"Very rare, yes," Pablo said. "Very rare and very drunk. To your health, Ingles." He dipped a cup in the wine bowl and held it up. "Salud y cojones."
He's rare, all right, Robert Jordan thought, and smart, and very complicated. He could no longer hear the fire for the sound of his own breathing.
"Here's to you," Robert Jordan said, and dipped a cup into the wine. Betrayal wouldn't amount to anything without all these pledges, he thought. Pledge up. "Salud," he said. "Salud and Salud again," you salud, he thought. Salud, you salud.
"Don Roberto," Pablo said heavily.
"Don Pablo," Robert Jordan said.
"You're no professor," Pablo said, "because you haven't got a beard. And also to do away with me you have to assassinate me and, for this, you have not cojones."
He was looking at Robert Jordan with his mouth closed so that his lips made a tight line, like the mouth of a fish, Robert Jordan thought. With that head it is like one of those porcupine fish that swallow air and swell up after they are caught.
"Salud, Pablo," Robert Jordan said and raised the cup up and drank from it. "I am learning much from thee."
"I am teaching the professor," Pablo nodded his head. "Come on, Don Roberto, we will be friends."
"We are friends already," Robert Jordan said.
"But now we will be good friends."
"We are good friends already."
"I'm going to get out of here," Agustin said. "Truly, it is said that we must eat a ton of it in this life but I have twenty-five pounds of it stuck in each of my ears this minute."
"What is the matter, negro?" Pablo said to him. "Do you not like to see friendship between Don Roberto and me?"
"Watch your mouth about calling me negro." Agustin went over to him and stood in front of Pablo holding his hands low.
"So you are called," Pablo said.
"Not by thee."
"Well, then, blanco-"
"Nor that, either."
"What are you then, Red?"
"Yes. Red. Rojo. With the Red star of the army and in favor of the Republic. And my name is Agustin."
"What a patriotic man," Pablo said. "Look, Ingles, what an exemplary patriot."
Agustin hit him hard across the mouth with his left hand, bringing it forward in a slapping, backhand sweep. Pablo sat there. The corners of his mouth were wine-stained and his expression did not change, but Robert Jordan watched his eyes narrow, as a cat's pupils close to vertical slits in a strong light.
"Nor this," Pablo said. "Do not count on this, woman." He turned his head toward Pilar. "I am not provoked."
Agustin hit him again. This time he hit him on the mouth with his closed fist. Robert Jordan was holding his pistol in his hand under the table. He had shoved the safety catch off and he pushed Maria away with his left hand. She moved a little way and he pushed her hard in the ribs with his left hand again to make her get really away. She was gone now and he saw her from the corner of his eye, slipping along the side of the cave toward the fire and now Robert Jordan watched Pablo's face.
The round-headed man sat staring at Agustin from his flat little eyes. The pupils were even smaller now. He licked his lips then, put up an arm and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked down and saw the blood on his hand. He ran his tongue over his lips, then spat.
"Nor that," he said. "I am not a fool. I do not provoke."
"Cabron," Agustin said.
"You should know," Pablo said. "You know the woman."
Agustin hit him again hard in the mouth and Pablo laughed at him, showing the yellow, bad, broken teeth in the reddened line of his mouth.
"Leave it alone," Pablo said and reached with a cup to scoop some wine from the bowl. "Nobody here has cojones to kill me and this of the hands is silly."
"Cobarde," Agustin said.
"Nor words either," Pablo said and made a swishing noise rinsing the wine in his mouth. He spat on the floor. "I am far past words."
Agustin stood there looking down at him and cursed him, speaking slowly, clearly, bitterly and contemptuously and cursing as steadily as though he were dumping manure on a field, lifting it with a dung fork out of a wagon.
"Nor of those," Pablo said. "Leave it, Agustin. And do not hit me more. Thou wilt injure thy hands."
Agustin turned from him and went to the door.
"Do not go out," Pablo said. "It is snowing outside. Make thyself comfortable in here."
"And thou! Thou!" Agustin turned from the door and spoke to him, putting all his contempt in the single, "Tu."
"Yes, me," said Pablo. "I will be alive when you are dead."
He dipped up another cup of wine and raised it to Robert Jordan. "To the professor," he said. Then turned to Pilar. "To the Senora Commander." Then toasted them all, "To all the illusioned ones."
Agustin walked over to him and, striking quickly with the side of his hand, knocked the cup out of his hand.
"That is a waste," Pablo said. "That is silly."
Agustin said something vile to him.
"No," Pablo said, dipping up another cup. "I am drunk, seest thou? When I am not drunk I do not talk. You have never heard me talk much. But an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with fools."
"Go and obscenity in the milk of thy cowardice," Pilar said to him. "I know too much about thee and thy cowardice."
"How the woman talks," Pablo said. "I will be going out to see the horses."
"Go and befoul them," Agustin said. "Is not that one of thy customs?"
"No," Pablo said and shook his head. He was taking down his big blanket cape from the wall and he looked at Agustin. "Thou," he said, "and thy violence."
"What do you go to do with the horses?" Agustin said.
"Look to them," Pablo said.
"Befoul them," Agustin said. "Horse lover."
"I care for them very much," Pablo said. "Even from behind they are handsomer and have more sense than these people. Divert yourselves," he said and grinned. "Speak to them of the bridge, Ingles. Explain their duties in the attack. Tell them how to conduct the retreat. Where will you take them, Ingles, after the bridge? Where will you take your patriots? I have thought of it all day while I have been drinking."
"What have you thought?" Agustin asked.
"What have I thought?" Pablo said and moved his tongue around exploringly inside his lips. "Que te importa, what have I thought."
"Say it," Agustin said to him.
"Much," Pablo said. He pulled the blanket coat over his head, the roundness of his head protruding now from the dirty yellow folds of the blanket. "I have thought much."
"What?" Agustin said. "What?"
"I have thought you are a group of illusioned people," Pablo said. "Led by a woman with her brains between her thighs and a foreigner who comes to destroy you."
"Get out," Pilar shouted at him. "Get out and fist yourself into the snow. Take your bad milk out of here, you horse exhausted maricon."
"Thus one talks," Agustin said admiringly, but absent-mindedly. He was worried.
"I go," said Pablo. "But I will be back shortly." He lifted the blanket over the door of the cave and stepped out. Then from the door he called, "It's still falling, Ingles."