by Pat Murphy
Through the tears, I saw a shadow moving at the edge of the flashlight beam. The old woman stood watching me. I fumbled for a loose rock to throw, found nothing, and with a quick movement snatched my sandals off my feet and hurled them at her – right foot, then left. She faded back into the darkness and I laughed, a sound akin to the howl of pain.
My mother lay broken at the foot of the cliff. She would not wake up. She wanted to leave me here, alone in the dark. I would not let her. She had to wake up and talk to me. I looked about for something to throw at her to wake her, but there was nothing. My sandals were lost in the darkness behind me, and I did not want to throw the flashlight. I studied the limestone cliff and decided to climb down and stop her from leaving me alone again.
The wall was pockmarked and uneven, studded with fossil shells. I wedged the flashlight in the back pocket of my jeans and lowered myself carefully over the edge, feeling with my feet for holds. My breath came in short gasping sobs, like the panting of a dog after a hard run. The sharp edges of the limestone etched new cuts on my feet and stung the gashes on my hands. The flashlight in my pocket moved with the movements of my hips, and its beam chased shadows on the cavern ceiling.
About halfway down, a foothold gave way beneath me, leaving me dangling by my arms and scrambling for another hold. A little farther, a rock came loose in my hand and I clung to the sheer face, groping with my worn and bloody hand. I found a protruding rock, tested it by pulling gently, then tugging hard. Then I trusted my weight to it and continued down.
My arms and legs were trembling when I reached the bottom. I was breathing heavily and tears blurred my vision. I stood over my mother and looked down at her. She lay on her back, one arm crossed over her chest and one stretched down to rest on the thigh of her injured leg. Her face was very pale in the flashlight beam. I knelt beside her and laid my hand on her forehead. Her skin was cool and moist to the touch.
‘It’s not that easy,’ I muttered. ‘You can’t get out of it that easy. I won’t let you.’ I was talking to myself, a low continuous murmuring of curses and abuse. I knew that I was talking to myself, but decided that it was all right. No one would hear. I was not myself just now. ‘Goddamn it, you’re not leaving me here. I won’t let you die.’
I could not remember what to do for shock victims: elevate the feet or the head or both? I left her as she was. She moaned softly and tried to move away when I used her pocketknife to slit her pants so that I could examine her leg. The flesh was purplish and swelling around a lump in the middle of her calf. She moaned again when I pulled on her ankle to straighten the leg. I had nothing to splint it with except for a metal folding rule from her pocket, but I tied that in place with strips of cloth cut from her pants leg. My hands were shaking, but I ignored that. It took me three tries to knot the last strip of cloth. All the while I muttered curses and wiped sweat out of my eyes.
Her face was still and calm. Her wet shirt clung to her and I could see how thin she was – frail and small-boned and weak. I swore at her as she lay on the limestone floor, telling her that she couldn’t get away with this, she couldn’t run from me this time.
The cloth strips that held the splint in place were marked with dark spots; my hands and feet were still bleeding. With cool water from the pool, I washed the blood from my hands. The water stung at first, but it seemed to numb the cuts. I washed my face and splashed water on my arms.
I turned off the flashlight for a moment and sat in the darkness, listening to my mother breathe. Shallow and rapid, but steady. She wasn’t going anywhere just yet. I heard the sound of wings and flashed the light toward the ceiling in time to spotlight a bat as it flitted past. I switched the light off and heard the sound again, another bat hurrying toward some unknown destination.
I didn’t mind the darkness so much. It was restful, sitting beside my mother. I held her hand for comfort and listened to the bats. I had grown used to the darkness by the time the lights came – faintly flickering points of yellow and orange in the distance, moving as erratically as fireflies or glowing spots before my eyes. I stood up and peered toward them. They did not come from the cliff I had climbed down, but rather from deeper in the cave, through a tunnel I had not noticed. The lights bobbed toward us, growing larger and brighter.
‘Over here,’ I shouted. ‘We’re here.’
The cavern echoed my voice, and then was silent. No reply. The lights moved no faster. I flicked on the flashlight and waved it, but the lights continued on their steady course, bobbing toward us slowly.
I waited, watching the lights come closer. Torches, I could see now, dozens of them, each one burning with a yellow-orange flame that flared and wavered with the movement of the person carrying it. The light reflected from the walls, catching on the white seashells.
Shadows marched on the cavern walls. Enormous and distorted, like the shadows of hunchbacks and giants and fantastic animals dancing and swaying with the movement of the torches. The people carrying the torches seemed dwarfed by their own shadows.
Feathered robes caught the light and gave it back in pieces. Feathered headdresses swayed rhythmically. Torchlight gleamed on sharp teeth – a fox head stared open-mouthed at the ceiling from the headdress of a fur-clad man. Beneath the fox face, the man’s eyes gleamed red. A fox tail swayed between his legs as he danced. Other animals danced beside him: a woman wore the soft brown fur of a deer; a man waved the claws of a jaguar.
I could hear them now: the sound of the drums echoed from the walls so that each beat was multiplied many times, each sharp note repeating over and over. The gourd rattles sang in time with the drum, a steady susurration like waves on the beach. The chanting rose above the rattle and drum, human voices rising and falling in words that I could not understand. There was a wildness to the voices, a passion and urgency. Now and again, the chant was punctuated with a great howl, like a wild animal in torment. The howling seemed to spread through the procession as different voices took up the cry, the animals’ heads tipping back to the smoke-darkened roof, and wailing to the gods.
The woman who led them did not walk; she danced, stooping and leaping and spinning in the torchlight, her shadow first a hunchback, then a giant. She wore a blue tunic woven of a thin cloth that let the torchlight pass through, revealing the moving shadow of her body within. She was my age, no older – young and swift. Though her skin glistened with sweat, she danced as if she were fresh, tossing her head so that the feathers laced in her hair bobbed and swayed.
She was coming toward us. I crouched at my mother’s side, switching off the flashlight and moving closer to her, putting one arm around her thin shoulders. I could see the leader clearly now. One of her cheeks was marked with dark spirals, and the delicate skin beneath her eyes was painted with red lines, radiating outward like the rays from a child’s drawing of the sun. Her black hair was tied back with a braided leather thong, and quetzal feathers were woven into the braids. A black object that looked like the head of a monkey dangled from a leather strap around her waist. A jade bead strung on a leather thong dangled from her right ear.
I recognized her then. She was the old woman whose face was on the stone head. Younger now, graceful and filled with life.
In a wide place on the other side of the pool, she danced. The others formed a circle around her, a respectful gathering of dark tattooed faces and glistening bodies. The air was thick with the smell of incense and smoke. The sound of the drums and chanting filled the cavern until the trembling in my hands seemed like a response to the sound. When the dancing woman threw back her head and howled, I clenched my fists and groaned at sudden pain from the cuts and gashes.
She held something high over her head. The torchlight caught on it: an obsidian blade. For the first time I noticed the rock formation around which she danced: a raised platform that made a natural altar. The animal cry began in the back of the crowd and passed like a wave through the sea, gathering strength until the limestone seemed to shake with it. The crowd swayed w
ith the dancing woman, and the torchlight flickered on the bright murals that decorated the walls.
At first, I did not notice the child who stood beside the altar. I was watching the dancing woman as she used the blade to slash at her own wrists, making shallow cuts that bled profusely. With the blood, she anointed the altar, leaving dark smears that shone in the torchlight.
The child was dressed in blue, and her face and hands were smeared with blue as well. The little girl was watching the woman, her eyes wide and fascinated. Her face had been painted bright blue, the color of the sky in the late afternoon. The paint had been brushed on carefully; only her lips and her dark brown eyes were free of it. She held her hands clasped just under her chin, and they too were bright blue. The child moved with the rhythm of the dancing woman, rocking to and fro. Around them, chanting voices were as deep and low as the rumble of the earth.
As I watched, the dancing woman accepted a gourd bowl from a young man and took it to the child. The woman knelt, lifted the child’s hands so that she held the bowl, and guided the bowl to her lips. The child drank and the cavern echoed with another howl. The sound startled the child, and though she was finished drinking, she clung to the bowl, staring around her. The woman in blue tickled her hands with one of the feathers, and the little girl let go of the bowl, distracted. The woman touched the child’s head gently, then picked her up and carried her in her arms as she danced.
The beat of the drum was faster now, and the woman whirled with the child. The girl was laughing now and reaching for the bright fluttering feathers in the woman’s hair. One small hand clutched a feather triumphantly. The woman danced faster, whirling, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight.
The dancer set the laughing child on the stone altar. She lay on her back, her arms stretched to either side like a child lying in the grass on a summer day. She was smeared with blood from the dancer’s wrists and in one hand she clutched a blue feather. The dancer undid the child’s belt and tenderly folded back the blue robe. I saw the child laugh when the woman tickled her chin with another feather, but I could not hear the sound over the chanting. The child’s eyes were half closed, and she looked as if she were falling asleep.
Four men in white loincloths stepped from the waiting circle and each one took hold of an arm or a leg. The little girl smiled up at the dancer, waiting for the next game to begin. The dancer lifted the obsidian blade, hesitated for an instant, then plunged the blade into the child’s chest. The howl of the crowd drowned out any sound she might have made.
I cried out and closed my eyes and I must have squeezed my mother’s hand because she stirred, pulling weakly against my hand. She said something, but I could not hear her over the drums and rattles. I leaned closer and watched her lips. She was struggling for consciousness, but losing the fight. She lay still, her hand once again limp in mine.
The altar was bloody; the four men were spattered with dark spots. The dancer held something dark and small over her head. Though the beat of the drum continued, her dance faltered. There was a new hesitation in her step and the drumbeat slowed, the chanting grew softer.
I saw the runner coming before the crowd surrounding the altar noticed him. A single torch bobbed toward them, growing larger. I saw a shadow taking long strides, then saw the runner in the torchlight: a young boy clad only in a loincloth. He held the torch in his left hand; his right arm bled from a wound in his shoulder. He stumbled as he came toward the crowd, and he must have cried out, for some of the men turned to look, then ran to help him.
The chant faltered. The drumbeat continued, but people crowded around the boy, pressing close to him. The drumbeat stopped. I noticed now, seeing the people gather around the boy, that the men in the crowd were gray-haired, limping, toothless.
The chant had given way to the babble of voices. The power was gone. The drum had stopped. The rattles ceased their hissing. The people turned and snatched up torches and surged back the way they had come, away from me, carrying the runner with them.
The woman, the dancer, remained where she was. She had lifted her head to listen to the clamor, but she did not move with the others. A single torch, wedged in a crack in the wall, still burned beside her. The echoing clamor of voices faded in the distance.
The woman crouched beside the altar. Her expression had stiffened. She picked up the blue feather that lay on the cavern floor where the child had dropped it, and smoothed it between her fingers. Then quickly, like someone coming out of a daze, she reached out and caressed the child’s cheek. A shadow of doubt crossed her face. Then she hugged the body to her and hid her face in the blue cloth of the robe.
The thunderous power of the chant and the drum remained with me. Watching the woman, I felt that she mourned more than the death of a child. I wondered what news the boy had carried. Somehow, it seemed that his news had changed the value of the child’s death. The cavern was dark; the temple had fallen.
She remained like this for a time. I watched her, not knowing whether to fear her or pity her. My head was burning and my heart still beat in the rhythm of the drum. I heard, as if from a great distance, the sound of a woman weeping. I went to her, my head on fire. When she looked up, her eyes vague and unfocused in the torchlight, I think she saw me. I don’t know.
When she stood, I returned to my mother’s side. While the woman was arranging the blue robe around her daughter’s body, I checked my mother’s splint. It was inadequate, but I could see no way to improve it. I used another strip of cloth to knot my mother’s hands together. Kneeling, I ducked into the circle of her arms and hoisted her piggyback, leaning forward so that her body fell against mine, stumbling as I clambered to my feet, but catching myself before 1 fell. The woman was lifting her daughter’s body, staggering a little under the burden. She slung the awkward bundle partly over one shoulder, so that the child’s face, still painted blue and smeared with blood, looked back at me. In her other hand, the woman carried the torch. I followed the light of the bobbing torch as she trudged away from the pool.
She walked slowly, stopping now and then to adjust her burden, to rest, to get a better grip on her torch. The flickering light of her torch showed me the way. Occasionally, a bat flew over us – a rustle of wings and a burst of high-pitched chittering. I listened to our footsteps, to the faraway musical tinkle of water falling into a pool, to my mother’s shallow breathing. My mother grew heavier, but the woman stopped frequently, and whenever she did I rested by leaning against the cavern wall. The girl’s dead eyes watched me over the woman’s shoulder.
The smell of incense hung in the air. Sweat trickled down my back and my jeans clung damply to my legs. The stone beneath our feet was glossy, worn smooth by the passage of many feet. Once, I slipped and smashed my knee against the floor, a new throbbing ache to add to the pain in my feet and hands. I tried to ignore the pain and watch where we were going. Was this the second large room filled with stalactites or the third? Had I been trudging through the darkness for hours, days, weeks, or years? It didn’t matter. My mother’s breath rasped past my ear and I could still walk. That was all that mattered.
My mother was very heavy. I thought about laying her down on the floor and lying beside her to rest for a while, but the torch bobbed on ahead of me and I did not stop. My footsteps had taken up the rhythm of the drum, a steady beat that matched the pounding of my heart and the soft sighs of my mother’s breath passing in and out.
The barriers were down. The anger that had surged forth to make me scream at my mother and pound my hands bloody against the rocks was still with me, but it had changed. The first wild surge had made me scream; now I felt a strong steady current, more like the movement of the tide than like a crashing wave, or maybe like a big slow river, strong and smooth and winding as a serpent. It carried me along like a boat on the tide. The water was dark and murky, and I could not see beneath the surface. But I had to flow with the river; I could not resist it.
The great river washed me along, washed me clean of sin,
washed me in the blood of my own hands, washed me through dark tunnels and caverns into a dead end. Then the torch winked out; the woman was gone. A dead end.
I lowered my mother to the floor and sat beside her. Her hands were dark and swollen where the cloth strip had cut off circulation. I loosened the strips and rubbed her hands to warm them and make the blood flow. I closed my eyes, grateful for the rest.
I heard a bat fly overhead, but I was not listening to that. I was listening to the soft hooting of an owl somewhere in the darkness outside the cave. I was smelling the cool dry scent of the monte at night.
My flashlight beam found the opening, a narrow slit high above me in the wall of the cave. I left my mother on the cavern floor and started climbing. The wall was sheer and the handholds were covered with the droppings of generations of bats. I climbed about five feet, then threw my arm over a ledge and pushed myself through the narrow opening.
The monte was dark, but not as dark as the cave. I lay on my back and listened to the sounds – strange bird-calls and animal rustlings. It was all right now. I would get my mother out of the cave somehow. Everything would be all right. The owl hooted in the distance and I laughed out loud.
25
Elizabeth
‘Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.’
– Carlos Castaneda,
The Teachings of Don Juan