Under the Volcano (40 page)

   
" Well--"
   
.".. no, the point is, Yvonne,
that the Conquest took place in a civilization which was as good if not better
than that of the conquerors, a deep-rooted structure. The people weren't all
savages or nomadic tribes, footloose and wandering--"
   
"--suggesting that had they been
footloose and wandering there would never have been any exploitation?"
   
"Have another bottle of beer...
Cam Blanca?" "Moctezuma... Dos Equis."
   
"Or is it Montezuma?"
   
"Moctezuma on the bottle."
   
"That's all he is now--"
   
TIZATLÁN
   
In this town, very near to Tlaxcala
City, are still erected the ruins of the Palace, residence of Senator
Xicohtencatl, father of the warrior by the same name. In said ruins could be
still appreciated the stone blocks where were offered the sacrifices to their
Gods... In the same town, a long time ago, were the headquarters of the
Tlaxcaltecan warriors...
   
"I'm watching you... You can't
escape me."
   
"--this is not just escaping. I
mean, let's start again, really and cleanly."
   
"I think I know the place."
"I can see you."
   
"--where are the letters,
Geoffrey Firmin, the letters she wrote till her heart broke--"
   
"But in Newcastle, Delaware, now
that's another thing again!" "--the letters you not only have never
answered you didn't you did you didn't you did then where is your reply--"
"--but oh my God, this city--the noise! the chaos! If I could only get
out! If I only knew where you could get to!"
   
OCOTELULCO
   
In this town near Tlaxcala existed,
long back, the Maxixcatzin Palace. In that place, according to tradition took
place the baptism of the first Christian Indian.
   
"It will be like a
rebirth."
   
"I'm thinking of becoming a
Mexican subject, of going to live among the Indians, like William
Blackstone." "Napoleon's leg twitched."
   
"--might have run over you,
there must be something wrong, what? No, going to--"
   
"Guanajuato--the streets--how
can you resist the names of the streets--the Street of Kisses--"
   
MATLALCUEYATL
   
This mountain are still the ruins of
the shrine dedicated to the God of Waters, Tlaloc, which vestiges are almost
lost, therefore, are no longer visited by tourists, and it is referred that on
this place, young Xicohtencatl harangued his soldiers, telling them to fight
the conquerors to the limit, dying if necessary.
   
.".. no pasaron."
   
"Madrid."
   
"They plugged 'em too. They
shoot first and ask questions later."
   
"I can see you."
   
"I'm watching you."
   
"You can't escape me."
   
"Guzmán... Erikson 43."
   
"A corpse will be transported
by--"
   
RAILROAD AND BUS SERVICE
   
(MEXICO-TLAXCALA)
   
Lines
              
Mexico
 
Tlaxcala
           
Rates
   
Mexico-Vera Cruz Railroad
  
Lv 7.30
    
Ar 18.50
   
Ar 12.00
   
$7.50
 
Mexico-Puebla Railroad
    
Lv 16.05
   
Ar 11.05
   
Ar 20-00
   
$7.75
   
Transfer in Santa Ana Chiautempan in
both ways.
Buses Flecha Roja. Leaving every hour from 5 to 19 hours.
Pullmans Estrella de Oro leaving every hour from 7 to 22.
Transfer in San Martin Texmelucan in both ways.
   
... And now, once more, their eyes
met across the table. But this time there was, as it were, a mist between them,
and through the mist the Consul seemed to see not Granada but Tlaxcala. It was a
white beautiful cathedral city toward which the Consul's soul yearned and which
indeed in many respects was like Granada; only it appeared to him, just as in
the photographs in the folder, perfectly empty. That was the queerest thing
about it, and at the same time the most beautiful; there was nobody there, no
one--and in this it also somewhat resembled Tortu--to interfere with the
business of drinking, not even Yvonne, who, so far as she was in evidence at
all, was drinking with him.
   
The white sanctuary of the church in
Ocotlán, of an overloaded style, rose up before them: white towers with a white
clock and no one there. While the clock itself was timeless. They walked,
carrying white bottles, twirling walk canes and ash plants, in the neat fine better
climate, the purer air, among the corpulent ash-trees, the stricken in years
trees, through the deserted park. They walked, happy as toads in a
thunderstorm, arm-in-arm down the four clean and well-arranged lateral avenues.
They stood, drunk as larks, in the deserted convent of San Francisco before the
empty chapel where was preached, for the first time in the New World, the
Gospel. At night they slept in cold white sheets among the white bottles at the
Hotel Tlaxcala. And in the town too were innumerable white cantinas, where one
could drink for ever on credit, with the door open and the wind blowing.
"We could go straight there," he was saying, "straight to
Tlaxcala. Or we could all spend the night in Santa Ana Chiautempan,
transferring in both ways of course, and go to Vera Cruz in the morning. Of
course that means going--" he looked at his watch "--straight back
now... We could catch the next bus... Well have time for a few drinks," he
added consularly.
   
The mist had cleared, but Yvonne's
eyes were full of tears, and she was pale.
   
Something was wrong, was very wrong.
For one thing both Hugh and Yvonne seemed quite surprisingly tight.
   
"What's that, don't you want to
go back now, to Tlaxcala?" said the Consul, perhaps too thickly.
   
"That's not it, Geoffrey."
   
Fortunately, Cervantes arrived at
this moment with a saucer full of live shellfish and toothpicks. The Consul
drank some beer that had been waiting for him. The drink situation was now
this, was this: there had been one drink waiting for him and this drink of beer
he had not yet quite drunk. On the other hand there had been until recently
several drinks of mescal (why not?--the word did not intimidate him, eh?)
waiting for him outside in a lemonade bottle and all these he both had and had
not drunk: had drunk in fact, had not drunk so far as the others were
concerned. And before that there had been two mescals that he both should and
should not have drunk. Did they suspect? He had adjured Cervantes to silence;
had the Tlaxcaltecan, unable to resist it, betrayed him? What had they really
been talking about while he was outside? The Consul glanced up from his
shellfish at Hugh; Hugh, like Yvonne, as well as quite tight, appeared angry
and hurt. What were they up to? The Consul had not been away very long (he
thought), no more than seven minutes all told, had reappeared washed and
combed--who knows how?--his chicken was scarcely cold, while the others were
only just finishing theirs... Et tu Brute! The Consul could feel his glance at
Hugh becoming a cold look of hatred. Keeping his eyes fixed gimlet-like upon
him he saw him as he had appeared that morning, smiling, the razor edge keen in
sunlight. But now he was advancing as if to decapitate him. Then the vision
darkened and Hugh was still advancing, but not upon him. Instead, back in the
ring, he was bearing down upon an ox: now he had exchanged his razor for a
sword. He thrust forward the sword to bring the ox to its knees... The Consul
was fighting off an all but irresistible, senseless onrush of wild rage.
Trembling, he felt, from nothing but this effort--the constructive effort too,
for which no one would give him credit, to change the subject--he impaled one
of the shellfish on a toothpick and held it up, almost hissing through his teeth:
   
"Now you see what sort of
creatures we are, Hugh. Eating things alive. That's what we do. How can you
have much respect for mankind, or any belief in the social struggle?"
   
Despite this, Hugh was apparently
saying, remotely, calmly, after a while: "I once saw a Russian film about
a revolt of some fishermen... A shark was netted with a shoal of other fish and
killed... This struck me as a pretty good symbol of the Nazi system which, even
though dead, continues to go on swallowing live struggling men and women!"
   
"It would do just as well for
any other system... Including the Communist system."
   
"See here, Geoffrey--"
   
"See here, old bean," the
Consul heard himself saying, "to have against you Franco, or Hider, is one
thing, but to have
   
Actinium, Argon, Beryllium,
Dysprosium, Nobium, Palladium, Praseodymium--"
   
" Look here, Geoff--"
   
"--Ruthenium, Samarium, Silicon,
Tantalum, Tellurium, Terbium, Thorium--"
   
"See here--"
   
"--Thulium, Titanium, Uranium,
Vanadium, Virginium, Xenon, Ytterbium, Yttrium, Zirconium, to say nothing of
Europium and Germanium—ahip!--and Columbium!--against you, and all the others,
is another." The Consul finished his beer.
   
Thunder suddenly sprang again outside
with a clap and bang, slithering.
   
Despite which Hugh seemed to be
saying, calmly, remotely, "See here, Geoffrey. Let's get this straight
once and for all. Communism to me is not, essentially, whatever its present
phase, a system at all. It is simply a new spirit, something which one day may
or may not seem as natural as the air we breathe. I seem to have heard that
phrase before. What I have to say isn't original either. In fact were I to say
it five years from now it would probably be downright banal. But to the best of
my knowledge, no one has yet called in Matthew Arnold to the support of their
argument. So I am going to quote Matthew Arnold for you, partly because you
don't think I am capable of quoting Matthew Arnold. But that's where you're
quite wrong. My notion of what we call--"
   
"Cervantes!"
   
"--is a spirit in the modern
world playing a part analogous to that of Christianity in the old. Matthew
Arnold says, in his essay on Marcus Aurelius--"
   
"Cervantes, por Christ
sake--"
   
"Far from this, the Christianity
which those emperors aimed at repressing was, in their conception of it,
something philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally
abominable. As men they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people,
with us, regard Mormonism: as rulers, they regarded it much as liberal
statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism--"
   
"--constituted as a vast secret
society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, was what
Antoninus Pius--"
   
"Cervantes!"
   
"The inner and moving cause of
the representation lay, no doubt, in this, that Christianity was a new spirit
in the Roman world, destined to act in that world as its dissolvent; and it was
inevitable that Christianity--"
   
"Cervantes," the Consul
interrupted, "you are Oaxaquenian?"
   
"No, señor, I am Tlaxcalan,
Tlaxcala."
   
"You are," said the Consul.
"Well, hombre, and are there not stricken in years trees in
Tlaxcala?"
   
"Sí, sí, hombre. Stricken in
years trees. Many trees."
   
"And Ocotlán. Santuario de
Ocotlán. Is not that in Tlaxcala?"
   
"Sí, sí, señor, si, Santuario de
Ocotlán," said Cervantes, moving back toward the counter.
   
"And Matlalcuayatl."
   
"Sí, hombre. Matlaicuayatl...
Tlaxcala."
   
"And lagoons?"
   
"So--... many lagoons."
   
"And are there not many
web-footed fowl in these lagoons?"
   
"Sí, señor. Muy fuerte... In
Tlaxcala."
   
"Well then," said the
Consul, turning round on the others, "what's wrong with my plan? What's
wrong with all you people? Aren't you going to Vera Cruz after all, Hugh?"
   
Suddenly a man started to play the
guitar in the doorway angrily, and once again Cervantes came forward:
"Black Flowers is the name of that song." Cervantes was about to
beckon the man to come in. "It say: I suffer, because your lips say only
lies and they have death in a kiss."
   
"Tell him to go away," the
Consul said. "Hugh--cuantos trenes hay el día para Vera Cruz?" The
guitar player changed his tune: "This is a farmer's song," said
Cervantes, "for oxen."
"Oxen, we've had enough oxen for one day. Tell him to go far away, por
favor," said the Consul. "My God, what's wrong with you people?
Yvonne, Hugh... It's a perfectly good idea, a most practical idea. Don't you
see it'll kill two birds with one stone--a stone, Cervantes!... Tlaxcala is on
the way to Vera Cruz, Hugh, the true cross... This is the last time we'll be
seeing you, old fellow. For all I know... We could have a celebration. Come on
now, you can't lie to me, I'm watching you... Change at San Martin Texmelucan
in both ways..."
   
Thunder, single, exploded in mid-air
just outside the door and Cervantes came hurrying forward with the coffee: he
struck matches for their cigarettes: "La superstición dice," he
smiled, striking a fresh one for the Consul, "que cuando tres amigos
prenden su cigarro con la misma cerilla, el ultimo muere antes que los otros
dos."