“There are many reasons for this, not the least of which was the cruelty of the Spanish overlords, who subjected the Maya to forced labor and extracted the dreaded encomienda or tribute.
“Many Maya would not submit to the oppression. The War of the Castes—that was the European name for it of course—broke out in 1847. The Maya, driven no doubt by desperation, were stunningly successful. Soon the only part of the Yucatan peninsula that was still held by the Spanish was Merida, more or less.
“The end of the war is the stuff of legend. When the time came to plant the corn, the Maya left for their villages, their army disintegrated, and the Spanish began to regain all that they had lost.”
“Was that the end of it, then?”
“Oh no. In about 1850, in some village in the Yucatan, there was said to be a miraculous ‘Talking Cross’ that prophesied a holy war against the Spanish oppressors. Fighting continued from time to time, but the Spanish were ultimately victorious in 1901. But Talking Crosses proliferated throughout the region, and many say that they simply went underground after that. There have certainly been recorded accounts of Talking Crosses until fairly recent times.”
“Do you consider them to be superstitious claptrap, as many would no doubt call it?” I asked.
“Well, of course I don’t believe in talking inanimate objects of any kind. I’m not daft. But I do believe they were a very powerful symbol of resistance to oppression and may still be so, for all I know.
“It’s kind of interesting that it’s crosses, isn’t it? From what I’ve read, the Maya have a profound belief in ritual, which the Spanish church capitalized on in subjugating them. Now the Maya have incorporated Christian symbolism and turned it against their oppressors.”
“Sort of like being shot with your own gun, you mean?”
Alex laughed.
“Can you think of any reason why a rebel group would steal a statue of Itzamna?” I asked.
“Well, leaving aside something straightforward like monetary value—you know what a good price pre-Columbian art commands these days, what with all the controls of its export—isn’t Itzamna one of the top gods in the Maya pantheon? Perhaps your statue of Itzamna is to be the newest symbol of rebellion—the 1990s’ version of a Talking Cross. But I don’t know, really. It’s anybody’s guess.”
We chatted a little while longer. I told him I’d reimburse him later for the collect call and gave him a carefully edited version of my last few days, and I could hear the concern in his voice.
“Don’t worry, Alex, I’ll be fine,” I said. But I hung up wondering if this was indeed so.
And then it was back through the cafe, carefully watched by all the late-night customers, and along the street to the wall. Isa and I had climbed back up by pulling a loose stone out slightly to give us a leg up. I checked the wall. Reassuringly, the stone was still there, all these years later. I reversed my earlier route and climbed into bed in the dark.
CHICCHAN
Chicchan is the day of the celestial serpent, that double-headed creature that arches over the earth to create the sky. It is considered a good day in the Maya calendar, and by and large it was, an oasis of calm between the tragedy that had been and the horror that was to be.
It began well enough. It was still dark when I was awakened by a soft but persistent tapping at my door. It was Jonathan.
“You’ve been sprung,” he whispered. In my semiconscious state, I wasn’t sure what this meant.
“Santiago has got you released in Isa’s and my custody until nine p.m. tonight. So hurry up, Lara. Bring your swimsuit and a sun hat.”
I was downstairs, showered and dressed, in ten minutes. Lucas and Isa were there, both yawning, as I was. It seemed Jonathan and Lucas had come to check on me the previous evening, after I’d supposedly turned in for the night, had met Isa, and together they had hatched this plan to cheer me up. We tiptoed out the door so as not to wake the other guests, to a Jeep Cherokee outside.
Isa sat up front with Lucas, Jonathan and I in the back. As I began to doze off again I heard Isa valiantly trying to draw Lucas into some semblance of a conversation. It was not easy. I was trying not to fall asleep with my head slumped on Jonathan’s shoulder. That wasn’t easy, either.
We headed out on Highway 180, and with no traffic at this ungodly hour, Lucas covered his seventy-five miles to Chichen Itza in record time, despite the fact that we forsook the new toll road and took the old highway through myriad little towns, all characterized by speed bumps and countless mangy dogs. My favorite town was called Libre Union, free union, because, Isa told us, of the high percentage of couples living there without benefit of holy matrimony. With my less than satisfactory marital record, it sounded good to me.
By seven a.m. we were in the ruins, heading for El Castillo to catch the early-morning sun as it cleared the mist from the site. We had the place to ourselves, the site not yet open to the public. Lucas knew the gatekeeper.
Chichen Itza was once a magnificent metropolis, built over several centuries by generations of people who ruled the northern Maya. El Castillo was, and is, its most impressive structure. Also known as the Temple of Kukulcan, the four-sided pyramid rises seventy-five feet from a grassy plaza. We scrambled up one of the restored stairways to the temple on its summit.
The sun began to cast its light on the Temple of the Warriors, below us and to the east of our position. This smaller temple, a three-tiered structure with rows of columns at its base that long ago formed a colonnade, has, at the top of the steps to its entrance, a Chac Mool, an ominous-looking reclining figure that guards the space, flanked by the heads of two carved serpents that must have formed the original doorway.
For an instant the early rays of the sun backlit the sculpture, adding its fiery glow to the chilling figure, then moved on.
I walked around the top of the temple, gazing out across miles of forest broken occasionally by a green mound that would one day reveal another lost structure. To the south the sun lit the top of El Caracol, the snail, visible above the trees, an unusual round building thought to have been the observatory from which the ancients tracked the planet Venus with great accuracy.
When I had circled around to where the others were sitting, Isa reached into the large tote bag she was never without and brought out a thermos of cafe con leche, four plastic cups, and some biscuits. We sat in companionable silence, our backs to the temple wall, and watched as more and more of the site was revealed from the mist.
In a few minutes the first busloads of tourists would arrive, but for now the place was ours. For a few minutes at least I was able to put the face of Luis Vallespino aside, distracted by the magic of this place.
None of us spoke for several minutes. Below and behind us, the vendors were arriving with their wares— soft drinks and handicrafts for the tourists—and their conversations carried across the great plaza to our vantage point.
Our personal reveries were broken by the sound of the first tour group coming through the entranceway. Ahead of the pack were two young boys racing to be first up the pyramid, their mothers gasping behind them, telling them to be careful.
“Let’s stay one jump ahead of them,” Jonathan exclaimed, and we moved quickly to descend the steep staircase, I by gripping the heavy metal chain for support and sliding down on my rear end. Going up the pyramid in a hurry may be tiring; going down is positively terrifying.
We quickly crossed the plaza to the Temple of the Warriors. As I approached the top of the steps, I hesitated, savoring a short moment of anticipation.