* * *
Δ You jumped out of bed, Pussycat, humming. Franz arched an eyebrow.
“Up, man, up!” you grinned at him. “Get dressed!”
“Why?”
“We’re going to explore the pyramid!”
“It’s after midnight,” he protested, looking at his wristwatch.
“All the better. The witches and goblins will be out. Get dressed, Franz, and I’ll go after Javier and Betty.”
You put on a record, just for a change, Anytime atall, and wriggled into your yellow shantung dress, naked beneath it. Holding your golden slippers in your hand, you went out into the hall. You closed the door and stopped beside me. For I was waiting for you.
“Is everything ready?” you asked.
3. VISIT OUR CELLARS
That same September night the Narrator is led by Fatality to the Place. The only Reading he takes along with him is a poem by Octavio Paz which at this time has yet to be published:
Water above
Below, the forest
Wind along the paths
The well is motionless
The bucket black The water solid
Water goes down to the trees
Sky rises up to our lips
The Narrator decides to ponder over this poem. Feeling ashamed, he asks himself why poets can say everything in so few lines and Baudelaire replies, he believes, that only poetry is intelligent. The Narrator, Xipe Totec, Our Lord of the Flayed Hide, changes his skin.
Δ You stopped at the base of the enormous hill-like pyramid, in front of the entrance to the tunnel. There were iron rails for the wheels of the mine carts used to move out the excavated earth. The tunnel stretched in a straight line, illuminated by hanging naked light bulbs, as far as the eye could see. Javier stepped aside and Franz went in first, then Elizabeth, then Javier, and finally you, Isabel. The tunnel was low and the men had to stoop to dodge the electric cable overhead. Franz stopped for a moment with his fingers touching the smooth black wall. Elizabeth rested her hand on his shoulder and felt his sweat. But the air was not hot here, a cold current of air swept in from the entrance. Shafts led off to right and left. Franz moved forward again and Elizabeth kept her hand on his shoulder.
“Straight ahead,” Javier said quietly. His voice was muffled, yet seemed to echo. The four of you walked on slowly. As you approached one of the hanging bulbs, your shadows stretched behind you; as you walked on beyond it, they moved out in front of you, your shoulders magnified to spread all the way across the narrow tunnel. Franz reached a low dark arch and stopped. Javier felt until he found the light switch on the wall. Illuminated stairs climbed out of sight, almost vertically, to the foundations of the chapel, a dizzying ascent. Javier turned the light off.
“Franz?” a voice said. “Franz?” The voice was neither near nor far. It was penetrating without being loud. It lost itself in echoes and all of you stopped. Elizabeth thought that the voice had been Javier. She turned to him angrily: “Javier, shut up!”
“Franz, where have you been hiding?”
“Shut up, I said! Don’t pay any attention to him, Franz. He’s spent his entire life playing let’s-pretend games. They’re not worth worrying about.”
But Javier and you, Isabel, both knew that the voice had not been Javier’s. You said nothing. Javier, confused, did not know what to do, what attitude to adopt, whether to be ironic or amused. He spoke, still quietly,
“To the right, Franz,”
and Franz led you down a dark gallery of uneven stone. The lighting was not so bright now. Franz bumped against three protruding steps, the profile of one of the seven ancient pyramids that form the great hill. Elizabeth grabbed him by the waist to keep him from falling.
“Straight on, Franz,” Javier said.
And the unknown voice, louder than Javier: “Franz, haven’t you expected anyone to find you? Did you think you were finally safe?”
“Don’t listen to him!” Elizabeth hissed. “He’s out of his mind!”
Franz slowly, gropingly moved forward, the palms of his hands touching the rough stone walls. Now the cold draft from the entrance corridor was behind you. The air was thick, motionless. You were deep within the hill in a labyrinth of galleries and cross-galleries that seemed suspended in darkness and space, timeless. Water dripped softly and invisibly, as if the seven pyramids nested one upon the other concealed a secret spring, or as if the stone itself were sweating.
“Up the steps, Franz. We’re right behind you,” said Javier.
Franz raised his face and climbed slowly, as a sleepwalker. He reached the topmost step and stopped.
“Now,” said Javier, “we are approaching the heart of the pyramid.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t believe him. Don’t listen to him.”
The air was dense, almost suffocating, and you could feel the weight of the thousands of tons of earth and stone above you pressing down, wanting to settle the last few inches or few feet that would close the tunnels forever. Elizabeth reached forward to touch Franz again but hesitated and instead turned and stared at Javier’s expressionless face, its whiteness accentuated by the pale light of the naked bulbs.