Rupert Thomson: Air and Fire

‘Line them up, Pablo.’

He had been drawn into a contest that lasted half the night. They drank cactus liquor from tin mugs, with strips of salted fish to take away the taste. Pablo distilled the liquor himself, in a shack behind the bar. The first shot lowered your voice an octave. The second almost blinded you.

There followed a bewildering sequence of events, one of the last of which would have been Wilson’s delivery to the mildewed sheets of none other than La Huesuda, the skinniest whore in the Gulf of California — she was so skinny, you could gather her in your arms like a bundle of sticks. She was short too; her shoulder knocked against your hip-bone if you walked together down a street. It had been agreed in the cantina that whoever lost the contest would be expected to spend the night with her, all expenses paid. Wilson could not remember losing, though he supposed he must have. Not remembering and losing were two horses that pulled the same cart.

He leaned on one elbow, looking down. From her hairline to her nostrils was one long curve, except for a slight dip that signified the bridge of her nose. Her mouth had fallen open, as neat as that first notch you cut in the trunk of a tree before you set about the work of felling it; the breath sizzled past her teeth like lard heating in a skillet. He was looking down at her with some curiosity. She claimed to be descended from a tribe of Amazons who, according to legend, had once ruled the waters of the gulf. They were believed to have captured men in order that they might breed from them. Afterwards the men were put to death. Dressed in black pearls that had been threaded on lengths of wild flax, the Amazons would dance until the moon changed shape, and it was said that the thunder of their feet could be heard for miles around, and on the mainland too. Nobody could ignore that sound. Women carved holes in cactus plants, hollowed out the middles and hid their man inside. Even to this day, if they heard a storm coming, the Indians would often hide their men.

La Huesuda did not dance on beaches, nor had she been known to put men to death — business was slow enough already, God knows — but she did christen herself Pearl, which was in keeping with her lineage, and she painted the name on the wall of her house in letters so tall that they could be read from a ship anchored in the harbour. The people of the town were not impressed. They saw less with their imaginations than their eyes. They called her La Huesuda which, literally translated, meant ‘the Bony One’. Though her nostrils shrank whenever the name was used, she could often be found in Mama Vum Buá’s establishment on the waterfront, eating plates of jerked beef and refried beans in an attempt to put on the inches that would bring with them not only trade, but credibility as well. For as José Ramón, the customs officer, said, if she was descended from a tribe of giant women, then how come she was only four feet eleven?

A ship’s horn sounded, long and mournful.

La Huesuda murmured something, licked her lips, but did not wake. Wilson Pharaoh quietly left the bed.

Unlatching the shuttered door, he pushed it wide and stepped on to a small balcony that overlooked the port.

It was early morning. The water, tight and pale, glittered in the harsh light. Boys were diving off the south quay. Dogs pushed blunt muzzles into piles of trash.

Another low moan from the ship’s horn. Wilson shielded his eyes against the glare. A steamer edged past the headland, trailing smoke across an otherwise clean sky. He wondered if they could read her name yet. He wondered if they could see him standing on her balcony like some advertisement.

‘Hey! American!’

He faced back into the room. La Huesuda was leaning on her elbow, her black hair sliding sideways past one shoulder and down on to the stained pillow.

‘Did you pay me yet?’

‘The others,’ he said. ‘They paid you.’

‘How much did they pay me?’

He was almost ashamed to answer, and his shame took the shape of courtesy. ‘I believe it was twenty pesos, ma’am.’

‘Ma’am?’ She let out a rasp of laughter. A pelican lifted, startled, from a nearby roof. ‘If you like,’ she said, ‘you can have me again.’

He stared at her. He was not sure that he had even had her once; in fact, he was rather hoping that he had not.

She mistook his alarm for hesitation. ‘Half-price,’ she said, ‘since it’s morning.’

He leaned against the balcony, his arms spread along the warm wood of the rail, and shook his head. ‘Thank you kindly,’ he said, ‘but no.’

‘I’m too skinny for you, is that it?’

There was a sudden crack, and then a splintering. The sky tilted, shrank; the doorway jumped into the air. Then Wilson was struck square in the back.

For a moment his vision blackened and he could not breathe. There was no feeling in his body. He hauled some air into his lungs, and let it out. Then hauled some more.

He looked round. He was lying in the street with pieces of timber splayed out around him, like rays around a sun.

‘Holy Mother of Jesus,’ came a voice from above. ‘My balcony.’

Slowly he sat up. Everything was very quiet. The town seemed clear to him for the first time, both in its nature and its promise. He felt he could see through it, as if through glass, to what it held; he felt that it would yield.

A ball of dried mule-dung rebounded off his shoulder. Two of the Vum Buá girls stood at the corner of Avenida Aljez and showed him their tongues. He managed a smile. It scared them, and they fled. Somewhere up above, La Huesuda was still running through a list of saints and martyrs, anyone, in fact, who was even remotely connected with Christ. There were also some names that he did not recognise. These would be gods of her own, he supposed. Amazons, no doubt.

In climbing to his feet, he almost fell. It appeared, after all, that he had hurt himself.

‘Hey, American,’ La Huesuda shouted. ‘What about my balcony?’

He squinted up at her, with her chicken’s legs and her eyes of mingled green and brown, like the skins of over-ripe avocados.

‘If you’d fucked me like a man,’ she shouted, ‘none of this would’ve happened.’

Shutters were beginning to open further down the street.

He tried to hold his patience together. ‘I’d be grateful,’ he said slowly, ‘if you would throw me my clothes.’

There was a long moment while she stared down at him through narrowed eyes, then she withdrew. His clothes flew from the dark hole of her room like dirt scratched by a cat. He began to dress. His right ankle was already swelling, so he did not bother with his boots.

‘Where are you going?’ La Huesuda shouted as he limped away.

‘Where do you think?’ he replied.

The only doctor in town was a Frenchman by the name of Bardou, and he lived on the Mesa del Norte. All the French people lived up there. It was cooler. There was one main street, known as the Calle Francesa, and a small square with wrought-iron benches and a lemon tree. The Calle Francesa had been paved with stone, its blue-grey cobbles shipped all the way from Paris. Plane trees, also imported, had been planted down both sides of the street, though they were still too young to afford much shade. The houses had been designed with the pale skin and the thick blood of the Northern European in mind: verandas on all four sides, high ceilings in the downstairs rooms and a central corridor running from front to back, a kind of breezeway. They had as many windows and transoms as it was possible to have while still leaving four walls standing — though, as Wilson knew, the air did not move during the summer months, no matter how much encouragement it was given.

Wilson had seen Bardou in the lobby of the Hôtel de Paris on several occasions, but he had yet to make the doctor’s acquaintance. The doctor was an educated man, by all accounts. He spoke English fluently and with an American accent, owing to the fact that he had studied for many years in Boston, Massachusetts, and it was said, in this connection, that he had assisted at the autopsy of none other than Abraham Lincoln himself. The doctor’s drawled vowels were accompanied by gestures that were so frequent and elaborate that his hands must, sooner or later, Wilson felt, even despite themselves, produce a silk scarf or an egg or a dove in flight. Accordingly, it was with a somewhat sheepish air that he presented himself, boots in one hand, at the doctor’s front door.