Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [110]
Nothing but pines, fircones, stones, black earth. Yet that earth looked parched, those stones, unmistakably, volcanic. Everywhere, quite as Prescott informed one, were attestations to Popocatepetl's presence and antiquity. And here the damned thing was again! Why were there volcanic eruptions? People pretended not to know. Because, they might suggest tentatively, under the rocks beneath the surface of the earth, steam, its pressure constantly rising, was generated; because the rocks and the water, decomposing, formed gases, which combined with the molten material from below; because the watery rocks near the surface were unable to restrain the growing complex of pressures, and the whole mass exploded; the lava flooded out, the gases escaped, and there was your eruption.--But not your explanation. No, the whole thing was a complete mystery still. In movies of eruptions people were always seen standing in the midst of the encroaching flood, delighted by it. Walls fell over, churches collapsed, whole families moved away their possessions in a panic, but there were always these people, jumping about between the streams of molten lava, smoking cigarettes...
Christ! He hadn't realized how fast they were going, in spite of the road and their being in a 1918 Chevrolet, and it seemed to him that because of this a quite different atmosphere now pervaded the little bus; the men were smiling, the old women gossiping knowingly and chuckling, two boys, newcomers hanging on by their eyebrows at the back, were whistling cheerfully--the bright shirts, the brighter serpentine confetti of tickets, red, yellow, green, blue, dangling from a loop on the ceiling, all contributed to a sense of gaiety, a feeling, almost, of the fiesta itself again, that hadn't been there before.
But the boys were dropping off, one by one, and the gaiety, short-lived as a burst of sunlight, departed. Brutal-looking candelabra cactus swung past, a ruined church, full of pumpkins, windows bearded with grass. Burned, perhaps, in the revolution, its exterior was blackened with fire, and it had an air of being damned.
--The time has come for you to join your comrades, to aid the workers, he told Christ, who agreed. It had been His idea all the while, only until Hugh had rescued Him those hypocrites had kept him shut up inside the burning church where He couldn't breathe. Hugh made a speech. Stalin gave him a medal and listened sympathetically while he explained what was on his mind. "True... I wasn't in time to save the Ebro, but I did strike my blow--" He went off, the star of Lenin on his lapel; in his pocket a certificate; Hero of the Soviet Republic, and the True Church, pride and love in his heart--
Hugh looked out of the window. Well, after all. Silly bastard. But the queer thing was, that love was real. Christ, why can't we be simple, Christ Jesus why may we not be simple, why may we not all be brothers?
Buses with odd names on them, a procession out of a side-road, were bobbing past in the opposite direction: buses to Tetecala, to Jujuta, to Xuitepec: buses to Xochitepec, to Xoxitepec--
Popocatepetl loomed, pyramidal, to their right, one side beautifully curved as a woman's breast, the other precipitous, jagged, ferocious. Cloud drifts were massing again, high-piled, behind it. Ixtaccihuatl appeared...
--Xiutepecanochtitlantehuantepec, Quintanarooroo, Tlacolula, Moctezuma, Juárez, Puebla, Tlampam--bong! suddenly snarled the bus. They thundered on, passing little pigs trotting along the road, an Indian screening sand, a bald boy, with ear-rings, sleepily scratching his stomach and swinging madly on a hammock. Advertisements on ruined walls swam by. ¡Atchis! ¡Instante! Resfriados, Dolores, Cafeasperina. Rechace Imitaciones. Las Manos de Orlac. Con Peter Lorre.
When there was a bad patch the bus rattled and sideslipped ominously, once it altogether ran off the road, but its determination outweighed these waverings, one was pleased at last to have transferred one's responsibilities to it, lulled into a state from which it would be pain to waken.
Hedges, with low steep banks, in which grew dusty trees, were hemming them in on either side. Without decreasing pace they were running into a narrow, sunken section of road, winding, and so reminiscent of England one expected at any point to see a sign: Public Footpath to Lostwithiel.