‘Don Otavio might. They used to own half of Colima.’
‘I don’t think Don Otavio can read a map,’ said Jack D.
‘It wouldn’t be on a map,’ said Peter, ‘it’s that kind of trail. Two trails. Richard Middleton says one must on no account take the other one.’
‘It would mean asking Mr Middleton.’
‘I shan’t,’ said Peter. ‘Not after the way he was right about my chimney.’
I did ask Mr Middleton. He was much pleased. He said it was not difficult but a question of choosing the right trail according to the weather. He drew a chart. He made a list of equipment. He told what to wear; he worked out a time-table. The great thing, he said, was to get to Autlán good and early on the day before crossing the jungle so as to have a clear six hours of daylight for doing any little thing that needed seeing to. He said we had much better wait a week or two, then he could come along and arrange everything. He could not get away at present because of the cucumber frames, besides it was still early for the journey, there was bound to be water in the arroyos.
The next day he called to discuss a spare dynamo, first-aid and vaccination. In the evening he sent a message asking us to weigh our prospective kit so that he might work out a rational way of disposing it between two cars. Then he sent a mozo over to San Antonio for the measurements of Peter’s dickey. For the water-filter, the mozo explained; it was very large.
Peter was furious. A simple serious rage. He was not going to keep Birmingham hours in the jungle, he said, and the only way out for us now was to go at once. ‘We’ll say you didn’t have the time to wait until the end of the month.’
‘Very well. Only Mr Middleton hasn’t said yet which trail to take in which weather.’
‘If he’s worked it out by himself, I don’t see why we can’t. We aren’t morons. Have you ever travelled with Richard Middleton? I have. We go now, or we don’t go at all.’
We went next morning, before lunch that is, Peter, Jack and I and Peter’s two cocker spaniels. ‘Richard Middleton always leaves his with the American vet at Guadalajara,’ said Peter. ‘I shall take mine.’ Peter’s sister was on her way back to England, and E, in so many words, had refused to come.
Between us we brought: two Thermos flasks, one of them not very well insulated, a pint of rum, a Woolworth bottle of insect repellent, a box Kodak, Mr Middleton’s chart, a medal lent by Don Otavio, some books and the dog’s baskets. Jack also had a pen-knife. We lunched at Chapala, where Peter kept his car, and we did not get to Autlán that day.
We found a waterfall. We bathed, and Peter washed the dogs. ‘Mountain water, so good for their coats,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I give them some of your insect oil?’ Presently we picked some limes and mixed the tea from one Thermos with the ice in the other and the rum from the bottle. After nightfall we got to a village that was having a fiesta. It was a creepy fiesta – a crocodile of youths walking around the plaza in one direction, and one of girls in another; men bent over silent, sticky games of chance at acetylene-lit booths. We thought of Mr Middleton and enjoyed everything. We liked the watermelon, and Jack lost five pesos in coppers trying to learn to understand the lotto. He and Peter had drinks in a cantina where I was not allowed; we bought some stew and garbanzas at a stall and ate our dinner in the street. For the dogs we got a piece of grilled meat and fed them tactfully in the car. Then we saw a bitch with the mange. We gave her some food and she looked at us.
‘Oh what good is that going to be tomorrow,’ said Peter. ‘They’re everywhere. Let’s get out of this place. I wish we hadn’t stopped.’
‘When I tell your mozos that dogs have to eat the same as they do,’ said Jack, ‘they giggle. Can’t their priests do something?’
‘They could, but they don’t.’
After that, we stopped for the night at the first possible place.
But in the morning the sun was bright. Again we dawdled. Peter bought some tiles, and Jack bought hats in markets. We stopped to look at pretty village churches, intimations of baroque traced in pink sand by a child’s finger, already sinking. The road was steep. Below three thousand feet, the fields began to look dried-up and we to feel the heat of the low country.
‘Not much chance of the arroyos being flooded,’ said Peter.
We reached Autlán at dusk with a flat tyre.
Peter said there must be a torch somewhere, but when we found it the battery had given out.
‘Never mind. We’ll get the damned thing changed tomorrow morning.’
The inn at Autlán proved to provide the necessities of life. We were served with an ample supper of fried eggs, tough beef-steak, maize-cakes and chilli in an unkempt patio. There was tepid bottled beer and we were told that we could certainly have boiled water tomorrow. The Padrona was rather immersed in a sheaf of sewing-machine catalogues, but brightened when she found out that we could read.
Spanish advertisements are rich in metaphor and very long. The catalogues rumbled on like seventeenth-century funeral orations.
The Padrona thanked us.
‘Now have you made up your mind which one you want?’ said Peter.
‘I do not want a sewing-machine. I have three.’
‘Then why bother with all those catalogues?’
‘I like the explanations. They are more beautiful than the pictures.’
‘The literary life,’ said Jack. ‘We must tell E.’
We were lit to our sleeping quarters with a candle. They were two vast attics, one for men, one for women. There were no other female travellers at Autlán so I was alone in mine. The beds were planks, solid wooden planks, with clean sheets. I chose one.
‘Like girls at a fashionable school,’ I said next morning. ‘To keep their backs straight. You know it’s no worse than lying on the floor, as long as one doesn’t try to turn. How impossible of me to have slept on a plank for the first time in my life, and made a thing of it, and thought of girls’ schools, when so many people had to.’
‘I had to,’ said Jack, ‘I dare say so has Peter. That doesn’t make it any the less uncomfortable now and I’d much rather think of girls’ schools.’
‘I say,’ said Peter, ‘do you think we ought to have that tyre mended before we start? My spare is in rather poor shape.’
Mr Middleton had spoken of six new tyres, extra inners and a patent lubrication to spray the rubber with every half-hour in the heat. I knew better than to mention this.
‘We might as well,’ said Jack.
There was no one in Autlán able to perform this feat. Jack said he could, there was nothing to it.
‘So like my grandfather’s motoring days,’ said Peter.
Then Jack said that Peter didn’t have at all the right things for mending a tyre, and this was not the way he’d been taught to in the army.
Peter said, not to be such a fuss-pot, they might as well have Mr Middleton, and everyone knew American mechanics mended everything with a bit of string and a hair-pin.
Jack said he wished he had a hair-pin; and anyway what about air?
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, one thing at a time,’ said Peter.
I left the scene. Driving to the coast was not well thought of at Autlán. In fact it was not thought of at all. It did not lend itself. Were they sure now? Quite sure. From Navidad perhaps, yes, from Navidad the oxen went down one, two, three times a month to the coast. From Navidad, not from Autlán.
I told this to Peter. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘half the time they don’t know what they are talking about. Richard Middleton, damn him, no one mentioned Navidad before. Where is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There you are.’
Jack had mended the tyre and found a boy and a bicycle pump. ‘I’m filthy,’ he said, ‘before I do anything I must have a bath.’
So they lit a brazier at the inn, heated three buckets of water and carried them upstairs.
The pump boy vanished at once.
Jack came out in white flannels, smelli
ng of bay-rum. ‘That tyre’s still half down.’
‘Did you give him any money?’
‘Fifty centavos.’
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘You might have told me, Peter.’
‘Oh I can’t think of everything. I wish we’d get out of this bloody place soon.’
‘It would be nice to get to the sea,’ said I.
‘Better have something to eat first, though.’
‘Here?’ said Jack. ‘Not again?’
‘There isn’t anywhere else. You can save your steak for the dogs.’
At breakfast there had been eggs, beef-steak, maize-cakes, beans and chilli. ‘What’s for lunch?’
‘Let me see,’ said the Padrona. ‘I can give you some eggs. Fried eggs. And a nice beef-steak. And some beans.’
‘Aren’t there any vegetables?’
‘Yes, beans.’
‘Fresh vegetables?’
‘No hay.’
‘No tomatoes? Any fruit?’
‘No hay.’
‘There must be fruit. We saw it on the trees.’
‘No hay.’
After this meal, Jack produced another boy. Peter sent him away.
‘You must find the first one,’ he said. ‘He was paid and he’s got to finish the job. It’s a matter of principle. They mustn’t think they can get away with everything. You don’t want to spoil the place.’
Jack said considering the amount of time he intended to spend at Autlán he could not care less.
‘That’s frightfully irresponsible,’ said Peter.
‘I can’t bear to think of anything happening to Mr Middleton,’ said I, ‘I believe Peter is only waiting to step into his shoes.’
‘Don’t see why he should have it all his own way. And Jack, there’s your boy. Or is it?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Oh hell, let them both pump. And then let’s be off. It’ll be dark soon.’
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking,’ said Jack.
‘How far is it, exactly?’ said I.
‘Oh about thirty miles as the crow flies. One can’t tell about those trails. Perhaps more.’
‘Do we go as the crow flies?’
‘Do you both want to spend another night at Autlán?’ said Peter.
‘Not if we can get to the coast.’
‘Can one get through in the dark, Peter?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘Is one supposed to sleep in the jungle?’
‘Three people and two dogs in one car,’ said I.
So as it happened we did find ourselves at Autlán with several clear hours of daylight in front of us. I took Jack aside. ‘I am sorry to sound like The Boy’s Own Paper, but oughtn’t we to have an axe or something to hack our way through the vegetation?’
‘I thought of that. And it’s the one thing we’ll be able to find here.’
So we went and bought a machete.
Later we played nursery dominoes. We dined off eggs, beef-steak, maize-cakes, beans and chilli, and went to bed at ten. We were down again at quite an early hour. We had breakfast, then Peter said he had better give the dogs a good walk before we got to the really hot parts; so what with that and Jack’s bath and Jack’s packing and waiting for a dinner to be put up to take for the dogs, we started at a quarter to eleven.
First there were about ten miles of abrupt descent and these we did in just under two hours. It was blazing hot.
‘We’ll be in the shade soon,’ said Peter. ‘Wait till we get into the orchid forests.’
Then the dirt-road stopped and a trail began. We got out Mr Middleton’s chart. Nothing looked in the least like it.
‘Well, there’s only one trail as far as I can see,’ said Peter; ‘That’s a mercy.’
We plodded through a stretch of sand and conifers. It was heavy going and we had to change down into first. The engine was heating fast.
‘What oil are you using, Peter?’
‘Oh I don’t know, the one the man at Chapala puts in.’
It was tricky progress. Every now and then we got stuck. Each time it was a business getting off again. The dogs would hurl themselves out of the car and had to be urged back in; the wheels turned in statu quo churning up the sand. We spread a mackintosh, two of us pushed, the third accelerated, and we all hated the noise made by the engine at these moments. Afterwards the ones who’d pushed had to scramble on to the car again without arresting its precarious motion. At the best of times, these would have been exertions; in that temperature, they took on the nature of an improbable sub-human tussle, something that had already taken place in a remembered tale of stokers.
Then undergrowth began, first straggly then thickening, and suddenly we were in a steaming tunnel of fat leaves. But the trail continued sandy and the attention of all three of us remained riveted on the driving. Then there was a clearing, and once more we were among thin pines.
‘Was that the jungle, Peter?’
‘Look, people!’ There was indeed a coconut-fibre hut.
‘This is what we want,’ said Jack, leaping out of the car, ‘that mackintosh is in shreds.’
He returned with the roof. ‘Nice bit of matting. They said they’d make themselves another one for tonight.’
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.
A Visit to Don Otavio Page 29