What was happening?
She no longer knew. Feeling only her pain. And his. The weight.
Pulse in the stone
wanting to hear it. See it. Not enclosed. But see and hear it emerge from the skin. Transparent. For the touch. Like the necklace of delicate pink shells round her, hanging over one breast. But even these she knew would break soon enough. She liked holding them, one by one. The smell of sea. This naked back caught by light. Ocean reflected. Mountains of waves rolled them together, separated them on to the beach. Breaking out of the sand he had been buried under. Her own burial with the branches, twigs he had put in, without her knowing. When opening her eyes she saw arrows pierced into her body under the sand mount.
The memory of this
and the wreath of white flowers high on some rocks facing the ocean, she had suddenly seen one morning, after sheltering in a cave. A cave she had left quickly because of two fishermen who leered at her from some rocks nearby.
They had been in Mexico nearly three months. Moved into, out of three places. Yet she had no sense of placement with him. For him. There had been once, but that was hard to recall. And if remembered only fell heavily between them.
A longing
for rain. Heavy rain through the night. They were told it was the rainy season. The days continued hot, dusty, oppressive. Mountains seemed to be pushing their way nearer. Or being pushed by thick white clouds clinging there. The only clouds.
On their way to Cuetzalan, south of Mexico City, they had passed the cone shaped volcano Popocatepetl contemplating Ixtaccihuatl, the White Woman. Snow covered belly and thighs. The outlines of these volcanoes were not visible. Sometimes even their heads disappeared, then reappeared, risen islands floating high above them, where stars must have been, and clouds formed smoke columns above the snow.
Ixtaccihuatl
Popocatepetl watching
watching behind the wind eruptions under skin. Under eyes. Of those who wore slick neat city suits, who stepped heavily along the hot concrete. She was glad to leave that.
Glad not to be furtively looked at by those dark shells.
Eyes never meeting her own.
Glad she would perhaps no longer hear the word ‘Gringos’ shouted out. Or be spat at by passing drunks. Clutched by beggars. Stoned by boys. Be confronted by huddled shanties in front of middle-class apartment boxes. Confronted by her own strangeness, helplessness in the face of their defeat, their resigned acceptance of life conquered by death. The family of God knows how many living in cramped quarters, who smiled cheerfully at her. The girl of nineteen who had just given birth to her third child. She found it hard to smile, feeling self-conscious of her clothes, the difference in their lives. The simplicity yet hardness of theirs. The complexity and softness of her own.
They arrived in Cuetzalan, a town appearing to be from another century. High up in the mountains, where walking through clouds seemed more than a possibility. A place once invaded by the French, driven out by the Totanaca Indians. She liked it, admired at once their dignity, openness. Their immaculate white clothes. Women in long skirts, brightly embroidered sashes, lace blouses, purple, green yarns of wool twisted into their dark hair, piled high on top of their heads. Some carried babies on their backs, in baskets of string woven on to wood, supported by a strap around their foreheads. Yes, she felt self-conscious, conspicuous in her short dress, and they were curious, but they nodded, smiled, spoke gently: Adiós Adiós. Buenos días. Buenas noches. The soft padding of the men’s sandalled feet. The firm tread of the women’s naked feet.
Part of the earth.
They at least had accepted, made use of the land. Had no use for, no need to fill in the Void like the Mexicans did with noise. The sound of radios. Music relayed from a gramophone through a loudspeaker in the belfry tower, that started at 6 a.m. every day, and continued most afternoons. The town had, in fact, only had electricity for a year. The Mexicans loved their new toy. A television set was a proud possession.
Once, going for a walk along one of the many stony tracks, passed by white clad Indians bent double with their load of sugar cane, following their mules also laden with cane, or long heavy planks of wood, she heard from a wooden shack the sounds of Louis Armstrong. Again a loss of placement. The sound reminding her, taking her back. Forward. The knowledge that soon she would cross the border to a country, his country America, where once more she would feel a stranger.
And England?
How distant it seemed now. Yet in moments a longing.
But for what?
She had no sense of belonging there either. A vague feeling of ‘roots’. A certain kind of identity. The freedom of knowing her way around. But the greyness. Oh that grey, grey thing creeping from the sky, smoke, buildings, into the pores of skin. Grey faces. No she could not go back to that.
And here
well here there was a stillness, a gradual regaining from the landscape. The maize as tall as trees. Bananas unripe, and oranges. Coffee plantations surrounded by mountains, layers of deep blue fading into clouds, mist. Shrillness of insects. Locusts. A startling brightness from the poinsettia, flowers of Christmas Eve, above her head bent low. Now high, watching the turkey buzzards circle, in their search for snakes. Then down at the line of leaf-cutter ants coming and going. Armies of them. A moving line of leaves, twigs along the track, up over the rocks into a small dark hole.
Up the mountain into a cave.
The sense of this land, a kind of timelessness caught her often by the throat. The line at the top of her shoulder blades crossing the spine. The tension there.
Expectation of his touch.
The placing of his tongue, razor sharp. Could enter. Squaring her for that, feet together, head neither too high nor too low. To make the last pass of any series of passes in silence. To perform some act that would provide an emotional yet rational climax.
She tried fighting off the longings, demands for what had been. Tried moving with the Mexican sense of no midday. No evening.
En la mañana, en la tarde, en la noche.
Even in this ‘out of the century’ town she felt weighed down by some slow stirring thing. The very earth. Smell of hard dry cracked earth. Sweat. Urine. Heavy scent of flowers mixed with smoke from the factory where sugar cane was melted down. Smell of dry blood. Pigs slaughtered. Shrieking of a pig escaping, caught, pulled by a rope, tethered to a rock, still shrieking. How could people live with this, under it, under the midday heat beginning so early in the morning, without it all thrusting through, quickening the pulse like the hump of muscle rising from the neck of a fighting bull, which erects when the bull is angry. How could it not all make the hands quick to grasp the machete from the leather sheaf hanging always close, so close to a man’s body. And strike. Slice through another’s skin?
Mass in the morning. Massacre in the afternoon. The ritual. The exorcism. Hadn’t she been all too aware of this at the first bull fight? The heavy wary, sometimes dazed bulls. The swift agility of the matadors. One or more unarmed with a cape, but carrying the banderillas, provoking a series of charges; running in zig-zags, or seeing how close they could approach the bull while playing, without provoking a charge. The banderillas discreetly decorated with coloured streamers, that looked like flowers. More and more of these soon sticking out of the bull. From under these streams of blood, mixed with sweat. Continual prancing, or rigidness yet fluid dance, of the matador in his skin-tight pants, heavily brocaded cape. Light-hearted airs, graces, smiling forcedly. Flowery style, lengthy repertoire, until finally she found herself also taken in by it all. Admiring the redondo of man and bull executing a complete circle. The decorative pass with the cape in which it was held by one extremity, swung so that it described a circle around the man. She almost forgot her earlier nausea at the matador’s arrogance, his Hollywood smile. While the bull paused, blinded by dust, sun, blood. And panic. The olés of the crowd, or their hissing when a picador missed the bull when charging, and the point of the pic slipped over the bull’s hide without tearing it.
The waiting of a picador, waiting for the bull to get close enough so he could place the pic properly, but the bull struck the solid wall of the mattress covering chest, right flank and belly of the picador’s blindfolded horse. The horns going under, again and again, until man and horse toppled over with a thud. She had looked away then, choking back the vomit, not wanting the others, the Americans, she sat with, to know that she was ‘chickening’ out. When she looked up again to the dragging out of the horse by a trio of mules, she noticed several people’s faces quite pale. She glanced at him, crouched forward. Yes, he could accept this. The death ritual.
The meeting place of challenge.
It was absolute. It was in silence. Especially the final act, as the matador furled the muleta, sighting along the sword, so that it formed a continuous line with his face and arm preparatory to the killing. The two facing each other. It was physical. Sensual almost. Yes, she could understand his fascination with a sensual kind of violence. Seeing it there in his face, watching intently every move man and bull made.
The pulse in his neck moved
a small creature, ready to jump out, seize her own neck that arched back, down, where she felt the ache. The ache at times of wanting this violence in him to break out. Devour her. Hurt me hurt me hurt me. But not in this way. Not in the heavy silence of them both facing each other, weapons concealed. The final turning away, not even in anger, but resentment.
The challenge not met.
At such time she almost wanted the frenzied shouts of an audience: Anda—Go on
Anda
Anda
Anda
Not this rejection.
She couldn’t take it. Nor the verbal attacks. When words became only accusations slung at each other. If no words, then it was a sword-thrust that goes in on the bias so that the point of the sword comes out through the skin of the bull’s flank.
The man did not go in straight at the moment of killing. She remembered vividly the six out of eight bulls suffering this prolonged death. Haemorrhage from the mouth. Not just one sword, but several having been badly placed, and entered the lungs. Neither did she want the sense of triumph. The vuelta al ruedo. The tour of the ring made by the matador who had killed perfectly.
But anything
anything rather than the silent anger hanging heavily like the afternoon heat, when even the sheets were a weight on her limbs. And the angles of his body jutted out—thick branches thrusting her to the edge of the bed. Her own arms crossed over, around her neck. Breasts.
The weight
a stone tied to an inside cord in her belly, turned, turned and twisted. The thud thud thudding of her heart. Reminding her of the Indians in New Mexico. Their drum beats. The pulse quickening, or slowing down accordingly.
Asking
Praying
Asking
The asking
the praying for rain. Touch of the hands. A lightness. Fingers in her hair. Fireflies coming in through the open shutters. Then the longer hold of his tongue in her. Her mouth of him. Tongue resting there. A way of knowing him. He had been unsure then. Not sure what she wanted. Needed. Thinking perhaps she had dozed off. Or had passed into one of her trances. Towards those trances he felt a kind of envy, a fear. Could not share. The body removed. That she had gone far out. Into some area he could not be placed in, or find a place there with her. But he had his own areas. His own crablike places. Once they had watched whole colonies of crabs down over the rocks. Cancer. His sign. He was fascinated. She was curious. What parallels could she perhaps discover? They seemed to move slowly, but in fact moved quickly. In order to move forward they had to move backwards.
It was precisely this movement that often startled her. The way he had of carrying the weight of the past. In himself. To himself. In moments she accepted. But resented the way he tossed his head, stomped off, without a word, into his studio. She had the feeling he dived in there as he had into the huge waves. Waves she was for the first time in her life frightened of. So she would remain, alone, on the beach, under the shaded thatched covering, waiting. Watching. And he’d emerge, flushed, triumphant. Not like now when that transparent quality of skin from water had somehow given way to a paleness, as if pressed down under many stones. Or covered by sand. But his eyes, mouth had been left uncovered in the burial. And when he had heaped the sand over her, patted it down around her neck, he left her head, face uncovered. The trance then had been quick in coming. She had nearly reached some point in space. A space in herself, yet outside her body, when she felt his mouth, warm, salty from sweat, sea, on her eyes. She was jerked out of an area into a place she did not recognize, and then she saw the arrows. Breaking out from these she ran.
Screaming silently
in a space she had so nearly found, but then filled in by the arrow points. She threw her body, no longer her own body it seemed, but just a body hurled out of the ground, into the mountains of water, she bent her head under, rose up, bent again, and struggled out. Further out to higher and higher mountains. Away from the beach, where she knew he waited, watching, not quite knowing. Unsure again.
And if she returned?
If she chose not to, but moved on out into the ocean until perhaps the area she had so nearly reached could be touched upon.
Later when they touched, it was as if someone else touched her. She gave herself up to this. From out of the past, with lovers she would not see again, be committed to. It was new. The lovemaking. Slower. Sensual. Longer. Backwards. Forwards. Sideways. She no longer placed herself over cliff edges. Under water. In space. In every room of wherever they might be. On the floor. Ceiling. Walls. There was at least no longer that need then. Everything was there. In many ways strange. Liking it. But questioning it later. Wanting something else. So when he made movements for her tongue to move in the way he wanted. Knew. The way that gave him pleasure. She still held on to him in stillness.
A resting place.
This way of holding him, as if she would never let go, perhaps swallow him whole, made him question. Made for movements that did not measure her own. Made her draw away. He grew small. Limp. She stiffened, layers of skin beneath froze, then started shaking. He got up. A dark shape against the window. She knew he could see the palm trees circling the square. Leaves quivering, fan like. The bells started ringing. Soon the music came. Loud. Sounding like a funeral march. Something like Elgar. And even before the sun was up she heard the voices of the Totanacs setting up their stalls under the kite-like awnings.
After breakfast, exhausted, they went down into the market. Wandered past those who had perhaps walked from villages many miles away, taking two or three days, laden with wares they hoped to bargain over. Sashes. Shawls. Vegetables. Fruit. Pyramids of oranges. They pushed through the crowds, down the white stone steps, to where a large circle gathered round a ‘rainmaker’. In front of him were bottles of liquid, in which appeared to be floating various kinds of twigs, or pieces of bark. Also spread out were large coloured pictures of diseased bodies. One in black and white of a nude woman clutched by a skeleton death figure, behind her, with arms outstretched as if ready to devour her also, a masked surgeon. Meanwhile the ‘rainmaker’ thumped his chest, shouting to the silent, watchful Indians, that his ‘medicine’ could cure cancer, bellyache, headaches and alcoholism. He had a small machete, which he used with dramatic gestures, pointing at the pictures, the various diseased parts, then bringing the machete up, making a slicing gesture a few inches from his naked sweating chest, while his eyes rolled white. The performance must have lasted an hour. She watched the Indians, who intently watched, listened. Finally when the ‘rainmaker’ stopped shouting, held the bottles up, many of the Indians passed their five pesos over for the ‘medicine’. She wondered if he sold ‘love’ potions.
They walked on through the crowded streets, past stalls with many coloured ribbons, material. They were stared at. Surrounded when they decided to have their feet measured for sandals. The leather felt good, strong, yet light on her feet. But she was aware the women giggled as she walked by. Back in the hotel she took the sandals off. Soon she heard the priest’s voice, as if through a microphone, sounding similar to the ‘rainmaker’s’.
He had gone across to his studio, opposite the hotel. A large empty loft place he had rented with much haggling from a man whose face was covered in carbuncles. Who was always sat outside the doorway. Was his body covered in carbuncles? She shivered. Yet it was hot. Unbearably so. She found a shaded part on the balcony to read. Even reading proved difficult. She found herself looking down at those who came and went, or just squatted outside stores. Beggars who stood silently outside the hotel entrance, and waited until someone from the kitchen brought them something, a tortilla, something perhaps they themselves had left at lunchtime. Beggars that were very different from those in the cities. Their eyes alone asking, without demanding.
She looked across to where he sat, she could just see his hands moving forward, backwards over paper. If only. If he would lean more forward. Look up. Out of the window. Come to her now. She looked further down and watched the carpenter opposite, always at work. Painting bright blue coffins with white intricate designs. Small coffins. Sometimes larger. Often he carried one down the street, on his back, supported by the strap around his forehead. At that moment he was carefully painting black shiny crosses, very large, like bedposts. Suddenly she was aware of someone standing behind her. She knew it could not be… she would have recognized his steps. It was the boy who cleaned their room. She smiled, then turned away. He came nearer, leaned on the table. She quickly picked up the book and pretended to read. She knew he watched her, watched without focusing his eyes on her. As if in some trance. He was so close now she could smell his sweat. What did he want? She did not know the Spanish even to say please go, please leave me alone. Did she want to be alone? She was alone. And the boy who cleaned their room, in silence, every day, who slept in a dark alcove downstairs, she felt his loneliness. He leaned nearer. Breathing heavily. She stood up, called out to him across the street. He came to the studio window, she gestured frantically. He shouted to the boy to leave. The boy left muttering ‘Gringos Gringos’.
She went into the room. Lay down. Music. Bells. The priest’s voice, or was it the ‘rainmaker’s’ again? Continual hammering of the carpenter. She went out to the balcony and looked over the railings at the huge wooden Quetzal birds. Dozens of them, with white painted eyes. Beaks ready to erect. She walked along to the small chapel, she had not somehow dared to enter before. Confronted again by the Quetzal birds, a dozen at least here faced the altar. Next to the altar a wash basin. She left quickly. And went for a walk. Men stared, whistled, shouted out. Ah, how different when walking with him. She climbed over some rocks, through the maize and crouched in an alcove of orange trees. Remaining there until the sun went down behind the purple, blue mountains, outlined against the sky. Frozen waves. If only it would rain tonight. She walked back, eyes lowered. As the Indian women, the older ones, lowered theirs. And the men leaned against white walls, seeming to laugh. At her. At death, somehow depriving it of any power to wound. A detachment from life. From death.
She remembered one of the many legends about the volcanoes:
Ixtaccihuatl was a lovely princess wooed by Popocatepetl. When he failed to win her, he turned her to stone, and then himself too, so that he might contemplate her forever.
Ixtaccihuatl, the sleeping princess.
As she walked down towards the hotel she heard distant thunder. Wind out of the dust from the high plateau. Through the maize stalks. Perhaps it would rain at last. At last
Rain.
The water-carrier passed her. She could never quite decide whether or not he was a half-wit, or just very drunk on pulque. He paused, tossed his head, laughing, and came towards her. The buckets tilted on the pole, water spilling out. She nodded, and walked quickly on. She hoped he would be back in their room, wondering where she had gone. Worried perhaps. At times in the heat of the afternoon she felt almost an urge to go out alone, walk into some part of the jungle, amongst the palm trees, bananas, maize. Give herself to some Indian. Without words. Be ravished. Even raped. Then killed. A quick death from a machete. The violence of that afternoon sun. At least now there was the wind sweeping across from the mountains, through the valleys. Stronger. And the thunder nearer. She had a headache. Felt a cat-like restlessness.
He was in the room. Brushing his hair. He did not say anything. But continued brushing, brushing, brushing his hair. She longed for a touch. A word. Something. Later as they lay in bed, she leaned over him. The rain started. Soon heavy rain like tidal waves on the roofs. She took him in her mouth. He moved gently, then faster.
Rain above. Below.
Soon rushing down her throat. Filling her. Filling the area she had so nearly reached.
So it was in moments.
The next day again began with loud music. Bells. The carpenter hammering. Road menders just outside the hotel. The breaking of stones. Two men sifted limestone. Stones laid in a mosaic pattern. They all stopped working as a pig got loose again, was lassoed, led down the street, squealing, struggling back from the rope.
Soon they would leave this town. They had decided. She had decided. He accepted. She would go on ahead. Alone. To New Mexico. He would perhaps join her later. A temporary break. A rest. From the pain that still lingered. The prong of a harpoon catching under the skin. And what would happen, or not happen, she accepted.
She would wait.
But not a waiting between life and death. Arrows and stones. Rather a sitting still on some high rock facing the mesas. So still she would seem a statue. And the lock would be part of her weight. A part of his. A place where they could contemplate each other. From a distance. An area they could meet in. Separate.
Touch in silence.