“You aren’t going to stay?” the waiter asked.
“No.”
“But you gave me the telephone number.”
“I know it. You get to know too many telephone numbers if you stay around in this town.”
“But it was my duty.”
“Yes. Why not? Duty is a very strong thing.”
“But now?”
“Well, you felt good about it just now, didn’t you? Maybe you will feel good about it again. Maybe you will get to like it.”
“You have forgotten the package,” the waiter said. He handed me the meat which was wrapped in two envelopes which had brought copies of the Spur to the piles of magazines which accumulated in one of the office rooms of the Embassy.
“I understand,” I said to the waiter. “Truly.”
“He was an old client and a good client. Also I have never denounced anyone before. I did not denounce for pleasure.”
“Also I should not speak cynically or brutally. Tell him that I denounced him. He hates me anyway by now for differences in politics. He’d feel badly if he knew it was you.”
“No. Each man must take his responsibility. But you understand?”
“Yes,” I said. Then lied. “I understand and I approve.” You have to lie very often in a war and when you have to lie you should do it quickly and as well as you can.
We shook hands and I went out the door with John. I looked back at the table where Luis Delgado sat as I went out. He had another gin and tonic in front of him and everyone at the table was laughing at something he had said. He had a very gay, brown face, and shooter’s eyes, and I wondered what he was passing himself off as.
He was a fool to go to Chicote’s. But that was exactly the sort of thing that he would do in order to be able to boast of it when he was back with his own people.
As we went out of the door and turned to walk up the street, a big Seguridad car drew up in front of Chicote’s and eight men got out of it. Six with submachine guns took up positions outside the door. Two in plain clothes went inside. A man asked us for our papers and when I said, “Foreigners,” he said to go along; that it was all right.
In the dark going up the Gran Via there was much new broken glass on the sidewalk and much rubble under foot from the shelling. The air was still smoky and all up the street it smelled of high explosive and blasted granite.
“Where you go eat?” asked John.
“I have some meat for all of us, and we can cook it in the room.”
“I cook it,” said John. “I cook good. I remember one time when I cook on ship—”
“It will be pretty tough,” I said. “It’s just been freshly butchered.”
“Oh no,” said John. “Is a no such thing as a touch meat in a war.”
People were hurrying by in the dark on their way home from the cinemas where they had stayed until the shelling was over.
“What’s a matter that fascist he come to that café where they know him?”
“He was crazy to do it.”
“Is a trouble with a war,” John said. “Is a too many people crazy.”
“John,” I said, “I think you’ve got something there.”
Back at the hotel we went in the door past the sandbags piled to protect the porter’s desk and I asked for the key, but the porter said there were two comrades upstairs in the room taking a bath. He had given them the keys.
“Go on up, John,” I said. “I want to telephone.”
I went over to the booth and called the same number I had given the waiter.
“Hello? Pepé?”
A thin-lipped voice came over the phone. “¿Qué tal Enrique?”
“Listen, Pepé, did you pick up a certain Luis Delgado at Chicote’s?”
“Sí, hombre, sí. Sin novedad. Without trouble.”
“He doesn’t know anything about the waiter?”
“No, hombre, no.”
“Then don’t tell him. Tell him I denounced him then, will you? Nothing about the waiter.”
“Why when it will make no difference? He is a spy. He will be shot. There is no choice in the matter.”
“I know,” I said. “But it makes a difference.”
“As you want, hombre. As you want. When shall I see thee?”
“Lunch tomorrow. We have some meat.”
“And whisky before. Good, hombre, good.”
“Salud, Pepé, and thank you.”
“Salud, Enrique. It is nothing. Salud.”
It was a strange and very deadly voice and I never got used to hearing it, but as I walked up the stairs now, I felt much better.
All we old clients of Chicote’s had a sort of feeling about the place. I knew that was why Luis Delgado had been such a fool as to go back there. He could have done his business some place else. But if he was in Madrid he had to go there. He had been a good client as the waiter had said and we had been friends.
Certainly any small acts of kindness you can do in life are worth doing. So I was glad I had called my friend Pepé at Seguridad headquarters because Luis Delgado was an old client of Chicote’s and I did not wish him to be disillusioned or bitter about the waiters there before he died.
The End
