Rupert Thomson - Air and Fire

Almost four hours passed before Théo returned. She was lighting the lamp in the drawing-room when she heard him mount the steps to the veranda. The wick had blackened with use and would not catch. Frowning, she held the splint against the wick until the flame burned down to her fingers. Then, finally, it spat and fizzled, the same sound as something browning in a pan of butter, the same sound, only softer. She turned the flame down low so she could watch the day fade in the window. Kneeling on the floor, she could see the sky, a mauve vault streaked with red, and the mountains black beneath. She dropped the burnt-out splint into the ashtray and rose to her feet. Théo was standing in the doorway, his frock-coat draped over his arm. He did not attempt to mask his weariness. It mirrored hers.

‘You’re safe,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘They were carrying a man.’

‘A man?’

‘He was dead.’ She saw the man again, lying on the hands of the crowd. His body twisted as if, like some washerwoman’s cloth, it had been wrung out.

‘I hope it didn’t upset you.’

She shook her head. ‘The people were very quiet. They bumped against the side of the carriage. It was like being in a boat in water.’

Théo moved forwards into the room and took his place in the chair by the window. He was silent for a while, then he leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair and ran his hand through his thick black hair. Then simply left it there.

She walked towards him, placed her hand on his. She felt a soft jolt of surprise go through him, then an acquiescence. In that still moment she wished with all her heart that his love could equal hers. It would have been so simple then. Everything would have been simple. She would reach out sometimes and yet she could not span the distance between them, a distance of only a few feet — and him a builder of bridges. She smiled down at him, her hand on his, his head still lowered. Her love for him seemed edged in a strange nostalgia, almost a regret, as if she had already moved beyond it, to a place where it was memory.

They must have looked like statues in the room. She withdrew her hand, stepped back. Adjusted the lamp’s reluctant flame.

‘Was it a funeral?’ she asked him.

‘Of a kind.’

In a low voice he related the events that he had only heard about that afternoon. There had been a disaster at the Providencia Mine, six miles north-west of the town. During the night-shift the main shaft had collapsed and three Indians had been killed. Others had been injured. Spokesmen for the Indians were claiming that the company was at fault. The timbering in the tunnels had always been inadequate, they said. The working conditions were intolerable. The company had no interest in the welfare of its labour fource. And so on.

‘Is that true?’ she asked.

Théo shrugged. ‘It depends who you talk to. Morlaix says the Indians were careless. He puts it down to inexperience.’

‘Morlaix,’ she said.

‘I know. But it’s a dangerous business. Do you remember what de Romblay said the other evening? We’re not a charity, he said.’

She did not remember, though she could well imagine words of that sort emerging from the Director’s lips.

‘If I were an Indian I would be upset,’ she said. ‘To put it mildly.’

Théo nodded. ‘In any case, they’ve laid down their tools. Three of the four mines have suspended operations.’

Leaning forwards, one hand cupped in the other, he stared at the lamp. The flame leapt in the glass shaft and settled back. The window had darkened behind his head.

‘My men are frightened,’ he said. ‘Everything’s come to a halt. And we had almost finished — ’

She moved to the window and looked out. She could hear voices rising up from the streets of El Pueblo, but it seemed to her that they were distant and could be contained. She felt as if she had slowed down, like a clock that needed winding. Nothing could disturb her — no news, no recollection. She imagined the voices sealed inside glass jars.

‘And now there’s Montoya,’ Théo said.

She turned from the window. ‘What about him?’

Théo lifted his eyes to hers. ‘He’s offered to shoot the ringleaders. Personally. In fact,’ and he smiled grimly, ‘he’s practically insisting on it.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, though she was afraid that she did.

‘It’s political. He wants to demonstrate the good faith of the Mexican Government.’ Théo shook his head. ‘He wants to provide some tangible evidence of the spirit of co-operation that exists between his government and ours.’

‘But shooting them.’

‘I know.’

‘What do you think will happen?’

Théo shrugged. ‘Montoya’s meeting with de Romblay this evening. De Romblay will attempt to discourage him.’

There was silence while she thought back over the events of the afternoon.

‘He may not be so easy to discourage,’ she said.

While Imelda was preparing their bedroom for the night, arranging the mosquito-nets and trimming lamps, Suzanne noticed the dress that she had worn on the submarine that afternoon. It had been folded and now lay draped over the back of a chair. She walked over to the dress and picked it up.

‘Imelda?’

‘Yes, Madame?’

‘I’d like you to have this dress.’

The girl’s dark eyes shifted sideways, took cover in the corner of the room.

‘It got torn today,’ Suzanne said. ‘Look.’ And she showed Imelda the place where the sleeve had caught on the scarlet lever. ‘It’s no use to me now.’

‘I could mend it for you,’ Imelda said, in her uncertain French. ‘It’s not so difficult.’

Suzanne had to smile at this show of devotion: the girl’s wide eyes, her wide unblemished forehead. There was no way of explaining this to her.

‘You mend it if you like,’ she said, ‘and when you’ve mended it you can keep it.’

At last Imelda took her at her word. She lifted the dress in her arms and poured a long slow look of wonder down on to the mass of shimmering silk. Her face might have been a jug of cream.

She was so overwhelmed by the gift that she was halfway to the door with it before she remembered to thank her mistress.

‘I will be so beautiful in this dress, Madame. People will notice me.’

The door closed behind her.

Smiling faintly, Suzanne sat down at her dressing-table. As she let her eyes wander among the perfumes and lotions that she had brought with her from Paris she noticed something lying forgotten on her hand-mirror: a piece of palm leaf bound with string.

Last week she had visited the market that was held at the foot of the hill each Wednesday. Just a row of stalls with roofs of untanned leather, yucca pulp. One woman had welcomed her below a canopy. It would have been impossible to guess the woman’s age; her face had the texture of brown paper that had been screwed up tight then opened out again, spread flat. She wore a jacket of pelican feathers which Suzanne had openly admired.

After inspecting everything from a pickled bat’s head in a jar to a piece of crystal that would keep demons away, Suzanne chose a remedy for soothing troubled nerves. Though neither woman spoke the other’s language, they managed to communicate with hand signals and bits of broken Spanish. The nerve remedy was made from a plant called maguay, which the woman had gathered on the slopes of the Volcan las Tres Vírgenes. One secret part of the plant had been dried in the sun and then crushed into a fine powder. She should drink it just before she went to sleep, two pinches in a cup of water, and the night would slip by like a snake over a stone. As Suzanne turned to leave, the woman reached out and took hold of her sleeve. In the same shattered Spanish and with the aid of a few unmistakable gestures, she explained that she also sold love potions. Some were for women, some for men. Passion was guaranteed, she said. Suzanne was smiling when she left the tent. She had just had a thought. This must be where Madame de Romblay went.