Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [191]
"No. Blackstone," the Consul said.
"¿Como se llama? Your name is Firmin. It say there: Firmin. It say you are Juden."
"I don't give a damn what it says anywhere. My name's Blackstone, and I'm not a journalist. True, vero, I'm a writer, an escritor, only on economic matters," the Consul wound up.
"Where your papers? What for you have no papers?" The Chief of Rostrums asked, pocketing Hugh's cable. "Where your pasaporte? What need for you to make disguise?"
The Consul removed his dark glasses. Mutely to him, between sardonic thumb and forefinger, the Chief of Gardens held out the card: Federación Anarquista Ibérica, it said. Sr Hugo Firmin.
"No comprendo," the Consul took the card and turned it over. "Blackstone's my name. I am a writer, not an anarchist."
"Writer? You antichrista. Sí, you antichrista prik." The Chief of Rostrums snatched back the card and pocketed it. "And Juden," he added. He slipped the elastic from Yvonne's letters and, moistening his thumb, ran through them, glancing sideways once more at the envelopes. "Chingar. What for you tell lies?" he said almost sorrowfully. "Cabrón. What for you lie? It say here too: your name is Firmin." It struck the Consul that the legionnaire Weber, who was still in the bar, though at a distance, was staring at him with a remote speculation, but he looked away again. The Chief of Municipality regarded the Consul's watch, which he held in the palm of one mutilated hand, while he scratched himself between the thighs with the other, fiercely. "Here, oiga." The Chief of Rostrums withdrew a ten-peso note from the Consul's case, crackled it, and threw it on the counter. "Chingao." Winking at Diosdado he replaced the case in his own pocket with the Consul's other things. Then Sanabria spoke for the first time to him.
"I am afraid you must come to prison," he said simply in English. He went back to the phone.
The Chief of Municipality rolled his hips and gripped the Consul's arm. The Consul shouted at Diosdado in Spanish, shaking himself loose. He managed to reach his hand over the bar but Diosdado struck it away. A Few Fleas began to yap. A sudden noise from the corner startled everyone. Yvonne and Hugh perhaps, at last. He turned round quickly, still free of the Chief: it was only the uncontrollable face on the bar-room floor, the rabbit, having a nervous convulsion, trembling all over, wrinkling its nose and scuffing disapprovingly. The Consul caught sight of the old woman with the rebozo: loyally, she hadn't gone. She was shaking her head at him, frowning sadly, and he now realized she was the same old woman who'd had the dominoes.
"What for you lie?" the Chief of Rostrums repeated in a glowering voice. "You say your name is Black. No es Black." He shoved him backwards toward the door. "You say you are a writer." He shoved him again. "You no are writer." He pushed the Consul more violently, but the Consul stood his ground. "You are no a de writer, you are de espider, and we shoota de espiders in Mejico." Some military policemen watched with concern. The newcomers were breaking up. Two pariah dogs ran around in the bar. A woman clutched her baby to her, terrified. "You no writer." The Chief caught him by the throat. "You Al Capón. You a Jew chingao." The Consul shook himself free again. "You are a spider."
Abruptly the radio, which, as Sanabria finished with the phone again, Diosdado had turned full blast, shouted in Spanish the Consul translated to himself in a flash, shouted like orders yelled in a gale of wind, the only orders that will save the ship: "Incalculable are the benefits civilization has brought us, incommensurable the productive power of all classes of riches originated by the inventions and discoveries of science. Inconceivable the marvellous creations of the human sex in order to make men more happy, more free, and more perfect. Without parallel the crystalline and fecund fountains of the new