"Where does it get you? Where the hell does it get
you?"
And once she said, "When we find the truth we
can't all run away from it."
In the darkness I saw her head turn to me arid
then the white teeth and the shine of the eyes.
"What do you wish that I do?" I said.
"You stay and fight."
"But I have told you already that I have not the
courage. "
"Yes, you have it."
"No. No, Senora, no."
"Don't you defy the people here and not go to
mass ?"
"These poor fools
I"
"Poor fools, eh? If you anger them they will
lynch you."
"Oh, clearly."
vVe did not say anything for a while and I thought
about the organizer they threw out of a seven-story
window at home and about how long it took them
to get to Sacco after that; but they got him
I
I told
her about this. "They got him. They got him in
the end."
"What must the masses think of him
I
Of that
great one
I"
"Yes," I said, "what? They remember him as that
anarchistic bastard."
"Heh
I
J7aya!"
she said.
I took another drink. I took it out of the bottle
and now I was drunk. I yelled up to my aunt. Then
I remembered that everybody was away at a fiesta in
another pueblo. It was a religious fiesta and they
had not wanted to take me. So I held the bottle in
my hand and looked at the wine, thinking about what
I should do. I said, "I want to drink some more,"
to myself and then I poured the wine in a skin and
went outside. It was dark and there seemed to be a
wind coming from the river but I did not feel cold,
only very tired as I walked. I went up towards her
house for some way and then I turned and went
down to the river and lay on the bridge drinking.
N a one would come that way after dark.
I remembered vomiting into the water, and now
I remembered everything. This clean little man
crying and wringing his hands and looking down at
me was her father. I lifted my head and looked up
at him and then I pushed my hand up to him. He
held it and pulled me up and we went walking down
and then .up to the pueblo.
"Don't you cry," I told him, "don't cry." My
stomach felt clean and my head was clear and I even
remembered to be bitter. He did not cry any more.
He put me to bed and when he bent over me to
put the blankets up he said, "You sleep well, Mickey,
eh? Tomorrow we are going to do a very important
thing."
"Yes, Anastasio," I said, "Yes," nodding my head
and beginning to drowse already, wondering about
22
what he meant and if there was anything important
now.
In the morning we went to order a white coffin.
It was very early and the sun had not come up yet.
All around us the pueblo looked gray, but I did not
mind this because my body felt fine. I had not been
to see her yet and we did not talk about it. We
walked very fast over the dirt and we were very
quiet. Anastasio had his best suit on but he did not
have a tie. They never wear ties here. I had on a
polo shirt under my jacket.
When we got to Benito's he was in the yard at
the side of his house looking at the sky. He was not
surprised to see us. He knew about her being sick.
"Good days," he said.
"Very good ones," we said to him.
He looked at Anastasio. "She died?"
"Yes, she died."
"I feel it," said Benito.
(Yes, I thought,
how
much you must have felt it, you son of a bitch. He
really hated her because he fe.ared her.)
"Thank you," Anastasio said to him. "I have
come about the coffin. You know that?" He was
very calm and quiet.
"I can make it for you. I can make it right away.
A white one, no?"
"Yes, you know the size it will be. I can pay you
for a strong one."
"Very good, I will make it strong." Benito looked
at Anastasio. He was waiting for him to say some·
thing. They had forgotten about me. At last, Benito
said it himself. "And what hour shall I tell the priest
to come?"
"You need not do it."
"You don't want the priest?"
"N
0,
I do not. She will be buried in a civil cere·
many," Anastasio said. I took out a cigarette and
began to light it. Benito was very upset.
"But, hombre, you can't do that. No one has ever
been buried in our cemetery without a priest being
there."
"I know already but it's a municipal cemetery,
no?"
"Yes, that is true," Benito said.
He himself, Benito, had made twenty-seven signs
containing the legend CEMENTERIO MUNICI.
PAL (black on white) for the entire province of
Castilla la Vieja. They were later nailed on the door
of the cemetery .in each pueblo of the province. This
was in accordance with the nationalization edict of
the slow-moving Socialist Government. Before this
they had belonged in an extraordinary way to the
peoples of the pueblo but had been governed entire·
ly by the priests. Now in many places militant
Catholic factions had torn them from the doors.
"This is our cemetery. It shall not be desecrated."
Benito thought of all this. He did not know what
to say. He looked at Anastasio.
MARCH,
1936
