The Drifters (84 page)

‘Ceylon.’

The word seemed to explode in the room. Britta started to tremble, put her hand to her forehead as though to steady herself; but she said nothing, only stared into Holt’s eyes until tears filled her own. Then she turned away and, addressing a statue of the Virgin which decorated the wall, said softly, ‘All his life my father has dreamed of going to Ceylon. He buys every book about that island. He was a very good man, my father, very brave when the Germans occupied us. He was like you, Mr. Holt, a true hero. But he never got to Ceylon. I am going there with you, Mr. Holt, whether you want me as your wife or not.’ She came to the bed and kissed him. ‘Get well soon,’ she said and left the room.

Holt looked at me in bewilderment, then wiped his cheek and said, ‘Seems all you have to do to get kissed by pretty girls is to take a horn six inches in your gut.’

‘She means it,’ I said.

Trying to get into focus what Britta had said, he made his usual comment. ‘It’s like the time Signe Hasso watched over Spencer Tracy. She was Scandinavian too.’ I didn’t get this at all, and he growled, ‘When they were hiding from the Nazis.’

When the guard let Britta and me out, he said, ‘Your husband is going to be all right.’

As we walked up Santo Domingo, Britta took my hand and pleaded, ‘Tell him tomorrow, on your own, that I will not be a financial drag on him. I can type, you know.’

I said, ‘Britta, we’d better have some
pochas
, if the fire’s still hot.’ So we went into the bar, where some men were singing in the corner, the old, sad songs of Navarra, and I asked Raquel for some
pochas
, but when they came they were cold, for the fires were banked.

‘You’re entitled to know one thing about Holt,’ I said. ‘He won’t need the money you might earn on the side. He has a good salary plus a lot of extras like per diems, hazardous pay for climbing towers in typhoons and a hardship bonus for living in a place like Ceylon. How much do you suppose he totals in a year?’ She said she could make no intelligent guess, but when I pressed her, she suggested, ‘Maybe as much as six thousand dollars?’

‘Over thirty-nine thousand dollars.’

‘You mean every year?’

‘Some years more, never less. I know, because I save
his money for him. And how much do you suppose he has saved?’ Again she preferred not to guess, so I told her, ‘Almost a million dollars.’

‘You don’t mean United States dollars?’ When I nodded, she stared at the table, then said softly, ‘To be a millionaire … in dollars … and to live so poorly.’ She said no more at that moment, but when the singers halted, we could hear in the distance the bands still playing, at four in the morning, and she said, ‘Mr. Fairbanks, tonight I’m so lonely I would leap from the window if I tried to sleep. I’m going to join the mourners again.’ I took her back to town hall, where I last saw her falling in behind one of the bands that was making a great noise. When the music stopped, Britta fell to the street and began beating her head against the stones. I left her there.

July 15 in Pamplona was hell. The oppression started at five-thirty in the morning, when not a single txistulari blew his flute nor one trumpeter his comet. At seven no rocket exploded and there were no singers in the cafés. With a speed that seemed impossible, the industrious city obliterated all signs of its preceding debauch, and stores opened at the customary hour. The wooden barricades behind which thousands had viewed the running of the bulls were carted off to storage for another year, and postholes in the streets were filled with wooden blocks and tamped with sand.

The central square showed no preparations for fireworks, and the draperies were gone from the bandstand. Traffic now flowed normally, Estafeta subsided to a minor artery of commerce, and Teléfonos was again a place to make telephone calls and not a scene of adrenalin-bravery. Bar Vasca had four customers at noon, and two of them were Britta and me.

‘This town is too lonely to bear,’ she said after returning from the hospital, where the new guard would not let her in.

‘You miss the others already?’ I asked.

‘I’d like to hear … just once more … Clive and his records. Like Octopus beating out a good number.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. But I will not leave Mr. Holt.’

‘If you’re going to marry him, shouldn’t you call him Harvey?’

‘He’s afraid of marrying.’

‘You think you can change that?’

‘It’s of no significance. I’m going with him to Ceylon. I must.’

We talked like this through our lunch, and Raquel came to our alcove to tell us that our bull stew was made from the bull that had gored Holt. I asked how she knew, and she laughed. Britta asked, ‘Did you see the photographs?’ Raquel pointed to a board beside the bar where four of the photos had been mounted.

‘Everybody’s surprised Holt acted so brave,’ Raquel said. ‘What do they think he’s been doing these past years?’ She sighed and returned to the bar.

At three I went back to the hospital and found Holt deeply disturbed by Britta’s visit the preceding night. ‘That Norwegian is plain nuts,’ he said.

‘And you loved it.’

‘I’ve been counting. I can name forty young girls who married old men. But not one of the men was poor.’

‘She thought you were. You heard her offer to work.’

‘An act. An act. What would I do mixed up with that gang of beatniks?’

‘Wrong word.’

‘What would you suggest?’

‘I don’t know. How about individual young people.’

‘And Clive? He was a great one.’

‘He may be the best of the bunch.’

‘Gretchen thought so. Did you know they were sleeping together?’

‘As somebody said, “Who keeps score?” How’s the stomach?’

‘Fine. I get out in a day or two. These doctors are unbelievable.’ He showed me the bandages and gave them a hearty slap. I winced.

‘When can we drive to Madrid?’ I asked.

‘Day after tomorrow. You drive.’

‘Britta’s a good driver too,’ I suggested.

‘Keep her out of it. She’s eighteen and I’m forty-three.’

‘She’s also in love with you. Walked the streets in anguish all last night.’

‘Thousands of people walked the streets last night.’

‘Harvey, this one is going to Ceylon with you. Whether you like it or not.’

‘I’ll buy her a bar in Torremolinos.’

‘She knows what I know, Harvey. You need her.’

‘Do girls do the proposing these days?’

‘The new breed does.’

‘I don’t like the new breed. And I don’t want her in the car. Send her home by train.’

‘Harvey, on one thing she’s right. This is your last chance. If you throw her out, you’re going to wind up a crabbed old man … alone.’

Apparently the goring was more serious than he had made it out to be, for he sucked in his breath. I left, and at dusk Britta came to my room and asked, ‘Would you walk with me?’ so we set out for a very long recapitulation of Pamplona. We walked down the boulevard, past Mr. Mehukoff’s hotel, which now had many empty rooms, and out to the railroad station, which stood in the country. ‘I suppose he wants me to leave by train,’ she said sardonically.

‘How did you know I saw him?’

‘I was watching the hospital.’

‘You haven’t convinced him.’

‘I will.’

We walked back by paths along the far side of the river and came to that quiet area where the bulls were kept in the early stages of their stay, and as we looked at the bleak corrals, Britta said, ‘I understand why men want to run with the bulls. If I were a man I’d run. I was gratified to see so many Scandinavians in the street.’

As we crossed the ivy-covered bridge which delivered the bulls to the holding corral, we could hear the imaginary thunder; in the darkness we could see the vital forms which have challenged men since the beginning of history. And Britta said, ‘This is so lonely the heart could break … like a twig. God, how can he come back year after year? Don’t answer. I know. This is where honor grows. On this steep street.’

We were now at the foot of Santo Domingo, and as she looked into its dark canyon she could visualize what the bulls saw as they leaped clear after the morning rocket. Here were the walls that pinned them in; here the ramp up which the policemen escaped at the last moment;
here the spot where Harvey Holt waited to rush down to meet his enemy. In the darkness she could see him come, see the very point at which he made his turn, his gallant charge up the hill. She became a bull and lunged at him with her horns. She stopped and whispered a triad from a song which Clive had composed for Octopus:

We were now in the narrowest part of the passage, and Britta studied the walls which deflected the bulls to the left. She touched them, smelled them, then looked ahead to where Bar Vasca threw its pale light into the empty street.

‘And here we are at the hospital … where the circle ends,’ she said softly. ‘Last night I was lonely and thinking only of myself. I felt I had to escape Tromsø at any cost … I was scared … when he said the word Ceylon, it broke my heart.’ She covered her face and mumbled, ‘Tonight I am more lonely than I can bear. Thank God, you had the kindness to walk with me. But this night my sorrow is for others … the human race … all of us … you growing old and watching younger men come along with different ideas … Mr. Holt afraid of everything except the bulls … how he hates Cato and Clive, and they could save him.’ She pressed the tears from her eyes and said, ‘Now you must take me to the hospital again.’

I was relieved to find that the guard was the one I knew. I told him that the señora was back, and he let us in. As we climbed the stairs I saw that Britta was nervous, but I could hardly have guessed what she had in mind.

When we entered the room she laid her handbag on a chair, and without speaking, kicked off her sandals and proceeded to undress until she was completely naked. She then walked to the bed and said, ‘Mr. Holt, you are a man who has been sorely wounded and I am here to care for you.’

Holt, astonished at her beauty and her daring, placed his hand over his bandages, but as she drew down the covers she said, ‘I do not mean that wound, Mr. Holt.
I mean the terrible wound in your heart.’ Placing her hand on his chest, she said, ‘This wound I shall cure.’ She kissed him on the lips, lay down beside him, pulled up the covers, and motioned to me that I should leave the room.

God writes straight, but uses a crooked line.

Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the long course of rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, and the circular motion of the stars, and yet pass themselves by.—St. Augustine

My old man made a tragic mistake. Took wash-and-wear clothes with him to Europe. After one week Mom said she’d be damned if she had come to Europe to wash his laundry. He started doing it himself, and when she saw how good he was she made him do hers too. When they got home she said that since he was so expert he could do the wash regularly. With the money she saved this way she’s going to Asia next summer. Hasn’t decided yet whether Pop ought to go along or not.

If one family of dinosaurs survived on earth, some son-of-a-bitch from West Oklahoma would claim he had a right to shoot the male.

A barbecue pit in Alabama held this beauty contest and elected a cute colored chick to be Miss Barbecue 1970. So when she got back to her room she said, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?’ and the mirror snarled, ‘Snow White, you black bastard, and don’t you forget it.’

Young men should travel, if but to amuse themselves.—Byron

Nature is the balm that will cure all the ills created by those who have abused nature.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ‘Tis all barren.’—Laurence Sterne

The elephant came crashing through the trees, standing shoulder-high to the topmost branches, a beast of such magnitude that he stupefied me. I asked myself, ‘What right have I to aggrandize myself with a mechanical toy like a rifle so that I can equal this towering beast?’ and my folly became apparent, and I could not pull the trigger. ‘Fire! Fire!’ shouted the hunters, but I could not, so one of them had to do it, and this gigantic element of nature staggered forward a few feet and collapsed like a mountain from which the core of gold has been stolen. At the camp they reported that I had made a very poor showing …

Support mental health or I’ll kill you.

A fox abused a lioness that she brought forth but one whelp at a time, whereas the fox produced seven. ‘True,’ confessed the lioness, ‘but when I produce a whelp it is a lion.’

Help bring back white slavery.

I was not in Moçambique that August day when the Greek freighter deposited the yellow pop-top on the quayside at Lourenço Marques, but later I heard how each of the new arrivals reacted.

Cato, with his first step ashore, fell to his knees and kissed the stones. When the others said they were surprised that he thought so much of Africa, he said, ‘I pay homage to the slaves that were sent in chains from this port.’

Monica threw her dark head back to feel the sweet, warm breeze of late winter. She looked at the flowering trees about to bud, then studied the variety of human beings—African, Portuguese, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Rhodesian—and shivered. It was the same Africa, immense and unforgiving, and it pressed down upon her as heavily as ever.