Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [68]
But the doctor could not of course come to Tomalín with them, though this was never discussed, since just then the conversation was violently interrupted by a sudden terrific detonation, that shook the house and sent birds skimming panic-stricken all over the garden. Target practice in the Sierra Madre. The Consul had been half aware of it in his sleep earlier. Puffs of smoke were drifting high over the rocks below Popo at the end of the valley. Three black vultures came tearing through the trees low over the roof with soft hoarse cries like the cries of love. Driven at unaccustomed speed by their fear they seemed almost to capsize, keeping close together but balancing at different angles to avoid collision. Then they sought another tree to wait in and the echoes of gunfire swept back over the house, soaring higher and higher and growing fainter while somewhere a clock was striking nineteen. Twelve o'clock, and the Consul said to the doctor: "Ah, that the dream of the dark magician in his visioned cave, even while his hand--that's the bit I like--shakes in its last decay, were the true end of this so lovely world. Jesus. Do you know, compañero, I sometimes have the feeling that it's actually sinking, like Atlantis, beneath my feet. Down, down to the frightful 'poulps.' Meropis of Theopompus... And the ignívoma mountains." And the doctor who was nodding gloomily said: "Sí, that is tequila. Hombre, un poco de cerveza, un poco de vino, but never no more tequila. Never no more mescal." And then the doctor was whispering: "But hombre, now that your esposa has come back." (It seemed that Dr. Vigil had said this several times, only with a different look on his face: "But hombre, now that your esposa has come back.") And then he was going: "I did not need to be inquisitive to be knowing you might have wished my advice. No hombre, as I say last night, I am not so interested in moneys.--Con permiso, the plaster he no good." A little shower of plaster had, indeed, rained down on the doctor's head. Then: "Hasta la vista" "Adiós" "Muchas gracias" "Thank you so much" "Sorry we couldn't come" "Have a good time," from the swimming-pool. "Hasta la vista" again, then silence.
And now the Consul was in the bathroom getting ready to go to Tomalín. "Oh..." he said, "Oh..." But, you see, nothing so dire has happened after all. First to wash. Sweating and trembling again, he took off his coat and shirt. He had turned on the water in the basin. Yet for some obscure reason he was standing under the shower, waiting in an agony for the shock of cold water that never came. And he was still wearing his trousers.
The Consul sat helplessly in the bathroom, watching the insects which lay at different angles from one another on the wall, like ships out in the roadstead. A caterpillar started to wriggle toward him, peering this way and that, with interrogatory antennae. A large cricket, with polished fuselage, clung to the curtain, swaying it slightly and cleaning its face like a cat, its eyes on stalks appearing to revolve in its head. He turned, expecting the caterpillar to be much nearer, but it too had turned, just slightly shifting its moorings. Now a scorpion was moving slowly across towards him. Suddenly the Consul rose, trembling in every limb. But it wasn't the scorpion he cared about. It was that, all at once, the thin shadows of isolated nails, the stains of murdered mosquitoes, the very scars and cracks of the wall, had begun to swarm, so that, wherever he looked, another insect was born, wriggling instantly toward his heart. It was as if, and, this was what was most appalling, the whole insect world had somehow moved nearer and now was closing, rushing in upon him. For a moment the bottle of tequila at the bottom of the garden gleamed on his soul, then the Consul stumbled into his bedroom.