movement.
God! It wasn't possible—it wasn't happening to him!
One of the other men came forward from behind the Mayor to take the revolver from the youth. And then, before Bastable had time to think, let alone to duck, the man slapped him hard across the face.
'Assassin!'
The shock of the blow brought tears to Bastable's eyes, even more than the stinging pain of it. He wanted to cringe, but his body wouldn't cringe, it only swayed upright again, tensing itself against the next blow.
The man swung his arm back. Bastable closed his eyes.
But the blow never landed—he heard a sound at his side, a scrunching footfall and then the sound of another slap, loud as a pistol shot, yet not on his own cheek.
He opened his eyes quickly, and caught a black blur. For an instant the tears obscured the blur as it passed him, then his dummy4
vision cleared.
The black-shawled woman hit the man with the revolver again.
Well, it was more of a vigorous push than a hit, but it was just as good: in backing, the man tripped on the pave and fell over in a wild confusion of arms and legs into the rubble behind him.
The woman swung round and knocked the shotgun barrel up. The shotgun exploded with an ear-splitting concussion as the owner staggered back.
The Mayor stepped forward and shouted at the woman.
The woman shouted—screamed—back at the Mayor.
The Mayor took another step forward, and it proved to be an unwise step. As he lifted his finger at her and opened his mouth to speak she back-handed his arm out of the way, putting him off-balance, and then caught him on the side of the head with her return swing. Something pink-and-white shot out of his mouth and fell at Bastable's feet.
Bastable looked down at a set of false teeth.
As he looked down the woman stepped sideways and trod—
either deliberately or accidently, he never knew which—on the Mayor's teeth.
Then she started to revile them. As usual, as always, the words were lost on him, and he couldn't even guess at their exact content. But their effect was as concussive as the shotgun blast, he could see that.
dummy4
Finally she swept an arm out to the side, pointing past and behind him. And as she did so there came a shrill answering wail which Bastable recognized instantly.
Alice!
There was another woman alongside him now, on his left side, with the unforgettable shawl-swathed bundle in her arms which she held up for him to inspect, as though for his approval, quite unmoved by the increasing noise which came from it.
He lowered his arms, and lifted one grimy finger to touch the little, scarlet, unrecognizable face. He felt that that was what the woman wanted him to do.
'Alice—little Alice,' he said, nodding at the woman.
Alice. Little nameless, parentless, lost, unknown, bereaved and abandoned Alice —
'Al-ees?' The woman looked at him questioningly. 'Al-ees?'
'Alice,' said Bastable. 'Alice.'
At which Alice, being Alice, quietened down in her arms, her crying trailing off into hiccoughs punctuating a tearful chuntering sound, which expressed only mild dissatisfaction where before there had been angry protest.
'Al-ees.' The woman nodded at him and lifted the baby high on her shoulder, out of his view once more, rocking her vigorously.
The first woman started to speak again, addressing the men dummy4
contemptuously now, as though the matter was settled, and there was really no more to be said. Indeed, when one of them started to say something she cut him off before he had reached the third word, in the same contemptuous tone, completing her own sentence with a two-handed gesture of dismissal which seemed to cow them utterly.
The Mayor, who looked as if his head was still ringing from the buffet he had received, mumbled something, and pointed towards her feet. Bastable realized that if he had been able to catch the words he might have been able to add 'false teeth'
to his French vocabulary.
The woman was implacable. She ignored the Mayor, pointing at the man who had received Bastable's revolver and then opening her hand to receive the weapon. Only when she had it in her hand did she shift her ground, turning without a second look at the men to return it to Bastable.
She was the ugly woman with the crooked teeth, who had taken Alice from him in the first place, and he could have kissed her. But as it was, he didn't know what to say, and knew that even if he had known what to say he wouldn't have been able to say it to her in a language which she could understand.
'Merci, Madame,' he said. And because he could think of nothing else to do, he saluted her, touching the brim of his steel helmet in salute with the tips of his stiffened fingers.
