U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [127]
Mac, the sweat pouring off him, hurried back to the consulate to find the Syrian. They couldn't decide on the price. Mac was desperate because the banks were al closed and there was no way of getting any money. The Syrian
-321-said that he was from the Lebanon and an American citizen and a Christian and that he'd lend Mac a hundred dol ars if Mac would give him a sixtyday note hypothecating his share in the bookstore for two hundred dol ars. He said that he was an American citizen and a Christian and was risking his life to save Mac's wife and children. Mac was so flustered he noticed just in time that the Syrian was giving him a hundred dol ars mex and that the note was made out in American dol ars. The Syrian cal ed upon God to protect them both and said it was an error and Mac went off with two hundred pesos in gold.
He found Concha al packed. She had closed up the
store and was standing on the pavement outside with some bundles, the two cats in a basket, and Antonio and her mother, each wrapped in a blanket.
They found the station so packed ful of people and baggage they couldn't get in the door. Mac went round to the yards and found a man named McGrath he knew who worked for the railroad. McGrath said he could fix them up but that they must hurry. He put them into a secondclass coach out in the yards and said he'd buy their tickets but would probably have to pay double for them. Sweat was pouring from under Mac's hatband when he
final y got the two women seated and the basket of cats and the bundles and Antonio stowed away. The train was already ful , although it hadn't backed into the station yet. After several hours the train pul ed out, a line of dusty soldiers fighting back the people on the platform who tried to rush the train as it left. Every seat was taken, the aisles were ful of priests and nuns, there were wel dressed people hanging onto the platforms. Mac didn't have much to say sitting next to Concha in the dense heat of the slowmoving train. Concha sighed a great deal and her mother sighed, " Ay de mi dios, " and they gnawed on chickenwings and ate almond paste. The train was often stopped by groups of soldiers patrol ing
-322-the line. On sidings were many boxcars loaded with troops, but nobody seemed to know what side they were on. Mac looked out at the endless crisscross ranks of centuryplants and the crumbling churches and watched the two huge snowy volcanos, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihatl, change places on the horizon; then there was another goldenbrown cone of an extinct volcano slowly turning before the train; then it was the bluewhite peak of Orizaba in the distance grow-ing up tal er and tal er into the cloudless sky. After Huamantla they ran down through clouds. The
rails rang under the merry clatter of the wheels curving down steep grades in the misty winding val ey through moist forestgrowth. They began to feel easier. With every loop of the train the air became warmer and damper. They began to see orange and lemontrees. The windows were al open. At stations women came through sel ing beer and pulque and chicken and tortil as.
At Orizaba it was sunny again. The train stopped a long time. Mac sat drinking beer by himself in the station res-taurant. The other passengers were laughing and talking but Mac felt sore.
When the bel rang he didn't want to go back to
Concha and her mother and their sighs and their greasy fingers and their chickenwings. He got on another car. Night was coming on ful of the smel s of flowers and warm earth. It was late the next day when they got into Vera Cruz. The town was ful of flags and big red banners stretched from wal to wal of the orange and lemon and banana-colored streets with their green shutters and the palms waving in the seawind. The banners read:
"Viva Obre-gon," " Viva La Revolucion Revindicadora, " " Viva El Partido Laborista. " In the main square a band was playing and people
were dancing. Scared daws flew cawing among the dark umbrel ashaped trees.
-323-Mac left Concha and her bundles and the old woman and Antonio on a bench and went to the Ward Line office to see about passage to the States. There everybody was talking about submarine warfare and America entering the Great War and German atrocities and Mac found that