Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [107]
"How are the rajah shakes?"
Inhumaciones: the Consul, laughingly pinching one ear, was pointing for answer at the undertakers' jolting by, where a parrot, head cocked, looked down from its perch suspended in the entrance, above which a sign inquired:
Quo Vadis?
Where they were going immediately was down, at a snail's pace, by a secluded square with great old trees, their delicate leaves like new spring green. In the garden under the trees were doves and a small black goat. ¿Le gusta este jardín, que es suyo? ¡Evite que sus hijos lo destruyan! Do you like this garden, the notice said, that is yours? See to it that your children do not destroy it!
... There were no children, however, in the garden; just a man sitting alone on a stone bench. This man was apparently the devil himself, with a huge dark red face and horns, fangs, and his tongue hanging out over his chin, and an expression of mingled evil, lechery, and terror. The devil lifted his mask to spit, rose, and shambled through the garden with a dancing, loping step towards a church almost hidden by the trees. There was a sound of clashing machetes. A native dance was going on beyond some awnings by the church, on the steps of which two Americans, Yvonne and he had seen earlier, were watching on tiptoe, craning their necks.
"Seriously," Hugh repeated to the Consul, who seemed calmly to have accepted the devil, while Hugh exchanged a look of regret with Yvonne, for they had seen no dancing in the zócalo, and it was now too late to get out.
"Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus!"
They were crossing a bridge at the bottom of the hill, over the ravine. It appeared overtly horrendous here. In the bus one looked straight down, as from the maintruck of a sailing ship, through dense foliage and wide leaves that did not at all conceal the treachery of the drop; its steep banks were thick with refuse, which even hung on the bushes. Turning, Hugh saw a dead dog right at the bottom, nuzzling the refuse; white bones showed through the carcass. But above was the blue sky and Yvonne looked happy when Popocatepetl sprang into view, dominating the landscape for a while as they climbed the hill beyond. Then it dropped out of sight around a corner. It was a long circuitous hill. Half-way up, outside a gaudily decorated tavern, a man in a blue suit and strange headgear, swaying gently and eating half a melon, awaited the bus. From the interior of this tavern, which was called El Amor de los Amores, came a sound of singing. Hugh caught sight of what appeared to be armed policemen drinking at the bar. The camión slithered, banking with wheels locked to a stop alongside the sidewalk.
The driver dashed into the tavern, leaving the tilted camión; which meanwhile the man with the melon had boarded, throbbing away to itself. The driver emerged; he hurled himself back on to the vehicle, jamming it almost simultaneously into gear. Then, with an amused glance over his shoulder at the man, and a look to his trusting pigeons, he urged his bus up the hill:
"Sure, Mike. Sure. O.K. boy."
The Consul was pointing back at the El Amor de los Amores:
"Viva Franco... That's one of your Fascist joints, Hugh."
"So?"
"That hophead's the brother of the proprietor, I believe. I can tell you this much... He's not an aerial pigeon." "A what?...Oh."
"You may not think it, but he's a Spaniard."
The seats ran lengthwise and Hugh looked at the man in the blue suit opposite, who had been talking thickly to himself, who now, drunk, drugged, or both, seemed sunk in stupor. There was no conductor on the bus. Perhaps there would be one later, evidently fares were to be paid the driver on getting off, so none bothered him. Certainly his features, high, prominent nose and firm chin, were of strongly Spanish cast. His hands--in one he still clutched the gnawed half-melon--were huge, capable and rapacious. Hands of the conquistador, Hugh thought suddenly. But his general aspect suggested less the conquistador than, it was Hugh's perhaps too neat idea, the confusion that tends eventually to overtake conquistadores. His blue suit was of quite expensive cut, the open coat, it appeared, shaped at the waist. Hugh had noticed his broad-cuffed trousers draped well over expensive shoes. The shoes however--which had been shined that morning but were soiled with saloon sawdust--were full of holes. He wore no tie. His handsome purple shirt, open at the neck, revealed a gold crucifix. The shirt was torn and in places hung out over his trousers. And for some reason he wore two hats, a kind of cheap Homburg fitting neatly over the broad crown of his sombrero.