“Yes, but I am ashamed. I think it was from when things were done to me that it comes. Not from thee and me.”
“Let us not talk of that.”
“Nor do I wish to. I meant I could not bear to fail thee now on this night and so I sought to excuse myself.”
“Listen, rabbit,” he said. “All such things pass and then there is no problem.” But he thought; it was not good luck for the last night.
Then he was ashamed and said, “Lie close against me, rabbit. I love thee as much feeling thee against me in here in the dark as I love thee making love.”
“I am deeply ashamed because I thought it might be again tonight as it was in the high country when we came down from El Sordo’s.”
“‘Qué va’,” he said to her. “That is not for every day. I like it thus as well as the other.” He lied, putting aside disappointment. “We will be here together quietly and we will sleep. Let us talk together. I know thee very little from talking.”
“Should we speak of tomorrow and of thy work? I would like to be intelligent about thy work.”
“No,” he said and relaxed completely into the length of the robe and lay now quietly with his cheek against her shoulder, his left arm under her head. “The most intelligent is not to talk about tomorrow nor what happened today. In this we do not discuss the losses and what we must do tomorrow we will do. Thou art not afraid?”
“‘Qué va’,” she said. “I am always afraid. But now I am afraid for thee so much I do not think of me.”
“Thou must not, rabbit. I have been in many things. And worse than this,” he lied.
Then suddenly surrendering to something, to the luxury of going into unreality, he said, “Let us talk of Madrid and of us in Madrid.”
“Good,” she said. Then, “Oh, Roberto, I am sorry I have failed thee. Is there not some other thing that I can do for thee?”
He stroked her head and kissed her and then lay close and relaxed beside her, listening to the quiet of the night.
“Thou canst talk with me of Madrid,” he said and thought: I’ll keep any oversupply of that for tomorrow. I’ll need all of that there is tomorrow. There are no pine needles that need that now as I will need it tomorrow. Who was it cast his seed upon the ground in the Bible? Onan. How did Onan turn out? he thought. I don’t remember ever hearing any more about Onan. He smiled in the dark.
Then he surrendered again and let himself slip into it, feeling a voluptuousness of surrender into unreality that was like a sexual acceptance of something that could come in the night when there was no understanding, only the delight of acceptance.
“My beloved,” he said, and kissed her. “Listen. The other night I was thinking about Madrid and I thought how I would get there and leave thee at the hotel while I went up to see people at the hotel of the Russians. But that was false. I would not leave thee at any hotel.”
“Why not?”
“Because I will take care of thee. I will not ever leave thee. I will go with thee to the Seguridad to get papers. Then I will go with thee to buy those clothes that are needed.”
“They are few, and I can buy them.”
“Nay, they are many and we will go together and buy good ones and thou wilt be beautiful in them.”
“I would rather we stayed in the room in the hotel and sent Out for the clothes. Where is the hotel?”
“It is on the Plaza del Callao. We will be much in that room in that hotel. There is a wide bed with clean sheets and there is hot running water in the bathtub and there are two closets and I will keep my things in one and thou wilt take the other. And there are tall, wide windows that open, and outside, in the streets, there is the spring. Also I know good places to eat that are illegal but with good food, and I know shops where there is still wine and whiskey. And we will keep things to eat in the room for when we are hungry and also whiskey for when I wish a drink and I will buy thee manzanilla.”
“I would like to try the whiskey.”
“But since it is difficult to obtain and if thou likest manzanilla.”
“Keep thy whiskey, Roberto,” she said. “Oh, I love thee very much. Thou and thy whiskey that I could not have. What a pig thou art.”
“Nay, you shall try it. But it is not good for a woman.”
“And I have only had things that were good for a woman,” Maria said. “Then there in bed I will still wear my wedding shirt?”
“Nay. I will buy thee various nightgowns and pajamas too if you should prefer them.”
“I will buy seven wedding shirts,” she said. “One for each day of the week. And I will buy a clean wedding shirt for thee. Dost ever wash thy shirt?”
“Sometimes.”
“I will keep everything clean and I will pour thy whiskey and put the water in it as it was done at Sordo’s. I will obtain olives and salted codfish and hazel nuts for thee to eat while thou drinkest and we will stay in the room for a month and never leave it. If I am fit to receive thee,” she said, suddenly unhappy.
“That is nothing,” Robert Jordan told her. “Truly it is nothing. It is possible thou wert hurt there once and now there is a scar that makes a further hurting. Such a thing is possible. All such things pass. And also there are good doctors in Madrid if there is truly anything.”
“But all was good before,” she said pleadingly.
“That is the promise that all will be good again.”
“Then let us talk again about Madrid.” She curled her legs between his and rubbed the top of her head against his shoulder. “But will I not be so ugly there with this cropped head that thou wilt be ashamed of me?”
“Nay. Thou art lovely. Thou hast a lovely face and a beautiful body, long and light, and thy skin is smooth and the color of burnt gold and every one will try to take thee from me.”
“‘Qué va’, take me from thee,” she said. “No other man will ever touch me till I die. Take me from thee! ‘Qué va’.”
“But many will try. Thou wilt see.”
“They will see I love thee so that they will know it would be as unsafe as putting their hands into a caldron of melted lead to touch me. But thou? When thou seest beautiful women of the same culture as thee? Thou wilt not be ashamed of me?”
“Never. And I will marry thee.”
“If you wish,” she said. “But since we no longer have the Church I do not think it carries importance.”
“I would like us to be married.”
“If you wish. But listen. If we were ever in another country where there still was the Church perhaps we could be married in it there.”
“In my country they still have the Church,” he told her. “There we can be married in it if it means aught to thee. I have never been married. There is no problem.”
“I am glad thou hast never been married,” she said. “But I am glad thou knowest about such things as you have told me for that means thou hast been with many women and the Pilar told me that it is only such men who are possible for husbands. But thou wilt not run with other women now? Because it would kill me.”
“I have never run with many women,” he said, truly. “Until thee I did not think that I could love one deeply.”
She stroked his cheeks and then held her hands clasped behind his head. “Thou must have known very many.”
“Not to love them.”
“Listen. The Pilar told me something—”
“Say it.”
“No. It is better not to. Let us talk again about Madrid.”
“What was it you were going to say?”
“I do not wish to say it.”
“Perhaps it would be better to say it if it could be important.”
“You think it is important?”
“Yes.”
“But how can you know when you do not know what it is?”
“From thy manner.”
“I will not keep it from you then. The Pilar told me that we would all die tomorrow and that you know it as well as she does and that you give it no importance. She said this not in criticism but in admiration.”
“She said that?” he said. The crazy bitch, he thought, and he said, “That is more of her gypsy manure. That is the way old market women and café cowards talk. That is manuring obscenity.” He felt the sweat that came from under his armpits and slid down between his arm and his side and he said to himself, So you are scared, eh? and aloud he said, “She is a manure-mouthed superstitious bitch. Let us talk again of Madrid.”
“Then you know no such thing?”
“Of course not. Do not talk such manure,” he said, using a stronger, ugly word.
But this time when he talked about Madrid there was no slipping into make-believe again. Now he was just lying to his girl and to himself to pass the night before battle and he knew it. He liked to do it, but all the luxury of the acceptance was gone. But he started again.
“I have thought about thy hair,” he said. “And what we
