‘What’s the cat’s name?’ I asked Teresa. At least, that’s what I intended to ask. I think I said something like that in Spanish.
She did not answer. She watched me with round brown eyes, as if I were dangerous yet fascinating.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ I asked in English.
Still she didn’t speak. The kitten was purring, a steady desperate throbbing under my hand. I smiled at Teresa, seeing in her expression a reflection of my panic down by the cenote. I think she wanted to run back into her yard, but she found me intriguing. ‘Qué tal?’ I asked her. ‘How’s it going?’
The creak of an opening door sent her scurrying away through the gate and into the foliage of the yard. An old woman was stepping through the doorway of Salvador’s house; Maria was just behind her. Maria was speaking quickly in Maya, and her hands were clasped together in supplication. Salvador followed the two women, saying nothing. I remained where I was, petting the kitten and listening to it purr.
The gate was right beside me. The old woman stopped in the middle of the path and said something sharp in Maya. I looked up at her and smiled, but she did not smile back. She said something to me in Spanish and scowled when I did not reply. Maria murmured something, and the old woman shook her head. She thumped her walking cane on the ground angrily and repeated herself.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. No comprendo.’
Maria quickly made the sign of the cross, still staring at me. The old woman leaned forward. She took hold of my arm and peered into my face as if she wanted to remember it later. Her breath smelled of chili peppers. I drew back, startled, but her hand stopped me. I tried to smile. ‘What do you want?’ I asked in English.
She shook her head, released my arm, and started down the path to the plaza. Salvador glanced at me and followed the old woman. Maria retreated into the house. I stood and watched Salvador and the old woman walk away. The kitten rubbed against my legs, gazing up at me expectantly. I found that I was holding my arm where the old woman had touched me as if I were stanching the blood flow from a wound. I let my breath out in a rush.
For a moment, I stood where I was, unwilling to follow the old woman and Salvador along the path to the plaza. The hair on my neck prickled, and I glanced toward Salvador’s hut. Maria stood in the doorway, her arms crossed, watching me. I turned away, stumbling a little, following another path, one I had noticed but never followed, away from Salvador’s hut.
I felt strange and unsettled. Nothing had happened – I reminded myself of that. Drug-induced paranoia, that’s all. A dream, an old Mayan woman – nothing really. But the shadows around me seemed darker and my hand kept touching my arm where the old woman had held me. I wished that I had understood what she had said.
The path led through the monte to a dirt road that ran along the edge of the henequen field. To my left, the henequen field stretched away, mile after mile of spiky brutal plants. The sun had set and the moon was rising. In the moonlight, the henequen plants cast distorted shadows. Each plant made a tangle of darkness beside it, a black net of shadows that could trap anyone foolish enough to stroll among them. The dirt road was clear of plants and I walked in the center between the wheel ruts.
On my right grew the monte. Near the road, the scrubby mass of brush was no taller than I. Beyond that, maybe fifty feet from the road, larger trees reached for the sky with dry branches. The wind made the leaves rustle, but it was not strong enough to stir the branches.
When I was in junior high school, my father sent me to summer camp for a month. I remember walking through the woods at night from the campfire to my tent. I was always very careful to stay on the path. The path was safe; it was marked ground. The woods beyond the path were unknown, filled with strange sounds. But at the same time, the woods fascinated me. I found excuses to walk along the path at night, and each time that I passed through the woods unharmed I felt that I had accomplished something noteworthy.
I was never sure what the danger was. Nothing concrete: I did not fear mad killers or wild animals. I never thought it out completely, but I think I felt that if I stepped off the path I might vanish, blend with the darkness and be gone. The darkness drew me and repelled me, and I walked the thin line, never straying from the path.
My footsteps seemed loud. I could hear an owl hooting in the trees. I walked with my hands in my pockets, knowing that I was walking along a thin line once again.
The old woman stepped from the shadow of the monte. For a moment, I thought it was the same old woman who had touched my arm. No, not the same. She was dressed in blue and she grinned at me, displaying crooked teeth. Her head seemed misshapen, though perhaps it was just the way her hair was arranged. I recognized her face: the face I had seen on the stone head, the face of the Madonna in the Mérida cathedral. I backed away.
Her grin grew wider and she held out her hand as if to welcome me. I took another step away from her, back toward camp.
She said something in a language that I did not understand, and she laughed. The sound was like dry leaves rustling against one another. My hands, still in my pockets, were trembling. I took them from my pockets and made fists to stop them from shaking. Then I turned and hurried back toward camp, pursued by the sound of her laughter.
What was it that my mother had said in one of our morning walks? At twilight and dawn, the shadows show you secrets. I don’t know why I ran. She was probably just a woman from the hacienda or maybe a companion to Maria’s visitor. She would probably tell Maria that she had met this gringa wandering in the bush and scared her to death. I must have imagined that her face was familiar. The dim light played tricks.
I had reached Salvador’s hut when I saw a flashlight beam bobbing down the path to the cenote. ‘Hello,’ I called out, my voice a little shaky.
‘Hey,’ Barbara called back. ‘I wondered what happened to you.’ She came up beside me and shone her light on me. She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘What’s up? You don’t look good.’
‘Nothing. Just went for a walk and got caught in the dark, that’s all.’ I shrugged. ‘It gets creepy alone at night. That’s all.’ I didn’t mention the old woman. I didn’t want to feel any more foolish. ‘Let’s go back to camp.’
15
Elizabeth
The Fates guide those who will; those who won’t they drag.
Thursday night, after another burned dinner, I sat in my hut, checking my notes on the Mayan calendar. I had caught a chill on the way back from our attempt to raise the stela. Though the evening was warm, occasionally I would be taken by a violent spell of shivering and chills. I considered asking Maria to prepare me a pot of hot tea. Boiling-hot tea laced with rum might head off a cold, but in the end I decided against asking anything of Maria. I had heard Salvador’s truck roaring back to camp, returning from the village of Chicxulub with the curandera, and I did not want to blunder into a touchy situation.
I checked my calculations, and rechecked them. Today was Men, a day governed by the old goddess of the moon. It should have been a favorable day, yet the stela had fallen, an outcome I would not consider favorable. I had not seen Zuhuy-kak since that afternoon.
The camp was quiet; the students were either writing up field notes or swimming in the cenote. Camp had been quiet ever since Philippe’s accident. The sun had set and the moon was just rising when I saw Salvador walking toward my hut. The old woman who walked beside him took two small steps for every one of his. Tucked under one arm, she carried an orange-and-red plastic shopping bag, the kind that Yucatecan housewives use to carry groceries. She walked slowly, leaning on a cane.