The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [234]
We were sitting at the table with a bottle of wine that just wasn’t bad, you know you could taste it starting to go, but it wouldn’t justify making a row about, when Al Wagner came in. He looked around the room, saw us and came over.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“They broke me,” he said.
“It didn’t take very long.”
“Not with those guys,” he said. “That’s a big game. What have they got to eat?”
I called a waiter over.
“It’s too late,” he said. “We can’t serve anything now.”
“This comrade is in the tanks,” I said. “He has fought all day and he will fight tomorrow and he hasn’t eaten.”
“That’s not my fault,” the waiter said. “It’s too late. There isn’t anything more. Why doesn’t the comrade eat with his unit? The army has plenty of food.”
“I asked him to eat with me.”
“You should have said something about it. It’s too late now. We are not serving anything any more.”
“Get the head waiter.”
The headwaiter said the cook had gone home and there was no fire in the kitchen. He went away. They were angry because we had sent the bad wine back.
“The hell with it,” said Al. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“There’s no place you can eat at this hour. They’ve got food. I’ll just have to go over and suck up to the headwaiter and give him some more money.”
I went over and did just that and the sullen waiter brought a plate of cold sliced meats, then half a spiny lobster with mayonnaise, and a salad of lettuce and lentils. The headwaiter sold this out of his private stock which he was holding out either to take home, or sell to late comers.
“Cost you much?” Al asked.
“No,” I lied.
“I’ll bet it did,” he said. “I’ll fix up with you when I get paid.”
“What do you get now?”
“I don’t know yet. It was ten pesetas a day but they’ve raised it now I’m an officer. But we haven’t got it yet and I haven’t asked.”
“Comrade,” I called the waiter. He came over, still angry that the headwaiter had gone over his head and served Al. “Bring another bottle of wine, please.”
“What kind?”
“Any that is not too old so that the red is faded.”
“It’s all the same.”
I said the equivalent of like hell it is in Spanish, and the waiter brought over a bottle of Château Mouton-Rothschild 1906 that was just as good as the last claret we had was rotten.
“Boy that’s wine,” Al said. “What did you tell him to get that?”
“Nothing. He just made a lucky draw out of the bin.”
“Most of that stuff from the palace stinks.”
“It’s too old. This is a hell of a climate on wine.”
“There’s that wise comrade,” Al nodded across at another table.
The little man with the thick glasses that had talked to us about Largo Caballero was talking with some people I knew were very big shots indeed.
“I guess he’s a big shot,” I said.
“When they’re high enough up they don’t give a damn what they say. But I wish he would have waited until after tomorrow. It’s kind of spoiled tomorrow for me.”
I filled his glass.
“What he said sounded pretty sensible,” Al went on. “I’ve been thinking it over. But my duty is to do what I’m ordered to do.”
“Don’t worry about it and get some sleep.”
“I’m going to get in that game again if you’ll let me take a thousand pesetas,” Al said. “I’ve got a lot more than that coming to me and I’ll give you an order on my pay.”
“I don’t want any order. You can pay me when you get it.”
“I don’t think I’m going to draw it,” Al said. “I certainly sound wet, don’t I? And I know gambling’s bohemianism too. But in a game like that is the only time I don’t think about tomorrow.”
“Did you like that Manolita girl? She liked you.”
“She’s got eyes like a snake.”
“She’s not a bad girl. She’s friendly and she’s all right.”
“I don’t want any girl. I want to get back in that crap game.”
Down the table