Under the Volcano

Yvonne and Hugh go searching for the Consul, knowing that he is heading for the nearby Parían. They reach a fork in the road, and knowing that both paths eventually lead to Parían, they choose the longer path, with the presumption that they have a greater chance of finding him at one of the multiple cantinas on the way. At one of the cantinas, El Petate, Hugh goes in to ask questions and have a drink while Yvonne stays outside and frees an eagle from a cage. As she watches the eagle rise, she sees the stars in the face of the impending storm and wonders what drives the stars across the sky. Yvonne and Hugh continue on their way, racing against the storm. From the path, they see a graveyard filled with Day of the Dead celebrants there to honor their lost loved ones. 

They arrive at a hotel, El Popo, but still find no sign of the Consul. The storm continues to move in. While there, Yvonne tries mescal and hates it, while Hugh buys a flashlight and guitar from another man. They sit together, and Hugh admits that he will not be making it to his train that night. Before they set off again, Hugh shares with Yvonne a menu he found with an old bill on the back detailing the Consul’s debts at this establishment. Hugh has paid the bill, but Yvonne’s attention is drawn to a poem written by the Consul on the menu. The poem is somber, and Yvonne cannot shake the line “Who once fled north” from her mind (344). They set out for Farolito, another cantina they suspect the Consul might be at, and the storm opens above them. Through the rain, lightning, and thunder, Yvonne continues thinking of the line from the Consul’s poem. As they fight their way down the path, Yvonne loses the light of Hugh’s flashlight and hears the hoofbeats of an approaching horse. In a flash of lightning, she sees the horse with the number seven branded on its side charge at her. It tramples her, and as she dies, Yvonne sees her cabin in Canada, and her hopeful new life with the Consul, go up in flames. Her last thought is of being lifted into the stars.

The Consul is at Farolito, waiting for Hugh, as he does not believe that Yvonne will come after him. He becomes more and more intoxicated and starts hallucinating. While at the bar, Diosdado, the owner, gives him a stack of letters from Yvonne. He reads the letters, all of which detail her wish to reunite with him and the hope that they can have a fresh start. The Consul feels a deep-rooted wish to be forgiven by Yvonne and yet cannot bring himself to take the steps to achieve that. Instead, he sleeps with a sex worker and, in his spiral, remembers similar low points he had in the aftermath of their separation. Then, as now, his “familiars” inform him that they can no longer help him. He leaves the sex worker’s room. He imagines a new life with Yvonne but is convinced that it’s too late. He leaves the establishment and sees the horse with the number seven branded on its side tied up outside Farolito. He is led back inside, however, by one of the vigilante police, who claims that he owes money to the establishment for his drinks and to the pimp whose sex worker he slept with. 

Confused in his drunken state, the Consul struggles as the police begin to harass him, claiming that he is a man wanted for murder in another state. The Consul asserts that he is William Blackstone. The police leave to make a phone call and in the moment that they are away from him, the Consul considers escaping but decides against it, as he has no easy way out. He falls into a trance as he reads Yvonne’s letters and listens to the mayhem around him. As he sits at the bar, multiple people come up to him and urge him to leave, warning him that these police officers have bad intentions for him. The officers return and empty the Consul’s pockets. The Consul is wearing the same jacket Hugh had on earlier that day, and the officers find the copy of the telegram that Hugh sent. The police catch the Consul in the lie about his name and accuse him of being a Jewish anarchist. They review the letters from Yvonne as well, compiling more evidence that the Consul has been lying. 

The police accuse him of being a “spider” and spying on them. They try to arrest him, but the Consul fights them off, eventually taking hold of a machete and getting all the way to the horse outside. He accuses the police of killing the Indigenous American man that he saw on the road earlier and of stealing his horse. The Consul unties the horse but is shot before he can climb on and escape. The horse startles and flees into the forest as the Consul falls to the ground, mortally wounded. As he dies, he has a vision of climbing Popocatepetl, at times with Yvonne and Hugh or with Dr. Vigil and Jacques. As he nears the top of the volcano, however, he is alone. From the summit there is no view to behold, only ruin, and he finds himself falling into the volcano. The police dump the Consul’s body into the ravine behind the Farolito, and somebody throws a dead dog in after him.