Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [104]
The Terminal Cantina El Bosque, however, seemed so dark that even with his glasses off he had to stop dead...Mi ritrovai in una bosca oscura--or selva? No matter. The Cantina was well named, "The Boskage." This darkness, though, was associated in his mind with velvet curtains, and there they were, behind the shadowy bar, velvet or velveteen curtains, too dirty and full of dust to be black, partially screening the entrance to the back room, which one could never be sure was private. For some reason the fiesta had not overflowed in here; the place--a Mexican relative of the English "Jug and Bottle," chiefly dedicated to those who drank "off" the premises, in which there was only one spindly iron table and two stools at the bar, and which, facing east, became progressively darker as the sun, to those who noticed such things, climbed higher into the sky--was deserted, as usual at this hour. The Consul groped his way forward. "Señora Gregorio," he called softly, yet with an agonized impatient quaver in his voice. It had been difficult to find his voice at all; he now needed another drink badly. The word echoed through the back of the house; Gregorio; there was no answer. He sat down, while gradually the shapes about him became more clearly defined, shapes of barrels behind the bar, of bottles. Ah, the poor turtle!--The thought struck at a painful tangent.--There were big green barrels of jerez, habanero, catalán, parras, zarzamora, málaga, durazno, membrillo, raw alcohol at a peso a litre, tequila, mescal, rompope. As he read these names and, as if it were a dreary dawn outside, the cantina grew lighter to his eyes, he heard voices in his ears again, a single voice above the muted roar of the fair: "Geoffrey Firmin, this is what it is like to die, just this and no more, an awakening from a dream in a dark place, in which, as you see, are present the means of escape from yet another nightmare. But the choice is up to you. You are not invited to use those means of escape; it is left up to your judgement; to obtain them it is necessary only to--" "Señora Gregorio," he repeated, and the echo came back:."Orio."
In one corner of the bar someone had apparently once begun a small mural, aping the Great Mural in the Palace, two or three figures only, peeling and inchoate Tlahuicans.--There was the sound of slow, dragging footsteps from behind; the widow appeared, a little old woman wearing an unusually long and shabby rustling black dress. Her hair that he recalled as grey seemed to have been recently hennaed, or dyed red, and though it hung untidily in front, it was twisted up at the back into a Psyche knot. Her face, which was beaded with perspiration, evinced the most extraordinary waxen pallor; she looked careworn, wasted with suffering, yet at the sight of the Consul her tired eyes gleamed, kindling her whole expression to one of wry amusement in which there appeared also both a determination and a certain weary expectancy. "Mescal posseebly," she said, in a queer, chanting half-bantering tone, "Mescal imposseebly." But she made no move to draw the Consul a drink, perhaps because of his debt, an objection he immediately disposed of by laying a tostón on the counter. She smiled almost slyly as she edged towards the mescal barrel. "No, tequila, por favor," he said.
"Un obsequio"--she handed him the tequila. "Where do you laugh now?"
"I still laugh in the Calle Nicaragua, cincuenta dos," the Consul replied, smiling. "You mean 'live,' Señora Gregorio, not 'laugh,'con permiso."
"Remember," Señora Gregorio corrected him gently, slowly, "remember my English. Well, so it is," she sighed, drawing a small glass of málaga for herself from the barrel chalked with that name. "Here's to your love. What's my names?" She pushed towards him a saucer filled with salt that was speckled with orange-coloured pepper.
"Lo mismo! The Consul drank the tequila down. "Geoffrey Firmin."
Señora Gregorio brought him a second tequila; for a time they regarded one another without speaking. "So it is," she repeated at last, sighing once more; and there was pity in her voice for the Consul. "So it is. You must take it as it come. It can't be helped."