There were a number of Mexicans in the dining room, many of them probably from the neighborhood, and a few of them possibly permanent hotel guests. Dr. Castillo was himself a permanent hotel resident, having moved there after his wife of forty-five years had died some two years earlier.
While the hotel is not well known to tourists from the north, it is something of a local legend. Dona Francesca is of Maya descent—married to Don Santiago, ex-diplomat of Spanish descent. Both are gracious hosts, perhaps because of the aristocratic upbringing of Don Santiago, or their many years in the diplomatic service.
But contrary to the usual custom in Mexico, where wives of the well-to-do do not learn to cook, and indeed would be horrified to do so. Dona Francesca is an accomplished chef. Her kitchen combines the traditions of Spanish cuisine with her own Maya culinary arts and is justly famous. One of her specialties is called pescado borracho, literally drunken fish, another, her faisan en pipian verde de Yucatan, pheasant in a green Yucatan-style sauce, draws not only hotel guests, but also people from the neighborhood.
This evening the pheasant was on the menu and word had clearly spread, because the dining room was filling up rapidly.
The permanent residents were easy to spot. Inclined to be older, as Dr. Castillo was, they each had a table in the dining room they considered their own. Each was greeted by name as they arrived, and acknowledged each other as they were led to their tables, which were set out to meet their particular requirements, sometimes with a bottle of wine uncorked and ready.
One in particular looked very interesting. Seated alone at the table next to mine, she was in her mid-eighties, I would guess. Aristocratic of bearing, she was clearly the product of a more formal time. She was dressed all in black, a widow most likely, and she wore a black mantilla over her white hair.
Her eyes, which fixed on me from time to time, were very bright blue, unusual enough in this part of the world, and on the table beside her she had carefully placed a black lace fan and a pair of black lace gloves. She appeared to be graciousness personified, but I had a sense of iron will there. I noticed the busboys in the dining room were especially careful when they were waiting on her table. She apparently had exacting standards. She was too close to allow me to ask Norberto who she was.
Other than her and me, only two other people in the dining room seemed out of place in this old-world setting—two men at a table in the corner.
Both of them were quite attractive, although in very different ways. One was Mexican, dark, mid-forties, with fairly long dark hair and dark eyes. What set him apart from the rest of the crowd was his attire—black jeans and a black T-shirt, rather out of place in the elegant surroundings of the hotel dining room.
The other was fiftyish, well dressed in a sort of Ivy League way. Gray flannels, blue double-breasted blazer, white shirt, burgundy tie, and neatly trimmed hair streaked with gray and just a hint of a curl over the ears. I had a sense that I was as much the subject of their scrutiny as they were of mine, but after a few minutes the dark one left.
After surreptitiously observing the remaining man over the top of my wineglass and then my menu for a while, I tried to get a grip on myself and give the pheasant the attention it deserved. Inevitably, though, I looked his way again, and this time, rather than pretending that he had not been looking at me, too, he smiled.
Shortly thereafter he left the dining room, taking a slight detour to go by my table. There was just the hint of an acknowledgment, the slightest incline of the head as he did so. I was sorry he was leaving so soon.
Later in the evening I sat around the family table in Dona Francesca’s tiled kitchen with most of the family. Isa was there with her mother and father, and Norberto and his wife, Manuela. Missing were the two grandchildren, now in bed, and the younger brother of Isa and Norberto, Alejandro.
When I asked about Alejandro, I noticed once again the slight tension in the air as each paused just for an instant before answering the question. It was Isa who spoke. “We don’t see much of him these days. He has a life and friends of his own,” she said.
“He follows his own course,” agreed Norberto. “He believes in his own causes.”
Clearly this was all that was going to be said on the subject.
I suppose I was not really any more forthcoming myself on the subject of my divorce. But the evening passed pleasantly enough, and very late I went to bed.
That night, I had a most unpleasant dream, the first of what was to become a series of recurring nightmares. I was floating through space looking down at the earth, which metamorphosed into some kind of snakelike creature. The creature rose up as I flew over, and engulfed me. I began to fall through black space, and in the darkness I could hear angry voices. In my dream I knew what had happened. I had entered the maw of Xibalba, and the voices I heard were the Lords of the Underworld.
Prone to recurring dreams, I am nonetheless a little slow figuring out what my subconscious is trying to tell me. A couple of years earlier I’d had a series of dreams in which I was standing in a doorway, my luggage in front of me, with no idea of where I was or where I was going. It took five or six repetitions of that one before I got the message and packed up and left Clive for good. In retrospect, if I’d paid attention to that night’s dream and those that were to follow, at a minimum I might have avoided some poor personal choices. At best, at least one death might have been averted.
IK
Merida may well merit its reputation as the White City, the cleanest and most beautiful in Mexico, but for me it is a city whose beginnings, like many Spanish colonial cities, are steeped in blood. Even now it remains one where the tensions between the colonial and the Indian, while giving the place a certain energy, are never entirely laid to rest.
Take, for instance, the square where Isa and I met for almuerzo, late breakfast, the day after my arrival. We were sitting at a cafe“ on what Meridanos call the Plaza Grande, tucking into huevos rancheros and getting caught up on each other’s life.
We’d arrived just as a party of revelers left to sleep off the previous night’s festivities. Merida is one of the cities of Mexico that take Carnaval seriously, and while technically it is only celebrated the week leading up to Lent, some Meridanos get an early start on the festivities.
The plaza where we sat, officially the Plaza de la Independencia, is the heart of Merida, just as this same great space was once the heart of a great Maya city called T’ho. At one side is the cathedral, built in 1561 of stone taken from the razed buildings of T’ho. At the south side is Casa Montejo, now a bank, once the palace of Francisco de Montejo, the founder of Merida—and the destroyer of T’ho. In case anyone misses the point, the facade of the palace depicts the Spanish conquerors standing on defeated Maya warriors.
The significance of the setting was apparently not lost on Isa, either.
“If I had to describe the character of this city, in some ways I would describe it as schizophrenic,” she mused.
“To a certain extent Merida, and indeed the whole Yucatan peninsula, is cut off from the rest of Mexico geographically. This has allowed it to develop a distinctive character. Merida, for example, is a colonial city; just look at the buildings around this plaza.
“But the Maya roots are never very far below the surface and, quite frankly, are what give this place its very special feeling. It is quite a compelling mix. In a sense, Mexico’s culture is the only one in the Americas where the old world and the new truly meet and mix.