Your eyes try to find me. “All my life I have been falling back to earth. I would not look down, would not see. But hovering over me …” She tries to swallow, shakes her head slightly as I try to press a cántaro of water to her lips. “… broken on the earth I looked up to the face of Ammon. This bright dream….”
“What did she say?” the Prioress asks. I do not answer.“I heard her say something,” she demands, reddening.
“You must have heard her say Amen, Mother.”
To be a liar can sometimes be a mercy.
At the end, in your beautiful blind eyes I saw a faint light turning in … as if to sleep. The light I’d first seen last night. As though in a dream, I watched the Phoenix leave her nest of burning spices and take flight….
How long does the dream of all eternity last.
It should have come howling riot, crying havoc, on the thousand voices of the flood. Instead the end came quietly, as on the feet of mice.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz died an hour before the dawn, April seventeenth, in the year sixteen ninety-five.
WIZARDS
[? Feb 1995]
EYELESS EN PLAYA….
Half-dark. Dirt floor. A bed. Light slants through a weft of wattle—fine strands of bright thread stretched on a loom. Bright activity beyond. Children. Chickens. Water’s throaty run into a drum. A woman laughs, the slap of wet cloth.
I am naked, I am hurt. I am safe.
Please make it all a dream.
Where is the sea …?
Sleep.
I wake to a shadowflow along the wattle wall outside. It cuts through the lightstrands like a scythe. At the door a blast of whiteness. He slides through, dressed in it.
How are you feeling, Beulah …?
Feeling …
I was afraid you would not come with me.
And if I didn’t want to?
I would have left you.
I didn’t want to.
But you came.
You called my name.
Yes, Beulah.
How did you know?
You don’t remember me at all?
No, how did you know how?
¿Cómo?
How to call for me. He doesn’t understand, how could he?
The children are washing your dress. My cousin says she can fix the hem. Your other things are there beside you. Ah, I see you have found your notebook.
You knew where I was.
Everyone knew in all Tulum. I stay with a family not far down the beach.
Tell me what you saw. Tell me please … how much.
Later we can talk.
You’re going?
To make a coffee. Espresso or cappuccino?
You have a machine, for espresso … here.
A real beauty.
He walks barefoot to the door, soles white as his palms.
I sit, sip, clean white sheet wedged under my arms. His onyx eyes. He sips to cover his curiosity. How is it?
Hot….
Children at the door, shy faces peering round the bright frame.
All Maya villages have cappuccino I guess.
This is not a village, this is the capital. A friend with a restaurant went bankrupt. He owed some favours—
What capital?
Carillo Puerto. We are ten minutes’ walk from the legislature. I can show you if you like. The seat of our democracy. You don’t want to get dressed? Of course, your dress is not quite dry.
My dress is … filthy.
I can lend you something. We are about the same size.
It’s good that you slept again. No do not worry, I can make you another later. You have a slight fever. If you would like to take that walk now we can get something for it.
Poultice, spider webs?
I was thinking of tetracycline. Here try these—or I can give you jeans.
We call these pants ____. I just thought with the burn on your calf …
the short cuff wouldn’t rub. Do you like them?
Burns … but no bites…. What happened, what happened last night?
You can stay if you want.
No, you should have privacy.
See? A good fit, just as I thought. A bit loose in the waist of course. Meet the children. Ernesto. Rico. The toddlers Beto, Magy.
Little jesters. How do I say hello in Maya? Hello. Too excited to speak they chase chickens. Sprint-waddle pursuit, they toddle like ducks after hens, that spurt just out of reach. Many glances to check the effect—foreigners may be more difficult to please. They can do other things. Climb trees. Jostle and jockey and joust at the trunk of a little limonera. Beto stumbles, cries. Their mother comes out, shoos them into the house. Jacinto’s cousin, Soledad.
Me da mucho gusto, Byula. I hope we did not wake you with the laundry. The water came.
We get water for two hours. Sometimes twice a week. Today Soledad and all the other women of the barrio do laundry.
Concrete basin, border of flowered tiles. Droplets glide from an iron pipe. Glitter and fall. The barrio a maze of cane fences chest high. Wattle huts. Dirt yards combed by brooms. Neighbour women kneel to spread prayer mats of laundry over washboards.
These are all fruit trees.
Yes each yard has a tree. We have limes, los Perera have mangoes. Pomegranate there, you know it? In each season we share what we have. One tree is too much for even half a dozen families. Papaya, this one everyone recognizes—a giraffe in a gourd hat, verdad? So much fruit it is ready to snap. A little heartbreaking, no? this bounty of trees.
That starvation is so …
Unnecessary? Yes, but the sheer charity. We do so little to earn. Come let me show you the rest of my neighbourhood.
You are different with me now.
How, different?
Not so polite.
You prefer rudeness?
It felt like dislike. Like the Captain.
Captain Höflich. They call themselves marines, trained by the Americans. The body armour is the latest American technology. Even the shields and visors are bulletproof.
Riot gear, out on the beach?
I think they call it contra-insurgencia now, this old work they do.
But there are no crowds.
It is mostly for effect…. My courtesy with you was only caution. It is a small moment of danger.
What is?
The moment when someone is no longer quite a stranger.
I’ll remember.
Not quite a friend.
Buenas tardes, don Jacinto.
Buenas tardes, don Jacinto.
Buenas tardes, don Jacinto.
Everyone calls you that.
It is also courtesy.
It seems like more.
What is more than courtesy? Do you like chicken barbecued?—those women up ahead have a secret sauce. They are teachers, but sell chickens on their lunch breaks. The chickens earn more than their salaries. The little one teaches chemistry. I think the recipe is hers.
Buenas tardes, don Jacinto. Won’t you introduce us to your friend?
All three have secret sauces for you, don Jacinto, if you only knew.
We reach the barrio market. Over cinderblock pilings a tin roof incandesces sun. Foul flesh and bone shop of darkling meat, fat sallowing. Flystorms buzz a cyclonic fury, exasperated fizz. Cages of songbirds, lizards next door.
People here can pay for these birds?
No, he will sell them to anyone going to Mérida or Cancún. They can make a small profit.
The lizards?
Geckos, for insects. Especially scorpions, they say, though I have never seen them eat one myself.
We walk past a flower vendor. A fruit stall. Baskets heaped with nuts, a weave of gore.
This—what’s that on her hands, blood?
Cochineal. They are beetles.
To eat?
No to dye. For fabrics. They grow all over a kind of cactus, in a white cocoon. When they come out their bodies are filled with a deep wine red. We dilute it
with lemon to get the right shade. Here crush one between—
No … thank you, I see.
If it is insects you wish to eat, come over here.
Can we go somewhere else. Please?
The cultural centre is nearby. We could walk there if you like.
Ever the guide.
It is my home I am showing you.
Dusty streets, inland heat, each sunbeam a bright cudgel of reproof.
Smashed sidewalk tectonics all along a block-long wall, windowless, pitted, pale pink. Peeling posters of faded bullfights, political careers. We step from floe to floe, cement overthrust on roots of unseen trees—thirst as jackhammer….
Here? In the middle of the block one door, cracked, sunsplit—and we step into the lush miracle of a courtyard. Sprays of bougainvillaea—pink, orange, red. Arcade of bleached columns and dim doorways, patio flagged in limestone, worn smooth, sprouting weeds. Rows of children’s desks against a wall. Broken backs, warped plywood tabletops. At the far end a palm-thatch palapa over a desk … massive, battered, ceremonious.
My office. We needed the rooms for classes. During breaks the children use the desk as a football goal. Not impressive I am afraid.
It’s big.
Mostly patio. The rooms are small.
Are those all mango trees?
In season the children sell them but in season most people here have mangoes. We do better with the pies. This is the library. When there is electricity you can even read in there. Half the time the power is out, half the time we do not pay our bill. Sometimes we only have power in half the centre. No one can explain why. Or half-explain. We keep the desks out here in the middle, move them to where there is light. Our classes are mostly evenings. Often we use torches. Very atmospheric. The children like it, the adults less…. Come let me present you to the sub-director. She is a whirlwind you may like.
Don Jacinto! I did not expect, I thought you were in Tulum this month.
Patricia, te presento a Beulah Limosneros. Una colega del Canadá.
Squat smiling matron rising from her desk, handshake crush, free hand to her heart. Wide oval face, almond eyes, puffy lips and lids. Friendly amphibian in her hollow of battered filing cabinets and AeroMexico posters of pyramids. One small window high in the cell, too high to clean. Dirty light drains in.
So you are a scholar. Welcome. We have a lot of research projects but little manpower. Are you staying long?
No.
A pity. Though we couldn’t pay you anyway. The property taxes slowly kill us. They follow inflation, about twenty-five percent a year. Funding does not. Of course the government wants to build a new centre. They are all the same—very happy to fund health and culture but only in construction projects. No kickbacks you see from nurses’ salaries or teachers. No fat contributions. They call it infrastructure development. It must be very different en Canadá.
Her eyes glint with this.
But the authorities remember this city was once Chan Santa Cruz, headquarters of the Maya resistance. They do not cut our funding altogether—they are afraid don Jacinto will become a Zapatista—
Have you?
No no that was only a joke but they know he is a friend of Commander Marcos—has don Jacinto brought you for the play in San Andrés tomorrow? It is classic agitprop, we are teaching the children about dengue and malaria. How the little mosquitoes breed in anything that holds rainwater—spare tires, styrofoam cups. I play an old drunk who loses his cup. Don Jacinto can be our spare tire. Would you like to play the sun, Beulah? The children have made a beautiful sun mask. You don’t have to say any lines—but you can of course. Do you speak a Maya language? I have not even asked you what type of investigadora you are—
Slow down please, Patricia. We will see. I am not sure about Beulah’s plans.
Cherryred pickup, cloud of percussion and dust. “Don Jacinto, ¿qué onda?—lift home?” Three black men in heavy gold chains, long fingernails for concert guitar and drag shows, three gleaming helmets of straightened hair. Gold bracelets, gold rings. Gym shorts and watered silk blouses, empty eyes. Voodoo dolls in marijuana cologne.
Another new truck, I see.
Got to keep up.
Thank you, we are not going far.
Another time.
The truck trolls off.
Who was that?
They may tell you they are musicians from Louisiana. Other times Haitian priests. They are drug runners.
Can they be more obvious?
This is the texture of life here. People accept. It does not mean we would want one to marry into the family.
Un negro.
Why are you always provoking?
It means I like you.
Like me differently please.
They seem to know where you live. Are you friends?
They think I am some kind of wizard—they think we are in the same sorcerers guild, or want to exchange recipes, or I do not know exactly. Maybe you want me to introduce you….
My Temple Mask turns to me, eyes of blackest regret. I am sorry.
I can’t expect you to just forget where you found me.
I do not know why I said this.
I’d like to go back now.
What are your plans?
Plans? You brought me.
Will you go back to Tulum?
No.
Why not come to San Andrés?
San Andrés …
Come, for the play.
No.
They will hold it under a huge ceiba tree. Did you and I not speak once about the Maya World Tree? It was often a ceiba. From there I could take you to Bacalar lagoon, one of the most beautiful places in all Mexico, perhaps anywhere. I have friends there.
You have friends everywhere….
Or you can stay for free at the Hotel Laguna.
So many friends, so many places. Who are you really, Jacinto Ek Cruz?
I could ask you—
Guerilla poet secret agent drugman—shaman? Are you? It’s what the Maya sergeant—
He said teacher.
He said curandero.
Which can also mean healer. We were very lucky he was there. You and I both. You are writing about us I think, but know only books. If you come like the tourists to take our souls, you should know us a little first, no? As a courtesy. Come to San Andrés and maybe you will solve the Maya mystery.
Why San Andrés.
It is as good as anywhere else. It is where my mother lives.
19 Feb, San Andrés, Yucatán
It’s true, the ceiba is enormous. A thousand candles of shade, a menorah. The village arrayed beneath in a ring of sandalwood boxes. In the clearing between chapel and tree people make ready for the play. Sweeping, laying a pine needle carpet beneath the spread ceiba boughs. Small wooden tables dragged into a broken row, draped in embroidered coverings. Clay cauldrons, a griddle for tortillas. Off by herself Patricia arranges bright-lacquered gourds and cups on a solitary table.
Hola, Beulah. These cups we give the children after the play. We write their names on each with this paint. A cup to value and reuse and not throw away to collect rain. All this?—this is for the meal afterwards. I love coming into the country with don Jacinto but this is the hardest part for me, standing by while they do all the work. I am a guest here and a colleague of his so I am not allowed to raise a finger. At least that’s what they say but it’s also because I’m may era.
Mayera?
A city Maya. Citified—they think I’d botch everything. Let me show you the village. I think I can manage that much. Don Jacinto’s uncle lives over there, his mother back in the trees….
A score of houses bend on an arc, roof thatch thick and neat. Mahogany beams. Beside each house is a painted cross, garlanded in pine. Inside the doorways little shrines, candles and Messiah. Dolorous virgin mother, but no Guadalupe here. Yards fenced in pale fieldstone—like chalk under lichen. We step into the little chapel of thatch, whitewashed walls, red-trimmed. Floored in fres
h needles that gleam green.
How far have they gone to find pine?
Don Jacinto could tell you, but maybe as far as Chiapas.
Does he really know Commander Marcos?
You should ask. I have heard that Marcos read some things don Jacinto wrote, but there are other rumours.
Like?
When he comes from his mother you can ask for yourself, if he feels like talking. Her attacks are smaller now. It’s sad, such a beauty she was. Some people say it is a punishment. Of all the girls her age she was the finest weaver, the wisest, with the most suitors. Then she runs off with the grandson of a rich Mexican—the chiclero many of the village elders had been forced to work for. What would the gossips find to talk about if she hadn’t come back to the village, I wonder? Just listen to me!—you must think I’m one.
Dusk gathers. Children in white cotton pile out of farm trucks. Dressed like adults but running, laughter soft and deep—no shrill and shriek of sugar in the blood. Children running hard running barefoot in the dusk … a deep river of joy flowing around us. Exhilarate hush.
How many children live here?
A lot. But half of these are from X-Cacal—this is new, very exciting. These are the purest Maya, or purist Maya as I call them. Los Separados … The separated ones have appointed themselves guardians of the Chan Santa Cruz.
You said that was the old name for the capital.
Named after the Speaking Cross of Maya rebellion. We hid it in the jungle after the city fell to the Mexicans. Los Separados think the rest of us are all Mayeros—fallen. Of course we don’t have the Oracle to guide us. Even these people of San Andrés are too modern for their liking. But since don Jacinto came back from Mexico City last year …
Yes?
Things have become better.
Someone called him a curandero.
His grandfather was a healer. His mother was learning to become one before she ran off. But no. For don Jacinto, the old ones use an old word. Scribe. It is the highest praise. He is our foremost interpreter of the old texts and inscriptions. The Maya leaders come to him for help, just as the foreign investigators do. Someone so young. He has set many of our popular legends down, in a form that delights country people. And he has written new texts, new songs that even the purist Maya find beautiful. After he is finished playing a spare tire for the children tonight, he may be asked to recite. Watch the faces, of the old ones. They say he speaks as their own grandparents knew to speak once. Ah here he comes. It must be true that his mother is worse.
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