The French train up ahead hooted. Near it, a temporary French station had been built, the mirror image of the Spanish installation on the other side of the frontier.
“We must hurry,” she said.
“I’ll get tickets. Darling, see if there’s a tobacconist’s, about, will you, and get cigarettes. American, if they’ve got them. Pay anything. And get some chocolate. I love chocolate.”
He raced for the ticket window.
“Do you have a first-class compartment left open for Paris?” he asked in French.
“Yes. Several, in fact; there’s not many first-class travelers who leave Spain, monsieur. Not since July.”
“I only have pesetas. Can you make the exchange for me?”
“I will only charge a small percentage.”
“It’s only fair.”
He pushed the money across to the man and waited while the fellow figured it out and paid him back with the tickets.
“I only took a little extra.”
“Fine, fine,” said Florry, grabbing them and trying to quell his exuberance.
“You must hurry; this train leaves in a few minutes.”
“Believe me, this is one train I won’t miss.”
He turned and ran toward it, to find Sylvia waiting at the door to the sleeping car.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “God, look at that!”
“It’s only English tobacco, darling,” she said, holding up a pack of Ovals.
“This must be heaven,” Florry said. He could not stop himself from smiling.
“I’m sorry they didn’t have American. The tobacconist had just sold all his American cigarettes to some hulking Yank.”
“It doesn’t matter, Sylvia. We’re safe at last.”
The train whistled.
“Come on, it’s time to get aboard,” he said.
They ate in the first-class dining car, and whatever one could say against the French, the French knew how to cook. The meal was ? or perhaps this was merely an expression of their parched tastes after so many months in Red Spain ? extraordinary. Afterward, they went to the parlor car and had a drink and sat smoking as the train hurled through the darkened countryside of southern France.
“Paris by morning,” said Florry. “I know a little hotel in the Fourteenth Arrondissement. Sylvia, let’s go there. We’ve earned a holiday, don’t you think? There’s enough money, isn’t there? We haven’t to face the future quite yet, do we?”
Sylvia looked at him: her gray green eyes beheld him curiously, and after a bit, a smile came to her face.
“It really is over, isn’t it? Spain, I mean,” she said.
Florry nodded.
“Well,” she said. “Let me think about it will you, Robert?”
“Of course.”
She hadn’t said no ? quite. And it sounded wonderful: a fortnight of luxury in a small, elegant hotel in the most civilized country in Europe after what had been the least civilized. Florry sat back against the comfortable chair, smoking an Oval. Maybe the woman would be his after all. He felt he owed it to himself to begin to feel rather good.
But of course exactly the opposite occurred. A curious melancholy began to seep through him. He seemed to still smell Spain somehow, or still dream it, even when wakeful. He remembered Julian in the dust, begging for death. He remembered the bridge exploding. The blast, for all its fury, had meant nothing after all it had cost them. He remembered the POUM rifles leveled at them, and the comical idiocy of the trial, and the Communist Asaltos heading up the mountain with their Hotchkiss gun. He remembered Harry Uckley’s empty holster. He remembered the night attack on Huesca and firing his revolver into the boy’s face. He remembered the abrupt cold numbness when the bullet struck him. He remembered the ship digging beneath the surface and the flames on the water.
“Robert, what on earth is wrong?”
“Julian,” he said. “I wish I had not let Julian down at the end. I know he meant so much to you.”
“Julian always got what he wanted,” said Sylvia with odd coldness. “And never what he deserved.”
She touched his arm. “Forget the war. Forget politics. Forget it all. Forget Julian.”
“Of course you’re right. Absolutely. One mustn’t let oneself get to brooding on things one is helpless to alter. And I swear I won’t.”
But it was a lie. Even as he saw her pretty face he remembered Julian. Hold my hand. I’m so frightened. Kill me.
“Yes,” she said. “I could not get the American cigarettes, and so I should not feel as if I’ve failed, eh?”
“I say, shall we have another drink?” he said cheerfully.
“Pardon me, folks.”
They turned, and looked up into the eyes of a rather large, almost handsome man in a suit standing in the aisle.
“I hate to interrupt,” he said, “the name’s Fenney. Ed Fenney. I saw you on the train out of Barcelona. I just heard the lady say she’s sorry she missed the American cigarettes. I bought them all. Look, here, take these.”
It was a pack of American Camels.
“Mr. Fenney, it’s really not necessary,” said Sylvia.
“No, I know how you get, missing your best smokes. I just got a little greedy at the border. My apologies, miss. Please, take these. You Brits and us Americans, we ought to stick together. It’s going to be us against the world one of these days, you just wait.”
He smiled. There was something peculiarly intense about him and remotely familiar, but he seemed so eager to please that Florry found himself accepting the cigarettes.
“Well, thanks awfully,” he said. “Would you care to join us?”
“No, listen, after a long day like this, I really want to turn in. I’ve calls to make in Paris tomorrow, have to be sharp. Nice seeing you.” He left.
“Robert, I’m awfully tired, too,” said Sylvia.
“Well, then. That seems to be that. Shall we go?”
It was nearly midnight: they walked through the dark, rocking corridor from car to car until at last they found their compartment. They entered; the porter had opened the bed and turned it back.
“Not much room in here, is there?” he said.
“The French are so romantic,” Sylvia said. She held up a single red rose that had been placed in a vase by the tiny night table that had been folded out of the wall.
Florry pulled the door shut behind him, snapping it locked. When he turned, Sylvia had undressed to her slip and washed her hands and face in the small basin. He went to her bag and opened it. Julian’s ring had fallen out of the pocket of his coat and worked its way into the corner of the case. He picked it up, looked at it.
This is all there is of my friend Julian Raines, he thought. There was little enough to it: a simple gold band, much tarnished, much nicked, as well it should be. The inscription inside it read, “From this day forth, Love, Cecilia.” It was dated 6-15-04.
For luck, Florry thought, and gave it a little secret kiss.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who on earth could that be?” he said.
“It’s Ed Fenney, Mr. Florry,” came the voice through the door.
“Oh. Well, what on earth?”
“Listen, I have an extra carton of Camels here. I might not see you in the morning. I’d like to give them to you.”
“Well, it’s not necessary but?”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
Florry turned, gave Sylvia a quizzical look, and turned to the door.
