Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [45]
"Geoffrey was at the Red Cross Ball last night. He's pretty tired, poor dear." They walked on together, smoking, Yvonne pausing every few steps to uproot some weed or other until, suddenly, she stopped, gazing down at a flower-bed that was completely, grossly strangled by a coarse green vine. "My God, this used to be a beautiful garden. It was like Paradise."
"Let's get the hell out of it then. Unless you're too tired for a walk." A snore, ricocheting, agonized, embittered, but controlled, single, was wafted to his ears: the muted voice of England long asleep.
Yvonne glanced hastily around as if fearful Geoff might come catapulting out of the window, bed and all, unless he was on the porch, and hesitated. "Not a bit," she said brightly, warmly. "Let's do..." She started down the path before him. "What are we waiting for?"
Unconsciously, he had been watching her, her bare brown neck and arms, the yellow slacks, and the vivid scarlet flowers behind her, the brown hair circling her ears, the graceful swift movements of her yellow sandals in which she seemed to dance, to be floating rather than walking. He caught up with her and once more they walked on together, avoiding a long-tailed bird that glided down to alight near them like a spent arrow.
The bird swaggered ahead of them now down the cratered drive, through the gateless gateway, where it was joined by a crimson and white turkey, a pirate attempting to escape under full sail, and into the dusty street. They were laughing at the birds, but the things they might have gone on to say under somewhat different circumstances, as: I wonder what's happened to our bikes, or, do you remember, in Paris, that cafe, With the tables up the trees, in Robinson, remained unspoken.
They turned to the left, away from the town. The road declined sharply below them. At the bottom rose purple hills. Why is this not bitter, he thought, why is it not indeed, it was already: Hugh was aware for the first time of the other gnawing, as the Calle Nicaragua, the walls of the large residences left behind, became an almost unnavigable chaos of loose stones and potholes. Yvonne's bicycle wouldn't have been much use here. "What on earth were you doing in Texas, Hugh?" "Stalking Okies. That is, I was after them in Oklahoma. I thought the Globe ought to be interested in Okies. Then I went down to this ranch in Texas. That's where I'd heard about these chaps from the dust bowl not being allowed to cross the border."
"What an old Nosey Parker you are!"
"I landed in Frisco just in time for Munich." Hugh stared over to the left where in the distance the latticed watchtower of the Alcapancingo prison had just appeared with little figures on top gazing east and west through binoculars.
"They're just playing. The police here love to be mysterious, like you. Where were you before that? We must have just missed each other in Frisco."
A lizard vanished into the bougainvillea growing along the roadbank, wild bougainvillea now, an overflux, followed by a second lizard. Under the bank gaped a half-shored-in hole, another entrance to the mine perhaps. Precipitous fields fell away down to their right, tilting violently at every angle. Far beyond them, cupped by hills, he made out the old bull-ring and again he heard Weber's voice in the plane, shouting, yelling in his ear, as they passed the pinch-bottle of habanero between them:" Quauhnahuac. That's where they crucified the women in the bull-rings during the revolution and set the bulls at them. And that's a nice thing to say! The blood ran down the gutters and they barbecued the dogs in the market place. They shoot first and ask questions later! You're goddamn right-- " But there was no revolution in Quauhnahuac now and in the stillness the purple slopes before them, the fields, even the watchtower and the bull-ring, seemed to be murmuring of peace, of paradise indeed. "China," he said.
Yvonne turned, smiling, though her eyes were troubled and perplexed: "What about the war?" she said.
"That was the point. I fell out of an ambulance with three dozen beer bottles and six journalists on top of me and that's when I decided it might be healthier to go to California." Hugh glanced suspiciously at a billy goat which had been following them on their right along the grass margin between the road and a wire fence, and which now stood there motionless, regarding them with patriarchal contempt. "No, they're the lowest form of animal life, except possibly--look out!--my God, I knew it--" The goat had charged and Hugh felt the sudden intoxicating terrified incidence and warmth of Yvonne's body as the animal missed them, skidded, slithered round the abrupt leftward bend the road took at this point over a low stone bridge, and disappeared beyond up a hill, furiously trailing its tether. "Goats," he said, twisting Yvonne firmly out of his arms. "Even when there are no wars think of the damage they do," he went on, through something nervous, mutually dependent still, about their mirth. "I mean journalists, not goats. There's no punishment on earth fit for them. Only the Malebolge... And here is the Malebolge."