(1939: February 3)
He stood on the flat roof, a rifle in his hands. He was remembering how the two of them went out to the lake to hunt. But the rifle in his hands was rusty, no good for hunting. From the flat roof, the façade of the bishop's palace was clearly visible. All that remained was the façade, a shell without floors or roof. The bombs had destroyed all the rest. Half buried in the rubble, a few old pieces of furniture were also visible. Up the street, a man wearing a butterfly collar and two women dressed in black walked toward them. They were squinting, carrying bundless in their hands, and they took astonished steps as they passed the façade. All he had to do was see them to know they were enemies.
"You there, on the other side of the street!"
He shouted to them from that place on the roof. The man raised his face and the sun on his glasses blinded him. He waved his arm to signal them to cross the street to avoid the dangerous façade, which seemed about to collapse. They crossed, and in the distance the salvos of Fascist artillery resounded-they were hollow when they fell into the depths between mountains and high-pitched when they whistled through the air. Later he sat down on a sandbag. Miguel was next to him. Under no circumstance would he abandon the machine gun. From the roof they saw the town's deserted streets. There were shell holes in the streets, broken telephone poles, and tangled wires-the interminable echo of the salvos and the pam-pam-pam of sporadic small-arms fire, the dry, cold roof tiles: only the façade of the ancient bishop's palace was standing on that street.
"Only one belt left for the machine gun," he informed Miguel, and Miguel responded, "Let's wait until this afternoon. After that…"
They leaned back against the wall and it cigarettes. Miguel wrapped his scarf around his face until it hid his blond beard. The mountains in the distance were covered with snow; the snow had gone down the slopes even though the sun shone brightly. In the morning light, the peaks stood out, seeming to advance toward them. Later, in the afternoon, they would retreat; the trails and pines would disappear. At day's end, there would be only a distance purple mass.
But, that midday, Miguel looked at the sun, squinted, and said, "If it weren't for the artillery and he sniping, you'd say we were at peace. These winter days are beautiful. Look how far down the mountain the snow has come."