— I know what she wants. . Mr. Yak drew back as the diamonds came up in his face. — You gave her those rhinestone earrings?
— Those cheap things! Twenty pesetas. When I gave them to her I told her that, how cheap they were and she nearly cried just because. .
— Just because you didn't go get your diamonds made into earrings.
— No, listen, look, those cheap clothes she wears coming apart at the seams, she doesn't mind, if they're clean, if I… if I tell her she looks good, but if I say anything like. .
— You make quite a couple in the street, said Mr. Yak.
— Yes, he laughed himself quietly, looking down. — I was walking with my hands in my pockets, and all of a sudden she stops right there on the sidewalk, she was furious, Si tu no me coges. . she wouldn't walk a step further with me if I didn't take her arm. He stood there looking at the floor and almost smiling, until Mr. Yak said,
— You could do better, if you're going to get mixed up with. .
— Better? He brought his eyes up again, their vacant quality restored.
— If you're going to pay good money…
— But it isn't. . paying!
— I get it. You just give her some money afterwards.
— Yes but, listen…
— You're going to catch something, you probably caught something from her already. Those kind of tough girls you meet like that. .
— Tough, yes, the scars on her belly and down one leg, listen. .
— You probably caught something from her already.
— Caught something. .? His hand was up between them again, squared fingers closing upon nothing; and he was staring there. — I was, I had her breast and I was. . she, all of a sudden she said, No, son para la niña, she didn't want me to… to take what was. . wasn't mine.
Mr. Yak shrugged. — If you were getting what you paid for. .
— But that's what I'm trying to tell you! right in the middle of it, when I was still. . His closed hand quivered between them. — All of a sudden crying out, she burst out crying, Me quieres? me quieres? Dime lo. . que si! aunque no es verdad. .
Mr. Yak finished his coffee and studied the face before him with the composure of a man examining something unobserved. Then he shrugged again and said, — You get one every once in a while like that, they have to cry right in the middle of it. So you told her yes, you loved her? even if it wasn't true? He got no answer, put down the cup he'd been holding, and shrugged again. — You ought to have told her yes. A time like that, it's the only thing you can do, if you want to get your money's worth.
The town was quiet in the late afternoon. Mr. Yak tucked the purple and gold cord into his front as they came out on the street, and reopened the conversation on a more promising note. — Wait till you see this mummy thing when we get through with it, it will be so terrific it'll make your nose bleed.
The sky was unchanged, except for seeming closer to the earth, more oppressive upon the mountains, as the light of day drained from it. The two men approaching the rock-studded road up behind the town did so in silence, the one swinging his arms as he walked, allowing sounds of anticipation to escape him, the other hands clasped behind, watching every detail of the pavement they followed. It is true, Mr. Yak's gait was somewhat irregular, his head bobbing up to the challenge ahead, then down, and aside, as the past threatened in the dull intent profile beside him. He wondered, if this climb would recall its earlier end, when they'd met over a past beyond them both, if this prolonged gesture of atonement of his should suddenly shatter between them while the future yet promised, if he should mention any of that simply to hold it at bay, before it attacked of itself.
— Good God!. .
— What's the matter with you? Mr. Yak asked before he looked for reason, finding, for the first time, this hand on his arm.
A white carriage, all white, drawn by horses strung with broken white netting, mounting a small white casket beneath the white coronating cross, climbed before them, — Christ! are they always held at the fall of the day? Another one, up that broken road to the cypress trees, and the men follow, carrying their hats, and that girl on her bicycle, in her green dress, making the stupid windings of life in the road behind it, and she'll be back down the hill before they unload the box… As though that child had. . chosen this time to die.
His hand had fallen away, and Mr. Yak caught his arm. — Listen, Mr. Yak said quickly, — you go back there and wait for me, go back to that bar and wait for me, see?
— Well I… then you'll have to lend me some money.
— You're broke. . you've spent. . you don't have any money?
— Point d'argent, point de Suisse…
— Listen, I don't want to let you. . have you got your passport? Mr. Yak had pulled out a wad of paper money. — If they. .
— It says I'm from Zurich. Quick! I'll speak to them in German. . aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber. . Quick!. .
The procession gone up the hill had been drawn by two horses, and now, down through the town, came a cart drawn by one, loaded with refuse from the factory nearby. Watching it with the same apparent interest as she had watched the other, an old woman withdrew from her railed balcony, leaving her husband in his chair, put out there in the afternoon for the sun, to look and cough, with his piece of bread, waiting. And the sun, which had kept so close all the day, sought before leaving it to fill the sky with color, a soft luster of pink, and then purple, against the pure blue, color which refined the clouds to their own shapes and then failed, discovering in them for minutes the whole material of beauty, then leaving them without light to mock the sky, losing form, losing edges and shape and definition, until soon enough with darkness, they disappear entirely.
— Allí se mueren, said the man behind the bar of La Ilicitana. He placed a glass there, and brought down the bottle of Genesis, answering a question with his voice, and an order with the bottle of coñac. — En invierno no, pero quando vienen las hojas por los árboles, allí se mueren.
It was dark out of doors when the bartender at La Ilicitana leaned forth to direct his only client's attention to the couple waiting outside. Mr. Yak stood just within the dim shaft of light, beckoning. Beside him, in the shadows, a small figure draped in a shawl waited patiently; and a moment later, the man behind the bar there watched the three of them leave with no misgiving curiosity in his face at all.
— Take her arm, said Mr. Yak in the street. — But be careful. You're not drunk, are you? Are you? You got enough chairs for the monkeys? Come on. Be careful. We pretend it's an old woman, see? Only when we get on the train she's real stiff in the joints, see? But these Spaniards here are very reverent for an old woman, like it's somebody's mother, see? So be careful. .
He was right.
The conductor even threatened to help the stiff figure aboard the First Class coach, but Mr. Yak was impressively filial, and they were soon seated abreast in a compartment. Mr. Yak pulled the shades down upon the aisle passing outside, for the figure between them sat stretched out at an uncomfortable length for her size, and there was no relaxing her into the cushions, — because we don't want to break nothing.
The moon, in its last quarter, had not yet entered the sky, waiting to corne in late, each night waiting nearer the last possible minute before day, to appear over the distant gate more battered, lopsided, and seem to mount unsteadily as though restrained by embarrassment at being seen in such condition. And so the train rattled out into the rock-strewn plain in darkness. Mr. Yak stood up, slipped the door open enough to peep into the corridor, and then displaced the glass and removed the light from above the seat across from them.