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Olympia Press

8A Hawthorn Road

London N8 7NA

This book is dedicated to

Antonheta Georgieva Mihaylova

Traveller’s Tales

An Olympia Press Book

’Love is a disease

Easily caught

Tough to communicate

Whereas lust… well, lust..’

Bobbie Zander

Contents :

1: Hernandez in Mexics .. Pablo Flores.. 19

2: The Passengers .. Tamara Wells …... 43

3: The Thorwald … Juliet Watts……… 89

Hernandez

Mexico

Pablo Flores

HERNANDEZ in MEXICO

On his way to the 'Club Espanol’ Hernandez always made his way from the little 'Hotel Hacienda' where he habitually stayed, through the market, through the throngs of dancing children, ambulantes, whores, their pimps and numerous other people probably more interested in his wallet than in his personality, finally getting to the Plaza Del Victoria after about twenty minutes walking, and a little breathless with the heat.

Hernandez, being a creature of habit, then usually took a cup of coffee of that Guatemalan blend that he liked so much, and ate a little tapas, before continuing through the Plaza Victoria and thence into the huge square of El Zoloca, where the market stalls jostled the rusty buses and the honking of klaxons drowned the baa-ing of sheep, the Ee-Aw of hapless donkeys, blinkered and confused by the distance they had come to stand here among the crowds and the smells of such a tropical place.

To some extent Hernandez was used to this bustle, as his job as a Commercial Representative for 'La Libraria Espanola’ had made him well used to the commercial quarters of most large cities in Mexico. As in fact 'La Libraria' itself actually a trading company gone literary, dealt more or less in anything (in order to survive), he came into contact with all types and conditions of tradesmen; having had along the way, to learn to deal in barter as well as bankers drafts, in ship’s plating as well as printed fabrics, and finally, in books.

He was good at his work, and as his workbeat expanded, Hernandez had become used to spending several days at a time in various unlikely places, and so it was that in Mexico City he had become used to the cheapness and comfort of the 'Hacienda' and had got to know the Spanish Club, which was a haven of comfort in the harshness of modern Mexican Life.

Well, now Hernandez was all alone with nothing much to do that day. At first he toyed with the idea that he should go riding, or try to strike up a conversation with one of the beautiful women who he often saw just out of arms’ reach around him, but for some reason his palate revolted against it for that day; perhaps it was the supper that he had had the day before, where, involved in a long conversation about furnishing satins with a wholesaler, he had had to endure a particularly revolting and badly prepared series of dishes swimming in oil.

The merchant had said: "Its perfect...my wife has such a good touch..!.." He could imagine that the size of the Merchant had quite a lot to do with his intake of oil; perhaps a situation like the famous 'EUREKA!', but sitting up to his chest in warm olive oil, and of course chilli peppers.

Thus, the merchant would shout, 'Eureka!' and his wife would rush in with another plate of delicacies....

And also thus it was, that this day Hernandez strolled in slow motion, enjoying the Sun, his eyes half-closed, and savouring the energy of it all.

He stopped and leant against a wall, and let the world momentarily pass him by.

After a few moments he heard, perforce, a conversation taking place in a small cut-off adjoining the main thoroughfare, almost behind him.

A man in a huge sombrero, his face in such wise in darkness despite the bright sunshine, was talking animatedly to a small group of peons and campesinos, apparently uncaring or unaware of other potential ears around them; bravura, perhaps:

"No, we'll take the barracks like this. .!....", and he gesticulated marking his masterwork with a stick in the dust. A second man interjected:

"This is a man’s work...and not for amateurs now - When I was with Zapata....."

"When you were with Zapata he needed a cook!....."

"Hey! Don't insult me ‘Hijo de Puta.'....."

"Por Dios! Stop this arguing, we need discipline for a revolution!"

”Por Dios? You cannot plan real revolution in the dirt with a stick..!

"Then, shall we plan the revolution in your castle on a hill, and use real paper from a pile on the mahog.."

"Mahogany"

"Yes,Mahog...Any desk, with pens and, and ..eh!... Pencils? ...Eh!”

"Come here, come here and talk!”

Hernandez was both excited and amused. He could admit a certain admiration for such a grassroots initiative, but wondered if it would lead straight to the cemetery.

All at once his thoughts were disturbed, not to say interrupted, by a girl who fixed him with a stare and said;

"You're that Spaniard that I've seen at the Hotel Hacienda!" Hernandez looked around him to gauge any potential strength of threat...

“Well yes. .!..Seňorita!"

"And you're waiting here for something?"

“No, not at all, in fact I.....". He forgot the conversation behind him and his words slowed and stopped as the combined sounds of wheels and horses momentarily broke in.

A squadron of cavalry were riding past, pulling some small field guns and their tenders with them. There was a momentary halt in the proceedings caused by this movement, and then the background sounds returned all at once to normal.

Then he noticed that quite incidentally the core group of conspirators had now almost disappeared.

But the girl was still there, standing almost against his shadow, no, almost touching him.

She looked up, into his eyes and he thought that he saw the hint of a smile framing her lips.

He smiled back, and the hint disappeared. He said:

"Now that... Well, no, I was just spending a pleasant few minutes walking through the city centre!”

"Ah!"

Then suddenly a rush of blood to the head:

"But...could I ask you if you would like to drink a coffee with me..?" She kept him waiting for so long that his pulse crackled almost to a stop.

"I could senor!"

Another blank in the mind.

"Shall we then?"

"Yes, I have a few minutes".

So they spent an almost perfect twenty minutes together, and he had got to meet her in a most unlikely way, one which was at that time impossible in 'polite' company.

I should explain that Hernandez was not exactly Gringo, but then again, he was no Mexican.

In fact he was a Spaniard, come to Mexico on account of his education, and the fact that at home he could find no work. Added to that, he had cast the final doom of doubt upon himself by starting an affair with the sister of the Mayor's wife's first cousin’s husband, which made things much worse in that small town in Asturias, particularly as her husband had got to know about it through the chatter of the village women, one of whom was his mistress. Add to this the fact that Spaniards were not overly welcome in Mexican society at that time, perhaps because they were still seen as the progenitors of the disease of Empire, from which the Mexicans still suffered; or perhaps because they were seen as somehow superior, unapproachable and threatening - takers of the goodness but not givers of the honey, of the land-and you have a particularly pungent mixture of reasons why rumour and half-truth should flourish.(Perhaps they were at that time, perhaps not.)

At length he got to ask her name, and to look into those black eyes and feel himself lose a little of that reserve and control for which he prided himself. There is a subtle something about the soul of a woman of quality which shows itself in her eyes; and in that respect this woman was no exception.

Hernandez got to know that.

Later on they would make another story together, but on this day in history, though the exact date be forgotten, Hernandez had to ask her for another meeting; to touch her hand as if by accident with a sweep of his; taste the scents of heaven in her black eyes and her smile and bid her 'Adios’.

And so it was that he left the coffee house, both deeply troubled yet immensely light of heart, full of an unexpected, new, certain glee and yet profoundly moved by his experience.

It was in this frame of mind that Hernandez walked across the square dallying on the steps of the 'Club Espanol’ before entering through the mahogany doors with the cut crystal glass panels and the aggressive moulded brass lions-paw handles and furniture, watched covertly by those bewitching dark eyes.

The interior of the Spanish Club was as grand as its entrance suggested. An unwary visitor would first have had to negotiate the potential minefield of the Major Domo, politely and finally, rudely turning away the undesired and naïve peasant or farmer. Next he would negotiate the brown marble floor, laid one hundred and twenty years before by Basques De Lisander the club’s original founder, set to expiate the blood on his hands by this 'generous' offer, and to drown the cries of those whom he had thus destroyed by buying their land from under them. (For, it must be said, many pieces of gold, though these had earlier too been taken from the slaughtered Maya, transported back to Spain to be smelted and thus neutralized, and then given a new identity to be sold back to its owners at a large multiple of the original value.)

Yes, Basques was a nice man, and it must be said a truly wonderful father too; quite apart from the pure generosity of the gift of the Club to those who were his friends and business benefactors.

But I diverge, the floor itself remained as perfect as all the outward signs of Basques' high bourgeois morality seemed; preserved, as it were, in aspic, as Basques had preserved the heads of those Indios who had dared threaten him against using their (later his) land, without sufficient prior agreement.

For in the Mexico of those times, arrangements were rarely prior.

And then through the small court, fringed by graceful palms and an oasis of cool and peace, the billiard room on the left, where the click of ivory upon ivory was still a commonplace, the library where Hernandez had been honoured to supply a certain selection of volumes at cut-price in order to gain his membership, and then a secluded stairway where the privately rented rooms were situated.

But today Hernandez did not have a private meeting, lunch, or an assignation, today he wanted to savour, the delights of conjecture and imagination, for two reasons, one being that he was yet young and thus naïve, and the second - that love had peeped into his eyes and quite suddenly taken his heart for a helter-skelter ride.

So Hernandez turned away from the other entrances and circuited the various high ceilinged rooms, enjoying their imagination, their luxurious mysterious darkness, silk walls, old pictures, and peace.

Finally he found that he had walked right back through, describing a wide circuit of the building, and then into the reading-room at its face on the first level, where the huge mahogany frames of the windows gave out onto La Zoloca.

From here, the sounds were muted, but the bustle continued.

His eyes chased through the crowds for the girl and then he fancied he could see her, but then fell into a reverie. This continued for some considerable time.

At length, he ordered a favourite brandy - 'Centenario' and picked up a paper, enjoying the scent of the newsprint as he scanned the columns. He drank his brandy, watched the crowds in La Zoloca, and noticed the Sun dropping in the sky.

The crowds swelled and broke, running up, as it were on the wide steps of the Central Building of the Administration (Edificio Administritivo Central as the people called it, or sometimes ‘El Administracion)- the edifice was hardly charming - or non-pompous. In fact, did he but know it, the break of people against the stone steps of this monument to modernity and constancy was beginning to be increasingly agitated. Thus he intuitively cleared his mind of slumber, and watched with increased, confused, interest.

He called the waiter and ordered coffee and a glass of spring water to clear his head. Within a minute another waiter was at his elbow bearing the usual silver salver.

"Yes?"

"It's five o'clock, Sir..!"

"Is that my Coffee?"

"No, it’s five o'clock on Friday, and this is ‘Jornada de Revolucion,’ Sir!" The waiter insisted.

Was there some sign in this?

"Yes?"

“At this time on this day, we think it prudent to give the members their Pistols, Sir"

To his astonishment the waiter bent down and showed him a loaded pistol on the salver, under a thick linen napkin. He took it and looked more closely at it.

A passing member said:

"Be sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot; Sir..!"

Now Hernandez cleared his head, looked around the reading room, and saw with a certain shock that all the members were now similarly equipped, and that the various pistols lay on the carpet, or dangled casually from fingers whose owners were deep in newspapers, savoured San Luis Rey cigars or simply snoozed contentedly in the thick afternoon air.

Two moustachioed gentlemen were having a heated argument at one corner of the saloon, and one, whose huge fist dwarfed a rusting pistol, used it as an emphasis, as one would use a raised and arrogant finger to insist upon a point.

It was a scene of extraordinary comedy; the bizarre accelerated change from urbane boredom to an army camp under siege had taken him entirely by surprise.

His coffee arrived, and he drank it without interest, as the movement in the square below arrested his concentration and began to quicken, the wave motion in the crowd thickening and flexing.

And now, onto this private stage in front of a bizarre and somehow disinterested audience, strode the principal players.

The man he had seen earlier that day, the aggressive revolutionary with the huge sombrero, decorated with a single red tassel now hooked over the dome of the hat and dangled over it’s brim, had suddenly arisen and all at once, Hernandez realized, had begun to berate the crowd, using for emphasis a long silver cavalry sabre which he used rather as a Maestro uses his baton.

There were long silver arcs cut in the air.

He was arguing something, and there next to him, was another of the crowd from that morning with a rifle in one hand, and a pistol in the other.

Suddenly, with a flurry, the crowd threw off a series of people who arraigned themselves along the steps, the graphic representation now being almost pyramidal, with the large tasselled sombrero at its point.

The acute symbolism of the Pyramid or Mayan Temple was lost to Hernandez at that moment, for the power of the argument he watched seemed to grow like a tidal wave, the combination of sound and movement rising more and more rapidly.

He was for some reason, fascinated by the scene; the donkeys ee-awing, the peasants and peons beginning either to move away from - or towards the orators on the steps, the pimps disappearing along the alleys lining the square (the whores long since gone).

There was something that Hernandez did not know. Not just then.

Suddenly the square was empty, and the bustle had transmuted itself into a boxed querulous desert. For a moment the players were left the stage; and then Hernandez heard a close rattle and rumble and slap, a creak and then the sound of metal against stone.

Suddenly people were running.

The cavalry troop that he had seen earlier had entered the square at one side -stage left, as it were, and, stage right, the conspirators and orators, exhibiting faulty timing but much bravado, suddenly let fly with a barrage of irregular shots and black powder smoke which released clouds of exhaust and grime. The smoke took about twenty five seconds to clear; this was a play for reality, but in slow motion.

One trooper was covered by blood and grease, and lay slumped on the cobblestones.

Another lay against the wheel of the cannon.

Then, all at once, a hail of bullets seemed to wage war in the centre of El Zoloca.

A little cur, running across the centre of the square was caught by a bullet and hurled five metres sideways, where it lay silent and unmoving. Bullets pinged off the cobblestones and punctured wooden signs; a grocer’s cart, caught by a sudden barrage, staggered and fell lopsightedly into the road; women screamed, men ran; shadows stayed still.

Bullets shrieked and bounced silvery traces across the square. One large distorted round from a military Mauser fell, steaming hot, at his feet, missing the window by the merest fraction.

He did not notice.

Bullets continued to fall, like rain.

And now there were several corpses in the square.

Then, just like rain, the shooting ceased.

The shocked conspirators had disappeared into the shadows around the square. Now a second troop of cavalry arrived, with a Gatling gun and a steam-wagon, which creaked around the square discharging dense white billows, burping every few metres.

Finally, the troopers began to pick up the corpses and throw them into the back of the truck.

One of them looked up at the windows of the Spanish Club, and grimaced.

Then jumped into the wagon as they made their exit from the stage, trailing a thin ribbon of red in the yellow dust.

That was the end of their revolution that week.

The waiters came round and re-claimed their firearms.

The club resumed it’s dark splendour and it’s reserve.

And Hernandez?

Hernandez lived long and happy in Mexico, to the age of one hundred years. Knowing something: that

after all, Mexico is a beautiful country, forest and prairie and desert, built by the sinew and sacrifice of it’s people.

The Passengers

Tamara Wells

The Passengers

Mr. Andersen and his wife arrived on the dock in good time, several hours before the ship set sail. The First Officer, expecting people like these two, saw them immediately they approached.

Longshoremen and a myriad of strangers bustled on the crumbling concrete quays and swarmed up the companionways and ramps.

It was bedlam, but it would soon be over, thought the First Mate, and then they could relax at Sea. Heaven! His stomach gave a little warning jump.

These mixed passenger-cargo liners are sometimes the scene of unlikely happenings, but the Andersen’s were as likely as cheese is cheese.

The Captain turned to his First Officer and said:

“These two won’t have much to talk about!”

It was the kind of occurrence which was more an everyday situation than one could reasonably hope for. There could be nothing more everyday than two everyday people who would create no problems, ask few stupid questions: neither present any real problems, so that he could get on with his favourite pastimes and read his new novel, unworried or bothered by everyday cares.

For a moment the captain smiled, and then he turned away to his business, for the valves for number four cylinder were to be fitted urgently, and he had enough on his hands already to make sure that everything was tested and secure before they began final preparations, which included tiresome details like counting ton pallets of flour and provisions.

For the rest of that day the Andersen’s became simply a continuation of the Pursers Roll, that thick wad of paper that the Purser had such pleasure in carrying around with him on a board under his arm, when he was telling the First Officer how busy he was.

Now, the Purser was a bit eh, ‘'Queer', you know’, said the Doctor, and that the First Officer, still a youngster despite the addition of a spiky moustache and a sometimes gruff demenour should watch himself.

He whispered it to him over a Pimm’s, one day at the back-bar on the quarterdeck at the rear of the accommodation, which was strictly for officers and passengers.

The First Officer knew that though already, as he was a bit that way too, but he did not tell either the Doctor, or anyone else.

And, to complete the puzzle, the Doctor suspected that the First Officer thought he was, though if he was it was only because of what had happened to him that day at school, and thus it was that he wanted to still any disturbing ripples that might start, before they started.

The colours of the day. It was a damp day; the dock was concrete grey and granite purple, unbroken by a relieving tree or patch of green, however muddied, and the sea mist which rolled up the channel as evening approached brought only further discomfort to those who laboured over the casings and crates which were being packed at the last moment.

^“Fortunately,” thought the first officer, “..there won't, be any deck cargo, and thus none of that filching that there was a couple of trips ago.”

He clattered down a companionway into the crew’s quarters, which at this time were ill-lit and musty, with only the emergency lighting functioning. The passages here seemed often crepuscular, and space was picked out by yellowish lamps at the corners of the sweating metal corridors.

He knew the interiors of these cabins without having to look. The only decorations would be personal ones, the usual lewd pictures of naked girls, or sometimes a curio in tortoiseshel1 which took one by surprise. A few chewed books. An empty mug. Some wretched things on the table or crumpled on the end of the bunk.

He hated things like that. More particularly perhaps, the sheer smell of it. It seemed to coagulate along the walls. That was what he found so extraordinary about any space where people lived together with often barely concealed animosity towards each other. There was no escape from the others in a ship in the mid-ocean, no ability to say; 'Right then, I'm leaving. . !'

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