she wanted kindness. She did not know. Everything felt numb.
“I was wondering whether to go to England,” she said.
“Again?” said Ramón, with a slight smile. “Away from the bullets and the knives, is that it?”
“Yes!—to get away.” And she sighed deeply.
“No!” said Ramón. “Don’t go away. You will find nothing in England.”
“But can I go on here?”
“Can you help it?”
“I wish I knew what to do.”
“How can one know? Something happens inside you, and all your decisions are smoke.—Let happen what will happen.”
“I can’t quite drift as if I had no soul of my own, can I?”
“Sometimes it is best.”
There was a pause. Cipriano stayed outside the conversation altogether, in a dusky world of his own, apart and secretly hostile.
“I have been thinking so much about you,” she said