The October Country Read online

  "I'd like a color shot of each, and his or her name and how he or she died," said Joseph. "It would be an amazing, an ironical book to publish. The more you think, the more it grows on you. Their life histories and then a picture of each of them standing here."

  He tapped each chest, softly. They gave off hollow sounds, like someone rapping on a door.

  Marie pushed her way through screams that hung netwise across her path. She walked evenly, in the corridor center, not slow, but not too fast, toward the spiral stair, not looking to either side. Click went the camera behind her.

  "You have room down here for more?" said Joseph.

  "Si, senor. Many more."

  "Wouldn't want to be next in line, next on your waiting list."

  "Ah, no, senor, one would not wish to be next."

  "How are chances of buying one of these?"

  "Oh, no, no, senor. Oh, no, no. Oh no, senor."

  "I'll pay you fifty pesos."

  "Oh, no, senor, no, no, senor."

  In the market, the remainder of candy skulls from the Death Fiesta were sold from flimsy little tables. Women hung with black rebozos sat quietly, now and then speaking one word to each other, the sweet sugar skeletons, the saccharine corpses and white candy skulls at their elbows. Each skull had a name on top in gold candy curlicue; Jose or Carmen or Ramon or Ten a or Guiermo or Rosa. They sold cheap. The Death Festival was gone. Joseph paid a peso and got two candy skulls.

  Marie stood in the narrow street. She saw the candy skulls and Joseph and the dark ladies who put the skulls in a bag.

  "Not really," said Marie.

  "Why not?" said Joseph.

  "Not after just now," she said.

  "In the catacombs?"

  She nodded.

  He said, "But these are good."

  "They look poisonous."

  "Just because they're skull-shaped?"

  "No. The sugar itself looks raw, how do you know what kind of people made them, they might have the colic."

  "My dear Marie, all people in Mexico have colic," he said.

  "You can eat them both," she said.

  "Alas, poor Yorick," he said, peeking into the bag.

  They walked along a street that was held between high buildings in which were yellow window frames and pink iron grilles and the smell of tamales came from them and the sound of lost fountains splashing on hidden tiles and little birds clustering and peeping in bamboo cages and someone playing Chopin on a piano.

  "Chopin, here," said Joseph. "How strange and swell." He looked up. "I like that bridge. Hold this." He handed her the candy bag while he clicked a picture of a red bridge spanning two white buildings with a man walking on it, a red serape on his shoulder. "Fine," said Joseph.

  Marie walked looking at Joseph, looking away from him and then back at him, her lips moving but not speaking, her eyes fluttering, a little neck muscle under her chin like a wire, a little nerve in her brow ticking. She passed the candy bag from one hand to the other. She stepped up a curb, leaned back somehow, gestured, said something to restore balance, and dropped the bag.

  "For Christ's sake." Joseph snatched up the bag. "Look what you've done! Clumsy!"

  "I should have broken my ankle," she said, "I suppose."

  "These were the best skulls; both of them smashed; I wanted to save them for friends up home."

  "I'm sorry," she said, vaguely.

  "For God's sake, oh, damn it to hell." He scowled into the bag. "I might not find any more good as these. Oh, I don't know, I give up!"

  The wind blew and they were alone in the street, he staring down into the shattered debris in the bag, she with the street shadows all around her, sun on the other side of the street, nobody about, and the world far away, the two of them alone, two thousand miles from anywhere, on a street in a false town behind which was nothing and around which was nothing but blank desert and circled hawks. On top the State Opera House, a block down, the golden Greek statues stood sun-bright and high, and in a beer place a shouting phonograph cried AY, MARIMBA . . . corazon . . . and all kinds of alien words which the wind stirred away.

  Joseph twisted the bag shut, stuck it furiously in his pocket.

  They walked back to the two-thirty lunch at the hotel.

  He sat at the table with Marie, sipping Albondigas soup from his moving spoon, silently. Twice she commented cheer-fully upon the wall murals and he looked at her steadily and sipped. The bag of cracked skulls lay on the table. . . .

  "Senora . . ."

  The soup plates were cleared by a brown hand. A large plate of enchiladas was set down.

  Marie looked at the plate.

  There were sixteen enchiladas.

  She put her fork and knife out to take one and stopped. She put her fork and knife down at each side of her plate. She glanced at the walls and then at her husband and then at the sixteen enchiladas.

  Sixteen. One by one. A long row of them, crowded together.

  She counted them.

  One, two, three, four, five, six.

  Joseph took one on his plate and ate it.

  Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

  She put her hands on her lap.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. She finished counting.

  "I'm not hungry," she said.

  He placed another enchilada before himself. It had an interior clothed in a papyrus of corn tortilla. It was slender and it was one of many he cut and placed in his mouth and she chewed it for him in her mind's mouth, and squeezed her eyes tight.

  "Eh?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she said.

  Thirteen enchiladas remained, like tiny bundles, like scrolls.

  He ate five more.

  "I don't feel well," she said.

  "Feel better if you ate," he said.

  "No."

  He finished, then opened the sack and took out one of the half-demolished skulls.

  "Not here?" she said.

  "Why not?" And he put one sugar socket to his lips, chewing. "Not bad," he said, thinking the taste. He popped in another section of skull. "Not bad at all."

  She looked at the name on the skull he was eating.

  Marie, it said.

  It was tremendous, the way she helped him pack. In those newsreels you see men leap off diving-boards into pools, only, a moment later when the reel is reversed, to jump back up in airy fantasy to alight once more safe on the diving-board. Now, as Joseph watched, the suits and dresses flew into their boxes and cases, the hats were like birds darting, clapped into round, bright hatboxes, the shoes seemed to run across the floor like mice to leap into valises. The suitcases banged shut, the hasps clicked, the keys turned.

  "There!" she cried. "All packed! Oh, Joe, I'm so glad you let me change your mind."

  She started for the door.

  "Here, let me help," he said.

  "They're not heavy," she said.

  "But you never carry suitcases. You never have. I'll call a boy."

  "Nonsense," she said, breathless with the weight of the valises.

  A boy seized the cases outside the door. "Senora, por favor!"

  "Have we forgotten anything?" He looked under the two beds, he went out on the balcony and gazed at the plaza, came in, went to the bathroom, looked in the cabinet and on the washbowl. "Here," he said, coming out and handing her something. "You forgot your wrist watch."

  "Did I?" She put it on and went out the door.

  "I don't know," he said. "It's damn late in the day to be moving out."

  "It's only three-thirty," she said. "Only three-thirty."

  "I don't know," he said, doubtfully.

  He looked around the room, stepped out, closed the door, locked it, went downstairs, jingling the keys.

  She was outside in the car already, settled in, her coat folded on her lap, her gloved hands folded on the coat. He came out, supervised the loading of what luggage remained into the trunk receptacle, came to the front door and tapped on the window. She unlocked it an
d let him in.

  "Well, here we go!" She cried with a laugh, her face rosy, her eyes frantically bright. She was leaning forward as if by this movement she might set the car rolling merrily down the hill. "Thank you, darling, for letting me get the refund on the money you paid for our room tonight. I'm sure we'll like it much better in Guadalajara tonight. Thank you!"

  "Yeah," he said.

  Inserting the ignition keys he stepped on the starter.

  Nothing happened.

  He stepped on the starter again. Her mouth twitched.

  "It needs warming," she said. "It was a cold night last night."

  He tried it again. Nothing.

  Marie's hands tumbled on her lap.

  He tried it six more times. "Well," he said, lying back, ceasing.

  "Try it again, next time it'll work," she said.

  "It's no use," he said. "Something's wrong."

  "Well, you've got to try it once more."

  He tried it once more.

  "It'll work, I'm sure," she said. "Is the ignition on?"

  "Is the ignition on," he said. "Yes, it's on."

  "It doesn't look like it's on," she said.

  "It's on." He showed her by twisting the key.

  "Now, try it," she said.

  "There," he said, when nothing happened. "I told you."

  "You're not doing it right; it almost caught that time," she cried.

  "I'll wear out the battery, and God knows where you can buy a battery here."

  "Wear it out, then. I'm sure it'll start next time!"

  "Well, if you're so good, you try it." He slipped from the car and beckoned her over behind the wheel. "Go ahead!"

  She bit her lips and settled behind the wheel. She did things with her hands that were like a little mystic ceremony; with moves of hands and body she was trying to overcome gravity, friction and every other natural law. She patted the starter with her toeless shoe. The car remained solemnly quiet. A little squeak came out of Marie's tightened lips. She rammed the starter home and there was a clear smell in the air as she fluttered the choke.

  "You've flooded it," he said. "Fine! Get back over on your side, will you?"

  He got three boys to push and they started the car down-hill. He jumped in to steer. The car rolled swiftly, bumping and rattling. Marie's face glowed expectantly. "This'll start it!" she said.

  Nothing started. They rolled quietly into the filling station at the bottom of the hill, bumping softly on the cobbles, and stopped by the tanks.

  She sat there, saying nothing, and when the attendant came from the station her door was locked, the window up, and he had to come around on the husband's side to make his query.

  The mechanic arose from the car engine, scowled at Joseph and they spoke together in Spanish, quietly.

  She rolled the window down and listened.

  "What's he say?" she demanded.

  The two men talked on.

  "What does he say?" she asked.

  The dark mechanic waved at the engine. Joseph nodded and they conversed.

  "What's wrong?" Marie wanted to know.

  Joseph frowned over at her. "Wait a moment, will you? I can't listen to both of you."

  The mechanic took Joseph's elbow. They said many words.

  "What's he saying now?" she asked.

  "He says--" said Joseph, and was lost as the Mexican took him over to the engine and bent him down in earnest discovery.

  "How much will it cost?" she cried, out the window, around at their bent backs.

  The mechanic spoke to Joseph.

  "Fifty pesos," said Joseph.

  "How long will it take?" cried his wife.

  Joseph asked the mechanic. The man shrugged and they argued for five minutes.

  "How long will it take?" said Marie.

  The discussion continued.

  The sun went down the sky. She looked at the sun upon the trees that stood high by the cemetery yard. The shadows rose and rose until the valley was enclosed and only the sky was clear and untouched and blue.

  "Two days, maybe three," said Joseph, turning to Marie.

  "Two days! Can't he fix it so we can just go on to the next town and have the rest done there?"

  Joseph asked the man. The man replied.

  Joseph said to his wife, "No, he'll have to do the entire job."

  "Why, that's silly, it's so silly, he doesn't either, he doesn't really have to do it all, you tell him that, Joe, tell him that, he can hurry and fix it--"

  The two men ignored her. They were talking earnestly again.

  This time it was all in very slow motion. The unpacking of the suitcases. He did his own, she left hers by the door.

  "I don't need anything," she said, leaving it locked.

  "You'll need your nightgown," he said.

  "I'll sleep naked," she said.

  "Well, it isn't my fault," he said. "That damned car."

  "You can go down and watch them work on it, later," she said. She sat on the edge of the bed. They were in a new room. She had refused to return to their old room. She said she couldn't stand it. She wanted a new room so it would seem they were in a new hotel in a new city. So this was a new room, with a view of the alley and the sewer system instead of the plaza and the drum-box trees. "You go down and supervise the work, Joe. If you don't, you know they'll take weeks!" She looked at him. "You should be down there now, instead of standing around."

  "I'll go down," he said.

  "I'll go down with you. I want to buy some magazines."

  "You won't find any American magazines in a town like this."

  "I can look, can't I?"

  "Besides, we haven't much money," he said. "I don't want to have to wire my bank. It takes a god-awful time and it's not worth the bother."

  "I can at least have my magazines," she said.

  "Maybe one or two," he said.

  "As many as I want," she said, feverishly, on the bed.

  "For God's sake, you've got a million magazines in the car now, Posts, Collier's, Mercury, Atlantic Monthlys, Barnaby, Superman! You haven't read half of the articles."

  "But they're not new," she said. "They're not new, I've looked at them and after you've looked at a thing, I don't know--"

  "Try reading them instead of looking at them," he said.

  As they came downstairs night was in the plaza.

  "Give me a few pesos," she said, and he gave her some. "Teach me to say about magazines in Spanish," she said.

  "Quiero una publicacion Americano," he said, walking swiftly.

  She repeated it, stumblingly, and laughed. "Thanks."

  He went on ahead to the mechanic's shop, and she turned in at the nearest Farmacia Botica, and all the magazines racked before her there were alien colors and alien names. She read the titles with swift moves of her eyes and looked at the old man behind the counter. "Do you have American magazine?" she asked in English, embarrassed to use the Spanish words.

  The old man stared at her.

  "Habla Ingles?" she asked.

  "No, senorita."

  She tried to think of the right words. "Quiero-- no!" She stopped. She started again. "Americano--uh--maggah-zeenas?"

  "Oh, no, senorita!"

  Her hands opened wide at her waist, then closed, like mouths. Her mouth opened and closed. The shop had a veil over it, in her eyes. Here she was and here were these small baked adobe people to whom she could say nothing and from whom she could get no words she understood, and she was in a town of people who said no words to her and she said no words to them except in blushing confusion and bewilderment. And the town was circled by desert and time, and home was far away, far away in another life.

  She whirled and fled.

  Shop following shop she found no magazines save those giving bullfights in blood on their covers or murdered people or lace-confection priests. But at last three poor copies of the Post were bought with much display and loud laughter and she gave the vendor of this small shop a handsome tip.
/>   Rushing out with the Posts eagerly on her bosom in both hands she hurried along the narrow walk, took a skip over the gutter, ran across the street, sang la-la, jumped onto the further walk, made another little scamper with her feet, smiled an inside smile, moving along swiftly, pressing the magazines tightly to her, half-closing her eyes, breathing the charcoal evening air, feeling the wind watering past her ears.

  Starlight tinkled in golden nuclei off the highly perched Greek figures atop the State theater. A man shambled by in the shadow, balancing upon his head a basket. The basket contained bread loaves.

  She saw the man and the balanced basket and suddenly she did not move and there was no inside smile, nor did her hands clasp tight the magazines. She watched the man walk, with one hand of his gently poised up to tap the basket any time it unbalanced, and down the street he dwindled, while the magazines slipped from Marie's fingers and scattered on the walk.

  Snatching them up, she ran into the hotel and almost fell going upstairs.

  She sat in the room. The magazines were piled on each side of her and in a circle at her feet. She had made a little castle with portcullises of words and into this she was withdrawn. All about her were the magazines she had bought and bought and looked at and looked at on other days, and these were the outer barrier, and upon the inside of the barrier, upon her lap, as yet unopened, but her hands were trembling to open them and read and read and read again with hungry eyes, were the three battered Post magazines. She opened the first page. She would go through them page by page, line by line, she decided. Not a line would go unnoticed, a comma unread, every little ad and every color would be fixed by her. And--she smiled with discovery--in those other magazines at her feet were still advertisements and cartoons she had neglected--there would be little morsels of stuff for her to reclaim and utilize later.