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Chapter 45
The rain was pouring down again as I went to sleep that night, and in a dream I found myself in a restaurant where the rain was splashing on a window beside me. It was pitch black outside, and it was pretty dark inside as well. The place was empty except for myself. A shadowy figure in a British officer's uniform entered and sat down across the table from me.
He began speaking, slowly, in an explanatory manner, while I listened attentively, trying to grasp the full meaning of each word. It was very difficult to understand what he was saying, and there was something special about the intonation of his voice. Then I realized he was speaking in German.
I awoke in terror and pulled the sheet up over my head--the way I used to do when I was a little kid, hiding from trolls who lurked in the darkness. I lay very still, scarcely daring to breath, till at last, summoning up my courage, I lowered the sheet and peeked out into the murky room. The chair with the shelter I'd fixed up for the bird to sleep in was right beside my cot.
"Cuauhtémoc," I whispered into the small shelter. The only response was a hiccup.
Eventually I went back to sleep, only to awaken again from the same disturbing dream. This went on and on. The dream was basically the same each time, with only minor variations. But the man across the table was always there, and always talking to me in German.
"Verstehen Sie?" he paused to ask from time to time.
I shook my head and protested that I spoke no German at all. But he only smiled that ironic smile of his, and so finally out of sheer desperation I said, "Ich bin Americaner!"
He chuckled, almost sympathetically, and complimented me on my excellent pronunciation.
I wanted to tell him that this couldn't be happening, that I'd escaped from that hellish place. But this wasn't that subterranean bunker bar where I'd met those poor lost sailors and marines. This place seemed more like something that could've been an officer's club.
I'd escaped the bunker bar--I'd not escaped Major Benson.
On awakening this time, I took Cuauhtémoc out of his shelter and held him in my arms. "Please sober up and keep me company," I pleaded. He responded, nudging me with his beak to let me know he was awake and there for me. He wasn't hiccuping any more, and I sat there on the edge of my cot for a long time, pressing him close to me.
Finally I lay back down, still holding him in my arms, taking care, as always, not to crush his plumage. This time I went to sleep and dreamed no more, but when I awoke in the morning I was still feeling a vague sense of presentiment.
I sat on the edge of my bunk for a few moments.
"Let's get out of here!" I said to MacClayne.
"Is the road open? Are the buses running?"
I'd forgotten about that. The rain falls. The rivers rise. The roads close. I opened the door and glanced up at the gray, overcast sky. Though it wasn't raining at the moment, it had rained sporadically all night, and it looked as if it could start in again at any moment.
"We should have left yesterday," I said.
"Why didn't we?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well, I'm asking," he said.
"I don't know." I shook my head, and tried to think of some good reason for having dallied here when we could have left.
"I was ready to leave yesterday, but you seemed to want to stay and so I deferred to you. Now you're saying we screwed up."
"I didn't say we screwed up."
"Then what did you say?"
Rain began pattering on the roof. Another squall was hitting.
"Let's just drop this discussion," I said.
"You introduce a topic. Then you want to drop it."
"I don't want to get dragged into another of your Socratic dialogues."
"What do you mean by Socratic dialogue?" he said. "Give me a definition."
"A definition?"
"Yes, that's what I asked for."
"Okay, I'd call it a dead-end discussion where the loser winds up trying to define some ridiculous thing like a Socratic dialogue."
MacClayne gave me a sour look, but, before he could fire off something else, I said, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ask about the buses."
"You could have done that in the first place," he said, always having to have the last word.
"Yes, I'm sure I could have. But I didn't, so I'm doing it now."
The rain was pounding intensely as I stepped out into the courtyard, and I kept under the eaves as I walked to the hotel office to ask the proprietor. No, he didn't think the buses would be running today, but he suggested that I ask at a small shop which also served as ticket office. I waited for the squall to diminish and went to inquire. The answer was 'no.' Río Chuta was flooding its banks and couldn't be forded, the ticket lady told me. Vehicles which had gotten that far had had to turn around and come back. Hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully.
"Isn't this the dry season?" I said.
"Every year but this one," said the lady. "It never rains at this time of year. Not like this."
"That's what everyone tells me. This unending rain seems so strange."
"It is. It's a strange year."
The squall had passed and I strolled about the muddy streets for a while before returning. I was not in a hurry to get back to a resumption of our Socratic dialogue. I went to the cliff above the harbor, and saw that the ketch was still there. I wondered how the people on board had passed the night. It would have been a fun-filled adventure if we could have gotten a ride on it to Lázaro, but not in weather like this. People who romanticize about the days of sailing vessels don't stop to think of what it must have been like to furl and unfurl the sails in bad weather. Even the tropics have their cold, rainy days.
Rain was beginning to fall again as I returned to the hotel. MacClayne glanced up from a book as I entered.
"No bus," I said.
"No bus," he repeated with a nod.
We went to eat, saying nothing beyond what was necessary, and when we returned to our room we each read his own book, each in his own world.
It was a day of silence, punctuated only by noisy squalls. When it wasn't raining, I took Cuauhtémoc out for a walk, then hurried back to avoid being caught in the next downpour.
"I hate the goddamned rain," MacClayne remarked at some time during the afternoon. It was about the only thing he said all day, except for our earlier discussion that morning.
I nodded but said nothing. I wasn't sure if he'd directed that to me or was just muttering to himself. He seemed irritated, but I wasn't sure about that either. I guessed that he might have been angry at me for not getting us out of here yesterday. On the other hand, maybe he was just expressing his hatred of the rain. Anyway, he returned to his book, a B. Traven novel.
I needed to write some letters. One to Chayo; the last letter I'd sent her was from Huahua, and a lot had happened during the few days since then. There were also people I corresponded with in California, and of course in Minnesota. But first I wanted to write a couple of lines in my journal. Something I had to get off my mind.
The journal was fairly up to date, all except for the dreams of the night before. Nightmares, actually. How could it be that this person, Major Benson, a man whose name and face I'd never known until a week or so before, kept entering my dreams, speaking to me in a language which I hardly understood. Well, I guess I must concede that I did understand it slightly better than I generally let on, though only slightly, of course.
I glanced up from my journal and, as I did so, my eye fell on the cover of the Traven novel that MacClayne was reading: Rebellion der Gehenkten.
Impossible! MacClayne was reading it in German!
I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear my mind. I looked again. Rebellion of the Hanged--it was in English, not in German. My eyes had played a trick on me? Or was it the major's ghost, hovering about and somehow creating these visual effects? The thought sent a frightened chill through me.
I glanced his way again. He wasn't reading anything, he was writing something. Presumably a poem.
What would Chayo say about all of this Major Benson stuff? Cross over dreams? The world of drippy dungeons? I decided to write her a letter. I wrote it in English, describing in minute detail my dream experiences of these last few nights, concentrating on the role played by the British intelligence officer. Each time I felt I'd written all there was to say, more thoughts came to mind, faster than I could scribble them down.
Finally I looked up. I'd come to some kind of pause. My hand was slightly numb, but I did feel better. I'd exorcised some of this dream stuff by the simple act of transferring it to the pages of my notebook without Chayo even having to read it--though I definitely wanted to get her opinion on it some time.
I glanced at my watch. Nearly three o'clock! Already? Despite my intentions of spending only half an hour with my letter, I'd spent hours at it. Mid-afternoon. Where had the day gone?
MacClayne was no longer there; he'd left without me hearing him leave. I had to get out of the room too. Rain was still hammering on the roof and splashing in the courtyard. Impatiently, I waited for a lull between squalls. Eventually it let up, and I set out for The Windjammer.
Remembering yesterday's experience, I was determined to leave Cuauhtémoc behind. He was equally determined to accompany me. "No!" I said. "You're staying here."
As usual, the bird won.
Well, maybe he needed to get out too. It felt good to be walking down the muddy street. It was a relief to get away from a gloomy room and a moody MacClayne. I felt a lot better as I approached the restaurant.
Morgan and Clyde were there, as well as a couple others whom I hadn't met before, and I joined them at their table.
We chatted about pirates and adventures on the old Spanish Main. I was having a good time, drinking soft drinks, and Cuauhtémoc was on his best behavior. Perched quietly on the backrest of a chair between Clyde and me, the bird seemed to understand that I couldn't handle another of his benders today, and for once he respected my wishes. I was proud of him.
Then, I happened to glance at someone at another table, and for a brief instant I felt a cold chill shoot through me. I looked again, out of the corner of my eye, not wanting the fellow to see that I was looking at him.
No, thank goodness, it wasn't him. A resemblance, nothing more. I'd thought it was the guy who'd gotten out of the pickup back at Huahua and tried to bully me into selling him my bird. I looked again, just to be doubly sure. The guy I thought I'd seen was said to be a pistolero, and even though it wasn't him, the incident brought to mind the possibility that he could be around here somewhere--I'd seen the driver just the other evening. It was unsettling. Disturbing. A slight shock, I must admit.
Just the same, it bothered me to think that I could be so jumpy. I felt a bit silly. It seemed like that Major Benson stuff was getting to me.
"Something happen?" Morgan said.
"Nothing." I shook my head. "Thought I saw somebody I knew."
* * *
It was a couple hours later, between squalls, when I left and made my way down the muddy streets back to the hotel. The gray sky hung low overhead and, though it was still only late afternoon, it seemed close to dusk.
MacClayne wasn't in. Perhaps he'd returned and left again. On the table were some of his papers, and I looked to see what he was writing. Its title presumably referred to the people of the Border Country, where he'd come from in Scotland.
Borderers
Haggard flock shudders
under black faces
the border sheep huddle
in bleak stands of grimace
eyes grey as headstones
joyous as shrouds
grimly trudge outward
under sodden cloud
bleatings and wails
in foul cursed weather
trailing the rough tracks
across unkempt heather
a grey dolmened land
desolate as mourners
scowled a cold welcome
the day I was born there
clannish suspicious
tight fisted with praise
tenacious as yew root
unchanging their ways
the sweet yellow primrose
is crushed underfoot
bleats of dejection
ignore bitterroot
curse the bare country
where swallows are gone
stables abandoned
scarecrow forlorn
but I'll rip out my greyness
hurl off my shoes
I am off, the Bejesus,
to wherever the sun blazes
Somehow I had the feeling that MacClayne might not want me to see the poem so I felt slightly guilty, as though I were sneaking a peek at someone's diary.
Indeed, I'd barely finished reading it when MacClayne came in the door. Without glancing my way or even seeming to notice that I was there, he went to the table, sat down and began to read one of his books.
Afternoon became evening. Mealtime. We went to eat separately. And we returned separately, hardly exchanging so much as a word of greeting.
Evening became night. Another night in this place. More dreams, like the ones I'd been having. Major Benson, again talking to me in German.
* * *
Morning finally arrived and rain clouds were still coming over. Another dark day. MacClayne's mood was also dark, darker even than the day before. We hardly spoke to each other, and I began to wonder if our partnership might be coming to an end. I sensed this from the sour expression on his face when he glanced my way, as though I were responsible for the horrible weather, or at least for not having gotten us out of here.
During a break in the rain I went out for a walk, mainly as a respite from MacClayne, and bought a México City daily. It was several days old, but I hadn't seen many newspapers recently and, glancing through it, an item caught my eye:
"Francisco Franco, Caudillo de España, murió el día 20 de noviembre ..."
Franco had ruled Spain for thirty-six years, the last of the fascist dictators from the 1930's. His demise hadn't even rated a front-page headline. Hardly a major figure among world leaders, he nevertheless had a certain notoriety, by dint of being the least loved--everybody I knew hated him. MacClayne despised him.
I rushed back to our room and announced: "The bastard's dead!"
MacClayne took the newspaper in his hands and studied the opening line of the article I pointed to. "Franco ha muerto," he read, then read again. He looked up at me and said almost disbelievingly, "So the bastard is finally dead."
"¡Sí! ¡Está muerto!" I exclaimed with great satisfaction.
MacClayne jumped to his feet. We gave each other a hug and danced around the floor. Cuauhtémoc flapped his wings and crowed. The bird didn't like Franco either. As I said, nobody liked Franco.
Rain or no rain, this was a good day. We decided to celebrate by going out to eat something special. Maybe chile verde. Maybe fish. So what if it cost us a few pesos more? Today was special. There was a nameless restaurant down the street that was good, the one Wendy had considered her favorite. We went there.
"¿Qué hay?" I asked the waitress as we took our seats.
"Frijoles."
"¿Y, qué mas?" I asked, a bit puzzled.
"Tenemos frijoles. Nada mas."
"¿Ni tortillas?"
The waitress shook her head and explained that all they had was beans. No meat, no fish, not even tortillas. It was because of the storm, the disruption of transportation as well as fishing.
So we had beans. But that morning even beans tasted good.
"It's hard to spoil a day like this," I said as we ate.
"True," MacClayne said with a chuckle. "The quality of the event gives this meal its savor."
After dining, we drank coffee--stale instant coffee, but we didn't care--and chatted about international events. Mostly about Spain. MacClayne recalled his experiences there, his travels in the Pyrenees shortly after the war.
I said, "I suppose it was a disappointment to spend all those years fighting World War Two, and still see Franco's regime survive."
"Later on, yes. When I got to thinking about it. But at the time the war ended I was just glad to have it over with and get out of the Marines. I wasn't politically aware back then."
During the post war years MacClayne had been loosely associated with the Communist Party. Probably not for long--I really couldn't picture MacClayne functioning too well in the ranks of any highly disciplined organization. Nevertheless, from time to time he expressed uncritical admiration for Stalin.
Eventually we noticed that a rain shower hadn't hit for some time. On leaving the restaurant we found the sun peeking through the clouds. Maybe the buses would be running.
They were. Around noon we saw one warming up its engine, getting ready to set out. We learned that it was leaving in twenty minutes, so we went back to the hotel and got our stuff.
"¿A dónde?" the conductor asked as we boarded.
"Lázaro," I said, and just to make doubly sure, asked if this bus would get through.
"Vamos a hacer la lucha," he said, which meant, 'We'll give it a try.'
Fortunately it wasn't crowded, and we had no difficulty finding ourselves a place to sit. I noted that it was the type of vehicle we called "bad road buses."
We were now on a newly paved road that wound back and forth, hugging the foot of the mountains. To the right of us was the ocean, white capped and angry from the storm of the last few days. We rolled along at a good rate, and in less than an hour we arrived at a broad river with no bridge, apparently the one we'd been hearing about, the one that had flooded its banks the day before.
"¿Río Chuta?" I asked another passenger.
"Sí, lo es," the fellow nodded grimly.
The driver parked. Everyone got out and lined up along the bank, surveying the scene. The river itself was a good hundred meters wide, maybe twice that. Just downstream from us it emptied into the ocean.
Cuauhtémoc turned his head from side to side, looking at the swollen river first with one eye, then the other. 'What's this?' he seemed to be saying. 'Not again!'
Other passengers were shaking their heads and talking in low, quiet voices. MacClayne recalled a trip to Scotland he'd made a couple years back. He'd paid a visit to the birthplace of Robert Burns, which isn't too far from Dundrennan. "There's a river there, by the name of Doone, hardly more than a creek compared to this one. Anyway, it had a bridge, and I walked halfway across and stood in the middle, looking down into the current when a little boy came over and spoke to me. He said, 'If a' fell in wud a' droon?'"
As we stood there chatting about the wee laddie on the Scottish bridge, our driver took off his hat, jacket and trousers. Wearing just his shorts and T-shirt, he walked down to the river's edge, stepped in, and with all the passengers watching, waded out into the current.
The water came up to the driver's knees, then to his waist, and I wondered if he wouldn't be swept off his feet and dragged out to sea. But he kept on going till he reached the middle. The water still hadn't gotten much above his waist. There, apparently having satisfied himself as to the depth and condition of the river, he turned back towards our shore. The return was a long, slow struggle, and at one place he nearly lost his balance.
Back on shore at last, he wrung out his T-shirt and put on his clothes again.
Obviously, our bus couldn't ford anything that deep, even though it was one of those rough and tough "bad-road-buses." I figured we'd be returning to Caleta. But people weren't rushing to get back on the bus. Everybody just stood around waiting; I wasn't sure what they expected. Finally I asked the driver.
"¿Qué pasa?" I asked.
"Orita vamos," he replied with a confident grin, and told me the water would go soon down. Then we could drive across. Maybe in an hour or so.
I relayed that to MacClayne. He grinned and observed that the fellow looked competent. "He has that frontiersman look. Like a stage coach driver back in the Old West."
He did, I thought. He was about my age, not yet old enough to have acquired that wrinkled, sunburned look of the rugged outdoorsman. Nevertheless, he had the bearing of an experienced hand who knew what he was doing. His long hair, modish jacket, and wide-brimmed, ranch-style hat fit that persona.
"Yes," I said. "If I saw him playing such a role in a Western movie, I'd say he was well cast. We'll see how well he does in a real life drama."
The sun had been shining a while back. Now it was hidden by clouds. Before long, it began to sprinkle, and everybody took shelter in the bus. MacClayne moved into the seat behind me, and I took out my journal.
It only was a light shower, and before long it passed. I got out and sat on a log, continuing to write. Cuauhtémoc scratched in the mud, and I hoped he'd be careful not to get his feet too dirty.
'Du maa ikke ...'--I could almost hear Grandma's voice. 'Stay out of the mud,' she'd admonish me whenever I went outdoors to play. She got really upset when I tracked up her spotless kitchen floor. Years later I realized that muddy feet is part of being a little kid.
The sky didn't seem to be clearing up. Eventually a slow drizzle began, and, once again, everyone got into the bus. It worried me that even a mild sprinkling here could mean a heavy downpour in the mountains. That might add a lot of water to the river.
MacClayne was still in the same seat, sleeping now, as were several of the other passengers. A few spoke quietly among themselves. From time to time somebody chuckled, but mostly they were all quiet. Not even a radio was playing. Nobody seemed to be complaining, Mexicans are stoic people.
I continued to write. It made the time go faster.
An hour passed, then another. Showers came and went. It was getting late in the afternoon.
I was standing on the bank with Cuauhtémoc on my arm, muddy feet and all, as MacClayne stepped down from the bus.
"So what's happening?"
"Still waiting," I said.
"Are there any other rivers we have to ford?"
"This is it, I'm told," I said. "After this we're home free."
"We've been home free before," he reminded me.
"That's how Apatzi would have it," I said.
MacClayne smiled with a nod; he was of course an atheist with no belief in the supernatural, but the phrase, "as Apatzi will have it" had become as much a part of our vocabulary as our comments about "the Fabled and Forbidden City."
The river was considerably lower than it had been.
"¡Vámonos!" the driver announced, adjusting his hat, and then started up the engine as we all got aboard. He looked supremely confident.
No one spoke; there was only the sound of the motor, then, as the driver descended the bank and cautiously entered the river, there came the low whir of the current as it splashed against the side of our vehicle. I raised the window by my seat and leaned out to watch. Directly below me was the exhaust pipe; a strange place for it, I thought, just in front of the rear wheel. I kept watching that pipe, as the water rose slowly up towards it.
"I hope we don't get stuck in the middle of this," said MacClayne. He was still in the seat behind me, also with his window open.
I glanced up towards the white-capped sea, not too far away. There was always the lurking possibility that we could be swept out there, and it bothered me. Cuauhtémoc was also gazing at the ocean, but with stoic calm.
Even the motor was strangely quiet now, as though holding its breath. There was the sound of the current as it tugged at the vehicle. The rear end began to slide downstream; we seemed about to slip into deeper water, but the driver recovered and got the bus back on course.
The water was now hardly a centimeter below the pipe; then it was touching. I held my breath, fearing the motor might stall at any moment. But we continued steadily ahead toward the other bank at a slow crawl.
Finally, just as the river seemed about to engulf the exhaust pipe, the bus began to rise up out of the water. At last we emerged onto the other bank.
"¡Ariba mi chofer!" shouted someone suddenly at the top of his voice. And all the rest, who'd been sitting in deathlike silence till this moment, joined in with hearty applause; shouting, cheering, clapping and laughing.
"¡Ariba mi chofer!"
"¡Ariba México!"
"¡Ariba mi chofer!"
MacClayne and I joined in with the clapping, which was loud and long.
Cuauhtémoc crowed. Everyone looked at him and grinned.
However, there still remained a relatively minor obstacle. About fifty meters beyond the river the embankment rose steeply, and the ruts of a narrow dirt road angled their way to the top. The driver gunned the engine for a running start, but as we ascended, the right rear tire began to slip in the loose mud. We slid off the road and began slipping onto the edge of the embankment. The bus tilted precariously. For a moment I was afraid it was going to roll over.
"Everybody out!" the driver ordered as the bus teetered on the edge. The front end was barely enough on the road that we were able to step out the door.
"You crowed too soon," I said to Cuauhtémoc as we made our way around the bus and walked down the hill to get a better look. The bottom of the vehicle was scraping the embankment.
"Ironic," I said to MacClayne. "He made it across the entire river, only to get stuck on the shore."
"Probably overconfidence. I'm sure this happened to stagecoach drivers back in the Old West as well."
After everyone had gotten out, the driver dismounted and studied the situation. Then he strode back to his seat, put the vehicle in reverse and backed down the side. There he paused briefly, put it in forward and took another run at it, this time making it to the top of the hill.
More clapping and cheering followed, as we and the other passengers walked up the hill to the waiting bus. Cuauhtémoc looked me in the eye as if to say, "I knew he could do it!"
As we boarded, the driver sat at the wheel, grinning good-naturedly and confidently, and I recalled Wendy saying, "There are people who project an image of professional competence. Some can fake it, but usually you'll find they're confident because they know what they're doing."
A shower hit the moment we were aboard. Soon it was raining heavily and the windows were streaked with water and hard to see through.
The road began to straighten out, and after a while we were no longer twisting back and forth along hairpin curves. From time to time I opened the window to get a better view. The mountains had moved back from the beach, leaving a fairly wide coastal plain. Here there were bridges, so we had no more rivers to ford.
The storm was returning to its former fury, and it was raining violently when at last we reached Lázaro. Darkness fell as we entered the city.
¡Lázaro! ¡Por fin!
continued in Chapter 46
He began speaking, slowly, in an explanatory manner, while I listened attentively, trying to grasp the full meaning of each word. It was very difficult to understand what he was saying, and there was something special about the intonation of his voice. Then I realized he was speaking in German.
I awoke in terror and pulled the sheet up over my head--the way I used to do when I was a little kid, hiding from trolls who lurked in the darkness. I lay very still, scarcely daring to breath, till at last, summoning up my courage, I lowered the sheet and peeked out into the murky room. The chair with the shelter I'd fixed up for the bird to sleep in was right beside my cot.
"Cuauhtémoc," I whispered into the small shelter. The only response was a hiccup.
Eventually I went back to sleep, only to awaken again from the same disturbing dream. This went on and on. The dream was basically the same each time, with only minor variations. But the man across the table was always there, and always talking to me in German.
"Verstehen Sie?" he paused to ask from time to time.
I shook my head and protested that I spoke no German at all. But he only smiled that ironic smile of his, and so finally out of sheer desperation I said, "Ich bin Americaner!"
He chuckled, almost sympathetically, and complimented me on my excellent pronunciation.
I wanted to tell him that this couldn't be happening, that I'd escaped from that hellish place. But this wasn't that subterranean bunker bar where I'd met those poor lost sailors and marines. This place seemed more like something that could've been an officer's club.
I'd escaped the bunker bar--I'd not escaped Major Benson.
On awakening this time, I took Cuauhtémoc out of his shelter and held him in my arms. "Please sober up and keep me company," I pleaded. He responded, nudging me with his beak to let me know he was awake and there for me. He wasn't hiccuping any more, and I sat there on the edge of my cot for a long time, pressing him close to me.
Finally I lay back down, still holding him in my arms, taking care, as always, not to crush his plumage. This time I went to sleep and dreamed no more, but when I awoke in the morning I was still feeling a vague sense of presentiment.
I sat on the edge of my bunk for a few moments.
"Let's get out of here!" I said to MacClayne.
"Is the road open? Are the buses running?"
I'd forgotten about that. The rain falls. The rivers rise. The roads close. I opened the door and glanced up at the gray, overcast sky. Though it wasn't raining at the moment, it had rained sporadically all night, and it looked as if it could start in again at any moment.
"We should have left yesterday," I said.
"Why didn't we?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well, I'm asking," he said.
"I don't know." I shook my head, and tried to think of some good reason for having dallied here when we could have left.
"I was ready to leave yesterday, but you seemed to want to stay and so I deferred to you. Now you're saying we screwed up."
"I didn't say we screwed up."
"Then what did you say?"
Rain began pattering on the roof. Another squall was hitting.
"Let's just drop this discussion," I said.
"You introduce a topic. Then you want to drop it."
"I don't want to get dragged into another of your Socratic dialogues."
"What do you mean by Socratic dialogue?" he said. "Give me a definition."
"A definition?"
"Yes, that's what I asked for."
"Okay, I'd call it a dead-end discussion where the loser winds up trying to define some ridiculous thing like a Socratic dialogue."
MacClayne gave me a sour look, but, before he could fire off something else, I said, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ask about the buses."
"You could have done that in the first place," he said, always having to have the last word.
"Yes, I'm sure I could have. But I didn't, so I'm doing it now."
The rain was pounding intensely as I stepped out into the courtyard, and I kept under the eaves as I walked to the hotel office to ask the proprietor. No, he didn't think the buses would be running today, but he suggested that I ask at a small shop which also served as ticket office. I waited for the squall to diminish and went to inquire. The answer was 'no.' Río Chuta was flooding its banks and couldn't be forded, the ticket lady told me. Vehicles which had gotten that far had had to turn around and come back. Hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully.
"Isn't this the dry season?" I said.
"Every year but this one," said the lady. "It never rains at this time of year. Not like this."
"That's what everyone tells me. This unending rain seems so strange."
"It is. It's a strange year."
The squall had passed and I strolled about the muddy streets for a while before returning. I was not in a hurry to get back to a resumption of our Socratic dialogue. I went to the cliff above the harbor, and saw that the ketch was still there. I wondered how the people on board had passed the night. It would have been a fun-filled adventure if we could have gotten a ride on it to Lázaro, but not in weather like this. People who romanticize about the days of sailing vessels don't stop to think of what it must have been like to furl and unfurl the sails in bad weather. Even the tropics have their cold, rainy days.
Rain was beginning to fall again as I returned to the hotel. MacClayne glanced up from a book as I entered.
"No bus," I said.
"No bus," he repeated with a nod.
We went to eat, saying nothing beyond what was necessary, and when we returned to our room we each read his own book, each in his own world.
It was a day of silence, punctuated only by noisy squalls. When it wasn't raining, I took Cuauhtémoc out for a walk, then hurried back to avoid being caught in the next downpour.
"I hate the goddamned rain," MacClayne remarked at some time during the afternoon. It was about the only thing he said all day, except for our earlier discussion that morning.
I nodded but said nothing. I wasn't sure if he'd directed that to me or was just muttering to himself. He seemed irritated, but I wasn't sure about that either. I guessed that he might have been angry at me for not getting us out of here yesterday. On the other hand, maybe he was just expressing his hatred of the rain. Anyway, he returned to his book, a B. Traven novel.
I needed to write some letters. One to Chayo; the last letter I'd sent her was from Huahua, and a lot had happened during the few days since then. There were also people I corresponded with in California, and of course in Minnesota. But first I wanted to write a couple of lines in my journal. Something I had to get off my mind.
The journal was fairly up to date, all except for the dreams of the night before. Nightmares, actually. How could it be that this person, Major Benson, a man whose name and face I'd never known until a week or so before, kept entering my dreams, speaking to me in a language which I hardly understood. Well, I guess I must concede that I did understand it slightly better than I generally let on, though only slightly, of course.
I glanced up from my journal and, as I did so, my eye fell on the cover of the Traven novel that MacClayne was reading: Rebellion der Gehenkten.
Impossible! MacClayne was reading it in German!
I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear my mind. I looked again. Rebellion of the Hanged--it was in English, not in German. My eyes had played a trick on me? Or was it the major's ghost, hovering about and somehow creating these visual effects? The thought sent a frightened chill through me.
I glanced his way again. He wasn't reading anything, he was writing something. Presumably a poem.
What would Chayo say about all of this Major Benson stuff? Cross over dreams? The world of drippy dungeons? I decided to write her a letter. I wrote it in English, describing in minute detail my dream experiences of these last few nights, concentrating on the role played by the British intelligence officer. Each time I felt I'd written all there was to say, more thoughts came to mind, faster than I could scribble them down.
Finally I looked up. I'd come to some kind of pause. My hand was slightly numb, but I did feel better. I'd exorcised some of this dream stuff by the simple act of transferring it to the pages of my notebook without Chayo even having to read it--though I definitely wanted to get her opinion on it some time.
I glanced at my watch. Nearly three o'clock! Already? Despite my intentions of spending only half an hour with my letter, I'd spent hours at it. Mid-afternoon. Where had the day gone?
MacClayne was no longer there; he'd left without me hearing him leave. I had to get out of the room too. Rain was still hammering on the roof and splashing in the courtyard. Impatiently, I waited for a lull between squalls. Eventually it let up, and I set out for The Windjammer.
Remembering yesterday's experience, I was determined to leave Cuauhtémoc behind. He was equally determined to accompany me. "No!" I said. "You're staying here."
As usual, the bird won.
Well, maybe he needed to get out too. It felt good to be walking down the muddy street. It was a relief to get away from a gloomy room and a moody MacClayne. I felt a lot better as I approached the restaurant.
Morgan and Clyde were there, as well as a couple others whom I hadn't met before, and I joined them at their table.
We chatted about pirates and adventures on the old Spanish Main. I was having a good time, drinking soft drinks, and Cuauhtémoc was on his best behavior. Perched quietly on the backrest of a chair between Clyde and me, the bird seemed to understand that I couldn't handle another of his benders today, and for once he respected my wishes. I was proud of him.
Then, I happened to glance at someone at another table, and for a brief instant I felt a cold chill shoot through me. I looked again, out of the corner of my eye, not wanting the fellow to see that I was looking at him.
No, thank goodness, it wasn't him. A resemblance, nothing more. I'd thought it was the guy who'd gotten out of the pickup back at Huahua and tried to bully me into selling him my bird. I looked again, just to be doubly sure. The guy I thought I'd seen was said to be a pistolero, and even though it wasn't him, the incident brought to mind the possibility that he could be around here somewhere--I'd seen the driver just the other evening. It was unsettling. Disturbing. A slight shock, I must admit.
Just the same, it bothered me to think that I could be so jumpy. I felt a bit silly. It seemed like that Major Benson stuff was getting to me.
"Something happen?" Morgan said.
"Nothing." I shook my head. "Thought I saw somebody I knew."
* * *
It was a couple hours later, between squalls, when I left and made my way down the muddy streets back to the hotel. The gray sky hung low overhead and, though it was still only late afternoon, it seemed close to dusk.
MacClayne wasn't in. Perhaps he'd returned and left again. On the table were some of his papers, and I looked to see what he was writing. Its title presumably referred to the people of the Border Country, where he'd come from in Scotland.
Borderers
Haggard flock shudders
under black faces
the border sheep huddle
in bleak stands of grimace
eyes grey as headstones
joyous as shrouds
grimly trudge outward
under sodden cloud
bleatings and wails
in foul cursed weather
trailing the rough tracks
across unkempt heather
a grey dolmened land
desolate as mourners
scowled a cold welcome
the day I was born there
clannish suspicious
tight fisted with praise
tenacious as yew root
unchanging their ways
the sweet yellow primrose
is crushed underfoot
bleats of dejection
ignore bitterroot
curse the bare country
where swallows are gone
stables abandoned
scarecrow forlorn
but I'll rip out my greyness
hurl off my shoes
I am off, the Bejesus,
to wherever the sun blazes
Somehow I had the feeling that MacClayne might not want me to see the poem so I felt slightly guilty, as though I were sneaking a peek at someone's diary.
Indeed, I'd barely finished reading it when MacClayne came in the door. Without glancing my way or even seeming to notice that I was there, he went to the table, sat down and began to read one of his books.
Afternoon became evening. Mealtime. We went to eat separately. And we returned separately, hardly exchanging so much as a word of greeting.
Evening became night. Another night in this place. More dreams, like the ones I'd been having. Major Benson, again talking to me in German.
* * *
Morning finally arrived and rain clouds were still coming over. Another dark day. MacClayne's mood was also dark, darker even than the day before. We hardly spoke to each other, and I began to wonder if our partnership might be coming to an end. I sensed this from the sour expression on his face when he glanced my way, as though I were responsible for the horrible weather, or at least for not having gotten us out of here.
During a break in the rain I went out for a walk, mainly as a respite from MacClayne, and bought a México City daily. It was several days old, but I hadn't seen many newspapers recently and, glancing through it, an item caught my eye:
"Francisco Franco, Caudillo de España, murió el día 20 de noviembre ..."
Franco had ruled Spain for thirty-six years, the last of the fascist dictators from the 1930's. His demise hadn't even rated a front-page headline. Hardly a major figure among world leaders, he nevertheless had a certain notoriety, by dint of being the least loved--everybody I knew hated him. MacClayne despised him.
I rushed back to our room and announced: "The bastard's dead!"
MacClayne took the newspaper in his hands and studied the opening line of the article I pointed to. "Franco ha muerto," he read, then read again. He looked up at me and said almost disbelievingly, "So the bastard is finally dead."
"¡Sí! ¡Está muerto!" I exclaimed with great satisfaction.
MacClayne jumped to his feet. We gave each other a hug and danced around the floor. Cuauhtémoc flapped his wings and crowed. The bird didn't like Franco either. As I said, nobody liked Franco.
Rain or no rain, this was a good day. We decided to celebrate by going out to eat something special. Maybe chile verde. Maybe fish. So what if it cost us a few pesos more? Today was special. There was a nameless restaurant down the street that was good, the one Wendy had considered her favorite. We went there.
"¿Qué hay?" I asked the waitress as we took our seats.
"Frijoles."
"¿Y, qué mas?" I asked, a bit puzzled.
"Tenemos frijoles. Nada mas."
"¿Ni tortillas?"
The waitress shook her head and explained that all they had was beans. No meat, no fish, not even tortillas. It was because of the storm, the disruption of transportation as well as fishing.
So we had beans. But that morning even beans tasted good.
"It's hard to spoil a day like this," I said as we ate.
"True," MacClayne said with a chuckle. "The quality of the event gives this meal its savor."
After dining, we drank coffee--stale instant coffee, but we didn't care--and chatted about international events. Mostly about Spain. MacClayne recalled his experiences there, his travels in the Pyrenees shortly after the war.
I said, "I suppose it was a disappointment to spend all those years fighting World War Two, and still see Franco's regime survive."
"Later on, yes. When I got to thinking about it. But at the time the war ended I was just glad to have it over with and get out of the Marines. I wasn't politically aware back then."
During the post war years MacClayne had been loosely associated with the Communist Party. Probably not for long--I really couldn't picture MacClayne functioning too well in the ranks of any highly disciplined organization. Nevertheless, from time to time he expressed uncritical admiration for Stalin.
Eventually we noticed that a rain shower hadn't hit for some time. On leaving the restaurant we found the sun peeking through the clouds. Maybe the buses would be running.
They were. Around noon we saw one warming up its engine, getting ready to set out. We learned that it was leaving in twenty minutes, so we went back to the hotel and got our stuff.
"¿A dónde?" the conductor asked as we boarded.
"Lázaro," I said, and just to make doubly sure, asked if this bus would get through.
"Vamos a hacer la lucha," he said, which meant, 'We'll give it a try.'
Fortunately it wasn't crowded, and we had no difficulty finding ourselves a place to sit. I noted that it was the type of vehicle we called "bad road buses."
We were now on a newly paved road that wound back and forth, hugging the foot of the mountains. To the right of us was the ocean, white capped and angry from the storm of the last few days. We rolled along at a good rate, and in less than an hour we arrived at a broad river with no bridge, apparently the one we'd been hearing about, the one that had flooded its banks the day before.
"¿Río Chuta?" I asked another passenger.
"Sí, lo es," the fellow nodded grimly.
The driver parked. Everyone got out and lined up along the bank, surveying the scene. The river itself was a good hundred meters wide, maybe twice that. Just downstream from us it emptied into the ocean.
Cuauhtémoc turned his head from side to side, looking at the swollen river first with one eye, then the other. 'What's this?' he seemed to be saying. 'Not again!'
Other passengers were shaking their heads and talking in low, quiet voices. MacClayne recalled a trip to Scotland he'd made a couple years back. He'd paid a visit to the birthplace of Robert Burns, which isn't too far from Dundrennan. "There's a river there, by the name of Doone, hardly more than a creek compared to this one. Anyway, it had a bridge, and I walked halfway across and stood in the middle, looking down into the current when a little boy came over and spoke to me. He said, 'If a' fell in wud a' droon?'"
As we stood there chatting about the wee laddie on the Scottish bridge, our driver took off his hat, jacket and trousers. Wearing just his shorts and T-shirt, he walked down to the river's edge, stepped in, and with all the passengers watching, waded out into the current.
The water came up to the driver's knees, then to his waist, and I wondered if he wouldn't be swept off his feet and dragged out to sea. But he kept on going till he reached the middle. The water still hadn't gotten much above his waist. There, apparently having satisfied himself as to the depth and condition of the river, he turned back towards our shore. The return was a long, slow struggle, and at one place he nearly lost his balance.
Back on shore at last, he wrung out his T-shirt and put on his clothes again.
Obviously, our bus couldn't ford anything that deep, even though it was one of those rough and tough "bad-road-buses." I figured we'd be returning to Caleta. But people weren't rushing to get back on the bus. Everybody just stood around waiting; I wasn't sure what they expected. Finally I asked the driver.
"¿Qué pasa?" I asked.
"Orita vamos," he replied with a confident grin, and told me the water would go soon down. Then we could drive across. Maybe in an hour or so.
I relayed that to MacClayne. He grinned and observed that the fellow looked competent. "He has that frontiersman look. Like a stage coach driver back in the Old West."
He did, I thought. He was about my age, not yet old enough to have acquired that wrinkled, sunburned look of the rugged outdoorsman. Nevertheless, he had the bearing of an experienced hand who knew what he was doing. His long hair, modish jacket, and wide-brimmed, ranch-style hat fit that persona.
"Yes," I said. "If I saw him playing such a role in a Western movie, I'd say he was well cast. We'll see how well he does in a real life drama."
The sun had been shining a while back. Now it was hidden by clouds. Before long, it began to sprinkle, and everybody took shelter in the bus. MacClayne moved into the seat behind me, and I took out my journal.
It only was a light shower, and before long it passed. I got out and sat on a log, continuing to write. Cuauhtémoc scratched in the mud, and I hoped he'd be careful not to get his feet too dirty.
'Du maa ikke ...'--I could almost hear Grandma's voice. 'Stay out of the mud,' she'd admonish me whenever I went outdoors to play. She got really upset when I tracked up her spotless kitchen floor. Years later I realized that muddy feet is part of being a little kid.
The sky didn't seem to be clearing up. Eventually a slow drizzle began, and, once again, everyone got into the bus. It worried me that even a mild sprinkling here could mean a heavy downpour in the mountains. That might add a lot of water to the river.
MacClayne was still in the same seat, sleeping now, as were several of the other passengers. A few spoke quietly among themselves. From time to time somebody chuckled, but mostly they were all quiet. Not even a radio was playing. Nobody seemed to be complaining, Mexicans are stoic people.
I continued to write. It made the time go faster.
An hour passed, then another. Showers came and went. It was getting late in the afternoon.
I was standing on the bank with Cuauhtémoc on my arm, muddy feet and all, as MacClayne stepped down from the bus.
"So what's happening?"
"Still waiting," I said.
"Are there any other rivers we have to ford?"
"This is it, I'm told," I said. "After this we're home free."
"We've been home free before," he reminded me.
"That's how Apatzi would have it," I said.
MacClayne smiled with a nod; he was of course an atheist with no belief in the supernatural, but the phrase, "as Apatzi will have it" had become as much a part of our vocabulary as our comments about "the Fabled and Forbidden City."
The river was considerably lower than it had been.
"¡Vámonos!" the driver announced, adjusting his hat, and then started up the engine as we all got aboard. He looked supremely confident.
No one spoke; there was only the sound of the motor, then, as the driver descended the bank and cautiously entered the river, there came the low whir of the current as it splashed against the side of our vehicle. I raised the window by my seat and leaned out to watch. Directly below me was the exhaust pipe; a strange place for it, I thought, just in front of the rear wheel. I kept watching that pipe, as the water rose slowly up towards it.
"I hope we don't get stuck in the middle of this," said MacClayne. He was still in the seat behind me, also with his window open.
I glanced up towards the white-capped sea, not too far away. There was always the lurking possibility that we could be swept out there, and it bothered me. Cuauhtémoc was also gazing at the ocean, but with stoic calm.
Even the motor was strangely quiet now, as though holding its breath. There was the sound of the current as it tugged at the vehicle. The rear end began to slide downstream; we seemed about to slip into deeper water, but the driver recovered and got the bus back on course.
The water was now hardly a centimeter below the pipe; then it was touching. I held my breath, fearing the motor might stall at any moment. But we continued steadily ahead toward the other bank at a slow crawl.
Finally, just as the river seemed about to engulf the exhaust pipe, the bus began to rise up out of the water. At last we emerged onto the other bank.
"¡Ariba mi chofer!" shouted someone suddenly at the top of his voice. And all the rest, who'd been sitting in deathlike silence till this moment, joined in with hearty applause; shouting, cheering, clapping and laughing.
"¡Ariba mi chofer!"
"¡Ariba México!"
"¡Ariba mi chofer!"
MacClayne and I joined in with the clapping, which was loud and long.
Cuauhtémoc crowed. Everyone looked at him and grinned.
However, there still remained a relatively minor obstacle. About fifty meters beyond the river the embankment rose steeply, and the ruts of a narrow dirt road angled their way to the top. The driver gunned the engine for a running start, but as we ascended, the right rear tire began to slip in the loose mud. We slid off the road and began slipping onto the edge of the embankment. The bus tilted precariously. For a moment I was afraid it was going to roll over.
"Everybody out!" the driver ordered as the bus teetered on the edge. The front end was barely enough on the road that we were able to step out the door.
"You crowed too soon," I said to Cuauhtémoc as we made our way around the bus and walked down the hill to get a better look. The bottom of the vehicle was scraping the embankment.
"Ironic," I said to MacClayne. "He made it across the entire river, only to get stuck on the shore."
"Probably overconfidence. I'm sure this happened to stagecoach drivers back in the Old West as well."
After everyone had gotten out, the driver dismounted and studied the situation. Then he strode back to his seat, put the vehicle in reverse and backed down the side. There he paused briefly, put it in forward and took another run at it, this time making it to the top of the hill.
More clapping and cheering followed, as we and the other passengers walked up the hill to the waiting bus. Cuauhtémoc looked me in the eye as if to say, "I knew he could do it!"
As we boarded, the driver sat at the wheel, grinning good-naturedly and confidently, and I recalled Wendy saying, "There are people who project an image of professional competence. Some can fake it, but usually you'll find they're confident because they know what they're doing."
A shower hit the moment we were aboard. Soon it was raining heavily and the windows were streaked with water and hard to see through.
The road began to straighten out, and after a while we were no longer twisting back and forth along hairpin curves. From time to time I opened the window to get a better view. The mountains had moved back from the beach, leaving a fairly wide coastal plain. Here there were bridges, so we had no more rivers to ford.
The storm was returning to its former fury, and it was raining violently when at last we reached Lázaro. Darkness fell as we entered the city.
¡Lázaro! ¡Por fin!
continued in Chapter 46
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