He knew the extent of their abandonment – the ten hours down-river to the port, the forty-two hours on the Gulf to Vera Cruz – that was one way out. To the north the swamps and rivers petering out against the mountains which divided them from the next state. And on the other side no roads – only mule-tracks and an occasional unreliable plane: Indian villages and the huts of herds: two hundred miles away, the Pacific. She said, ‘I would rather die.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘of course. That goes without saying. But we have to go on living.’
