“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 can do about it. You see it grows now all over thy head the same length like the fur of an animal and it is lovely to feel and I love it very much and it is beautiful and it flattens and rises like a wheatfield in the wind when I pass my hand over it.”