“My people have an image of the sun that I like very much,” she said. “In the Maya cosmos, the sun is in our world by day, but must pass through the dark underworld at night. I think sometimes that is a metaphor for our souls. Sometimes we must pass through the darkness before we can truly appreciate the light.”
With that, she said good-bye and turned back to her work in the kitchen.
I climbed into the Jeep for the trip back to Merida. I knew it would be a long and silent one unless I could get Lucas to speak.
“I like Esperanza very much,” I said as a conversational gambit. “Is she really your godmother?”
“Yes,” he replied. Silence. This was going to be tough.
“She seems kind of young for that, not all that much older than you are.”
“Yes.” Another silence.
“Not very wordy, are you?”
“No.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“She is a cousin of my father’s,” he said finally. “Life can be hard here. People mature early. Even though she would only have been in her mid-teens when I was born, it was considered appropriate for her to be my godmother.”
“I suspect she was wise beyond her years even then,” I said.
He glanced suspiciously at me to see if I was making fun of her in some way, but saw that I was not. “You noticed that, did you?” he said.
“She is an important person in my family. Her brother, my father’s cousin, is the patrilineal head of the family, what some Maya people would call the mother-father, the daykeeper.”
I knew from my studies that daykeepers were the diviners, the interpreters of omens and the sacred texts.
“Esperanza has status because of her relationship to the mother-father, but she also has it in her own right. She is considered a person of great wisdom.” He laughed a little. “Some even say she can foretell the future. I think it is because she understands people and the world around us so well.”
“I can see how that would be so.” I thought of her comment about the darkness of the soul. “You are Maya, then?”
“Mestizo. My grandparents were pure Maya. My mother is Spanish.” Mestizo, I knew, was more a cultural than a racial term. Those of mixed Indian and Spanish blood who so defined themselves tended to consider themselves more allied with Hispanic culture.
“Your name—May—is famous in Maya history, is it not?”
He glanced at me again. “Infamous, you mean. I assume you are referring to a distant relative, General Francisco May, who sold out to the Spanish. May is a very common name here in the Yucatan.”
There was something in his voice that told me this was not a subject to pursue, so I left it at that.
We sat in a rather more companionable silence for a while, then I tried another tack.
“I believe I have met a friend of yours,” I said.
He looked surprised. “Who might that be?”
“Eulalia Gonzalez. I met her at the morgue. She seems very nice, so we had a coffee together yesterday.”
“My cousin,” he said. Kissing cousin, I thought maliciously.
“Did she mention me to you?” he asked.
“No. I saw you, actually, as I came to the restaurant.” That gave him pause.
“Yes, she is very nice,” was all he said on that subject, too.
I tried another approach.
“Jonathan mentioned there was a problem at the site,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. Another silence.
“Oh, come on, Lucas. Talk to me!” I said, my exasperation evident, I’m sure. “I’ve seen you engaged in what appears to be animated conversation with other people. Why won’t you talk to me?”
We sat in stony silence now, watching the pavement ahead.
“There’s a work stoppage at the site,” he said at last. “The workers all walked out.”
“A mutiny!” I said. “Whatever for? Not that it can be fun working away down there. Both painstaking and backbreaking work, I’d say.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s not the reason they’ve… mutinied.” He smiled for a moment at the term.
“They say the Lords of Darkness are angry that we’re working there. That horrible things will happen—are happening—because of our work.”
“What kind of bad things?”
“Just little things. One of the workmen cut himself quite badly on one of the flint blades you saw. Another found marks in the sand in the cave that he says are the work of the Lords of Death. That sort of thing.
“These are not well-educated people, you understand,” he said in an apologetic tone.
“Well, that might explain it, I suppose. Either that or there really are bad things happening. My experience here to date would say that it was so.”
“Yes, you’ve had a bad time,” he agreed. “Anyway, when I get back, I’ll be negotiating the conditions of their return to work.” He smiled.
We’d arrived at the hotel. I thanked him for the ride and went inside.
Isa and Santiago were at the desk. He looked at me sternly, no doubt feeling that he was my parents’ representative while I was here, no matter how old I was. Isa, however, smiled when she saw me. “I guess my dress was a big success,” she said. I made a face.
There were two messages, one from Margaret Semple, my contact at the Canadian embassy in Mexico City, the other from Alex, informing me that there was a small leak in my basement, nothing to worry about, but would I please call him.
I called Margaret Semple first, from the hotel. After expressing her sympathy at the passing of Dr. Castillo, she got down to business.
“This is one nasty policeman you’ve got yourself tied up with,” she began.
“Couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But what specifically are you referring to?”
“While I couldn’t pin down anything—which doesn’t surprise me, I assure you, the military and the police here are not subject to the same controls we’ve come to expect at home—I get the impression your Major Martinez is not above a little illegal activity himself. I’d try to stay on his good side, if I were you.”
Too late for that, I thought, but thanked her for the warning.
“We’re still working on the passport, although I gather you are cleared to leave the hotel. I wouldn’t go out of town without checking in with the major, though. Don’t give him any excuse to go after you.”
I thanked her and went to hang up when she said, “Call me every couple of days, will you, so that I know you are okay?”
I guess she really was concerned. I wondered what it took to worry someone like Margaret Semple. More than it took to worry me, no doubt. And she was the second person after Eulalia Gonzalez to comment on Martinez’s dishonesty.
I then slipped out of the hotel and headed for my favorite public phone in the dark hallway of the Cafe Escobar.
Alex answered right away.
“I’m glad it’s you. I was beginning to get a little worried,” he said. I decided not to mention where I’d spent the last fifteen hours.
“What have you got for me, Alex?” I asked.
“Lots of stuff. Fascinating stuff, I must say. Where would you like me to start?”
“The books.”
“Okay. You may know this already, but it won’t take that long, because quite frankly, books of the Maya are fundamentally very rare. The most important, in terms of our knowledge of it, is the Popol Vuh. This is the book of Maya mythology, kind of the Iliad and Odyssey of Mesoamerica. It contains what are essentially fragments of myth—the story of creation, exploits of very witty gods called Hero Twins, and an account of the origins and history of the Quiche Maya, who, I gather, were one of the more important groups of Maya at the time of the Conquest.