by Rodney Hall
In air thick as treacle the mosquitoes took their time, hovering ready to celebrate her arrival, while the resort’s registration desk was besieged by American tourists. Oh no. Not here. She abandoned her luggage to take care of itself in the foyer. Panic turned her around, flung her down some terrace steps and along a path bordered by chunks of dead coral, away through the welcome arch, beyond the roadside sign ENTRY ONLY. Out, out, she had to get out! She was the last of her line and she would never, now, give birth to a living child. Tormented by regrets, self-accusations and a headache . . . Marianna stumbled in a daze . . . with no idea which way was which, until the waterfront brought her to a halt.
Sloping sand disappeared into a turquoise lagoon. Fortunately, she had never been a swimmer. She didn’t have to wade for long. Soon out of her depth, she committed an accident—drowning the terrible past in water warm as a dream. Whether this suicide was gesture or death-wish, who knows? She drowned. She did . . . except that others won’t let such things happen . . . people everywhere being doomed to sociability. Two fishermen mending nets dropped their skeins of twine, sprang to the rescue, flung themselves on her and dragged her up into the lethal air. Spreadeagling her on the beach, they crucified her with tender care. So she lay haplessly alive under their powerful hands while they took turns pumping seaweed from her lungs. She survived this rough handling. And it wasn’t too bad, until they called in the local authorities. The authorities were a different matter: nobody could accuse them of humanity’s curse of helpfulness. Although she spoke no more than a smattering of Spanish she understood that the local punishment for failed suicide was rape.
‘My name is Marianna Gluck,’ she warned the duty officer. And wrote it down for him. ‘I was married to Manfred Regel, though he turned out to be someone else, as your Interpol records probably show.’ Enough said. The police had a category for this. They allocated her a prison cot with the climate rusted to its rails, where she could recuperate until she was ready in her own good time to deal with her responsibilities. At long last the simplest remedy worked best—she produced enough American dollars for the register to be closed. ‘I suppose I am rich,’ she admitted and her smile worked wonders. No one was any longer tactless enough to ask what on earth she thought she had been doing. The police delivered her back to her four-star resort, where she had ample leisure to regret her various follies. But she chose to get moving instead, wrongheaded though this undoubtedly was considering her state of delirium. She rescued her luggage and hailed a bus.
Her heart races at the memory.
Yet here she is: safe. This is where she chose to come. With the ottoman for a cradle, night deepens and the unseen guitarist serenades her.
Of course, to get here, she’d had to face border guards demanding to be told why a woman would risk travelling alone. She’d had to bribe them, too, to let her through. No wonder, when she boarded that last flight, she sank into the dilapidated seat with such relief. Hopefully this old crate was still airworthy. Liberated by the thrust, as the airport tipped away beneath her—she had a window seat—Marianna watched workshops and warehouses and the departure hall, like so many dice, being rolled away into the corner of the board. A brief snooze later an equally decrepit control tower leaned near, righting just in time for the aircraft to creak above it and rattle along an identical strip of potholed tarmac.
This time she had arrived at an authentic corrugated-iron shantytown where people endured enough hardships for the future to be permanently combustible with rebellion. Everywhere: Caribbean colours. Everywhere: a pounding beat and half-naked bodies—bronzed and sensual—alive with the laughter born of poverty.
Thanks perhaps to her own impulsive nature, she revived to wander among makeshift shops, the heady aroma of rotting fruit in her nostrils. She chose and ate a guava. She spoke to a child crying in the gutter. A rocketing football narrowly missed her (the culprit shared his laughter with her as he cavorted past), bouncing off a stall where stacked dog-eared books were being watched over by two youths, earphones plugged in, jogging on the spot, each to his own beat.
Marianna remembers.
She watches herself take up a sample volume, a copy of Great Expectations, so it turns out, blowing grit from between Dickens’s chapters, tempted to spend a few pesos on the price marked, because she’d meant to read this at school but never did. Then a battered hardback snagged her eye: The Maya Calendar—a New Theory of Summation by Joshua Shilling. Summation somehow promised finality. Thus, the passage of time . . . wasn’t this as much as anyone could reasonably hope? She opened the flyleaf, inscribed ‘to my curious friend Louis’, and riffled through the text, glancing at diagrams and blurry photographs of archaeological ruins. ‘Louis’ fleetingly teased her imagination. An invitation. She skimmed a few chapter headings: Belize, news of a mysterious city and Guatemala, the survival of Utatlan. Turning random pages, she recoiled from the illustration of a baby being sacrificed. Unbearable. Then she came upon a date that struck her with the force of a portent . . . if it had been her own birthday she couldn’t have been more astonished.
She snapped the book shut. She would read Professor Shilling when she felt better prepared. Meanwhile she dug in her purse for small change to pay, so she could keep him. And stowed the precious purchase in her backpack, aware of an embryonic plan beginning to stir and buck in her mind. Consequently, that very same afternoon, after a choppy boat trip and a two-hour ordeal in a wooden coach, she checked in at the hotel recommended by a sandwich-board spruiker. This rambling structure with its colonial importances opened to her, one corridor leading to another, all obscurely sedate and comfortably run down.
Thus her ruminations bring her full circle. Because here she is, at the dark brink of the hotel garden. The very same book by Joshua Shilling lies shut on her lap. An empty glass grows warm in her hand. She lolls at ease. Her impression of the hotel suggests—by the total absence of other guests—that she has the place to herself. She takes root, even as tendrils of jungle proliferate, convolvulus creeping up the sides of the ottoman for its pink-veined purple trumpets to gape into the bars of light. Clearly a battle is still being waged between garden and gardeners, with each labouring generation loath to concede defeat. She wonders about the gods in the ceiba tree. How particular might their local functions be?
The guitar has been joined by hand-clapping. Cross-rhythms develop. She listens, entranced. She kicks off her shoes, allowing her toes to enjoy the sun-blessed stone. She is a dancer, after all. At long last, she is somewhere she wants to be, as much as she wants to be anywhere. She tilts the empty glass against her lips, then abandons it. Oh well.
A janitor, interrupted on his way to lock the lobby (where the usual bandits have gathered to exchange cocaine for clean hard currency), finds himself accosted by a lady lounging in the gloom among strangler vines. As luck would have it, he is a British backpacker glad of a few weeks’ work, so he understands what she says when she demands a hire car at the front entrance first thing in the morning. Although this is beyond the limit of his functions he takes it in his stride and checks humorously, ‘Would that be a hire car with a hire driver to drive it?’
And of course.
‘Of course,’ she begs, suddenly so exhausted she confronts him with ghost eyes, ‘the obvious being obvious.’
‘Leave it to me, señora,’ he promises, displaying the spotless dignity of a qualified polyglot, and leers her way, his presumption almost threatening.
‘Thank you.’
Her gratitude is genuine. She doesn’t notice his leer. He takes advantage to offer some extras she might care to order—a massage, a hairdo, the services of a shaman to heal her grief?—but neither does she hear any of these enticements. Her boat of woven rushes is afloat on its own current. Already he has left, taking his impertinence with him. She regrets having sounded so much like a querulous pushy tourist—in fact, like someone she is not. She is proud of being good with ordi
nary people. She always waits her turn and she takes very little for granted. She is an ordinary person herself.
As for those island fishermen who saved her life, she showed considerable presence of mind by remembering to reward them. Also when persuading the island police, though they had no idea about being police, to believe her alibi that she had lost her wits. In simple parts of the world such things happen. People are sane and people go mad. History is long. If she chose to be mad they would take her word for it, her waterlogged emergency being proof enough. Nor was she required to apologize for her short-cut fair hair or how little of her fortune she seemed willing to spend in the Gulf of Mexico.
Marianna closes her eyes. She knows she is the kind of monster who must learn step by step—and always painfully—how to behave in the age of humans.
Moments later instinct alerts her to danger. Her eyes open just in time. Two monkeys lope her way across the lawn. Their long tails wave like slender banners. She knows monkeys steal. Monkeys attack. She watches in alarm. They make a dash for the ceiba tree instead. But what of the thorns? And now she sees they are being chased by a squat Velasquez grandee. Leaving the service desk to its own empty pool of neon blue on the far side of the garden, this person satisfies himself routing the offenders. He then takes the opportunity to present her with a numbered ticket by which in the morning the driver will identify her. The grandee confirms the car’s destination as the mundo perdido and bows close enough to kiss the top of her head. But no kiss comes, only the glint of calculated hopes in his retreating eye—the eye itself all corners.
Night has fully fallen. Phallic cacti open flower-clusters to the moon. Enraptured, she watches rags of night-shadow tear free of the forest, swoop down and feast on them. Bats. They plunder the nectar, skin-flapping and hideous. She retreats from their greed and boldness. Escaping indoors she shuts herself away in a bedroom full of faded photographs of volcanoes.
Marianna latches the shutters. With a damp flannel she cools her face and neck. Deep breath. Ready, steady, go. She will risk being seen. A bellboy directs her across the foyer to where some tables are set out in a pleasant courtyard amid hanging baskets of flowers. By fluttering lamplight the elegant stems of giant grasses shift in the evening breeze. Clipped to her menu is a handwritten slip of paper THE DAY SPECIAL, best meal of Belize . . . $US26. She orders accordingly. No sooner has she established herself under the cusp of an archway—one of only three diners—than a minibus pulls up at the front porch to spoil her chances of remaining undisturbed.
First out is the guide, a joker wearing an ostentatious feather helmet. Ridiculous, infantile, offensive. She refuses to gratify him with her attention as he marshals his gang of tourists. The delicious spiciness of some little corn cakes brings her back within the circle of contentment. She consults the label on the wine bottle. From Chile, this is the kind of wine Manfred would dismiss as ‘robust’. She likes it.
Minutes later newcomers begin filing in through an archway cut through solid bougainvillaea. Behind them in the lobby the bus driver can be glimpsed dealing with a mountain of bags. The process of apportioning keys unravels to a low murmur of acquiescence. Having sorted this out they erupt among the courtyard tables, a motley armada, the broad and ballooning clash of colourful spinnakers, butting one another with sunburnt shoulders, elbows working and noses swinging this way and that like so many rudders. Being in the far corner she can’t quite hear what they say, yet some intonation—some cadence—strikes her as familiar. Their mood is not so much sociable as combatively optimistic. With a rush of simmering expectation they crowd round the long table set ready for them.
Why let this spoil her pleasure? Marianna takes refuge in obscurity, hunched over her meal, which turns out to be the selfsame pork with yellow rice as the third item on the menu.
Once the party has sorted out who will sit beside whom a general subsiding and sighing ensues. The leader stands to remove his hat and raise his glass. ‘Here’s to tomorrow, folks,’ he says, in a shockingly familiar accent. ‘Tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . tomorrow,’ they respond—Australians!—tossing it back. Their bare freckled arms are revealed as touchingly ordinary. Their sharing faces. Their kindly unseeing eyes. No longer intruders on soil sacred to an ancient culture put to the sword in the name of merciful Jesus, they are suburban nobodies risking the first adventure of their lives.
Marianna knows enough about them already, jet-lagged whackos eager to bamboozle themselves with the superstitious mumbo jumbo of an opaque religion open to any and every interpretation. It’s pure accident they are here—they might as well have chosen to scale the high slopes in Tibet or plunge apprehensively among decapitated marigolds floating down the Ganges.
So how is she any different?
One of the tourists, a woman her own age, glances up to catch her watching. And smiles. The confederacy of this look suggests, for an instant, the terrifying possibility that such a person might presume to sail over and introduce herself . . . the complacent owner of a renovated sheep shed in Wagga Wagga, perhaps, or a Geelong duplex only three streets back from the water. Marianna, abandoning her knife and fork to the ruins of dinner, leaves it unfinished. Her anonymity threatened.
Heart pounding with panic she escapes to the solitude of her room.
Just as dinner was not the best, nor is the huge uneven bed under its bridal veil of netting. Even as she wallows at the brink of sleep the dark night swarms with worries. She is mortally afraid of notoriety. By this time her picture will surely be in all the papers at home. Her escape being proof enough of guilt. Only now does she realize how unwise it was to come to a country where even the colour of her hair makes her easy to spot.
When she opens her eyes it’s morning. Her old life coming to an end, a lost world of ancient ruins is within reach. Marianna congratulates herself on having come here. Meanwhile the other half of the planet, with its troubled wars and crimes, still lies in the chasm of darkness. She is alone. And (so far) safe. Sunrise glows on the wall. The shutters cast striped shadows. She amuses herself by waving her arms about to create a strobe effect, slices of bare skin flitting and fugitive.
Enough of that.
No sooner up and showered than she hurries into the gloomy dining room. Accepting the offered table she tackles a dish of mixed fruit. It doesn’t matter where I am, provided it’s a very long way away from Melbourne. I have taken charge of my life. She sighs by way of endorsement. Choice of continent and country. Old walled city. Baroque church, monkeys, terrace. Spiny tree. The morning gilds them all with a benign glamour. Most of all she approves the scrupulous respect with which everybody on the staff seems to forget her name (never suspecting that the manager, at this moment, is whispering to the concierge that ‘that lady is Señora Marianna Gluck, the millionaire’). The fruit on her plate is warm, warm as the breeze from the garden. Exquisite.
Even if people do talk about her, why should she care? Maybe she is a millionaire . . . this remains to be tested in law . . . but finding out can wait till she feels strong enough. Meanwhile, glad to be first up. Glad to be incognito. I shall escape by putting an end to the past, she instructs herself. She gazes out at the garden, watching patches of jaguar-shadow spread, sinuously uneasy, between her ceiba tree and the heaped-up creepers spilling in over the back wall. She signs the breakfast docket and makes her escape before any of the tourists emerge from their rooms.
Hiding behind dark glasses and trailing her daypack by one strap, Marianna lets herself out. Preventing the curtain from escaping with her, she latches the French window. She turns a blind eye to the empty minibus in the carpark and crosses the garden to present her chit at the gate. A hire car is waiting and the driver greets her as she shuts herself in. All that matters is to keep going. Success will hinge on this saviour . . . and the courtesy of calling him by the right name: Placido. She commits it to memory. She speaks up, saying Placido this and thank you Placido, yes I am ready fo
r my trip to the temple, and please take me by the scenic route. That’s the best she can manage for the moment. Already so hot! Sure enough, the veteran vehicle goes crashing away on fatigued springs, from rut to rut, out along the town wall to where civilization ends up as a tiny stone bastion confronting the jungle.
‘Once we arrive you must stay with the car, Placido. Of course, I’ll pay for your time. Even if it’s all day. Do you understand? By the way, did the hotel remember to pack a picnic lunch for me? Thank you but no, Placido, there’s no need to check right now. I have your word. So, tell me about the ruin up ahead. Can we be sure there will be no one else there?’
Placido pretends not to understand.
Well, so what? It’s best, after all. She has Professor Shilling’s book with her. And she trusts his advice. Word of a scholar. She settles back against the upholstery. The car makes leisurely progress, bouncing over the corrugations. Really, Placido is free to drive her wherever he pleases so long as he delivers her at the world’s end. Safety no longer an issue, she drifts with the current out past rough dwellings, windows with iron grilles and closed doorways. Letting the future escape her control. Quite as if she knows what she’s doing. And looking back on great losses she cannot think how life ever came to be so different. She suspects she may even have deliberately delayed marrying till almost too late.
The road narrows. Quiet now and disappearing under loose soil. Leaning plants with big heavy leaves are rocked by the wind of progress. The advent of the vehicle surprises basking lizards. Indignant birds scatter until, after half an hour’s silent concentration the driver slows down and applies the brake. The journey has ended in a quince orchard with what appears to be boggy ground ahead. He points out where she must go. She hesitates at the prospect of crossing a swamp on foot. But he nods and confirms it. He takes a stick and draws a diagram in the gravel: a large O for the swamp and, on the far side a wiggling path connected to an X for the temple (presumably). He taps the path and counts out three fingers. ‘Three kilometres?’ she asks, consenting. Yes. Okay, this is what she has come for. She tells herself the remoteness suits her.