Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [169]
"No gracias," the Consul said lighting it himself and looking meaningly at Diosdado, from whose shirt pocket his other pipe was protruding again, "I happen to be American, and I'm getting rather bored by your insults." "¿Quiere usted la salvación de México? ¿Quiere usted que Cristo sea nuestro Rey?"
"No."
"These donkey. Goddamn son of a bitch for my."
"One, two, tree, four, five, twelve, sixee, seven--it's a long, longy, longy, longy--way to Tipperaire."
"Noch ein habanero--"
"--Bolshevisten--"
"Buenas tardes, señores," the Consul greeted the Chief of Gardens and the Chief of Rostrums returning from the phone.
They were standing beside him. Soon, preposterous things were being said between them again without adequate reason: answers, it seemed to him, given by him to questions that while they had perhaps not been asked, nevertheless hung in the air. And as for some answers others gave, when he turned round, no one was there. Lingeringly, the bar was emptying for la comida; yet a handful of mysterious strangers had already entered to take the others' places. No thought of escape now touched the Consul's mind. Both his will, and time, which hadn't advanced five minutes since he was last conscious of it, were paralysed. The Consul saw someone he recognized: the driver of the bus that afternoon. He had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where it becomes necessary to shake hands with everyone. The Consul too found himself shaking hands with the driver. "¿Donde están vuestras palomas?" he asked him. Suddenly, at a nod from Sanabria, the Chief of Rostrums plunged his hands into the Consul's pockets. "Time you pay for--ah--Mehican whisky," he said loudly, taking out the Consul's notecase with a wink at Diosdado. The Chief of Municipality made his obscene circular movement of the hips. "Progresión al culo--" he began. The Chief of Rostrums had abstracted the package of Yvonne's letters: he glanced sideways at this without removing the elastic the Consul had replaced. "Chingado, cabrón." His eyes consulted Sanabria who, silent, stern, nodded again. The Chief brought out another paper, and a card he didn't know he possessed, from the Consul's jacket pocket. The three policemen put their heads together over the bar, reading the paper. Now the Consul, baffled, was reading this paper himself:
Daily... Londres Presse. Collect antisemitic campaign mex-press propetition... textile manufacture's unquote... German behind...interiorwards. What was this?... news... jews... country belief... power ends conscience... unquote stop Firmin.
"No. Blackstone," the Consul said.
"¿Como se llama? Your name is Firmin. It say there: Firmin. It say you are Juden."
"I don't give a damn what it says anywhere. My name's Blackstone, and I'm not a journalist. True, vero, I'm a writer, an escritor, only on economic matters," the Consul wound up.
"Where your papers? What for you have no papers?" The Chief of Rostrums asked, pocketing Hugh's cable. "Where your pasaporte? What need for you to make disguise?"
The Consul removed his dark glasses. Mutely to him, between sardonic thumb and forefinger, the Chief of Gardens held out the card: Federación Anarquista Ibérica, it said. Sr Hugo Firmin.
"No comprendo," the Consul took the card and turned it over. "Blackstone's my name. I am a writer, not an anarchist."
"Writer? You antichrista. Sí, you antichrista prik." The Chief of Rostrums snatched back the card and pocketed it. "And Juden," he added. He slipped the elastic from Yvonne's letters and, moistening his thumb, ran through them, glancing sideways once more at the envelopes. "Chingar. What for you tell lies?" he said almost sorrowfully. "Cabrón. What for you lie? It say here too: your name is Firmin." It struck the Consul that the legionnaire Weber, who was still in the bar, though at a distance, was staring at him with a remote speculation, but he looked away again. The Chief of Municipality regarded the Consul's watch, which he held in the palm of one mutilated hand, while he scratched himself between the thighs with the other, fiercely. "Here, oiga." The Chief of Rostrums withdrew a ten-peso note from the Consul's case, crackled it, and threw it on the counter. "Chingao." Winking at Diosdado he replaced the case in his own pocket with the Consul's other things. Then Sanabria spoke for the first time to him.