For Whom the Bell Tolls Page #17

Will there, Roberto?

No.

Maybe I should've sent word sooner

about the movements here.

How much time have we left?

A lifetime, Mara.

I mean until daylight.

Five, six hours.

Pilar told me

that time is not important.

Maybe Pilar's right.

Three days and three nights.

Yet they're everything.

Longer than the months in prison.

Longer than the years I've lived.

She told me something else

when I left the cave:

"We must live all our life

in the time that remains."

She said...

- What?

What did she tell you?

- We would all die tomorrow.

And that you know it too.

- She's crazy.

Nothing more than Gypsy superstition.

You don't believe it?

- Of course not.

She had a reason for telling me.

She said I must tell you all

that happened to me

when they shot my mother and father.

You've told me.

- No.

No, I didn't tell you what happened

when they herded us up the hill

and to the barber shop.

- I don't want to hear it.

Two men looked at me and one said,

"That's the daughter of the mayor."

The other said, "Commence with her."

They took me to the barber shop

and put me in the chair and held me.

In the mirror I could only see

my mother and my father

at the moment of the shooting.

My mother's words were in my head

like a scream that went on and on.

And I could fell a pain.

They were pulling at my hair

and cutting it off with a razor.

And then they put the braids

in my mouth...

and tied them around my neck

to make a gag.

Then they ran clippers across my head.

I commenced to cry, because until then

I'd been too frozen to feel anything.

In the mirror,

I could see the men laugh.

I couldn't look away from the horror

my face made with braids in my mouth.

When they took me out,

I stumbled over the dead barber.

They had shot him

because he belonged to a union.

Then I saw my best friend

being dragged in by two more men.

When she saw me, she screamed.

She screamed the whole time

they were shoving me

across the square

and into the doorway

and up the stairs of the city hall,

to the office of my father, where they

put me on the couch. - Mara.

The worst things were done there.

- Quiet. Don't think about it.

I was going to tell you

on the way back from El Sordo,

but I was glad

when you wouldn't let me.

Then I was happy,

as if it had never happened.

No. Tonight, Pilar said

I must tell you everything.

And now you won't love me.

Tomorrow you'll take me through the

lines and I'll never see you again.

Never. You won't want me.

No, Roberto,

we can't change things.

But it's true

I never kissed any man until you.

When it happened I fought until they

tied my arms. - No one's touched you!

You believe that?

- I know that.

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