A Visit to Don Otavio (29 page)

Presently we came to the first arroyo. It was full of water. ‘It can’t,’ said Peter. ‘Not with everything else bone-dry. It’s not the season.’

It was not deep, our battery was high – in one terrific splash Peter drove across. We held our breaths: the engine went on running. Soon the greenery closed in again; the sand became clogged with damp and we got stuck almost at once. The fibre matting proved a help.

‘I believe I’ve been stung,’ said Jack when we were going again.

‘So do I.’

‘Biting insects, sucking insects. What else do you expect?’ said Peter.

‘I think I saw a green-and-pink wing.’

‘It
is
all rather beautiful, or isn’t it?’

‘I think it’s more what we used to call bogus,’ said Jack.

The dogs did not like it at all. They were miserable – ears sticking to their heads, tongues lolling out; they shook, they whimpered, they would not come out any more at the stops but moistly clung to us. We gave them the water in the Thermos.

There was another clearing and, soon, another arroyo. It was dry.

‘You see,’ said Peter.

The radiator was boiling; the gears stuck. ‘Better stop for a bit. Give it a chance to cool down.’

‘Cool,’ said Jack.

We waited, watching the steam hiss from under the bonnet. Jack smoked, Peter and I pressed a warm, quivering spaniel to our sides.

The next arroyo was flooded. We got through, but once on the other side the engine sputtered out. ‘Spark-plugs got a bit wet. Nothing to it. Soon be dry in this weather.’

‘What time is it?’ said Jack.

In the next arroyo we got stuck. The water was half-way up the
engine, the spark-plugs did not dry. ‘If there was one hut, there must be others,’ said Peter. ‘Let’s look in different directions, but one of us must stay with these poor dogs.’

Jack and Peter went off, I stayed in the car in mid-arroyo. It was impossible to read or doze and I was frantically bored.

After a time, a man passed with an ox. They were most obliging; and when Jack and Peter returned very cross, they were gone and the car the other side of the arroyo, all dry.

‘How very clever of you,’ they said.

Presently the trail forked into four. We took the second on our right. After half a mile it fizzled out in a lot of sand. We had a hard time turning the car. ‘Well, that eliminates one road,’ said Peter.

‘Do you think it is
wise
to go on?’ said Jack.

‘Not particularly,’ said Peter. ‘But I’ll be damned before I let Richard Know-All Middleton tell me he told me so. We’ve got to get to the coast.’

‘And I do want to see the seaside,’ said I.

The outside-left trail led into thick growth. We turned up the windows, and the car charged and crashed like an in-experienced elephant.

‘This must be the real jungle,’ said Peter.

Later we came again on to open ground, the trail hardened but began to climb sharply. ‘How very odd,’ said Peter.

We were never out of first now, the radiator had not been off the boil for two hours. There was another arroyo, with very rapid water, we just cleared it.

‘You know that you’re murdering your car, Peter?’ said Jack.

‘It’s my car, isn’t it?’

‘We all know that. Stop being an ass.’

‘We may be only a few miles from the coast.’

‘Or we may not.’

‘My dear Jack, you don’t think we
can
get back …’

‘Very likely not. But it’s worth trying while we still have an engine running and some daylight.’

‘I do have rather a frightful headache, Peter,’ said I.

‘Take an aspirin. I must say you two are difficult people to travel with.’

It was settled by the next arroyo which was deep, wide and swift. We plunged a stick: the water came above battery level. ‘Oh very well then,’ said Peter, ‘have it your own way.’

From then on, we only strained to keep going. There was not much we could do, having neither tools nor time, but we exercised a kind of faith-healer’s intensity on keeping the car together. It smoked, it steamed, it spat oil; two valves gave out, the clutch and self-starter jammed, every joint, spring and piston shrieked and wheezed in a reproachful death-rattle. We got stuck; we lost the trail; we heaved, we cranked, we fanned, we pushed and propped. We prayed. Jack did wonders without a hair pin. We dared not think of the two bad arroyos to be re-crossed, we dared not look at the oil or the petrol guage; above all we dared not look at the time. If we spoke it was only to reassure the dogs. We had a blow-out and put on the threadbare spare. The nuts were red-hot, the jack slipped, and in spite of complete concentration the change consumed twenty-five minutes.

At a quarter of an hour before dark we reached the clearing with the coconut-fibre hut.

The owners asked us in. They tried to give us some maize-cakes, beans and chile. We drank a little coconut milk and bowl after bowl of arroyo water. Jack and I could not understand a word anyone said. Peter later told us that it must have been one of the Otomian dialects. It was clear, however, that we were to spend the night. The hut was full of people and our open-handed hosts had neglected to replace the roof they had given to Jack earlier in the day. The consequent exposure might have added greatly to our discomforts had we been in a more receptive state, and this pursued me as an intensely significant parable throughout a near delirious night. As I lay on the ground between an Indio woman and a spaniel (there had been no room for bringing in their baskets and moreover the dogs were frightened by the presence of some pigs), I came near fitting the answer to the question of the brotherhood of man. It was a beautiful piece of joinery, though hard to hold, and it had to be slid into the opening of a large square box, an exacting and elusive task, and whenever I had the box complete, it came to pieces in my hands.

Next morning we were ourselves.

‘I am sure Richard Middleton would have antagonised our hosts at once,’ said Peter; ‘they’d never have asked him to dinner and put him up. That’s one for us.’

We actually started at dawn. As our engine could now only be expected to make intermittent efforts, we reached the dirt-road in the early afternoon and got ready for the climb to Autlán.

‘We
will
be there for dinner,’ said Peter.

‘Oh,’ said I. ‘And to think we’ll all be able to get a bath.’

‘You haven’t been gone a week,’ said Don Otavio, ‘did you not like the coast.’

‘It is always a pleasure to get back to San Pedro.’

‘You are too kind.’

‘Never mind about not getting there,’ said E, ‘I dare say you would have found one of those resorts. But I’m glad for you to have had the journey. You always seem to have to do so much when
we
travel, having those two nice young men with you must have been such a change. As our mothers used to say, travelling with a man makes all the difference.’

‘Don Otavio wishes to know,’ said Juan, ‘whether you would like anything special for dinner tonight, or whether you would prefer Soledad to take you up a tray?’

‘A tray please,’ said I, ‘if I may.’

T
HE NEXT DAY I felt quite ill. Mr Middleton hurried to my bedside like a Christian Gentleman.

‘You did take the quinine in the doses I wrote down for you?’

It was the moment for pure truth. ‘There wasn’t any,’ said I.

‘What? Ran out of quinine? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

I said nothing, allowing truth to be stained.

‘I wonder whether my doses were large enough. Hard to tell with some people.’

Then he said, ‘That’s no malaria. Temperature’s all wrong for one thing. That’s nothing I would know anything about. If I were you I’d get myself into Guadalajara as fast as I can. One or two good men there, though I dare say they won’t have the laboratory equipment for dealing with this kind of thing. They’ll be wanting to make some tests. Interesting sort of germs you pick up in those places. Always something new. You’re sure you took all the precautions I told you? Peter look after you properly?’

‘Not all the precautions.’

‘Ah well, everyone’s bound to slip up over something. Even experienced people do.’

‘You see,’ said I. ‘I don’t think I can face the journey to Guadalajara. I know I cannot.’

‘You are in rather poor shape. All the same, you know …’

‘There must be someone?’

‘Local man drinks as you probably heard, and what you want is a specialist.’

‘A specialist for
what
?’

‘Oh quite. They’ll have a hard time diagnosing this.’

I did not budge. At that time I would rather have died than moved, and I knew I was not dying. ‘It’s no worse than some peculiar kind of influenza,’ I told E, ‘the only thing to do is to keep quiet.’

Don Otavio, who did not share E’s prejudices in favour of qualified attendance, abetted me. ‘All these doctors will make her very ill,’ he said.

‘She is ill,’ said E.

‘Too ill to leave San Pedro.’

All the same Don Otavio thought I ought to see someone. The servants would expect it. We compromised on the witch from Germany.

‘It is an inflammation,’ she said; ‘it will go. I have exactly the right remedies for you only I do not have them any more.’ She grabbed among a bagful of phials with minute white pellets. ‘Soon I shall be able to get them again from Germany.’

Meanwhile I was to drink an infusion of oat straw and rest. E waylaid her and they had a talk.

I did not get better. One, two weeks passed; Don Otavio was an angel of kindness. There was nothing he did not do. He would have read to me had I asked him to. One day, when I was low, the cook sent up a candle and a spoon. Every bone in my face was aching horribly and I was never without an ice compress. I lit the candle, heated the spoon in the flame, and pressed it against my cheeks and forehead. The heat was grateful. After an hour of this treatment I began to feel some slight relief.

Guadalupe came in. ‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘Don’t you know what a candle and spoon are for? You are not so ignorant. You must wait until you are alone and then you must light the candle and hold the spoon and say your prayers backwards. It is not something one does often, but at times it helps.’

A few days later came a message that the doctor was ready to see me. It was his sober week. ‘You must go,
niña
,’ said Don Otavio, ‘Soledad, Juan and Domingo and I will take you in the boat.’

‘You must go,’ said E.

‘Can’t he come here?’

‘Only for childbirth.’

The doctor saw me in his mother-in-law’s chemist shop. He was an avuncular, middle-aged man, neither very Indian nor very white, in a spotty brown lounge suit. His manner to me was kind. We sat in two wicker chairs and conversed while the business of the pharmacy, chiefly sweets and purgatives, went on around us. Then the doctor took me out into the street where the light was better, and while I stood against the shop front looked into my throat and nose. He prescribed some drops and Cachets-Midi, an anti-grippe preparation I remembered from my childhood and which I daresay had been popular with Bazaine’s men, and himself helped his mother-in-law to hunt for the cachets on the shelves.

That evening my temperature went up to 106°. It did not come down next day. Doctor Gomez had replapsed into a
tequila
coma and could not be appealed to. Don Otavio took over.

He sent for penicillin; he sent the boat for the telephone operator at Chapala who had learned to give injections. For twenty-four hours the telephone service remained closed. Later on the operator was taken to and fro every few hours to deal both with the injections and the trunk calls. In one day the temperature went down, on the second I was out of pain, on the third I was up. In a week I was well.

Doctor Gomez, sober once more, wished to have particulars of the cure. Once more he examined me outside the chemist-shop. ‘All your symptoms are gone,
niña
; it was a very wonderful idea. You must have twelve more doses to prevent recurrence,’ he said; and behind the counter gave me the most painful inter-muscular injection I ever had.

I completed the course in the switchboard cell at the Chapala Post-Office.

‘But whatever made you think of it, Otavio?’ I said.

‘We do not have many medicines. Only Cachets-Midi and Asperina and these new things. You had tried Cachets-Midi.’

‘It might have gone wrong,’ said E.

‘No, no. My aunt’s nuns use penicillin all the time. It is very harmless.’

Later on, I happened to mention this to a doctor in New York. ‘What you had sounds like this new kind of anthrax infection,’ he said, ‘it’s getting quite common on the Eastern Sea-board. I wonder where you got it. Did you say you spent the summer before in Connecticut? Well, that’s it. It takes some time to develop; I guess the heat or something brought it out in Mexico. Good thing for you it did. Penicillin? That’s interesting now. We’ve been thinking of that. Of course, we’re still at the experimental stage.’

I
WAS SHOCKED to find how much time had passed. February was almost out, and it was now too late in the year for Yucatán.

‘Now you must stay,’ said Don Otavio.

‘We shall have to go some day. We must begin to think of that.’

‘Do not think of it. Not for a long time. No, not Easter. You cannot leave before the Rains. Then everything will look again like last year. You must stay at least until the Rains.’

We did not think of it; not for an extra gift of months. Every day was itself, but I knew that time was up. Though I was well again, my illness had left me with a kind of nervous acuteness that made everything come to me edged and over-exposed. Above all I craved slow pace, and I seldom left San Pedro. I would take a canoe out on to the lake or ride with Don Otavio in the afternoon, but I did not like to be away for more than a few hours at a time. E had taken to seeing people at Chapala and to spending every now and then a day or two at Guadalajara with Jack and Peter, and she also kept up a fighting acquaintance with Mrs Rawlston. It was a dry Dry Season, the price of maize had gone up and there were
pistolleros
in the hills. Don Otavio did not like us to go out after dark without Andreas or Domingo with a musket. E had demurred at appearing at a house for dinner like something out of Fra Diavolo.

‘I never carried a gun on Park Avenue during Prohibition,’ she told Don Otavio.

But Don Otavio did not twig at all, and E soon became unconscious of her bodyguard. I made the
pistolleros
an excuse for not going out for dinner.

E used to come back elated from Mrs Rawlston’s. ‘Such a set-to about
the Dixiecrats,’ she said; ‘and I must say the old girl does do one well – pity you didn’t go – we had some very wonderful red wine, something quite rare. I should think. Her son-in-law gave it to her, she told us. Didn’t make a crack at him, civil as civil, Mrs Rawlston must be mellowing.’

‘Soledad has accepted Domingo,’ said Don Otavio.

‘
Not
Domingo.’

‘He has been asking her a very long time. He is a good boy, with not much ill-temper. They will both live here.’

‘How can she marry a clod-hopper?’

‘It is suitable. Who knows, one day they may even get married in church. We must give them a nice party for their first wedding.’

‘Bottom in the Woods of Athens,’ said E.

More and bigger crates arrived and a set of little enamelled disks with numbers which enchanted Don Otavio and mystified the servants.

Andreas took hammer and nails, Juan carried the box, Don Otavio and I followed, and we set out to do the numbering of the bedrooms. We paused outside a door. Juan proffered his box, Don Otavio pulled out a disk as though he were drawing the lottery. ‘Shall we put this one here?’

‘Oughtn’t there be a system,’ said I.

‘That is a good idea. Let us think of one.’

We came to Don Otavio’s father’s room, now occupied by E and her stack of note-books. ‘We will make this one No. 1, do you not think so?’

Andreas hammered the disk above the door.

‘That looks very nice. It looks – businesslike?’

‘I do not like it at all,’ said I.

‘
Niña
, you are in a very strange mood.’

A few days later he said, ‘I think you were right. I should not have had the numbers put on before the alterations. Enriquez writes that some of these big rooms will have to be divided up. And there are too many loggias. He says you can buy houses now all ready built, and he may bring some to put up on the lawn. He and the manager will see to all that. You know the manager is coming, the one your friends are sending. I have
engaged him. My aunt is much pleased. She is sending him his fare from New York.’

‘What did you say his name was?’

‘Bill. Bill Something. I am not good at English names.’

‘And what is this English gentleman doing in New York?’ said E.

‘Managing an hotel. The letter says he is an experienced manager.’

March and April passed without major disturbances. I received one or two letters that required an answer, the servants all got exceedingly drunk during Holy Week, the weather became almost hot and the level of the lake sank. The American Consul at Guadalajara gave a large party and Mr Middleton organised an excursion to one of the lake’s unexplored islands. E went to the first, I went to neither. Then the President of the Republic arrived on a goodwill tour of the Province. There was a dance at the Gubernatorial Palace, which proved publicity for Jack’s portraits; the President gave a banquet at Guadalajara for some three hundred of his more presentable supporters, and a bucolic spread at Chapala for the rank and file. Diaz’ daughter’s villa was opened for the occasion, and we all went over to see the food and drink arrive for two thousand persons.

E was delighted. ‘Exactly like the political barbecues in the West,’ she said. ‘Liquor and roast animals.’

‘Do ladies go to political functions in your country?’ said Don Otavio.

The Presidential train from Mexico was so late that the ball, the banquet and the picnic had each to be put a day forward, a fact which much increased the popularity of the visit.

‘Now everything must be paid for twice,’ explained Don Otavio.

We watched the arrival of the Presidential party from the balcony of a house in Chapala. First there were some motor-cyclists with guns. These must have somewhat out-distanced the body, because after them there came nothing. Ten minutes later the motor-cyclists sped by from the opposite direction, and after another while reappeared from their original one. There was another pause, and then came a dozen open cars
jamful with ruffians in large hats, covered with fire-arms. Another pause and another line of cars similarly occupied.

‘What a lot of bodyguard,’ said E.

‘These are the guests,’ said Don Otavio. ‘Look, this is the Judge of the Western District Division. And here is the Mayor of Zapopan.’

‘And where is the President?’

‘He does not eat with them. He will come later.’

Indeed after some hours a fast limousine sped by revealing behind closed windows, a man with a sallow complexion and a top-hat. All that time, fireworks never ceased. Guadalajaran firms, the inn at Chapala, petitioners, villages, private persons from about the lake, all had sent contributions – rockets, handmade crackers, set-pieces sparkling
Viva Mexico
or
Remember the Poor of San Tomàs Poxcuoco,
flying beetles sporting the President’s initials. The witch from Germany had sent a large balloon bearing in phosphorescent lettering the legend,

It was well made and stayed aloft a long time. For weeks we would see it floating through the night past the San Pedro shore. It frightened many drunks, and gave her much prestige.

‘You seem sad,
niña
, is there anything I can do for you?’

‘Oh Otavio … You’ve done everything.’

‘No, no. Is there anything that would put you in spirits? We have been quiet lately. Would you like to go to Doña Anna’s? Would you like Guadalupe to kill a chicken? Would you like some champagne?’

‘Otavio.’

‘Yes?’

‘I hardly like to say it. You know those Lafites and Margaux ageing away in your cellar … One does think about them. You said you and your brothers didn’t like them, otherwise I wouldn’t mention it, well to me, you see, the thought of having a glass of claret of that kind … Oh do stop me.’

‘Those French red wines? I gave them to Mr Waldheim.’

‘Otavio!’

‘He asked me for them. He went to the cellar with me at Christmas, you remember.’

‘Oh.’

‘I did not quite like giving them to him as I do not like them myself. It seemed so discourteous. I insisted on his taking at least a bottle of Cointreau. He really seemed to want to have those wines, poor man.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yes, I believe so. He came himself with the
mozo
. There were just a few dozen. You could have had them all.’

The date of Soledad’s wedding was settled for the third week in May.

In the same week, the new manager was to arrive and Don Enriquez return from Europe. Transformations were to begin immediately afterwards. The Blessing of the Animals was on the 24th, the Fiesta of Tlayacán the next day. Our own departure was to take place at the end of the month.

At the end of April, Jack left for San Salvador to do the Presidential family in oils, and on May 1st Doña Concepción had her baby. Don Otavio went to Guadalajara and stayed away a week. During his absence a young Mexican arrived by hired boat from Chapala and asked to see the boss. It was Guillermo.

We expressed mutual surprise.

‘You are staying at the hotel?’ said Guillermo.

‘What hotel?’

‘Don Otavio de … y … y … ’s hotel. I am the new manager.’

We packed him off to Guadalajara to interview Don Otavio.

‘I thought this was a resort,’ said Guillermo.

‘Not yet,
’ said E.

‘You know that I did most of the running of that place? You will say so?’

‘A Thirty-third Street rooming house?’ said E.

‘It was an experience.’

‘No doubt,’ said E.

‘Weren’t you expected weeks later?’ said I.

‘You see, it was not quite convenient for me to stay on in New York just now.’

‘I see,’ said E.

‘Poor Guillermo,’ I said later, ‘we must have been a shock – that is one thing Rosenkranz and Guildenstern mismanaged, they could hardly be expected to foresee my falling ill in the jungle and our spending our old age with Don Otavio – and you were not kind.’

‘Ought we to warn Otavio?’

‘I suppose he can see for himself.’

‘I wonder.’

‘See what, anyway?’

‘Yes, that’s it. What do we really know
against
Guillermo?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Exactly. It is only the unfortunate impression he makes. That is really so above-board of him.’

‘It will be fair warning.’

Don Otavio returned from Guadalajara in low spirits. His aunt had been difficult. There was no pronouncement yet on the grotto.

‘She is getting impatient, poor woman. She said if they are not going to make up their minds soon she will turn to something else. She says that Rome is getting very stuffy these days. They were pleased enough with any little miracle when we were keeping the Faith alive under the Reform Laws, but nowadays, it’s all witnessed testimonials in triplicate. It is not enough for them to know that the goitres are gone, they want proof that the people
had
goitres. As if it could be a cure if they were not gone. Like a lot of tax-collecting clerks. Aunt Isabella-María says she does not like that kind of attitude, it is unbecoming to a great church.’

Don Otavio had come back without Guillermo. He had sent him to Mexico, there was nothing for him to do here and Guillermo had expressed alacrity to go. There were a number of things to be bought that could not be had at Guadalajara, and Guillermo was taking some papers for Don Luís to sign.

‘The post is so unreliable,’ said Don Otavio.

Domingo had been sent with Guillermo. ‘Bill is now our manager, it
is suitable for him to have a
mozo
and there will be much to wrap up. We are going to have new vases everywhere. Domingo wanted to see Mexico, now that he is going to be married he will not be able to travel so much.’

It grew warmer. Every day the lake sank a little lower, there were no signs of rain. Soledad sewed, Guadalupe fattened some turkeys, Doña Anna was asked and arranged for lending the band, Don Otavio deliberated whether he should give Domingo a bicycle. Don Jaime came out to remove his things from the Hacienda, and we were getting ready to move across to the Villa the day after the wedding. Workmen had already dumped a mess of plaster in the back patio. Proofs arrived of advertisements appearing in the travel sections of the
New York
and
Chicago Tribunes
and the
Los Angeles Examiner.
Don Otavio pasted them in a scrap-book – started for the occasion – and forwarded to Don Enriquez the first letter of inquiry that came from Pittsburgh and demanded particulars as to sports, recreation facilities and rates. E paced the ex-Governor’s bedroom and tried to finish a chapter.

Three days before Soledad’s wedding we received word that Guillermo had been arrested at Mexico City.

Don Otavio started at once for Guadalajara. He returned two days later, very quiet. He came up to the West Loggia and sat down. ‘Poor Bill is going to be all right. Enriquez is getting him out, and Luís is looking after him. There is no kitchen in his prison. I do not think it is poor Bill’s fault. It is something about his papers and their not believing that he is a foreigner. It is not unusual. Enriquez says they did not like the place they arrested Bill in, and they did not like his hotel, and that there is also something about a debt. But it is all quite sad and unfortunate. My aunt is very angry. You see, Bill used our name. Enriquez is angry, too. And Jaime. And now I must go and speak to Juan.
¿Con su permiso?
’

‘Can you make out what happened?’ I said to E.

‘Only that Guillermo made his unfortunate impression on the police.’
In the evening Don Otavio said, ‘there has been a general disgust and now there will be no hotel.

‘Oh it is not only poor Bill. The Vatican has decided against the grotto, we just heard. You see, Aunt Isabella-María had already put in quite a lot of money. She is very much upset, poor woman. She has sacked her confessor. She says in candles alone it was a fortune and what good is the land to her now. She says it makes one understand why there are so many heresies. And Enriquez, too, has taken against the hotel. He says that now that politics are again more open to us, he is not going to waste his time making up weekly bills and that I am no good, and in any case Americans with money go to Europe again now, and he’s seen what people want and it is not San Pedro. He says San Pedro is hopeless. You would have to spend millions and pull down every stone and pillar to get something that looked more like San José Purúa, and then where would you be? At Tlayacán with no road. The money has just been spent again on the President’s Ball. And a motor-boat, Enriquez says, is all very well but people want to use their cars, and such tourists future as the Republic might have, was all on the Taxco Highway, and he has heard of a nice piece of land, right
on
the road, not all cluttered up with old houses, and he might think of developing that. You couldn’t even sell San Pedro, he says. Nowadays the only thing to do with a place like that was to live in it, that was all it was good for.’