Savage Coast

by Muriel Rukeyser

  The secretary looked up, his sallow face darkening. “My doctor told me to be careful,” he complained, with a wry smile, “—four days ago, let me see, yes, four days, would you believe it, I was in bed, confined with a grave temperature, and my doctor would not have permitted me this trip to Spain if he had not made out for me a list of the food I should eat during the journey—”

  “Fine list of recommended food you’ve been eating, hein, René?” M. Corniche cut him short.

  Helen raised her glass over M. Corniche’s shoulder. Hans was sitting at the next table, with the bitches and the Hungarians. “Have you seen the others?” she shaped these words with her lips. They’ve just gone back, the answer came.

  M. Corniche was speaking to her. “What are your plans?” he asked, and did not wait for the answer. “I am going back with the French tomorrow—” he did not stop at her gesture of shock—“and it would be good, I think, if you were to accompany us to Paris. We should be pleased.”

  “I thought I’d stay while there’s a chance of Games,” Helen said, lamely. “I thought I’d look for the Americans—”

  “A brave girl,” M. Corniche said to the official. He raised his glass of water solemnly.

  Helen was humbled, after the automobile ride. “Are the French really going back?” she asked swiftly. “What about the Games?”

  “Oh, the Games—we all want them,” said the official. “But nobody knows. The teams were shot at this afternoon. Have you seen any actual shooting, M. Corniche?” he inquired.

  The delegate put his fork down. Veal chops were being served. He looked hard at his chop, in accusation. “This afternoon,” he said, “on the way in to Barcelona. You remember the shot, just before we changed route?” he asked Helen.

  She nodded.

  “We saw that,” he said. “There was a young man walking down the street, with a friend. When the shot came, from nowhere, it penetrated his chest, piercing it completely, and passed out on the other side. We saw him spin and fall, and our driver determined on the other route.”

  The group at the next table, with Hans, was leaving. Helen watched him rise with the even controlled motion she loved. He looked at her.

  The official said curiously to M. Corniche, “Tell me, before you came, did you expect to see such things in Spain?”

  M. Corniche laughed. “I sat in my garden,” he said gaily, “I did not expect. But Spain—one may not be surprised if the sky falls.” He looked around. “Is there really nothing but water?” he asked, like a child.

  “Nothing but water,” retorted the guide, lifting his face up from his chop. He had been occupied, eating.

  “Ah, well, then,” breathed M. Corniche. “Fill up the glasses.” He nudged his secretary. “Bon digestif!” he said, patting his vest.

  They were the last out of the hall. The car was waiting outside. “Have you eaten, compañero?” the official asked the driver.

  “Sí, compañero,” he replied. “But we have a new guard.” This one carried a hand machine gun, with a short, vicious muzzle.

  They took the fast, dark drive home without a word.

  IN THE HALL of the Olympic, M. Corniche asked Helen about her accommodations for the night. He would try to arrange for her hotel room, he said. The bitch in the red blouse was standing in the deserted entrance. Helen, slack with fatigue, ran over and over one thought—she would find Peter and Olive. She tried the bitch. All the bad teeth showed—“Aw, go ahead,” said the bitch irritably. “They’ve forgotten about you.” Helen thought she would wait for a minute. She was changing shape, needing sleep, she felt— her mouth, her eyes and ears, all loosening, as if the sense-organs were at the tips of rapidly lengthening antennae. M. Corniche was shrugging, saying he would see what he could do, and vanishing among the doors to offices.

  Peter and Olive were coming down the stairs.

  “Where were you, where were you?” cried out Olive, hurrying over.

  It was cleared up in a moment. The bitch was gone. The hall was empty.

  “And a room?” asked Peter. His eyelids were thickened.

  “I thought you—” began Helen.

  “The Hungarians said something,” Peter said weakly. “I have to wait to hear from them.” He took up his position against the door-post.

  Hoops of fatigue fell over them, holding them in place, increasing distances. At the entrance, the guard said good night, and walked off with the exquisite girl toward the faint sound of shooting.

  “Come on, we’ll find Corniche,” said Helen.

  He was in the inner office, with his secretary and five officials. They were all dragging pallets into position against the wall.

  “My hotel accommodation,” he flourished, loosening his collar with the other hand. “And you?”

  “Have none,” answered Helen and Olive in one voice.

  “But that is unthinkable,” he said, letting go of his tie. “Go in then, immediately, and say that you require mattresses.”

  They said good night and knocked at the last door. Two boys were in the room, feet up, smoking Bisontes.

  “Have one,” the thin boy offered. “Just like your Lucky Strikes!”

  “Oh, no,” said Helen, “only mattress . . .”

  Olive wanted a cigarette. Helen could not stand still. She walked out, and sobbed once at the door. Olive came in a minute.

  Helen held herself still. “And the mattress?”

  “There aren’t any more.” They stood there. “Peter will get something,” she said trustfully. “Look, he’s talking to the Hungarian . . .”

  The beautiful Hungarian was speaking to him. He motioned to the women.

  “How would you like two rooms and three mattresses!” he shouted in a frenzy of exhaustion.

  They dragged the suitcase and the two knapsacks from under the desk, and upstairs.

  If only we did not act as if we were all sunstruck! thought Helen. “Where is Hans?” she asked suddenly. They stood in the washroom, sluicing water over themselves. She leaned on her knuckle in the white basin. The water was ice-cold.

  “He went with the Swiss,” answered Olive. “They had an extra mattress.” She shook the water from her hand at arm’s length, in the posture of an academic pianist preparing for finger exercises. “He’s a good man, I think.” She splashed more water up her long arms. “Cold water—cold water,” she repeated voluptuously.

  The room was between the Hungarians’ and Peter’s. Toni, the beautiful Hungarian, and the printer came in, carrying pallets, laughing. The Hungarians were having a meeting with the French, and things were going well. Hundreds of people wanted to stay, everybody loved Spain, certainly there would be Games, they said.

  They slapped the mattresses down and went for more canvas sheets. “We’ll arrange them,” said Peter. His voice was very dull.

  The room was tall and white-washed, empty except for a Venetian blind and a naked bulb in the ceiling. Her suitcase lay open on the floor beside her. Behind the second door, the Hungarians were laughing and humming songs.

  Olive came in with another length of canvas. “Not very elegant,” she said thickly.

  “Very elegant.”

  Helen snapped off the light. She rested with her hands crossed over her breast, in the position of the dead. From where she lay, the ceiling receded like a dark sheet of flame, eluding tissues and tissues of shadow. The tall Venetian blind threw slats of street-light on her wall. They would be waked, at seven, two thousand foreigners. The room wavered, tall and dangerous. She fell asleep immediately.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  10:00 a.m. Conference in the Palacio de Proyecciones: Objectives of Popular Sport and methods of developing it.

  —program, People’s Olympiad

  Helen went immediately to the window, hauled up the Venetian blind, and stood in the broad panel of sunlight that struck across the room. The gunfire continued. Facing her, a curved wall of arches surprised her, thrown block-long and receding; it took her a second to recognize
the tiers and galleries of the arena, the slim pillars which were so perfect for snipers. Her eye ran over the shaded colonnade with animal speed: she had become vigilant, it gave her a tremendous sense of health and freshness to wake without fear and speculate on concealed rifles.

  The angle of the Olympic cut down across her view to the right, and she could see nothing but a boarded up café, a filling station, and the radiator and front wheels of the overturned car. But to the left lay the new city, ruled square, block after block of new apartment houses patched white with flags of truce. Behind them stood the high fortress on its strip of cliff, cutting the mountain range abruptly to an end.

  Olive and Peter were lying awake in bed.

  “That was the seven o’clock bell, wasn’t it?”

  “That was the beginning of the shooting,” laughed Olive. Correct response, thought Helen. She came over to the window in Helen’s room. “They said something about leaving the blinds drawn.”

  “I don’t know,” Helen said slowly. “I don’t mind an open window on a street, so much, today.”

  “I think I’m finished with all that, too. Peter and I were walking to dinner when we missed you; Peter had just said something about the truck-ride and fear when a car came up. The driver asked us to get in, and we didn’t think anything of it. There was a guard with a submachine gun; everything seemed proper until they started driving and took us for miles through the country, or park—darkness, anyway. They didn’t say a word to us. Then we began to remember things—we hadn’t noticed the initials on the car, fascists can drive cars too, we didn’t speak Catalan, the car had only one door—all of those things.”

  “It’s a big park,” Helen said.

  “A goddamned big park. But it may have cured me.”

  They hung out the window. At the filling-station, cars were already lined up, C.N.T. and U.G.T. cars for the most part, and the proprietor and two assistants were supplying them, lifting the dripping nozzle out of one tank and dropping it into the next without bothering to check the stream of gas.

  “They’re going to run short of cars,” Helen remarked under the grinding of gears as they rushed down the street.

  “The State’s requisitioning cars from dealers,” said Peter, from bed.

  “There was a Ford sign on the road.”

  Helen knew she would always have this first morning of complete confidence. Peter and Olive had it too, she saw, reading their faces. One more lie to hold against the books! she reflected; the foolish irrelevant stories of people’s characters changing like wind which shifts.

  She had wanted a life for herself, and found she was unequipped; and adjusting her wants, cared to be a person prepared for that life. I want greatness, she thought, the rich faces of the living. All the tenseness stood in the way, and see how it removes! One morning, and the fear of death is replaced.

  She would always have this street before her for a birthday; she was proud in herself for a moment: this is how I come of age! she thought. The long street was half-filled with sun, a brilliant dark man strode up in his blue smock and beret, at the far crossing two boys led a flock of blathering sheep that pushed their faces up in the air. The filling station was kept at high-pressure speed.

  “There’s Mme. Porcelan!” said Olive.

  The Polish woman stood at the corner smiling up at them, her arm about a man who stood above her. The white face was the color of light.

  They waved. “She’s found him, anyway.” Olive turned to Peter. He was dressing.

  “American consul,” he said, and pulled on his sock.

  Helen came out in a moment. “All in white!” said Olive.

  “I’m celebrating,” said Helen.

  Peter started downstairs with her. “Used to the shooting?” he asked.

  “I can tell the difference between a bomb and a cannon, but not between a motorcycle and a machine gun.”

  “We must all feel the same thing this morning,” he said. “Incipit. It can’t all be due to a good night’s sleep.”

  “What comes to replace the fear?” Helen asked him. She was following her own question.

  “I don’t know. I think a kind of resourcefulness must come. Power over it, mastery—I think continually about the Germans in concentration camps, the immense power they must be developing, the victory after fear.”

  “They are in jail,” she answered.

  The hall was almost empty. Behind the desk, the Service Committee man was trying to help the little Englishman from the train who was in Coffee-and-Tea.

  “By George,” he was saying, “I simply must get to the British consulate—” ending in a string of explanation.

  “Please repeat,” asked the official.

  “By . . . George,” he repeated in a slow loud monotone, “I . . . simply . . . must . . . get . . . to . . .” Peter touched his shoulder.

  “Hello, old man!” the Englishman shouted, “I didn’t know you were here. Could you help me make this fellow understand that my office is probably going wild at home, that I’ve got to get to our representative or the consulate and find what dispatches are going out?”

  Peter translated for him, and gave him a slip of paper with the address written out. The little man shook his head, thanked everyone mournfully, and left.

  “What happened to the chorus?” Peter called after him, but he had gone.

  Olive came down while Peter was being directed to the American consulate.

  “It’s straight up the Rambla,” Peter said. “Let’s see what the consul has to say to us. He might be able to tell us when we can leave for Palma.”

  The milk-wagon was making its rounds and swung into the plaza, avoiding two towing cars which were removing the burned and shattered chassis near the café and subway station.

  The Rambla was quiet, and the promenade up the center empty. The lettered cars passed at intervals, blowing a triple signal, but they were growing used to that sound, and were scarcely conscious of their passing. It was still cool, the sun was not high, and the broad street was fresh and shady. At the second corner there was a café whose steel curtains were all down except one, rolled six feet up, and they went in.

  M. Corniche, his secretary, and the guide were drinking wine in a corner. They nodded and sat down at a table beside the French.

  “Will you sail when the French do?” M. Corniche asked Helen. “I imagine we will depart this afternoon.” His smile contradicted the meaning.

  Peter cut her answer off. “We’ll see what the American consul ate says,” he told the delegate. “They’ve asked us at the Olympic to make other arrangements, if we can, because they expect more athletes in today.”

  “Better not go to your consul if you don’t want to be put on a boat immediately,” the guide said.

  “We’ll just give him the names of the Americans we’ve been with, here and on the train.”

  Three girls came in, and M. Corniche beamed. It was part of the chorus.

  “All friends,” he said, and stroked his beard. “How are you? Where is your hotel?”

  “We had mattresses in the Olympic,” answered the platinum blonde. “How do you say breakfast in Spanish?”

  “Vino,” said M. Corniche.

  The chorus and the Americans drank piña and Vichy. M. Corniche waved a piece of sausage at them.

  “A votre santé,” he said, courteously.

  The chorus thought they would look for the British consul, but their manager was against getting in touch with anybody but the manager of the theater where they were booked. If a boat took them into France, they would be stranded without working papers. England would be awful and would mean that they’d be looking for a job again—he was all for staying.

  “We’ll ask the head of the English delegation to get in touch with you through the consul,” said Helen.

  “Let’s find him now,” said Peter.

  On the Rambla again, he wondered if it was the intelligent thing to do. “I’ve never had anything to do with a consul,�
� he said dubiously.

  A Red Cross car passed, full of nurses, and swung down a street marked with a tremendous hospital flag. The armed worker stood in the promenade, staring after the car. Peter stopped and saluted him. He had a brother in that Hospital. He knew, of course, where the American consulate was—he was going in that direction and would walk along with them. He introduced himself: member of the citizens’ militia established by a decree, published and broadcast yesterday by Lluís Companys; his brother, Coronel Tomás Temporal, had deserted to join the Guardia Civil.

  They stopped at a kiosk to buy a newspaper. The Día Gráfico carried pictures—Notas Gráficas de la Sublevación Fascista92—with the strained shoulders of soldiers in uniform bent over machine guns in the defense of the Telefonica; street-fighting, the gunwagons rolling through, the man in overalls standing, gun up, his legs spread solid against a wide and monumental public square.

  The soldier pointed at the picture. “That’s the Plaza de Cataluña,” he said. “It’s straight ahead of us. That’s where your consul is. I turn off here. And the papers . . .” he said, slapping his with the back of his hand, “they only tell half. Now we’re making order. The Fascists are beaten; we are cleaning the city, little groups are wiping out the Fascists who are left. Now we build revolutionary Catalonia.”

  The Plaza de Cataluña opened before them. The great stone square, broken by formal lawns, walled-in short arcs of marble, punctuated by lavish heroic statuary, was covered with pigeons that, as they watched, rose in a volley of wings, wheeled, and settled again. The plaza was filling with morning crowds, men without coats, handsome and fineboned, dark, glowing women. They saw the American flag hung over a bank building.

  “There it is,” said Olive. “Official, protective; will they believe that the Communists rescued us!”

  The heavy glass plate behind the wrought iron door held a bullet hole like a jewel. The stone here and all around the plaza was pitted with war.

  “Sorry, can’t come in,” said the attendant. “Bank closed.”

  “Consulado Americano,” Peter answered curtly.