A Heart for the Gods of Mexico

by Conrad Aiken

  “You’re sure you’re not too tired, Noni?”

  “No, Blom, I want to go. I want to put my hands in it.”

  “Well, you two are certainly romantic!”

  Gil was peevish; Gil disliked the wind and dust, the long walk, proceeded with lowered head, his felt hat pulled down on his forehead. But the slum streets, the decrepit old buildings on the dingy slope to the river, broken windows, crumbling walls, old gray stone and brick, shutters hanging awry, cheap lodgings—ten cents a night, five cents a night—in houses which a century since had been the city’s best—this was extraordinary, deeply exciting. Here the past became vivid, became rank and real; like a conch shell held to the ear these ruins gave off an echo of the south and the sea: deep south, deep sea. And inland two thousand miles! The south had crept up the river, that was it, there was a foreign feeling here, and something mortuary too: it was like a dead seaport of the south, maritime but defunct. And sinister, also; a gangsters’ paradise, smelling of beer and brothels. The sloping streets of cobbles were almost covered with tin beer-bottle tops. Here and there, an old ruin which had once been a thriving river hotel, full of violent life, the life of the Mississippi. Here Mark Twain had walked.

  And under the iron-dark structure of the elevated railroad, the very viaduct over which they had themselves slowly entered the city, they came to the wide granite-paved beach of the majestic river, walked slowly down to it. Like tide marks left by the sea, lines of gray and withered flotsam—driftwood, barrel staves, empty bottles, tin cans, slivers of wood silvered with age, peeled branches polished like horn, eggshells, orange peels—marked the many levels at which during the winter the great river had stood. An enormous beach; against which the dark water slid with sleepy power, the brown eddies moving swiftly downstream as they coiled sparkling in the sunlight. A little way upstream, two river boats rotted at a landing stage, twin-smokestacked—the smokestacks with coronetted tops. Noni dipped her hand in the water.

  “It’s the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee,” she said.

  “0l’ man river,” said Gil.

  “Now I’m baptized, Blom, in this continent. Now I’ve got Indian blood.”

  “And in the old days they used to say that some of those boats drew so little water that in a heavy dew they could sail right across the point of land between one bend of the river and the next!”

  “Mark Twain. Mark two!”

  “I wouldn’t mind taking a boat all the way down——”

  Gil was peevish; perhaps he was tired, but indeed all three of them were tired; a curious feeling of unreality was beginning to affect them, like a mild fever. He said:

  “Well, it looks just like a river to me! But I admit it’s a kind of a big one.”

  “Now, Gil, you stop worrying about your affairs in Boston! I’ve told you they’ll be all right.”

  “Oh yes, they’ll all run themselves.”

  “Probably much better.”

  “I’m not complaining, Noni——”

  “I know, dear. It’s all right. Life gets very sudden, sometimes, but isn’t it fun! Isn’t it, Blom?”

  “It’s a three-ringed circus, Noni, and I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. My God, Gil, look about you. You never saw anything like this in your life. It’s crazy.”

  “Crazy?”

  “Sure, crazy. Look at these people, with their withered faces and scrawny necks, their dead eyes and dead souls——”

  “Oh come, Blom dear. It’s not as bad as all that!”

  “Damn near. They’ve gone to seed. There’s nothing left. No juice in them, not a particle: this infernal vampire continent has sucked them dry. They’ll blow away like tumbleweed. I’ve never been so impressed—and depressed—in my life: it’s given me a new and not so very attractive, I’m bound to say, picture of America. Think of those pathetic Hoosiers on the train—those bleached and weather-worn countryfolk, animated scraps of skin and leather—good God, their eyes were a quarter of an inch apart, they’d never felt anything or seen anything in their lives. Why, you could as soon expect understanding—understanding, illumination, awareness, call it what you want—of an ox or goat. No mind, no spirit, not a spark …”

  Gil was amused. He said slowly:

  “Blom, you sometimes become really biblical. By the waters of Mississippi we sat down and wept; yea, we wept, when we remembered Boston!”

  “Oh no, we laughed!”

  The profound river, the strange sad city—what a pair these made, with their so casual conjunction of the magnificent and the trivial, the fecund and the sterile! A whole continent pouring itself out lavishly to the sea, in superb everlasting waste, an immense creative giving, power that could afford to be careless both of means and end—and mankind beside it become as spiritually empty as the locust, and as parasitic. Surely the Indians had been better than this, and the Frenchmen, too, who had first explored these savage waters: in either had been a dignity, a virtue, now lost. And the Mexican Indians, to whom they were going—what of those? Lawrence said—and all the psychoanalysts said—and the guidebooks said——

  It was as if he had heard a bell, suddenly, from a deep valley, a jungle valley, inviting to the sacrifice, whether pagan or Christian: there, there were still gods. But here, in this melancholy wreckage of a meager past, in this sloven street, spangled with tin beer caps, which they were climbing slowly again, past stinking cellars and boarded windows, here there was no longer even a true love of earth. This people was lost.…

  “It’s ommernous,” he said aloud, grimly; “every bit of it is ommernous.”

  “Blom’s saying it’s ommernous again, Noni!”

  “I guess we all need another drink. Is it Friday or Tuesday? And after that, Gil dear, I’m going back to the station for a good wash.”

  The Opera House, closed and boarded up, ancient home of burlesque, the silver gilt peeling from its baroque façade of garlands and bosomy nymphs and cracked cornucopias, and a little farther on a café. Gil led the way in, past the bar, at which one man and four waitresses lolled, to a small table at the back. Beyond this a large room, or rather a Cimmerian gloom, unlighted, in which gilded columns were barely visible. Into this, and out of it, mysterious figures went and came, some male, some female. One of the waitresses half lay across a table, in a dark corner, at which a man was sitting. Another led a newcomer into the back, somewhere, and disappeared entirely. Noni said:

  “If I weren’t tired, I would say we had picked out a very peculiar place!”

  “See no evil, speak no evil, drink your beer!”

  Palm trees and silver spittoons. A radio, muted, crooned from a corner of the front window. Noni was looking really tired: she ought to lie down. He could tell by the way she tried, without attracting attention, to rest first one shoulder, then the other, and without success, against the uncomfortably small chairback; crossed her knees and then uncrossed them; leaned her elbows on the table, her fists against her cheekbones, the blue eyes bright with sleepiness. He said:

  “Guess I’ll stay here and write a letter. You fellers go on back to the station when you want to, and I’ll meet you there.”

  Gil seemed pleased. He excused himself, for a moment, wandered off into the gloom at the back. Noni turned the blue wings, turned the sleepy eyes, and said:

  “How is it, Blom?”

  “It’s all right, Noni.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite. He asked some questions this morning, fishing a little to find out if I knew more than he did——”

  “Do you think he really thinks so?”

  “I think he did, a little. But now I think it’s all right. You’re doing wonders, Noni—keep it up.”

  “Thank you, Blom, dear. So are you.”

  “But now be sensible and take it easy; and try to get some sleep. It’s going to be worse before it’s better! The trains might be crowded, you never know. And maybe hot.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything special I can d
o.”

  “Do you think he’s jealous?”

  “No. No more than Gil ever is; no.”

  She sighed, relaxed, looked at him gratefully.

  “That’s good. He’s been a little silent.”

  “Just upset by the whole thing, that’s all.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Here he is.”

  “Okay. Suppose I meet you at five, then. Or ten to? At the station bookshop.”

  “Right!”

  She rose to join Gil, took his arm; and he sat still, watching them go out into the bright street and turn to the left. Then he took out the folded sheets of paper and began to write, half listening to the voices at the bar.

  III

  “What is man that thou art mindful of him? What is time, and what is reality? And what on earth ever put it into the mind of man that any god or gods were mindful of him? As you see, Clint, I’m on my way; and as you doubtless also observed, I didn’t get to Cambridge to see you before I left. As you can imagine. And I was sorry, too, for, among other things, I wanted to ask you a favor. Key, as you will surmise as soon as you see the St. Louis—or wherever—postmark, came across with a hundred dollars, and made it possible. But only barely possible; that’s the point. Now, if things go wrong, or it takes longer than we had thought, or anything of that sort, we’ll need more money; and I’m afraid Key is the only chance. So, if I should wire you from Mexico just the one word ‘Key’ would you be an angel and do what you can? Another hundred, for a guess—but if I have any more definite idea of our exact needs I’ll perhaps add the figures. I hope you don’t mind—and in fact I’m sure you won’t or I wouldn’t ask it. It’s only that we may really need a watchdog in Boston when we get way off there in the wilderness.… Wilderness—my God, as if we weren’t already in a wilderness! You must come and see this country of ours—it’s a wonder. Talk about your wastelands—it’s purely and simply, I’m afraid, a spiritual desert. These faces! They’re made of a kind of pale and pasty leather, no ray ever touched or lit them, and the eyes are blind as stones. Arid, dry, withered, there’s nothing left of them; they’re like old corn shucks hung up in a barn and forgotten. All the faces, mind you—and everywhere. There’s simply no trace of refinement, or sensitiveness, or subtlety of awareness; and I can’t begin to tell you how wonderfully depressing it is. Not, of course, that in a way it’s not a godsend, if only as a diversion from the matter in hand! As to that—well, by God, you see me for once not reading novels for a publisher, but actually in one. It really is a novel. Talk about Hart Crane or D. H. Lawrence or whoever, going to Mexico to die, going down to the everlasting dark! What about Blom the embalmer? Blom the undertaker? Blom the best man at the funeral? Blom the chief, if not the only, mourner? No, that’s not fair—for Gil does, in his dry wounded way, love Noni; he really does. But just the same he’s spared, unlike Noni and myself, the burden of foreknowing, and there are times when in spite of myself I can’t help being irritated with him. Poor old Gil! At the bottom of his heart he must simply hate my being here at all, and he must certainly wonder himself sick as to why Noni insisted on my coming. But he’s a sport about it, I must say, and I admire him for it. As for Noni—well, you know Noni! She’s a good soldier. She just marches up against the battery as if it wasn’t there; and she hasn’t changed her behavior by a hair’s breadth. And so far, anyway, she’s standing it better than I feared she would. Next to no sleep at all last night—we found out only when we were halfway across New York State that we had to change at a place called Galion, Ohio—think of it—at half past four in the morning. You can imagine what it was like, trying to sleep with that hanging over us! Gil really slept—I did fairly well—but Noni was awake pretty much all night. And the change itself wasn’t too good, in pitch dark, a hell of a hurry the whole length of two trains, and Noni was in some distress. In spite of which she really seems pretty well today, and has actually been enjoying this odd city very much. And the river. The river moved her deeply—obviously meant something very private to her. You know how she is about such things; I’ve often thought Noni ought to have been a poet. We took a walk down to see it, through a very fine slum section, much against Gil’s will; she insisted she must put her hands in it, and did so. It was nice! One of those things you like Noni for. Then we came back and had a drink at a café which looks to me remarkably like a bagnio, if you know what I mean, and it’s there that I’m sitting to write this.… It’s funny; half the time I can’t really believe a word of it—it doesn’t seem actual at all. Of course journeys are a little like that, anyway—but this more so, I suppose, because it all happened so suddenly and with so little time for thinking about it. And then, naturally, the situation about Noni makes it all even harder to believe. The truth is, I can’t admit it to myself; it just doesn’t make sense. Things like this don’t happen, do they? People don’t have to die like that—and we all know that there is a God, and there is justice, and there is beauty—or do we? Noni is here, alive; I saw her stooping to wet her hands in the muddy water of the Mississippi an hour ago. I shall see her again at five, and yet we both know that this is coming to an end, that she will presently—well, vanish. It beats me, Clint! I can’t make head or tail of it. How explain such cruelty away? It’s enough to make you really hate the whole nature of existence: but then, the joke is, the existence of Noni, and the way she takes this business, makes me really believe in something extraordinarily good—she’s herself a sort of proof of the divine excellence of things. A very subtle reversal!…

  “Next day. I’m finishing this on the train, so forgive the rocky handwriting. The Sunshine Special is rushing us into Texas, and all day, think of it, we shall do nothing but cross Texas. Noni and Gil are washing—I’m waiting for breakfast. These so-called De Luxe Coaches aren’t bad: but none of us did much sleeping, I’m afraid. We were grieved when they took away an extremely nice smoking car, with adjustable seat backs—very comfortable; but damn it, after we’d got our bags into it we found they were going to yank it off during the night. Almost the best thing so far was coming down the river from St. Louis—really magical. I wish there’d been more of it. We followed the river for about half an hour, at dusk—very fine—it’s an astonishing river—dark little bayous with flat-bottomed rowboats tied up under tropical trees—nice old farmhouses with lawns going down to the shore—levees, islands, ragged trees sticking up out of deep water where islands or points use to be—the general impression of something marvelously untamed. Noni ate it alive. Here come Noni and Gil now——I’ll finish this, and put it off at the next station—Arp, or Troup, or something. And I’ll of course drop you a line when we get to M. Remember, please, Clint, all this under your hat. Yrs., B.

  “If any of this letter doesn’t make sense, remember, too, that I haven’t had any sleep to speak of for two nights. We’re all beginning to feel very odd and vague—as if we’d somehow stepped right out of time. Damned funny! It’s a sort of dream state you get into, everything telescopes and foreshortens—something like a fever. Not unpleasant, in a way, either, for in some respects your faculties actually seem sharpened—perhaps only fitfully, and perhaps it’s an illusion!…”

  Dream state. The dream state of Missouri, or Arkansas, or Texas.…

  The dream state of Mexico.…

  In the smoking car Gil talked about Little Rock. He was not sure whether he had really seen it, in the middle of the night, or had only had a dream about it. On the deserted platform, talking to a man with a broom, a Negro porter had taken his visored porter’s cap out of a paper bag, replaced it with the straw hat which he had just been wearing. Then there had been stately buildings of marble, a glowing capitol on a hill, palladian lamplit walls, miles of lights, along a river, and the train turning west.…

  “It sounds like a dream.”

  “The town does. But the porter with the paper bag——?”

  “And anyway, at least we didn’t have to change. We were left alone to not sleep.”

  �
��Yeah. To not sleep.…”

  They closed their eyes and opened them again; again closed them, again opened them. Thou hast nor youth nor age, but, as it were, an after-dinner sleep. The rich country divulged hills, the hills divulged an oil-derrick or two, then others; suddenly like a blond angel in the bright sunlight, unbelievable, the tall fierce flame of a natural-gas well blazed pale yellow in the morning, and another, and a third. The fantastic landscape of skeletal derricks, singly or in groups or rows, stretching away as far as one could see in the broken country, had a sort of natural beauty, it was like something which had actually grown out of the earth. Of some, the pumps were motionless; of others they worked slowly, at the bottom of the derrick, like the lazy kicking of a grasshopper’s leg. Oil lands. The surface of the ground looked brown and rusty here and there, as if oil-soaked; pools of shallow scum lay among blighted trees and bushes; junk-heaps of scrap metal, oil tanks like immense mushrooms, bright ugly little towns as new as varnish. And Gil was reading aloud, his ascetic face wrinkled with amusement:

  “The picture is a reproduction of William Harden Foster’s famous painting——”

  “Famous——?”

  “Yes, famous painting, ‘The Sunshine Special.’ The floral border combines the State Flower of each of the eleven States——”

  “It’s very pretty, all except the chu-chu.”

  “The Apple Blossom for instance—listen!—is a beautiful pink and white flower chosen by Arkansas because of its outstanding value, both commercial and esthetic. It is described by the legislature as a delight to the eye that ripens into a joy to the palate.”

  “Just the same, my darling, I think it’s a very pretty plate.”

  “The Wood Violet was chosen by Illinois because of its great beauty and appeal, its modest retiring nature—like Noni—and because it grows so profusely in the State.”