She did not provide the solace he had hoped for.
‘That’s ridiculous. You just let him do it?’ Michelle was indignant. Her voice was shrill and strident. She was angry at Arthur’s weakness. She stared at him with dark eyes, their lifelessness frightened him. Her anger anticipated his sorrow, as if his failure had been brought on by himself.
‘What did you expect me to do? There were police. With guns,’ Arthur replied angrily at first but he finished with a quiet whimper.
‘What do you propose to do now?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t,’ he said in a plaintive voice. It was a cry for help that Michelle chose to ignore.
Arthur buried his head in his hands. Michelle turned her head severely away. She could not stand to see him like that.
Michelle was angry, as parents are when their children make bad decisions and the child’s happiness is compromised. She could not provide him with reassurance. Not immediately. She wanted him to fix his own problem quickly. She wanted him to not have had the problem in the first instance. She was so angry at his weakness that her first thought was to leave the village. She could use the images they had, fortuitously, captured before Roberto arrived or, she could return to other work. But she knew she couldn’t leave. Her annoyance gained strength. She was powerless to do anything but help him.
She could not stand watching Arthur wallowing in self pity. She would say something hurtful if she remained. She strode out of the dining hut. Hamish passed her and he slowed his pace and smiled a preparatory greeting but she ignored him.
Arthur told the story of Roberto again, to Hamish.
Hamish drummed his fingers on the table as if he had an answer to Arthur’s concerns on the tip of his tongue.
‘There must be something you can do,’ Hamish offered, not helpfully.
Arthur suggested that Hamish return to Boston, there was no reason for him and Jim to stay.
‘I don’t have to, do I?’ Hamish asked.
‘No.’
Arthur brightened with what he thought was Hamish’s show of support.
‘Jim likes it here,’ Hamish said. ‘We haven’t been here that long so we might stay on a bit. I think it’s doing him good.’
A procession of four cars entered the village. Their headlights ominously ranged over and through the huts in the evening light. The first car in line stopped before the spider monkey’s cage and the others halted simultaneously as if responding to a bureaucratic order. The spider monkey dashed and screamed from one side to the other of his cage in aggressive agitation.
Roberto stepped out of the first car, then each car disgorged four policemen. Arthur strode across the grassed village compound to Roberto, where he waited as if for a parking service. Hamish followed Arthur.
Arthur halted before Roberto and made no greeting. He folded his arms and stared at his adversary with his confidence returned. Hamish moved forward to stand next to his friend.
‘To save any misunderstandings later on,’ Roberto said. ‘I thought it best to come immediately and retrieve the items you have. Jose will make sure we do not overlook anything.’
‘Jose!’ Roberto angrily ordered. The shape of a person hid inside the car. ‘Come out please.’
Jose extracted himself from the car as if it was a difficult and time consuming process.
‘I’m sorry, Arthur,’ Jose said, his eyes downcast.
Hamish folded his arms, copying Arthur. Roberto smiled. Americans amused him, as if their place of birth made them powerful and untouchable. He felt an urge to teach them a lesson, to show them how vulnerable they really were. Within a loose interpretation of the rule of law he could do what he liked. He wished he could find a way to unleash the policemen that did not increase Arthur’s self righteousness. However, he thought and changed his mind, it was not important. He had won on all counts and to gloat in his complete success was not seemly and not necessary.
Roberto directed the policemen around the two Western men. Arthur and Hamish followed as if their delaying tactic of baring the way had surprisingly failed.
They took everything that was electronic in Arthur’s hut and confiscated all hand written notes. They went on to Michelle’s hut. She waited at her doorway, she had seen Arthur confront Roberto. She now understood his powerlessness at the mound. She was proud of his show of defiance before the crowd of burly policemen.
Everything to do with archaeology was removed from her hut as well. Michelle wretchedly watched the police ransack her belongings.
The police went on to the hut shared by Hamish and Jim. Hamish stood in their way, he spread his arms and tried to block their entrance.
‘There’s nothing in here,’ Hamish said defiantly. A large policemen gently pushed him out of the way with embarrassing ease like Hamish was a flimsy curtain. Four policemen searched Hamish’s hut. Roberto oversaw the process.
Jose waited outside. He fidgeted. The policemen waiting with him made him nervous. He had no choice, he justified to himself. Roberto instructed him, Roberto paid him. Arthur’s treatment was unfair but, with a figurative shrug of shoulders, Jose knew life was not fair. Arthur could return to the USA and work. However, if he defied Roberto, because he liked Arthur, then he would not work at all. He was convinced that he had no choice.
A policeman rummaged through Jim’s belongings and found a music player. He showed it to Roberto, who nodded his head. The policeman added it to the confiscated items.
Hamish’s anger snapped. He lost reason and, as if his mind was overtaken by a beast, accosted the policeman who had so easily brushed him aside upon entry.
‘That’s Jim’s,’ Hamish yelled and pushed the policeman who was at a loss to understand the action of the older man. ‘You can’t take that.’
He could live with any difficulty but would not tolerate an inconvenience for Jim. The loss of even a small item for his grandson was too much. He would not allow Jim to suffer more, even the absence of music. Hamish grabbed the policeman and tried to wrestle the music player from him. The policeman easily pushed Hamish away. He fell heavily. He hit his head against the small work table and crumpled to the floor. He lost conscious for a moment. He then tried to stand but could not. He wanted to resume the tussle over Jim’s music player but his body did not respond to command. He was filled with indignation. His anger made his body shake. Jim’s slight loss warranted the death of the two men. His mind raced. If he had the strength, he would fight the policeman. He would fight Roberto. He would fight the world to its end. It was unfair how easily he had been overcome, how he had been treated with disrespect. That should happen among civilized people.
At that incongruous thought, of the violence of well meaning, civilized people, some of his reason returned. He laughed senselessly. His anger made him as bad as them, he thought. His anger subsided. It was lucky his strength was insignificant otherwise he would have had a violent action to regret. He giggled childishly.
Arthur rushed to his friend. Arthur’s face contracted with worry.
‘I’m all right, Kate’ Hamish said.
Hamish stared hard at the person who touched him. His mind had wandered, he was young again and Kate had returned to him. She was ministering to his hurts. She was contrite and her touch was gentle and loving. Hamish stared at the face hovering over him and wondered how the young Kate had turned into the older Arthur. His mind tried to correct the error and melt Arthur’s creased face into the tight skin of a young woman.
He failed. He remembered where he was. He was depressed and empty as if he had lost the long years between youth and an older age in those seconds when he remembered. The face really was Arthur’s and his own face would be just as creased and worn. It came back to him in waves of disappointment. There was no Kate for him, young or old.
Hamish made another effort to rouse himself. He lifted his body and propped on an elbow. He watched, with some comprehension, the policeman as he continued searching the hut. Hamish was not surprised at the pol
iceman’s behavior and he smiled as he remembered the consuming hatred that would have struck the man down if he had the strength. He would buy Jim a dozen music players at the airport on the way home. Hamish felt the stale, empty and embarrassing residue of subsiding extreme hatred.
Hamish placed his hand on his forehead and it came away covered with blood. He lay back on the floor of the hut. He felt old, tired and oddly cold.
‘There could be files and documents hidden on that music player,’ Roberto said to Arthur, as justification. ‘It will be returned once it’s been examined.’
Arthur loathed Roberto at that moment. He did not wish violence but he was determined to return a severely embarrassed Roberto to his desk in Mexico City. He would do whatever was necessary to achieve that objective.
Arthur scooped an arm underneath Hamish’s back and helped him sit. He and Michelle then got Hamish to stand. They led him slowly towards Michelle’s hut.
‘Arthur, wait,’ Roberto commanded. Arthur halted before realizing he was obeying an order. ‘I understand some items were taken by the KulWinik from the tomb. We will have to have those too.’
Arthur turned away and he and Michelle continued on with Hamish.
Chapter 8
Yax K’in was alone in his hut sitting cross-legged on the floor when Roberto and four policemen entered. He patiently listened as Roberto brusquely explained his purpose.
‘Of course,’ Yax K’in said in Spanish, as if Roberto’s request was reasonable.
Yax K’in did not know where the items he had retrieved from the tomb were and he was unconcerned by their absence. They were not in his hut when he returned there late in the afternoon. He had noticed but not questioned their absence, as if they had made their own decision to remove themselves and would return when they were ready.
Roberto was angry. Yax K’in’s hut smelt foul with the residue of years of family living, and the close smell of harsh tobacco. The smell had attached to him, lessened him and he was frustrated because nothing had been found.
He asked Yax K’in in a voice of distaste and distrust. ‘Where are the items you took from the tomb?’
‘I do not know,’ Yax K’in said truthfully and smiled at him. It was a smile of pleasure and in no way represented the sarcastic antagonism Roberto expected. He smiled back without knowing that he did.
Roberto, ultimately, did not care about the items taken from the tomb. He wanted them for an inventory that was incomplete but their importance must be minor. He respected Arthur’s judgement and if he had let them be removed, without being catalogued, then they had to be insignificant. He could live without their retrieval but would include their removal in his first written report. They would serve a purpose as well if found or not.
Roberto gathered together his troop of uniformed men and their booty. Yax K’in accompanied them to their cars. He was a small, insignificant, almost childlike, attachment to the group of adult men. Roberto opened his car door and noticed Yax K’in had followed them.
‘I will need those items returned,’ Roberto said menacingly. He got into his car and then led the procession out of the village.
The invasion had lasted less than fifteen minutes.
Yax K’in watched them go like they had been invited visitors that must receive a fitting farewell. Jose turned in his seat as the car departed. Yax K’in’s faded, spectral, indistinct white shape made him shudder with a fear that the man himself would have been surprised to have invoked.
Yax K’in returned to his hut once he could no longer see the red tail lights of the cars, as if to ensure they would not change their minds and return. The items from the tomb were waiting for him, as was his youngest wife. He smiled at her and simply said, ’Ah!’ as his heartfelt thank you.
He sat, again, in the same place Roberto had disturbed him. He returned to his interrupted thoughts. His options had reduced and the leisure of sufficient time was a significant loss.
Tomorrow, he thought, I too must go to Yaxchilan.
Chapter 9
Hamish was unwell that night. Jim and Pep’Em Ha and then Arthur and Michelle took turns to stay with him. He was much improved the next morning although his head hurt where it had been cut and he had a major headache.
Arthur enthusiastically let Pep’Em Ha borrow the Museum’s car to drive her father to Yaxchilan. His responsibility for Museum property, his worry about damage, his concern for insurance liability vanished after Roberto’s behavior in the village. If she damaged the car then all the better, he thought.
Jim insisted on accompanying Pep’Em Ha.
During the first minutes of their trip Jim was surprised that Pep’Em Ha could drive. He wondered why that was. For all his respect of her KulWinik abilities and her intelligence he had not expected her to have a normal teenager’s capabilities. Jim watched Pep’Em Ha from the back seat. Her face was narrowed and her eyes steady on the road ahead. He was glad he had not expressed his surprise when only the three of them had got into the car. His barely averted embarrassment reddened his face. He turned away and appeared to concentrate on the countryside through his side window.
Before midday they had arrived at Yaxchilan and were ascending the pathway to the Labyrinth. Yax K’in’s stride was strong and he did not slow the others. He veered from the path before the dark entrance. Pep’Em Ha followed her father but Jim halted and watched them as they began to climb the rise that led over the top.
Pep’Em Ha waited for a moment, torn between following her father, as she should, or staying with Jim, as she wanted. Her head turned from Jim to her father and back again.
Yax K’in attained the top and then saw Jim walking up the path to the Labyrinth. His daughter was with him.
He yelled as loud as he could, ‘No.’
Jim and Pep’Em Ha stopped. They looked quizzically at each other, Jim said something and then Pep’Em Ha began to climb to Yax K’in. Jim resumed his way towards the Labyrinth.
Once again, Yax K’in yelled as loud as he could, ‘Pep’Em Ha! No.’ He pointed to Jim, not trusting that Jim would understand his command.
Jim stopped, his confusion obvious. He turned off the path and re-joined Pep’Em Ha. They climbed to her father.
‘You must excuse me,’ Yax K’in said to this daughter. ‘I am an old man. I should have reminded you that you cannot pass through the Labyrinth again.’
‘Why?’ asked Pep’Em Ha.
Yax K’in began walking, down the slope into the park-like scene of the grand plaza of Yaxchilan. ‘Because you have heard the voices,’ he said once the other two had caught up and were walking next to him. ‘That way is shut for the t’o’ohil.’
‘Why did you stop me then?’ Jim asked.
Yax K’in pulled up and peered at Jim’s eyes, examining them each in turn as if searching for something lost. His face relaxed into a grin as if he had been satisfied with the result of his inspection.
‘Because you have also heard the voices. Pep’Em Ha told me of your visit here. I am sorry that I doubted but I had to make sure. I hope you will forgive an old man,’ Yax K’in said. He turned his head from Jim and tried to imagine Yaxchilan in its glorious heyday.
Jim raised his eyebrows to Pep’Em Ha, querying if she had also told her father about their experience at the cave.
Yax K’in dragged his eyes away from the past.
‘You were lucky that my daughter was with you when you passed through the Labyrinth. She had not yet heard the voices. She had not been accepted by Hachakyum. If she had not been there, and she had not acted quickly, you would not have returned. You would have joined your brother again,’ Yax K’in said. ‘Once we have heard the voices,’ he continued. ‘We cannot go in there. What separates our world from Xibalba is thin in that place. The t’o’ohil must be wary, there are many things that must concern us.’
‘Why did I hear the voices then?’ Jim asked. ‘I’m not KulWinik.’
Yax K’in was silent for a long time. Jim thought the old man had
forgotten that he had been asked a question. His grandfather did that often, when he was distracted. It annoyed Jim.
‘Because you are one of the gods,’ Yax K’in said, seriously.
Yax K’in moved off quickly and down the slope, expecting the others to follow.
Jim wanted more of an answer than that. And a sensible answer. Yax K’in’s mention of his brother made him angry and anxious. Jim ran in front of Yax K’in, blocking his progress. It was a presumptuous act.
‘What do you mean?’ Jim angrily put his hand against the old man’s chest. ‘How could I be a god? I’m just me. And what did you mean about my brother?’
Pep’Em Ha wrapped her hand around Jim’s wrist and with a strength that Jim could not resist, moved his hand off her father’s chest. Jim was crestfallen as if her action was a betrayal but then concentrated on the feel of her skin encircling his wrist.
At the End of the World Page 17