Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [170]
"I am afraid you must come to prison," he said simply in English. He went back to the phone.
The Chief of Municipality rolled his hips and gripped the Consul's arm. The Consul shouted at Diosdado in Spanish, shaking himself loose. He managed to reach his hand over the bar but Diosdado struck it away. A Few Fleas began to yap. A sudden noise from the corner startled everyone. Yvonne and Hugh perhaps, at last. He turned round quickly, still free of the Chief: it was only the uncontrollable face on the bar-room floor, the rabbit, having a nervous convulsion, trembling all over, wrinkling its nose and scuffing disapprovingly. The Consul caught sight of the old woman with the rebozo: loyally, she hadn't gone. She was shaking her head at him, frowning sadly, and he now realized she was the same old woman who'd had the dominoes.
"What for you lie?" the Chief of Rostrums repeated in a glowering voice. "You say your name is Black. No es Black." He shoved him backwards toward the door. "You say you are a writer." He shoved him again. "You no are writer." He pushed the Consul more violently, but the Consul stood his ground. "You are no a de writer, you are de espider, and we shoota de espiders in Mejico." Some military policemen watched with concern. The newcomers were breaking up. Two pariah dogs ran around in the bar. A woman clutched her baby to her, terrified. "You no writer." The Chief caught him by the throat. "You Al Capón. You a Jew chingao." The Consul shook himself free again. "You are a spider."
Abruptly the radio, which, as Sanabria finished with the phone again, Diosdado had turned full blast, shouted in Spanish the Consul translated to himself in a flash, shouted like orders yelled in a gale of wind, the only orders that will save the ship: "Incalculable are the benefits civilization has brought us, incommensurable the productive power of all classes of riches originated by the inventions and discoveries of science. Inconceivable the marvellous creations of the human sex in order to make men more happy, more free, and more perfect. Without parallel the crystalline and fecund fountains of the new life which still remains closed to the thirsty lips of the people who follow in their griping and bestial tasks."
Suddenly the Consul thought he saw an enormous rooster flapping before him, clawing and crowing. He raised his hands and it merded on his face. He struck the returning Jefe de Jardineros straight between the eyes. "Give me those letters back!" he heard himself shouting at the Chief of Rostrums, but the radio drowned his voice, and now a peal of thunder drowned the radio. "You poxboxes. You coxcoxes. You killed that Indian. You tried to kill him and make it look like an accident," he roared. "You're all in it. Then more of you came up and took his horse. Give me my papers back."
"Papers. Cabrón. You har no papers." Straightening himself the Consul saw in the Chief of Rostrum's expression a hint of M. Laruelle and he struck at it. Then he saw himself the Chief of Gardens again and struck that figure; then in the Chief of Municipality the policeman Hugh had refrained from striking this afternoon and he struck this figure too. The clock outside quickly chimed seven times. The cock flapped before his eyes, blinding him. The Chief of Rostrums took him by the coat. Someone else seized him from behind. In spite of his struggles he was being dragged towards the door. The fair man who had turned up again helped shove him towards it; and Diosdado, who had vaulted ponderously over the bar; and A Few Fleas, who kicked him viciously on die shins. The Consul snatched a machete lying on a table near the entrance and brandished it wildly. "Give me back those letters!" he cried. Where was that bloody cock? He would chop off its head. He stumbled backwards out into the road. People taking tables laden with gaseosas in from the storm stopped to watch. The beggars turned their heads dully. The sentinel outside the barracks stood motionless. The Consul didn't know what he was saying: "Only the poor, only through God, only the people you wipe your feet on, the poor in spirit, old men carrying their fathers and philosophers weeping in the dust. America perhaps, Don Quixote--" he was still brandishing the sword, it was that sabre really, he thought, in Mar