The Last Supper: And Other Stories by Howard Fast

why you felt so strongly that this was the face and figure of Christ.”
    â€œNeither do I,” said Serente. “The man has been a patient of mine, and it never occured to me.”
    His wife said, “Things occur to writers that would never occur to you. That is why they are writers. But really we must come to dinner. It’s an interesting dinner, but it will spoil if it waits too long.”
    More than that, it was a very good dinner, a wonderful dinner, with hot tortillas , veal with mole over it, that ancient, incredible chocolate sauce that the Aztecs perfected a thousand years ago, frijoles , hot and whole in their own sauce, arroz , the good Mexican rice, with chicken and shrimps to go with it, and calavo , mashed with onions and garlic, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and cold Mexican beer, which is as good as any beer in the world and better than most.
    The talk at dinner turned to other things—with a sense of relief to my wife and myself—and they talked of Mexican art and the struggle in Chile, the incredible endless struggle, so consistent, so unabating, and then the difference between Mexican dances and Spanish dances, and why so many Spaniards in Mexico—the anti-Republican Spaniards—owned grocery stores, and how the super-highway between Mexico City and Cuernavaca had been built by peons who were paid six pesos a day, and what a hollow mockery the magnificent statue of the workers at the Mexican end of the highway was—although Gomez objected to this as an entire characterization and pointed out what was implicit in the sculpture, that these were new gods the people were raising, even in their misery, the image of the workers, not of a saint. Then the exile spoke of University City, and the wonders in mosaic that Diego Rivera had wrought there, and the Chilean asked whether is was not true that because the new university had been built so far from the city, the students lacked bus fare to get there? It was true, Gomez admitted, admitting that Mexico had the most magnificent university and possibly the poorest—in pesos—student body in the whole world. Then the talk turned to Guatamala, so recently betrayed and raped, and how instead of the earth-shaking moan of anguish and hatred arising from Mexico, only a few tears had fallen. But more tears than one might have expected, Serente said, recalling an Indian woman in his office weeping uncontrollably for what had been done to the good place of the south, and his wife told of the Guatamalan flag that Rivera had painted upon the gates of his house, proudly and defiantly and pathetically, for the whole world to see.
    So the evening went, a good evening, with warm people and good talk and good food. Republican Spain lived a moment and so did the Republic of Guatamala, and others lifted the fallen standards out of the dust and held them, and so memories and hopes were mingled. None of these were people who lived by the secure retreat of talk and speculation; all of them had ventured their bodies and souls in what they believed, and they knew the winnings and the losses in the life they lived. And finally it was over and time to go, the moon high in the sky which the brief evening rain had washed so clean and pure, and we began to say our good-byes. Dr. Serente offered to drive us home, but Gomez who was staying with an uncle who lived near our hotel, said he thought he would like to walk home because the night was so fine, and we decided to walk with him. We said little as we walked through the darkened streets, for when an evening such as this is finished, it is hard to pick up new threads, and as a matter of fact the silence was restful and comfortable. Because it was the shortest direct way, we turned into Dwight W. Morrow street after we had crossed the empty plaza, and in the last block before we reached Morales, we saw a man standing under the street light.
    â€œLook,” my wife said, no more than the single