Олдос Хаксли - Eyeless in Gaza

By this time, the mozo had come back with the baggage–mule and was standing beside them in silence, looking down with expressionless black eyes on what was happening.

‘I expect he thinks we’re making an unnecessary fuss,’ said Mark, and made an attempt to smile.

Anthony rose to his feet, ordered the mozo to untie the mule’s load, and, from one of the canvas bundles, pulled out the medicine–chest.

Under the sting of the disinfectant Mark gave vent to an explosive burst of laughter. ‘No humanitarian nonsense about iodine,’ he said. ‘The good old–fashioned idea of hurting you for your own good. Like Jehovah. Christ!’ He laughed again as Anthony swabbed another patch of raw flesh. Then, when the knee was bandaged, ‘Give me a hand,’ he went on. Anthony helped him to his feet, and he took a few steps up the path and back again. ‘Seems all right.’ He bent down to look at the forelegs of his mule. They were hardly scratched. ‘Nothing to prevent us pushing on at once,’ he concluded.

They helped him to mount, and, spurring with his uninjured leg, he set off at a brisk pace up the hill. For the rest of the way he was, for Anthony, mostly a straight and rigid back, but sometimes also, at the zigzags of the path, a profile, marbly in its fixed pallor—the statue of a stoic, flayed, but still alive and silently supporting his agony.

In less than the appointed hour—for Mark had chosen to keep up a pace that set the mules blowing and sweating in the afternoon heat—they rode into San Cristobal el Alto. The thirty or forty Indian ranchos of which the village consisted were built on a narrow ridge between plunging gulfs, beyond which, on either side, the mountains stretched away chaotically, range after range, into the haze.

Seeing distinguished travellers, the village shopkeeper hurried out on to the plaza to offer them accommodation for the night. Mark listened to him, nodded and made a movement to dismount; then, wincing, let himself fall back into the saddle.

Without turning his head, ‘You’ll have to get me off this blasted mule,’ he called in a loud, angry voice.

Anthony and the mozo helped him down; but, once on the ground, he refused any further assistance.

‘I can walk by myself,’ he said curtly, frowning while he spoke, as though, in offering an arm, Anthony had meant to insult him.

Their quarters for the night turned out to be a wooden shed, half–full of coffee bags and hides. After inspecting the place, Mark limped out again to look at the thatched lean–to, where the mules were to be stabled; then suggested a walk round the village, ‘to see the sights,’ he explained.

Walking, it was evident, hurt him so much that he could not trust himself to speak. It was in silence that they crossed the little plaza , in silence that they visited the church, the school, the cabildo , the village prison. In silence, and one behind the other. For if they walked abreast, Anthony had reflected, he would be able to see Mark’s face, and Mark would feel that he was being spied upon. Whereas if he walked in front it would be an insult, a challenge to Mark to quicken his pace. Deliberately, Anthony lagged behind, silent, like an Indian wife trailing through the dust after her husband.

It was nearly half an hour before Mark felt that he had tortured himself sufficiently.

‘So much for the sights,’ he said grimly. ‘Let’s go and have something to eat.’

The night was piercingly cold, the bed merely a board of wood. It was from a restless and unrefreshing sleep that Anthony was roused next morning.

‘Wake!’ Mark was shouting to him. ‘Wake!’

Anthony sat up, startled, and saw Mark, in the other wooden bed, propped on his elbow and looking across at him with angry eyes.

‘Time to get away,’ the harsh voice continued. ‘It’s after six.’

Suddenly remembering yesterday’s accident, ‘How’s the knee?’ Anthony asked.

‘Just the same.’

‘Did you sleep?’

‘No, of course not,’ Mark answered irritably. Then looking away. ‘I can’t manage to get out of bed,’ he added. ‘The thing’s gone stiff on me.’

Anthony pulled on his boots and, having opened the door of the shed to admit the light, came and sat down on the edge of Mark’s bed.

‘We’d better put on a clean dressing,’ he said, and began to untie the bandage.

The lint had stuck to the raw flesh. Anthony pulled it cautiously, then let it go. ‘I’ll see if they can give me some warm water at the shop,’ he said.

Mark uttered a snort of laughter, and taking a corner of the lint between his thumb and forefinger, gave a violent jerk. The square of pink fabric came away in his hand.

‘Don’t!’ Anthony had cried out, wincing as though the pain were his. The other only smiled at him contemptuously. ‘You’ve made it bleed again,’ he added, in another tone, finding a medical justification for his outburst. But in point of fact, that trickle of fresh blood was not the thing that disturbed him most when he bent down to look at what Mark had uncovered. The whole knee was horribly swollen and almost black with bruises, and round the edges of the newly opened wound the flesh was yellow with pus.

‘You can’t possibly go with your knee in this state,’ he said.

‘That’s for me to decide,’ Mark answered, and added, after a moment. ‘After all, you did it the day before yesterday.’

The words implied a contemptuous disparagement. ‘If a poor creature like you can overcome pain, then surely I … ’ That was what they meant to say. But the insult, Anthony realized, was unintended. It sprang from the depths of an arrogance that was almost childlike in its single–minded intensity. There was something touching and absurd about such ingenuousness. Besides, there was the poor fellow’s knee. This was not the time to resent insults.

‘I was practically well,’ he argued in a conciliatory tone. ‘You’ve got a leg that’s ready to go septic at any moment.’

Mark frowned. ‘Once I’m on my mule I shall be all right,’ he insisted. ‘It’s just a bit stiff and bruised; that’s all. Besides,’ he added, in contradiction of what he had said before, ‘there’ll be a doctor at Miajutla. The quicker I get this thing into his hands, the better.’

‘You’ll make it ten times worse on the way. If you waited here a day or two … ’

‘Don Jorge would think I was leaving him in the lurch.’

‘Damn Don Jorge! Send him a telegram.’

‘The line doesn’t go through this place. I asked.’

‘Send the mozo , then.’

Mark shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t trust him.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’ll get drunk at the first opportunity.’

‘In other words, you don’t want to send him.’

‘Besides, it would be too late,’ Mark went on. ‘Don Jorge will be moving in a day or two.’

‘And do you imagine you’ll be able to move with him?’

‘I mean to be there,’ said Mark.

‘You can’t.’

‘I tell you, I mean to be there. I’m not going to let him down.’ His voice was cold and harsh with restrained anger. ‘And now help me up,’ he commanded.

‘I won’t.’

The two men looked at one another in silence. Then, making an effort to control himself, Mark shrugged his shoulders.

‘All right, then,’ he said, ‘I’ll call the mozo . And if you’re afraid of going on to Miajutla,’ he continued in a tone of savage contempt, ‘you can ride back to Tapatlan. I’ll go on by myself.’ Then, turning towards the open door, ‘Juan,’ he shouted. ‘Juan!’

Anthony surrendered. ‘Have it your own way. If you really want to be mad …’ He left the sentence unfinished. ‘But I take no responsibility.’