13

They were walking through the heather of the mountain meadow and Robert Jordan felt the brushing of the heather against his legs, felt the weight of his pistol in its holster against his thigh, felt the sun on his head, felt the breeze from the snow of the mountain peaks cool on his back and, in his hand, he felt the girl's hand firm and strong, the fingers locked in his. From it, from the palm of her hand against the palm of his, from their fingers locked together, and from her wrist across his wrist something came from her hand, her fingers and her wrist to his that was as fresh as the first light air that moving toward you over the sea barely wrinkles the glassy surface of a calm, as light as a feather moved across one's lip, or a leaf falling when there is no breeze; so light that it could be felt with the touch of their fingers alone, but that was so strengthened, so intensified, and made so urgent, so aching and so strong by the hard pressure of their fingers and the close pressed palm and wrist, that it was as though a current moved up his arm and filled his whole body with an aching hollowness of wanting. With the sun shining on her hair, tawny as wheat, and on her gold-brown smooth-lovely face and on the curve of her throat he bent her head back and held her to him and kissed her. He felt her trembling as he kissed her and he held the length of her body tight to him and felt her breasts against his chest through the two khaki shirts, he felt them small and firm and he reached and undid the buttons on her shirt and bent and kissed her and she stood shivering, holding her head back, his arm behind her. Then she dropped her chin to his head and then he felt her hands holding his head and rocking it against her. He straightened and with his two arms around her held her so tightly that she was lifted off the ground, tight against him, and he felt her trembling and then her lips were on his throat, and then he put her down and said, "Maria, oh, my Maria."

Then he said, "Where should we go?"

She did not say anything but slipped her hand inside of his shirt and he felt her undoing the shirt buttons and she said, "You, too. I want to kiss, too."

"No, little rabbit."

"Yes. Yes. Everything as you."

"Nay. That is an impossibility."

"Well, then. Oh, then. Oh, then. Oh."

Then there was the smell of heather crushed and the roughness of the bent stalks under her head and the sun bright on her closed eyes and all his life he would remember the curve of her throat with her head pushed back into the heather roots and her lips that moved smally and by themselves and the fluttering of the lashes on the eyes tight closed against the sun and against everything, and for her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color. For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.

Then he was lying on his side, his head deep in the heather, smelling it and the smell of the roots and the earth and the sun came through it and it was scratchy on his bare shoulders and along his flanks and the girl was lying opposite him with her eyes still shut and then she opened them and smiled at him and he said very tiredly and from a great but friendly distance, "Hello, rabbit." And she smiled and from no distance said, "Hello, my Ingles."

"I'm not an Ingles," he said very lazily.

"Oh yes, you are," she said. "You're my Ingles," and reached and took hold of both his ears and kissed him on the forehead.

"There," she said. "How is that? Do I kiss thee better?"

Then they were walking along the stream together and he said, "Maria, I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee."

"Oh," she said. "I die each time. Do you not die?"

"No. Almost. But did thee feel the earth move?"

"Yes. As I died. Put thy arm around me, please."

"No. I have thy hand. Thy hand is enough."

He looked at her and across the meadow where a hawk was hunting and the big afternoon clouds were coming now over the mountains.

"And it is not thus for thee with others?" Maria asked him, they now walking hand in hand.

"No. Truly."

"Thou hast loved many others."

"Some. But not as thee."

"And it was not thus? Truly?"

"It was a pleasure but it was not thus."

"And then the earth moved. The earth never moved before?"

"Nay. Truly never."

"Ay," she said. "And this we have for one day."

He said nothing.

"But we have had it now at least," Maria said. "And do you like me too? Do I please thee? I will look better later."

"Thou art very beautiful now."

"Nay," she said. "But stroke thy hand across my head."

He did that feeling her cropped hair soft and flattening and then rising between his fingers and he put both hands on her head and turned her face up to his and kissed her.

"I like to kiss very much," she said. "But I do not do it well."

"Thou hast no need to kiss."

"Yes, I have. If I am to be thy woman I should please thee in all ways."

"You please me enough. I would not be more pleased. There is no thing I could do if I were more pleased."

"But you will see," she said very happily. "My hair amuses thee now because it is odd. But every day it is growing. It will be long and then I will not look ugly and perhaps you will love me very much."

"Thou hast a lovely body," he said. "The loveliest in the world."

"It is only young and thin."

"No. In a fine body there is magic. I do not know what makes it in one and not in another. But thou hast it."

"For thee," she said.

"Nay."

"Yes. For thee and for thee always and only for thee. But it is littie to bring thee. I would learn to take good care of thee. But tell me truly. Did the earth never move for thee before?"

"Never," he said truly.

"Now am I happy," she said. "Now am I truly happy.

"You are thinking of something else now?" she asked him.

"Yes. My work."

"I wish we had horses to ride," Maria said. "In my happiness I would like to be on a good horse and ride fast with thee riding fast beside me and we would ride faster and faster, galloping, and never pass my happiness."

"We could take thy happiness in a plane," he said absently.

"And go over and over in the sky like the little pursuit planes shining in the sun," she said. "Rolling it in loops and in dives. Que bueno!" she laughed. "My happiness would not even notice it."

"Thy happiness has a good stomach," he said half hearing what she said.

Because now he was not there. He was walking beside her but his mind was thinking of the problem of the bridge now and it was all clear and hard and sharp as when a camera lens is brought into focus. He saw the two posts and Anselmo and the gypsy watching. He saw the road empty and he saw movement on it. He saw where he would place the two automatic rifles to get the most level field of fire, and who will serve them, he thought, me at the end, but who at the start? He placed the charges, wedged and lashed them, sunk his caps and crimped them, ran his wires, hooked them up and got back to where he had placed the old box of the exploder and then he started to think of all the things that could have happened and that might go wrong. Stop it, he told himself. You have made love to this girl and now your head is clear, properly clear, and you start to worry. It is one thing to think you must do and it is another thing to worry. Don't worry. You mustn't worry. You know the things that you may have to do and you know what may happen. Certainly it may happen.