Yax K’in let his torch-light fall off the wall. ‘And that could be the source of my error,’ he said to Michelle. ‘The stories may have been inexpertly re-told, perhaps that has happened. The history I have has been altered from the words of Hachakyum. I do not believe that all failures are mine alone.’
‘Perhaps my ancestor wrote these stories because he was worried that his memory was imperfect. I do not know.’ Yax K’in shook his head. ‘I only know my assigned tasks and, in these, I have failed.’
‘Pep’Em Ha’s blood-letting was not correctly performed and I do not have access to the originals in the tomb. Even Hachakyum cannot anticipate everything.’ Yax K’in smiled but without humor. ‘The disobedience of my ancestor may yet prove fruitful. Can you read this for me Michelle?’
‘What do you mean the task was incorrect?’ Arthur said.
‘The task is incomplete,’ Yax K’in said.
Arthur was not satisfied. ‘What else is supposed to happen?’
Yax K’in ignored Arthur’s question as he shone his torch-light on the set of images again. The woman had an object inserted through her tongue. Her blood flowed onto strips of paper. The smoke rose from a god-pot and made the Vision Serpent, inside which a seed of a figure was seen. The image replicated the gruesome attack that had taken place in Yax K’in’s hut. It shocked Michelle.
She shone her light on the block of glyphs near the drawing of the woman. She ran her hand over the shapes as if she was braille reading.
‘“Her sacrifice, something, no, two somethings, return”,’ Michelle translated, then silently read further. ‘The glyphs mean child or children,’ she said.
Michelle sounded four glyphs that were written next to the figure of the woman. Michelle spoke softly like she was testing their poetic construction, while she brushed her hand over them.
‘The woman’s name is K’ul Kelem Pep’Em Ha. Divine Strong Butterfly Water,’ Michelle said reverentially.
‘Yes,’ said Yax K’in quickly. ‘That is Pep’Em Ha’s name. It has been used once before.’
Michelle ran her hand along the name glyphs again, and spoke them quietly.
‘What a beautiful name for a woman,’ she said.
‘When was the last time?’ Arthur asked. He did not enjoy being ignored when he was, supposedly, the expert.
‘It was the name of Hachakyum’s consort. The first, and greatest, human. She was the template upon which all modern people are made,’ Yax K’in said. ‘You have found her tomb.’
Michelle remembered the other time she had visited that cave, ten years ago. Pep’Em Ha had been a child and Michelle smiled at the memory of the young girl, so serious, trying to assume her father’s solemnity but scared of the cave and its darkness. Her eyes had darted from side to side with a young person’s fear of the unknown. She had taken Michelle’s hand and squeezed. Michelle knew Pep’Em Ha could not have sought that reassurance from her father.
Michelle shone her light above the woman. ‘There’s two things in the snake’s mouth. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Arthur said, a bit disgruntled at being ignored.
Michelle traced her hand over other glyphs. ‘I’m sorry Yax K’in,’ she said with real compassion. ‘This says, “In the tomb of K’ul Kelem Pep’Em Ha, she performed her sacrifice. The two, children, return.’
Michelle articulated the problem. ‘Yax K’in,’ she said. ‘Your blood-letting ceremony was intended to take place inside the tomb.’
Chapter 18
Harry opened his eyes. It was dark in the hut but the light was strong outside. A halo edged the human shape sitting in a chair beside him. He studied the shape for a moment without awareness, until he knew who it was.
His grandfather’s chest moved in unison with the sound of his slow and regular breathing. Harry wondered where he was. Then with a shock that made his heart thump and caused him to hold his breath, he remembered. He closed his eyes and tried to forget.
Hamish was dozing, close to the edge of oblivion, and the images of his grandsons flickered and wavered like ghosts in his dream.
Hamish relived, as he dozed, the first time he had seen the twins. He had been astonished by their appearance. They had his dark, red-tinged hair, olive skin and regal nose.
He and Kate had been summoned to their son’s home for the first viewing of the twins. Both families lived in Boston so it was a short drive. Hamish had just emerged from the car when out of the open front door of his son’s home two laughing toddlers ran onto the front veranda, flew down the front steps and then raced around the lawn. They were chased by Hamish’s son. He had his arms straight out before him, in a position ready to grab a twin if one should, foolishly, come close.
The twins saw a kindred spirit, at least physically, in their grandfather, and after one lap of the lawn they held onto his legs as if he was a safety zone from their pursuing father.
‘My god!’ Kate exclaimed and put a hand to her mouth.
The children held onto Hamish’s legs as they giggled and waited warily for their father to approach. When he came too close, they both pushed off Hamish and ran into the house.
Kate’s hand remained covering her mouth, even after the running children had disappeared inside. Hamish reluctantly tore his eyes from the open front door. His son broke into a laugh.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ He put an arm around his father and led him towards the house. ‘It sort of makes you think, doesn’t it Dad?’ He patted his father on the back. ‘What were you doing, and with whom, three or so years ago?’ Hamish’s son laughed loudly.
‘How is it possible?’ Kate said as she walked next to her son up the front steps.
‘It’s just a coincidence, Mum. They were the ones the agency offered. We took one look at them and, well, it was a no brainer.’
Kate stopped and took her sons hand before they went inside.
‘Well, I’m happy for you. I think it’s wonderful. As for you,’ she turned to Hamish who had stopped walking as well. ‘I’ll have to talk to you later,’ she said sternly. Kate led the group inside for the official meeting between grandparents and grandchildren.
Kate had no doubts about her husband’s fidelity.
Chapter 19
The family of four, the twins and their parents, had a last holiday in New Zealand. They were met at Auckland airport by relatives. Their father’s uncle and aunt and some cousins hugged and kissed the Americans in the arrivals area. The twins’ great aunt held them in a long and embarrassing embrace, then she pushed them out to arms length, while still holding their shoulders firmly and remarked how tall and strong they were. Their great aunt smoothed each one’s hair and brushed her hand across a cheek while praising their attributes to their mother like they had been manufactured satisfactorily.
The twins enjoyed their trips to New Zealand, for short bursts that did not take them away from their school friends for too long. Hamish’s immediate family entertained the American visitors with tramps through the temperate rain-forests, camping on the coast and, sometimes, with stays on a Maori marai. They experienced nature, learned of indigenous people and experienced bucolic life. For this holiday they spent a few weeks driving around the North Island visiting relatives and camping on the east coast beaches. They returned to Auckland a few days before their departure.
Their penultimate day was spent on a trip to Raglan, a small township (or, at least, it had been the last time Hamish remembered being there but that had been when his son was a teenager) on the rugged west coast of the North Island, a few hours from Auckland. They drove through the township and out to the dormant volcano, Mt Karioi, and parked at a place where black sand beaches had been invaded by large, worn, volcanic boulders.
The prior time Hamish’s son had been to that place was with his father. He had been a late teenager, the same age as the twins. It had been the last time that he and his father had been alone, together, overnight. Their lives had diverged afterwards. He had gone away
to college, he grew up and holidays with his father had not been repeated. He was nostalgic for, what became, the last holiday of his childhood. It was the first time his father had treated him as an adult. The two of them had ranged over the beach, clambered over the boulders, dodged the white water and talked as equals. His father had shown, for the first time, interest in him without judgement.
He hoped that there may be some residual, familial magic about that place. He hoped to replicate, as unlikely as that was, the same experience with his own sons.
His plan failed immediately. When the car stopped and everyone got out, his sons raced ahead. He followed slowly. He held his wife’s hand and did not speak of his lost intention. When he had reached the shoreline, the twins were a hundred meters away. The waves were breaking heavily and running up onto and through the large volcanic boulders. He began to call to the boys, to tell them to be careful but did not bother. They were too far away and they would know. He squeezed his wife’s hand.
‘Dad and I came here. That was the last time I was here. I was the same age as them.’ He looked longingly to his retreating sons.
She squeezed his hand and tugged him into motion, along the path taken by their sons.
The magic was still there but it was his magic, it was not for the twins.
Access to the beach and the rocky point was across farm land and the twins had jumped the farm fence and ran quickly across the paddocks to get well away from their parents after they had been cooped up for two hours in the car. There was a large swell that day and the waves, running at nearly right angles to the rocky point, came and went over the boulders along the waters edge. Not too far out the moving water made temporary islands of the bigger boulders. The twins jumped from the top of one boulder to the next as the white water raced towards them. It passed them by, violently filtering through the spaces between the rocks and, just as violently, raced back to sea. They liked to believe they were in physical danger. They were an age where they were adults but had recent memories of irresponsible childhood. Among a group of peers they would have acted like their parents, walking sedately, talking, joking and admiring the ocean and the bracing, salty, fishy smell. But, alone together, they let loose child-like behavior that had been smothered by only a few years by willful forgetfulness.
Harry jumped easily from boulder to boulder. Jim could not. At each choice, where to place his next step, Jim hesitated as he planned the second and subsequent jumps and he would become hopelessly confused by the plethora of choice. He used his hands to steady himself and methodically levered his body between the boulders.
Jim worked hard, jumping then waiting, then climbing on and over the boulders to reach where his brother waited, impatient at Jim’s slow approach.
‘How do you do that, Harry?’
‘Do what?’
‘Jump over the rocks like that. I can’t do it.’
‘You just do it. Just go for it. One jump at a time. You’re doing it like you’re studying for an exam. Stop worrying, just let each step worry about itself.’
Jim shared everything with his brother, in a relationship that was slightly weighted by his brother’s extra confidence. Jim liked the cosy, secure feeling knowing he was two people. He had a sounding-board to confirm every action and inclination. One of Jim’s few worries was to be separate from his brother, not physically but to be different, to have a real argument based on incompatibility.
Jim was determined that his inability to jump like his brother was a temporary aberration. He removed his rational mind from the process of jumping. Jim launched himself and jumped to an adjacent boulder. He jumped again. Then again. Then again. He did not think other than to make a single decision of which boulder to jump to next.
Harry followed but could not catch him.
‘Ha!’ Jim exclaimed when he had stopped and Harry had caught up. ‘What’s your problem, slow-poke?’
Harry laughed.
The twins stayed away from their parents while they could but after a few hours of clambering, discovering, hiding and talking, the family re-assembled back at the car.
The actual moment of a departure can be important. The exact minute, the exact second. That moment signifies a beginning of what is to follow. However, there is no separate and absolute beginning. Perhaps, the beginning for what was to follow, on the twins’ trip to Raglan, could have been the time of their departure from Auckland that morning. Or by their father’s choice of destination, or by their grandfather’s choice to take his son there years ago. Each choice determines the result but what is the weight of responsibility assigned to each of those choices? Does the weighting increase the closer the choice is to the end? Hamish was uncertain of the answer.
Perhaps, a greater weighting could be applied to the slow service when they stopped for afternoon tea on the way back to Auckland. Or, perhaps, the responsibility could lie with the service that should have been slower still. There are a series of results that are never known, that never happen, because something in a string of events going back forever is changed. A difference of a minute or a second can alter everything. Where should the responsibility for that difference be apportioned? Certainly, mostly in the recent past. But not all of it.
Hamish thought of that responsibility constantly. Awake and when dreaming it consumed him.
There was a positioning problem on the Auckland Motorway, an unfortunate conflict that lacked space between two trucks. An improperly secured load on one of the trucks shifted. Their car was squashed to a quarter of its size. Jim remained, as if protected in a cocoon, in the quarter that the rest of the car folded around. Harry’s side of the car compacted, his body vanished. The engine, the front of the chassis, the dashboard and the front seats merged into a tiny space that formed the boundary to where Jim was trapped in his bubble of safety. He remained confined for a long time, conscious and wishing he wasn’t, living with the mixture of metal and body parts that had been his parents.
Jim was not completely uninjured. He had scratches and cuts, some were deep enough to leave scars, and he broke some bones. Those injuries he recovered from. Other injuries he did not recover from.
Hamish shared those other injuries.
Chapter 20
‘Granddad? You awake?’ Harry said softly as if he did not want to wake his grandfather. Harry gently swung in his hammock after raising his head.
His grandfather’s body shook with the shock of the sound of Harry’s voice. Hamish’s heart beat loudly and arrhythmically. Despite willing himself to stay awake, he had slept. He was, again, overcome with the shock and sadness of memory.
‘Yes, Harry,’ he said in a disoriented way.
Harry noticed the bandage on Hamish’s head.
‘What did you do to your head?’ Harry asked.
Hamish touched the bandage. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I fell over.’
‘Where are we?’ Harry asked.
‘We’re in Mexico.’
‘Mexico? How did I get there? Here,’ Harry asked and corrected himself.
‘I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. Jim and I have been here for a little while.’
‘Where’s Jim?’
‘He’s around somewhere. What do you remember, Harry?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of the accident. And afterwards,’ Hamish said.
‘What accident?’
‘The car accident in New Zealand. When you were coming back from Raglan.’
‘I don’t remember anything, granddad. I remember Raglan. I remember stopping to eat on the way back but then, nothing. The next thing I remember was standing in front of that girl all covered in blood, and Jim.’
In the dim light of the hut, Hamish studied Harry. He looked like Harry, there was no doubt there, Hamish thought. His eyes were Jim’s eyes, they were the give-away.
‘Do you remember what Jim told you? About your father and mother?’
‘Yeah,’ Harry said softly. ‘Is it true? Was he right?’
<
br /> ‘Yes,’ Hamish said. ‘There was a car accident on the motorway. Jim was OK but your mum and dad died. You...’ Hamish halted and could not finish.
Harry sat up in the hammock. Hamish helped him out of it. The result of an ungainly process was the two of them standing facing each other in the centre of Hamish’s hut.
Hamish did not know what to do next. He asked the only question he could think of.
At the End of the World Page 20