It hurt, I remember that, but mixed with the pain was a sense of anticipation. I stood on the edge of something enormous, like the feeling just before orgasm when the body burns with a new intensity and every nerve is alive, so alive that each movement carries with it joy and pain. There are sensations so great that the body cannot contain them. We label these feelings pain for lack of a better word. I felt more than pain as I drew the glass edge along my wrist, more than the cold edge of the glass and the thin line of pain and the warm flow of blood down my arm. I could see the blood pump in time with the beating of my heart and I let it flow into the tub, where it mingled with the rushing water.
I was nearly unconscious when Robert broke the lock on the flimsy door and found me sprawled over the tub, my arms hooked over the porcelain lip, my wrists submerged in the hot water that overflowed the tub, pouring onto the floor, onto my naked body. I would have fought him, but my energy was gone. I had passed beyond fighting into a large empty place that roared with the sound of the sea. I was ready to go on, but Robert pulled me back.
Sometimes, I remember. I try not to.
6
Diane
Just after my father died, during the two weeks when I could not sleep and could not eat, my friend Marcia suggested I visit a psychologist. I went to see Marcia’s counselor, a square-shouldered woman with soft gray eyes that looked out of place in a face composed of angles and harsh planes. On the wood-paneled walls of her office hung watercolors in black frames – an odd combination of softness and severity. She sat in a rocking chair. I sat in an easy chair that was too soft.
She asked me to talk about myself. I considered, for a moment, telling her about the night before my father’s funeral. The memory had haunted me. For three nights running, I had dreamed of the great dark valley spreading beneath my father’s balcony. I remembered the dreams only vaguely, waking each time to a feeling of panic and a memory of falling. While awake, I avoided the balcony, especially at night.
I spent my days sorting through my father’s things – deciding what clothes would be donated to charity, what papers might be of interest to my father’s colleagues at the hospital. Aunt Alicia kept asking me when I had to be back to work. I had not told her that I had quit work and given up my apartment. By night, I drank, watched television, and tried to sleep. But whenever I managed to doze off, I woke from strange dreams, restless and unhappy.
I told the counselor that my father was dead, that I could not eat and I had trouble sleeping, that I was very nervous and upset. She asked me about my father and my relationship with him, and I told her that my father and I had had a good relationship, a very good relationship.
She asked about my mother and I told her that my mother did not enter into this at all. I told her that I had not seen my mother in fifteen years.
‘How do you feel when you think about your mother?’ she asked. Her voice matched her eyes – pale gray and gentle.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Sad, I guess. Sad that she left.’
She waited, studying me. ‘What are your hands doing?’
My hands were clenched in fists. I did not speak.
‘Can you give your hands a voice and let them tell me how they feel?’
I shook my head quickly and forced my hands to relax. ‘Holding on,’ I said in a thick voice that did not sound like my own. ‘I guess they were holding on. I didn’t want her to go.’
The gray eyes studied me dispassionately and I thought that she did not believe me.
On my first morning in camp I woke to the sound of a blaring car horn. The clock on the footlocker said it was 8:00. Already the air was hot. Barbara’s and Robin’s hammocks were empty. Maggie was still asleep, curled up with the sheet pulled over her head. I felt more relaxed than I had in months, and I resolved, lying in my hammock, to adopt Tony’s easygoing attitude and take things as they came.
I slipped out of my hammock and dressed quickly. Barbara was at the water barrel, washing her face. I wished her a good morning and hung my towel in the tree.
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so cheerful before I have my coffee,’ she grumbled, but she waited for me to wash up. On the way to the plaza, we passed the kitchen, a small hut constructed of slats. Through the open door, I could see a thin woman in a white dress tending a small fire and cooking tortillas on a flat black pan.
‘That’s Maria,’ Barbara said. ‘She’s married to Salvador, the foreman.’ A small girl with large dark eyes stood by Maria and watched me solemnly. In one hand, she held a tortilla. When I smiled at her, she hid behind her mother. Maria looked over her shoulder to see what the child was watching.
I smiled but Maria did not smile back. She studied me seriously, suspiciously I thought. After a moment, she turned back to the fire and the tortillas. The little girl smiled at me, then hid her face behind her mother’s skirt.
Tony and my mother were already at the table. Breakfast was huevos rancheros with tortillas, strong coffee, and fresh orange juice. My mother looked tired, but seemed filled with nervous energy. She greeted me and waved me to a chair, then went on making out a shopping list. ‘Yes, yes, pineapples, I’ll get fresh fruit. What else? I know I’ve forgotten something important.’
My mother finished checking over her list, then glanced at me. ‘I’ll be going to the market in the afternoon,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to come along, we can get you a hat.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’d like that.’
Tony’s eyes were red-rimmed. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse, rough as wool cloth against the skin. ‘I’ll be going for a swim right after breakfast,’ Tony said softly. ‘Do you and Barbara want to join me? You have time.’
Barbara and I agreed.
The other students were just wandering down to breakfast when Tony, Barbara, and I finished our coffee. Barbara and I returned to our hut to change into swimsuits, then followed Tony down the path.
At the crest of a small rise, I stopped to look around. In the distance, the Temple of the Seven Dolls stood above the barren ground. ‘According to the guidebook I read, this is one of the largest sites in the Yucatán,’ I said. I looked at the jungle that surrounded us and shook my head. ‘Am I missing something? Where are all the buildings?’
Tony stamped his foot lightly on the ground. ‘Underneath you,’ he said. ‘All around you.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the temple. ‘You have to learn how to look. Don’t the mounds look a little more regular than hills should look? And you see how they’re arranged so that they make a nice path from here to there.’ He drew a line in the air with his hand. ‘And look at the rocks that are scattered around. They aren’t your average rocks.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said doubtfully.
‘We’re standing right on top of an old temple,’ he said.
‘How do you know it’s a temple?’
Barbara broke in. ‘Everything’s a temple until someone proves otherwise,’ she said in a mildly derisive tone. ‘We could even give it a name: Temple of the Sun, say. Or Temple of the Jaguar – that sounds good. The names are arbitrary anyway.’
‘Careful,’ Tony said, smiling faintly. ‘You’re giving away professional secrets.’
‘She’ll keep it in the family,’ Barbara said. ‘She’s trustworthy.’
She started down the trail and we followed. I studied the rocks around us as we walked. Occasionally, I saw one that bore the remnants of carving, but most just looked like rocks.
The cenote was a pool of clear blue water, set in the limestone rock. Right beside the path, the rock sloped gently down to the water. On the far side, the rocks rose out of the water in a sheer face that leveled off several feet above the water’s surface. I could not see the bottom of the pool. Water lilies floated at the far end.