Savage Coast (30 page)

“Came to see them.” Peter wondered where the man stood.

“Oh, well, then,” he said heavily, in his uncle's voice, “you're
all right. You just stick with the American team—have you looked them up yet? It's very funny,” he said, troubled. “They seem to have drag with the government; they say they're sent by something called the International Ladies' Garment Workers of the World. You just stick to them.”

Olive nudged Peter. Helen was still talking to him. “How do things strike you?”

“Oh,” he said, “it'll be all right, if they don't kill each other off. I've lived here for nine years and I've seen a lot leading up to it. As for me, I'm all right—everybody here knows me, they know I'm a newspaperman, they know I don't give a damn one way or the other, who wins.” He laughed and looked down at himself like a little child. “These days, I walk around without a coat, and they think I'm a worker. And when the cars come by I give them the fist with the rest of the boys.”

They all laughed with him. He told them how to find the American team, all the hotels are together down there, they're with the English, he said. Was there anything he could do for them?

“Yes,” said Helen, “one thing. When you go out, and when we pass barricades, they point at their eyes and say ‘Watch for guns.' How can you,
in
a street?”

“Well, it's like this,” said Spanner. “You can't. But there is a pretty sure sign. When everything's noisy and going on as usual, you're likely to be safe—but when the street quiets down quicklike, and you look around and everybody's gone, and the cars are out in front maneuvering for position, then you pick yourself a good deep doorway and stay there until the shooting's over.”

She thanked him.

“No,” he refused, “even that's not
practical
, and it can't be. No advice can be given. You'll move instinctively, and so will the people fighting. No rules of war—civilian warfare isn't like that. Your nerves go and your house may be shelled, and nobody can shoot any better than you could if you were given a gun. It isn't like going
to war as part of an army, into trenches—not at all. Come and have a drink with me.”

They got out of it. They had to find the American team. Spanner left them at the bullet-pocked door, and hurried off down the Rambla, round, white, cheerfully waving as he disappeared in the crowd.

“There's your fourth estate,” Olive looked after him. “He'll never get shot, because both sides know he doesn't give a damn.”

Peter laughed uncontrollably. People turned to stare. A car full of boys, spiked with guns, stopped as he laughed. “International Ladies' Garment Workers of the World!” he gasped, bursting.

THE PASSEIG DE GRÀCIA
, leading away from the square, and the great Plaza de Cataluña itself, were full of people, swarming coatless, many with guns, lifting their fists each time an auto went screaming One-Two-Three by. Whole families spread across the promenade; children played, calling and dodging through the crowds to find their parents; the kiosks were open, half shattered by bullets. The wide
passeig
flew banners, wore gala, was celebrating General Strike. Flags of the trade unions flew, and the white squares of neutrality; and at intervals, the red-and-yellow stripes of Catalonia, the red-yellow-and-violet of Spain, and the Anarchist flag, halved in black, were flown.

They walked once around the plaza, seeing the fractured lampposts, the heaped bodies of horses, overturned cars, and the exploded walls of the Hotel Colón, before they entered the
passeig
. The plaza was so immense that they could not feel the crowds; once in the avenue, they received the impact.

The streets were fuller than on any holiday, fuller and more alive—for the crowds were exhilarated with a kind of laughter that ran over their heads for blocks, a triumph and rest in the middle of battle. Quick as water, they responded to every impulse; and in the same way that the expressions of the guards at the Olympic
the night before, in their stress and waiting, became romantic and ardent, these faces, in triumph and preparation, were seeming of happiness and rest. On cruder, stonier faces, the rigor might remain apparent. But these faces, so many of them fully alive and beautiful, softened the look of shock. And these were, as yet, not the army. There were the working people in a storm and celebration of loyalty; they had not as yet been called to fight.

“Should they all be out, before the streets are safe?” Olive watched the armed cars keenly. They slowed into a traffic snarl.

“It's the thing to do—everybody out during General Strike,” said Peter. “You know: out on the streets May first.”

“I'd like to see a May Day that looked like this.”

“This is May Day,” Peter answered. “This is what we rehearse.”

They saw, cutting the lines of other flags that shook and glittered over the street, the red flags. The crowd cried “¡
Viva
!” as it passed, gaily and thankfully. The first story of the wide stone building was boarded up and marked with bullet holes, but over the second floor flew the huge flag, gold printed:

WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

The windows were thrown open, red velvet chairs bordered with gold were pulled to the narrow balcony. In these immense soft thrones, their tired faces refined with effort, the crowd recognized the party men who sat, fists raised, saluting the street of people. And, standing beside a chair, his fist up and unmoved, his yellow intellectual face turned to them, they recognized the leader who had brought them from Moncada.

Beside the men stood their rifles, flying the little red pennants.

“Look, it's the man!” said Olive, saluting.

Their fists were up. They felt the same warmth of safety that had reached them in the moment he spoke to the armed trucks in Moncada, magnified infinitely, until from that balcony, those flags, it filled the street, touching their faces with the same rest and laughter that had puzzled them on the faces of the Spaniards.

As they continued down the street, consulting the corner signs for their address, they saw that, every two blocks the paving stones were being pried up. People with picks and levers were working over them, tearing up the streets, rearranging, building new barricades.

THEY WONDERED IF
they had been given the right address. The street was no wider than a hallway; it carried the
NO HORSES PERMITTED TO ENTER
sign. It was jammed tight with signs that dovetailed and were hidden, receding in one shadow and blinding metallic on the other side:
PELUQUERÍA
,
BISUTERÍA
,
HOTEL CONDAL
,
HOTEL EUROPA
,
HOTEL INGLATERRA
,
FARMACIA
,
HOTEL MADRID
.

“The Europa sounds right,” said Peter, “wait a minute and I'll see.” He came back with a dark, grinning boy in a blue sweatshirt with
OLYMPIAD
sewn in white letters on it.

“Johnny!” cried Olive.

“Hello!” he sang out. “Red Front!”

“When did you get here, Johnny?” asked Olive. “This is Helen, a fine woman to be on a train with for three days anytime; this is Peter, whom I married; and I suppose you're in charge of the American team and not clerking at a law office anymore?”

“Not for a whole month now,” he answered. “We got here last Wednesday, so we got to know the town pretty well before anything happened.”

“You were here for the beginning?”

“Damn right. There were all kinds of meetings Saturday—everybody knew it was coming—and Sunday morning early, the whole city cracked open. The boys thought it was backfire.”

“How did they like it?”

“They like it fine—the town, the girls, the way they handle things, the unions. And the town likes us. You should have seen the demonstration we put on for them yesterday! Bagpipes—the
Scotch played all the way to the stadium—they got the biggest hand of anybody except us. Funny, too, when our team was the smallest,” he said, reflectively.

“You're not very developed politically,” said Olive with contempt.

“Never mind that,” Johnny answered. “We got a big hand anyway. But they wouldn't let us march home, because the demonstration was fired on—some went by car, and the rest of us dodged around doorways. Some of the practice was fired on, too. We were glad to get it, though—we're all out of training.”

“Have you been eating beans?”

“Not here,” he said. “Why don't you stay in this street?” he went on, when Peter said they wanted rooms. “This one's full, but the English are in a bigger hotel, and the section's full of them. Come on over and see the English anyway—they're having a meeting about Games.”

“When will there be Games?” Helen asked. He sounded very confident.

“Oh, tomorrow or Friday at the latest. They'll have to catch up with themselves, too—the whole U.S. team wants to start today. All the teams are meeting at noon to talk this over.”

They went into the dim corridor of the Condal, across the street. It was lined with wicker chairs. In the far corner, facing the door, sat a brisk, tanned, obviously English man, about forty years old, who got up as they came in.

Johnny spoke to him. He answered in an annoyed voice, “They're all out, except the ones who have been meeting upstairs. I told them not to leave the hotel. I've been sitting here all the time.” He turned to Helen. “One of the French team has been shot, you know.”

“Shot!” she echoed, stupidly.

“Badly,” the Englishman said, “He was told not to go walking at six o'clock last night. It's all very well to say it was a stray bullet,” he said irreverently, as if he were trying to answer himself, “but the demonstration was fired on—and I wouldn't like to tell anybody's
family that their son was shot, he'd been warned not to go on the street.”

“Now you do sound like a manager,” said Johnny.

There were no rooms in the Condal, either, but they knew of a Hindu down the block who was trying to change all his money. He was afraid of the government's not being able to keep money stable, they said, and was guarding against a drop in the peseta. But the government was perfectly reliable, had issued rulings fixing the value of money, regulating prices, threatening prosecution of any war profiteers, and the street of foreigners was using the Hindu only until the banks opened. Johnny and Peter went down to find him. As they left, the tall tennis-player, Derek, came in the door.

“Hello, captain! Hello!” he said to Helen. “Left the Olympic?”

“They want anyone to go who can possibly,” she told him. “Fresh batch of athletes expected from the country.”

“Well, they'll be disappointed, too.” He was making a statement to the press, saying a few words for Paramount, jumping over the net to congratulate the loser while all the cameras turned. “Whatever this trip is,” he said, repeating himself from the evening before, “it's a washout for tennis. The courts aren't marked, and there isn't a tennis ball in all Spain.”

Olive stared at him. She looked as close to puritan as she could ever look. “They're busy,” she said.

The Englishman was laughing. “You ran into some other balls though, didn't you, Derek?”

The tall boy ran his hand through his blond soft hair. “I never had to do such a thing in my life,” he said hopelessly.

“They shot at our people while they were practicing yesterday,” the Englishman tried to control himself—“and our Derek here was forced to lie flat on the courts while they fired over his head!”

Derek turned a hot color and protested. “I don't see why we have to be subjugated to anything like it,” he said.

“For the Games—” said the captain. A stout Spaniard came in
and sat down beside them. “Olympiad,” he repeated. The Spaniard nodded gravely. “
Viva l'Olimpíada
,” the Spaniard said.

“Above all, the Games,” he continued, “will mean everything to the city and the army that we carry on with our plans. After all, we are the only ones capable of making an international United Front gesture at this time. They are so anxious about the rest of Europe.”

“And if the Fascist press got hold of that, if we
didn't
play,” said Derek thoughtfully.

“The only thing is,” said the captain, “if the government itself doesn't think Games are in order just now—”

“Two thousand foreigners, in a city at war! The French are conscious of that,” Helen said, remembering M. Corniche.

“Yes, and a city afraid of epidemic and food shortage,” agreed the captain.

“God, I'd hate to leave,” said Helen.

“But in case, mind you, in case!”

The dedication, she thought. Give me something to do for this.

“Oh, in an extremity,” Derek was saying, “if the consul wanted, we could get a couple of boats sent up from Gib.”

“You must have something extra in the Mediterranean now,” said Helen.

“I don't know,” the captain considered. “They were supposed to have been recalled.”

“Oh, there must be something down there, you're right,” went on Derek. “They could pop us around by way of Gib and the Bay of Biscay, and we'd be home in no time.”

The captain looked up. “Collins!” he said sharply. “Where the hell have you been? Out all night, and off the first thing in the morning, while I sit here like an old lady.”

The Spaniard smiled smoothly back and forth at the captain and the Irishman standing in the doorway, grinning wildly, showing the gaps where his teeth were gone.

“I've been doing the town with a couple of Catalonian lads,” he
said in his broad speech. “And if you don't mind, I'll sit here beside you.” Helen liked his shiny cheekbones and length of arm. “They're a fine race, the Spaniards; they remind me of the Irish.”