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“What is there?”

“There are some rifles in cases. There are boxes of ammunition.”

“Everything should be moved tonight.” His mouth was full. “There will be years of work before we will need this again.”

“Do you like the escabeche?”

“It’s very good; sit here close.”

“Enrique,” she said, sitting tight against him. She put a hand on his thigh and with the other she stroked the back of his neck. “My Enrique.”

“Touch me carefully,” he said, eating. “The back is bad.”

“Are you happy to be back from the war?”

“I have not thought about it,” he said.

“Enrique, how is Chucho?”

“Dead at Lérida.”

“Felipe?”

“Dead. Also at Lérida.”

“And Arturo?”

“Dead at Teruel.”

“And Vicente?” she asked in a flat voice, her two hands folded on his thigh now.

“Dead. At the attack across the road at Celadas.”

“Vicente is my brother.” She sat stiff and alone now, her hands away from him.

“I know,” said Enrique. He went on eating.

“He is my only brother.”

“I thought you knew,” said Enrique.

“I did not know and he is my brother.”

“I am sorry, Maria. I should have said it another way.”

“And he is dead? You know he is dead? It is not just a report?”

“Listen. Rogello, Basilio, Esteban, Fel and I are alive. The others are dead.”

“All?”

“All,” said Enrique.

“I cannot stand it,” said Maria. “Please, I cannot stand it.”

“It does no good to discuss it. They are dead.”

“But it is not only that Vicente is my brother. I can give up my brother. It is the flower of our party.”

“Yes. The flower of the party.”

“It is not worth it. It has destroyed the best.”

“Yes. It is worth it.”

“How can you say that? That is criminal.”

“No. It is worth it.”

She was crying now and Enrique went on eating. “Don’t cry,” he said. “The thing to do is to think how we can work to take their places.”

“But he is my brother. Don’ you uderstand? My brother.”

“We are all brothers. Some are dead and others still live. They send us home now, so there will be some left. Otherwise there would be none. Now we must work.”

“But why were they all killed?”

“We were with an attack division. You are either killed or wounded. We others have been wounded.”

“How was Vicente killed?”

“He was crossing the road when he was struck by machine-gun fire from a farmhouse on the right. The road was enfiladed from that house.”

“Were you there?”

“Yes. I had the first company. We were on his right. We took the house but it took some time. They had three machine guns there. Two in the house, one in the stable. It was difficult to approach. We had to get a tank up to put fire on the window before we could rush the last gun. I lost eight men. It was too many.”

“And where was that?”

“Celadas.”

“I never heard of it.”

“No,” said Enrique. “The operation was not a success. No one will ever hear of it. That was where Vicente and Ignacio were killed.”

“And you say such things are justified? That men like that should die in failures in a foreign country?”

“There are no foreign countries, Maria, where people speak Spanish. Where you die does not matter, if you die for liberty. Anyway, the thing to do is live and not to die.”

“But think of who have died—away from here—and in failures.”

“They did not go to die. They went to fight. The dying is an accident.”

“But the failures. My brother is dead in a failure. Chucho in a failure. Ignacio in a failure.”

“They are just a part. Some things we had to do were impossible. Many that looked impossible we did. But sometimes the people on your flank would not attack. Sometimes there was not enough artillery. Sometimes we were ordered to do things not in sufficient force—as at Celadas. Those make the failures. But in the end, it was not a failure.”

She did not answer and he finished eating.

The wind was fresh now in the trees and it was cold on the porch. He put the dishes back in the basket and wiped his mouth on the napkin. He wiped his hands carefully and then put his arm around the girl. She was crying.

“Don’t cry, Maria,” he said. “What has happened has happened. We must think of what there is to do. There is much to do.”

She said