by Pat Murphy
On the last step, my leather sandals slipped on the wet stone. I lost my balance, stepped into the puddle that covered the floor of the passageway, and almost fell. A beam of white lantern light shone through the gap between the stones. The light beam shifted as my mother lifted the lantern up to the gap in the stones.
‘Hello,’ I called to her. ‘I thought you might be up here.’
I could see only her head, silhouetted in the gap.
‘I came back from Mérida early,’ I said. ‘There really isn’t much to do there. Barbara stayed, but I came back.’ My words trailed off. I could hear the rain trickling down the steps behind me, a river feeding the cold lake that lapped around my ankles. ‘It’s pouring out there.’ I stood awkwardly in the puddle, waiting for her to move aside, to invite me to look at what she was doing, to say something. Water dripped from my hair down my back. The poncho clung to my bare arms and legs. I lifted it over my head and draped it over the handle of a pickax that stood, head down, in the water. I kicked off my wet shoes and set them in the metal bucket beside the pickax. The bucket was not yet floating, though it was a near thing. Uninvited, I squeezed through the opening, and my mother stepped back to let me through.
The walls arched high over my head, and the light of the lantern did not reach the ceiling. Here and there, the light reflected from seashells, embedded in the rock long ago. A skeleton lay outstretched on a stone platform, staring up into the darkness with blank eyes. My mother’s notebook, trowel, and whisk broom lay on the floor near the skeleton’s head. She stood near the skeleton, staring at me fixedly. In one hand, she held the lantern, gripping the wire handle. In the other, she held an obsidian blade. Her right wrist was bleeding. ‘You cut yourself,’ I said.
‘Why did you come back?’ she asked. Her voice was rough, hoarse.
‘There didn’t seem to be any reason to stay in Mérida,’ I said.
She was shaking her head. ‘What brings you hiking through a downpour in sandals and a dress?’
I looked down at myself. My shins were marked with mud and a line of dark droplets oozed from a scratch where a thorny branch had raked across my skin. My dress was soaked despite the poncho. ‘I guess I should have stopped to change.’
‘You shouldn’t be here. You should have stayed in Mérida.’ She sounded on the verge of tears.
‘I’m sorry. I . . .’ I didn’t know what to say. I held out my hands in a gesture of resignation and tried to smile. ‘What can I do? Can you tell me what’s wrong?’
She took a step back as if I had threatened her and stopped beside the stone platform. She shivered like a wet dog. She looked thin and tired. ‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Please. Get out of here.’
‘It’s raining,’ I said, trying to sound reasonable. ‘I’ll stay out of the way. I just—’
‘Get out!’ Her words echoed from the stone walls, and I stepped back, the smile dying on my face. She straightened her shoulders and stepped forward. Her face was suddenly hard. ‘Go away from here! Now!’
I backed away. ‘I’m sorry. I just—’
‘Get out!’ Her face was a mask, washed from below with lantern light. Her eyes were wild, touched with red and too large for her face. She threw back her head and cried out again, not a word, but a groan, a wail of desperation. The muscles of her neck stood out in ridges and her breath came in great gasps. I took a step toward her and she glared at me, shaking her head like an animal tormented by flies. She lifted one hand in a fist, and as I stepped back, she struck herself in the leg, once, twice, three times, each blow hard enough to make me wince. ‘Go!’ she said. ‘Go! Go away.’ The last words were not shouted. The blow did not have the force of the ones preceding it.
I stood by the opening. I could hear the soft trickle of water flowing down the steps, but the pounding of the rain had ceased. ‘The rain has stopped,’ I said to her, as calmly as I could. ‘I can head back to camp. Why don’t you come back with me?’
Her hand was clenched in a fist, resting against her thigh. ‘You have to go.’
‘I’ll go if you come with me.’
The breath left her in a sigh and she seemed to shrink, her shoulders relaxing, her grip on the lantern easing. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You go out.’
I slipped through the opening and stayed right on the other side, where I could look through the wall. Newly washed light shone down the stone stairs and made a faint rectangle on the floor. The puddle was already lower. Water had drained away into the earth. ‘I’m right here,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you hand me the lantern and then come on through?’
‘Yes,’ she said and handed me the lantern. I stepped back and let her come through after me.
‘That’s good,’ I said.
She stopped in the center of the passage and turned to look at me, frowning though her face was still wet with tears. ‘No need to talk to me as if I were a fool. You may think I’m crazy, but don’t think I’m stupid.’ She took the lantern from my hands, extinguished the light, and led the way up the stone steps into the steaming afternoon. She did not look back.
23
Elizabeth
Sunday was Chicchan, the day of the celestial serpent. Carlos, Maggie, John, and Robin returned to the dig for dinner in the late afternoon, clean and well rested. With a tomb to excavate, a cave to explore, and only two weeks of field school to go, they were cheerful. Over dinner, they chattered about what they planned to do before returning to school. Carlos and Maggie were planning to spend a week on Isla Mujeres. John and Robin were heading south; they planned to travel through Belize and visit Mayan ruins at Altun Ha and Xunantunich. They all seemed so light-hearted, like sparrows that land for a moment on a garden path, squabble over crumbs, then fly away. Diane was subdued, taking no part in the conversation. I caught her watching me surreptitiously, then looking away when I turned to meet her gaze. She and Tony both watched me and I wondered if they had talked to each other since Diane met me at the tomb.
Barbara came in late, well after dinner. I was in my hut trying to rest and shake the fever that still sang in my ears. I heard the distant rumble of Barbara’s Volkswagen and wondered if Diane would talk to Barbara, tell her of our conversation in the tomb, where I had lost my temper. I did not leave my hut to greet her.
When I tried to sleep, the sounds in the night disturbed me: the crickets, the palm thatch in the breeze, the footsteps of someone – I think it was Carlos – heading to his hut. When I slept, I dreamed of the obsidian blade that lay beside the skeleton in the tomb.
In the dream, I stood in the kitchen of the apartment in Los Angeles, holding the obsidian blade in my hand. I ran a finger across the edge to test its sharpness. I liked the feel of it – cool and sharp, with just the right weight. It was thirsty for blood. Sitting across the kitchen table from me was a young woman who was drinking a beer and listening to the water heater rumble. She looked at me and said something that I could not make out. I offered her the obsidian blade and she stood up, backing away from me. Somewhere very far away, a child was crying.
The kitchen was gone, the young woman was gone, but I knew that the child was still crying. I was in a very dark place and I went to search for the child. I was very tired, bone-tired – all I wanted to do was lie down and rest – but I had to find the child. I wandered, disoriented and confused, carrying the obsidian blade in my hand.
I stood in the doorway to the hut, listening to a chorus of breathing and crickets. Barbara – I think it was Barbara – muttered something in her sleep and shifted position, making her hammock sway gently. She sighed deeply, then her breathing became regular again. I could see the dark copper glint of Diane’s hair in the darkness. Her breath came and went softly and easily – so gentle, so easily stopped.
When Diane was four – a cherubic child with soft green eyes – she would wake in the night with bad dreams, come to the bedroom I shared with Robert, and stand silently in the doorway. Somehow, I always woke, always knew to look toward the door where a diminutive apparition sto
od, waiting patiently for recognition. On those nights, I would take her back to her room and lie beside her in a bed that was over-populated with stuffed toys. In the darkness, she would tell me garbled tales of faces that came to her at night, of shadows that moved in the closet. I never told her that the faces and shadows were not real; I only told her that they would not hurt her. She was safe.
I stood in the doorway and listened to her breathing, wondering why she did not wake to find me standing there. Something had to be done with the blade that I carried. Something had to be done to complete the cycle of time. I started to take a step toward her, into the hut, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
Tony, still fully dressed, stood just behind me. ‘What’s going on?’ he said softly. ‘What are you doing?’
I shrugged my shoulder, still adrift in memories. ‘Watching over the child,’ I said, and my voice was as soft as the dust beneath my bare feet. I blinked and a few stray tears completed their journey down my face and fell.
Tony wrapped an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward my hut. His arm was warm and comforting; he smelled of tobacco. He dried my face with a dusty bandanna.
‘What’s wrong, Liz?’ he asked me. ‘What is it?’
I shook my head. Words were hard to find in the soft darkness that surrounded me. ‘The old woman in the tomb says that the cycle must be completed. The child must die, just as her child died.’ The words were soft. My own voice seemed distant. ‘I must be careful. You understand that, don’t you? I must keep the child safe.’
‘Who is the old woman in the tomb?’ he asked.
‘Her name is Zuhuy-kak. She’s the one who made them leave the cities, long ago. She’s a strong woman, very stubborn. I talk to her, but I’m afraid of her.’
‘The woman in the tomb is dead, Liz.’
‘That is why she is so strong. She is stronger than I am. And she’s crazy, crazier than I am. She wants me to kill the child.’
‘I’ll take care of you, Liz,’ he said. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Who will take care of the child?’ I asked. ‘I’m so tired, but who will take care of the child?’
His hand rubbed my shoulders gently. ‘I’ll take care of her too,’ he said. ‘You know that. But you’ve got to rest.’ His hand felt cool on my forehead. ‘You have a fever.’ One hand was on my shoulder; one hand took my hand. He hesitated, feeling the new scratch on my wrist. ‘What’s this?’
I looked at the thin red scratch and muttered, ‘I was testing the blade. That’s all.’
He led me into the hut and helped me into my hammock. I noticed that 1 no longer carried the obsidian blade, and I knew that it had returned to the tomb.
I sat up in the hammock, clinging to the strings to keep from floating away. I was very light and my head was too large for my body. I had to cling to the hammock or I knew I would drift away. I swung my legs over the edge of the hammock, still holding onto its side. Then Tony was beside me again, his hand on my shoulder gently pushing me back. ‘I have to go to the tomb,’ I said. ‘I have to talk to the old woman.’
‘You’re not going anywhere, Liz,’ Tony said. ‘You’re staying right here.’
‘I have to find her. I have to tell her that she can’t have the child. She can have me, but she can’t have the child. I have to tell her.’
‘I’ll go to the tomb,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her.’
‘You promise?’ I said. ‘You will go to the tomb? You promise?’’
‘I promise.’
I lay back in the hammock and closed my eyes. ‘Be careful,’ I said softly. ‘Be very careful.’ I heard the rattle of pills, the splash of water pouring from canteen into coffee cup. He gave me the small red pills that brought sleep, and I took them, holding his rough hand tightly. I drifted away into sleep, listening to him softly tell me that everything would be all right.
I woke at dawn on Monday, the day Cimi, the name day of the god of death. Not a lucky day. I woke with vague drug-hazed memories of the night before. My bare feet were dusty and my bottle of sleeping pills was on my desk beside my coffee cup.
I went to find Tony, but he was not in his hut. The chickens that scratched in the plaza and the little pig that slept in the shade stared at me as if I were the first person to stir. Tony was not at the cenote. I continued along the path toward the tomb.
I was almost to the tomb when I saw him. He lay motionless, sprawled halfway across the path as if he had fallen in the act of crawling toward camp. Flies rose when I ran to him and buzzed curiously around my head when I knelt beside him.
His red bandanna was knotted around his leg just above the knee. He had slashed the leg of his pants with his knife to expose the wound: a dark mass of blood surrounded by the swollen flesh of his calf. Through the blood I could make out two ragged slashes, separated by about half an inch, the distance between the fangs of a snake. Bright fresh blood still bubbled slowly from the wound.
His breathing was shallow and uneven. His pulse was rapid. His skin was the color of the limestone blocks around him, slightly cool and damp to the touch. I called to him, shook him lightly, but there was no response. I pulled back an eyelid: his eye was bloodshot and the pupil was a pinpoint.
I hooked his arm over my shoulder and tried to drag him to his feet, but I could not lift him. I tried again, the blood singing in my ears, the beat of my own heart loud in the stillness of the morning. I succeeded in walking three paces before we both fell.
I caught him as we went down, almost wrenching an ankle and catching most of my weight on one knee. ‘Tony,’ I said. ‘Goddamn you, Tony. You have to help.’
His breathing caught in his throat, then started again. He did not move. I laid him on the barren path, irrationally put my hat under his head as a pillow, then moved it to shield his face from the sun. I pulled his shredded pants leg to cover the open wound, and ran for camp.
I did not run well. I was too old for running. The sun was a hot blur low in the sky. My lungs were useless for drawing air, though they made noisy ragged gasping sounds. I felt as if I were watching from a distance: an old woman, hobbled by the passage of years, ran slowly down a barren trail, fighting to draw air into lungs clogged with cigarette smoke, struggling to shout for help across the ruins where generations had lived and died. As I ran, I swore that if Tony lived, I would give up cigarettes. I would give them up. I did not know to what gods I swore, but I swore I would stop smoking to save him. The ache in my side was as bright and hot and sharp as the wound from an obsidian blade.
Once, in the shifting light that sparkled through tears, I thought I saw an old woman dressed in blue on the path ahead of me. If I had had the breath, I would have cursed her, but I could not curse or call to her. I tried to run faster, but I could not catch her. She was far away, just a figure in the distance.
The camp was still silent. I tried to shout, but I had no breath for it. I reached Salvador’s truck, parked outside the plaza, and reached in through the open window to lean on the horn, holding it down and letting it blare as if the length of the sound would somehow dictate the speed of Salvador’s response. I could see Salvador step from his hut, a tiny figure in the distance, shirtless and hatless. I released the horn and blew it again. He ran toward me.
‘Tony,’ I said when he reached me. ‘Snakebite.’ I jerked my head in the direction of the tomb. ‘Unconscious by the trail.’ He began swearing under his breath in Spanish, a steady stream of curses.
It took too long to get to Tony. Salvador drove the truck over the old sacbe as far as he could. The truck lurched unwillingly over gullies and bumps, and the frame creaked and groaned. Once, after a particularly nasty bump, I heard something crack sharply, but nothing gave. Salvador left me behind when he ran up the trail to where Tony lay. I was toiling toward the tomb when I met Salvador coming down the path. He was carrying Tony, cradling the old man in his arms as if he were a child. The muscles on Salvador’s bare brown shoulders glistened in the sun, and Tony looked ev
en frailer, smaller.
It took too long to get to the hospital. Salvador drove like a madman, but it seemed slow. He skidded in the gravel on the shoulder as he passed a tourist bus that was lumbering down the center of the road. A man on a road-repair crew leapt aside as Salvador’s truck raced by, refusing to slow down. Tony was slumped on the seat beside me, his head in my lap. Over the rumble of the truck, I listened to his labored breathing. We had reached the outskirts of Mérida when his breathing faltered and stopped, and I began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a steadying task that made me feel like I was accomplishing something.
At Hospital Juárez, two young attendants took over, clapping a respirator over Tony’s face and carting him away. I felt cold, listening to the soft babble of voices in the hospital waiting room. The walls were painted white and pastel green, marred by scuff marks near the floor. A young woman with classic Mayan features sat on an orange plastic chair. She held a baby that wailed steadily in constant complaint. The woman crooned soft comforting words in Maya; she told the infant the same tired lie over and over: it will be all right; it will be all right. An old woman in a wrinkled huipil spoke softly to an old man who wore a bandage over half his face; they leaned together like the stones of a corbeled arch. The old man watched us with his one good eye. A young man, wearing the straw hat and loose clothing of a worker on a hacienda, clutched a white cloth to his arm; I could see the bright red of blood seeping through the cloth. When we walked past him, I caught a whiff of aguardiente – late night in the bars. Salvador and I found two plastic chairs, sat, and waited.
The nurse who called my name wore a stiff blue-striped dress with a white apron. Her dark hair was tucked beneath her nurse’s cap. I followed her, listening to the stiff rustling of her skirt. She took me to a tiny airless office, where an officious young doctor asked me questions about Tony. The doctor was thin-faced and he wore the scent of disinfectant like an aftershave. I disliked him immediately.