It sounds so silly.
You don't remember the time when the Church was here. I was a bad Catholic, but it meant well, music, lights, a place where you could sit out of this heat-and for your mother, well, there was always something for her to do. If we had a theatre, anything at all instead, we shouldn't feel so-left.
But this Juan, the boy said. He sounds so silly.
He was killed, wasn't he?
Oh, so were Villa, Obregon, Madero ...
Who tells you about them?
We all of us play them. Yesterday I was Madero. They shot me in the plaza-the law of flight. Somewhere in the heavy night a drum beat: the sour river smell filled the room: it was [46] familiar, like the taste of soot in cities. We tossed up. I was Madero: Pedro had to be Huerta. He fled to Vera Cruz down by the river. Manuel chased him-he was Carranza. His father struck a beetle off his shirt, staring into the street: the sound of marching feet came nearer. He said: I suppose your mother's angry.
You aren't, the boy said.
What's the good? It's not your fault. We have been deserted.
The soldiers went by, returning to barracks, up the hill near what had once been the cathedraclass="underline" they marched out of step in spite of the drum beat, they looked undernourished, they hadn't yet made much of war. They passed lethargically by in the dark street and the boy watched them out of sight with excited and hopeful eyes.
Mrs. Fellows rocked backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. 'And so Lord Palmerston said if the Greek Government didn't do right to Don Pacifico ...' She said: My darling, I've got such a headache I think we must stop today.
Of course. I have a little one too.
I expect yours will be better soon. Would you mind putting the books away? The little shabby books had come by post from a firm in Paternoster Row called Private Tutorials, Ltd.-a whole education which began with Reading without Tears and went methodically on to the Reform Bill and Lord Palmerston and the poems of Victor Hugo. Once every six months an examination paper was delivered, and Mrs. Fellows laboriously worked through the answers and awarded marks. These she sent back to Paternoster Row, and there, weeks later, they were filed: once she had forgotten her duty when there was shooting in Zapata, and had received a printed slip beginning: Dear Parent, I regret to see ... The trouble was, they were years ahead of schedule by now-there were so few other books to read-and so the examination papers were years behind. Sometimes the firm sent embossed certificates for framing, announcing that Miss Coral Fellows had passed third with honours into the second grade, signed with a rubber stamp Henry Beckley, B.A., Director of Private Tutorials, Ltd., and sometimes there would be little personal letters typewritten, with the same blue [47] smudgy signature, saying: Dear Pupil, I think you should pay more attention this week to … The letters were always six weeks out of date.
My darling, Mrs. Fellows said, will you see the cook and order lunch? Just yourself. I can't eat a thing, and your father's out on the plantation.
Mother, the child said, do you believe there's a God? The question scared Mrs. Fellows. She rocked furiously up and down and said: Of course.
I mean the Virgin Birth-and everything.
My dear, what a thing to ask. Whom have you been talking to?
Oh, she said, I've been thinking, that's all. She didn't wait for any further answer: she knew quite well there would be none-it was always her job to make decisions. Henry Beckley, B.A., had put it all into an early lesson-it hadn't been any more difficult to accept then than the giant at the top of the beanstalk, and at the age of ten she had discarded both relentlessly. By that time she was starting algebra.
Surely your father hasn't ...
Oh, no.
She put on her sun-helmet and went out into the blazing ten o'clock heat to find the cook-she looked more fragile than ever and more indomitable. When she had given her orders she went to the warehouse to inspect the alligator skins tacked out on a wall, then to the stables to see that the mules were in good shape. She carried her responsibilities carefully like crockery across the hot yard: there was no question she wasn't prepared to answer: the vultures rose languidly at her approach.
She returned to the house and her mother. She said: It's Thursday.
Is it, dear?
Hasn't father got the bananas down to the quay?
I'm sure I don't know, dear.
She went briskly back into the yard and rang a belclass="underline" an Indian came; no, the bananas were still in the store; no orders had been given. Get them down, she said, at once, quickly. The boat will be here soon. She fetched her father's ledger and counted the bunches as they were carried out-a hundred bananas or more to a bunch, which was worth a few pence: it took more [48] than two hours to empty the store: somebody had got to do the work, and once before her father had forgotten the day. After half an hour she began to feel tired-she wasn't used to weariness so early in the day: she leant against the wall and it scorched her shoulder-blades. She felt no resentment at all at being there, looking after things: the word play had no meaning there at all the whole of life was adult. In one of Henry Beckley's early reading-books there had been a picture of a doll's tea-party: it was incomprehensible, like a ceremony she hadn't learned: she couldn't see the point of pretending. Four hundred and fifty-six. Four hundred and fifty-seven. The sweat poured down the peons' bodies steadily like a shower-bath. An awful pain took her suddenly in the stomach-she missed a load and tried to catch up in her calculations: the sense of responsibility for the first time felt like a load borne for too many years. Five hundred and twenty-five. It was a new pain (not worms this time), but it didn't scare her: it was as if her body had expected it, had grown up to it, as the mind grows up to the loss of tenderness. You couldn't call it childhood draining out of her: childhood was something she had never really been conscious of.
Is that the last? she said.
Yes, Señorita.
Are you sure?
Yes, Señorita.
But she had to see for herself. Never before had it occurred to her to do a job unwillingly-if she didn't do a thing, nobody would-but today she wanted to lie down, to sleep: if all the bananas didn't get away it was her father's fault. She wondered whether she had fever: her feet felt so cold on the hot ground. Oh, well, she thought, and went patiently into the barn, found the torch, and switched it on. Yes, the place seemed empty enough, but she never left a job half done. She advanced towards the back wall, holding the torch in front of her. An empty bottle, rolled away-she dropped the light on it: Cerveza Moctezuma. Then the torch lit the back walclass="underline" low down near the ground somebody had scrawled in chalk-she came closer-a lot of little crosses lay in the circle of light. He must have lain down among the bananas and tried-mechanically-to [49] relieve his fear by writing something, and this was all he could think of. The child stood in pain and looked at them: a horrible novelty enclosed her whole morning: it was as if today everything was memorable.
The Chief of Police was in the cantina playing billiards when the lieutenant found him. The jefe had a handkerchief tied all round his face with some idea that it relieved the toothache. He was chalking his cue for a difficult shot when the lieutenant pushed through the swing door. On the shelves behind were nothing but gaseosa bottles and a yellow liquid called sidral-warranted non-alcoholic. The lieutenant stood protestingly in the doorway: the situation was ignoble; he wanted to eliminate anything in the state at which a foreigner might have cause to sneer. He said: Can I speak to you? The jefe winced at a sudden jab of pain and came with unusual alacrity towards the door: the lieutenant glanced at the score, marked in rings strung on a cord across the room-the jefe was losing. Back-moment, the jefe said, and explained to the lieutenant: Don't want open mouth. As they pushed the door somebody raised a cue and surreptitiously pushed back one of the jefe's rings.