‘What do you see?’ The Halach Uinic was standing beside him.
‘See? I see forest. And then more forest.’
‘No. Nearer home. Across the way there.’ The Halach Uinic was pointing towards a second pyramid, four hundred metres across the tree-dotted plain in front of them. He moved his hand in an elegant arc to encompass the even smaller pyramids surrounding it.
Sabir shook his head, as if some extraneous thought were intruding on his attention. When he spoke, his tone was matter-of-fact. ‘I see a family.’
The Halach Uinic took a pace backwards. ‘You see what?’
‘I see a family. We’re standing on the father pyramid. He probably represents the sun. And across there is the mother pyramid. She’s probably the moon.’
‘Why do you call her the mother?’
‘Look. You can see she’s a woman by the way your ancestors built her. There are two buildings high up either side of her flank. Those are her breasts. Then further down, between where her legs would be, you can see a slit. That is her vagina. And on her left. The two matching pyramids. Those are her twins. The smaller pyramids are her other children. They all stand in the shadow of their father, who overlooks them. Christ, they’ve even got eyes.’ He turned to the Halach Uinic. ‘It’s all there. One has only to look.’
The Halach Uinic had gone pale. ‘Where did you hear this?’
‘Hear it? Where should I have heard it? I never even knew this place existed beyond seeing it depicted on a map. It’s obvious, though. Anybody can see it.’
‘Obvious to you, maybe. But in my entire life, no one has mentioned this to me before. Ever. It appears in no book. It is written up in no scholarly papers. The site is not spoken of in this way even by the priests.’
‘Well I’m probably wrong then. But you asked me what I saw. And I see that clearly. The buildings seem alive to me. As if they’re breathing, almost.’
Ixtab, who had been standing behind the two men and listening to their conversation, moved forwards. She gestured to the Halach Uinic, and then placed one hand on her heart. ‘You must tell him.’
The Halach Uinic turned towards her.
‘He is the one. You must tell him.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then speak.’
76
‘I have a story to tell.’
The Halach Uinic was standing just in front of you, at the very pinnacle of the great pyramid. As he spoke, his voice was snatched up by the pyramid’s acoustics and transported over the waiting crowd.
Earlier, while the Halach Uinic had been occupied with one of the gringos, Tepeu had touched your arm to gain your attention. When you had approached him with your ear he had whispered many things to you about the pyramid and about the Halach Uinic. He had told you, for instance, that the pyramid had been built as a mouthpiece for the priests, and that the priests had been selected, from birth, to be mouthpieces to the gods. That the Halach Uinic was both their temporal leader – the so-called ‘true man’ – and also their spiritual leader – the Ah Kin Mai, or ‘highest one of the sun’. For one person to hold both of these titles was unprecedented, said Tepeu. It was a measure of the severity of the coming times. Everything must be concentrated into one vessel.
You had no idea what Tepeu was talking about, but you did not tell him this. You did not wish to abuse his faith in you. So you nodded at everything he said, and encouraged his speaking.
Then, unexpectedly, the Halach Uinic motioned to you to approach him. You moved towards him without hesitation. But as you walked, you were already asking yourself questions.
What were you really doing here, standing high above the crowd as if you were someone of importance? You were only a campesino, with no land, no money, no education, and no knowledge of anything beyond the tending of a vegetable plot and the harvesting of a field of chayotes. What worm had entered into you to cause you to question the Halach Uinic while you were travelling together in the car? If you had not insisted that if you were to be offered back the book, the gringos should also be offered back the crystal skull, then none of this would have happened. There would have been no gathering. There would have been no ceremony. You would have been free to return to Veracruz and to your mother – if you had been able to make it back, of course, without food, or money, or transport, and with no real understanding of the geography of your own country.
Now the Halach Uinic was speaking out in Spanish, and not in Maya. This was a good thing. You had tried to understand Maya when Tepeu had demonstrated it for you, but you had failed entirely. Not a single word had made itself clear to your understanding. You looked back over your shoulder and you saw the woman with the damaged face translating for the two other gringos, and this was good also, because the gringos, too, needed to understand what it was the Halach Uinic was offering them. They needed to be free, as you were, to either agree to, or to refuse, the Halach Uinic’s offer. This much was plain to you.
Next, the Halach Uinic was holding up your book. He began to tell the story of your family’s guardianship of the book over many generations. He told how one of his priests, who had been trained to read the language of the ancient Maya, had read the book, and that it contained a story that everyone needed to hear. But that the priest could only recount this story with your permission. For the book was yours, he said, not theirs. You had been chosen to guard it, and not a Maya. Just as the gods had chosen a gringo to discover the thirteenth crystal skull.
These choices made by the gods constituted a message, the Halach Uinic continued – a message with two tongues to it. The first tongue told that the Maya were in no way special. They had not been selected over others. They took no precedence in any hierarchy. They were not ‘chosen people’. Like a priest, their function was simply to be the mouthpiece for whatever the gods, and through them, the one god, Hunab Ku, had to tell the world.
The second tongue referred to the end of what the Halach Uinic called the ‘Long Count’, which he described as the end of the last great 52-year cycle of the serpent wisdom – the final ‘sheaf of years’. This, he said, was the only time when the first day of the 365-year calendar and the first day of the 260-year calendar intersected during the 52 years of the Calendar Round. It marked the end of the Fifth Great Cycle. The end of the Fifth Sun.
Your head was beginning to spin at this stage. Why was the Halach Uinic concentrating on these things? What did they mean?
Next he told how the beginning of the first of the Five Great Cycles had begun with the birth of Venus, on 4 Ahua 8 Cumku. At this point he turned towards the gringos and explained that in their calendar – which he called the Gregorian – Venus’s birth date fell on 11 August 3114 BC. The Fifth Great Cycle was due to end on 21 December 2012, not with the death of Venus, but with the possible destruction of the earth. This was not the first time the earth had faced such a crisis, he added. For during the preceding 5126-year period, the world had been created five times, and had been destroyed on four separate occasions.
The Halach Uinic now told a story to further illustrate his meaning – just as the priest at your church in Coscohuatepec did when he spoke of the parables of Jesus Christ. The story went as follows:
When the Halach Uinic was still a young man and unsure of his destiny, he had travelled to Palenque to sit at the feet of the great Lacandon shaman and elder, the t’o’ohil Chan K’in. At this time Chan K’in was already more than a hundred years old, and he had seen many things. The Halach Uinic had spoken to Chan K’in of the coming of the Great Change – of his fears, and of his lack of understanding about the event.
At first, Chan K’in, chewing on a large cigar as was his habit, had replied only in the negative. ‘The land is weary and must be destroyed before Hachakyum, the Creator, can revitalize it. The quetzal bird no longer flies. Men cut down the forests and no longer respect nature. The god Mensabak no longer speaks to me.’
The Halach U
inic, being only a young man at the time, had refused to accept this negativity as Chan K’in’s last word, and he had pressed the old one for further details.
After some hesitation, Chan K’in had gone on to tell the Halach Uinic that if this coming event were approached in the right way – through the ritual of atonement, perhaps – the Great Change might not be as bad as he had at first made out, but might instead give birth to a new Great Cycle of Time. If it was approached in the wrong way, however – through anger and greed – this would foretell the world’s final destruction. Such an event would affect all people throughout the world, and not just the Maya. This fact, Chan K’in had said, must be taken into account.
The Halach Uinic now drew himself up and addressed the assembly in a louder voice than normal. ‘It is for this reason that I intend to step down from my position as both Halach Uinic and Ah Kin Mai to make way for someone better qualified to pass on the word of Hunab Ku. A non-Maya, perhaps. Someone more competent to speak beyond our borders. This is my decision.’
77
There was a hiss from the crowd, as of a vast expulsion of breath.
The Halach Uinic turned his back on his people and made as if he would hide himself amongst the other priests. But the priests pushed forward and gathered themselves around him. No word was said, but the Halach Uinic was left with no option but to return to his place at the head of the assembly. He lowered his head and nodded, as if a burden had been placed on his shoulders, and a tumpline attached to his forehead with which to carry it.
Without pausing for thought, you chose this exact moment to walk to the very forefront of the pyramid. You stood beside the Halach Uinic and you looked out over the crowd.
These Maya were not your people, but you felt a kinship with them. Guarding their book had given you this feeling. As if the book, which you were unable to read, nevertheless held within it the distilled spirit of the people you saw below you.
‘The Halach Uinic says that this book is mine. And that I may do with it as I please. That it is worth great sums of money to the gringos in the north, and that I will be a rich man when I sell it. I understand why he is doing this – why he is offering me this choice. But what the Halach Uinic says about the ownership of the book is not true. This book is not mine to give. For it is already yours.’ You drew yourself up, scared in case you had angered the priests. Scared that you had pushed yourself forward without merit.
The Halach Uinic opened one hand to you in a sign of encouragement. Then he moved the hand out in an arc to encompass the people below him.
You nodded. The Halach Uinic’s intentions were clear. He wished you to address his people.
‘Now I, too, must tell you a story.’ Your ears were hurting with the tension of your position. You had never in your life spoken to so many people at one time. In fact you had never spoken to more than a gathering of four. ‘Many, many years ago, one of your people was escaping from bad happenings here. What happenings, I do not know.’ You hesitated, unsure how to continue.
The Halach Uinic stepped forward to help you. ‘It was during the time of the Caste War between the Maya and the Yucatecos. This war occurred between 1847 and 1901. The Chilan protecting this book was the ak k’u hun – the “guardian of the sacred books”. He was caught up in the uprising at Valladolid, followed by the great revolt of the Maya people in the spring of 1848 and its aftermath. He writes all this on the back leaf of the book. Here. You can see.’
The Halach Uinic was excited – you could see the tension in his face. He was clearly moved, also, by the confidence the other priests had placed in him. He had been prepared to sacrifice his own position in order to give you the freedom to act as you saw fit. For this reason you realized that it was up to you to continue with the story, even though it was a difficult thing to do. Up to you to convince everybody here that the book was, indeed, rightly theirs – rightly what the Halach Uinic claimed it to be.
‘This Chilan was pursued by those who wished to steal the precious book in his charge. He fled as far as Veracruz. His enemies caught up with him there, and wounded him – wounded him so badly that he knew that he would soon die. He found my ancestor working in a clearing. With his last strength, he approached him. The father of my father’s father saw what the Chilan’s enemies had done to him and he felt sorry for this man, and hid him in his hut. He risked his life for this man. He was a good Catholic. He knew the parable of the Good Samaritan. When the Chilan was on the very verge of death, with no hope of survival, he told my ancestor of this book. Of its importance to the Maya. He asked my ancestor if he would swear an oath to guard this book until such time as our great volcano, the Pico de Orizaba, would choose to come alive again. Then he or his successors must then take this book to a special place and give it to those who were there. My ancestor did not wish to do this. He could not read. He did not know what the book might contain. It might have been evil. It might have contained magic. But the Chilan called upon him to honour the wishes of a dying man. This my grandfather had to do, according to the custom of my people. And the Chilan seemed a good man. Upon hearing my father swear the oath, the Chilan pricked himself with a thorn on the tongue, then on his cheek, his lower lip, and his ear. He wrote things in his own blood, both on the blank pages of the book, and on a separate leaf he had about his person. This leaf was a map.’ You held it up. ‘And this map took me to you. So you see, I have no right to the book. It is truly yours. Now that my task is done, you must let me return home to my mother and to my work. I have been away for far too long.’
78
‘Well stone me – we’ve got ourselves an honest-to-God ragged trousered philanthropist.’
Abi was tucked into the lee of one of the more extreme of the ruined buildings. It was situated outside the main Ek Balam tourist zone, on a raised tump, thick with ancient scatterings. Athame was standing beside him. The Glock was tucked into the back of Abi’s trousers, disguised by the Guayabera shirt that he had bought for exactly that purpose in Veracruz. Athame was carrying her Walther P4 in the backpack she wore at all times. Given her diminutive size, the backpack made her look like Dopey, from Walt Disney’s Snow White.
‘I don’t think you should do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Go against Madame, our mother’s, wishes.’
‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, Athame. And I don’t intend to blunder into that crowd over there, six-shooters blazing. I’ve got a more subtle approach in mind.’
‘She could simply cut us all loose. Without a penny to our names.’
‘So what? We can always steal. We’ve spent the past fifteen years being trained in every damned knavery known to man. And for what? To baby-sit the man who killed our brother? And the policeman who harried him to death? Calque and Sabir aren’t leaving Mexico alive, I can tell you that much. And if I have to do them myself, I will.’
‘And Lamia?’
‘I know you’ve always had a soft spot for her, Athame, but she’s in with Sabir now. She’s given herself to him. And she’s not the sort of woman who goes off half-cocked, if you’ll forgive my pun. She burned her bridges back at the chateau, and as far as I’m concerned that puts her out of the running for Barbie Doll of the Year Award. If I get my hands on her I’m going to use her to wring whatever I can out of Sabir. And when I’m through with her, she dies. Straight into the cenote with the rest of them. Christ, she’ll have six men all to herself down there.’
‘You’re sick, Abi. You know that?’
‘Are you going to stand in my way when it comes to it?’
Athame shook her head. ‘No. She burned her bridges, as you said. But I won’t let you abuse her. You can use her, fine. Threaten Sabir all you want. But I won’t see her hurt more than necessary. We were sisters once, remember.’
‘Does she remember that, do you think? Does she think as kindly of you as you do of her? I doubt it somehow.’
Up on the pyramid, the Halach Uinic was making way for o
ne of the other priests.
‘Looks like we’re about to get the straight guff from the mestizo’s book. This, I want to hear. Think what that damned thing’s worth, Athame. One of only four remaining Maya codices. And with an attribution, to boot.’
‘What do you mean, an attribution?’
‘The mestizo’s got a mother, hasn’t he? And she knows all about the book his family have been guarding for hundreds of years. We get hold of the thing and we can work on him through her. Cherchez la femme. Isn’t that what the English tell us we French say all the time? They’re right, of course. Achilles’s problem wasn’t with his heel. It was with Briseis. If he hadn’t fallen in love with her and lost the plot, he would have survived the Trojan campaign and probably lived to a wise old age. Instead he let that bastard Paris skewer him in the foot. The same thing is going to happen to Sabir. Only his foot will be the last one of his body parts I’ll focus on.’
‘Listen, Abi. The priest is starting to read from the book.’
‘I can’t wait. I love bedtime stories.’
79
The Chilan bowed first towards his master, the Halach Uinich, and then towards his audience. He raised the codex briefly to his forehead, and then kissed it. Carefully, even tenderly, he opened the manuscript and began to read.
‘I, Akbal Coatl – which the Spaniards would translate as “night serpent” – Chilan and ak k’u hun – which is priest and chief guardian of the sacred books – write this on the evening of the twelfth day of July in the year of our Lord 1562, which is the worst day the world has ever known. I write this to bear witness against Friar Diego de Landa, because such must be done. I write this in the last remaining of the Maya holy books, using the backs of the holy leaves, and for this blasphemy may Kukulcan, who is the true God, forgive me.
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 32