A few minutes later he decided to have an early swim. As he walked downstairs, his body seemed to him to have an unusual buoyancy, almost as though it could float. Mentally he was on top of the world and felt as though he owned it. To use a phrase, `he would not have called God his uncle'.
It was still early, only about half past six, but the waiters were about; so, after his dip in the pool, he ordered an enormous breakfast. On going back to bed he kissed the pillow where Chela's head had lain, then buried his face in it and drew in the scent of her that lingered there. Soon afterwards he dropped off to sleep. When he woke he thought he had had a wonderful dream. As he turned over he saw the empty champagne bottle on the bedside table. His heart leapt with elation. It was no dream but had really happened. He then saw that it was twenty minutes to eleven. They had agreed to meet down in the lounge at eleven o'clock and Chela was going to drive him to Mitla. Jumping out of bed, he hurriedly shaved and dressed.
Down in the lounge, Chela greeted him, for the sake of appearances, with apparent surprise and they had a cup of coffee together before going out to her car.
Mitla was about an hour's drive away and they took the road 'that led straight as a die down the long, fertile valley. It was a section of the two thousand mile long Pan American highway, Which runs from the United States frontier through Mexico City and right down to Guatemala. There was little traffic and the road was broad and smooth, so they made good going. On either side there stretched fields of maize, clumps of castor oil plant with occasional coconut palms and paw paws.
About halfway to Mitla they pulled up outside a church that had several enormous trees near it. Chela said they were water cypresses and that the largest was reputed to be three thousand years old. Getting out, they walked round the tree and estimated its gigantic trunk to be not less than a hundred and fifty feet in circumference.
The village nearby was the source of Mexico 's famous black pottery, and in a rickety shed they watched an old crone make a perfectly symmetrical vase out of a lump of greyish clay. The people there still scorn the potter's wheel and she made the vase from long serpentine coils of clay, which she twisted between her ands. From her incredibly wrinkled face she looked to be a hundred, but when Adam asked her age she said she thought she was about sixty.
To reach Mitla, they took a side road for the last few miles. The village stood on a slight rise. Beyond it was a large church built; as was the custom of the Spaniards, on the site of the principal temple pyramid, when such pyramids were not too big to pull down. Two hundred yards in front of the church was the best preserved of the three great square courts they had come to see. The sides of all of them consisted of masses of stone with some thirty steps down to the court, in the centre of which was a low, square, sacrificial platform. On top of these thick ramparts were the priests' quarters. The buildings were only about twelve feet high it had lintels above the doorways weighing perhaps twenty tons and their walls appeared to be magnificently carved in geometric signs.
Waving towards them a cigar she was smoking, Chela pointed it that they were not carvings in the ordinary sense, but a vast
number of thin stone bricks with different shaped ends; so that when built up in layers they formed intricate patterns. They were the work of the Zapotes and no other remains at all like them existed in Mexico.
Back at the Victoria, they lunched, lazed away the afternoon, bathed, dined and went early to their rooms. Soon afterwards Chela came along to Adam's, and again they took wonderful delight in each other.
For a good part of the day Adam had been wondering how best he could broach the subject of the revolution to Chela without mentioning his knowledge of her secret association with Alberuque or breaking his implied promise to Jerry Hunterscombe, and at length he had decided that he would do so while keeping Hunterscombe's name out of it. So when they had settled down he said:
`You know, I lunched the other day at the British Embassy. A chap who was there gave me a rather alarming bit of news. Of course it may only be a baseless rumour, but he seemed convinced that a revolution is brewing. Have you heard anything of the sort?'
He feared she might say `no', which would make it difficult for him to reopen the matter; so he was greatly relieved when she replied
`Darling, I can have no secrets from you. What he said is true. And as the subject has come up, I may as well tell you that I am one of the people who want to bring about a revolution. For over four hundred and forty years the people to whom Mexico belongs have been little better than slaves. Governments come and governments go. Many of them have promised reforms, but nothing really gets done and today the peasants are worse off than they have ever been. A few days ago you asked me if I was a Communist. Well, I suppose I am a Christian Communist.'
`Christ preached resignation and Karl Marx advocated the use of violence, so their doctrines are incompatible,' Adam remarked.
`That may be. I want the Indians to own the land, the mines, the banks, everything, and before long they are going to.'
`I recall your telling me that revolutions were always led by the white collar workers and that the government had succeeded in muzzling them and the trade union bosses by making this a Welfare State for that class. That being so, how can the Indians hope to overturn the government, without intelligent leaders?'
`By sheer weight of numbers. Besides, they will have leaders. They will be led by the priests.'
That was what Adam had come to suspect, and he said, `Then that explains why you regard the movements as Christian
Communist. But it will mean that the priests must abandon their Christian principles. Because there is bound to be bloodshed and lots of it. There will be another Civil War, and think of the horrors that took place in the earlier ones.'
She shook her head. `There will be no Civil War, because the masses will rise as one man. It will all be over in twenty four
hours.,
'You seem to have forgotten that the government have an army and will not scruple to use it.'
`Darling, if you knew more about Mexico you would realise that, in one way, we are a very lucky country. Anyone who tried to invade Mexico would have our good neighbour Uncle Sam down on him like a ton of bricks. So by comparison with other nations our Defence Budget, per head of population, is minute. We have an army, but it is only a tiny one for show purposes. By far the greater number of men who could put on a uniform are the militia. They do only an hour or two's drill on Sunday afternoons. But they have weapons that they could use if need be and, as they are peasants for the rest of the week, they will be on our side.' `I see,' said Adam thoughtfully. `And when is this party due to take place?'
`I'm sorry, dearest, but I'm under oath not to disclose that. It will before very long, though, and I'll be in the forefront of the battle.'
For a few moments Adam remained silent, wearing a worried look, then he said, `Must you? Why should you be? From what you've told me, it is clear that you are taking part in organizing this thing. Isn't that enough? I understand your sympathy for the poor down trodden Indians, but it is unreasonable that a girl like you should go to the length of making yourself one of their leaders. Being mixed up in a revolution can be damn' dangerous. You might easily get killed or, if things went wrong, be sentenced to spend the best years of your life in prison.'
`That is a risk I must take. And just now you said “a girl like you”. How very little you know about me, darling. To start with, my father was not married to my mother and the odds are that Bernadino is not my father. I'm almost certainly a bastard and quite certainly a Mestizo with lots of Indian blood in me. There more to it even than that. Last week, in the village I took you to, you saw that poor little boy humping a great jerry can of water. Well, when I was his age I lived in an Indian village. Barefoot and clad in stinking rags, I did that many a time myself. That's why I mean to fight for my people.'