by Mary Morris
Most of the Indians could speak a broken Spanish and eventually I made conversation with some of them. I asked a woman seated behind me if she lived in San Cristóbal and she laughed and said she lived in San Juan Chamula, and I should visit her sometime. She sliced a piece of mango for me and I sucked on it. When I said it was good, everyone smiled at me. A man moved his chickens out of the way and invited me to sit on his burlap sack of lentils. I rode the rest of the way, sitting on the sacks of lentils and flour.
San Cristóbal de las Casas is a city of about thirty thousand people. Standing in a high mountain valley, it was named for the Spanish missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas. Las Casas, revolted by the torture and slaughter of the Maya during the conquest—led by the infamous psychopath Pedro de Alvarado—went to Spain to plead the cause of the indigenous peoples. They considered him their protector, and his name was given to this town of arcaded palaces and low, red-tile roofs.
Catherine hadn't checked into La Ciudad Real, our agreed meeting place, but I checked in, assuming she'd be there for dinner. I liked the hotel right away. Its lobby was a beautiful courtyard with a fountain. I was given a windowless room on the first floor at the back of the lobby. It was dark but quiet. The minute I got into the room I collapsed. I had no idea how long I'd slept, but I woke to a complete blackout—there was no electricity. Somehow I changed my clothes and made my way out of my room.
It turned out to be about five-thirty in the morning, and I decided to go for a walk. I did not know where I was going, but I saw Indians in bright-colored costumes making their way through the center of town to a side street, so I followed them. The Mayans of San Cristóbal were heading for market, where there were the vendors of vegetables and fruits, the women who sold handwoven cloth, and others with live rabbits, chickens, baby goats, and lambs. I bought some fruit—bananas and mangoes—which I had for breakfast along with an oily cup of coffee. I walked for a long time among these people and then after a while, feeling tired, I went back to the hotel, hoping to find Catherine.
She was not there when I returned, so I went into my room to rest. It was not long before there was a knock. "Catherine?" I shouted, jumping up and flinging open the door.
A young hotel worker stood there. "Do you need candles? Do you need light?" I said I did and thanked him for thinking of me. He returned with candles and said, "Are you married? Will you invite me to talk to you in your room?"
I sighed. I was not in the mood. "I am waiting for my husband," I told him. "I cannot invite you to my room."
Not one to be slighted, he said, "My name is Chaco. I will come by later. I will bring more candles."
I spent the rest of the morning waiting for Catherine, and when she had not arrived by lunchtime I went to the Na Balom Museum, the House of the Jaguar. Na Balom is the house of Frans Blom, the archaeologist who died here in 1963. He and his wife, Gertrude, spent much of their lives studying the peoples of Chiapas and helping preserve the culture of various indigenous tribes. Gertrude Blom still runs Na Balom as a museum and maintains a foundation for the care of the Lacandon Indians.
The only way to see Na Balom is on a tour, which I signed up for, but it was hopelessly tedious. The guide was clearly a worshiper of Frans Blom, and the tour mainly consisted of a eulogy to the great man.
I found myself drifting away from the group, wandering down a small corridor, until I came upon a large dormitorytype room. I peered inside and saw a man standing there. He had long black hair draped below his shoulders and he wore what looked like a burlap sack. Beside him were a box filled with dead toucans and an enormous bow and quiver. I recognized what the Cherokee Indian had told me to look for—a Lacandon. As I looked in, I heard giggling. A woman, dressed as he, and a small child huddled in a comer.
"Do you speak Spanish?" I asked him.
He smiled, displaying gold teeth. "I have learned that tongue," he said.
"Does your wife speak, and your child?"
He shook his head. "They speak only the language of our people."
"And who are your people?" I asked.
"Lacandon. And who are your people?"
"North Americans," I said. "How did you get here?"
"In a giant bird. They sent me here to give me these teeth." He smiled again so that I could admire his gold teeth. "We come from far away. A jungle I cannot see from here."
"I come from far away as well."
"From where?" he asked.
"I come from New York."
"And where is New York?" he asked.
"In the United States..." He looked at me oddly. "In North America."
"Where is North America?" he asked.
I pointed over my head, my arm stretching across the jungle and the high desert, through the arid land south of the Rio Grande, across the river and the border, my hand reaching as far as it could reach. "Over there," I said, and he smiled with his gold teeth, pleased to know where my jungle was.
The next day Catherine had still not arrived. I went to the telegraph office. I had inquired there several times before, but this time, after much searching, they found a cable. It read, "Behind schedule, Catherine." I asked if this was all they had received and they said that this was all. No indication of how far she was behind schedule, no sense of when to expect her, no salutation. No love.
I felt empty and unsure here at the tip of Mexico, in the heart of Central America, a woman traveling alone with no idea of what to do next. Some French tourists had told me about a place where you could rent horses. I found the spot, met the owner, who said his name was Abondio, and asked if I could rent a horse for the next day.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked.
I had no idea, but I recalled the nice woman on the bus who had given me a piece of mango. "San Juan Chamula," I said.
Abondio, who was, I think, about my age, but seemed much older, nodded. He looked weathered and tired, with dark, mottled skin and a forehead with deep creases. "Yes," he said, "the best way to go to Chamula is by horse, but it is not an easy ride."
"I've ridden before," I said.
"Then come at six in the morning and bring something to eat."
I tried to go to bed early, but a knock at the door woke me up. "Maria, do you want a candle?" He had learned my first name. "Maria, can I talk to you in your room?" It was the waiter, Chaco, and I told him to go away.
IN MY CHILDHOOD FANTASIES I SAW MYSELF AS AN adventurer, a pioneer, a woman hero. I was an Indian maiden, named White Eagle or Running Deer, who rode a pinto bareback and hunted buffalo, with bow and arrow, at a full gallop. I was very good at bringing my horse right next to the buffalo and making the arrow pierce its heart with one shot. The animals I hunted always came to me and I never caused them pain.
Or I was the only sister of many brothers who ran a ranch. I could pack a rifle and brand a steer as well as any of them. I knew how to use medical supplies and I was also good with herbs. I had a friend who was a squaw and she taught me how to boil sage and antelope ear to cure a wound. Through my friendship with the squaw, my brothers and I lived in peace with the tribes. We traded beef for furs. They came to us when they broke their bones and they cured our fevers when winter came. They protected us from the nomadic tribes of the plains who did not know our purpose there. And when soldiers came to take their land, I convinced my brothers to talk to the soldiers.
I was faith keeper, peacemaker, diviner, matchmaker, interpreter of magical signs. I envisioned myself in wagon trains and tepees, in jungles and exotic desert lands, discovering an unknown species of reptile, blazing trails across virgin terrain.
In my room dolls sat neglected, waiting for me to tend to them, while I studied the wing of a butterfly under a microscope or determined the genus of a local Midwestern rock. When I did play with them, it wasn't to dress or groom them. It was to have them defend the fortress, protect the wagon train, ride shotgun, or be lookout on high ridges. Their hair came undone, their dresses were disheveled and torn. Once my father complained.
He had seen the dolls of my friends and he wanted to know why my dolls weren't pretty and neat. I said that my dolls had more fun.
In the woods near our house I busied myself with the naming of things—plants, creatures, bits of stone. I embarked upon adventures that involved walks along ravines or on the old Indian trails that marked the bluffs of Lake Michigan, where I would hunt or scout or find medicine for my wounded men. While I saw myself living in suburbia, a candidate for a normal life, none of my fantasies ever involved the PTA, mowing lawns, a husband paying bills. I was always riding at a full gallop, papoose strapped to my back, warrior husband waiting on a ridge. Or child at my breast as I led the wagon train across the Cheyenne.
Sometimes at night in my girlhood I would strip in front of a mirror and look at my body. I admired its taut limbs, its incipient roundness. I tried to imagine it in another place at another time. Not another body, but a body in a different set of circumstances. Covered with the scars of battle, scraped with jungle thorns, beloved by a great and compassionate man.
But in most of my fantasies, the men were away and the women had to be brave. The men were off and the women carried on. Often in my life I have been weak and needy, but if I think back, what I have wanted is to be courageous and strong.
WHEN I REACHED THE STABLE AT SIX, ABONDIO HAD the horses saddled and ready to ride. The horse he gave me was black. I had brought some sandwiches and fruit for us. Abondio said he thought we should not go to Chamula. He said there was a festival that day at Zinacantán and that all the Indians would be there—we would find no one in Chamula. So we set out for Zinacantán.
Although I used to ride every Saturday of my life, I hadn't been on a horse for a while, and I felt a stiffness in my legs. I had no idea how long a ride this would be and I could tell that Abondio was trying to decide if I was a greenhorn who did not know what to do or if he could trust me in the saddle. After a while he decided that he could trust me. He said we would take the scenic route, which was a little more treacherous, but I could handle it.
We barely spoke as we rode. Abondio told me his horse was afraid of blue buses. "Only blue ones," he said. After that I don't remember us speaking. In a short while we left the road. We went across fields where women washed their clothes and their long black braids in quiet streams, past fields of cornflowers and marigold and primrose. We rode past women herding sheep and goats. Rams fought on the edges of rocks while foals galloped in the fields.
We entered the high jungle. It was tropical and dense and there was little room to move. Abondio moved ahead of me with a machete, cutting vines where they had closed in on the trail, and I held back, bending down to keep low branches from hitting me in the head. I didn't know where I was going or what I would find. I could be going anywhere and anything might happen. Doubts began to enter my mind as we went deeper into the jungle.
There were strange noises—shrieks and cries. Abondio said the noises were coming from howler monkeys and brilliant-colored toucans, but we could not see them during the heat of the day because they were in hiding. I kept my gaze on the tops of the trees, but the monkeys, which I longed to see, eluded me. We continued. Lianas scraped against my arms; branches hit me in the face. It began to rain. We took our horses under a tree, but the rain was very heavy and we were immediately drenched. I had brought a poncho along, but by the time I got it on, my jeans, my boots, my clothes, were soaked. My horse was soaked, the saddle. We rode on in the rain.
When the rain stopped, the day turned steamy and our bodies began to sweat beneath our wet things. My skin crawled. Mosquitoes came out. We pulled up our horses and ate a sandwich. I felt the jungle closing in, the damp heat of the day rising. I thought I couldn't breathe. As we moved deeper, it occurred to me that I did not know this man. Anything could happen in the middle of the Mexican jungle, in the middle of nowhere, not far from the Guatemalan border, where there was rumored to be trouble. No one knew where we were. No one would find us. If anything happened to him, I would be lost forever.
I looked at Abondio carefully. He was a silent, hardened man. I had entrusted myself to him through this jungle that had no trail. And he could do anything he wanted to me. But there was a softness to his eyes, a gentle curve to his lips, and I knew he would not harm me. When you travel alone, you learn to read those inner maps. You learn to trust a landscape that is familiar only inside your head. A look in the eyes, the mouth. The way a person moves his hands.
The rain had made the ground muddy and we proceeded with caution. At one point my horse slid on its knees down a slippery embankment. At the next incline, we dismounted and led the horses. And then, after about three hours, when I was wet and stiff and muddy, we emerged from that dense jungle.
We had come to a valley surrounded by jutting cliffs covered with green, their peaks obscured by a mist. From the heights of the cliffs, I saw what looked like a maypole of colors, living streamers of yellow and blue, of brilliant orange and green, weaving their way down the steep mountain paths until each color wrapped itself into the next color. The indigenous peoples of southern Chiapas, along with their sheep and their goats, wended their way from their mountain villages—wearing their village colors—to this valley where the trails met. They came from Chamula and Tenejapa and other small villages, climbing down the craggy paths on foot, some leading ponies or burros. From the cliff tops they made their way out of the mist.
It seemed as though they were descending from heaven into a valley of light. We stood in silence, watching the Indians, like ghosts of another time, in their silent walk. In the heart of the valley it illumined the trees and the clay road that opened before us. It illumined the procession of the souls down the mountains. Its rays emblazoned the town of Zinacantán, to which we rode like pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Since the festival had stopped because of the rain, Abondio and I were the main attractions as we galloped into town. The musicians were packing up, the food had been put away, the vendors had gone into a local bar to drink. A crowd flocked around us as we dismounted and tied up our horses at a hitching post. I was the only foreigner in sight and no one was quite sure where we'd come from. Guatemala wasn't that far away, and Abondio assured them that we'd come from San Cristóbal.
I asked two women in the crowd for a bathroom and they looked at me as if I were asking for something they had never heard of. They smiled and were nice and finally someone led me to a yard where there was a small wooden shelter. As I walked into the shelter, three pigs ran out of it.
For an hour we strolled through the town, our shoes sloshing in the mud, but then Abondio said it would probably rain again and perhaps we should get back. He apologized for the festival, but I said I didn't mind. I'd seen what I'd come for.
We rode along the muddy slopes and swampy impasses. It began to rain again and I didn't bother with my poncho. I was soaked. Our horses slid and kicked mud and we were covered in filth. It was almost sunset when we left the jungle and the sky was a pale orange. It rained again and this time the rain washed the mud from us.
When the rain ceased, Abondio said we could gallop. The light shimmered down through the broken clouds, into the fields of golden wheat. Women washing in the streams stopped and waved as we rode by.
WHEN I RETURNED I FOUND CATHERINE ASLEEP IN our room. She was surprised to see me, filthy, scratched, covered with mud, and I was stunned to see her. In fact I had practically forgotten about her. Now I was a solitary jungle traveler. I had crossed dangerous terrain and lived to tell about it. I had dealt with rain and bugs and dirt and was not thwarted, but Catherine was traumatized by her bus trip from Oaxaca, which had taken over thirty-six hours. She had sent me a long cable explaining the difficulties, signed love and what have you. When I showed her the cable of three words I'd received, she was dismayed.
I was only half pleased to see her. During the day I had grown accustomed to the idea of making this journey alone, and I was beginning to enjoy my sense of independence. I had it in my mind that I would p
ush on to Palenque in the morning, leaving word for Catherine. But now here she was. She was exhausted and upset and I felt the peace I had achieved on my long ride from the Indian village beginning to crumble.
I told her that I'd been in San Cristóbal for four days and felt ready to go on to the Yucatán to the ruins of Palenque, but she was not ready to go anywhere for a day or so.
Catherine rested the next day while I roamed the city. San Cristóbal at its center is a colonial town, built in the old Spanish style with cobblestone streets, but around its peripheries Indians live in modest dwellings, and in the large market place, which is the heart of the town, they sell their goods. I walked through the market one last time, looking at the handwoven blankets, the silver jewelry, the varieties of spices and strange fruits.
That night as we lay in our twin beds, reading, Catherine said, "I feel anxious about so many things."
I didn't want to discuss this, having just felt very un-anxious about my life for the first time in a while. On the other hand, it seemed she wanted to talk. "You mean, men?"
She nodded. "I mean everything." She was upset about her boyfriend in Seattle who was moving them to a new apartment, about Roger, the man she'd been traveling with, about her career. "It's just too much."
"Well, why don't you use this trip to relax?"
"Yes, that's what I'll do."
Just then there was a knock at our door. Chaco appeared for his final attempt. "Mary," he whispered, "do you want a candle? Mary, I want you. I am going to be sad. Don't go tomorrow." Catherine and I fell asleep, laughing into our pillows, with poor Chaco knocking, never understanding why my husband had not arrived.