26
PARTISAN REVIEW
It has succeeded in breaking the cruel tranquility of the little city
that rests comfortably on the lap of the mountain.
One night-double night in the heart of the mine-the men
were coming up as usual with their baggage of weariness and
prayer. So far no cry of warning had broken the irritating mono–
tony. The worm of light crept earthward with imposing calm.
Suddenly a man's two hands, cramped from overwork,
could no longer support the weight of his body, suspended there
on the ladder like a tragic puppet. A terrific yell of fear l Then
the required cry of warning fell straight down like a drop of
melted metal :
"Watch out for me!"
The worm of light contracted horribly. Some of the men
turned their heads to the wall. Others, expressionless, saw his
body pass them with the speed of a bullet and go dashing into
the bowels of the mine.
Caught in a momentary shiver, the bourgeois city turned
over in the white sheets of its bed. Prayer, having reached the
earth as an abscess on the lips of the workers, went its way.
But in the eardrums of every miner his last warning cry stuck
like a wedge.
"Watch out for me!"
GREETINGS, COMRADE
Herman Litz Arzubide
HE HELD
OUT
a rather dirty hand and said to me gravely,
"Greetings, comrade." Then he added, "I got in last night
from Panuco, beating my way. I organi zed the Young Pioneers
down there. I'm gonna do the same thing here."
I looked at him in amazement for he was, at the most, only
thirteen years old. Through his torn clothes, you could see
patches of his brown body. He was extraordinarily serious for
his age, and his words held a certainty of conviction such as
I
had not heard in years. He
stoo~
in front of the picture of
Lenin that hung on the wall and looked at it a long time. Then
he said simply, "I'm going to work." And he went.
