"All right. But hurry. And just in case you"ve forgotten what I look like, I"ll be wearing a red carnation."
He became part of the growing multi-directional parade in the streets.
Nightfall had brought colored torches to the hands of many of the Hermanitos, and hundreds of new huge portraits of the four leaders of the United Nations. There was a new pattern to the street festivities.
Now whole groups of Hermanitos, each marching behind a picture of one of the four statesmen, made their way through the crowds to the emba.s.sies of the United Nations and then to the Plaza de la Republica, where they paraded their signs and their sentiments in front of all the government buildings and the Presidencia. After that, the marchers joined the milling groups of celebrators who just seemed to move around in slow circles, singing, cheering, loudly wishing a long life to Anibal Tabio and the United Nations.
The darkened Plaza was packed, torches in the hands of hundreds of the crowd bringing more light to the ancient square than had been seen there since the nation had been forced to begin conserving its fuel. Hall cut through the crowds toward the Bolivar, too excited to sense his fatigue.
This is a night I shall long remember, he thought, this is the night I will tell my children about if I ever have any children. This is the night that I saw the power of the common people, the night I saw democracy take to the streets of a nation"s capital and tell the world that fascism"s day of cheap triumphs is done. This is the night of the meek who shall yet inherit the earth.
Through the shoulders of the crowd, he could see Jerry"s red hair. As he drew closer, he saw that she had two little girls in her arms. The children were crying wildly, the tears choking in their throats and coursing down their contorted faces.
"There, there," Jerry was saying to them, "everything will be all right.
You"re only lost. We"ll find out where you belong." But the strange foreign words only added to the terror in the frightened hearts of the girls.
"What happened?" Hall asked Jerry.
"They"re lost. I was afraid they"d get trampled or something, Matt."
He spoke to the kids in their own language, soothing, silly words. Then he took them in his arms while Jerry dried their tears with a perfumed handkerchief. Between sobs, the little girls told Hall that they had slipped out of the house to see the fiesta and had been having a swell time until the crazy lady swooped them up, talking crazy words and keeping them from going on their way.
"Do you know where you live?" he asked them. They pointed toward their own house. "We will take you there. And don"t call the senorita a crazy lady, little ones. She is your friend."
"Are they lost?" Jerry asked.
"h.e.l.l, no. Just tourists. Let"s get them home, first."
The girls lived nearly a mile from the Bolivar. They watched the paraders in silence while Hall carried them to their house, but when he reached their block the girls insisted that they could walk the rest of the way. "No," he laughed, "I"m taking you right to your door. And I"m waiting in the street until you come to your window and throw me a kiss."
The girls, who had less than a dozen years between them, giggled and hid their heads in his shoulders. "We won"t throw you a kiss," the older of the sisters said, shyly. "You aren"t our _novio_."
"These little devils!" he laughed to Jerry. The girls began to squirm in his arms. "No, little ones," he told them, "I won"t make any more crazy talk like the senorita."
"This is our house."
He put them down on the first steps. "Now hurry," he said. "Upstairs with you, and be quick!"
They scrambled up the stairs. "They"re sweet," Jerry said. For a brief moment, the faces of the two little girls appeared at the open window on the first floor. Then the ample figure of a woman in a white cotton dress loomed behind them.
"Let"s scram before they catch it," Hall said, but he was too late. The shrill cries of the girls, as their mother flailed their behinds with a righteous hand, followed Hall and Jerry down the street.
"Me and my Good-Neighbor policy," Jerry said. "It"s all my fault."
"They deserve it. What would you do to your kids if they joined a stampede?"
Jerry had to laugh. "The same thing, I guess. But what"s all the celebrating about? Is it the local Fourth of July?"
"No. But I have a funny feeling that in years to come it might be. Your patient started it."
"Tabio?"
"President Anibal Tabio. He decided not to die today. He got out of bed and addressed the opening session of the Congress and called for war on the Axis."
"You"re kidding me again, Matt."
"The h.e.l.l I am. I was there. I saw him myself."
"But he"s paralyzed, Matt."
"He spoke from a wheel chair." He told Jerry about the speech, and as they walked through the dense crowds toward a restaurant, he translated some of the signs carried by the people who swarmed on all sides of her.
"_Abajo el Eje_--that"s down with the Axis. And that one says Long live the United Nations. _Mueran los Falangistas_--death to the Falangists."
"What are they, Matt?"
"The Spanish fascists. Hadn"t you heard of them before?"
Jerry shook her head. "I still don"t see how he got out of bed. He must have done it on nerves alone. I was at the lab all day with Marina and Tabio"s X-rays."
"He delivered a great speech, Jerry."
"I"ll bet he did. I guess nothing can stop this country from joining the democracies now, Matt."
"No," he said. "Nothing but Gamburdo--if Tabio dies."
They had to wait on a street corner while a line of students carrying red torches snake-danced across their path.
"Where are we eating?" she asked.
"I know a wonderful place facing the sea wall. It"s very plain, but the food is stupendous. We"ll have to walk, though."
"I"m game. It"s fun walking in these crowds tonight. It"s almost like New Year"s Eve in New York."
The restaurant was packed. The waiter had to put an extra table on the sidewalk for Hall and Jerry. "It"s better from here anyway," Hall told her. "We can see the ocean and get away from the din inside."
A hundred happy men and women jammed the interior of the restaurant, singing to the music of the small orchestra, toasting the slogans which were all over San Hermano this night. Hall invited the waiter to drink a toast in sherry to Don Anibal, and then he ordered lobster salads and steaks for Jerry and himself.
"I missed you," he told Jerry and, hearing his words, he was startled to realize that he meant them.
"You"re just lonely. But I like to hear you say it."
"No. I really missed you."
"What"s wrong, Matt? You look all in."
"Nothing," he said. "I"ve had a long day. What do you think of this lobster salad?"
Small talk. Make small, polite talk about lobsters and cabbages, talk about the weather and your neighbor"s garden, talk about anything before you start talking love talk and then you"ll forget why you have to talk to her at all. "You"re beautiful tonight," he said, softly.
"I"m ignoring you, Hall."