Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [21]
The bar was empty, however.
Or rather it contained one figure. Still in his dress clothes, which weren't particularly dishevelled, the Consul, a lock of fair hair falling over his eyes and one hand clasped in his short pointed beard, was sitting sideways with one foot on the rail of an adjacent stool at the small right-angled counter, half leaning over it and talking apparently to himself, for the barman, a sleek dark lad of about eighteen, stood at a little distance against a glass partition that divided the room (from yet another bar, she remembered now, giving on a side-street) and didn't have the air of listening. Yvonne stood there silently by the door, unable to make a move, watching, the roar of the plane still with her, the buffeting of wind and air as they left the sea behind, the roads below still climbing and dropping, the little towns still steadily passing with their humped churches. Quauhnahuac with all its cobalt swimming pools rising again obliquely to meet her. But the exhilaration of her flight, of mountain piled on mountain, the terrific onslaught of sunlight while the earth turned yet in shadow, a river flashing, a gorge winding darkly beneath, the volcanoes abruptly wheeling into view from the glowing east, the exhilaration and the longing had left her. Yvonne felt her spirit that had flown to meet this man's as if already sticking to the leather. She saw she was mistaken about the barman: he was listening after all. That is, while he mightn't understand what Geoffrey (who was, she noticed, wearing no socks) was talking about, he was waiting, his towelled hands overhauling the glasses ever more slowly, for an opening to say or do something. He set the glass he was drying down. Then he picked up the Consul's cigarette, which was consuming itself in an ashtray at the counter edge, inhaled it deeply, closing his eyes with an expression of playful ecstasy, opened them and pointed, scarcely exhaling now the slow billowing smoke from his nostrils and mouth, at an advertisement for Cafeaspirina , a woman wearing a scarlet brassiere lying on a scrolled divan, behind the upper row of tequila añejo bottles. "Absolutamente necesario," he said, and Yvonne realized it was the woman, not the Cafeaspirina , he meant (the Consul's phrase doubtless) was absolutely necessary. But he hadn't attracted the Consul's attention, so he closed his eyes again with the same expression, opened them, replaced the Consul's cigarette, and, still exuding smoke, pointed once more to the advertisement--next to it she noticed one for the local cinema, simply, has Manos de Orlac, con Peter Lorre--and repeated: "Absolutamente necesario!
"A corpse, whether adult or child," the Consul had resumed, after briefly pausing to laugh at this pantomime, and to agree, with a kind of agony, "Sí, Fernando, absolutamente necesario"--and it is a ritual, she thought, a ritual between them, as there were once rituals between us, only Geoffrey has gotten a little bored with it at last--resumed his study of a blue and red Mexican National Railways time-table. Then he looked up abruptly and saw her, peering short-sightedly about him before recognizing her, standing there, a little blurred probably because the sunlight was behind her, with one hand thrust through the handle of her scarlet bag resting on her hip, standing there as she knew he must see her, half jaunty, a little diffident.
Still holding the time-table the Consul built himself to his feet as she came forward. "--Good God."
Yvonne hesitated but he made no move towards her; she slipped quietly on to a stool beside him; they did not kiss.
"Surprise party. I've come back... My plane got in an hour ago."
"--when Alabama comes through we ask nobody any questions," came suddenly from the bar on the other side of the glass partition: "We come through with heels flying!"
"--From Acapulco, Hornos... I came by boat, Geoff, from San Pedro--Panama Pacific. The Pennsylvania. Geoff--"
"--bull-headed Dutchmen! The sun parches the lips and they crack. Oh Christ, it's a shame! The horses all go away kicking in the dust! I wouldn't have it. They plugged "em too. They don't miss it. They shoot first and ask questions later. You're goddam right. And that's a nice thing to say. I take a bunch of goddamned farmers, then ask them no questions. Righto!--smoke a cool cigarette--"