Teresa looked at her with quick, dark eyes.
“Different men must have different wives,” she said. “Cipriano would never want a wife like me.”
“And different women must have different husbands,” said Kate. “Ramón would always be too abstract and overbearing for me.”
Teresa flushed slowly, looking down at the ground.
“Ramón needs far too much submission from a woman, to please me,” Kate added. “He takes too much upon himself.”
Teresa looked up quickly, and raised her head proudly, showing her brownish throat like a rearing, crested snake.
“How do you know that Ramón needs submission from a woman?” she said. “How do you know? He has not asked any submission from you.—And you are wrong. He does not ask submission from me. He wants me to give myself gently to him. And then he gives himself back to me far more gently than I give myself to him. Because a man like that is more gentle than a woman. He is not like Cipriano. Cipriano is a soldier. But Ramón is gentle. You are mistaken in what you say.”
Kate laughed a little.
“And you are a soldier among women, fighting all the time,” Teresa continued. “I am not such. But some women must be soldiers in their spirit, and they need soldier husbands. That is why you are Malintzi, and your dress is green. You would always fight. You would fight with yourself, if you were alone in the world.”
It was very still by the lake. They were waiting for Ramón.