Read Online A Visit to Don Otavio by Sybille Bedford - Free Book Online Page B

good. The tourists are so helpless.’
    â€˜Be charitable,’ I said, ‘call us travellers.’
    â€˜But you have not come to live?’
    â€˜I think I can bear it for six weeks,’ said E.
    â€˜About a year,’ said I.
    We exchanged a look.
    â€˜And where do you go?’ said our host.
    â€˜You must go to the Colonial towns,’ said his wife.
    â€˜Don’t miss Puebla,’ said their daughter.
    â€˜They can go to Puebla on their way to Oaxaca.’
    â€˜I should like to get out into the country,’ said I, ‘and stay somewhere for a few months; get my bearings, learn Spanish properly and then start travelling. Somewhere near water if possible.’
    â€˜You can’t go to the seaside before December,’ said our host. ‘Too hot.’
    â€˜They could go to the lakes.’
    â€˜They’re far.’
    â€˜They could get there.’
    â€˜I’ve been told of Lake Pazcuaro,’ said I.
    â€˜Very lonely.’
    We had settled meanwhile to a solid tea around a polished table. ‘You see,’ said Señora C. with melancholy as I declined a second helping of the third cake, ‘this is our last meal. One cannot eat at night in this altitude; not after some time that is. We had to give up dinner.’
    And I realised that these people were in exile.
    â€˜The children don’t feel it so much. My husband and I just have a snack before we go to bed, an omelet, a little beef-steak, a cup of chocolate.’
    We remarked on the loveliness of the house.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Señor C. ‘My wife seldom leaves it. She does not like Mexico City.’
    It was a European tea party. Czechs and Germans besides our Spanish hosts, a Frenchman. Middle-aged, mildly learned people, mellowed in disillusionment, who had given their political youth toanti-fascism. There were no Anglo-Saxons, and there were no Mexicans. The conversation was general, the topic for our benefit Mexico.
    â€˜You have no car, no? The roads, when there are roads, are good. It’s sometimes hard to get petrol.’
    â€˜Here?’
    â€˜Oh, that oil business was much exaggerated. There never was that much to begin with. Then there were seepages and now there’s sea water in the wells. Nor has nationalisation worked out, whatever one may have hoped. Nor kicking out the foreign engineers. And that’s not the whole of it. Of course there is plenty of oil for home consumption and to spare, only distribution happens to be one of the biggest rackets in the country. It’s quite an elaborate graft, and sometimes there is a row and then there just is no petrol for weeks.
    â€˜Glad to hear you don’t want to go by air. Oh, it’s safe enough. The pilots are good; better than the planes. When President Truman came in ’47, a Mexican pilot took over to fly him over the Sierra Madre. But it is a stupid way of travelling. Don’t take a train if you can help it. Whenever there’s a road, go by bus. They’re slow. But you’ll stop at places you’d never get to see otherwise. One thing about this country, don’t be in a hurry, don’t
think
about time, take things as they come when they come, and
always go first class
.’
    â€˜Do the buses have classes?’
    â€˜No. There are first-class buses and second-class buses.’
    â€˜What’s the difference?’
    â€˜All the difference. More people, less seats, more stops, larger animals. You just don’t go second-class bus.’
    â€˜Are there any third-class buses?’
    â€˜There
are
.’ They looked at each other. ‘You won’t come across them.’
    â€˜â€¦ Hotels: as a rule always go to the second best hotel in the provinces. It’ll be Mexican run, and you’ll get better value, better manners, more to eat. Don’t go to the new places, half the time they forget to put in something like the doors. Don’t
ever
expect to