Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [51]
"Blimey," Hugh said.
"And the lighting is always failing."
"I think I've seen the Peter Lorre movie somewhere. He's a great actor but it's a lousy picture. Your horse doesn't want to drink, Yvonne. It's all about a pianist who has a sense of guilt because he thinks his hands are a murderer's or something and keeps washing the blood off them. Perhaps they really are a murderer's, but I forget."
"It sounds creepy."
"I know, but it isn't."
On the other side of the river their horses did want to drink and they paused to let them. Then they rode up the bank into the lane. This time the hedges were taller and thicker and twined with convolvulus. For that matter they might have been in England, exploring some little-known bypath of Devon or Cheshire. There was little to contradict the impression save an occasional huddled conclave of vultures up a tree. After climbing steeply through woodland the lane levelled off. Presently they reached more open country and fell into a canter.--Christ, how marvellous this was, or rather Christ, how he wanted to be deceived about it, as must have Judas, he thought--and here it was again, damn it--if ever Judas had a horse, or borrowed, stole one more likely, after that Madrugada of all Madrugadas, regretting then that he had given the thirty pieces of silver back--what is that to us, see thou to that, the bastardos had said--when now he probably wanted a drink, thirty drinks (like Geoff undoubtedly would this morning), and perhaps even so he had managed a few on credit, smelling the good smells of leather and sweat, listening to the pleasant clopping of the horses' hooves and thinking, how joyous all this could be, riding on like this under the dazzling sky of Jerusalem--and forgetting for an instant, so that it really was joyous--how splendid it all might be had I only not betrayed that man last night, even though I know perfectly well I was going to, how good indeed, if only it had not happened though, if only it were not so absolutely necessary to go out and hang oneself--
And here indeed it was again, the temptation, the cowardly, the future-corruptive serpent: trample on it, stupid fool. Be Mexico. Have you not passed through the river? In the name of God be dead. And Hugh actually did ride over a dead garter snake, embossed on the path like a belt to a pair of bathing trunks. Or perhaps it was a Gila monster.
They had emerged on the outermost edge of what looked like a spacious, somewhat neglected park, spreading down on their right, or what had once been a huge grove, planted with lofty majestic trees. They reined in and Hugh, behind, rode slowly by himself for a while... The foals separated him from Yvonne, who was staring blankly ahead as if insensible to their surroundings. The grove seemed to be irrigated by artificially banked streams, which were choked with leaves--though by no means all the trees were deciduous and underneath were frequent dark pools of shadow--and was lined with walks. Their lane had in fact become one of these walks. A noise of shunting sounded on the left; the station couldn't be far off; probably it was hidden behind that hillock over which hung a plume of white steam. But a railway track, raised above scrub-land, gleamed through the trees to their right; the line apparently made a wide detour round the whole place. They rode past a dried-up fountain below some broken steps, its basin filled with twigs and leaves. Hugh sniffed: a strong raw smell, he couldn't identify at first, pervaded the air. They were entering the vague precincts of what might have been a French chateau. The building, half hidden by trees, lay in a sort of courtyard at the end of the grove, which was closed by a row of cypresses growing behind a high wall, in which a massive gate, straight ahead of them, stood open. Dust was blowing across the gap. Cervecería Quauhnahuac: Hugh now saw written in white letters on the side of the chateau. He halloed and waved at Yvonne to halt. So the chateau was a brewery, but of a very odd type--one that hadn't quite made up its mind not to be an open-air restaurant and beer garden. Outside in the courtyard two or three round tables (more likely to provide against the occasional visits of semi-official "tasters"), blackened and leaf covered, were set beneath immense trees not quite familiar enough for oaks, not quite strangely tropical either, which were perhaps not really very old, but possessed an indefinable air of being immemorial, of having been planted centuries ago by some emperor, at least, with a golden trowel. Under these trees, where their cavalcade stopped, a little girl was playing with an armadillo.