Evening star., 1938-07-10
A vivid short story
TO stir your blood

~ SAAA xOSsA OAOO$A
Jose MARAGALL Y HURTADO strolled idly
down the Rambla in the promenading
~ throng. Night had fallen. The cafes had
lit up and the street lamps were sparsely
bright.
There had been another air raid this morn
ing. the bombs falling from great height, the
machines invisible. Now the throngs were do
ing their best to forget that always imminent
menace - though, involmtarily, everyone
glanced up from moment to moment at the
star powdered sky. probably, like himself.
most of them had a flashlight torch in pocket
or shawl fold. 1t was sometimes hours before
the lights came on again.
|. They were Realistically accustomed to
air raids. All one could do was to rush to the
nearest shelter. Either one was hit. or one
wasn't. People had become used to war. to
this war which had been going on for some
twenty months. How much longer would it
last?
Well. thought Jose. personally he couldn't
complain - so far He had kept whole skin.
This job in the Autonomous Government was
much more interesting than his dull junior
professorship. For him (he recognized the fact
with his cymcally logical mind) these recent
months had been very pleasant liberation
from all manner of constraints. 1t had been
good to be young.
What had happened to Maria? he wondered.
He rarely thought of her these days. Now, for
mo reason, he suddenly visualized her alone in
tiNeir apartment - in the moment when she
had realized that he was never coming back.
He had left her in the first wild anarchy. when
the streets were strewn with dead. He had
gone off with Pepita, the girl student. roman
tically convinced that revolution was synony-
nous with free love. All ties had suddenly
become ridiculous; any number of married
men were doing the same thing.
The last news of Pepita had been from
Madrid. After her, there had been Conception
Manuelita and Francesca. In these months
it had been easy enough to find new partners.
Doubtless, Maria had made shift to get on
somehow. Unless somebody had denounced
her as being generals daughter. He didn't
think so. He would have heard OF it. would
have been automatically suspect himself.
There were plenty of comrades envious of his
job.
Sirens - the sirens - tore into his thoughts
with their familiar hideous screeching. AIR.
RAIDl Instantly, the throng began to run.
He ran also. All lights were abruptly extin-
guished He ran with dark mass of jostling
shadows, calculating cries of fear, of urgent
haste. 1t was more than five hundred meters
to the nearest underground shelter. Above his
head, as he glanced upward, shafts of milk
white radiance were probing among the stars.
He could see no planes. The anti-aircraft
shells walled. objectless, through the air.
Just in front of him woman was running.
getting in his way. One of the dark running
figures collided with her, knocked her side
ways. He tripped over her, fell headlong. He
cursed. Before he could get to his feet, there
was familiar unnerving downward-r,shing
hurting screech, rapidly louder. binding
brief intensity of light, an immense detona-
ton that seemed to shatter the world. The
bomb had fallen some way of, perhaps in the
Plaza de la Catalina. There would be another
one in a moment!
Along the Rambla people were shrieking.
He struggled desperately to his feet, auto
matically helped the woman up also. The
shelter was too far. "Quick!" he gasped. "A
doorway!
There was another descending heart-stop-