Part 24 (1/2)

'Darling, you are so logical and reasonable and civilized that you sometimes drive me right straight up the wall.'

'Alec, I don't mean to do that. I just want us to stop worrying about it until we can see Senor Munoz. But right this minute I want to rub your back until you relax.'

'Madame, you've convinced me! But only if I have the privilege of rubbing your poor tired feet before you rub my back.'

We did both. 'Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!'

Beggars can't be choosy. I got up early the next morning, saw the clerk's runner, was told that I could not see the clerk until court adjourned for the day, so I made a semi-appointment for close-of-court on Tuesday - 'semi' in that we were committed to show up; Senor Munoz was not. (But would be there, Deus volent.)

So on Tuesday we went on our picnic outing as usual, as we could not see Senor Munoz earlier than about 4 pm. But we were Sunday-go-to-meeting rather than dressed for a picnic - meaning that we both wore our shoes, both had had baths that morning, and I had shaved, and I wore my best clothes, handed down from Don Jaime but clean and fresh, rather than the tired Coast Guard work pants I wore in the scullery. Margrethe wore the colorful outfit she had acquired our first day in Mazatlan.

Then we both endeavored not to get too sweaty or dusty. Why we thought it mattered I cannot say. But somehow each of us felt that propriety called for one's best appearance in visiting a court.

As usual we walked over to the fountain to-see our friend Pepe before swinging back to climb our hill. He greeted us in the intimate mode of friends and we exchanged graceful amenities of the sort that fit so well in Spanish and are almost never encountered in English. Our weekly visit with Pepe had become an important part of our social life. We knew more about him now - from Amanda, not from him - and I respected him more than ever.

Pepe had not been born without legs (as I had once thought); he had formerly been a teamster, driving lorries over the mountains to Durango and beyond. Then there had been an accident and Pepe had been pinned under his rig for two days before he was rescued. He was brought in to Our Lady of Sorrows apparently DOA.

Pepe was tougher than that. Four months later he was released from hospital; someone pa.s.sed the hat to buy him his little cart; he received his mendicant's license, and he took up his pitch by the fountain - friend to streetwalkers, friend to Dons, and a merry grin for the worst that fate could hand him.

When, after a decent interval for, conversation and inquiries as to health and welfare and that of mutual acquaintances, we turned to leave, I offered our friend a one-peso note.

He handed it back. 'Twenty-five centavos, my friend. Do you not have change? Or did you wish me to make change?'

'Pepe our friend, it was our intention and our wish that you keep this trivial gift.'

'No no no. From tourists I take their teeth and ask for more. From you, my friend, twenty-five centavos.'

I did not argue. In Mexico a man has his dignity, or he is dead.

El Cerro de la Neveria is one hundred meters high; we climbed it very slowly, with me hanging back because I wanted to be certain not to place any strain on Margrethe. From signs I was almost certain that she was in a family way. But she had not seen fit to discuss it with me and of course I could not raise the subject if she did not.

We found our favorite place, where we enjoyed shade from a small tree but nevertheless had a full view all around, three hundred and sixty degrees - northwest into the Gulf of California', west into the ' Pacific and what might or might not be clouds on the horizon capping a peak at the tip of Baja California two hundred miles away, southwest along our own peninsula to Cerro Vigia (Lookout Hill) with beautiful Playa de las 0las Altas between us and Cerro Vigia, then beyond it Cerro Creston, the site of the giant lighthouse, the 'Faro' itself commanding the tip of the peninsula - south right across town to the Coast Guard landing. On the east and north-east were the mountains that concealed Durango a hundred and fifty miles away... but today the air was so clear that it felt as if we could reach out and touch those peaks.

Mazatlan was spread out below like a toy village. Even the basilica looked like an architect's scale model from up' here, rather than a most imposing church - for the umpteenth time I wondered how the Catholics, with their (usually) poverty-stricken congregations, could build such fine churches while their Protestant opposite numbers had such a time raising the mortgages on more modest structures.

Look, Alec!' said Margrethe. 'Anibal and Roberto have their new aeroplano!' She pointed.

Sure enough, there were now two aeroplanos at the Coast Guard mooring. One was the grotesque giant dragonfly that had rescued us; the new one was quite different. At first I thought it had sunk at its moorings; the floats on which the older craft landed on the water were missing from this structure.

Then I realized that this new craft was literally a flying boat. The body of the aeroplano itself was a float, or a boat - a watertight structure. The propelling engines of this craft were mounted above the wings.

I was not sure that I trusted these radical changes. The homely certainties of the craft we had ridden in were more to my taste.

'Alec, let's go call on them next Tuesday.'

'All right.'

'Do you suppose that Anibal would possibly offer us a ride in his new aeroplano?'

'Not if the Commandant knows about it.' I did not say that the newfangled rig did not look safe to me; Margrethe was always fearless. 'But we'll call on them and ask to see it. Lieutenant Anibal will like that. Roberto, too. Let's eat.'