Will you let me guide you, señorita, last tour of the day? No, I did not think so. Quiet smile. Hubiera sabido, ¿verdad? You always shake your head. Perhaps you do not speak. Wait, I know—you teach me your sign language, I will teach you mine. We have been working on ours for two thousand years.
You should say yes soon. I am only here another day or two, I have stayed too long already. Maybe you have also.
Tiny little man, no taller than me, childlike, strong. White palms muscular at thumb and heel. Delicate ankles, feet sandalled in huaraches. His age utterly unguessable—twenty, fifty, a thousand years.
You may as well see something, since you come every afternoon. They say you climb up here each morning too. But only here, to El Castillo. Never the Snail Platform. Never the House of Columns, the Dance Platform. The Oratory. Why is that? Are you only here for the view?
At least you should go into the new Centro Interpretivo. It is why I have stayed some extra days. Dioses de los Maya. Travelling exhibit of the Maya gods. The best Maya art from all over the world. Together only a short time. Many Maya pieces I have only seen in books. They should be kept here, they have been taken from us. One day they again will be ours, I think. Not even this interests you? I am a very good guide.
Especially not this.
Ah, you do speak, but you have no curiosity. Tell me, do all tourists come here with their sunglasses and credit cards and rented cars only to be the stars of their own movie? You are disappointing, like the others. Usually they just come once and stay half an hour. I did not see you wearing sunglasses…. He turns to go.
Is that why we come?
If I am wrong tell me. Let me share with you these things. The first time, you do not pay. If you like my work …
Bird bones, skin a softgloss mahogany. Pale full lips. Beautiful buddha man of an oriental elegance, features of a temple mask.
Do you even work here? Where’s your badge and uniform, your rusty gun.
Ah, you are joking with me. I am not an employee if that is what you mean. I come once or twice a season to train the guides here and in Palenque. You should go there, have you been? From most pyramids it is with the sky we speak. But in Palenque the pyramids speak to the jungle all around. Some trees are much higher than the temple tops. Do you see the difference, does this interest you at all? You are lucky, I repeat the offer.
Yes why do you?—tell me. Cuénteme.
Pensé … No, have a good day, señorita.
Wait … Please. What is your name?
Jacinto Ek Cruz, a sus ordenes.
He makes a formal little bow…. Jacinto, do you mock me too?
Jacinto, ¿a dónde va, de dónde viene?
Now?
When you’re not training guides.
I come from the South. You will not know it. My family home is in San Andrés.
San Andrés …
A village. But I lived in Mexico City for a time. Teaching white Mexicans and foreigners to translate Maya languages. Very free translations, too free for me. I live down the coast now. Not far from San Andrés, in our capital of Carillo Puerto. Do you know it? I am Director General del Centro Cultural Maya. It is small, but we do good works. You should come one day. Ask for me. Jacinto Ek Cruz.
I must be going now. They are closing soon. Señorita, adios.
I leave the ruins without the sunset. Already a crack in the new routine, its dead perfections. Splayfoot Chaplinwalk back through the shallows. Hemmed mid-calf in turquoise, herding minnows. Sit in the bloodwarm water to cool the blackfunk jeans. Soak in this sinister beauty of late afternoon, doctored, hyperreal. Airbrushed postcard in the round, the flesh.
I sit in this stillness, in the light’s icy shimmer. Sea birds…. I am grateful for the sound. Sift the swift auspices of bird cries. Sit still for this, their aerial misericordia. A curlew’s frantic pipe and skitter—numen cry!—its head-dip caesura.
Dart and spear of terns, blade voices shaped and turned on flight’s white wheel.
Descent of gulls. Feral howl, jackals of the air. Contemptible squabbles….
Sunset. Moonless night. My subway penlight yellowing as I write this.
26 Jan
Endure another perfect sunrise from the stone tower. Mid-morning walk back from Tulum. Mid-day bask in a dot of shade. Under my palm parasol of home, the last in a long scatter south. The secret of the hammock, señorita, is to lie cross-wise. You see? It flattens everything. Makes it comfortable. Just watch … for scorpions in the thatch.
Two pairs of blond mirages waver down the beach. Towering backpack cowls, glinting pack frames, blue bedrolls. Of course, take the two parasols right next door a dozen others empty farther up. Company. Sororal littoral, cozy row of sisterhood—stop! can you spell s-o-l-i-t-u-d-e? So I leave early for the ruins, early afternoon. Four gold nods, bright smiles in quadruplicate. Upturned noses peeled and pink, dolleyes of palest turquoise. Eight little windows on a beyond of bright shallows. Perpetual sea view.
I sit on the watchtower and listen to the last tour bus retreating north to happy hour in Cancún. Sweet diesel croon that calls up my happy hour in Old Tulum. The light ebbs. I look down between my feet. Seven storeys down the dim foam rings the jagged stones like smoke. Still Jacinto Ek Cruz has not come. Minor distraction, very minor. Study the east for the first sign of dusk … a line traced in soft lead at the horizon, a contraction in the sea’s cooling skin.
Pale lemon glows in a far anvil of cloud. The sky’s cobalt softens with greens as if glimpsed through leaves.
Feel only a minor annoyance … the tiniest throb of hurt. He didn’t come.
Footscuff on stone—too late Jacinto, too bad, no guide-sale after all—but no, a tall tall manboy, head down, gangle of arms—swift walk—furtive / mindless of the sheer drop of cliff, hungry rock-haloes of seafoam.
Recall it now so well so sharply under these stars—Shriek, Memory—as I sit in cool night sand and write racing my subway penlight down to a yellow death. Remember the fret of hightop laces, how it plumps like string loosened on a spool, see the one big hand turn on its heel as he swift/sits without quite touching me, not raising his eyes. Snailtrack of mucous gloss trails into the soft black lipdown. Black T-shirt—guitarists in clown masks. Dirty jeans, cracked leather belt … see the loose end’s skinny sprout and dangle. Still he doesn’t look he cranes his neck, head half-turned away—cringing hound abandoned to the cryptic future of the master’s hand—my brutal slap or mercy scratch.
Couldn’t. One word. Repeated. Coul’nt? Warning, plea, accusation—what? Still he won’t look. Cou’nt. Is this English is he Cockney what is he saying to me? Hangdog headswivel to look at my jeans, thighs, up. What does he want IS HE GOING TO PUSH ME OFF? launch our death pact without even asking?—wait wait I haven’t signed yet—what is he saying—‘couldn’t’ what—jump alone? I scramble up shuffleturn to take the ledge the other way, feel his hand—pigknuckle snout—root between my thighs rooting in my ass.
Cunt.
Welcome to English class. Say cunt. Pronounce it clearly now. Rooting with the back of his hand in my cunt why is this somuchworse than fingers? Cunt. He follows. Little pork grunts. Cunt. Cunt. Welcome to Tulum let’s tour the ruins. Up the Oratory steps. Cunt. Walk faster don’t run don’t run. Cunt—Temple of the Diving God. Over to the Snail Platform, is he still behind right behind me all root and snout past the House of Cunt Columns. Temple of the Frescoes. Cunt cunt cunt feel the taut coil winding winding up behind my eyes—hear it whisper into copper wire—comes a new word penny-bright to mind—murder—see Jacinto at the exit oasis of calm talking to two guards.
Murder.
Walk don’t run.
Murder.
Cunt.
You stalk ME pathetic dogboy braindead protosimian. I am not your prey— you stalk me? why didn’t I slaughter you like a pig grunting cunt cunt—why didn’t I push you off—wanna get off PIG? here you want cunt? sticky your skinny gristle into this—VAGINA DENTATA MOTHER CUNT TOOTH God I
want you dead. I AM NOT YOUR PREY I am the COBRA you are the dimwit dream of a mongoose. What I hate—loathe more than anything in this holewidesplayed world—it’s the condescension / their PRESUMPTION—that we are the flighty herbivores and they the great meateaters. Who made them the fuckhunters? Drool from their noses snot drooling from their withering cocks / little testicular tear ducts all so quickfucked-out—so soon great hero of fuck? I could have done a hundred like you and read a book—sucked your whole fucktribe to dry salt tears—ground their little marble bags down to sand to glass dust—
How could I let him herd me like a cow?
I am not your meat you are MINE—protosimian dangling on the deadest branch of the evolutionary tree. Dead as your dead eyes.
I
am
not
your
prey
FREAK.
Ah, señorita, I see you are curious after all. What did you think of the frescoes? Maybe a little dark at this hour. Is everything alright you’re not ill is that one there bothering you? Oye, muchacho, párate alla. ¿Qué diablos estás haciendo? Ya te avertí. Vete a casa—¡ahorita mismo! Vete…. Hablaré con tu padre.
Get home boy. I will speak with your father.
You are trembling. He did not hurt you. No? I am surprised you have not met him. He is here every day. Like you. You need not worry. He hurts no one—but very annoying, yes. He is not like us.
Not Maya?—Mayans aren’t like that—wouldn’t do that?
It’s true his father is Mexican, but no not that.
What, then.
Soft wave of Jacinto’s small white palm in the dusk. Taps a finger to the high-broad forehead. Glue. You have this problem too in your country, no?
Wait, miss. Please. Do not leave our holy city this way. There is so much here of beauty. I am leaving tomorrow. Let me show you some of the treasures of the Dioses exhibit. You will not be sorry.
Quickflare glare of guards, We’re closing up, as don Jacinto knows.
No te preocupes, Ignacio. I will lock up. Glares that fade, soft gutter of macho complicity. Yes, better stay with don Jacinto. El loco might still be out there in the dark. Waiting.
Come in please. Let’s not stand out here with these idiots.
MUSE WAR
DEEP NIGHT. A breath of wind rattles high in the palms behind the beach … paring of moon between the shy fronds. There are patches of stardust over the night sea. Now and then a crab scuttles boneshadows across the cool pale sand. My subway penlight dances in the palm thatch, parasol turned petticoat of light.
Jacinto Ek Cruz, I’m sorry for how I acted. Why didn’t you just walk away from me? I am such a child, I can hardly bear to remember. Write it. Take it all, get it all down….
Deserted anteroom, ticket counter. Press clippings aflutter on a tack-board: World Famous Dioses Exhibit! come one come all. Follow the little guide in white, follow meek and mild. Simmering. He called him a boy. Twice his size, twice mine. Two-metre gluepot stuck on cunt. And this tiny animal tamer halts the madbull elephant charge with the soft wave of a whiteflag palm. Little traffic cop, mighty Maya hunter.
Part the theatre curtain. Prepare to Enter the Haunted House….
Walls of deep blue midnight. Side-lit and from below a limestone serpent, jaws split wide. The head of a Maya prince emerging from the dragon jaws of night. Eighth century. Temple of the Magician, Uxmal.
Sala Azul, the Blue Room. Soft chirrup of crickets. Pools of tracklight. Glass cases. Statuettes of bare terracotta …
Draw breath.
You did not expect it to be quite so beautiful, señorita. I told you, one of the great art exhibits anywhere. How much money do you think the Mexican government spent. To bring such pieces from all over the world? But there is never much left for our Maya Cultural Centre down south. No … it is impolite to bother a visitor with all this.
But I want to hear. Pass the hat for the Centro Cultural.
The Mexican government understands this bond of culture and power. As have the Maya. I have been to conferences in Washington and Austin Tejas. They understand also, but not so well. For them money is power and culture is money. But this is not quite the same, I think.
We begin down the hall.
Spine of interlocking doorways. Past the Green Room. A little fountain. Another room, Wine-Red. Into la Sala Siena. Faint throb of drums … a long line of light-tables down the near wall, glow of frosted glass. Carved flutes, whistle figurines.
See the carving on this flute, here is one of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu. He pipes now to the Monkey Scribes, to entice them from the jungle. These instruments could be venerated as divinities themselves.
Like the Tecpatl.
Why yes, this is true, señorita. The FlintKnife is a very old god. But Mexican. Look, here—one of my favourites, this shell trumpet. Today it is kept in the Maya territory called Fort Worth Tejas. See where the surface of the conch is worn smooth by the trumpeter’s lips. The carver of the king’s image on the front has political opinions. Look how he has used the shell’s taper to give the royal profile an overbite. See these traces of cinabrio they rubbed in, to bring out the lines. How do you say this word in English? I would like to learn more of this language one day.
Cinnabar.
Seenabal … cinabrio. Beautiful in either way. It is a pleasure to speak such words, no? Do you play an instrument?
What’s this hole.
For a thong to hang from the trumpeter’s neck. Some of these rites could last many hours.
What rites.
We see from the smoking ahau here in the king’s chinstrap a connection to God K. Look, the same VisionSerpent in his headdress is also in this abalone shell over here.
Quickchange of subject to the concave shell, waxen sheen of palest blue, incisions traced rust-red … What was it you didn’t want me to see?
I ask if you play an instrument because I wonder some days—what if the first meeting of Maya and Spaniards had been a conferencia of musicians?
Is this it, Jacinto Ek Cruz, your guide-style? Whimsy’s dog and pony show …
The Maya, did they use obsidian or flint? For the heavy blows to the sternum—
A more musical History would be a very different one, would it not?
Obsidian shatters on solid bone, isn’t that so? Maya man, temple mask I will make you crack.
But you too want to talk about sacrifice. For a tourist with no curiosity you know a lot about los Mexica. But think a moment—in this other History knives would be for slicing vegetables, and our mariners might have taken us to Europe during our Classic Period. To give concerts, for instance. In your Dark Ages they might have mistaken us for gods.
They’d have burned you in the ninth century too.
Come, let us visit the Sala Verde now.
Sala Verde. Burble of a fountain lit blue and green. Faint crash of NewAge waves on a primordial shore, synthesized, soothing. In the Beginning …
This is the room of our cosmology. Here on this stela is carved the World Tree, the axle on which everything turns. Its roots are in the underworld, it flowers in the heavens. Souls are its sap, they flower and fall.
For the Aztecs, there were nine underworlds. Nine levels….
Yes, señorita, I know this.
So a question—
I am not an expert on the Mexicans. I am barely a student.
But you’re my guide.
For a few minutes more, yes I will try.
They called the seventh level Place of Waving Banners.
They were not a people without poetry.
Sacrificed children were called waving human pennants.
We are not Mexicans, señorita.
But you sacrificed children, too. So calm, so calm, Jacinto Ek Cruz, what does it take to make you walk away?
I know you are still upset, but please do not say ‘you’ in quite this way to me.
The ancient Maya then.
We sacrifice them still. I think you have see
n this yourself just today. I wonder if it so different where you come from. Or is glue only used to glue?
Waving pennants, like for a sports team—were they flayed, Jacinto Ek Cruz? Is that why they fluttered? Show me how much you want it, Buddha man, just ask—not even nicely.
Tell me, señorita, what interests you so much about the Mexica?
A lot of things.
Yes?
Los ixiptla, por ejemplo.
Ah.
You know about this don’t you, Jacinto.
The god’s substitute.
His stand-in, his stunned double.
How many did the Maya have? The disheartened the flayed the riddled with arrows—?
May I ask your name?
Lightly scorched then hooked from the fire while the heart still beats—Fifty-seven ways of killing god.
You are some kind of scholar. Oh yes some kind of scholar.
Yet you do not visit the site. You hardly look at these things I show you.
Here’s a good one. Four Aztec warriors with flint axes, a captive tied by an ankle to the gladitorial stone. Armed with an axe of feathers to defend himself. Beautiful sphinx in white cotton, what will it take to make you scream to make you leave just how great is your need? Show me your need.
Is there something here you are afraid to see?
The captive’s job is simple enough. Inspire his killers to kill. Beautifully.
Why are you so uninterested in the Maya, señorita? Are we not bloodthirsty enough for you? We were not pacifists—in barely a year the Spanish broke the mighty Mexica. Two hundred kilometres inland over mountain passes. Five hundred Spaniards. A dozen horses. No reinforcements, no food. Against some say an army of a million Mexica soldiers. Do not tell me about cannons. How many cannon balls could they have carried from the coast? Pacifists—the Maya hardly let the Spaniards ashore. Two centuries later they still had not finished us. To this day there are villages that have never surrendered.
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