“She said I must take care of my body and guard the line of my figure as though I were a bullfighter. She said this was of great importance.”
“It is,” Robert Jordan said. “But thou hast not to worry about that for many years.”
“No. She said those of our race must watch that always as it can come suddenly. She told me she was once as slender as I but that in those days women did not take exercise. She told me what exercises I should take and that I must not eat too much. She told me which things not to eat. But I have forgotten and must ask her again.”
“Potatoes,” he said.
“Yes,” she went on. “It was potatoes and things that are fried. Also when I told her about this of the soreness she said I must not tell thee but must support the pain and not let thee know. But I told thee because I do not wish to lie to thee ever and also I feared that thou might think we did not have the joy in common any longer and that other, as it was in the high country, had not truly happened.”
“It was right to tell me.”
“Truly? For I am ashamed and I will do anything for thee that thou should wish. Pilar has told me of things one can do for a husband.”
“There is no need to do anything. What we have we have together and we will keep it and guard it. I love thee thus lying beside thee and touching thee and knowing thou art truly there and when thou art ready again we will have all.”
“But hast thou not necessities that I can care for? She explained that to me.”
“Nay. We will have our necessities together. I have no necessities apart from thee.”
“That seems much better to me. But understand always that I will do what you wish. But thou must tell me for I have great ignorance and much of what she told me I did not understand clearly. For I was ashamed to ask and she is of such great and varied wisdom.”
“Rabbit,” he said. “Thou art very wonderful.”
“Qué va,” she said. “But to try to learn all of that which goes into wifehood in a day while we are breaking camp and packing for a battle with another battle passing in the country above is a rare thing and if I make serious mistakes thou must tell me for I love thee. It could be possible for me to remember things incorrectly and much that she told me was very complicated.”
“What else did she tell thee?”
“Pues so many things I cannot remember them. She said I could tell thee of what was done to me if I ever began to think of it again because thou art a good man and already have understood it all. But that it were better never to speak of it unless it came on me as a black thing as it had been before and then that telling it to thee might rid me of it.”
“Does it weigh on thee now?”
“No. It is as though it had never happened since we were first together. There is the sorrow for my parents always. But that there will be always. But I would have thee know that which you should know for thy own pride if I am to be thy wife. Never did I submit to any one. Always I fought and always it took two of them or more to do me the harm. One would sit on my head and hold me. I tell thee this for thy pride.”
“My pride is in thee. Do not tell it.”
“Nay, I speak of thy own pride which it is necessary to have in thy wife. And another thing. My father was the mayor of the village and an honorable man. My mother was an honorable woman and a good Catholic and they shot her with my father because of the politics of my father who was a Republican. I saw both of them shot and my father said, ‘Viva la Republica,’ when they shot him standing against the wall of the slaughterhouse of our village.