The men were the obvious figures. They assert themselves on the air. They are the dominant. Usually they are in loose groups, talking quietly, or silent: always standing or sitting apart, rarely touching one another. Often a single man would stand alone at a street corner in his serape, motionless for hours, like some powerful spectre. Or a man would lie on the beach as if he had been cast up dead from the waters. Impassive, motionless, they would sit side by side on the benches of the plaza, not exchanging a word. Each one isolated in his own fate, his eyes black and quick like a snake’s, and as blank.
It seemed to Kate that the highest thing this country might produce would be some powerful relationship of man to man. Marriage itself would always be a casual thing. Though the men seemed very gentle and protective to the little children. Then they forgot them.
But sex itself was a powerful, potent thing, not to be played with or paraded. The one mystery. And a mystery greater than the individual. The individual hardly counted.
It was strange to Kate to see the Indian huts on the shore, little holes built of straw or corn-stalks, with half-naked children squatting on the naked earth floor, and a lousy woman-squalor around, a litter of rags and bones, and a sharp smell of human excrement. The people have no noses. And standing silent and erect not far from the hole of the doorway, the man, handsome and impassive. How could it be, that such a fine-looking human male should be so absolutely indifferent, content with such paltry squalor?
But there he was, unconscious. He seemed to have life and passion in him. And she knew he was strong. No men in the world can carry heavier loads on their backs, for longer distances, than these Indians. She had seen an Indian trotting down a street with a piano on his back: holding it, also, by a band round his forehead. From his forehead, and on his spine he carried it, trotting along. The women carry with a band round the breast.
So there is strength. And apparently, there is passionate life. But no energy. Nowhere in Mexico is there any sign of energy. This is, as it were, switched off.
Even the new artisan class, though it imitates the artisan class of the United States, has no real energy. There are workmen’s clubs. The workmen dress up and parade a best girl on their arm. But somehow it seems what it is, only a weak imitation.
Kate’s family was increased, without her expecting it. One day there arrived from Ocotlan a beautiful ox-eyed girl of about fifteen, wrapped in her black cotton rebozo, and somewhat towny in her Madonna-meekness: Maria del Carmen. With her, Julio, a straight and fierce young man of twenty-two. They had just been married, and had come to Sayula for a visit. Julio was Juana’s cousin.
Might they sleep in the patio with herself and the girls, was Juana’s request. They would stay only two days.
Kate was amazed. Maria del Carmen must have had some Spanish blood, her beauty was touched with Spain. She seemed even refined and superior. Yet she was to sleep out on the ground like a dog, with her young husband. And he, so erect and proud-looking, possessed nothing in the world but an old serape.
‘There are three spare bedrooms,’ said Kate. ‘They may sleep in one of those.’
The beds were single beds. Would they need more blankets? she asked Juana.
No! They would manage with the one serape of Julio’s.
The new family had arrived. Julio was a bricklayer. That is to say, he worked building the adobe walls of the little houses. He belonged to Sayula, and had come back for a visit.
The visit continued. Julio would come striding in at midday and at evening; he was looking for work. Maria del Carmen, in her one black dress, would squat on the floor and pat tortillas. She was allowed to cook them in Juana’s kitchen hole. And she talked and laughed with the girls. At night, when Julio was home, he would lie on the ground with his back to the wall, impassive, while Maria del Carmen fondled his thick black hair.
They were in love. But even now, he was not yielding to his love.
She wanted to go back to Ocotlan, where she was at home, and more a señorita than here in Sayula. But he refused. There was no money: the young ménage lived on about five American cents a day.
Kate was sewing. Maria del Carmen, who didn’t even know how to put a chemise together, watched with great eyes. Kate taught her, and bought a length of cotton material. Maria del Carmen was sewing herself a dress!
Julio had got work at a peso a day. The visit continued. Kate thought Julio wasn’t very nice with Maria del Carmen: his quiet voice was so overbearing in command when he spoke to her. And Maria del Carmen, who was a bit towny, did not take it well. She brooded a little.
The visit stretched into weeks. And now Juana was getting a bit tired of her relative.
But Julio had got a bit of money. He had rented a little one-room adobe house, at one peso fifty per week. Maria del Carmen was going to move into her own home.
Kate saw the new outfit got together. It consisted of one straw mat, three cooking-plates of earthenware, five bits of native crockery, two wooden spoons, one knife and Julio’s old blanket. That was all. But Maria del Carmen was moving in.
Kate presented her with a large old eiderdown, whose silk was rather worn, a couple of bowls, and a few more bits of crockery. Maria del Carmen was set up. Good! Good! Oh good! Kate heard her voice down the patio. I have got a coverlet! I have got a coverlet!
In the rainy season, the nights can be very cold, owing to evaporation. Then the natives lie through the small hours like lizards, numb and prostrate with cold. They are lying on the damp earth on a thin straw mat, with a corner of an old blanket to cover them. And the same terrible inertia makes them endure it, without trying to make any change. They could carry in corn husks or dry banana leaves for a bed. They could even cover themselves with banana leaves.
But no! On a thin mat on damp cold earth they lie and tremble with cold, night after night, night after night, night after night.
But Maria del Carmen was a bit towny. Oh good! Oh good! I’ve got a coverlet!
CHAPTER X
Don Ramón and Doña Carlota
Kate had been in Sayula ten days before she had any sign from Don Ramón. She had been out in a boat on the lake, and had seen his house, round the bend of the western point. It was a reddish-and-yellow two-storey house with a little stone basin for the boats, and a mango grove between it and the lake. Among the trees, away from the lake, were the black adobe huts, two rows, of the peons.
The hacienda had once been a large one. But it had been irrigated from the hills, and the revolutions had broken all the aqueducts. Only a small supply of water was available. Then Don Ramón had had enemies in the Government. So that a good deal of his land was taken away to be divided among the peons. Now, he had only some three hundred acres. The two hundred acres along the lake-shore were mostly lost to him. He worked a few acres of fruit land round the house, and in a tiny valley just in the hills he raised sugar-cane. On the patches of the mountain slope little patches of maize were to be seen.
But Doña Carlota had money. She was from Torreon and drew still a good income from the mines.
A mozo came with a note from Don Ramón: might he bring his wife to call on Kate?
Doña Carlota was a thin, gentle, wide-eyed woman, with a slightly startled expression, and soft, brownish hair. She was pure European in extraction, of a Spanish father and French mother: very different from the usual stout, over-powdered, ox-like Mexican matron. Her face was pale, faded, and without any make-up at all. Her thin, eager figure had something English about it, but her strange, wide brown eyes were not English. She spoke only Spanish — or French. But her Spanish was so slow and distinct and slightly plaintive, that Kate understood her at once.
The two women understood one another quickly, but were a little nervous of one another. Doña Carlota was delicate and sensitive like a Chihuahua dog, and with the same slightly prominent eyes. Kate felt she had rarely met a woman with such a dog-like finesse of gentleness. And the two women talked. Ramón, large and muted, kept himself in reserve. I
t was as if the two women rushed together to unite against his silence and his powerful, different significance.
Kate knew at once that Doña Carlota loved him, but with a love that was now nearly all will. She had worshipped him, and she had had to leave off worshipping him. She had had to question him. And she would never now cease from questioning.
So he sat apart, a little constrained, his handsome head hanging a little, and his dark, sensitive hands dangling between his thighs.
‘I had such a wonderful time!’ Kate said suddenly to him. ‘I danced a dance round the drum with the Men of Quetzalcoatl.’
‘I heard,’ he said, with a rather stiff smile.
Doña Carlota understood English, though she would not speak it.
‘You danced with the men of Quetzalcoatl!’ she said in Spanish, in a pained voice. ‘But, Señora, why did you do such a thing? Oh why?’
‘I was fascinated,’ said Kate.
‘No, you must not be fascinated. No! No! It is not good. I tell you. I am so sorry my husband interests himself in this thing. I am so sorry.’
Juana was bringing a bottle of vermouth: all that Kate had to offer her visitors, in the morning.
‘You went to see your boys in the United States?’ said Kate to Doña Carlota. ‘How were they?’
‘Oh, better, thank you. They are well; that is, the younger is very delicate.’
‘You didn’t bring him home?’
‘No! No! I think they are better at school. Here — here — there are so many things to trouble them. No! But they will come home next month, for the vacation.’
‘How nice!’ said Kate. ‘Then I shall see them. They will be here, won’t they? — on the lake?’
‘Well! — I am not sure. Perhaps for a little while. You see I am so busy in Mexico with my Cuna.’
‘What is a Cuna?’ said Kate; she only knew it was the Spanish for cradle.
It turned out to be a foundlings’ home, run by a few obscure Carmelite sisters. And Doña Carlota was the director. Kate gathered that Don Ramón’s wife was an intense, almost exalted Catholic. She exalted herself in the Church, and in her work for the Cuna.
‘There are so many children born in Mexico,’ said Doña Carlota, ‘and so many die. If only we could save them, and equip them for life. We do a little, all we can.’
It seemed the waste, unwanted babies could be delivered in at the door of the Cuna, like parcels. The mother had only to knock, and hand in the little living bundle.
‘It saves so many mothers from neglecting their babies, and letting them die,’ said Doña Carlota. ‘Then we do what we can. If the mother doesn’t leave a name, I name the child. Very often I do. The mothers just hand over a little naked thing, sometimes without a name or a rag to cover it. And we never ask.’
The children were not all kept in the Home. Only a small number. Of the others, some decent Indian woman was paid a small sum to take the child into her home. Every month she must come with the little one to the Cuna, to receive her wage. The Indians are so very rarely unkind to children. Careless, yes. But rarely, rarely unkind.
In former days, Doña Carlota said, nearly every well-born lady in Mexico would receive one or more of these foundlings into her home, and have it brought up with the family. It was the loose, patriarchal generosity innate in the bosoms of the Spanish-Mexicans. But now, few children were adopted. Instead, they were taught as far as possible to be carpenters or gardeners, or house-servants, or, among the girls, dressmakers, even school-teachers.
Kate listened with uneasy interest. She felt there was so much real human feeling in this Mexican charity: she was almost rebuked. Perhaps what Doña Carlota was doing was the best that could be done, in this half-wild, helpless country. At the same time, it was such a forlorn hope, it made one’s heart sink.
And Doña Carlota, confident as she was in her good works, still had just a bit the look of a victim; a gentle, sensitive, slightly startled victim. As if some secret enemy drained her blood.
Don Ramón sat there impassive, listening without heeding; solid and unmoving against the charitable quiver of his wife’s emotion. He let her do as she would. But against her work and against her flow he was in silent, heavy, unchanging opposition. She knew this, and trembled in her nervous eagerness, as she talked to Kate about the Cuna, and won Kate’s sympathy. Till it seemed to her that there was something cruel in Don Ramón’s passive, masked poise. An impassive male cruelty, changeless as a stone idol.
‘Now won’t you come and spend the day with me while I am here with Don Ramón?’ said Doña Carlota. ‘The house is very poor and rough. It is no longer what it used to be. But it is your house if you will come.’
Kate accepted, and said she would prefer to walk out. It was only four miles, and surely she would be safe, with Juana.
‘I will send a man to come with you,’ said Don Ramón. ‘It might not be quite safe.’
‘Where is General Viedma?’ asked Kate.
‘We shall try to get him out when you come,’ replied Doña Carlota. ‘I am so very fond of Don Cipriano, I have known him for many years, and he is the godfather of my younger son. But now he is in command of the Guadalajara division, he is not very often able to come out.’
‘I wonder why he is a General?’ said Kate. ‘He seems to me too human.’
‘Oh, but he is very human too. But he is a general; yes, yes, he wants to be in command of the soldiers. And I tell you, he is very strong. He has great power with his regiments. They believe in him, oh, they believe in him. He has that power, you know, that some of the higher types of Indians have, to make many others want to follow them and fight for them. You know? Don Cipriano is like that. You can never change him. But I think a woman might be wonderful for him. He has lived so without any woman in his life. He won’t care about them.’
‘What does he care about?’ asked Kate.
‘Ah!’ Doña Carlota started as if stung. Then she glanced quickly, involuntarily at her husband, as she added: ‘I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.’
‘The Men of Quetzalcoatl,’ said Don Ramón heavily, with a little smile.
But Doña Carlota seemed to be able to take all the ease and the banter out of him. He seemed stiff and a bit stupid.
‘Ah, there! There! There you have it! The Men of Quetzalcoatl — that is a nice thing for him to care about! A nice thing, I say,’ fluttered Doña Carlota, in her gentle, fragile, scolding way. And it was evident to Kate that she adored both the men, and trembled in opposition to their wrongness, and would never give in to them.
To Ramón it was a terrible burden, his wife’s quivering, absolute, blind opposition, taken in conjunction with her helpless adoration.
A man-servant appeared at nine o’clock one morning, to accompany Kate to the hacienda, which was called Jamiltepec. He had a basket, and had been shopping in the market. An elderly man, with grey in his moustache, he had bright young eyes and seemed full of energy. His bare feet in the huaraches were almost black with exposure, but his clothes were brilliantly white.
Kate was glad to be walking. The one depressing thing about life in the villages was that one could not walk out into the country. There was always the liability to be held up or attacked. And she had walked already, as far as possible, in every direction, in the neighbourhood of the village, accompanied usually by Ezequiel. Now she was beginning to feel a prisoner.
She was glad, then, to be setting off. The morning was clear and hot, the pale brown lake quite still, like a phantom. People were moving on the beach, in the distance tiny, like dots of white: white dots of men following the faint dust of donkeys. She wondered often why humanity was like specks in the Mexican landscape; just specks of life.
They passed from the lake shore to the rough, dusty road going west, between the steep slope of the hills and the bit of flat by the lake. For almost a mile there were villas, most of them shut up fast, some of them smashed, with broken walls and smashed windows. Only flowers bloomed in masses
above the rubble.
In the empty places were flimsy straw huts of the natives, haphazard, as if blown there. By the road under the hill were black-grey adobe huts, like boxes, and fowls running about, and brown pigs or grey pigs spotted with black careered and grunted, and half-naked children, dark orange-brown, trotted or lay flat on their faces in the road, their little naked posteriors hunched up, fast asleep. Already asleep again.
The houses were many of them being re-thatched, or the tiled roofs were being patched by men who assumed a great air of importance at having undertaken such a task. They were pretending to hurry, too, because the real rains might begin any day. And in the little stony levels by the lake, the land was being scratch-ploughed by a pair of oxen and a lump of pointed wood.
But this part of the road Kate knew. She knew the fine villa on the knoll, with its tufts of palms, and the laid-out avenues that were laid out, indeed, as the dead are, to crumble back again. She was glad to be past the villas, where the road came down to the lake again, under big shady trees that had twisted, wriggly beans. On the left was the water, the colour of turtledoves, lapping the pale fawn stones. At a water-hole of a stream in the beach, a cluster of women were busily washing clothes. In the shallows of the lake itself two women sat bathing, their black hair hanging dense and wet. A little farther along a man was wading slowly, stopping to throw his round net skilfully upon the water, then slowly stooping and gathering it in, picking out the tiny, glittery fish called charales. Strangely silent and remote everything, in the gleaming morning, as if it were some distant period of time.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 442