A Visit to Don Otavio (28 page)

A
MONG THE SERVANTS all was
regular
: Guadalupe nursed the fowls, the cook cooked, the laundress washed, Jesús gardened. ‘What has happened to all of them?’ I said to Guadalupe, ‘Angelita is sober, Carmelita isn’t being beaten, Andreas doesn’t eat the sugar and say it was the horses. What is going on?’

‘It is the priest,’ said Guadalupe. ‘When Jesús started beating his wife again, we sent for him. He frightened them very much.’

‘Good Lord,’ I said, ‘of course Jesús
is
back. Wasn’t he off to make his fortune in Texas?’

‘He did not go to Texas,
niña;
he drank his mother’s cow.’

Preparations for the hotel were going on in a leisurely way. Things arrived from Guadalajara and Don Otavio was having them polished and put away in cupboards. Don Enriquez had won a big case for a big
politico
– ‘I believe it was settled what they call out of court,’ said Don Otavio – and he and Doña Victoria had gone to Paris. Doña Concepción was expecting a baby and did not come out so often now, so it was I who sat with Don Otavio and Don Otavio’s Juan over lists and plans, and rowed with them in the cool of the evening to Tarrascan villages to order rugs and glass. The current products of those local manufacturers were usually hideous but they were able to copy the decent older designs, often their own, Don Otavio asked them to reproduce. Don Otavio loved to shop. His difficulty lay in getting anyone to make or sell him more than six of anything, which was perhaps just as well as at the time there wasn’t too much money. There
was
the capital his aunt had put up, Don Otavio explained, but she was not letting him have that all at once. Doña Isabella-María had a new confessor who was interesting her in a grotto in the valley of Zapopan
where a boy had seen a blue light that spoke. When the boy recovered, his goitre had gone. It was all very pious and important, Don Otavio said, his aunt and the Bishop of Guadalajara were looking into it, there were more cures of goitres, but just at the moment the grotto did rather hold up the hotel. They had meant to open for Holy Week, at the latest for the rains, now what with Enriquez away too, one did not know. Also there was the question of the clientele.

‘Enriquez says the way to get one is to advertise. In foreign newspapers. But all kinds of people read them nowadays … It is a little delicate.’

‘Otavio,’ I said, ‘do you really want this hotel?’

‘Naturally. People all the time, and dinner parties. We may get quite rich. Why do you ask in that way?’

‘Oh I don’t know. Only, if I had a place like San Pedro I couldn’t bear the thought.’

‘Ah
niña
, it is well for you to talk … You would not know that times have changed. Here we are all ruined and have to make our money. Enriquez says we must be realists.

‘But do not worry yourself. I will have a manager to see to all that. A gentleman-manager, not a business man from Mexico who would run the hotel like a ministry. An English gentleman gentleman-manager. I do hope we can get the one your friends said they would write to, the one they said you knew.’

‘Oh Otavio I told you they aren’t friends. And I can’t think of a single gentleman-manager I know. Though it
was
kind of you to put them up.’

‘They were two very charming gentlemen,’ said Don Otavio, and I let it go at that.

‘Y
OU ARE RIGHT, I cannot stand Acapulco,’ said Peter Saunders. And I have no wish to see that other place. All the same the Pacific Coast must be lovely. If only one could get to the parts one cannot get to. And now I know one can. There is a place below here, an Indian fishing port with one clean inn on a cool beach. No mosquitoes. The Middletons have been going every January, sly-boots. That’s the one time of year you’re supposed to be able to get a car through the Colima jungle. I wish we’d all go. There aren’t many places like that left, you know; in a few years it’ll be an airline and bungalows. Do come. You can go to Yucatán in February. It won’t take us long. A day or two down to Autlán, that’s the last place one can stay in before the jungle. One day each way for that. One’s
got
to get through in one go. It’s heavenly, full of orchids and dwarf parrots.
If only
I knew the way.’

‘Don Otavio might. They used to own half of Colima.’

‘I don’t think Don Otavio can read a map,’ said Jack D.

‘It wouldn’t be on a map,’ said Peter, ‘it’s that kind of trail. Two trails. Richard Middleton says one must on no account take the other one.’

‘It
would
mean asking Mr Middleton.’

‘I shan’t,’ said Peter. ‘Not after the way he was right about my chimney.’

I did ask Mr Middleton. He was much pleased. He said it was not difficult but a question of choosing the right trail according to the weather. He drew a chart. He made a list of equipment. He told what to wear; he worked out a time-table. The great thing, he said, was to get to Autlán good and early on the day before crossing the jungle so as to have
a clear six hours of daylight for doing any little thing that needed seeing to. He said we had much better wait a week or two, then he could come along and arrange everything. He could not get away at present because of the cucumber frames, besides it was still early for the journey, there was bound to be water in the arroyos.

The next day he called to discuss a spare dynamo, first-aid and vaccination. In the evening he sent a message asking us to weigh our prospective kit so that he might work out a rational way of disposing it between two cars. Then he sent a
mozo
over to San Antonio for the measurements of Peter’s dickey. For the water-filter, the
mozo
explained; it was very large.

Peter was furious. A simple serious rage. He was not going to keep Birmingham hours in the jungle, he said, and the only way out for us now was to go at once. ‘We’ll say you didn’t have the time to wait until the end of the month.’

‘Very well. Only Mr Middleton hasn’t said yet
which
trail to take in
which
weather.’

‘If he’s worked it out by himself, I don’t see why we can’t. We aren’t morons. Have you ever travelled with Richard Middleton? I have. We go now, or we don’t go at all.’

We went next morning, before lunch that is, Peter, Jack and I and Peter’s two cocker spaniels. ‘Richard Middleton always leaves his with the American vet at Guadalajara,’ said Peter. ‘I shall take mine.’ Peter’s sister was on her way back to England, and E, in so many words, had refused to come.

Between us we brought: two Thermos flasks, one of them not very well insulated, a pint of rum, a Woolworth bottle of insect repellent, a box Kodak, Mr Middleton’s chart, a medal lent by Don Otavio, some books and the dog’s baskets. Jack also had a pen-knife. We lunched at Chapala, where Peter kept his car, and we did not get to Autlán that day.

We found a waterfall. We bathed, and Peter washed the dogs. ‘Mountain water, so good for their coats,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I give them some of your insect oil?’ Presently we picked some limes and mixed the tea from one Thermos with the ice in the other and the rum from the
bottle. After nightfall we got to a village that was having a fiesta. It was a creepy fiesta – a crocodile of youths walking around the plaza in one direction, and one of girls in another; men bent over silent, sticky games of chance at acetylene-lit booths. We thought of Mr Middleton and enjoyed everything. We liked the watermelon, and Jack lost five pesos in coppers trying to learn to understand the lotto. He and Peter had drinks in a
cantina
where I was not allowed; we bought some stew and
garbanzas
at a stall and ate our dinner in the street. For the dogs we got a piece of grilled meat and fed them tactfully in the car. Then we saw a bitch with the mange. We gave her some food and she looked at us.

‘Oh what good is that going to be tomorrow,’ said Peter. ‘They’re everywhere. Let’s get out of this place. I wish we hadn’t stopped.’

‘When I tell your
mozos
that dogs have to eat the same as they do,’ said Jack, ‘they giggle. Can’t their priests do something?’

‘
They
could, but they don’t.’

After that, we stopped for the night at the first possible place.

But in the morning the sun was bright. Again we dawdled. Peter bought some tiles, and Jack bought hats in markets. We stopped to look at pretty village churches, intimations of baroque traced in pink sand by a child’s finger, already sinking. The road was steep. Below three thousand feet, the fields began to look dried-up and we to feel the heat of the low country.

‘Not much chance of the arroyos being flooded,’ said Peter.

We reached Autlán at dusk with a flat tyre.

Peter said there must be a torch somewhere, but when we found it the battery had given out.

‘Never mind. We’ll get the damned thing changed tomorrow morning.’

The inn at Autlán proved to provide the necessities of life. We were served with an ample supper of fried eggs, tough beef-steak, maize-cakes and chilli in an unkempt patio. There was tepid bottled beer and we were told that we could certainly have boiled water tomorrow. The
Padrona
was rather immersed in a sheaf of sewing-machine catalogues, but brightened when she found out that we could read.

Spanish advertisements are rich in metaphor and very long. The catalogues rumbled on like seventeenth-century funeral orations.

The
Padrona
thanked us.

‘Now have you made up your mind which one you want?’ said Peter.

‘I do not want a sewing-machine. I have three.’

‘Then why bother with all those catalogues?’

‘I like the explanations. They are more beautiful than the pictures.’

‘The literary life,’ said Jack. ‘We must tell E.’

We were lit to our sleeping quarters with a candle. They were two vast attics, one for men, one for women. There were no other female travellers at Autlán so I was alone in mine. The beds were planks, solid wooden planks, with clean sheets. I chose one.

‘Like girls at a fashionable school,’ I said next morning. ‘To keep their backs straight. You know it’s no worse than lying on the floor, as long as one doesn’t try to turn. How impossible of me to have slept on a plank for the first time in my life, and made a thing of it, and thought of girls’ schools, when so many people had to.’

‘I had to,’ said Jack, ‘I dare say so has Peter. That doesn’t make it any the less uncomfortable now and I’d
much
rather think of girls’ schools.’

‘I say,’ said Peter, ‘do you think we ought to have that tyre mended before we start? My spare is in rather poor shape.’

Mr Middleton had spoken of six new tyres, extra inners and a patent lubrication to spray the rubber with every half-hour in the heat. I knew better than to mention this.

‘We might as well,’ said Jack.

There was no one in Autlán able to perform this feat. Jack said
he
could, there was nothing to it.

‘So like my grandfather’s motoring days,’ said Peter.

Then Jack said that Peter didn’t have at all the right things for mending a tyre, and this was not the way he’d been taught to in the army.

Peter said, not to be such a fuss-pot, they might as well have Mr Middleton, and everyone knew American mechanics mended everything with a bit of string and a hair-pin.

Jack said he wished he had a hair-pin; and anyway what about air?

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, one thing at a time,’ said Peter.

I left the scene. Driving to the coast was not well thought of at Autlán. In fact it was not thought of at all. It did not lend itself. Were they sure now? Quite sure. From Navidad perhaps, yes, from Navidad the oxen went down one, two, three times a month to the coast. From Navidad, not from Autlán.

I told this to Peter. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘half the time they don’t know what they are talking about. Richard Middleton, damn him, no one mentioned Navidad before. Where is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There you are.’

Jack had mended the tyre and found a boy and a bicycle pump. ‘I’m filthy,’ he said, ‘before I do anything I must have a bath.’

So they lit a brazier at the inn, heated three buckets of water and carried them upstairs.

The pump boy vanished at once.

Jack came out in white flannels, smelling of bay-rum. ‘That tyre’s still half down.’

‘Did you give him any money?’

‘Fifty centavos.’

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘You might have told me, Peter.’

‘Oh I can’t think of everything. I wish we’d get out of this bloody place soon.’

‘It
would
be nice to get to the sea,’ said I.

‘Better have something to eat first, though.’

‘Here?’ said Jack. ‘Not again?’

‘There isn’t anywhere else. You can save your steak for the dogs.’

At breakfast there had been eggs, beef-steak, maize-cakes, beans and chilli. ‘What’s for lunch?’

‘Let me see,’ said the
Padrona
. ‘I can give you some eggs. Fried eggs. And a nice beef-steak. And some beans.’

‘Aren’t there any vegetables?’

‘Yes, beans.’

‘Fresh vegetables?’

‘No hay.’

‘No tomatoes? Any fruit?’

‘No hay.’

‘There must be fruit. We saw it on the trees.’

‘No hay.’

After this meal, Jack produced another boy. Peter sent him away.

‘You must find the first one,’ he said. ‘He was paid and he’s got to finish the job. It’s a matter of principle. They mustn’t think they can get away with everything. You don’t want to spoil the place.’

Jack said considering the amount of time he intended to spend at Autlán he could not care less.

‘That’s frightfully irresponsible,’ said Peter.

‘I can’t bear to think of anything happening to Mr Middleton,’ said I, ‘I believe Peter is only waiting to step into his shoes.’

‘Don’t see why he should have it
all
his own way. And Jack, there’s your boy. Or is it?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Oh hell, let them both pump. And then let’s be off. It’ll be dark soon.’

‘That’s what I’ve been thinking,’ said Jack.

‘How far is it, exactly?’ said I.

‘Oh about thirty miles as the crow flies. One can’t tell about those trails. Perhaps more.’

‘
Do
we go as the crow flies?’

‘Do you both
want
to spend another night at Autlán?’ said Peter.

‘Not if we can get to the coast.’

‘Can one get through in the dark, Peter?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Is one supposed to sleep in the jungle?’

‘Three people and two dogs in one car,’ said I.

So as it happened we did find ourselves at Autlán with several clear hours of daylight in front of us. I took Jack aside. ‘I am sorry to sound like
The Boy’s Own Paper,
but oughtn’t we to have an axe or something to hack our way through the vegetation?’

‘I thought of that. And it’s the one thing we’ll be able to find here.’

So we went and bought a
machete
.

Later we played nursery dominoes. We dined off eggs, beef-steak, maize-cakes, beans and chilli, and went to bed at ten. We were down again at quite an early hour. We had breakfast, then Peter said he had better give the dogs a good walk before we got to the really hot parts; so what with that and Jack’s bath and Jack’s packing and waiting for a dinner to be put up to take for the dogs, we started at a quarter to eleven.

First there were about ten miles of abrupt descent and these we did in just under two hours. It was blazing hot.

‘We’ll be in the shade soon,’ said Peter. ‘Wait till we get into the orchid forests.’

Then the dirt-road stopped and a trail began. We got out Mr Middleton’s chart. Nothing looked in the least like it.

‘Well, there’s only one trail as far as I can see,’ said Peter; ‘That’s a mercy.’

We plodded through a stretch of sand and conifers. It was heavy going and we had to change down into first. The engine was heating fast.

‘What oil are you using, Peter?’

‘Oh I don’t know, the one the man at Chapala puts in.’

It was tricky progress. Every now and then we got stuck. Each time it was a business getting off again. The dogs would hurl themselves out of the car and had to be urged back in; the wheels turned
in statu quo
churning up the sand. We spread a mackintosh, two of us pushed, the third accelerated, and we all hated the noise made by the engine at these moments. Afterwards the ones who’d pushed had to scramble on to the car again without arresting its precarious motion. At the best of times, these would have been exertions; in that temperature, they took on the nature of an improbable sub-human tussle, something that had already taken place in a remembered tale of stokers.

Then undergrowth began, first straggly then thickening, and suddenly we were in a steaming tunnel of fat leaves. But the trail continued sandy and the attention of all three of us remained riveted on the driving. Then there was a clearing, and once more we were among thin pines.

‘Was that the jungle, Peter?’

‘Look, people!’ There was indeed a coconut-fibre hut.

‘
This
is what we want,’ said Jack, leaping out of the car, ‘that mackintosh is in shreds.’

He returned with the roof. ‘Nice bit of matting. They said they’d make themselves another one for tonight.’