Robert Jordan felt the ache in his throat and his voice thickening. “That might be done,” he said.
The mujer of Pablo looked at him and shook her head. “Ayee. Ayee,” she said. “Are all men like that?”
“I said nothing. She is beautiful, you know that.”
“No she is not beautiful. But she begins to be beautiful, you mean,” the woman of Pablo said. “Men. It is a shame to us women that we make them. No. In seriousness. Are there not homes to care for such as her under the Republic?”
“Yes,” said Robert Jordan. “Good places. On the coast near Valencia. In other places too. There they will treat her well and she can work with children. There are the children from evacuated villages. They will teach her the work.”
“That is what I want,” the mujer of Pablo said. “Pablo has a sickness for her already. It is another thing which destroys him. It lies on him like a sickness when he sees her. It is best that she goes now.”
“We can take her after this is over.”
“And you will be careful of her now if I trust you? I speak to you as though I knew you for a long time.”
“It is like that,” Robert Jordan said, “when people understand one another.”
“Sit down,” the woman of Pablo said. “I do not ask any promise because what will happen, will happen. Only if you will not take her out, then I ask a promise.”
“Why if I would not take her?”
“Because I do not want her crazy here after you will go. I have had her crazy before and I have enough without that.”
“We will take her after the bridge,” Robert Jordan said. “If we are alive after the bridge, we will take her.”
“I do not like to hear you speak in that manner. That manner of speaking never brings luck.”
“I spoke in that manner only to make a promise,” Robert Jordan said. “I am not of those who speak gloomily.”
“Let me see thy hand,” the woman said. Robert Jordan put his hand out and the woman opened it, held it in her own big hand, rubbed her thumb over it and looked at it, carefully, then dropped it. She stood up. He got up too and she looked at him without smiling.
“What did you see in it?” Robert Jordan asked her. “I don’t believe in it. You won’t scare me.”
“Nothing,” she told him. “I saw nothing in it.”
“Yes you did. I am only curious. I do not believe in such things.”
“In what do you believe?”
“In many things but not in that.”
“In what?”
“In my work.”
“Yes, I saw that.”
“Tell me what else you saw.”
“I saw nothing else,” she said bitterly. “The bridge is very difficult you said?”
“No. I said it is very important.”
“But it can be difficult?”
“Yes. And now I go down to look at it. How many men have you here?”
“Five that are any good. The gypsy is worthless although his intentions are good. He has a good heart. Pablo I no longer trust.”
“How many men has El Sordo that are good?”
“Perhaps eight. We will see tonight. He is coming here. He is a very practical man. He also has some dynamite. Not very much, though. You will speak with him.”
“Have you sent for him?”
“He comes every night. He is a neighbor. Also a friend as well as a comrade.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He is a very good man. Also very practical. In the business of the train he was enormous.”
“And in the other bands?”
“Advising them in time, it should be possible to unite fifty rifles of a certain dependability.”
“How dependable?”
“Dependable within the gravity of the situation.”
“And how many cartridges per rifle?”
“Perhaps twenty. Depending how many they would bring for this business. If they would come for this business. Remember thee that in this of a bridge there is no money and no loot and in thy reservations of talking, much danger, and that afterwards there must be a moving from these mountains. Many will oppose this of the bridge.”