Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [156]
"--might have run over you, there must be something wrong, what? No, going to--"
"Guanajuato--the streets--how can you resist the names of the streets--the Street of Kisses--"
MATLALCUEYATL
This mountain are still the ruins of the shrine dedicated to the God of Waters, Tlaloc, which vestiges are almost lost, therefore, are no longer visited by tourists, and it is referred that on this place, young Xicohtencatl harangued his soldiers, telling them to fight the conquerors to the limit, dying if necessary.
.".. no pasaron."
"Madrid."
"They plugged 'em too. They shoot first and ask questions later."
"I can see you."
"I'm watching you."
"You can't escape me."
"Guzmán... Erikson 43."
"A corpse will be transported by--"
RAILROAD AND BUS SERVICE
(MEXICO-TLAXCALA)
Lines Mexico Tlaxcala Rates
Mexico-Vera Cruz Railroad Lv 7.30 Ar 18.50 Ar 12.00 $7.50
Mexico-Puebla Railroad Lv 16.05 Ar 11.05 Ar 20-00 $7.75
Transfer in Santa Ana Chiautempan in both ways.
Buses Flecha Roja. Leaving every hour from 5 to 19 hours.
Pullmans Estrella de Oro leaving every hour from 7 to 22.
Transfer in San Martin Texmelucan in both ways.
... And now, once more, their eyes met across the table. But this time there was, as it were, a mist between them, and through the mist the Consul seemed to see not Granada but Tlaxcala. It was a white beautiful cathedral city toward which the Consul's soul yearned and which indeed in many respects was like Granada; only it appeared to him, just as in the photographs in the folder, perfectly empty. That was the queerest thing about it, and at the same time the most beautiful; there was nobody there, no one--and in this it also somewhat resembled Tortu--to interfere with the business of drinking, not even Yvonne, who, so far as she was in evidence at all, was drinking with him.
The white sanctuary of the church in Ocotlán, of an overloaded style, rose up before them: white towers with a white clock and no one there. While the clock itself was timeless. They walked, carrying white bottles, twirling walk canes and ash plants, in the neat fine better climate, the purer air, among the corpulent ash-trees, the stricken in years trees, through the deserted park. They walked, happy as toads in a thunderstorm, arm-in-arm down the four clean and well-arranged lateral avenues. They stood, drunk as larks, in the deserted convent of San Francisco before the empty chapel where was preached, for the first time in the New World, the Gospel. At night they slept in cold white sheets among the white bottles at the Hotel Tlaxcala. And in the town too were innumerable white cantinas, where one could drink for ever on credit, with the door open and the wind blowing. "We could go straight there," he was saying, "straight to Tlaxcala. Or we could all spend the night in Santa Ana Chiautempan, transferring in both ways of course, and go to Vera Cruz in the morning. Of course that means going--" he looked at his watch "--straight back now... We could catch the next bus... Well have time for a few drinks," he added consularly.
The mist had cleared, but Yvonne's eyes were full of tears, and she was pale.
Something was wrong, was very wrong. For one thing both Hugh and Yvonne seemed quite surprisingly tight.
"What's that, don't you want to go back now, to Tlaxcala?" said the Consul, perhaps too thickly.
"That's not it, Geoffrey."
Fortunately, Cervantes arrived at this moment with a saucer full of live shellfish and toothpicks. The Consul drank some beer that had been waiting for him. The drink situation was now this, was this: there had been one drink waiting for him and this drink of beer he had not yet quite drunk. On the other hand there had been until recently several drinks of mescal (why not?--the word did not intimidate him, eh?) waiting for him outside in a lemonade bottle and all these he both had and had not drunk: had drunk in fact, had not drunk so far as the others were concerned. And before that there had been two mescals that he both should and should not have drunk. Did they