The thunder rumbled again, distant now, and I became aware once again of the people around me. The Mayan workmen stood in the shelter of the trees, far away from the stela. The rain was still falling, though it was gradually letting up. Diane stood beside me, drenched as a drowned cat. Barbara, Tony, and Salvador stood at the winch, all shouting at once in voices intended to carry over the thunder, which no longer rolled overhead.
Diane was looking out where Zuhuy-kak had been standing, as if trying to figure out who I had been shouting at. I put my hand on her shoulder to distract her. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘Welcome to the romance of archaeology,’ I said.
14
Diane
‘There is nothing wrong with being afraid. When you fear, you see things in a different way.’
My mother was chain-smoking again. She had been in a bad mood since the beginning of the week, but it had grown worse since the stela fell. Tony was drinking. Maggie and Carlos were trying to persuade John and Robin to join them in a game of cards. The air was hot and heavy and slow-moving.
‘Want to go for a swim?’ Barbara asked. I shrugged and followed her to the hut to get our swimsuits, then down the path to the cenote.
As soon as we were out of sight of the plaza, she grinned at me. ‘I have a treat,’ she said. ‘A present from Emilio.’ She pulled a joint from her pocket, waved it delicately under my nose, and tucked it back in her pocket. ‘I think we need a little relaxation.’
‘I think you’re right.’
On the edge of the pool, she stopped. ‘Swim first or smoke?’
‘Smoke.’
We left the path and scrambled around the pool to the high rock from which Carlos liked to dive. If anyone from camp wandered down to the cenote, we could sneak away, following the path to the tomb site. Barbara lit up and took the first hit, closing her eyes and drawing the smoke in deep. I took the joint and drew on it, fighting the urge to cough out the smoke, drawing it in deep and holding it in my lungs.
‘Emilio said to think of him when we smoked it,’ Barbara said, holding the joint. ‘I’m thinking of him quite fondly.’
I nodded. With the second hit, the world around me began losing its hard edges. The air was cooler here, and bats skimmed low over the water. ‘He’s a fine man, Emilio. He has risen immensely in my estimation.’ I accepted the joint and glanced at Barbara. ‘Are you going to sleep with him?’
She shrugged, leaning back on her hands and staring out over the water. ‘Don’t know. Wouldn’t mind it, but I get the feeling that he’s playing some variation on the game I’m used to. I think he would like me better if I didn’t sleep with him.’ She shrugged again. ‘I’ll play it by ear. What about you? You like that young basketball player?’
‘Sometimes. But I know what you mean about the game. The rules are different.’
For a moment, we sat in companionable silence, trading hits. Long shadows stretched across the cenote. The surface was still, disturbed only by spreading ripples when an insect landed on the water or when a fish rose. Barbara took a paper clip from her pocket and bent the wire to make a primitive roach clip. We finished the joint.
‘Let’s go for a swim,’ Barbara suggested.
The water was cool and I swam several slow laps, watching the last of the sunlight play on the rippled water. I floated on my back, looking up at the deepening blue of the sky. I relaxed and my thoughts drifted. There was a rock ledge a few feet beneath the water’s surface at one edge of the pool. I rested there for a moment, sitting on the submerged ledge with my head above water, my knees pulled close to my body. The last sunlight shone on the mound beyond the path. I could see the traces of relief carving on the stones, here and there. I wondered idly what the temple had looked like before the stones had tumbled and the trees had overgrown it. I studied the hill and drew a picture in my mind: three doorways, side by side in a rectangular building.
Barbara glided to a stop beside me. ‘What are you looking at?’
I jerked my head toward the hill. ‘That pile of rocks. Liz told me, one time last week, that you can choose to see the past. I’m trying it out.’
‘Liz can be a very strange lady,’ Barbara said. She sat on the ledge, let her toes rise to the surface of the water, and regarded them solemnly.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m going to head back to camp before my toes turn to prunes. I’ve still got to write up today’s field report,’ she said.
‘In your condition?’
‘It’ll probably be better than all the ones I’ve written straight. I feel inspired.’
‘I’ll stay here a while,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you back there.’
She swam languidly to the rocks on the far side and dressed. ‘If you don’t come back soon, I’ll send out a search party,’ she called.
I waved and she headed back to camp. I returned to my consideration of the rock-strewn hillside, and the picture in my mind came into sharper focus. Above the doors, the wall was an intricate lattice of stone, which rose high above the pool. The stones around the doors were carved with hieroglyphics, a jumble of shapes and faces and strange symbols, painted in bright red and blue. A curving stone jutted out just above the central door; a little higher on the wall, two dark recesses in the carvings flanked the stone, making the doorway appear to be a cavernous mouth in an enormous long-nosed face. A steep stairway led from the mouth to the edge of the pool, and the stones of the stairway were carved and painted, a riot of unreadable symbols.
I leaned back in the water, squinting at the slope and holding the picture in my mind. I was still tired, a lingering weariness from all the sleepless nights in Los Angeles, and the pot had relaxed me. I listened to the beating of my own heart, steady as a drum. I relaxed, half asleep though I could still feel the ledge beneath me, the water around me. I listened to the crickets in the monte, and their trilling seemed to come and go, keeping time with the beating of my heart. The tone of the cricket’s song seemed to change as I listened, growing harsher, a sharp buzzing like beans in a rattle.
Suddenly I was afraid. I smelled smoke in the air, an acrid scent like burning pitch. My eyes were closed and I was afraid to open them, afraid of what I might see.
I shivered suddenly and opened my eyes. For an instant, I saw a temple at the end of the pool, as detailed as I had imagined it. On the steps, a blue-robed figure stood watching me. Then there was nothing but rocks, sunlight, and shadows. The temple was gone.
The sun was nearly down. A bat flew overhead, dipping and dodging in erratic flight. I shivered again, climbed out of the pool, and dressed. I returned to camp through the darkness where the trees shaded the path. I knew the path from each afternoon’s visit to the pool, but things seemed different now: the trees seemed closer to the path; the path seemed rougher; the noises of the monte seemed louder, and it bothered me that I did not know what animals were rustling in the bushes. Something moved at the edge of my field of vision, and I turned toward it. Nothing there. Maybe a bird flying overhead. Again, I caught a flickering movement in the corner of my eye. Again, nothing. Maybe the shadow of a swaying branch. I hurried along the path to Salvador’s hut, where the lantern light would chase back the shadows. I hurried from the trees by Salvador’s hut and almost tripped over Teresa.
The little girl crouched in the deep shadow by the garden wall, playing with a scrawny black kitten. The kitten came to greet me, mewing piteously, and I knelt to stroke it. Teresa stood by the garden wall, one hand at her mouth, the other clutching the hem of her dress. The air was hot and heavy. Already, I felt sweaty and dusty again. My mouth was dry.