‘Are you hungry?’
Chapter 21
Jim left Pep’Em Ha to sleep. He had waited next to her for an hour but she showed no signs of waking and, obviously, did not require his constant attention. He had stood up, ostentatiously stretched, yawned and had then ambled off as if he had not been forced away by the uncomfortable, angry stares of her mother.
He went and sat next to the little stream, at the place Pep’Em Ha had kissed him. He assessed that kiss. He picked up inanimate things and threw them. The heavier objects made a satisfying sound and splash when they breached the surface of the water. He did that for a long time while he thought. His mind flowed randomly while he believed he was systematically solving problems with his new life that included a returned, twin brother and being in love with a beautiful, Mayan woman.
He lent back and lay down on the grass, intending to watch the sky and trees overhead but immediately fell asleep. The stress of Pep’Em Ha’s injury and his brother’s return was released.
Jim woke with a start. He did not how long he had laid there by the stream. He raced quickly to Yax K’in’s hut. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. It was empty. He ran to the hut he shared with Hamish and it was empty. There was no-one at Arthur’s hut as well.
Jim sat down at the table outside Arthur’s hut. He attempted to examine his declaration to Pep’Em Ha’s father. He tried to think about what it meant to have his brother back. A surprising reversal of a loss was as great a shock as the loss itself.
He wasn’t a ponderer, he didn’t want to think about options. He wanted to see his brother. He wanted to be with Pep’Em Ha. He set off to find them.
Jim halted outside the dining hut when he heard the sound of voices and laughter. He crept closer, as if he did not wish to be discovered, until he was near enough to see inside. It was an unreal scene. Arthur, Michelle, Hamish and Yax K’in were focussing all their attentions on Pep’Em Ha and himself.
Harry spoke a word in Maya and laughed as his pronunciation was corrected by Pep’Em Ha. She laughed with him. It was as if Jim’s world had been re-made and his twin brother had taken his place. Jim thought of the world if he had died in the car crash instead. This would be it. He was a ghost observing his own happy family but forever forbidden from joining them. His first impulse was to run away. His dead brother had taken over his life and, maybe, the contra-payment for Harry’s resurrection was to be Jim’s unhappiness. Jim was to be denied and forgotten.
He was jealous of his brother, when he should have been happy. He really was happy, he corrected himself, but he was also jealous. There was nothing wrong with being both.
Pep’Em Ha surprised him as he watched. She opened the door of the dining hut, and instead of merely beckoning Jim to join them, she strode towards him with purpose. She slammed into him and enfolded him in a hug that took his breath away. She buried her head into his shoulder. After hesitating for a second, and only because there were so many people he knew watching, he encircled her in his arms and leant his head into her hair.
Harry smiled at his twin brother. As did Arthur and Michelle. Yax K’in observed with an air of satisfaction but not happiness. Hamish looked worried.
Chapter 22
The next morning, before dawn, while the world was anxious, Hamish, while still asleep, felt a crash against his hammock. It swayed violently. He heard Jim swear. There was a dark beast loose in their hut cannoning off the sleeping bodies.
Hamish called out in English, ‘Who’s there?’ Wondering, after he said it, who would answer that request, in a foreign language, in a KulWinik village, on a dark Mexican morning.
‘OK, OK,’ Jim’s voice called louder and louder, ‘OK.’
Hamish heard whisperings in Maya. It was a female voice. He heard Jim answer in Maya.
Hamish got out of his hammock and tried to find the torch he had left on the ground. A hand firmly grabbed his wrist and he heard the word, ‘No,’ whispered into his ear.
Jim whispered, in English, from across the hut. ‘We’ve got to get out. Right now. No lights.’
Harry moaned inarticulately.
‘Help me, Hamish,’ Jim said firmly to his grandfather. ‘Harry isn’t waking up.’
‘What is it? What’s going on?’ Hamish whispered fiercely. He did not know why he spoke quietly, only that he felt compelled to follow Jim’s lead.
‘Pep’Em Ha’s mother’s said we have to leave. Immediately.’
Jim struggled with the solid mass in Harry’s hammock. Hamish helped Jim lever Harry to standing. They put their arms around Harry and began to leave.
Hamish halted. ‘Maybe we should take some of our stuff. How long will we be away?’
He felt a shove in his back and fierce Mayan words spat into his ear. ‘Go. Now.’
He and Jim half-carried Harry as they struggled across the spongy, large bladed grass. It was damp and Hamish was reminded of his first morning in the village. He had returned to his hut at that time and put sandals on. He wondered if he should do the same.
The three of them had just made the first of the jungle trees on the perimeter of the village when an explosion of light erupted within their hut which was filled with the shapes of half a dozen men, each with powerful torch-lights and stick-like shapes that may have been guns. Hamish heard Spanish spoken loudly. The intruders were not pleased.
The strange men run out of the hut and into another. As Hamish and Jim carried Harry further into the jungle the men moved systematically from hut to hut. He heard Michelle and Arthur simultaneously yell, loudly and indignantly.
Hamish smiled. ‘They must be sharing the same hut again,’ he thought and was glad for their reunion and their happiness. He, Jim and Harry moved further away from the village.
They waited in the jungle. They talked in whispers. The sun rose and they still waited. They could not see the village and did they know what had happened. Hamish believed they were lost, even though they must be only a few hundred meters away. Jim and Harry wanted to return but Hamish insisted they wait.
An hour after sunrise, Pep’Em Ha appeared before them as if out of thin air. Hamish had been listening intently, he believed, for the sounds of nearby danger but had not heard her approach through a jungle he thought dense and difficult.
‘It’s safe again now. You can come back to the village,’ Pep’Em Ha said.
‘What happened?’ Jim asked.
‘Police came to take you and your grandfather.’
‘Is everyone all right?’ Jim asked.
‘Yes. No-one was hurt.’
‘Your mum is awesome. How can we thank her?’ Jim said.
Pep’Em Ha smiled. ‘You don’t need to, but I’ll tell her what you said and that will please her.’
Chapter 23
The village was silent, wary and tender.
‘I’ll have to go back. There’s no way I can stay here,’ Hamish said, and then laughed. ‘How can I possibly explain Harry?’ he said.
‘Maybe you don’t,’ Jim said. He had a bright idea. ‘Maybe you go back to the States with Harry and I’ll stay here. Harry could become me. I don’t want to go back in any case,’ he added as if that would be a deciding factor. ‘I want to stay here with Pep’Em Ha.’
‘No,’ Arthur said. ‘That wouldn’t work, Jim. You’d be a non-person. You could never go back to the USA, or leave here, or get picked up by the police for anything. You wouldn’t have a passport and would have a hell of a time explaining who you were and why you’re here.’
‘No different than Hamish will have anyway with Harry,’ Jim responded angrily, reminding Arthur he had forgotten the obvious.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Hamish said. ‘How will I get Harry into the USA? How do smugglers do those sorts of things?’
‘Being dead is a real problem, isn’t it,’ Harry said.
‘Well, no,’ Arthur said and smiled. ‘Being dead isn’t a problem. It’s being alive, again, that’s our challenge.’
> ‘I could never tell anyone what really happened with Harry. Could I?’ Hamish asked.
‘No,’ Michelle said quickly.
‘I’ll telephone Roberto,’ Hamish said reluctantly. ‘I’ll tell him I’m leaving. That should at least stop a repeat of what happened this morning. I can’t put the village in danger. We’ll go and stay in a hotel in San Cristobal de las Casas.’
‘Well, I don’t give a fuck what you do,’ Jim exclaimed. He was angry that he had been ignored. ‘I’m not leaving.’
Jim folded his arms as if that made him immovable. ‘Pep’Em Ha needs me,’ he said. ‘At least until after all this stuff about the tomb is finished. And, after that too.’
‘Wait on. Wait on,’ Michelle said to Arthur. ‘He’s right. If we want to help Yax K’in, we need to fix the problem of the tomb and I might have an idea.’
Michelle vacantly stared through Arthur. ‘Yes,’ she said to no-one, as she thought. ‘That might work. If we’re quick.’
‘Do you trust Jose?’ she asked Arthur.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘How long would it take to get here from Ocosingo,’ she asked, ‘if you left in, say, thirty minutes?’ She answered the question herself. ‘I reckon you’d be here well before noon, eh?’
‘You do need to call Roberto,’ she said firmly to Hamish. ‘Tell him you’re leaving the village today at, say, noon to drive to San Cristobal and then fly back to the USA. All right?’
‘I guess,’ Hamish said, a little confused that there was a plan to do what he had suggested anyway.
‘I’m not going!’ Jim said. He was extremely agitated.
Chapter 24
Pep’Em Ha’s brother drove the museum’s car towards San Cristobal de las Casas. He and his passengers left at noon and, under protest, he wore his KulWinik tunic. Michelle had insisted.
He drove a few kilometers from the village before he turned onto a main road that led, eventually, to San Cristobal. A few more kilometers along half a dozen police cars, their lights flashing, had set up a blockade. Barriers forced all traffic through a cordon of police. Traffic banked up as it waited to be inspected.
Pep’Em Ha’s brother turned to the back seat passengers.
‘Michelle was right. I have lost a bet with my sister.’ He laughed and faced forward again. His body was tall and erect like his occupation was official driver of distinguished guests.
When they came to the head of the line of traffic, a policeman bowed down to the open car window and asked where they were going.
The policeman waved his hand to the group of police cars and Roberto emerged from one of them. He smiled superciliously and sauntered to the waiting car. Pep’Em Ha’s brother also smiled, like he was trying to put on a brave front before overwhelming odds.
Roberto gazed along the line of waiting traffic as if surveying the remnants of a great and successful battle. He told the policeman to get everyone out of the car.
Pep’Em Ha’s brother scrambled out quickly and slammed the driver’s door. He smiled an idiotic grin as he placed his hands on his head as if he was being arrested and must keep his hands away from concealed weapons.
The plight of the KulWinik was well known to middle class Mexicans. The loss of their rain-forest and their deception by corrupt politicians and logging companies were occasional national, and international, news items. The sight of grim faced and armed policemen detaining a KulWinik native, dressed in his traditional costume, was a newsworthy event.
Two people jumped out of separate cars in the waiting line of traffic. They held large, professional cameras. The smiling KulWinik being held at gun point was photographed before their cars sped away. The occupants of other vehicles held up their mobile phones to take personal photos.
Roberto was shocked. His grim face was centre-stage in all images, obviously in charge of detaining the KulWinik native. As Michelle expected, there were too many people for all images to be confiscated. Michelle’s plan to delay and embarrass Roberto using two journalists from Ocosingo had succeeded.
Roberto was furious. He was determined to punish the car’s occupants. He angrily told the policeman to open the back door and get the Americans out. He barked orders to dismantle the barriers and disperse the traffic.
The police dragged the occupants out of the back seat and lined them up next to Pep’Em Ha’s brother, who kept his hands on his head. Roberto swore loudly. The two occupants of the back seat were men from the village, dressed in Western clothes.
For the benefit of the traffic that had begun to move, Pep’Em Ha’s brother called loudly, in Spanish, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’
He laughed at Roberto’s crestfallen face.
Chapter 25
Arthur, Michelle, Hamish and his grandsons along with Yax K’in and Pep’Em Ha left the village soon after Hamish had made his telephone call to Roberto. They drove two old village cars to the place where Hamish had first seen the mound. They waited until a line of police cars left the archaeological site and Arthur received a text message.
‘OK,’ Arthur said. He was resolute, his body tense as if he was ready to lead a platoon into battle. ‘Let’s go.’
Michelle thought Arthur barely resisted a steely “come-on” wave of his arm to move his troops forward. She laughed at him.
They were a strange fellowship of shoulders and heads that skimmed through the green sea of shoulder-high maize. Arthur and Michelle led as they tramped side by side through the field. The plants rustled and parted before them. They did not talk. Arthur’s eyes strained as he scanned for movement both on the mound and on the access track. He and Michelle both wore filled backpacks and strode onwards like impatient hikers on a day trip.
Yax K’in walked with a regal dignity that was battered by the annoyingly located maize plants. Only half of his head surfaced the maize tops.
Jim marched beside Pep’Em Ha. He carried the repaired god-pot of Hachakyum on his stomach with his arms encircling it as if it was a buttress and a weapon to part the determined maize plants that blocked his way. Pep’Em Ha had, initially, insisted on carrying it but Jim had wrested it off her. Jim also carried, wrapped in a plastic bag, inside his backpack, the ancient paper smeared and streaked with Pep’Em Ha’s blood. He would not let her carry the means nor the result of her sacrifice.
Harry followed Jim, tracing the same path through the maize. He had refused to be left behind, to be treated as infirm. He did not need to sit and contemplate nor lie and rest. He required distraction and activity. His own, apparent, death was nonsensical and was not a reason for idleness. His absence of sensation and loss of memory after the return drive from Raglan was not an illness.
Arthur and Michelle had hoped for a sleek and efficient raid upon the archaeological site to gain access to the tomb. However, Harry’s dogmatic determination to go with his brother, who, in turn, would not be parted from Pep’Em Ha, had led to Hamish’s inclusion, who would not let his grandsons out of his sight. Their raiding party had become a mini-circus.
The group of seven rippled through the maize field until they arrived at the edge of the access track, where it wound around the base of the mound. Arthur drew everyone close together, like they were at the final stage of a dangerous espionage mission. He wondered how the group could possibly remain undiscovered.
Arthur sent a text message. Jose’s voice replied immediately from the other side of the track.
‘Yes, I’m here Arthur,’ Jose said in Spanish.
When Roberto and the contingent of police had left, Jose had invited all workers in the tomb to an early, and extended, lunch. Jose’s suggestion had met with no resistance. The tomb was empty and the shacks were populated with pleased and distracted workers. Jose confirmed the execution of Michelle’s plan and left to rejoin the workers in the shacks.
The group of intruders climbed towards the top of the mound, on the unsighted side. Arthur then shuffled around until he could see Roberto’s camp. He waved the others passed him
like they were prisoners escaping under the noses of inattentive guards and then, last in line, gained the entrance of the tomb and gratefully accepted the cover of darkness. He descended the steps, a little dizzy and disoriented after the flawless success of the plan feeling, he imagined, a little like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Arthur breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction when he attained the ledge, as if he had returned to a personal sacred place. Clusters of low temperature lights illuminated some places in the cavern with stark light while elsewhere it was dark and gloomy.
The six others were already occupied. Michelle had set herself up at the northern wall and continued her work as if no time had passed during her absence from the tomb. Yax K’in placed the god-pot near the sarcophagus. He moved it around a little until he found a level position. He grunted his satisfaction then sat down, cross-legged, before attempting to ignite the contents of the pot. Pep’Em Ha sat opposite her father, with the god-pot between them.
At the End of the World Page 21