Savage Coast by Muriel Rukeyser Page B

she called to them loudly: You are my legs; and swept by in the immense currents. In blackness.
    OFTEN, THAT NIGHT , she woke to the motionless train and the laughing cry of cocks.
    * A right-wing weekly in France.

               CHAPTER FIVE 79
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘Where can we get a good meal?’ . . . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘I am not sure if it can be managed,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I expect everything is shut’ . . . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘But why should everything be shut?’
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘The Revolution—’
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  She had overlooked the Revolution again—
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  an affair of foreign politics.
    â€”Sylvia Townsend Warner 80
    I t was the bomb that stopped the roosters. The soft, tremendous explosion shook the town, their cages, the train. Immediately a ghost of smoke rose from the village, a dark escape in the morning air.
    All the eastern sky was mottled brilliant.
    Helen pulled herself stiffly off the suitcase and cushions, slid the door open behind its green shade, and left the compartment. There was no water. It was not until she gave up the idea of washing and stepped down to the platform that she remembered what woke her, why she had hurried from the train.
    If they were bombing the village!
    Smoke evaded the arms of the woman who bent over the dirt. Helen watched, leaning against one of the little yellow trees. The peasant woman had set her baby down, against the next tree, away from the blowing smoke, and was feeding sticks into a small fire. The covered red pot was set on the stones piled as a fireplace.
    The green branches went slowly, and their smoke smelled like brine, vivid and stinging.
    But the baby was on the safe side; its eyes, holes burned in the expressionless face, were turned to the flame. It was colorless in the early morning; transparent, it showed the grass behind the fire.
    The woman looked up and nodded.
    â€œCafé?” Helen asked.
    â€œNo. Sopa .”
    Peter came up behind her. “Soup,” he said.
    They stood and watched the fire.
    â€œWas it a bomb?” she asked.
    â€œThey bombed the church,” the woman said.
    They heard the soft waking noises from the cars, the beginning of fretful voices, the sighing return to consciousness of the train.
    THE ENGLISH WERE coming down from the next car. Drew’s sweater was limp; and young Mrs. Drew was quite crumpled. Only the lady from South America looked polished and beautiful. The Belgian woman could be seen in the background, following them up the platform, her scarf flying behind her, all gem-clean like some fatal figure in contemporary painting.
    The lady from South America patted her silvery head. “I despise letting myself go this way,” she said to Helen, “but I couldn’t sleep at all, and there’s nothing one can do . . .” She drifted to a whisper. The mouth, still russet-colored, hardly moved.
    â€œ Did you hear the explosion?” screamed young Mrs. Drew. “They’ve bombed the church and arrested the priest, the Spanish gentleman says. We’re not to go up to that part of town today.”
    They were walking up toward the café.
    Peapack caught up with them. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me!” The English looked at her coldly. “Was that a cannon?” She sat down next to the Belgian woman, who began to illustrate the sound of guns. The proprietor of the café was arranging the wine bottles behind the counter, listing the levels on a long sheet of paper.
    He said something to the lady from