But just suppose, he thought. Just suppose that when the planes unload they smash those anti-tank guns and just blow hell out of the positions and the old tanks roll good up whatever hill it is for once and old Golz boots that bunch of drunks, clochards, bums, fanatics and heroes that make up the Quatorzieme Brigade ahead of him, and I know how good Durán’s people are in Golz’s other brigade, and we are in Segovia tomorrow night.
Yes. Just suppose, he said to himself. I’ll settle for La Granja, he told himself. But you are going to have to blow that bridge, he suddenly knew absolutely. There won’t be any calling off. Because the way you have just been supposing there for a minute is how the possibilities of that attack look to those who have ordered it. Yes, you will have to blow the bridge, he knew truly. Whatever happens to Andrés doesn’t matter.
Coming down the trail there in the dark, alone with the good feeling that everything that had to be done was over for the next four hours, and with the confidence that had come from thinking back to concrete things, the knowledge that he would surely have to blow the bridge came to him almost with comfort.
The uncertainty, the enlargement of the feeling of being uncertain, as when, through a misunderstanding of possible dates, one does not know whether the guests are really coming to a party, that had been with him ever since he had dispatched Andrés with the report to Golz, had all dropped from him now. He was sure now that the festival would not be cancelled. It’s much better to be sure, he thought. It’s always much better to be sure.
31
So now they were in the robe again together and it was late in the last night. Maria lay close against him and he felt the long smoothness of her thighs against his and her breasts like two small hills that rise out of the long plain where there is a well, and the far country beyond the hills was the valley of her throat where his lips were. He lay very quiet and did not think and she stroked his head with her hand.
“Roberto,” Maria said very softly and kissed him. “I am ashamed. I do not wish to disappoint thee but there is a great soreness and much pain. I do not think I would be any good to thee.”
“There is always a great soreness and much pain,” he said. “Nay, rabbit. That is nothing. We will do nothing that makes pain.”
“It is not that. It is that I am not good to receive thee as I wish to.”
“That is of no importance. That is a passing thing. We are together when we lie together.”
“Yes, but I am ashamed. I think it was from when things were done to me that it comes. Not from thee and me.”
“Let us not talk of that.”
“Nor do I wish to. I meant I could not bear to fail thee now on this night and so I sought to excuse myself.”
“Listen, rabbit,” he said. “All such things pass and then there is no problem.” But he thought; it was not good luck for the last night.
Then he was ashamed and said, “Lie close against me, rabbit. I love thee as much feeling thee against me in here in the dark as I love thee making love.”
“I am deeply ashamed because I thought it might be again tonight as it was in the high country when we came down from El Sordo’s.”
“Qué va,” he said to her. “That is not for every day. I like it thus as well as the other.” He lied, putting aside disappointment. “We will be here together quietly and we will sleep. Let us talk together. I know thee very little from talking.”
“Should we speak of tomorrow and of thy work? I would like to be intelligent about thy work.”
“No,” he said and relaxed completely into the length of the robe and lay now quietly with his cheek against her shoulder, his left arm under her head. “The most intelligent is not to talk about tomorrow nor what happened today. In this we do not discuss the losses and what we must do tomorrow we will do. Thou art not afraid?”