“The Complete Short Stories of Earnest Hemingway” contains many kinds of stories, with themes ranging from the comic to the serious and the macabre, among which “Nobody Ever Dies” is my favorite one. The story is about a young man named Enrique, who had been away at war for 15 months. His comrades-in-arms secretly sent him back to a house, without knowing it was being watched. Enrique was all the time listening. Someone was trying the two doors. Keeping himself out of sight, Enrique carefully looked around the house. There was no one but a Negro walking along the sidewalk. When the dark came, the Negro was still there. Suddenly, a siren on the radio from the next house gave him a false alarm. Soon afterwards, two stones fell on the tiling floor of the porch one after the other. Enrique went downstairs to the back door. The one outside gave the password correctly, and Enrique opened the door. It was his girlfriend Maria. She had waited until it was dark to come to send him food. Enrique shut the door again. They went up to the porch and looked out. The Negro was gone. Maria learned from Enrique that many soldiers had died, including Vicente, her only brother and the flower of their party. She couldn’t accept it. Enrique finished his meal and talked about the lessons he had learned from the war and his attitude toward his companions’ sacrifice. But she said he talked like a book with a dry heart. Enrique was hurt and showed her the severe wound on his lower back. She cried. Enrique suggested their leaving the house immediately.Just then, two real sirens came both ways up the street. Enrique ordered Maria to leave at once, but she insisted he should go first. Finally, they ran out of the back door and took two ways, diving into the weeds surrounding the lot and crawling.Enrique was almost to the edge of the lot now and must make a dash across the road. But as he started to run, t...
