Savage Coast Read Online Free PDF

London the morning before. She offered one to the large son, who looked at the gold stamp before he took it. The soldiers waved their hands, grinning. One was young, with tender sideburns, and kept glancing at the other, whose green eyes and creased cheeks reassured him. He wanted a cigarette.
    â€œEnglish cigarettes,” the father told them.
    â€œAh, English,” said the soldier in authority, and bent his head with the suggestion of a bow, accepting. The other one took his, and they lit them; after a second they took their guns and left the compartment. They could be heard whistling near the end of the car.
    â€œBetter not to talk at all before soldiers,” the father echoed the old woman. “But my mother has strong ideas.”
    â€œOnly about order,” she said. “The revolutions here bring a new government in, and we have order for four months, and then we have another revolution.”
    â€œLike Mexico,” Helen put in.
    â€œIn some ways like Mexico,” said the grandmother. “The church here!” She threw her head back. “Just let there be a revolution that will hold what it does for a long time and prove itself.” The eyes grew brilliant in her face, enlarged in the small skull, whose skin was still soft, like fruit which was wrinkled only in certain places. “The government changed last night,” she informed them. “With too much—” she looked at her son.
    â€œYes,” he said. “Too much right wing to it. And I hear another government went in this morning. We’ll know when we get to Barcelona,” he said. A trail of sweat started down his temple. “In the meantime, it’s fine country, isn’t it?”
    â€œI wish I knew what cork-trees look like,” Helen said illogically, and in English, forgetting language. Toni raised his eyebrows. She started to repeat in French. She had lost the word for cork. “What goes in the neck of the bottle,” she described. Toni was still blank. The heavy man nodded.
    â€œI know, certainly,” he said. “ Vino .”
    The illustration was easy. “Oh that,” the man shook with laughter, “not so important, perhaps. There they are, leaning against the house there, the branches of cork, waiting to be cut.” He pointed, but across the line of his finger stood the crossroads figure, the man with the gun.
    THE TRAIN WAS stopping now every few minutes, at roads or at arbitrary points, where nothing but a near house broke the fields. They kept their heads out the window, Helen on one side, the young boy at the other, half in his grandmother’s lap.
    They were reaching a station platform, talking about Madrid, the Scottsboro case, 69 New York skyscrapers, the Berlin Olympics, the tawny cliffs of the coast just beyond their vision, the slow trains traditional to Spain. Their talk slowed as the train slowed. The train stopped.
    A whistle-blast shot with finality through the cars.
    There was some disturbance in the first-class section. Helen started through again to Peapack. “I’ll leave the suitcase,” she told Toni.
    â€œYou’d better,” he said. “We must be almost in. What town is this?” He asked the heavy man.
    â€œIt must be Moncada,” he said. The old woman nodded.
    â€œYes, Moncada. A very small town,” she told Helen.
    â€œIt’s a pity we can’t see the shore from this train. I was so sorry to leave the sea.”
    Her son ran his hand over his cheek, brushing the streak of sweat down the dark stubble. The boy watched everything he did very closely, his face flickered at every action. He moved a little closer to the man as the train-whistle yelled again.
    â€œIt’s too bad they had to come home so soon,” the man said, of his mother and son. “They were spending the vacation with so much pleasure. It’s very beautiful all along here—” he pointed out at nothing but the