Who Has Sunk My Little Country?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 8

Who Has Sunk My Little Country?

By

G. leF.

Y.

‘T was Sunday and I was early for supper. At Rancho La Rosa, a nature-cure health farm near the Californian border of Mexico, supper means a meal at 5.0 p.m. Sunday supper in winter means pea soup, baked potatoes, cabbage and tomato salad, a lively cottage cheese made from a rather superior type of yoghurt, a hot drink containing 23 vegetable ingredients, and massively carved slices of sourdough bread. .. I was early, because I had been given the job of indoctrinating a new guest, a lady from Montana, and I wanted to get her well settled at the table before others came in to distract her. She had a long horse face and a twitchy, uncertain upper lip. She looked as if she

might bolt, neighing, for the mesa, before I could get the feed bag on her.

She had already complained of thé lack of central heating and was now eyeing the hot vegetable drink with distaste, muttering that she sure did miss her cuppa cawfee. I assured her that her re@iving metabolic rate would soon. start to keep her warm naturally, and as her cells continued to renew on vital, organicallygrown foods she would lose her taste for stimulants such as caffein and tannin. "T like cawfee fine," she said, fumbling a baked potato on to her plate. "I wouldn’t want to lose my taste for cawfee." The dining room door slammed after one of the Mexican girls, backing in with another gallon of hot vegetable drink. "Hi, Pancho," she called, "you be better go home to New Zealan’.

"Why, Nana?" I asked. "There been trouble there. Someone drop a bomb on the gummerment. Says on the radio." "You from New Zealand?" . asked the Montana filly. "I -héar you got an awful lot of commies down there." "They are awful," I said. "Always agitating against the three-fronted scrum. Last election they almost had the wingforward back in power. . . Nana, why don’t you bring your radio in here? I'd better know about this." Nana mamboed off and I steered the Montana filly to a table. The door slammed again. It was one of the muscle men, a race apart who live exclusively on beaches and health farms. "One hundred deep squats, Pancho," he said, "with the big bar. Man, I’m real hongry. Lemme at that cheese. You’ hear what they say on the radio, Pancho? Been a tidal wave in Noo Zea-

land or sompn. Big explosion or sompn." "Don't I get but-

ter for this bread?" asked the Montana filly plaintively. "Sure is dry." I got launched into a spiel about excess cholesterol from extra fats and how whole grains had their natural, balanced fat content, when the door eased open to admit one of the salad servers, a thin, diffident Syrian with vast brown eyes. He came close and started whispering in my ear. "Sure hope your folks are all right," he murmured. "Terrible thing to have happened when you so far off. Doesn’t the lady like the salad dressing?" I broke off the cholesterol spiel. "She burns straight hay," I whispered back. "What did happen, George? Who has sunk my little country?" "It was flying saucers. One on ’em hit a mountain and exploded."

"I doubt whether my folks were in it," I said. "They stay pretty close to the ground." The dining room was starting to fill up. Even the new guests seemed to to know where I came from, and: they couldn’t wait to tell me the news. A Swede, speaking French, said he regretted there had been a major calamity. A German, now a citizen of Cuba, speaking Spanish, said he had much respect for my small but brave country. A Texan, speaking round a_ baked potato, said if it hadn’t been for Joe McCarthy, this might have happened in our country, yessir. He banged his. tray, slopping pea soup. "You gotta be tough with the commies."

I said we did our best. We always used communists as live bait in moa hunts. . Nana brought in her portable radio, blaring a Spanish singing commercial for cigarettes. The Montana filly said she'd never used tobacco, but she did like her cuppa cawfee. I told her all about cell renewal, trying to dial news broadcasts in between sentences. We were interrupted by a lady who studied numerology. She turned the letters of my name into numbers, drew two triangles, calculated, and said I had quite a good chance of maintaining normality in my own country. It seemed obvious I was losing touch with normality in this part of the country of Mexico. The news broadcasts were full of the usual Sunday human interest stories about men consuming 25 hamburgers and a gallon of buttermilk. I _gave Nana back her radio before the Montana filly had her good resolutions corrupted, As we were about to leave, a very young movie bit player came in, carrying a candle and two eggs, and escorted by muscle men. She was on a high protein reducing diet, and kept up her morale by lighting a romantic candle on her supper table. "Pancho, darling," she called, over the left bicep of the nearest muscle man, "I’m worried about your little country. The radio said they’d been attacked by flying saucers. Darling, I'll drive you to town after supper and you must call and see if your folks are OK," I told her I wasn’t going to blow twenty-five bucks for three minutes’ conversation with some cunning little green man. "Let ’em be," I said confidently, "they’re strangers. They won't know where to go when the tide comes in. Only the natives know that." . The Montana filly asked innumerable questions, and it was nearly 9 o’clock before I could get away to talk to my friend Jesus Maria Villoresi, a calm young man with a roomy wine cellar. "Hi, Jésus," I said, "have you heard the news? Someone is said to have sunk my little country." "Hi, Pancho," he said. "I heard them speak of a flying apparatus like a silver cigar hitting a mountain." "What came out?" I asked. "Little green men?" (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "Tt was not said.’ "They've probably infiltrated everywhere by now. I bet they hold the levers of power in the jockey clubs and the Rugby unions and everywhere." "What will you do, Pancho?" "Shall we liberate them, Jesus?" "They may not care to be liberated." "How would you like to be infiltrated by many hombres chiquitos verdes?’ "J have seen many things, Pancho. It is well to rernain calm." "J think I shall write to them, Jesus, and ask them if they need me." "How will you know who answers? Your friends, or los hombres chiquitos verdes?" "J probably shall not know, but I shall remain calm." "J also, We shall remain calm even while listening to the radio." Jesus and I sat up into Monday morning, listening and remaining calm, but no more news came over, and the paragraph in Monday’s local paper was hardly satisfying, either. It said: Apparatus Like Silver Cigar Falls Near Australia, Who has sunk my little country?