“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.”