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chapter 23
Widely spaced street lights lit the cobble stones, casting our shadows ahead and behind us as we set out in search of supper. Crickets were chirping.
"The guy must be hoarding all that grain in hopes of a famine when he can sell it at ten times the normal price," MacClayne remarked. He was referring to all those sacks of corn that were stored in the room we'd just rented.
"I couldn't picture such an event nowadays, but who knows?" I said. "It's probably what the old miser has in mind."
We ambled down the quiet street, exchanging disparaging remarks about our new landlord, and, as we did so, whatever remained of MacClayne's irritation over the alleged lack of a coastal road seemed to dissipate. Thus ended our discord for that day, thanks to the annoyance caused us by the landlord. It was the old story of internal unity restored by the presence of a common enemy. Cuauhtémoc sat on my shoulder, perhaps contemplating the ironies of human society, of which he was an honorary member.
Faint lights could be seen in a few windows, but many houses were dark. The street was empty. Few people, and no cars. Not even the sound of a distant radio. There was only the chirping of the crickets.
"Has the whole town gone to bed?" MacClayne remarked.
It was only eight o'clock, but we began to wonder if we were going to find a place to eat. What made it especially difficult was that in a town of this size, it was always a problem knowing whether a place were a restaurant or not, because there weren't any signs. You could only tell by the presence of a lighted, open doorway which you had to peer into to determine whether it was a place of business.
I asked a lone passerby, and he directed us to a restaurant on the next block. It was two houses up from the corner. An open door led through a thick adobe wall into a room lit by several small lamps, one on each table. Each lamp was a small dish of oil with a wick, simple but tasteful. The soft light added an authentic touch of old-fashioned charm to the high-ceilinged room.
This was really just a room in a family home, but it faced the street so it had been easy to turn it into a restaurant. There were four small tables, each with a plain white table cloth, a dish of unrefined salt, and of course an oil lamp. We were the only customers; as we sat down, a middle-aged lady appeared. I said we'd have each a plate of "carne de res," but she didn't have that.
"¿Carne de puerco?" I asked.
She told me what she did have. It was a food name I didn't recognize.
"Just order it," said MacClayne. "We'll find out what it is."
I did, and then complimented the lady on her tasteful use of lamps. "This is nicer than electric lights," I said.
She smiled and said, "We don't have electricity."
"No? But you have street lights."
"Our generator's very small," she said. "There's not enough power for use in private houses."
I translated that for MacClayne and added, "And there I thought that old miser lived in the dark because he was too stingy to burn some wattage."
When the food came, it was carnitas, wrapped in tiny tortillas and deep-fried, served with salad and cream. I'd eaten them at don Pablo's boarding house where they were served on special occasions and considered a treat. I guessed that in this village the customers would be locals who came for something special they didn't prepare at home.
As always, I shared bits with Cuauhtémoc. He ate carefully and drank from his water glass without splashing, as though taking special care not to soil the clean tablecloth.
A well-built fellow of about MacClayne's age entered. "Buenas noches," he said to us as he sat down at a nearby table. We returned the greeting and thus began a conversation. The man had gray hair and blue eyes; he was a cattle rancher, he told us as we exchanged introductions.
"¿Es gallo de combate?" he asked, glancing at Cuauhtémoc.
The bird flapped his wings in a cocky way, as if to reply, "¡Sí lo soy!"
"Jubilado," I said. "Pero siempre muy gallo."
The rancher chuckled, and invited us to have a beer.
MacClayne shook his head slightly and looked at me. "Tell him I don't want any," he said.
In this society it would have been offensive to turn down a drink. MacClayne was probably aware of that, but he didn't know a graceful way around it. "We'd gladly have an atole," I said. "Or a soft drink."
So he treated us to "atole de tamarindo." It was a thick, syrupy, non-alcoholic drink made of the tamarind bean. MacClayne found it overly sweet, but otherwise good.
I let Cuauhtémoc have a taste of mine, though normally I avoided giving him sweet stuff since sugar wasn't good for him.
We continued our conversation and I asked the rancher about the town. Chinicuila had been the old name for it, he told us. It was built around 1900 when gold was discovered nearby.
"Are the mines still being worked?" I asked.
"Not any more. People raise cattle now," he said. "Mostly small ranches."
"How small?" I asked.
"Two or three head, never more than thirty. I have seven."
He'd gotten his start working in the U.S. during World War II, when Mexicans had been recruited to make up for the shortage of farm hands.
After eating, we went to see the plaza. I noticed a telephone café, a shop where customers could order coffee while waiting for a phone to become free, and once again it occurred to me to try to phone Chayo. The shop was closed now, perhaps for the day, perhaps because of storm damage to the trunk lines. I could try again tomorrow, though Chayo had probably already left on her trip.
In a store lit by oil lamps, we bought candles so we could read that night.
The crickets were still chirping as we headed back to our room. I kept thinking of how strange, almost primitive, it was not to have electricity. I remembered my grandmother telling about using oil lamps years ago in Minnesota, and I mentioned that to MacClayne.
"It was the same for us," MacClayne said, "There wasn't any electricity in Dundrennan. And not in Castle Douglas either."
That would have been in the 1930's, back when MacClayne was a wee laddie. It hit me again what a new thing electricity was; it became common throughout the world within living memory.
By the time we reached the hotel, we'd decided to read aloud to each other as we'd done before.
"I don't know if you've read any of Italo Calvino," MacClayne said while I lit a candle. I let some of the wax drip onto a broken dish I'd retrieved from the courtyard for use as a holder. Cuauhtémoc watched with apparent curiosity from his perch atop a pile of corn sacks. Perhaps he'd never seen anyone light a candle before.
"Italo? Sounds familiar," I said, and posted a second candle beside the first. Together they gave sufficient light to read by and cast a gentle, flickering glow on the brown mud brick walls. Although this room could hardly be called elegant, there was a cozy feeling about it among these sacks of grain. It was a good place for telling stories, even better than a campfire because we were protected from the elements.
MacClayne dug a paperback from his bag and passed it to me. "They're short stories," he said. "I wouldn't call them great, but I like them. They're set in the postwar period."
I sensed nostalgia in his voice. For MacClayne that had been a time when he was at last free to do what he wanted, after five long years of military service. He must've been about my age then, and, like me, just starting out in life on his own.
"Which one should we read first?" I said.
"The Pastry Thieves is good. I read it a few days ago, but I wouldn't mind hearing it again."
I found a comfortable place to sit, and, as I read, MacClayne leaned back on a grain sack to listen. Cuauhtémoc settled down on his perch and closed his eyes, seeming to visualize the story.
It was about a couple of burglars who broke into a bakery on a dark night with intentions of robbing the cash box. But the shop was full of delicious pastries, and the thieves fell to gorging themselves and forgot that they were supposed to be stealing the money.
"That would be hard to imagine in today's world of super abundance," I commented after finishing. "But I guess everything was pretty scarce back then?"
"It was. The war ended, but the shortages went on for years and years."
"My aunt used to talk about what it was like in Norway."
"It was that way everywhere in Europe. In Britain too."
"Those must have been awful times," I said, "And yet, when I hear about them, they almost sound like good times."
MacClayne sighed. "They were good times."
* * *
Only at bedtime did I remember that I'd forgotten to get those second blankets. Fortunately, there was a pile of empty grain sacks which served well enough, and with some I also fashioned a warm tent-like affair for Cuauhtémoc. I went to bed and fell asleep fantasizing about Chayo.
In the morning I awoke from a dream in which Chayo was cuddled up next to me and I had my arm around her. But I opened my eyes and discovered that I was fondling a sack of grain. I looked up at the rafters of the low ceiling, then at the pile of grain sacks on the other side of me. Cuauhtémoc was already up and active, pecking at a tear in one of the sacks from which a few kernels of corn had fallen.
Slowly I remembered where I was, in a miser's storeroom. As I got to my feet I realized I was slightly chilled. I shivered and peered over the top of the sacks. Across the room MacClayne was studying a Spanish phrase book.
"Buenos días," I said.
He glanced up, then grinned. "Buenos días."
"¿Cómo te amanesiste?" I said, continuing in Spanish.
"Muy bien," he said. "¿Y tu?"
"Con frío," I replied, and rubbed my arms, as I edged my way between the sacks to the door. I opened it, letting the fresh air and morning sunlight pour in.
My gaze fell upon the dilapidated rooms across the courtyard. Daylight revealed them to be in an even greater state of disrepair than I had thought the night before. The roof was fallen in and so were the walls. The courtyard was strewn not only with rubble, but even garbage. It struck me as sad that anyone fortunate enough to own an adobe house would maintain it so poorly.
Cuauhtémoc gave a low squawk; perhaps he shared my disapproval. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he flew past me and landed on the water pila where he took a drink. I followed him, stepping over the rubble and avoiding a board with sharp nails protruding upwards. I didn't have a mirror, but I didn't need any; I splashed cold water on my face and shaved. The bird preened his feathers.
When I reentered the room, MacClayne laid his book on a grain sack. "What's in these?" he said. "Wheat? Or corn?"
"Corn," I said. "Cuauhtémoc sampled some."
MacClayne grinned. "I hope he ate fifty pesos worth."
We exchanged a few comments about our landlord and then turned to discussing our plans for the day.
"Tonight we should be on a beach. A tropical beach," I said. MacClayne's eyes sparkled.
I spread the map out on a grain sack and scaled off the remaining distance to the ocean. As the bird flies, it was only forty kilometers. I estimated that it would be two or three times that on the winding roads of these mountains, but it still couldn't be more than a day's ride.
"Our first destination is Aquila," I said, pointing to a village about halfway to the coast. "We could have our breakfast here in Villa Victoria, stop for coffee in Aquila, and eat supper in the coastal village of La Placita."
The map showed a road that would take us there, although there was no indication of any coastal route from there to Lázaro, a distance of two hundred kilometers. That had worried MacClayne the previous afternoon and led to bad feelings, but maybe he'd just been in a bad mood. This morning he was cheerful and optimistic.
He glanced at the map and nodded. "Aquila. That means 'eagle', doesn't it?" he said.
"That would be águila, spelled with a g and accented on the first syllable," I said. "Aquila might come from the verb aquilatar, which means to assay an ore body. That's my guess anyway."
"Another old mining town? A colorful name for one."
We decided to ask the landlord about the bus schedule. Our theory was that he would know about transportation since his customers were transients. We also needed oranges; we could ask him where the local market was. So we got our things together to leave town, and then went to the shop where we'd found him the previous night, which was apparently a sort of general store.
"Aquila?" the landlord looked at me blankly.
"Yes, that's the next town, I believe?"
Still that blank look.
I tried again. "We're going to the coast," I said. "To the Pacific Ocean. Is there a bus?"
A look of comprehension appeared on his face. "You have to go to Colima," he said,
"Colima?" I repeated in surprise. Colima was the next state, and it was way off to the northwest--in almost the opposite direction of where we intended to go.
He turned to a map on the wall. "Here you are now, in Villa Victoria," he began, and tried to locate it on his map. But he was looking in Veracruz which was all the way over on the other side of México, hundreds of kilometers away.
I exchanged glances with MacClayne.
"The asshole can't read his own map," MacClayne remarked.
I smiled to myself and hoped the guy didn't understand English. Not that it mattered. He continued to fumble around on his map; he was now looking in Chihuahua.
"Never mind," I said. "I know where Colima is. Can you tell us where the marketplace is?"
"Right here," he replied, and waved his hand to indicate this shop in which we were standing. "I have a market."
Cuauhtémoc rustled his feathers slightly; he was getting impatient.
"I mean the produce market," I said. "We're looking for fresh fruit."
"I have fruit."
"You do?" I hadn't even thought of such a possibility. During my months in México I'd become accustomed to going to the marketplace for fresh produce. The guy led us to another part of the house. There he had a tiny but complete mini-supermarket of canned goods, tucked away in this room behind his general store.
"Looks like a bootleg operation," quipped MacClayne.
While I glanced around, wondering where the oranges might be, the shopkeeper went to a shelf and took down a can. "Fruta," he said.
"Fruta fresca," I objected. "Queremos fruta fresca."
"Sí la tengo," the guy insisted.
"¿Dónde?"
"Aquí," he held up two more cans of tinned fruit. The paper labels displayed beautiful pictures of peaches and pears.
"¡No!" I groaned. "Fruta fresca."
"¡Fresca!" MacClayne said indignantly. "¡Queremos fruta fresca!"
Cuauhtémoc added his squawk of indignation.
"¡Sí es fruta fresca!" the guy insisted. He followed us all the way to the door, waving a can of peaches in one hand and stewed pears in the other.
"Can you believe that," I said to MacClayne as we walked down the street towards the plaza. "He didn't hear a word we said!"
"Never pass up a chance to make a sale," MacClayne shook his head. "What an asshole!"
"Brain dead!"
Nevertheless, the incident left me with a vaguely uneasy feeling that my Spanish was somehow failing to communicate.
"Technically speaking," I said after some thought, "a chilled can of stewed pears from a refrigerator could possibly be served as fruta fresca. Maybe I should have said cruda, which literally means raw."
"You made yourself clear enough back there," MacClayne said. "We both did. When a guy doesn't understand it's because he doesn't want to understand."
"You know, I feel sorry for him." I said. "He's like a walking dead man. Probably never had a life, never went in search of a fabled city. I bet all he ever did was sell cans of stewed pears."
"The world is full of them," MacClayne declared. "Their only dream is to own a car and a TV set. And if they take a vacation they spend it in a luxury hotel where they pay a hundred dollars a day and have room service."
MacClayne went on to expatiate with relish and eloquence. I smiled to myself. How dearly MacClayne loved to express righteous indignation. Were he not an atheist, he might have become a Calvinist preacher--probably an itinerant one who traveled from place to place, denouncing the sins of sinners and raising visions of hellfire. I just hoped he'd stay sober for the duration of our journey.
I began to take notice of the buildings around us. MacClayne was still into his diatribe, but I tuned myself out. This was our first look at the town in daylight; what had been shadowy silhouettes the previous evening came alive as elegant buildings from the turn of the century. Every one was of adobe. It struck me as remarkable how one town might have nothing but ugly concrete pillboxes, while another preserved the beauty and tradition of the past.
MacClayne interrupted his sermon as we paused to admire a house that was outstandingly magnificent. Brick and rocks were included in the façade. This was quite unusual in even the finest of adobe buildings. A huge, room-length window was open above the street. There was no glass; window panes of that size had perhaps not existed back when this house was built. Inside, people were eating. There was no sign, but a tall door was open.
"Could it be a restaurant?" MacClayne said.
An inquiry established that it was, and we decided to have our breakfast there. But first we'd look for the produce market, and, afterwards perhaps, I could stop by the telephone café. Above all, we needed to ask about the bus to Aquila. The landlord's notion of having to go by way of Colima could no doubt be discounted as a case of map-illiteracy.
Soon we reached the plaza, which was surrounded by a dignified arcade appropriate to the town. Every building had character, except for one--the church. It looked brand-new, and up in the bell tower we could see that the walls were thin, which indicated that it was made of concrete.
"Looks like it's made of cardboard," I said.
"Like a movie set."
"Definitely a low-budget job."
"It doesn't fit in this town."
"The brain-dead miser must have been on the building committee."
After expressing sufficient disapproval, we continued on our way. Near the church was an outdoor market where we at last found our oranges. We selected four each; that was plenty for a day's journey. As I paid the vendor I asked for the bus depot, and was directed to a store across the plaza where tickets were sold. It turned out to be the same shop where we'd bought candles the evening before.
"When does the bus leave for Aquila?" I asked the ticket clerk. She was an intelligent-looking teen-ager.
"Aquila? We don't have any buses going there."
"We're going to the ocean. What bus should we take?"
"You have to go to Colima," she said. "The bus leaves at three o'clock."
"¿De veras?" I said unbelievingly. I was sure there must be some misunderstanding. "Colima is out of our way. Isn't there a more direct route?"
The teen-ager shook her head.
As we left I started to translate for MacClayne, but he'd apparently caught the drift.
"There's no bus for Aquila?" he said.
"Apparently not. So how do you feel about hitchhiking?"
"Did she say if there's a road?"
"I didn't ask her, but our map shows one."
"We'd better make sure."
I wished I'd thought to ask, but I didn't want to go back.
The telephone café was nearby. As we walked past, I saw it was open. Several people were in line to use the phones. We could come back later. Breakfast was first on the agenda.
Around the corner we saw the post office, and stepped in to ask about the road to Aquila.
"Es camino de herradura," a mail-clerk told us.
"A horse trail?" MacClayne asked me.
I nodded, slightly impressed that he knew the word "herradura," which means iron horseshoe. Or he might simply have guessed.
The clerk added that it was not well marked, and that it was easy to get lost in the mountain wilderness.
"Then what's the best way to get to the coast?" I asked.
"Take the bus to Colima," the postal clerk said.
So the brain-dead miser had been right after all. Our hopes for a bus to Aquila were gone, and now the road itself seemed to evaporate.
"Where is Colima?" MacClayne asked me when we were back on the street, continuing on our way to the restaurant.
"It's off the map."
"How's that?" he asked.
"Our map is only of Michoacán. Colima is the next state."
The restaurant with the impressive brick-and-stone facade was only a couple blocks from the plaza. We entered through the tall door, climbed a few steps, and found ourselves in a large, high-ceilinged chamber. A single, heavy, wooden table ran almost the length of the room, as in a banquet hall. On each side was an equally long bench. That was a slight inconvenience for Cuauhtémoc, so I asked the proprietor if he might have a chair with a backrest.
He brought out a tall, ancient, straight-backed piece and placed it at the head of the table. Cuauhtémoc took up his perch. I sat on his right, looking out through the open window, and MacClayne sat across the table, on the bird's left.
Everything about this place gave a sense of size and simplicity. The table was enormous, the ceiling high, and the paneless window huge. The exceptionally thick adobe walls were covered with white plaster, adorned only by a calendar displaying the singer Jorge Negrete clad in charro. Having hung there for nearly ten months by now, it was, as one might've expected, slightly faded and dusty.
"The very unpretentiousness of this establishment adds to the atmosphere," MacClayne said approvingly.
For the time being we had the place to ourselves. Pork cutlets was the house specialty. So that's what we had, and, though it cost a few pesos more than we were used to paying, MacClayne commented favorably on the taste and remarked that it was worth the price. That had to go on record as a major compliment, because, although MacClayne could be generous with his words, he was not so free with his money.
Like most meals in México, it was served with beans, rice and tortillas. Cuauhtémoc didn't seem hungry, presumably because he'd filled up on the miser's corn back in our hotel room. He drank water; I had to hold his glass up for him because his perch on the tall chair back put him beyond reach of the table.
Four or five fellows came in for a beer, and sat down next to us at this same long table. They were carrying on an animated conversation, except for one of them who appeared to have already filled his beer quota for the day. He occasionally interrupted the conversation with out-of-sync remarks that seemed to at times amuse his companions and at other times annoy them.
MacClayne and I finished our meal and ordered coffee.
A large black tomcat with a white spot on his forehead strolled out of the kitchen and paused to admire Cuauhtémoc's warrior plumage. The bird raised his hackles and glared down at the feline, who apparently decided that the owner of those tantalizing feathers was neither prey nor plaything. With a great display of nonchalance, he resumed his march towards the window. There, he leapt onto the sill and took up his station to watch passers-by on the street below. From time to time he glanced respectfully at the bird, whose perch was higher than his own.
The sleek coat of this feline indicated that he was well fed and cared for. MacClayne observed him with some interest and said, "You can tell a lot about people just by looking at their animals."
Cuauhtémoc gave MacClayne a smug look. Perched high at the head of the table, he sat as though presiding over a banquet, master of the house.
"¿Es gallo de combate?" a fellow across the table asked me. Another wondered if I'd be entering my rooster in an upcoming cockfight tournament. I told them the bird's story, how he'd come to be my friend, and that he wasn't ever going to fight again.
"You could make money off him," the inebriated one spoke up, slurring his words. He sat at the far end of the table.
"¡Martín!" another turned to rebuke him. "Can't you see he doesn't want to? Not everybody's out to make a quick peso."
"I was only saying he could," responded Martín defensively. "I didn't say he had to."
"That's the beauty of it," said another. "He could, but he doesn't want to."
The others nodded, commented approvingly and invited us to a drink. I said we'd have atole or soda, and silently hoped that Cuauhtémoc wouldn't demand a beer. He didn't, thank goodness. He seemed quite content to be the center of conversation.
MacClayne listened for a while, but soon began writing something, perhaps a poem. The conversation continued. The one they called Martín said little, but drank much. For the most part he sat immobile, bending only his elbow and stacking up empties on the table in front of him. The rest were more reserved with their drinking. Most were still nursing their first beer as our conversation drifted from topic to topic, from ranches to corn harvests and, as would be expected, the weather--the freak storm we'd been having. They seemed to know the region well, and I was about to ask about the roads when a pile of cans clattered to the floor and everyone turned to look at Martín.
The cat on the windowsill also looked at Martín, and so did Cuauhtémoc. Neither had jumped at the noise. MacClayne glanced up and smiled sympathetically. One of the company made a remark which brought laughs, and Martín reached down to retrieve the cans and carefully set them on the table in a well-ordered row. With that he retreated back into his own private world, leaving only his warm body at the table.
I asked my question about the way to Aquila. Maybe, just maybe, there was a road. I was still hoping to hear it did exist.
"Camino de herradura," said the one across from me. He'd been that way recently, and his information confirmed the other bad reports I'd heard. There were no bridges over the numerous ravines, and no vehicle could possibly get through. "Colima," he said. "Take the bus to Colima."
"From Colima, will we find a road along the coast to Lázaro?" I asked.
None of them had been that way. One thought there was a coastal road, another said it was a horse trail. The rest expressed diverse opinions, warning me of bandits and other inconveniences when suddenly they all fell silent.
A woman was standing at the far end of the table, facing Martín. She'd apparently just now come in the door, and the fellow seemed unaware of her presence.
"¡Martín!" she snapped in a low voice seething with anger. "¿Qué haces aquí?"
The unfortunate man turned to look at the woman and stared unbelievingly, with the lost look of a sad soul who has seen an angel at the wrong hour. The woman before him was small, thin and delicate, but nevertheless formidable. It occurred to me that she could best be described as shrewish.
"¡Borracho!" she hissed.
The rest sat with their eyes glued to the table.
"¡Borracho!"
"Inez, te quiero," the poor man mumbled.
"Me quieres. ¿Y para mi, te emborrachaste?"
"Te quiero mucho," he said with tears in his voice.
"¡Borracho!" And she gave him a slap that cracked the silence of the room.
"Te quiero," he repeated pleadingly.
She slapped him again. Blood trickled from his nose; the others remained silent, watching only out of the corners of their eyes. The tomcat on the windowsill looked away in embarrassment, and even Cuauhtémoc lowered his head in humility. Never had my bird appeared less cocky.
"Maybe we should go," MacClayne said to me in a low voice.
We paid the proprietor, who was also pretending not to notice. As we left and headed down the street, I could still hear the woman's voice: "¡Borracho! ¡Borracho!" Each rebuke was followed by the sharp report of a slap.
"I never expected to see that in México," said MacClayne.
"This is México--the way it really is," I told him, "Once you get past all that machismo you'll find a land of henpecked husbands."
Then I remembered that I was going to phone Chayo.
continued in Chapter 24
"The guy must be hoarding all that grain in hopes of a famine when he can sell it at ten times the normal price," MacClayne remarked. He was referring to all those sacks of corn that were stored in the room we'd just rented.
"I couldn't picture such an event nowadays, but who knows?" I said. "It's probably what the old miser has in mind."
We ambled down the quiet street, exchanging disparaging remarks about our new landlord, and, as we did so, whatever remained of MacClayne's irritation over the alleged lack of a coastal road seemed to dissipate. Thus ended our discord for that day, thanks to the annoyance caused us by the landlord. It was the old story of internal unity restored by the presence of a common enemy. Cuauhtémoc sat on my shoulder, perhaps contemplating the ironies of human society, of which he was an honorary member.
Faint lights could be seen in a few windows, but many houses were dark. The street was empty. Few people, and no cars. Not even the sound of a distant radio. There was only the chirping of the crickets.
"Has the whole town gone to bed?" MacClayne remarked.
It was only eight o'clock, but we began to wonder if we were going to find a place to eat. What made it especially difficult was that in a town of this size, it was always a problem knowing whether a place were a restaurant or not, because there weren't any signs. You could only tell by the presence of a lighted, open doorway which you had to peer into to determine whether it was a place of business.
I asked a lone passerby, and he directed us to a restaurant on the next block. It was two houses up from the corner. An open door led through a thick adobe wall into a room lit by several small lamps, one on each table. Each lamp was a small dish of oil with a wick, simple but tasteful. The soft light added an authentic touch of old-fashioned charm to the high-ceilinged room.
This was really just a room in a family home, but it faced the street so it had been easy to turn it into a restaurant. There were four small tables, each with a plain white table cloth, a dish of unrefined salt, and of course an oil lamp. We were the only customers; as we sat down, a middle-aged lady appeared. I said we'd have each a plate of "carne de res," but she didn't have that.
"¿Carne de puerco?" I asked.
She told me what she did have. It was a food name I didn't recognize.
"Just order it," said MacClayne. "We'll find out what it is."
I did, and then complimented the lady on her tasteful use of lamps. "This is nicer than electric lights," I said.
She smiled and said, "We don't have electricity."
"No? But you have street lights."
"Our generator's very small," she said. "There's not enough power for use in private houses."
I translated that for MacClayne and added, "And there I thought that old miser lived in the dark because he was too stingy to burn some wattage."
When the food came, it was carnitas, wrapped in tiny tortillas and deep-fried, served with salad and cream. I'd eaten them at don Pablo's boarding house where they were served on special occasions and considered a treat. I guessed that in this village the customers would be locals who came for something special they didn't prepare at home.
As always, I shared bits with Cuauhtémoc. He ate carefully and drank from his water glass without splashing, as though taking special care not to soil the clean tablecloth.
A well-built fellow of about MacClayne's age entered. "Buenas noches," he said to us as he sat down at a nearby table. We returned the greeting and thus began a conversation. The man had gray hair and blue eyes; he was a cattle rancher, he told us as we exchanged introductions.
"¿Es gallo de combate?" he asked, glancing at Cuauhtémoc.
The bird flapped his wings in a cocky way, as if to reply, "¡Sí lo soy!"
"Jubilado," I said. "Pero siempre muy gallo."
The rancher chuckled, and invited us to have a beer.
MacClayne shook his head slightly and looked at me. "Tell him I don't want any," he said.
In this society it would have been offensive to turn down a drink. MacClayne was probably aware of that, but he didn't know a graceful way around it. "We'd gladly have an atole," I said. "Or a soft drink."
So he treated us to "atole de tamarindo." It was a thick, syrupy, non-alcoholic drink made of the tamarind bean. MacClayne found it overly sweet, but otherwise good.
I let Cuauhtémoc have a taste of mine, though normally I avoided giving him sweet stuff since sugar wasn't good for him.
We continued our conversation and I asked the rancher about the town. Chinicuila had been the old name for it, he told us. It was built around 1900 when gold was discovered nearby.
"Are the mines still being worked?" I asked.
"Not any more. People raise cattle now," he said. "Mostly small ranches."
"How small?" I asked.
"Two or three head, never more than thirty. I have seven."
He'd gotten his start working in the U.S. during World War II, when Mexicans had been recruited to make up for the shortage of farm hands.
After eating, we went to see the plaza. I noticed a telephone café, a shop where customers could order coffee while waiting for a phone to become free, and once again it occurred to me to try to phone Chayo. The shop was closed now, perhaps for the day, perhaps because of storm damage to the trunk lines. I could try again tomorrow, though Chayo had probably already left on her trip.
In a store lit by oil lamps, we bought candles so we could read that night.
The crickets were still chirping as we headed back to our room. I kept thinking of how strange, almost primitive, it was not to have electricity. I remembered my grandmother telling about using oil lamps years ago in Minnesota, and I mentioned that to MacClayne.
"It was the same for us," MacClayne said, "There wasn't any electricity in Dundrennan. And not in Castle Douglas either."
That would have been in the 1930's, back when MacClayne was a wee laddie. It hit me again what a new thing electricity was; it became common throughout the world within living memory.
By the time we reached the hotel, we'd decided to read aloud to each other as we'd done before.
"I don't know if you've read any of Italo Calvino," MacClayne said while I lit a candle. I let some of the wax drip onto a broken dish I'd retrieved from the courtyard for use as a holder. Cuauhtémoc watched with apparent curiosity from his perch atop a pile of corn sacks. Perhaps he'd never seen anyone light a candle before.
"Italo? Sounds familiar," I said, and posted a second candle beside the first. Together they gave sufficient light to read by and cast a gentle, flickering glow on the brown mud brick walls. Although this room could hardly be called elegant, there was a cozy feeling about it among these sacks of grain. It was a good place for telling stories, even better than a campfire because we were protected from the elements.
MacClayne dug a paperback from his bag and passed it to me. "They're short stories," he said. "I wouldn't call them great, but I like them. They're set in the postwar period."
I sensed nostalgia in his voice. For MacClayne that had been a time when he was at last free to do what he wanted, after five long years of military service. He must've been about my age then, and, like me, just starting out in life on his own.
"Which one should we read first?" I said.
"The Pastry Thieves is good. I read it a few days ago, but I wouldn't mind hearing it again."
I found a comfortable place to sit, and, as I read, MacClayne leaned back on a grain sack to listen. Cuauhtémoc settled down on his perch and closed his eyes, seeming to visualize the story.
It was about a couple of burglars who broke into a bakery on a dark night with intentions of robbing the cash box. But the shop was full of delicious pastries, and the thieves fell to gorging themselves and forgot that they were supposed to be stealing the money.
"That would be hard to imagine in today's world of super abundance," I commented after finishing. "But I guess everything was pretty scarce back then?"
"It was. The war ended, but the shortages went on for years and years."
"My aunt used to talk about what it was like in Norway."
"It was that way everywhere in Europe. In Britain too."
"Those must have been awful times," I said, "And yet, when I hear about them, they almost sound like good times."
MacClayne sighed. "They were good times."
* * *
Only at bedtime did I remember that I'd forgotten to get those second blankets. Fortunately, there was a pile of empty grain sacks which served well enough, and with some I also fashioned a warm tent-like affair for Cuauhtémoc. I went to bed and fell asleep fantasizing about Chayo.
In the morning I awoke from a dream in which Chayo was cuddled up next to me and I had my arm around her. But I opened my eyes and discovered that I was fondling a sack of grain. I looked up at the rafters of the low ceiling, then at the pile of grain sacks on the other side of me. Cuauhtémoc was already up and active, pecking at a tear in one of the sacks from which a few kernels of corn had fallen.
Slowly I remembered where I was, in a miser's storeroom. As I got to my feet I realized I was slightly chilled. I shivered and peered over the top of the sacks. Across the room MacClayne was studying a Spanish phrase book.
"Buenos días," I said.
He glanced up, then grinned. "Buenos días."
"¿Cómo te amanesiste?" I said, continuing in Spanish.
"Muy bien," he said. "¿Y tu?"
"Con frío," I replied, and rubbed my arms, as I edged my way between the sacks to the door. I opened it, letting the fresh air and morning sunlight pour in.
My gaze fell upon the dilapidated rooms across the courtyard. Daylight revealed them to be in an even greater state of disrepair than I had thought the night before. The roof was fallen in and so were the walls. The courtyard was strewn not only with rubble, but even garbage. It struck me as sad that anyone fortunate enough to own an adobe house would maintain it so poorly.
Cuauhtémoc gave a low squawk; perhaps he shared my disapproval. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he flew past me and landed on the water pila where he took a drink. I followed him, stepping over the rubble and avoiding a board with sharp nails protruding upwards. I didn't have a mirror, but I didn't need any; I splashed cold water on my face and shaved. The bird preened his feathers.
When I reentered the room, MacClayne laid his book on a grain sack. "What's in these?" he said. "Wheat? Or corn?"
"Corn," I said. "Cuauhtémoc sampled some."
MacClayne grinned. "I hope he ate fifty pesos worth."
We exchanged a few comments about our landlord and then turned to discussing our plans for the day.
"Tonight we should be on a beach. A tropical beach," I said. MacClayne's eyes sparkled.
I spread the map out on a grain sack and scaled off the remaining distance to the ocean. As the bird flies, it was only forty kilometers. I estimated that it would be two or three times that on the winding roads of these mountains, but it still couldn't be more than a day's ride.
"Our first destination is Aquila," I said, pointing to a village about halfway to the coast. "We could have our breakfast here in Villa Victoria, stop for coffee in Aquila, and eat supper in the coastal village of La Placita."
The map showed a road that would take us there, although there was no indication of any coastal route from there to Lázaro, a distance of two hundred kilometers. That had worried MacClayne the previous afternoon and led to bad feelings, but maybe he'd just been in a bad mood. This morning he was cheerful and optimistic.
He glanced at the map and nodded. "Aquila. That means 'eagle', doesn't it?" he said.
"That would be águila, spelled with a g and accented on the first syllable," I said. "Aquila might come from the verb aquilatar, which means to assay an ore body. That's my guess anyway."
"Another old mining town? A colorful name for one."
We decided to ask the landlord about the bus schedule. Our theory was that he would know about transportation since his customers were transients. We also needed oranges; we could ask him where the local market was. So we got our things together to leave town, and then went to the shop where we'd found him the previous night, which was apparently a sort of general store.
"Aquila?" the landlord looked at me blankly.
"Yes, that's the next town, I believe?"
Still that blank look.
I tried again. "We're going to the coast," I said. "To the Pacific Ocean. Is there a bus?"
A look of comprehension appeared on his face. "You have to go to Colima," he said,
"Colima?" I repeated in surprise. Colima was the next state, and it was way off to the northwest--in almost the opposite direction of where we intended to go.
He turned to a map on the wall. "Here you are now, in Villa Victoria," he began, and tried to locate it on his map. But he was looking in Veracruz which was all the way over on the other side of México, hundreds of kilometers away.
I exchanged glances with MacClayne.
"The asshole can't read his own map," MacClayne remarked.
I smiled to myself and hoped the guy didn't understand English. Not that it mattered. He continued to fumble around on his map; he was now looking in Chihuahua.
"Never mind," I said. "I know where Colima is. Can you tell us where the marketplace is?"
"Right here," he replied, and waved his hand to indicate this shop in which we were standing. "I have a market."
Cuauhtémoc rustled his feathers slightly; he was getting impatient.
"I mean the produce market," I said. "We're looking for fresh fruit."
"I have fruit."
"You do?" I hadn't even thought of such a possibility. During my months in México I'd become accustomed to going to the marketplace for fresh produce. The guy led us to another part of the house. There he had a tiny but complete mini-supermarket of canned goods, tucked away in this room behind his general store.
"Looks like a bootleg operation," quipped MacClayne.
While I glanced around, wondering where the oranges might be, the shopkeeper went to a shelf and took down a can. "Fruta," he said.
"Fruta fresca," I objected. "Queremos fruta fresca."
"Sí la tengo," the guy insisted.
"¿Dónde?"
"Aquí," he held up two more cans of tinned fruit. The paper labels displayed beautiful pictures of peaches and pears.
"¡No!" I groaned. "Fruta fresca."
"¡Fresca!" MacClayne said indignantly. "¡Queremos fruta fresca!"
Cuauhtémoc added his squawk of indignation.
"¡Sí es fruta fresca!" the guy insisted. He followed us all the way to the door, waving a can of peaches in one hand and stewed pears in the other.
"Can you believe that," I said to MacClayne as we walked down the street towards the plaza. "He didn't hear a word we said!"
"Never pass up a chance to make a sale," MacClayne shook his head. "What an asshole!"
"Brain dead!"
Nevertheless, the incident left me with a vaguely uneasy feeling that my Spanish was somehow failing to communicate.
"Technically speaking," I said after some thought, "a chilled can of stewed pears from a refrigerator could possibly be served as fruta fresca. Maybe I should have said cruda, which literally means raw."
"You made yourself clear enough back there," MacClayne said. "We both did. When a guy doesn't understand it's because he doesn't want to understand."
"You know, I feel sorry for him." I said. "He's like a walking dead man. Probably never had a life, never went in search of a fabled city. I bet all he ever did was sell cans of stewed pears."
"The world is full of them," MacClayne declared. "Their only dream is to own a car and a TV set. And if they take a vacation they spend it in a luxury hotel where they pay a hundred dollars a day and have room service."
MacClayne went on to expatiate with relish and eloquence. I smiled to myself. How dearly MacClayne loved to express righteous indignation. Were he not an atheist, he might have become a Calvinist preacher--probably an itinerant one who traveled from place to place, denouncing the sins of sinners and raising visions of hellfire. I just hoped he'd stay sober for the duration of our journey.
I began to take notice of the buildings around us. MacClayne was still into his diatribe, but I tuned myself out. This was our first look at the town in daylight; what had been shadowy silhouettes the previous evening came alive as elegant buildings from the turn of the century. Every one was of adobe. It struck me as remarkable how one town might have nothing but ugly concrete pillboxes, while another preserved the beauty and tradition of the past.
MacClayne interrupted his sermon as we paused to admire a house that was outstandingly magnificent. Brick and rocks were included in the façade. This was quite unusual in even the finest of adobe buildings. A huge, room-length window was open above the street. There was no glass; window panes of that size had perhaps not existed back when this house was built. Inside, people were eating. There was no sign, but a tall door was open.
"Could it be a restaurant?" MacClayne said.
An inquiry established that it was, and we decided to have our breakfast there. But first we'd look for the produce market, and, afterwards perhaps, I could stop by the telephone café. Above all, we needed to ask about the bus to Aquila. The landlord's notion of having to go by way of Colima could no doubt be discounted as a case of map-illiteracy.
Soon we reached the plaza, which was surrounded by a dignified arcade appropriate to the town. Every building had character, except for one--the church. It looked brand-new, and up in the bell tower we could see that the walls were thin, which indicated that it was made of concrete.
"Looks like it's made of cardboard," I said.
"Like a movie set."
"Definitely a low-budget job."
"It doesn't fit in this town."
"The brain-dead miser must have been on the building committee."
After expressing sufficient disapproval, we continued on our way. Near the church was an outdoor market where we at last found our oranges. We selected four each; that was plenty for a day's journey. As I paid the vendor I asked for the bus depot, and was directed to a store across the plaza where tickets were sold. It turned out to be the same shop where we'd bought candles the evening before.
"When does the bus leave for Aquila?" I asked the ticket clerk. She was an intelligent-looking teen-ager.
"Aquila? We don't have any buses going there."
"We're going to the ocean. What bus should we take?"
"You have to go to Colima," she said. "The bus leaves at three o'clock."
"¿De veras?" I said unbelievingly. I was sure there must be some misunderstanding. "Colima is out of our way. Isn't there a more direct route?"
The teen-ager shook her head.
As we left I started to translate for MacClayne, but he'd apparently caught the drift.
"There's no bus for Aquila?" he said.
"Apparently not. So how do you feel about hitchhiking?"
"Did she say if there's a road?"
"I didn't ask her, but our map shows one."
"We'd better make sure."
I wished I'd thought to ask, but I didn't want to go back.
The telephone café was nearby. As we walked past, I saw it was open. Several people were in line to use the phones. We could come back later. Breakfast was first on the agenda.
Around the corner we saw the post office, and stepped in to ask about the road to Aquila.
"Es camino de herradura," a mail-clerk told us.
"A horse trail?" MacClayne asked me.
I nodded, slightly impressed that he knew the word "herradura," which means iron horseshoe. Or he might simply have guessed.
The clerk added that it was not well marked, and that it was easy to get lost in the mountain wilderness.
"Then what's the best way to get to the coast?" I asked.
"Take the bus to Colima," the postal clerk said.
So the brain-dead miser had been right after all. Our hopes for a bus to Aquila were gone, and now the road itself seemed to evaporate.
"Where is Colima?" MacClayne asked me when we were back on the street, continuing on our way to the restaurant.
"It's off the map."
"How's that?" he asked.
"Our map is only of Michoacán. Colima is the next state."
The restaurant with the impressive brick-and-stone facade was only a couple blocks from the plaza. We entered through the tall door, climbed a few steps, and found ourselves in a large, high-ceilinged chamber. A single, heavy, wooden table ran almost the length of the room, as in a banquet hall. On each side was an equally long bench. That was a slight inconvenience for Cuauhtémoc, so I asked the proprietor if he might have a chair with a backrest.
He brought out a tall, ancient, straight-backed piece and placed it at the head of the table. Cuauhtémoc took up his perch. I sat on his right, looking out through the open window, and MacClayne sat across the table, on the bird's left.
Everything about this place gave a sense of size and simplicity. The table was enormous, the ceiling high, and the paneless window huge. The exceptionally thick adobe walls were covered with white plaster, adorned only by a calendar displaying the singer Jorge Negrete clad in charro. Having hung there for nearly ten months by now, it was, as one might've expected, slightly faded and dusty.
"The very unpretentiousness of this establishment adds to the atmosphere," MacClayne said approvingly.
For the time being we had the place to ourselves. Pork cutlets was the house specialty. So that's what we had, and, though it cost a few pesos more than we were used to paying, MacClayne commented favorably on the taste and remarked that it was worth the price. That had to go on record as a major compliment, because, although MacClayne could be generous with his words, he was not so free with his money.
Like most meals in México, it was served with beans, rice and tortillas. Cuauhtémoc didn't seem hungry, presumably because he'd filled up on the miser's corn back in our hotel room. He drank water; I had to hold his glass up for him because his perch on the tall chair back put him beyond reach of the table.
Four or five fellows came in for a beer, and sat down next to us at this same long table. They were carrying on an animated conversation, except for one of them who appeared to have already filled his beer quota for the day. He occasionally interrupted the conversation with out-of-sync remarks that seemed to at times amuse his companions and at other times annoy them.
MacClayne and I finished our meal and ordered coffee.
A large black tomcat with a white spot on his forehead strolled out of the kitchen and paused to admire Cuauhtémoc's warrior plumage. The bird raised his hackles and glared down at the feline, who apparently decided that the owner of those tantalizing feathers was neither prey nor plaything. With a great display of nonchalance, he resumed his march towards the window. There, he leapt onto the sill and took up his station to watch passers-by on the street below. From time to time he glanced respectfully at the bird, whose perch was higher than his own.
The sleek coat of this feline indicated that he was well fed and cared for. MacClayne observed him with some interest and said, "You can tell a lot about people just by looking at their animals."
Cuauhtémoc gave MacClayne a smug look. Perched high at the head of the table, he sat as though presiding over a banquet, master of the house.
"¿Es gallo de combate?" a fellow across the table asked me. Another wondered if I'd be entering my rooster in an upcoming cockfight tournament. I told them the bird's story, how he'd come to be my friend, and that he wasn't ever going to fight again.
"You could make money off him," the inebriated one spoke up, slurring his words. He sat at the far end of the table.
"¡Martín!" another turned to rebuke him. "Can't you see he doesn't want to? Not everybody's out to make a quick peso."
"I was only saying he could," responded Martín defensively. "I didn't say he had to."
"That's the beauty of it," said another. "He could, but he doesn't want to."
The others nodded, commented approvingly and invited us to a drink. I said we'd have atole or soda, and silently hoped that Cuauhtémoc wouldn't demand a beer. He didn't, thank goodness. He seemed quite content to be the center of conversation.
MacClayne listened for a while, but soon began writing something, perhaps a poem. The conversation continued. The one they called Martín said little, but drank much. For the most part he sat immobile, bending only his elbow and stacking up empties on the table in front of him. The rest were more reserved with their drinking. Most were still nursing their first beer as our conversation drifted from topic to topic, from ranches to corn harvests and, as would be expected, the weather--the freak storm we'd been having. They seemed to know the region well, and I was about to ask about the roads when a pile of cans clattered to the floor and everyone turned to look at Martín.
The cat on the windowsill also looked at Martín, and so did Cuauhtémoc. Neither had jumped at the noise. MacClayne glanced up and smiled sympathetically. One of the company made a remark which brought laughs, and Martín reached down to retrieve the cans and carefully set them on the table in a well-ordered row. With that he retreated back into his own private world, leaving only his warm body at the table.
I asked my question about the way to Aquila. Maybe, just maybe, there was a road. I was still hoping to hear it did exist.
"Camino de herradura," said the one across from me. He'd been that way recently, and his information confirmed the other bad reports I'd heard. There were no bridges over the numerous ravines, and no vehicle could possibly get through. "Colima," he said. "Take the bus to Colima."
"From Colima, will we find a road along the coast to Lázaro?" I asked.
None of them had been that way. One thought there was a coastal road, another said it was a horse trail. The rest expressed diverse opinions, warning me of bandits and other inconveniences when suddenly they all fell silent.
A woman was standing at the far end of the table, facing Martín. She'd apparently just now come in the door, and the fellow seemed unaware of her presence.
"¡Martín!" she snapped in a low voice seething with anger. "¿Qué haces aquí?"
The unfortunate man turned to look at the woman and stared unbelievingly, with the lost look of a sad soul who has seen an angel at the wrong hour. The woman before him was small, thin and delicate, but nevertheless formidable. It occurred to me that she could best be described as shrewish.
"¡Borracho!" she hissed.
The rest sat with their eyes glued to the table.
"¡Borracho!"
"Inez, te quiero," the poor man mumbled.
"Me quieres. ¿Y para mi, te emborrachaste?"
"Te quiero mucho," he said with tears in his voice.
"¡Borracho!" And she gave him a slap that cracked the silence of the room.
"Te quiero," he repeated pleadingly.
She slapped him again. Blood trickled from his nose; the others remained silent, watching only out of the corners of their eyes. The tomcat on the windowsill looked away in embarrassment, and even Cuauhtémoc lowered his head in humility. Never had my bird appeared less cocky.
"Maybe we should go," MacClayne said to me in a low voice.
We paid the proprietor, who was also pretending not to notice. As we left and headed down the street, I could still hear the woman's voice: "¡Borracho! ¡Borracho!" Each rebuke was followed by the sharp report of a slap.
"I never expected to see that in México," said MacClayne.
"This is México--the way it really is," I told him, "Once you get past all that machismo you'll find a land of henpecked husbands."
Then I remembered that I was going to phone Chayo.
continued in Chapter 24
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