Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [46]
The Malebolge was the barranca, the ravine which wound through the country, narrow here--but its momentousness successfully prescinded their minds from the goat. The little stone bridge on which they stood crossed it. Trees, their tops below them, grew down into the gulch, their foliage partly obscuring the terrific drop. From the bottom came a faint chuckling of water.
"This ought to be about the place, if Alcapancingo's over there," Hugh said, "where Bernal Diaz and his Tlaxcalans got across to beat up Quauhnahuac. Superb name for a dance-band: Bernal Diaz and his Tlaxcalans... Or didn't you get around to Prescott at the University of Hawaii?"
"Mm hm," Yvonne said, meaning yes or no to the meaningless question, and peering down the ravine with a shudder.
"I understand it made even old Diaz's head swim."
"I shouldn't wonder."
"You can't see them, but it's chock full of defunct newspapermen, still spying through keyholes and persuading themselves they're acting in the best interests of democracy. But I'd forgotten you didn't read the papers. Eh?" Hugh laughed. "Journalism equals intellectual male prostitution of speech and writing, Yvonne. That's one point on which I'm in complete agreement with Spengler. Hullo." Hugh looked up suddenly at a sound, unpleasantly familiar, as of a thousand carpets being simultaneously beaten in the distance: the uproar, seeming to emanate from the direction of the volcanoes, which had almost imperceptibly come into view on the horizon, was followed presently by the prolonged twang-piiing of its echo.
"Target practice," Yvonne said. "They're at it again."
Parachutes of smoke were drifting over the mountains; they watched a minute in silence. Hugh sighed and started to roll a cigarette.
"I had an English friend fighting in Spain, and if he's dead I expect he's still there." Hugh licked the fold of paper, sealed it and lit it, the cigarette drawing hot and fast. "As a matter of fact he was reported dead twice but he turned up again the last two times. He was there in thirty-six. While they were waiting for Franco to attack he lay with his machine-gun in the library at University City reading De Quincey, whom he hadn't read before. I may be exaggerating about the machine-gun though: I don't think they had one between them. He was a Communist and approximately the best man I've ever met. He had a taste for Vin Rosé d'Anjou. He also had a dog named Harpo, back in London. You probably wouldn't have expected a Communist to have a dog named Harpo--or would you?"
"Or would you?"
Hugh put one foot up on the parapet and regarded his cigarette that seemed bent, like humanity, on consuming itself as quickly as possible.
"I had another friend who went to China, but didn't know what to make of that, or they didn't of him, so he went to Spain too as a volunteer. He was killed by a stray shell before seeing any action at all. Both these fellows had perfectly good lives at home. They hadn't robbed the bank." He was lamely silent.
"Of course we left Spain about a year before it started, but Geoffrey used to say there was far too much sentiment about this whole business of going to die for the Loyalists. In fact, he said he thought it would be much better if the Fascists just won and got it over with--"
"He has a new line now. He says when the Fascists win there'll only be a sort of 'freezing' of culture in Spain--by the way, is that the moon up there?--well, freezing anyway. Which will presumably thaw at some future date when it will be discovered, if you please, simply to have been in a state of suspended animation. I dare say it's true as far as that goes. Incidentally, did you know I was in Spain?"
"No," Yvonne said, startled.
"Oh yes. I fell out of an ambulance there with only two dozen beer bottles and five journalists on top of me, all heading for Paris. That wasn't so very long after I last saw you. The thing was, just as the Madrid show was really getting under way, as it turned out, it seemed all up, so the Globe told me to beat it... And like a heel I went, though they sent me back again afterwards for a time. I didn't go to China until after Brihuega."