Savage Coast by Muriel Rukeyser Read Free Book Online

the other, more impressive ornate buildings confronted the platform, separated by grillwork or a strip of grass. At the end of this short street, the little iron tables of the café covered the sidewalk. They were crowded. Colors snapped in the hot air, filling in the street corner. She walked up, entered the bright crowd, hearing the foreign calls after her, the disjunctive music of the radio, the receding station noises. The street ended immediately. This was the Calle Mayor, crowded in both directions.
    Sunday noon!
    The whole town was out.
    There was not a single empty table, you had to thread your way between, escape the tangle of families, the childrens’ games. But Helen could see through the low windows; the inside of the café was quite empty. She split the fringe of long beadstrings that curtained the door.
    The café was big and shadowy. An old container, painted a shiny synthetic orange, stood on the counter, unused. But deep in the room, the bar itself took shape, ghostly-white. The proprietor was washing glasses; they flashed quickly. He looked up, his high-domed head stood sharply out; dark glasses, long wine bottles filled the shelves behind him.
    Helen saw the piled peaches, the flush of fruit color on the bar. The proprietor asked a question in Catalan, the soft burring sounds and the mixture of x ’s confusing her immediately, throwing her off, by a trick of wrenched concentration fixing her whole attention on the opening words so that she was deafened to the rest. She lost every bit of language. God, she thought! Why should I care about speech this much? The blood pushed up behind her eyes, in her poverty; and then she was over it. She laughed with the man, pointed at the peaches, counted twelve on her fingers.
    The proprietor jerked his head back at the train. “ Extranjeros ,” he commented.
    A hoot, from the shadow, turned them both, shaken. It was the radio: a man, up a ladder at the side doorway, was rigging up an extra loudspeaker. It hooted again. He turned it down until there was nothing but an even, boiling sound, came down the ladder, winding wire in his hand, and crossed the bar.
    The proprietor gave Helen her peaches and change in the new-feeling Spanish coin, and gave the man his glass of wine. As she turned the beadstring aside at the door, she saw him bent over the radio behind the bar.
    ON THE STREET , they were standing at their tables.
    One man lifted his little soft-colored child up to the chair so that he could see.
    An open truck stood in the middle of the street. The Ford signature on its hood sprang out, plain as a movie-title.
    There were nine boys standing in the truck. None of them could be over nineteen. One had a heavy double-barreled hunting piece, five of them carried unmatched rifles, and the rest held their revolvers ready, self-consciously. No two of the weapons were alike.
    Helen stood in the doorway, holding the peaches loose in her arms, still feeling as if her tongue were cut out. No speech, no words to reach any of this. She looked at the truck.
    The Hungarians crushed in toward the truck. Toni admired the truck; his fist went up automatically, clenched to greet the boys.
    They turned to him, the cry in the throat of the very young one, enraged.
    One raked his hand down the air, clawing.
    The stocky boy raised his double-barreled gun, pointing it at Toni.
    He did not recoil, there were too many at his back; he stared up at their faces.
    â€œAren’t you Communists?” he asked, bewildered.
    â€œCommunists!” the youngest cried, and his voice broke.
    â€œWe’re not —”
    The stocky one broke in. “We are Anarchists.” He was pompous, with a certain defiance.
    â€œWe’re going to fight in Barcelona”
    â€œTo fight!” said Toni. “What for? What do you want, if you’re Anarchists?”
    â€œWant?” the little one echoed, again.
    The others turned. The driver leaned far out from his