The Unmapped Country

by Ann Quin

  feeling the sun between heavy breasts,

  she clutched the towel. ‘Here we are—it’s

  terribly small—but I think there’s room for

  us all,’ the wife shouted up from the narrow

  pool, only her legs submerged in the water.

  The man, his back towards her, thrust his face

  under the jet of water that spurted out from

  a small hole in the rocks. The husband stood

  on the edge of the pool, ‘Is there room do

  you think?’ he asked. The other woman quickly

  got in between the man, the wife. She tried

  getting the whole of her body submerged.

  The man shifted slightly, his mouth open. The

  husband lay half on the edge, half on his wife’s

  body. They lay there, shifted around, attempted

  to move, manoeuvre their bodies, without

  touching. The women looked down at the men from

  the corners of their eyes, while the water

  bubbled below, and behind them. The river, dark

  green in parts, moved slowly.

  The man got out first, went over and sat on

  a large rock, facing the river. The husband

  now lay between the women, his head

  back under the hot water. The women climbed

  out, and went to another rock, the other side

  from where the man sat. The wife, laughing

  quietly, stretched out, and through half closed

  eyes watched the man, watched her husband. The

  other woman wrapped the towel around herself,

  and watched the patterns of light on her legs,

  rocks, on the wife’s back.

  The husband joined them, sat between them.

  He smiled, smiled at his largeness, at the smaller,

  almost childish, hairless body of the other man,

  the other side of the pool, who started scratching

  the grime off his body, digging this out from his

  nails, picking out the dirt slowly, carefully.

  ‘He certainly makes use of the people he works

  for—and just look now what’s he’s doing—never

  trust a man who…’ the husband whispered, lay

  back, his head resting on his wife’s legs, then

  against the other’s breasts. The women laughed.

  ‘You just never stop—do you,’ the wife said,

  ‘at least he doesn’t say things the way you do.’

  ‘Ha you think his silences are profound or

  something—he’s dumb—hasn’t a thought in

  his head—he just drifts—think of that woman

  of his respecting his silence when he came back

  and found her living with another man—what did

  he do—go away and wait—no—I mean there’s

  all sorts of places to wait but to wait in the

  backyard I mean to say what kind of man is that.’

  He closed his eyes, sighed. They all closed

  their eyes, allowed their hands to wander, rest

  in places, parts, spread out on the flat rock.

  The wife sat up suddenly, ‘where’s he gone

  he’s disappeared?’ The husband, his eyes

  remained closed, laughed, ‘Ah he’s got the message

  at last.’ The other woman opened the towel a

  little, and allowed her weight to be part of the

  rock’s weight. The wife stood up, looked over

  and beyond where the man had been. ‘Do you think

  he feels outside it all?’ Oh he’s all right—

  he’s the sort that likes to go off on his own

  he’ll be back soon enough,’ the husband said,

  pulling his wife down on top of him. ‘Not here

  not now—might come back,’ she said, giggling,

  thrusting him away. He mouthed the other’s

  body, neck, his hands feeling the softer skin,

  the flushed parts from the water.

  They did not hear the man returning. He

  squatted the other side of the pool, his head

  bent, hands hung limply between his legs. The

  wife saw him first, saw his small curved brown

  back, glistening. He looked round then, and

  grinned, small neat white teeth flashed up at

  her from across the pool. She looked at the

  other two, the woman who had discarded

  the towel, her breasts, thighs already a harsh

  red against the whiteness. Her husband’s head

  rested against the woman. ‘I’m going into

  the pool again,’ the wife said, and scrambled

  down, arched her body under the jet of hot

  water. The man humming softly, began cleaning

  his toe nails.

  The husband jerked up, looked down into

  the pool, across the pool. ‘He should keep his

  dirty habits to himself,’ he whispered. The

  woman, smiled, brought the towel across herself,

  it was just wide enough to cover the parts touched

  by the sun. The wife lay half asleep in the

  water. The man went on picking out bits of dirt

  from his nails. The husband shifted around on

  the rock, so that his back faced the pool, his

  wife, the man and the other woman.

  The river became a darker green by the time

  they dressed. They climbed back slowly, up the

  track, in single file. The man first, the wife

  followed, followed by the husband, the woman

  last. They walked in silence, only the sound

  of the river gurgling, and then the wind bringing

  dust and sand as they turned the corner, and moved

  out of the canyon.

  ‘Well I didn’t think much of this hot spring

  pool—I mean I thought at least it would be

  larger,’ the husband said, as he started the car

  up, as they waited for the man, who had fallen

  out of line, to step behind a bush. The wife

  did not say anything. ‘It wasn’t so bad but maybe

  next time just the three of us will come,’ the

  other woman said. They gazed out of the window,

  and watched the man move slowly towards them.

  ‌

  ‌Eyes that Watch

  Behind the Wind

  What was happening?

  She no longer knew. Feeling only her pain. And his. The weight.

  Pulse in the stone

  wanting to hear it. See it. Not enclosed. But see and hear it emerge from the skin. Transparent. For the touch. Like the necklace of delicate pink shells round her, hanging over one breast. But even these she knew would break soon enough. She liked holding them, one by one. The smell of sea. This naked back caught by light. Ocean reflected. Mountains of waves rolled them together, separated them on to the beach. Breaking out of the sand he had been buried under. Her own burial with the branches, twigs he had put in, without her knowing. When opening her eyes she saw arrows pierced into her body under the sand mount.

  The memory of this

  and the wreath of white flowers high on some rocks facing the ocean, she had suddenly seen one morning, after sheltering in a cave. A cave she had left quickly because of two fishermen who leered at her from some rocks nearby.

  They had been in Mexico nearly three months. Moved into, out of three places. Yet she had no sense of placement with him. For him. There had been once, but that was hard to recall. And if remembered only fell heavily between them.

  A longing

  for rain. Heavy rain through the night. They were told it was the rainy season. The days continued hot, dusty, oppressive. Mountains seemed to be pushing their way nearer. Or being pushed by thick white clouds clinging there. The only clouds.
>
  On their way to Cuetzalan, south of Mexico City, they had passed the cone shaped volcano Popocatepetl contemplating Ixtaccihuatl, the White Woman. Snow covered belly and thighs. The outlines of these volcanoes were not visible. Sometimes even their heads disappeared, then reappeared, risen islands floating high above them, where stars must have been, and clouds formed smoke columns above the snow.

  Ixtaccihuatl

  Popocatepetl watching

  watching behind the wind eruptions under skin. Under eyes. Of those who wore slick neat city suits, who stepped heavily along the hot concrete. She was glad to leave that.

  Glad not to be furtively looked at by those dark shells.

  Eyes never meeting her own.

  Glad she would perhaps no longer hear the word ‘Gringos’ shouted out. Or be spat at by passing drunks. Clutched by beggars. Stoned by boys. Be confronted by huddled shanties in front of middle-class apartment boxes. Confronted by her own strangeness, helplessness in the face of their defeat, their resigned acceptance of life conquered by death. The family of God knows how many living in cramped quarters, who smiled cheerfully at her. The girl of nineteen who had just given birth to her third child. She found it hard to smile, feeling self-conscious of her clothes, the difference in their lives. The simplicity yet hardness of theirs. The complexity and softness of her own.

  They arrived in Cuetzalan, a town appearing to be from another century. High up in the mountains, where walking through clouds seemed more than a possibility. A place once invaded by the French, driven out by the Totanaca Indians. She liked it, admired at once their dignity, openness. Their immaculate white clothes. Women in long skirts, brightly embroidered sashes, lace blouses, purple, green yarns of wool twisted into their dark hair, piled high on top of their heads. Some carried babies on their backs, in baskets of string woven on to wood, supported by a strap around their foreheads. Yes, she felt self-conscious, conspicuous in her short dress, and they were curious, but they nodded, smiled, spoke gently: Adiós Adiós. Buenos días. Buenas noches. The soft padding of the men’s sandalled feet. The firm tread of the women’s naked feet.

  Part of the earth.

  They at least had accepted, made use of the land. Had no use for, no need to fill in the Void like the Mexicans did with noise. The sound of radios. Music relayed from a gramophone through a loudspeaker in the belfry tower, that started at 6 a.m. every day, and continued most afternoons. The town had, in fact, only had electricity for a year. The Mexicans loved their new toy. A television set was a proud possession.

  Once, going for a walk along one of the many stony tracks, passed by white clad Indians bent double with their load of sugar cane, following their mules also laden with cane, or long heavy planks of wood, she heard from a wooden shack the sounds of Louis Armstrong. Again a loss of placement. The sound reminding her, taking her back. Forward. The knowledge that soon she would cross the border to a country, his country America, where once more she would feel a stranger.

  And England?

  How distant it seemed now. Yet in moments a longing.

  But for what?

  She had no sense of belonging there either. A vague feeling of ‘roots’. A certain kind of identity. The freedom of knowing her way around. But the greyness. Oh that grey, grey thing creeping from the sky, smoke, buildings, into the pores of skin. Grey faces. No she could not go back to that.

  And here

  well here there was a stillness, a gradual regaining from the landscape. The maize as tall as trees. Bananas unripe, and oranges. Coffee plantations surrounded by mountains, layers of deep blue fading into clouds, mist. Shrillness of insects. Locusts. A startling brightness from the poinsettia, flowers of Christmas Eve, above her head bent low. Now high, watching the turkey buzzards circle, in their search for snakes. Then down at the line of leaf-cutter ants coming and going. Armies of them. A moving line of leaves, twigs along the track, up over the rocks into a small dark hole.

  Up the mountain into a cave.

  The sense of this land, a kind of timelessness caught her often by the throat. The line at the top of her shoulder blades crossing the spine. The tension there.

  Expectation of his touch.

  The placing of his tongue, razor sharp. Could enter. Squaring her for that, feet together, head neither too high nor too low. To make the last pass of any series of passes in silence. To perform some act that would provide an emotional yet rational climax.

  She tried fighting off the longings, demands for what had been. Tried moving with the Mexican sense of no midday. No evening.

  En la mañana, en la tarde, en la noche.

  Even in this ‘out of the century’ town she felt weighed down by some slow stirring thing. The very earth. Smell of hard dry cracked earth. Sweat. Urine. Heavy scent of flowers mixed with smoke from the factory where sugar cane was melted down. Smell of dry blood. Pigs slaughtered. Shrieking of a pig escaping, caught, pulled by a rope, tethered to a rock, still shrieking. How could people live with this, under it, under the midday heat beginning so early in the morning, without it all thrusting through, quickening the pulse like the hump of muscle rising from the neck of a fighting bull, which erects when the bull is angry. How could it not all make the hands quick to grasp the machete from the leather sheaf hanging always close, so close to a man’s body. And strike. Slice through another’s skin?

  Mass in the morning. Massacre in the afternoon. The ritual. The exorcism. Hadn’t she been all too aware of this at the first bull fight? The heavy wary, sometimes dazed bulls. The swift agility of the matadors. One or more unarmed with a cape, but carrying the banderillas, provoking a series of charges; running in zig-zags, or seeing how close they could approach the bull while playing, without provoking a charge. The banderillas discreetly decorated with coloured streamers, that looked like flowers. More and more of these soon sticking out of the bull. From under these streams of blood, mixed with sweat. Continual prancing, or rigidness yet fluid dance, of the matador in his skin-tight pants, heavily brocaded cape. Light-hearted airs, graces, smiling forcedly. Flowery style, lengthy repertoire, until finally she found herself also taken in by it all. Admiring the redondo of man and bull executing a complete circle. The decorative pass with the cape in which it was held by one extremity, swung so that it described a circle around the man. She almost forgot her earlier nausea at the matador’s arrogance, his Hollywood smile. While the bull paused, blinded by dust, sun, blood. And panic. The olés of the crowd, or their hissing when a picador missed the bull when charging, and the point of the pic slipped over the bull’s hide without tearing it.

  The waiting of a picador, waiting for the bull to get close enough so he could place the pic properly, but the bull struck the solid wall of the mattress covering chest, right flank and belly of the picador’s blindfolded horse. The horns going under, again and again, until man and horse toppled over with a thud. She had looked away then, choking back the vomit, not wanting the others, the Americans, she sat with, to know that she was ‘chickening’ out. When she looked up again to the dragging out of the horse by a trio of mules, she noticed several people’s faces quite pale. She glanced at him, crouched forward. Yes, he could accept this. The death ritual.

  The meeting place of challenge.

  It was absolute. It was in silence. Especially the final act, as the matador furled the muleta, sighting along the sword, so that it formed a continuous line with his face and arm preparatory to the killing. The two facing each other. It was physical. Sensual almost. Yes, she could understand his fascination with a sensual kind of violence. Seeing it there in his face, watching intently every move man and bull made.

  The pulse in his neck moved

  a small creature, ready to jump out, seize her own neck that arched back, down, where she felt the ache. The ache at times of wanting this violence in him to break out. Devour her. Hurt me hurt me hurt me. But not in this way. Not in the heavy silence of them both facing each other, weapons concealed. The final turning away, not even i
n anger, but resentment.

  The challenge not met.

  At such time she almost wanted the frenzied shouts of an audience: Anda—Go on

  Anda

  Anda

  Anda

  Not this rejection.

  She couldn’t take it. Nor the verbal attacks. When words became only accusations slung at each other. If no words, then it was a sword-thrust that goes in on the bias so that the point of the sword comes out through the skin of the bull’s flank.

  The man did not go in straight at the moment of killing. She remembered vividly the six out of eight bulls suffering this prolonged death. Haemorrhage from the mouth. Not just one sword, but several having been badly placed, and entered the lungs. Neither did she want the sense of triumph. The vuelta al ruedo. The tour of the ring made by the matador who had killed perfectly.

  But anything

  anything rather than the silent anger hanging heavily like the afternoon heat, when even the sheets were a weight on her limbs. And the angles of his body jutted out—thick branches thrusting her to the edge of the bed. Her own arms crossed over, around her neck. Breasts.

  The weight

  a stone tied to an inside cord in her belly, turned, turned and twisted. The thud thud thudding of her heart. Reminding her of the Indians in New Mexico. Their drum beats. The pulse quickening, or slowing down accordingly.

  Asking

  Praying

  Asking

  The asking

  the praying for rain. Touch of the hands. A lightness. Fingers in her hair. Fireflies coming in through the open shutters. Then the longer hold of his tongue in her. Her mouth of him. Tongue resting there. A way of knowing him. He had been unsure then. Not sure what she wanted. Needed. Thinking perhaps she had dozed off. Or had passed into one of her trances. Towards those trances he felt a kind of envy, a fear. Could not share. The body removed. That she had gone far out. Into some area he could not be placed in, or find a place there with her. But he had his own areas. His own crablike places. Once they had watched whole colonies of crabs down over the rocks. Cancer. His sign. He was fascinated. She was curious. What parallels could she perhaps discover? They seemed to move slowly, but in fact moved quickly. In order to move forward they had to move backwards.