The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales (8 page)

“
You mean ghosts? I don’t think so,” Mason replied.

“
I will tell you about the story. And then, perhaps, when we have drunk more, you will permit me to show the place to you.”

The two men ordered more drinks, tapped glasses, and then Maldonado began to tell the tale of the other gringo and his stay at La Casa de Fuente on Avenida Mondragon, which is now rendered hereafter.

•

It was during the Christmas festivities of 1962 that Hank Barron arrived in Xapalpa. The town was festooned with multi-coloured paper decorations, and the numerous little roadside altars to the Virgin, Our Lady of Guadalupe, were surrounded with candles. Electric lights, then still a novelty outside of the big cities, crisscrossed the narrow cobbled streets, from one red-tiled roof to another. The red brick church dedicated to Our Lady had not yet been built, and the centre of worship in the main square at that time was the ancient, squat temple of San Antonio. Hanging from the eaves of the wooden loggias in the main square, and from many other eaves throughout the whole of Xapalpa, were the piñatas.

Piñatas are part of Christmas or birthday celebrations in many Spanish-speaking countries. Often a whole street’s residents will arrange a time when the children can enjoy this tradition. A piñata is traditionally a clay orb about the size of a large watermelon, which is wrapped in silver foil. Radiating from the orb are five or more cones, so that it resembles a star, and hanging at the tip of each are paper streamers. Inside the piñata there are fruits, candies or little gifts. During the celebration it is raised up into the air on a rope and the children try to strike it with a heavy stick as it dangles around, being moved higher or lower by the person holding the rope to which it is tethered. Those who are chosen to strike the piñata are often handicapped with a blindfold. As soon as it is broken open the game ceases and the children retrieve the gifts from within.

It may seem to be a needless digression to have so detailed these piñatas, but as you will see, they played an important part in what happened to Hank Barron when he took up occupancy of the house he had rented for two weeks on Avenida Mondragon.

There are those who say that Barron himself arrived with the fever, but others maintain that the house, or the wind, brought it on. He was a young man, a student of Mexican anthropology, and had been researching at the University of Guadalajara for three months prior to his arrival in Xapalpa. Colleagues at the university had recommended the village as an excellent place to relax over the Christmas festivities, and had advised him of its nearby attractions, such as the Piedrotas, the waterfalls, and the expanse of woods surrounding the town. What Barron had not suspected was that they had made these recommendations since they were concerned about his health, for it had been obvious to them that Barron was close to nervous exhaustion through overwork. He scarcely ever socialised with his fellow students, and, as the only American on the campus, found himself the target of mostly good-natured banter about being “
estudiante el gringo
”. He possessed the American mania for competitiveness, which is in direct contrast to the Mexican ethos that one lives in order to enjoy living.

Barron came across the travel bureau in a little side street off La Paz in Guadalajara. There was a sign in the dusty window advertising a cheap rate for a fourteen-day “get away from it all” break in beautiful Xapalpa. He learned from the owner that the bureau was shortly to close down its business for good, which was why he was able to offer a two weeks stay in Xapalpa at such a low price. The house he would rent, admittedly, had not been occupied for a few years, but it had a supply of running water as well as a pump, and one scarcely had any need of such modern amenities as an electrical supply when a fireplace, well stocked with logs, was already in place. Due to Xapalpa’s altitude, high in the mountains, the nights could be very windy and chilly, and the bureau owner thoughtfully suggested that Barron should pack some warm clothes for the trip. Towards the end of their conversation, the bureau owner suddenly offered Barron an even cheaper offer, this time in an entirely different village altogether, and actually seemed reluctant to hand over the keys and receipt for the Xapalpa trip. But finally he did so. Barron suspected that the owner might have realised he’d undersold the package, and now wished to renege on the deal.

And so a few weeks later it transpired that Barron found himself on board the daily bus from Guadalajara to Xapalpa, which crawled past a series of towns in a meandering dirt-track route that took four hours to reach its destination. It was not a comfortable trip. The bus was packed, swelteringly hot, and baggage spilled from the overhead racks whenever it made a sharp turn. A red wasp, huge, and with hind legs like a cricket, was trapped inside the vehicle. It was a source of annoyance and fear until someone managed to shepherd it out of an open window. Barron felt painfully conspicuous. It was obvious he was a foreigner, and he was treated as an object of ill-disguised curiosity. The other passengers were all poor and mostly Indios with only one or two mestizos. Barron alone carried no homemade piñata as part of his luggage.

By the time the bus arrived at Xapalpa, Barron was nearly exhausted. He had brought no water for the journey and his lips and throat were painfully dry. He felt that he had a fever coming on. The rest of the passengers had disembarked before he finally hauled his baggage (two battered valises) from the overhead rack. On the other side of the dirt track where the bus had parked there was a little stall that sold tacos, and it also had a selection of sodas kept in a dirty bucket of iced water. Barron bought one for a half peso, chugged it down his arid throat, and then asked directions to Avenida Mondragon.

“
There is no hotel on Avenida Mondragon,” was what he received by way of a reply.

“
I have rented La Casa De Fuente. I am staying there,” Barron said.

The taco vendor looked dubious. He seemed to regard this piece of information as tainted at the source. But he gave Barron the directions to Avenida Mondragon, advising him that there were better places for a tourist to stay, especially during a holy festival.

As he made his way up the hill towards the centre of town, dusk had fallen, and he admired the Christmas decorations that the folk of Xapalpa had created. He particularly liked the electric lights that crisscrossed the streets. The piñatas, hanging from eaves, he liked less. They bothered him in an irrational fashion. He was somehow reminded of huge deformed starfishes, row after row of them, their shapes indistinct in the gloom, their outlines blended by shadows.

He found Avenida Mondragon easily enough, and checked his pocket for the keys that he had been given by the owner of the travel bureau. He was relieved to find that there were still there, for he had not thought of them until now. The street was not very long and he found La Casa De Fuente about halfway down its gently curving slope. At first he thought he had the wrong address. The sign on the gate outside was clear enough though, so there could seem to be no chance of a mistake.

La Casa De Fuente was in a state of considerable neglect. Beyond the trellised gate its courtyard was overgrown with bushes and weeds that had been left to run riot. They had surged up from between the flagstones, and had taken hold of the courtyard’s chief architectural feature, which had given the house its name. It was a stone fountain, some six feet high. It stood in front of the sheltered patio and had been designed with two levels, so the water would cascade from the upper to the lower, wider, basin level. The designer had thought to incorporate a floral design to the stonework, but voracious lichens had distorted and ravaged whatever beauty it may have originally possessed.

Barron dreaded to think what the interior of La Casa De Fuente might be like, given the outward neglect of the building. Its tiled roof sagged noticeably, and the wide front window bore concentric cracks like a bedewed cobweb. He felt that he had been cheated by the travel bureau. Little wonder that the business was on the verge of closing down, if this was the type of service it provided.

He was now certain that he had a fever. When he wiped his forehead it was hot, prickly and dry. Since the sun had set, Barron had noticed how chilly it had become, and recalled the warning he had been given about how cold nights were at this altitude during this time of the year. He shivered, buttoned up the corduroy jacket he wore and hoped it would be warmer inside.

After he’d managed to turn the reluctant lock on the gate, picked his way through the undergrowth of the courtyard, and got inside the half-stuck front door, he found that the place was at least liveable in. It was a single storey bungalow house, with a fireplace at the back, cooking facilities to the left, and a bed in the other corner. Whitish grey dustsheets shrouded the furniture. Barron removed them, and stowed them away under the bed, and found he had the use of a writing bureau and chair, a dinner table and two stools. In a recessed alcove next to the fireplace there was a washbasin, as well as a standalone tin bathtub that had to be filled with water from a pump.

Barron unpacked his two valises, one of which was full of his research books, and was surprised to find that he had no sense of hunger (the fever, he supposed, having deadened it) and crawled into the musty bed, hoping that tomorrow’s bright morning sunshine would bring with it an improvement in his health.

•

There was to be no bright morning sunshine. When Barron awoke the following day, his mouth encrusted with dried saliva, and his stomach complaining at the lack of food he’d taken, it was to the rhythm of heavy rain drumming against the tiled roof and wind rattling the window frame. Only a feeble, grey half-light was visible through the large window. His thirst was like a torment, and he rolled out of bed towards the water pump in the alcove. He suspected that it might draw from a well and thus be fresh and drinkable. He had no real way of knowing but would take the chance this once. He could see no other reason for its being there, since the bungalow house had a separate supply of running water from the mains.

Once he had drunk from the pump and quenched his thirst, he washed away the sheen of fever sweat from his brow, and then felt more able to engage with his situation. His fever had somewhat abated, but he knew he should consult a doctor. Unfortunately, he was not sure that he had enough money to do so. It could be that the fever was one of short-lived duration, and would exhaust itself after only a few days. After all, he was young and relatively fit, and he had no reason to believe the malaise was of a serious nature. He decided to venture out into Xapalpa and find something to eat for breakfast, and reassess his options thereafter. He had felt no nausea, only a lack of appetite. Perhaps with food in his stomach, his own natural defences would come to the fore and he would be strengthened against the onset of the fever.

Barron dressed, putting on a coat and a wide-brimmed hat to protect against the rain outside.

There were few people on the streets, just a few Indios wrapped up in ponchos and wearing pointed straw hats, driving small carts pulled by donkeys. The rain had dampened down the dusty roads, and dirty rivulets ran beneath the elevated pavements and their series of worn steps. The wind was fierce, gusting through the streets as if angry at its enforced confinement. Many shops had their shutters closed, and so Barron made his way to the central plaza, which was the one place he felt certain he could obtain a meal. The piñatas lined the way, and the rain had soaked them through, so that they were wet and dripping, their papery limbs flopping in the wind, and looking even more like the rotten starfish thrown up from watery depths that Barron had fancifully imagined them to be.

He found a restaurant, Los Companeros, hidden away at the back of the plaza, and he ate a breakfast of refrijoles and huevos con chorizo that was served by an ancient mestizo dressed all in black, save for the splash of his white shirt. Barron consumed his meal inside, but then took hot coffee on a sheltered balcony overlooking the main square. He watched the dark grey clouds scudding across the high mountains all around, hissing as they unburdened themselves of rain on the open spaces of Xapalpa. It seemed as if the sky had come down to the village and was blasting it with its cold watery breath.

On the way back from the restaurant, from which he had also taken away a couple of tortas filled with ham, cheese and jalapenos, so that he would not have to venture out for a meal later in the day, he got lost.

Somehow, he had been deceived by the layout of Xapalpa, and taken the wrong exit from a deserted, cryptic plaza of claustrophobic dimensions. He found himself on a back road, named Quintero, that skirted the village and which took him alongside the huge white entrance to the town cemetery. It was an imposing gateway, with four pillars supporting an Italianate lintel with carved twin wings and a sacred heart bas-relief.

Barron peered in through the closed and padlocked gates, sheltering for a time from the elements. He saw several decayed tombs surrounded by railings and a host of wooden crosses tottering at acute angles. Wreaths of brown flowers littered the area, looking as if they had grown from the dirty soil itself, rather than simply having been left by mourners to die there. He seemed to recall a folk legend about this place that he had come across in one of his anthropological textbooks, and he resolved to look it up later that evening. Although the memory was vague, he recalled that it had an unusually fanciful and sinister cast, but it had been of little significance to him at the time. He had not then known that he would be visiting Xapalpa, and it was nothing more than another village name and simply one superstitious Mexican legend amongst a great multitude. As he struggled to recall which of the textbooks contained the reference, Barron caught sight of something the size of a large cat moving amidst the undergrowth of weeds between two tombs. The thing was curiously shapeless, and a mottled grey colour. Perhaps it was just Barron’s fever playing tricks, but he could have sworn the thing had been crawling with more than four limbs.