Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [42]
"Are you comfortable there?"
"Fine, thanks." Yvonne accepted the tray smiling. The magazine was the amateur astronomy one she subscribed to and from the cover the huge domes of an observatory, haloed in gold and standing out in black silhouette like roman helmets, regarded the Consul waggishly. ""The Mayas'," he read aloud, "'were far advanced in observational astronomy. But they did not suspect a Copernican system.'" He threw the magazine back on the bed and sat easily in his chair, crossing his legs, the tips of his fingers meeting in a strange calm, his strychnine on the floor beside him. "Why should they?... What I like though are the 'vague' years of the old Mayans. And their 'pseudo years,' mustn't overlook them! And their delicious names for the months. Pop. Uo. Zip. Zotz. Tzec. Xul. Yaxkin."
"Mac," Yvonne was laughing. "Isn't there one called Mac?"
"There's Yax and Zac. And Uayeb: I like that one most of all, the month that only lasts five days."
"In receipt of yours dated Zip the first I--"
"But where does it all get you in the end?" The Consul sipped his strychnine that had yet to prove its adequacy as a chaser to the Burke's Irish (now perhaps in the garage at the Bella Vista). "The knowledge, I mean. One of the first penances I ever imposed on myself was to learn the philosophical section of War and Peace by heart. That was of course before I could dodge about in the rigging of the Cabbala like a St Jago's monkey. But then the other day I realized that the only thing I remembered about the whole book was that Napoleon's leg twitched--"
"Aren't you going to eat anything yourself? You must be starved."
"I partook."
Yvonne who was herself breakfasting heartily asked:
"How's the market?"
"Tom's a bit fed up because they've confiscated some property of his in Tlaxcala, or Puebla, he thought he'd got away with. They haven't my number yet, I'm not sure where I really do stand in that regard, now I've resigned the service--"
"So you--"
"By the by I must apologize for still being in these duds--dusty too--bad show, I might have put on a blazer at least for your benefit!" The Consul smiled inwardly at his accent, now become for undivulgeable reasons almost uncontrolledly "English."
"So you really have resigned!"
"Oh absolutely! I'm thinking of becoming a Mexican subject, of going to live among the Indians, like William Blackstone. But for one's habit of making money, don't you know, all very mysterious to you, I suppose, outside looking in--" The Consul stared round mildly at the pictures on the wall, mostly water-colours by his mother depicting scenes in Kashmir: a small grey stone enclosure encompassing several birch trees and a taller poplar was Lalla Rookh's tomb, a picture of wild torrential scenery, vaguely Scottish, the gorge, the ravine at Gugganvir; the Shalimar looked more like the Cam than ever: a distant view of Nanga Parbat from Sind valley could have been painted on the porch here, Nanga Parbat might well have passed for old Popo..."--outside looking in," he repeated, "the result of so much worry, speculation, foresight, alimony, seigniorage--"
"But--" Yvonne had laid aside her breakfast tray and taken a cigarette from her own case beside the bed and lit it before the Consul could help her.
"One might have already done so!"
Yvonne lay back in bed smoking... In the end the Consul scarcely heard what she was saying--calmly, sensibly, courageously--for his awareness of an extraordinary thing that was happening in his mind. He saw in a flash, as if these were ships on the horizon, under a black lateral abstract sky, the occasion for desperate celebration (it didn't matter he might be the only one to celebrate it) receding, while at the same time, coming closer, what could only be, what was--Good God!--his salvation...
" Now? " he found he had said gently. "But we can't very well go away now can we, what with Hugh and you and me and one thing and another,