in which the figures at the bar--that he now saw
included besides the little children and the peasants who were quince or cactus
farmers in loose white clothes and wide hats, several women in mourning from
the cemeteries and dark-faced men in dark suits with open collars and their
ties undone--appeared, for an instant, frozen, a mural: they had all stopped
talking and were gazing round at him curiously^ all save the barman who seemed
momentarily about to object, then lost interest as M. Laruelle set the writhing
mass in an ashtray, where beautifully conforming it folded upon itself, a
burning castle, collapsed, subsided to a ticking hive through which sparks like
tiny red worms crawled and flew, while above a few grey wisps of ashes floated
in the thin smoke, a dead husk now, faintly crepitant... Suddenly from outside,
a bell spoke out, then ceased abruptly: dolente... dolore! Over the town,
in the dark tempestuous night, backwards revolved the luminous wheel.
2
... "A corpse will be transported by express!"
The tireless resilient voice that had
just lobbed this singular remark over the Bella Vista bar window-sill into the
square was, though its owner remained unseen, unmistakable and achingly
familiar as the spacious flower-boxed balconied hotel itself, and as unreal,
Yvonne thought.
"But why, Fernando, why should a
corpse be transported by express, do you suppose?"
The Mexican taxi-driver, familiar
too, who'd just picked up her bags--there'd been no taxi at the tiny Quauhnahuac
airfield though, only the bumptious station wagon that insisted on taking her
to the Bella Vista--put them down again on the pavement as to assure her: I
know why you're here, but no one's recognized you except me, and I won't give
you away. "Sí señora," he chuckled. "Señora--El Cónsul."
Sighing, he inclined his head with a certain admiration towards the bar window.
"¡Qué hombre!"
"--on the other hand, damn it,
Fernando, why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't a corpse be transported by
express?"
" Absolutamente necesario"
" --Just a bunch of Alladamnbama
farmers! "
The last was yet another voice. So
the bar, open all night for the occasion, was evidently full. Ashamed, numb
with nostalgia and anxiety, reluctant to enter the crowded bar, though equally
reluctant to have the taxi-driver go in for her, Yvonne, her consciousness so
lashed by wind and air and voyage she still seemed to be travelling, still
sailing into Acapulco harbour yesterday evening through a hurricane of immense
and gorgeous butterflies swooping seaward to greet the Pennsylvania--at first
it was as though fountains of multicoloured stationery were being swept out of
the saloon lounge--glanced defensively round the square, really tranquil in the
midst of this commotion, of the butterflies still zigzagging overhead or past
the heavy open ports, endlessly vanishing astern, their square, motionless and
brilliant in the seven o'clock morning sunlight, silent yet somehow poised,
expectant, with one eye half open already, the merry-go-rounds, the Ferris
wheel, lightly dreaming, looking forward to the fiesta later--the ranged rugged
taxis too that were looking forward to something else, a taxi strike that
afternoon, she'd been confidentially informed. The zócalo was just the same in
spite of its air of slumbering Harlequin. The old bandstand stood empty, the
equestrian statue of the turbulent Huerta rode under the nutant trees wild-eyed
evermore, gazing over the valley beyond which, as if nothing had happened and
it was November 1936 and not November 1938, rose, eternally, her volcanoes, her
beautiful, beautiful volcanoes. Ah, how familiar it all was: Quauhnahuac, her
town of cold mountain water swiftly running. Where the eagle stops! Or did it
really mean, as Louis said, near the wood? The trees, the massive shining
depths of these ancient fresno trees, how had she ever lived without them? She
drew a deep breath, the air had yet a hint
included besides the little children and the peasants who were quince or cactus
farmers in loose white clothes and wide hats, several women in mourning from
the cemeteries and dark-faced men in dark suits with open collars and their
ties undone--appeared, for an instant, frozen, a mural: they had all stopped
talking and were gazing round at him curiously^ all save the barman who seemed
momentarily about to object, then lost interest as M. Laruelle set the writhing
mass in an ashtray, where beautifully conforming it folded upon itself, a
burning castle, collapsed, subsided to a ticking hive through which sparks like
tiny red worms crawled and flew, while above a few grey wisps of ashes floated
in the thin smoke, a dead husk now, faintly crepitant... Suddenly from outside,
a bell spoke out, then ceased abruptly: dolente... dolore! Over the town,
in the dark tempestuous night, backwards revolved the luminous wheel.
2
... "A corpse will be transported by express!"
The tireless resilient voice that had
just lobbed this singular remark over the Bella Vista bar window-sill into the
square was, though its owner remained unseen, unmistakable and achingly
familiar as the spacious flower-boxed balconied hotel itself, and as unreal,
Yvonne thought.
"But why, Fernando, why should a
corpse be transported by express, do you suppose?"
The Mexican taxi-driver, familiar
too, who'd just picked up her bags--there'd been no taxi at the tiny Quauhnahuac
airfield though, only the bumptious station wagon that insisted on taking her
to the Bella Vista--put them down again on the pavement as to assure her: I
know why you're here, but no one's recognized you except me, and I won't give
you away. "Sí señora," he chuckled. "Señora--El Cónsul."
Sighing, he inclined his head with a certain admiration towards the bar window.
"¡Qué hombre!"
"--on the other hand, damn it,
Fernando, why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't a corpse be transported by
express?"
" Absolutamente necesario"
" --Just a bunch of Alladamnbama
farmers! "
The last was yet another voice. So
the bar, open all night for the occasion, was evidently full. Ashamed, numb
with nostalgia and anxiety, reluctant to enter the crowded bar, though equally
reluctant to have the taxi-driver go in for her, Yvonne, her consciousness so
lashed by wind and air and voyage she still seemed to be travelling, still
sailing into Acapulco harbour yesterday evening through a hurricane of immense
and gorgeous butterflies swooping seaward to greet the Pennsylvania--at first
it was as though fountains of multicoloured stationery were being swept out of
the saloon lounge--glanced defensively round the square, really tranquil in the
midst of this commotion, of the butterflies still zigzagging overhead or past
the heavy open ports, endlessly vanishing astern, their square, motionless and
brilliant in the seven o'clock morning sunlight, silent yet somehow poised,
expectant, with one eye half open already, the merry-go-rounds, the Ferris
wheel, lightly dreaming, looking forward to the fiesta later--the ranged rugged
taxis too that were looking forward to something else, a taxi strike that
afternoon, she'd been confidentially informed. The zócalo was just the same in
spite of its air of slumbering Harlequin. The old bandstand stood empty, the
equestrian statue of the turbulent Huerta rode under the nutant trees wild-eyed
evermore, gazing over the valley beyond which, as if nothing had happened and
it was November 1936 and not November 1938, rose, eternally, her volcanoes, her
beautiful, beautiful volcanoes. Ah, how familiar it all was: Quauhnahuac, her
town of cold mountain water swiftly running. Where the eagle stops! Or did it
really mean, as Louis said, near the wood? The trees, the massive shining
depths of these ancient fresno trees, how had she ever lived without them? She
drew a deep breath, the air had yet a hint
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