Barbara gave me a considering look, then nodded. ‘I wouldn’t miss him.’
Tony followed my gaze to Diane and Carlos. ‘You want to keep Diane on survey?’
I nodded.
He rattled the ice in his glass and nodded. ‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice the need myself.’
Carlos laughed and touched Diane’s shoulder again. Tony stood, taking his drink with him. ‘I’ll mention it to Carlos,’ he said, and headed toward the couple. I watched him join them, pulling up a chair and settling down as if he planned to stay a while. Tony would handle it well. He was very good with people. I watched for a moment as Tony spoke to Carlos. Carlos frowned, but nodded. I could not see Diane’s face.
That evening, I worked on notes for my next book. My hut was oppressively hot even though I had opened the door wide to let the evening breeze blow through. I worked by the light of a small candle lantern that was too dim to draw many moths. As I typed on my travel typewriter, a compact Olivetti that had served me well for the past five years, the wooden table wobbled and the candle wavered. I had completed a description of Zuhuy-kak when I noticed the figure that stood in the shadows just beyond the lantern light. I turned in my chair to face her. In the darkness, I could see the white shells on her belt and in her hair. I lit a cigarette from the stub of the one I had just finished and greeted her softly in Maya. She did not speak. She remained in the shadows. I could smell incense, a warm resinous smell like burning pitch.
‘I dreamed of you,’ I said. ‘I dreamed of the day that they threw you into the cenote at Chichén Itzá.’
‘I did not know that shadows dreamed,’ she said. She took a step toward me and stopped at the edge of the lantern light. Though she stared in my direction, I do not think she saw me clearly. She lifted one hand, as if to shade her eyes.
‘I dream,’ I said.
She shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘I had enemies,’ she said in a soft voice, like a woman who is muttering to herself. ‘After the ah-nunob came, I had many enemies. I knew too much, you understand. I was too strong. The h’menob of the new religion did not approve of a woman who knew too much.’ Her hands fingered the conch shell at her belt, as if for comfort.
That dated her: I recognized the word ‘ah-nunob’ from the Books of Chilam Balam. It meant ‘those who speak our language brokenly’ and referred to the Toltecs from northern Mexico, who had invaded the Yucatán in about ad 900. As near as we could tell from the archaeological record, the invaders had displaced the Mayan nobility and modified the religion by adding Kukulcán, the feathered serpent, and other gods to the Mayan pantheon. The invaders had taken Chichén Itzá as their stronghold.
‘I served Ix Chebel Yax, goddess of the moon and the sea, the protector of women in labor and madmen, she who weaves the rainbow and brings the floods.’ One of Zuhuy-kak’s hands stroked the smooth inner surface of the conch shell. ‘When the ah-nunob came, they took my temple. They tore down the facades that honored the goddess and replaced them with serpents that twisted and curled around the arches.’ One hand gripped the conch shell as if to use it as a club. She remained silent for so long that I thought she might be fading into darkness again.
‘How did you come to be given to the gods?’ I asked, trying to catch her attention, to keep her talking.
She held her head proudly and straightened her shoulders like an aged general reminded of past battles. ‘The h’menob could not kill me. They feared bad luck. But they said I was one of the chosen messengers to the gods. Twelve were chosen by the gods to visit the well; one would survive. One would return with the prophecy for the coming katun, Katun 10.’
She was gazing into the distance as if unaware of my presence. ‘It was a long journey, seven days on foot to Chichén Itzá. On the day named Cimi, the women prepared me: anointing my skin with blue paint, dressing me in a feather robe, lacing quetzal feathers in my hair.
‘I walked from the women’s quarters to the mouth of the well. Priests of the ah-nunob walked on either side of me, their hands hot on my arms. The crowd parted before us; smoke from the incense burners followed. The sound of the tunkul led us on.
‘Some of the chosen ones were weeping. A slave from Palenque cried with a constant wearying whimper. The daughter of a nobleman who had fallen from power wept with short gasping sobs that rose and fell, almost stopped, then started again. There was a beautiful young boy, I remember, also a slave. He had drunk the balche that the h’menob offered us. He leaned on the priest beside him as he walked and sang a childish song that kept time with the tortoise shell rattles. I walked just behind him, listening to his song, saying nothing. The h’menob led us to the edge of the well and threw us in.’
She stopped speaking, as if she were remembering the howling of the crowd. Outside, I could hear the soft voice of the palm leaves, rubbing one against the other.
‘I fell for a long time.’ She was cradling the conch shell in both hands and running her finger along the smooth lip of the shell, stroking the polished edge. The shell’s interior was as smooth and pink as the skin of a baby. ‘The murmur of the crowd became the rush of the wind past me, dragging on my robes, tugging the quetzal feathers free of my hair and scattering them in the sky. Then the cold water slapped me. I remember rising to the surface like a bubble. And I remember that one leg ached with a fierce pain.’ She shifted her position, as if the remembered pain affected her now. Her voice had taken on a singsong rhythm. ‘For a time, I floated on the surface among the reflections of the clouds. For a time, I heard someone crying – one of the slaves, I think – but the whimpering grew weaker and weaker, then stopped at last. My leg was numbed by the cold water, and I floated in the sky among the clouds, considering the prophecy for the coming year. I could hear the tunkul and the rattles and the shouting of the crowd, coming to me from the earth far below.
‘The h’menob did not expect me to survive. They would have been glad to pull out one of the others – the slave, the noblewoman, the beautiful boy. But the others had not enjoyed floating in the sky. They were done with their crying and only I remained. At noon, when the sun rose over the lip of the well, I lifted my hands and welcomed it. The h’menob pulled me from the water, reluctantly, I thought, and roughly, considering how holy I had become.
‘I knew the prophecy for the coming year. I smiled when I told them. “Give yourselves up, my younger brothers, my older brothers. Submit to the unhappy destiny of the katun that is to come. You must leave the cities and scatter in the forests. You must cast down the monuments and raise no more. That is the word of the katun that is to come.”’ Her voice had grown louder and more powerful, like a strong wind driving the rain before it. ‘I said to them, “Submit to the unhappy destiny. If you do not submit, you shall be moved from where your feet are rooted. If you do not submit, you shall gnaw the trunks of trees and the leaves of herbs. There shall come such a pestilence that the vultures will enter the houses. There shall be an earthquake over the land. There will be thunder from a dry sky. Dust will possess the earth, a blight will be on the face of the land, the tender leaf will be destroyed, and the people will scatter afar in the forest.”’
She smiled when she turned to look at me. ‘I spoke loudly so that the crowd could hear. And the h’menob wrapped me in soft cloths and rushed me away to the palace where the holy women lived. I think I fainted from the pain in my leg, and I don’t remember the journey to the women’s quarters. I woke on a soft pallet, tended by a frightened young woman who was sweet and attentive but told me nothing. The h’menob came and spoke to me, and I told them the prophecy again.’