Bella Vista Notepaper

[Una de las sarcásticas variaciones de Harland Miller sobre Penguin]

'Well, actually I've only been away once.' The Consul took a long shuddering drink, then sat down again beside her. 'To Oaxaca. -Remember Oaxaca?'

'- Oaxaca?-'

'- Oaxaca. -'

-The word was like a breaking heart, a sudden peal of stifled bells in a gale, the last syllables of one dying of thirst in the desert. Did she remember Oaxaca! The roses and the great tree, was that, the dust and the buses to Etla and Nochitlán? and: 'damas acompañadas de un caballero, gratis!' Or at night their cries of love, rising into the ancient fragrant Mayan air, heard only by ghosts? In Oaxaca they had found each other once.

[Malcom LOWRY 2000 Under the Volcano. London: Penguin. Pg. 53]