Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [189]
"No."
--"Geoffrey, why don't you answer me? I can only believe that my letters have not reached you. I have put aside all my pride to beg your forgiveness, to offer you mine. I cannot, I will not believe that you have ceased to love me, have forgotten me. Or can it be that you have some misguided idea that I am better off without you, that you are sacrificing yourself that I may find happiness with someone else? Darling, sweetheart, don't you realize that is impossible? We can give each other so much more than most people can, we can marry again, we can build forward..."
--"You are my friend for all tine. Me pay for you and for me and for this man. This man is friend for me and for this man," and the pimp slapped the Consul, at this moment taking a long drink, calamitously on the back. "Want he?"
--"And if you no longer love me and do not wish me to come back to you, will you not write and tell me so? It is the silence that is killing me, the suspense that reaches out of that silence and possesses my strength and my spirit. Write and tell me that your life is the one you want, that you are gay, or are wretched, or are content or restless. If you have lost the feel of me write of the weather, or the people we know, the streets you walk in, the altitude.--Where are you, Geoffrey? I do not know where you are. Oh, it is all too cruel. Where did we go, I wonder? In what far place do we still walk, hand in hand?"--
The voice of the stool pigeon now became clear, rising above the clamour--the Babel, he thought, the confusion of tongues, remembering again as he distinguished the sailor's remote, returning voice, the trip to Cholula: "You telling me or am I telling you? Japan no good for U.S., for America...No bueno. Mehican, diez y ocho. All tine Mehican gone in war for U.S.A. Sure, sure, yes... Give me cigarette for me. Give me match for my. My Mehican war gone for England all tine--"
--"Where are you, Geoffrey? If I only knew where you were, if I only knew that you wanted me, you know I would have long since been with you. For my life is irrevocably and forever bound to yours. Never think that by releasing me you will be free. You would only condemn us to an ultimate hell on earth. You would only free something else to destroy us both. I am frightened, Geoffrey. Why do you not tell me what has happened? What do you need? And my God, what do you wait for? What release can be compared to the release of love? My thighs ache to embrace you. The emptiness of my body is the famished need of you. My tongue is dry in my mouth for the want of our speech. If you let anything happen to yourself you will be harming my flesh and mind. I am in your hands now. Save--"
"Mexican works, England works, Mexican works, sure, French works. Why speak English? Mine Mexican. Mexican United States he sees Negros--de comprende--Detroit, Houston, Dallas..."
"¿Quiere usted la salvación de México? ¿Quiere usted que Cristo sea nuestro Rey?"
"No."
The Consul looked up, pocketing his letters. Someone near him was playing a fiddle loudly. A patriarchal toothless old Mexican with a thin wiry beard, encouraged ironically from behind by the Chief of Municipality, was sawing away almost in his ear at the Star Spangled Banner. But he was also saying something to him privately. ¿Americano? This bad place for you. Deese hombres malos, Cacos. Bad people here. Brutos. No bueno for anyone. Comprendo. I am a potter," he pursued urgently, his face close to the Consul's. "I take you to my home. I ah wait outside." The old man, still playing wildly though rather out of tune, had gone, way was being made for him through the crowd, but his place, somehow between the Consul and the pimp, had been taken by an old woman who, though respectably enough dressed with a fine rebozo thrown over her shoulders, was behaving