Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [138]
"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.