"Hills Like White Elephants": What the heck is going on???

Last class, we finished discussing the short story, "Hills Like White Elephants", by Ernest Hemingway. While I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the writing, the dissimulation of the conflict was frustrating. Hemingway's "tip of the iceberg" technique, by which he reveals only one-eighth of the situation while the other seven-eighths are beneath the surface, keeps the reader fixated on each word. In this manner, our class noted the importance of his details, such as where the characters are looking and their actions, the positioning and space between objects, and especially the conversation. We learned that "the conversation is the relationship", and how the characters speak to each other, or don't speak for that matter, is very telling of their connection to each other. In this case, the man does the majority of the arguing while the girl frequently looks at the ground. This interaction displays the inequality in their relationship: he is confident in what he wants and convincingly tries to persuade her while she is unsure and uncomfortable. This leads me to the question of the dreaded argument. What on Earth are the two characters talking about? Hemingway never explains the situation! However, evidence points, I think, to the argument being about abortion. Comments such as "an awfully simple operation", "just to let the air in", "every day we make it more impossible", the world "isn't ours anymore", and "but I don't want anybody but you", insinuate that the girl is pregnant with a baby that they don't want and are debating if she should get an abortion before it's too late. The title also alludes to this. A "white elephant" is defined as "a possession that is troublesome or difficult to get rid of; unwanted", and hills resemble the shape of a pregnant belly; therefore, "Hills Like White Elephants" could be a metonymy for a pregnancy that is unwanted. Nevertheless, reading this was a very helpful and informative introduction into Hemingway's writing style, and we will now know what to look for and how to better interpret his prose.