It seems that while the Mexicans were successful by the turn of the century in regaining ground lost during the War of the Castes, guerrilla raids continued, and eventually the Mexican army had to withdraw from the conflict in 1915 because of the Mexican Revolution.
After the Mexicans withdrew, a Maya general by the name of Francisco May rose to power and set up his headquarters in a town called Chan Coh Veracruz, Little Town of the True Cross.
In an act for which he is infamous in the annals of the Maya resistance, General May, who had become very rich from the chicle trade, made peace with the Mexican government.
The Mexicans returned and stripped May of his power, and the resistance moved on to other people and places.
May died in 1969 and a plaque commemorating his death, I learned, can be found in a town now called Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Once it was called Chan Santa Cruz, the original town of the Talking Cross.
Interesting name, Francisco May, and interesting association with the Villages of the Talking Cross. Remembering the look on his face as the Itzamna statue was stolen from the Ek Balam bar, I thought that perhaps I needed to draw Lucas May into the patterns within patterns of the last few days.
It was now very close to closing time and I packed up to leave. At the front desk I expressed my thanks to Valesquez, who asked me if I was planning to return.
“I regret that we will not be open tomorrow,” he said. He hesitated, then said, “I have not been entirely honest with you. Dr. Castillo has not just met with an unfortunate accident as I told you this morning. He has been brutally murdered. The museo will be closed tomorrow to permit staff to attend his funeral.”
I looked at this man with the mop of gray hair and the nervous gestures and thought I saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
“I’ve not been entirely honest with you, either,” I said.
“I, too, will be at the funeral tomorrow. Don Hernan was a friend of mine.”
He digested that information. “And are you really looking for rabbits?” he asked nervously.
“Yes,” I said. “But a particular kind of rabbit. And I’m doing it for Don Hernan.”
I paused, took a deep breath, and plunged on. “I’m looking for a rabbit that writes. I’d prefer no one else know about it, because I have a horrible feeling that it may be dangerous to look for it!”
This brought an orgy of imaginary lint picking from Valesquez, but he managed to nod his understanding of what I had said.
Night comes quickly this close to the equator, and it was dark when I exited by the back stairway once more. I looked toward the lights of the Paseo de Montejo a block or so away, but chose, as I had the night before, the back streets.
I had a sense of being, if not followed, then watched, as I made my way back to the Casa de las Buganvillas. A couple of times I turned, but saw nothing, except perhaps, a slight movement in the shadows, perhaps only a distortion in the darkness caused by distant headlights, or a lamp turned on in one of the houses along the route.
When I reached the hotel, I was greeted by more bad news. At some point during the day Francesca had become aware that the Empress’s bell had been still for several hours, and checking the room had found Dona Josefina unconscious, the victim of a stroke. She had been whisked to hospital, where her condition was said to be “guarded,” whatever that meant.
She was not able to speak, and could only see through one eye. Whatever she knew, she would not be telling anyone for some time—if ever.
MULUC
That Hernan Castillo was held in great esteem was evident from the crowds and tributes at his funeral.
The cathedral was packed. Representatives from universities and museums as far away as Europe were there, as were many public personages. It was even rumored that the president of Mexico might attend. If he was there, I didn’t see him.
Perhaps he had other things on his mind. The peso was in a free fall and allegations of wrongdoing in his government had extended to members of his immediate family. It was politics as usual in Mexico City.
Jonathan was there, though. He’d have come to keep me company in any event, he told me, but Cambridge University had asked him to be its official representative and he was sitting with the official delegation. I saw no sign of Lucas.
The funeral was held in the main cathedral on the Plaza Grande. I suppose there was a certain resonance in this, considering Don Hernan’s interest in the Maya. It had taken hundreds of Maya laborers some thirty-six years to build the place, with stone torn from their own ravaged city.
It is a rather stolid, gloomy place. Cathedrals of those times also often had to serve as fortresses, the Maya not yet entirely subdued, and this was clearly the case here. Instead of the huge stained-glass windows we North Americans have come to associate with cathedrals, this one has gunnery slits instead. The facade is very plain, as is the interior, which has, as its one spot of light, brightly embroidered altar cloths, done in the Maya style.
For those for whom such things matter, it is the oldest cathedral on the North American mainland, and the cross above the main altar is supposed to be the second largest in the world. Probably at some time it would have been decorated in gold, but most gold disappeared from churches during the Revolution.
As the crowds began to file in I found myself thinking about the conversation I had had earlier in the morning with Dona Francesca. I’d been helping as best I could in the kitchen, carrying trays of coffee and pastries to the guests, many of whom were bordering on hysteria because of the last few days’ events.
Francesca suggested that I take a coffee break after several of these trips, and I was grateful. As we both sat sipping cafe con leche I talked to her about the Empress.
“I thought you were remarkably patient with her,” I began. “She cannot have been an easy person to please.”
“On the contrary, I thought she was the remarkable one,” Dona Francesca said.
She paused for a moment. “She had a difficult life. She was actually born in England, you know. I imagine her name was Josephine, originally. I have no idea what her surname was. I gather from certain references that her family was very poor, and she saved her money for years before she was able to book passage on a ship bound for North America.
“She had wanted to go to New York, of course. Doesn’t everyone? But the fare for Merida was cheaper—I think she said she had come on a freighter.”
“When would this have been?”
“A long time ago. She said she was very young. In the late twenties, I would think.”
“That must have been considered very daring in those days, for a young woman,” I said.
“Oh yes, I think it was. But in her case, I think it was more desperation than daring.
“In any event, she told me she worked as a nanny for a wealthy Mexican family. She was occasionally allowed to join their guests at dinner parties, and it was there she met the love of her life.
“He was a married man, and a legal union was never in the picture. She became pregnant shortly after they met, and for four years he supported her and the child. Both she and her lover doted on the boy. For her he was everything. And I guess for her lover too, judging by what happened.
“One day she returned from a shopping trip to find her son gone. The woman who looked after him had been pushed into a closet, and trapped there. She did not recognize the men who had taken the child.
“Josefina has a very good idea who had been responsible, however. She ran to the home of her lover, but found it empty. The family had gone abroad, she was told. She searched the docks for a ship leaving for Europe; she waited day and night at the house. But she never saw her son again. She stayed in Merida, waiting for the family to return, hoping in the end to hear some word, or even to catch a glimpse of her child.