Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [151]
Recknung
1 ron y anís 1.20
1 ron Salón Brasse 0.60
1 tequila doble 0.30
2.10
This was signed G. Firmin. It was a small bill left here by the Consul some months ago, a chit he'd made out for himself--"No, I just paid it," said Hugh, who was now sitting beside her. But below this "reckoning" was written, enigmatically, "dearth... filth... earth," below that was a long scrawl of which one could make nothing. In the centre of the paper were seen these words: "rope... cope... grope," then, "of a cold cell," while on the right, the parent and partial explanation of these prodigals, appeared what looked a poem in process of composition, an attempt at some kind of sonnet perhaps, but of a wavering and collapsed design, and so crossed out and scrawled over and stained, defaced, and surrounded with scratchy drawings--of a club, a wheel, even a long black box like a coffin--as to be almost indecipherable; at last it had this semblance:
Some years ago he started to escape
... has been... escaping ever since
Not knowing his pursuers gave up hope
Of seeing him (dance) at the end of a rope
Hounded by eyes and thronged terrors now the lens
Of glaring world that shunned even his defence
Reading him strictly in the preterite tense
Spent no... thinking him not worth
(Even)... the price of a cold cell.
There would have been a scandal at his death
Perhaps. No more than this. Some tell
Strange hellish tales of this poor foundered soul
Who once fled north...
Who once fled north, she thought. Hugh was saying:
"Vámonos."
Yvonne said yes.
Outside the wind was blowing with an odd shrillness. A loose shutter somewhere banged and banged, and the electric sign over the garage prodded the night: Euzkadi--
The clock above it--man's public inquiry of the hour!--said twelve to seven: "Who once fled north." The diners had left the porch of the El Popo...
Lightning as they started down the steps was followed by volleys of thunder almost at once, dispersed and prolonged. Piling black clouds swallowed the stars to the north and east; Pegasus pounded up the sky unseen; but overhead it was still clear: Vega, Deneb, Altair; through the trees, towards the west, Hercules. "Who once fled north," she repeated.--Straight ahead of them beside the road was a ruined Grecian temple, dim, with two tall slender pillars, approached by two broad steps: or there had been a moment this temple, with its exquisite beauty of pillars, and, perfect in balance and proportion, its broad expanse of steps, that became now two beams of windy light from the garage, falling across the road, and the pillars, two telegraph poles. They turned into the path. Hugh, with his torch, projected a phantom target, expanding, becoming enormous, and that swerved and transparently tangled with the cactus. The path narrowed and they walked, Hugh behind, in single file, the luminous target sliding before them in sweeping concentric ellipticities, across which her own wrong shadow leaped, or the shadow of a giantess.--The candelabras appeared salt grey where the flashlight caught them, too stiff and fleshy to be bending with the wind, in a slow multitudinous heaving, an inhuman cackling of scales and spines.
"Who once fled north... "
Yvonne now felt cold sober: the cactus fell away, and the path, still narrow, through tall trees and undergrowth, seemed easy enough.
"Who once fled north." But they were not going north, they were going to the Farolito. Nor had the Consul fled north then, he'd probably gone of course, just as tonight, to the Farolito. "There might have been a scandal at his death." The treetops made a sound like water rushing over their heads. "At his death."
Yvonne was sober. It was the undergrowth, which made sudden swift movements into their path, obstructing it, that was not sober; the mobile trees were not sober; and finally it was Hugh, who she now realized had only brought her this far to prove the better practicality of the road, the danger of these woods under the discharges of electricity now nearly on top of them, who was not sober: and Yvonne found she had stopped abruptly, her hands clenched so tightly her fingers hurt, saying: