Rupert Thomson - Air and Fire

He could not look.

He thought he must have missed a turning in the dark and ridden into hell. A church was burning. He could see the leap of flames inside. The walls glowed red.

He did not stop.

Windows burst as he passed by. Stained-glass lay in fragments on the street; the mule’s hoofs crunched over it — saints’ haloes, a disciple’s agony, the Lord Himself.

The night was being held against a branding-iron; he could feel it trying to twist away, avoid the crimson tip. Men stumbled past him with blood and ashes on their faces, the corners of their eyes and mouths pulled wide. Two humorous sounds: a pop and then a twang. Something bright flew past his ear. And then a jangling, a splintering. He looked over his shoulder, saw the spire lean down.

A man ran up to him. He was brandishing something that Wilson mistook for a rifle. Only it was golden. The man was shouting.

‘Look,’ he was shouting. ‘I’ve done it. Look.’

He smiled down at the man and nodded, then he pushed the heel of his boot into the mule’s ribs. There was only one destination, and this was not it. He could not stop now. If he stopped, he might never make it.

The ground tilted upwards. All the shouting faded.

Then a face swooped out of the air. No body, just a face. White under its black hat. Skin looped beneath the eyes. He could not remember the face’s name.

‘It’s a miracle. We had given up all hope.’

Hands were fumbling at his clothes. He fought to lift his head. To tell the truth.

‘She’s dead,’ he said. ‘I buried her.’

Another face. Another language. The words that she had murmured. French?

‘I found her. We rode to the water. Then I buried her.’

His vision cleared.

He saw the faces that surrounded him, still as moons in the black air, and awful in their stillness. Only the red light flickering across their foreheads, cheekbones, jaws. His own fingers playing some fast piece. But there was no music that he could hear, no tune.

‘She was sitting right behind me.’ He reached backwards with his hand. Set her straight in the saddle. ‘She was sitting right there.’

Only the faces, hanging in the darkness.

‘You don’t believe me? Look. I’ve got her shoes.’

Still the faces.

He began to laugh. ‘Did it rain here?’

2nd July, 189 –

My dear Monsieur Eiffel,

I scarcely know how to begin. During the past few days we have been exposed to scenes of barbarism and destruction the like of which I hope never to see again. The church is damaged beyond repair. I find it almost impossible to accept that all our good work has been undone.

Then, as if that were not catastrophe enough, Madame Valence disappeared. She was out riding when her horse, startled by gunfire, bolted into the inhospitable desert behind the town. She was missing for a full three days, and would certainly be dead by now, but for the valiant efforts of an American, who knew the country and was prepared to risk his life on her account.

There is little more to say. I am taking her away from this place. We are leaving tomorrow, on a steamer bound for Panama. If news should reach you before I do, I beg you to give it no credence. The events that have befallen us are terrible enough already, without the distortions and extravagance acquired by numerous tellings.

I trust that you will forgive the incoherence of this letter, taking into consideration the utterly dispiriting circumstances under which it was written. Only know that I remain your most humble and obedient servant, and that I have done my utmost on your behalf.

I am yours, respectfully, etc.,

Théophile Valence.

Through a light curtain of dreams Wilson heard a ship’s siren. The first note short, the second longer. Then, some time later, two more notes, of equal length, but fainter. Opening his eyes he saw windows high up in a pale-yellow wall and a fan revolving slowly, like a piece of hypnotism. The air feathered down on to his face.

‘Ah. Monsieur Pharaoh.’

The doctor was standing at the foot of his bed. He was wearing a waistcoat that resembled a garden in summer: pale-gold roses planted in a field of green.

‘It is I. Dr Bardou.’

Wilson smiled faintly. ‘Who else would wear such a waistcoat?’

‘Why, Monsieur Pharaoh,’ the doctor said, laughing, ‘you are certainly making an excellent recovery. Nobody would ever guess how close you came to death.’

But Wilson’s eyes were still absorbed by the pale roses. ‘I thought they’d all been stolen.’

‘All except this one.’ The doctor fingered the brocade. It glinted in the hushed light of the ward.

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘I do now.’

It transpired that Wilson had timed his departure well. For the following three days it had been — and here the doctor paused, one of his hands climbing past his ear as he tried to conjure the right word from the air; then he snatched, his hand closing in a triumphant fist, as if the word were a fly and he had caught it — it had been pandemonium. Three days of looting and burning in El Pueblo, three days of murder and mutilation. Most of the Indians’ rage had been directed against Mexican targets — the military garrison, the customs house — but still the French had feared for their lives. No women had been allowed to venture forth alone. Monsieur de Romblay had issued firearms to all the men.

‘Sounds like I was safer out there,’ and Wilson gestured towards the window, ‘in the desert.’

The doctor smiled.

Only with the arrival of a detachment of rurales from Guaymas, he said, did the unrest finally come to an end. The men had sailed through a storm (El Cordonazo could always be relied upon to strike when it was least convenient). Their faces had the awful, yielding pallor of bread that had been soaked in milk; their uniforms, usually so dashing, so appealing to the ladies, were elaborately embroidered with vomit. Still, less than an hour after disembarking, they were marching through the streets of El Pueblo in a show of force, some mounted, and armed with sabres, some on foot with muskets. That same night, the 29th of June, the Indian rebels swarmed east along Avenida Manganeso. They were forcing air between their teeth, making a sound that was like a flight of locusts or a viper’s hiss. In their fists they wielded bows and arrows, broken bottles, the legs of chairs. Their bodies glittered strangely as they advanced towards the waterfront, glittered and glowed. The Mexicans had been expecting a motley band of savages. They began to mutter among themselves. One of them was heard to wail, ‘They’re wearing armour.’

‘Your waistcoats,’ Wilson said.

The doctor nodded grimly. ‘They thought that wearing my waistcoats would keep them safe from harm. They thought that was where my powers came from.’

‘And it almost worked — ’

‘Almost.’

There had been a moment when a number of the rurales turned away as if to flee. Then one young soldier kneeled quickly, fired. One of the glittering Indians crumpled. Reassured, the Mexicans let fly with a volley of musket-shot and fourteen Indians dropped to the ground at once. The rebellion was crushed in a matter of hours. The Indians who survived the battle were treated with a brutality for which the rurales were notorious. Some were thrown into railway trucks and transported to a canyon five miles north of town where they were shot. Others were only marginally more fortunate: they were shipped to the mainland, destined for labour gangs in the Yucatan jungle.

It seemed to Wilson that he must have ridden into the aftermath. He could quite clearly remember the screaming and the blood, sabres slicing through the smoke, church windows strewn on the ground like jewels.