Under the Volcano (40 page)

‘It must be the same fellow.'

‘I don't suppose if the horse kicked the man to death it would have sufficient intelligence to kick its saddlebags off too, and hide them somewhere, do you –'

But the bus, with a terrific hooting, was going off without them.

It came at them a little, then stopped, in a wider part of the road, to let through two querulous expensive cars that had been held up behind. Hugh shouted at them to halt, the Consul half waved to someone who perhaps half recognized him, while the cars, that both bore upon their rear number-plates the sign ‘
Diplomático
', surged on past, bouncing on their springs, and brushing the hedges, to disappear ahead in a cloud of dust. From the second car's rear seat a Scotch terrier barked at them merrily.

‘The diplomatic thing, doubtless.'

The Consul went to see to Yvonne; the other passengers, shielding their faces against the dust, climbed on board the bus which had continued to the detour where, stalled, it waited still as death, as a hearse. Hugh ran to the Indian. His breathing sounded fainter, and yet more laboured. An uncontrollable desire to see his face again seized Hugh and he stooped over him. Simultaneously the Indian's right hand raised itself in a blind
groping gesture, the hat was partially pushed away, a voice muttered or groaned one word:

‘
Compañero
.'

— ‘The hell they won't,' Hugh was saying, why he scarcely knew, a moment later to the Consul. But he'd detained the
camión
, whose engine had started once more, a little longer, and he watched the three smiling vigilantes approach, tramping through the dust, with their holsters slapping their thighs.

‘Come on, Hugh, they won't let you on the bus with him, and you'll only get hauled into jail and entangled in red tape for Christ knows how long,' the Consul was saying. ‘They're not the pukka police anyhow, only those birds I told you about… Hugh –'

‘
Momentito —
' Hugh was almost immediately expostulating with one of the vigilantes — the other two had gone over to the Indian — while the driver, wearily, patiently, honked. Then the policeman pushed Hugh towards the bus: Hugh pushed back. The policeman dropped his hand and began to fumble with his holster: it was a manoeuvre, not to be taken seriously. With his other hand he gave Hugh a further shove, so that, to maintain balance, Hugh was forced to ascend the rear step of the bus which, at that instant suddenly, violently, moved away with them. Hugh would have jumped down only the Consul, exerting his strength, held him pinned to a stanchion.

‘Never mind, old boy, it would have been worse than the windmills.' –' What windmills?'

Dust obliterated the scene…

The bus thundered on, reeling, cannonading, drunk. Hugh sat staring at the quaking, shaking floor.

— Something like a tree stump with a tourniquet on it, a severed leg in an army boot that someone picked up, tried to unlace, and then put down, in a sickening smell of petrol and blood, half reverently on the road; a face that gasped for a cigarette, turned grey, and was cancelled; headless things, that sat, with protruding windpipes, fallen scalps, bolt upright in motorcars; children piled up, many hundreds; screaming burning things; like the creatures, perhaps, in Geoff's dreams: among The stupid props of war's senseless Titus Andronicus, the horrors
that could not even make a good story, but which had been, in a flash, evoked by Yvonne when they got out, Hugh moderately case-hardened, could have acquitted himself, have done something, have not done nothing…

Keep the patient absolutely quiet in a darkened room. Brandy may sometimes be given to the dying.

Hugh guiltily caught the eye of an old woman. Her face was completely expressionless… Ah, how sensible were these old women, who at least knew their own mind, who had made a silent communal decision to have nothing to do with the whole affair. No hesitation, no fluster, no fuss. With what solidarity, sensing danger, they had clutched their baskets of poultry to them, when they stopped, or peered round to identify their property, then had sat, as now, motionless. Perhaps they remembered the days of revolution in the valley, the blackened buildings, the communications cut off, those crucified and gored in the bull-ring, the pariah dogs barbecued in the market place. There was no callousness in their faces, no cruelty. Death they knew, better than the law, and their memories were long. They sat ranked now, motionless, frozen, discussing nothing, without a word, turned to stone. It was natural to have left the matter to the men. And yet, in these old women it was as if, through the various tragedies of Mexican history, pity, the impulse to approach, and terror, the impulse to escape (as one had learned at college), having replaced it, had finally been reconciled by prudence, the conviction it is better to stay where you are.

And what of the other passengers, the younger women in mourning – there were no women in mourning; they'd all got out, apparently, and walked; since death, by the roadside, must not be allowed to interfere with one's plans for resurrection, in the cemetery. And the men in the purple shirts, who'd had a good look at what was going on, yet hadn't stirred from the bus? Mystery. No one could be more courageous than a Mexican. But this was not clearly a situation demanding courage.
Frijoles
for all :
Tierra, Libertad, Justicia y Ley
. Did all that mean anything?
¿Quién sabe
? They weren't sure of anything save that it was foolish to get mixed up with the police, especially if they weren't proper police; and this went equally for the man who'd
plucked Hugh's sleeve, and the two other passengers who'd joined in the argument around the Indian, now all dropping off the bus going full speed, in their graceful, devil-may-care fashion.

While as for him, the hero of the Soviet Republic and the True Church, what of him, old
camarado
, had he been found wanting? Not a bit of it. With the unerring instinct of all war correspondents with any first-aid training he had been only too ready to produce the wet blue bag, the lunar caustic, the camel's-hair brush.

He had remembered instantly that the word shelter must be understood as including an extra wrap or umbrella or temporary protection against the rays of the sun. He had been on the lookout immediately for possible clues to diagnosis such as broken ladders, stains of blood, moving machinery, and restive horses. He had, but it hadn't done any good, unfortunately.

And the truth was, it was perhaps one of those occasions when nothing
would
have done any good. Which only made it worse than ever. Hugh raised his head and half looked at Yvonne. The Consul had taken her hand and she was holding his hand tightly.

The
camión
, hastening towards Tomalín, rolled and swayed as before. Some more boys had jumped on the rear, and were whistling. The bright tickets winked with the bright colours. There were more passengers, they came running across the fields, and the men looked at each other with an air of agreement, the bus was out-doing itself, it had never before gone so fast, which must be because it too knew today was a holiday.

An acquaintance of the driver's, perhaps the driver for the return journey, had by now added himself to the vehicle. He dodged round the outside of the bus with native skill, taking the fares through the open windows. Once, when they were breasting an incline, he even dropped off to the road on the left, swerved round behind the
camión
at a run, to appear again on the right, grinning in at them clownishly.

A friend of his sprang on the bus. They crouched, one on either side of the bonnet, by the two front mudguards, every so often joining hands over the radiator cap, while the first man, leaning dangerously outwards, looked back to see if one of the
rear tyres, which had acquired a slow puncture, was holding. Then he went on taking fares.

Dust, dust, dust — it filtered in through the windows, a soft invasion of dissolution, filling the vehicle.

Suddenly the Consul was nudging Hugh, inclining his head towards the
pelado
, whom Hugh had not forgotten however : he had been sitting bolt upright all this time, fidgeting with something in his lap, coat buttoned, both hats on, crucifix adjusted, and wearing much the same expression as before, though after his oddly exemplary behaviour in the road, he seemed much refreshed and sobered.

Hugh nodded, smiling, lost interest; the Consul nudged him again :

‘Do you see what I see?'

‘What is it?'

Hugh shook his head, looked obediently towards the
pelado
, could see nothing, then saw, at first without comprehending.

The
pelado's
smeared
conquistador's
hands, that had clutched the melon, now clutched a sad bloodstained pile of silver pesos and centavos.

The
pelado
had stolen the dying Indian's money.

Moreover, surprised at this point by the conductor grinning in the window, he carefully selected some coppers from this little pile, smiled round at the preoccupied passengers as though he almost expected some comment to be made upon his cleverness, and paid his fare with them.

But no comment was made, for the good reason none save the Consul and Hugh seemed aware quite how clever he was.

Hugh now produced the small pinch bottle of
habanero
, handing it to Geoff, who passed it to Yvonne. She choked, had still noticed nothing; and it was as simple as that; they all took a short drink.

– What was so astonishing on second thoughts was not that on an impulse the
pelado
should have stolen the money, but that he was making now only this half-hearted effort to conceal it, that he should be continually opening and closing his palm with the bloody silver and copper coins for anyone to see who wished.

It occurred to Hugh he was not trying to conceal it at all, that
he was perhaps attempting to persuade the passengers, even though they knew nothing about it, that he had acted from motives explicable as just, that he had taken the money merely to keep it safe which, as had just been shown by his own action, no money could reasonably be called in a dying man's collar on the Tomalín road, in the shadow of the Sierra Madre.

And further, suppose he were suspected of being a thief, his eyes, that were now fully open, almost alert, and full of mischief, said to them, and were arrested, what chance then would the Indian should he survive have of seeing his money again? Of course, none, as everyone well knew. The real police might be honourable, of the people. But were he arrested by these deputies, these other fellows, they would simply steal it from him, that much was certain, as they would even now be stealing it from the Indian, but for his kindly action.

Nobody, therefore, who was genuinely concerned about the Indian's money, must suspect anything of the sort, or at any rate, must not think too clearly about it; even if now, in the
camión
, he should choose to stop juggling the money from hand to hand, like that, or slip part of it into his pocket, like that, or even supposing what remained happened to slip accidentally into his other pocket, like that – and this performance was undoubtedly rather for their own benefit, as witnesses and foreigners — no significance attached to it, none of these gestures meant that he had been a thief, or that, in spite of excellent intentions, he had decided to steal the money after all, and become a thief.

And this remained true, whatever happened to the money, since his possession of it was open and above board, for all the world to know about. It was a recognized thing, like Abyssinia.

The conductor went on taking the remaining fares and now, concluded, gave them to the driver. The bus trampled on faster; the road narrowed again, becoming dangerous.

Downhill… The driver kept his hand on the screaming emergency brake as they circled down into Tomalín. On the right was a sheer unguarded drop, a huge scrub-covered dusty hill leaned from the hollow below, with trees jutting out side-ways —

Ixtaccihuatl had slipped out of sight but as, descending,
they circled round and round, Popocatepetl slid in and out of view continually, never appearing the same twice, now far away, then vastly near at hand, incalculably distant at one moment, at the next looming round the corner with its splendid thickness of sloping fields, valleys, timber, its summit swept by clouds, slashed by hail and snow…

Then a white church, and they were in a town once more, a town of one long street, a cul-de-sac, and many paths, that converged upon a small lake or reservoir ahead, in which people were swimming, beyond which lay the forest. By this lake was the bus stop.

The three of them stood again in the dust, dazzled by the whiteness, the blaze of the afternoon. The old women and the other passengers had gone. From a doorway came the plangent chords of a guitar, and at hand was the refreshing sound of rushing water, of a falls. Geoff pointed the way and they set off in the direction of the Arena Tomalín.

But the driver and his acquaintance were going into a
pulquería
. They were followed by the
pelado
. He walked very straight, stepping high, and holding his hats on, as though the wind were blowing, on his face a fatuous smile, not of triumph, almost of entreaty.

He would join them; some arrangement would be made.
¿Quién sabe
?

They stared after them as the twin doors of the tavern swung to: — it had a pretty name, the Todos Contentos y Yo También. The Consul said nobly:

‘Everybody happy, including me.'

And including those, Hugh thought, who effortlessly, beautifully, in the blue sky above them, floated, the vultures – xopilotes, who wait only for the ratification of death.

A
RENA
Tomalín…

— What a wonderful time everybody was having, how happy they were, how happy everyone was! How merrily Mexico laughed away its tragic history, the past, the underlying death!