Graeme Gibson: Pancho Villa's Head
22. March 2008 14:40
"King." Without looking up from her empty glass, the American woman spoke as if not speaking.
"Si-King Eduardo, she understand the love, yes?" Still watching the woman, the tourist nodded, then turned to stare into the garden, past stunted palms wrapped in their own dead leaves. The brandy was harsh in his throat, so he chased it with mineral water, and heard again small bodies scuttling in the thatch above their heads. He knew the drink would soon taste smooth, and expensive, and he would keep at it until he went to bed.
Through the wall of vegetation he saw headlights as a car laboured up the hill toward them. Obviously an old car, its brown lights illuminated nothing. He watched them idly as the rancher, collapsing back into Spanish, marvelled at what Edward had forsaken. The money, mucho dinero, verdad? The power. Twelve years ago he would have understood most of what was being said, but now only individual words and phrases made any sense. Something about a kingdom and su tierra, then todos again. "Todo por una mujer, por amor." Everything for a woman, for love. An image of some kind, a memory of the dead ex-king and his forbidden wife, drifted near the surface. He concentrated on the lights, trying to predict when they'd vanish, when they'd reappear. Wondering why there wasn't any music, some guitars maybe, he nodded soberly, hoping the rancher's aggressive sentiment wouldn't suddenly expect something from him.
There were four of them at the table, in a ragged garden under the thatched roof of El Patio Palenque: the tourist himself, and the rancher; the American, a well-used woman in her forties, and the Canadian, a youth with red lips and even teeth. Since the woman, and the boy, were both fluent in Spanish, and the rancher spoke little English, the tourist only stayed in the vague hope something might happen. It would be a relief if there were music.
Sudden laughter at the next table, where a small family had come to celebrate: the father, a young man with limpid eyes, was remonstrating, while his girls, their raven hair filled with blue and red ribbons, bent their heads to giggle explosively. He smiled, shifting his chair closer to his wife, who was pushing bread back into the mouth of an infant. Apparently placing his hand on her thigh, beneath the table, he poured wine into their glasses.
The rancher's strong voice, repeating itself, had risen expectantly. The tourist looked at him. A short man, fat but powerfully built, crisply dressed in white with his sombrero tilted at a rakish angle, he was pivoting slowly in a frozen shrug; his forearms were raised in front of his body, the palms of his hands upturned, as if to receive an answer. A battery of fireworks exploded in the village below and two skyrockets drove between the hills in a shower of sparks. Raising his glass, the tourist discovered it was empty. He reached for a cigarette from his package among the bottles, he reached into the rancher's grasp, and the question was repeated. He saw delicate needlework on the shirt cuff, and three ornate rings; he felt them bite into the small bones at his wrist.
The grip relaxed when the American woman spoke in her disembodied voice. "He wants to know how many of us would have done the same." The car, in fact it was a van, crept into the circle of light by the patio entrance, as the rancher impatiently corrected her. "He says how many people today, in these times..." A man dressed in khaki, a thick man with a hand gun on his hip, got out of the van and, rapping on the door, said something to whoever remained inside.
"Is he asking me?" And suddenly he remembered what it was. A series of photographs in Life magazine. Famous people leaping from the ground for an ambitious photographer. Richard Nixon, before he was president, and Robert Oppenheimer. Marilyn Monroe, caught in a self-protective hug, her legs tucked beneath her bum, sadly glorious, as if she'd never come down. And the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, their faces already dry and wrinkled, the faces of apple dolls. They had taken off their shoes for the camera. Holding hands, their fingers clenched together, they had leaped side by side in the air; incredibly vulnerable, they'd hung there startled and unsmiling. "Not many of us have the choice," he said. The woman shrugged so he turned to the rancher. It isn't important. "No es importante." They didn't seem to hear him although the fingers left his wrist. He concluded mournfully that he didn't know what was going on any more. He tried to remember what the woman had said: how many people in these times could do it? Was that the question? The rancher appeared to be observing him from the corner of his eyes. Do what? "No tenemos la posibilidad, la tentacion." The woman glanced up from where her large hands rested on the table; it was an uncertain, defensive look, as if she feared what he might say next. Then, surprisingly, she smiled. The bruised mouth parted to reveal the tip of her tongue pressing between narrow teeth. He experienced an unexpected tremor of lust. Perhaps he would go with her. Instead of returning to his wife in the cabin, he'd follow her among the foliage by the pavilion, he'd tell her she had extraordinary cheekbones, or something, and she would open herself to him with sharp cries....
When he reached toward her for his glass, the man in khaki appeared behind the bar. Squat and powerful, he was a soldier or policeman, clearly an officer with a flash of gold in his mouth. The young family at the next table had fallen silent. Jiggling the infant nervously, the mother opened her blouse, and gave it her breast. The father, staring fixedly at his half-eaten dinner, lit a cigarette.
"El Capitan," said the American woman without moving her lips. The rancher poised himself, breathing slowly, and then reached for the bottle. His three rings, each one set with coloured stones, glinted over their glasses. "He's chief cop." The tourist drank his brandy and smoked. Nodding his head vigorously, the waiter averted his face as the Captain leaned over him, speaking directly into his ear. "And a real clown," she said. "A fascist clown. . . "
"Chingao." The Canadian swore cheerfully. "Jesus I hate those bastards. Here, give me a light will you? Gracias." Clenching the filter tip between his teeth, grimacing through the smoke, he tilted his chair against the pillar and said something in Spanish. The woman protested, but her laughter joined his, nevertheless. The rancher rapped a warning with his fist and, savagely, from the pavilion beyond the trees, guitars blared through a tinny loudspeaker. The needle jumped and screeched, there was an instant of silence, and then it started again.
From behind them a car horn blared without apparent purpose and the woman was becoming agitated: she tossed her head, rolling her eyes in mock horror at the noise. As the tourist stared at her thin, sharp mouth, the column of her throat, she ran her fingers through her hair, briefly uncovering a delicate ear. He imagined taking the lobe of it gently between his teeth.
"Like... who was it? That Idi Amin, for Chrissakes. You know who I mean?" The Canadian was trying to glare at the Captain through the drifting smoke of his cigarette. The tourist wondered if the boy was so much of a fool. Was he compelled to perform for them? And for which one, the American? He wished she'd stop laughing. "People like that should be shot. Pow!" said the Canadian, jabbing his index finger at his temple.
Despite himself, the tourist felt laughter, like a sickness, high in his own belly. He crouched forward, hugging his arms across his chest, as the Captain sauntered (almost in time with the music), from behind the bar. The waiter snatched a clean glass and, darting past him, pushed an empty chair among the Mexican family. The policeman didn’t sit, but leaned over the young mother as if to admire the baby. “Buenos noches,” he said, and then, after a pause – “Senora.” The Indian woman bobbed her head without raising her eyes. Her hair, the colour of gun metal, was drawn with white ribbons into a braid. Puffing lightly, without inhaling, her husband held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, as if he didn't hear the insinuating voice.
The officer placed his hand on the baby's skull, with his fingers around it, as if he were selecting a melon. The tourist understood only un regalo, a gift. And magnifico, while the waiter, concentrating as if it was an impossible task, poured wine into the clean glass. When the Captain turned the tiny head until its face appeared, a moist brown nipple slipped from its mouth. The woman moved to rearrange her blouse, but the policeman brushed her hand aside. "La cena," he laughed explosively. Supper, don't interrupt its supper. The tourist desperately wanted a drink but the American had seized his arm, her nails cutting into the flesh beneath his sleeve.
Bending over the mewling child, the dark breast swelling with milk, the Captain stared intently. He pursed his lips and made little sucking noises while bending closer, so the visor of his cap hovered by her shoulder. Mercifully the car remained silent. The record had ended. They could hear dogs barking from the other hill as the policeman straightened, guiding the small face until it retrieved the nipple. "Come bien," he laughed again. Eat well, good supper. "Todos," he said, taking his glass from the waiter and drinking it down. "Salud, amor y pesitos." Health, love and money, thought the tourist, watching the man plump himself beside the young father and reach for the bottle. And time to enjoy them...
"Jesus Christ!" The Canadian propelled his chair for ward with a crash. The policeman turned, as if he hadn't realized they were there. Empty as a camera, his dark face regarded them without curiosity or rancour. "Just because he's got a fucken gun..." Intricate panels decorated the grip of his automatic and, half-hidden by the hard roll of his belly, brass studs clustered in his belt. The tourist wondered if he should nod, acknowledge and maybe defuse that empty stare, but instead, he rested his hand lightly on the woman's. A solitary dog barked sporadically but there was no reply, no chorus.
"Tio Pedro." Gold flashed in the Captain's mouth as he spoke. "Que tal?" Caught with his glass in the air, the rancher made as if to acknowledge the greeting with a toast, but changed his mind and drank.
"Tio?" The Canadian whistled through his teeth. "Usted?" The rancher's absurd sombrero nodded affirmation. Studiously he picked up the bottle whereupon the woman, with a final squeeze, removed her hand from the tourist's arm.
"Apparently our host is the cop's uncle," she said, watching the rancher refill her glass.
"That's incredible." The Canadian grinned wolfishly. "Fantastic, eh? Wow!"
"Please most careful." Twisting his mouth, the rancher proffered the tourist's package of cigarettes. "It is a man very bad this one." He whispered unhappily, once the Captain had turned his back. "Most, how do you say?" They leaned, conspiratorially, to hear. "Most.. .furious."
******
Two days earlier, just after they boarded the train, a wiry man, immaculate in the uniform of an important officer, had bustled a plump, wide-eyed girl into the adjoining compartment. Wrestling a final bag in the narrow passage, the tourist saw her before the door was closed; rummaging in her purse, she had the air of someone who had forgotten something, but can't recall what. Curled on the jamb, the man's fingers were astonishingly clean, the nails perfect as artificial flowers. Their voices, even the movement of their bodies, came so clearly through the partition that the tourist and his wife, when they finally spoke, whispered guiltily.
"Did you know," she said, looking up from her book after he'd found them some cold beer, "they stole Pancho Villa's head?"
"Who did?"
"They. Them... you know. Nobody was ever caught."
"Pancho Villa's?" Unrolling beyond the window, day was ending on suburbs of raw concrete, on crumbling squalor, with figures crouching by open fires in the street. And in the next compartment, rising monotonously, the girl's voice went on and on, as if explaining, or apologizing. Intermittently the man made low, soothing noises, sometimes he laughed, but she scarcely paused.
"They dug him up." He noticed that wisps of hair had escaped from her bun, that her face was drawn, almost lurid in the fading light. "This one says they must have planned to sell it."
"Who'd want to buy his head, Pancho Villa's head?"
"Lots of people. Jesus, I wish they'd shut up!" Because now there sounds of physical efforts as one of their neighbours, one and then the other, clambered giggling into the top berth which, like theirs, ran across the compartment. Quite obviously it was right against the adjoining wall. "Oh my God," she said. She wanted him to call the guard. "Call the guard," she insisted. "Tell him to make them stop!" Crouched by the window, that now only reflected the two of them in their rattling cell, she stared with growing fury and disgust. "The stupid train's almost empty," she said. Then raising her voice, because the girl had begun to squeal, the partition to pulse, alarmingly, in time with their galloping rhythm, "He can give us another room."
"But they'll be finished before I find anyone."
"You never do anything, you know that? You never do anything at all."
"They won't be long now," he persisted, trying not to listen because, oh boy, it seemed the man was growling! "Let's go along to the buffet..."
They did it once more in the night. Waking from some disturbing dream, he didn't know what it was at first: the interminable squeaking and thumping, the growls again, and wrestling protestations. If he hadn't feared his wife's accusations, surely she wasn't still asleep? he would have gone into the corridor, or out onto the observation platform at the rear of the train. Instead, he rested his palm on the thin wall beside his face. She had worn long gloves and looked like someone else's wife. They might just as well all have been in the same bed.
Leaning on the dirty rail, drinking Carta Blanca for breakfast, he saw them descend at a freshly whitewashed station. After the altitude of Mexico City the air seemed dense and stagnant, the vegetation artificial, as if it were made from heavy plastic, as if it were waiting to be shipped back to the lobbies of bank buildings in Toronto. Before they went around a corner, he noted that she wore the pink satin skirt; it accentuated her buttocks, and the officer was still immaculate.
Nearby, in shade along a cracked and peeling wall, half a dozen soldiers stared at him. Suspicious and defensive, in ill-fitting uniforms, they cradled automatic weapons; and yet, when the train shuddered into motion, one waved, then leaned to spit foam between his regulation boots.
Elevated as he was, the tourist caught glimpses of rooms with white furniture, of gardens, like other rooms, with masses of red flowers for ceilings. Inevitably, with his wife reading, and another town receding behind him, he tried to imagine the ruins to come, the ravaged temples and ancient ball courts, where men had played a deadly game. And the friezes that he'd seen in pictures - warriors stamping on the heads of men whose screaming faces were identical to their own.
Returning for another beer, pausing at the open door, he noticed one of her gloves beside the unmade bed. When he picked it up it smelled, somewhat curiously, of peaches.
******
What with the drink, and the language, there was much the tourist didn't catch. The garden, it is true, had filled with fireflies, with the monotonous noise of tree frogs; high and electric, it both soothed and alarmed. And watching a long-tailed animal, somewhat bigger than a rat, where it shuffled at the verge of light and dark, he became convinced that, should it turn to stare at him, its eyes would contain an unnatural brilliance.
The Captain had arrived with his chair. Inserting it between the American woman and his uncle, he'd launched into an abrasive tirade featuring the words guerrilleros and hippies. Filling his uniform with hard fat, he leaned over his hands, which glistened faintly, as if they'd been massaged with oil. He said the word again. This time he spoke directly at the Canadian who, against all wisdom, maintained his superior smile. "Hippies!" Coughing the glottal H, a small, derisive explosion, he grinned at the woman and, with a flourish that showed his gold tooth, emptied her glass.
In another age, thought the tourist, and in the right novel, he'd have made a compelling pirate, a Corsair. There was that brutal grace about him, a kind of weightlessness -- like the polar bear, in a TV film, effortlessly hunting seals under water, the Captain knew he could do anything he pleased. And he was leading up to something, the tourist had become certain of that. Keeping his eyes on the young family, who were finally stirring at the next table, El Capitan was playing a game.
Silenced by his nephew's arrival, and no longer their host, the rancher, his face hidden beneath the brim of his hat, appeared to be sleeping. Crouched in his chair, the tourist smoked and drank while the Canadian, perhaps mistaking fear for adrenalin, treated the policeman as if he was some loutish fraternity brother, or a drunk on the subway. Was it because he spoke the language, and in speaking it, failed to see the danger they were in?
Democracy, for Chrissakes. Human Aspirations. Poverty. While no longer interested in words, he leaned to the woman, who whispered eagerly, conveying the gist of what they said. Freedom, Discipline, Hippies, Guerrillas, always los guerrilleros. He stared, focusing on the way her mouth moved, her narrow teeth like an animal's. And what about Pancho Villa's head? he thought. That's the question. La cabeza de Pancho Villa. What's that worth? He'd have preferred her hand on his arm again. Or his leg, the blunt fingers exploring between his thighs. . . .
After paying his bill the young father rose to his feet. The older girl, a lovely child whose hair was filled with blue ribbons, couldn't keep her eyes off them. And then, with a filter tip between his teeth, like in some goddamn Clint Eastwood movie, the Canadian said, "What if we were guerrillas?" Whereupon the Captain, without using his fingers, whistled a shrill blast, then another as uniformed men tumbled from the van with automatic weapons; they closed on the Indian who started to run but, seeing it was futile...
As the Canadian leaped to his feet, the Captain's pistol hit the table, flat on its side, between them, its dark barrel menacing. "Sit down!" One of the children was shrieking a single note, continuously, as if she didn't need to breathe. The soldiers wrestled her father, getting in each other's way, upsetting chairs even though he didn't resist. He tried to stare back to his wife, his children, his mouth was open. And then they bundled him into the van.
With her infant in one arm, the mother took the hysterical child in her other, but nobody else moved. Still standing, the Canadian was pale as a moon-flower; the soldiers, waiting by the van in their crumpled uniforms, puffed like grampuses. It was the older girl who screamed.
At a sign from the Captain, three men scrambled into the van; the others shuffled into the dark garden and the vehicle shook into life. The brown lights flashed on and it drove away. The Indian woman gathered her children. The one was merely sobbing now. The other, who looked maybe seven or eight, held the baby with its head lolling over her shoulder like a big doll.
He had spoken in English. "Sit down," he said it again. The Canadian lowered himself dutifully, as if his chair might splinter beneath him. Suddenly coming to life, the rancher ordered a round of drinks with coffee. The tourist felt colour returning to his face. Soon it would be as if nothing had happened.
"Ask him what he will do with the Indian." Discovering his throat was dry he poured a glass of mineral water.
"Let him go." The Captain laughed because the woman remained silent. "Is, how you say? Is precaucion, solamente una precaucion." Then, after a silence, he began to speak quickly, without emphasis, and in the lowest possible voice. Bobbing his head by the woman's shoulder the tourist wanted to understand, what's he saying? He leaned his face close to hers and seized her arm above the elbow.
"What's he saying?"
"He says..." She didn't want to speak. He had to squeeze harder. "He comes here..." Her breath was sour, smelling of cigarettes. She no longer looked at him. "Your Canadian comes here. His fingernails are dirty, but not from work. His hands are soft like a woman's."
The Captain grinned as the boy removed his hands from view -- then he lifted his own, leaving the decorated automatic on the table between them. "He whines," she reported, with difficulty, "he's outraged. He visits the ruins, he fucks the women, or the boys. He takes pictures of them. It's cheap, he says, because we have dollars."
"Los dolares," agreed the policeman, rubbing his thumb and fingers rapidly together. "The dollars, verdad?" The tourist almost said it wasn't his fault, for Chrissakes. What would he do with a bloody head? Despite his claustrophobia, it is true, he'd followed his wife, descending into the heart of the Temple of Inscriptions. There, the skeletons of six young people had once protected another, whose bones were richly decked with jade--of course the tomb was empty, a ruin. So far as he could tell there weren't even any spirits.
"He is..." The woman was trying to free her arm. "He's a boy scout, but you. He says that you're different. Perhaps you are dangerous." The Captain's round, dark face, its eyes languorous now, contemplated the tourist with apparent interest. What could he mean, dangerous? How was he different? But the Captain only shrugged. He knew it was absurd, that the game somehow continued, but the tourist sensed the way shadows played upon his face. It was as if his expression no longer concealed the skull beneath its flesh.
******
Bumping into unfamiliar objects, as he undressed in their darkened room, the tourist discovered he was grinning almost happily. Despite the night's events, the poor bloody Indian and his family, and an apprehension that the Captain's men might still burst in and -- and what? Despite the stupid cruelty of it all, he was excited. Climbing into bed, he couldn't wait to tell her. He took her breast in his hand, so his elbow and forearm rested along her belly, and laid his leg over hers. But, rolling from him, she said, and the words were muffled by her pillow: "Sometimes it gets so I can't stand you crawling into the same bed with me."
"Well, that's it then," he said automatically. "That's it, isn't it." Finally, because of the silence, he appealed to her again. "That must be the end, eh?"
"Go to sleep," she said. "You're drunk."