The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

possible.”

“What made you think I was going to give you any pep talk?”

“You started to look like it.”

“All I tried to do was see if you wanted a girl and not to talk too wet about getting killed.”

“Well, I don’t want any girl tonight and I’ll talk just as wet as I please unless it does damage to others. Does it damage you?”

“Come on and get the bath,” I said. “You can talk just as bloody wet as you want.”

“Who do you suppose that little guy was that talked as though he knew so much?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”

“He made me gloomy,” said Al. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The old waiter with the bald head unlocked the outside door of Chicote’s and let us out into the street.

“How is the offensive, comrades?” he said at the door.

“It’s O.K., comrade,” said Al. “It’s all right.”

“I am happy,” said the waiter. “My boy is in the One Hundred and Forty-fifth Brigade. Have you seen them?”

“I am of the tanks,” said Al. “This comrade makes a cinema. Have you seen the Hundred and Forty- fifth?”

“No,” I said.

“They are up the Extremadura road,” the old waiter said. “My boy is political commissar of the machine-gun company of his battalion. He is my youngest boy. He is twenty.”

“What party are you comrade?” Al asked him.

“I am of no party,” the waiter said. “But my boy is a Communist.”

“So am I,” said Al. “The offensive, comrade, has not yet reached a decision. It is very difficult. The fascists hold very strong positions. You, in the rear-guard, must be as firm as we will be at the front. We may not take these positions now but we have proved we now have an army capable of going on the offensive and you will see what it will do.”

“And the Extremadura road?” asked the old waiter, still holding on to the door. “Is it very dangerous there?”

“No,” said Al. “It’s fine up there. You don’t need to worry about him up there.”

“God bless you,” said the waiter. “God guard you and keep you.”

Outside in the dark street, Al said, “Jees he’s kind of confused politically, isn’t he?”

“He is a good guy,” I said. “I’ve known him for a long time.”

“He seems like a good guy,” Al said. “But he ought to get wise to himself politically.”

The room at the Florida was crowded. They were playing the gramophone and it was full of smoke and there was a crap game going on the floor. Comrades kept coming in to use the bathtub and the room smelt of smoke, soap, dirty uniforms, and steam from the bathroom.

The Spanish girl called Manolita, very neat, demurely dressed, with a sort of false French chic, with much joviality, much dignity and closely set cold eyes, was sitting on the bed talking with an English newspaper man. Except for the gramophone it wasn’t very noisy.

“It is your room, isn’t it?” the English newspaper man said.

“It’s in my name at the desk,” I said. “I sleep in it sometimes.”

“But whose is the whisky?” he asked.

“Mine,” said Manolita. “They drank that bottle so I got another.”

“You’re a good girl, daughter,” I said. “That’s three I owe you.”

“Two,” she said. “The other was a present.”

There was a huge cooked ham, rosy and white edged in a half-opened tin on the table beside my typewriter and a comrade would reach up, cut himself a slice of ham with his pocket knife, and go back to the crap game. I cut myself a slice of ham.

“You’re next on the tub,” I said to Al. He had been looking around the room.

“It’s nice here,” he said. “Where did the ham come from?”

“We bought it from the intendencia of one of the brigades,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Who’s we?”

“He and I,” she said, turning her head toward the English correspondent. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

“Manolita has been most kind,” said the Englishman. “I hope we’re not disturbing you.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Later on I might want to use the bed but that won’t be until much later.”

“We can have a party in my room,” Manolita said. “You aren’t cross are you, Henry?”

“Never,” I said. “Who are the comrades shooting craps?”

“I don’t know,” said Manolita. “They came in for baths and then they stayed to shoot craps. Everyone has been very nice. You know my bad news?”

“No.”

“It’s very bad. You knew my fiance who was in the police and went to Barcelona?”

“Yes. Sure.”

Al went into the bathroom.

“Well, he was shot in an accident and I haven’t any one I can depend on in police circles and he never got me the papers he had promised me and today I heard I was going to be arrested.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no papers and they say I hang around with you people and with people from the brigades all the time so I am probably a spy. If my fiance had not gotten himself shot it would have been all right. Will you help me?”

“Sure,” I said. “Nothing will happen to you if you’re all right.”

“I think I’d better stay with you to be sure.”

“And if you’re not all right that would be fine for me, wouldn’t it?”

“Can’t I stay with you?”

“No. If you get in trouble call me up. I never heard you ask anybody any military questions. I think you’re all right.”

“I’m really all right,” she said then, leaning over, away from the Englishman. “You think it’s all right to stay with him? Is he all right?”

“How do I know?” I said. “I never saw him before.”

“You’re being cross,” she said. “Let’s not think about it now but everyone be happy and go out to dinner.”

I went over to the crap game.

“You want to go out to dinner?”

“No, comrade,” said the man handling the dice without looking up. “You want to get in the game?”

“I want to eat.”

“We’ll be here when you get back,” said another crap shooter. “Come on, roll, I’ve got you covered.”

“If you run into any money bring it up here to the game.”

There was one in the room I knew besides Manolita. He was from the Twelfth Brigade and he was playing the gramophone. He was a Hungarian, a sad Hungarian, not one of the cheerful kind.

“Salud camarade,” he said. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Don’t you shoot craps?” I asked him.

“I haven’t that sort of money,” he said. “They are aviators with contracts. Mercenaries … They make a thousand dollars a month. They were on the Teruel front and now they have come here.”

“How did they come up here?”

“One of them knows you. But he had to go out to his field. They came for him in a car and the game had already started.”

“I’m glad you came up,” I said. “Come up any time and make yourself at home.”

“I came to play the new discs,” he said. “It does not disturb you?”

“No. It’s fine. Have a drink.”