A Necessary Action Read Online Free PDF Page B

stay here a year and paint. I said I would and I’m going to. Even if it is meaningless, really. Anyhow, I can’t understand what people like Hugo see in this country and this sort of place. It’s warm, but that’s about all. Now these people are expecting me to help them in some private row, and I suppose I ought to, as I’ve lived with them for a week. I don’t know what it’s all about but what does that matter.
    They had come down on to the smooth shore road which ran in a curve round the inner part of the bay, connecting the village with the little group of houses lying near the lighthouse and the pier. Dan started the engine, which rattled alarmingly. He drove quickly and carelessly round the bay.
    Two nights earlier a couple of fishing-boats had happened to get a shoal of turtles in their nets, and halfway to the village the damaged nets were stretched out on a rack which was about a hundred yards long. The nets took up one half of the road and about every ten yards men and women were sitting mending the holes.
    At the third net-mender, Dan Pedersen braked the camioneta and stopped.
    ‘Hullo,’ he said.
    When the shadow of the vehicle fell over him, Santiago Alemany raised his head, and with two fingers pushed his straw hat off his forehead. He was sitting with his legs stretched out in the sun-scorched gravel and had stretched the net out by hooking his big toe in one of the holes.
    ‘What’s up?’ he said.
    ‘The Scandinavians have got their money and are drinking at Jacinto’s.’
    ‘I heard. Even when you sit here, you get to know everything.’
    ‘Are you coming with us?’
    Santiago Alemany carefully worked the net loose and rose. His movements had a studied leisureliness, giving him a kind of grandeur, although he was bare-footed and rather dirty from the work, and although his faded clothes were of a very indefinite colour.
    He was twenty-seven, roughly the same age as the people in the truck, and had calm light-brown eyes, a broad forehead and not especially dark hair.
    He is well built, thought Siglinde, who often thought about such things.
    ‘A calamity,’ he said, gesturing towards the net. ‘This ought to be finished today. Or tomorrow.’
    He laughed, took out a crumpled packet of Ideales and handed them round. Everyone took one except Willi Mohr, who had not yet got used to the pungent local tobacco. And the fact that he did not understand what they were talking about also put him into a state of apathetic passivity.
    Santiago climbed up on the truck and sat down beside Willi Mohr.
    ‘Let’s take little brother with us,’ he said. ‘He’s useful … in this sort of situation.’
    When the truck started up, the nearest net-mender turned his head and called behind him, without ceasing to work:
    ‘Now Santiago’s gone off with the foreigners again—as usual.’
    Ramon Alemany was sitting right at the end of the row, bent forward, fumbling with the stitches. The family likeness was there, but he was in many ways very different from his brother. When he saw the truck, he at once untangled himself from the nets, flung them down and jumped up, small, muscular and with lively eyes. Under his carelessly knotted shirt could be seen his hairy, sweaty chest and large, dark brown nipples.
    He clambered up on to the back bench and eagerly shook everyone by the hand.
    The brothers spoke to each other in Catalonian. Both laughed.
    Dan Pedersen drove on.
    Singlinde turned and smiled at the three people behind her.
    Willi Mohr did not understand a thing. He felt utterly indifferent to them all.

2
    The clump of houses in the harbour lay basking in the sun, today just as on every summer day. From the broad level quay, narrow dark alleys ran upwards between leaning white house-walls. Some of the cafés on the harbour side had tried to live up to the demands of the present by setting up coloured umbrellas over the tables. One of the bar-owners was wearing a white jacket. On the quay a large number