“He was a little strange,” Robert Jordan said. “I think he was a little crazy.”
“But very dexterous at producing explosions,” the gypsy said. “And very brave.”
“But crazy,” Robert Jordan said. “In this you have to have very much head and be very cold in the head. That was no way to talk.”
“And you,” Pablo said. “If you are wounded in such a thing as this bridge, you would be willing to be left behind?”
“Listen,” Robert Jordan said and, leaning forward, he dipped himself another cup of the wine. “Listen to me clearly. If ever I should have any little favors to ask of any man, I will ask him at the time.”
“Good,” said the gypsy approvingly. “In this way speak the good ones. Ah! Here it comes.”
“You have eaten,” said Pablo.
“And I can eat twice more,” the gypsy told him. “Look now who brings it.”
The girl stooped as she came out of the cave mouth carrying the big iron cooking platter and Robert Jordan saw her face turned at an angle and at the same time saw the strange thing about her. She smiled and said, “Hola, Comrade,” and Robert Jordan said, “Salud,” and was careful not to stare and not to look away. She set down the flat iron platter in front of him and he noticed her handsome brown hands. Now she looked him full in the face and smiled. Her teeth were white in her brown face and her skin and her eyes were the same golden tawny brown. She had high cheekbones, merry eyes and a straight mouth with full lips. Her hair was the golden brown of a grain field that has been burned dark in the sun but it was cut short all over her head so that it was but little longer than the fur on a beaver pelt. She smiled in Robert Jordan’s face and put her brown hand up and ran it over her head, flattening the hair which rose again as her hand passed. She has a beautiful face, Robert Jordan thought. She’d be beautiful if they hadn’t cropped her hair.
“That is the way I comb it,” she said to Robert Jordan and laughed. “Go ahead and eat. Don’t stare at me. They gave me this haircut in Valladolid. It’s almost grown out now.”
She sat down opposite him and looked at him. He looked back at her and she smiled and folded her hands together over her knees. Her legs slanted long and clean from the open cuffs of the trousers as she sat with her hands across her knees and he could see the shape of her small up-tilted breasts under the gray shirt. Every time Robert Jordan looked at her he could feel a thickness in his throat.
“There are no plates,” Anselmo said. “Use your own knife.” The girl had leaned four forks, tines down, against the sides of the iron dish.
They were all eating out of the platter, not speaking, as is the Spanish custom. It was rabbit cooked with onions and green peppers and there were chick peas in the red wine sauce. It was well cooked, the rabbit meat flaked off the bones, and the sauce was delicious. Robert Jordan drank another cup of wine while he ate. The girl watched him all through the meal. Every one else was watching his food and eating. Robert Jordan wiped up the last of the sauce in front of him with a piece of bread, piled the rabbit bones to one side, wiped the spot where they had been for sauce, then wiped his fork clean with the bread, wiped his knife and put it away and ate the bread. He leaned over and dipped his cup full of wine and the girl still watched him.
Robert Jordan drank half the cup of wine but the thickness still came in his throat when he spoke to the girl.
“How art thou called?” he asked. Pablo looked at him quickly when he heard the tone of his voice. Then he got up and walked away.
“Maria. And thee?”
“Roberto. Have you been long in the mountains?”
“Three months.”