eyes during the blare of cheering. His nostrils stiffened and pointed.

The radio put on another record. The stammer of machinery done, the words issued, crooning, native, absurd:

        
Alone, alone with a sky of romance above.

        
Alone, alone with a heart that was made for love,

        
There must be someone waiting

        
Who feels the way I do.

        
Whoever you are,

              
are you

                 
are you, alone?

They left the café.

THE WOMAN STUCK
her head out of the train window. All the little boys had climbed out of the yellow trees. They had gone off to bed; from the row of houses slanting to the station, their voices still came, moving from window to window. The houses were full of running children. The radio was shouting down at the Worker's
café. But the children stopped, one by one; the radio was turned off. The deep quiet rose from the ground. The train was deadly still.

They all sat in the compartment—Peter, Olive, Helen, the two school teachers who were uneasy, the pockmarked Swiss.

Rising from the ground, following the quiet, a deep roar came, a zoo noise of some sick enormous animal.

They looked at each other in despair and ignorance, the long fearful look of the haunted.

Olive said in extreme disbelief: “Storm, in the mountains . . .” She lit her cigarette with heavy sighing puffs.

It came again, eager and deep. They all knew what it was.

The Belgian woman pulled the compartment door open, slamming it back fiercely in its groove so that it slipped half-shut as she cried out: “The cannons are coming! Don't you hear them coming nearer?” Her hair was pulled in disorder, her fat soft shoulders rocked.

Helen trembled. The woman stood above her, agitated and moist, pushing at her forehead as if she had gone mad.

The great sound boomed again.

“Oh, God,” said the Belgian woman, pushing at her hair, “somebody come back with me to my compartment. I can't stand it when they come nearer.” She was appealing to the two school teachers. They did not move. She threw her hand out.

“You babies!” she shouted. “What do you know about guns!”

That pulled them to their feet. The sickly school teacher took the Belgian woman's shoulder and steered her through the door; the one with the long teeth went out after them.

The sounds came up like giant plants around them, a forest of noise.

Peter lit cigarettes for Helen and himself.

“She has to think it's coming nearer,” he said.

“She's Belgian.” He grinned in sick humor, the grin of pain that sick babies show.

“We have to have something to do,” Helen said suddenly. “From the minute they said General Strike, I've been wanting to push through until we could do something.”

“If there were only something close to us, beside the noise,” said Olive. “Why should it be so remote?”

The Swiss in the corner looked sharply at her. He had not said a word. He did not understand at all.

“Well,” said Peter, “if this were a meeting—”

Olive laughed, “It's manifesto time,” she said,

“OK, Olive.”

“She's right it is,” said Helen abruptly.

“Yes,” Peter answered, on two slow notes. “From the train to the town—a manifesto. A letter.”

The Swiss began to understand. His slow, kind face churned. “And a collection,” he announced.

The two women were back in the doorway. “Collection?” asked the sickly one. “The Belgian woman went in with the English.”

“Come on in,” said Helen. “Come help us. We'll take a letter through the train, to tell the town we're with them.”

“It isn't true,” Peter contradicted. “The train's not.”

“We have to do this well,” said Olive. She found a sheet of paper. The Swiss leaned forward.

“We'll compose,” he said. “Write: ‘The passengers of the train standing in the Moncada—'”

Olive looked out of the window for the spelling. The station sign was directly outside their window, half buried in leaves, lit by a raw white light.

“‘—wish to thank the citizens of the town for the courteous treatment they have received—'”

“No. ‘Treatment received during their stay at the station.' You can't tell how long we'll be here.”

Helen and Olive looked at each other, startled.

“‘—and to express our sympathy—'”

“We can't,” said the Swiss.

“We're foreign nationals,” explained Peter. “It was like that in Paris on July fourteenth. The government asked all foreigners who wanted to march to mingle with the demonstration, and not to go as foreign nationals. Can't, in a revolutionary situation . . . Incorrect.”

“To express our understanding of the hardships of the people's cause, and to present this, this—”

“—small sum collected on the train, for the care of the wounded and mutilated in today's battle—”

“Oh, no,” said Helen. “If we can't sympathize, we can at least give them money for their own uses.”

“OK” said Peter. “Collected on the train for the town to use as it sees fit.”

“Yes,” said the school teachers. “That's it, if anyone will sign it.”

“No signatures,” the Swiss declared, waving his hand before his marked face.

“OK. What'll we do, go right through?”

“Well, it should wait until morning, we ought to give it as we pull out,” said the school teacher.

Helen said, “We can give it then, if you want, but we ought to see how the train feels about it now.”

“Yes,” said Olive. “You go with Peter, Helen.” The school teacher agreed.

“We'll report to the rest of this committee on the way back,” said Helen. Peter interrupted. “We'll start the collection here.”

The Swiss drew out his wallet, thumbed through it, and laid a fifty-peseta note in Peter's beret.

They were startled. “Oh, no,” said Peter, flustered.

“Never mind.” The Swiss's face did not move.

“THE SWISS IS
good,” said Helen, “He gets more and more like the lion for the Swiss Guards.”

“He does!” said Peter. “But those two bitches are beginning to get me.

“I don't know,” said Helen. “The picture of the green one reading
Problems of the Spanish Revolution
was worth a lot of annoyance. How do you want to do this?” She was very glad of the activity.

“Let's split them for language, and then you take men and I'll take women. I'm all right at meetings; I'm not sure about trains.” He laughed.

There were three men in the next compartment, busy reading
Gringoire
.
*
Helen tried in French. They talked among themselves a minute, and Peter shook his beret. One of them slapped down two
duros.

“That's as close to fascism as we can afford to get,” said Peter, outside.

“Oh, no,” said Helen. “You've been talking to leftists. They'll go on reading
Gringoire
, but they're human.”

“You've been in England,” Peter retorted.

“Let's ask the English,” she said suddenly. “They are decent, and they've got the League of Nations man with them.”

The Belgian woman was just leaving the English compartment.

“I'm better now,” she answered Helen. “I'll be all right, I think. It's only the big guns.” She hurried down the train, blowing her nose softly.

Peter opened the door and leaned against it. The Spaniard's long face looked up mildly. “Good evening?” His graying sideburns added meekness and courtesy to his expression.

“We have a letter to the town, from the train—” Peter began.

“Yes, we hope'd you'd translate it for us, if you approve. We're going through the train with it.”

“
Through the train
!” repeated Drew.

The lady from South America smiled at Helen. “Perfectly
groomed,” Peter had said. Her mouth moved. “Oh, yes,” she said. “But give it to them tonight; at least they'll know we're not against them. I'll sleep better. She held her wrist against her temple, and the light caught her bracelet.

“Do give it to them tonight, by all means,” the Spaniard advised gently. “It is a very polite gesture; it will be our . . . guarantee for the night.” He waved at the open window. “We are perfectly exposed here, you realize.”

Helen spoke aside to young Mrs. Drew. “Is he really from the League of Nations?”

The Spaniard looked up before she could answer.

“What an idea!” he said. “No! League of Nations! I am a professor at the University of Madrid.”

“If I were from the League, I might be able to put a call through,” he remarked wistfully. “As it is, my family is waiting for me to come for them . . . But this,” he said, tapping the sheet of paper, “this is a very politic gesture. It will at least insure us a quiet night.”

“We'll have guards—” Drew looked at the professor for confirmation.

“Indeed yes,” the professor granted. “The mayor has promised.”

“They'll be armed peasants, of course, who've never handled a gun before,” Drew said. “But they're probably the best persons to have on the platform. It's really decent of them to be so considerate—the letter's right—whether the consideration means anything or not.” He was very hopeless looking. His silk mustache was stuck on to the face of a young, worried boy.

The professor was translating rapidly, writing in pencil under the English letter.

“There!” he said, finishing, with approval, as if it were an examination paper. He pulled coins out of his pocket. “Let us know what happens, won't you.”

Drew nodded. “Good luck,” he said. “D'you think sleeping will be all right? We've got our candles.”

His wife had swimming blue eyes; she was nervous. She laughed. “We'll hope to wake up in Barcelona.”

They went on to the chorus' two compartments. One of the girls saw Peter reflected in the window-mirror. She paused, holding her eyebrow pencil an inch away from her face. “Maybe he knows!” she said eagerly.

The three perfectly-tinted silvery heads came up. “Have you seen our phonograph?”

“Did you see any of those men in sandals carrying a case away?”

Peter said no, showed them the letter, explained about the diplomacy of the move. They drew eyebrows, agreed, contributed.

They went through the first class, speaking to the rest of the chorus, a little dark Spaniard, a Spanish family which sat apart, the mother stony and tragic, the father with his arm about a weeping daughter. The daughter wept; the father motioned them away.

They turned, going down toward third. Many were asleep already, the timid light from the bulbs strung in the corridor did not disturb them, even when it lay on their faces. The Catalans slept on the wooden benches.

Peter and Helen passed the open compartments where there were sleeping children. A group who were still awake, collected money among themselves, nodding and asking about the battle. They had been eating on the train when General Goded's broadcast came through, and were delighted to hear of the victory.

Others groups gave and approved the message; their intense colorless eyes watched Peter and Helen read it, they scraped together
céntimos
and
reals
, they asked for news. At the end of the second car the Swiss and Hungarian teams occupied several compartments; the Swiss were singing softly, led by a tall, academically handsome athlete whose tightly curled hair caught the weak light.

As they reached the teams, Toni stood in the corridor. His dark mouth smiled, the lips appearing almost black, his female dark
eyes softened by the shadow. “We looked for you,” he said gently, reproachfully, to Helen. “I tried to find you. Did you eat?”

“I went off with the English.”

“The mayor gave us dinner,” Toni said proudly. “Big dinners in a
restaurante
, for both teams. But there will be more fighting tonight. Did you hear the cannon a few minutes ago? And the mayor has sent
camiones
into the hills tonight to capture rebels. Now that the fascists are in retreat, these hills are important.

“Did he say how the United Front was?”

“Everybody is either Anarchist or very proud of the Anarchists,” he answered, “and this may mean a free Catalonia.”

“Are you all Hungarians?” asked Peter.

Toni came along with them into the next car. He was very impressed by Peter's Hungarian.

They continued up the next car. It was in complete darkness. The first compartment belonged to an Italian, taking care of his old father. “Such a day!” he breathed. “And God only knows what is happening at Barcelona and all over Spain tonight.”

“Haven't you any light?” Helen asked. He picked at the switch. It clicked blank.

“There hasn't been any light all evening,” he said. “The cars must be connected on separate batteries,” Peter said to him. “The English have candles. Would you like one?”

“Oh, thank you, no,” the Italian protested. “I would like it if my father would get a little rest: the dark is
benigna
—gentle.”

More than half of the darkened compartments here held sleeping figures, the drawn-up legs and cramped restless shoulders half-seen through the glass, or guessed-at behind the blinds. One woman stood out in the corridor, leaning on a bar, her head stiffened and listening.