Starfields

by Carolyn Marsden

  But Catarina had gone on and painted everyone in the village, whether they liked it or not. The women whispered that her paintings were more lifelike and beautiful than those done by the men.

  As Rosalba drew closer, she heard Sylvia’s loudly whispered warning: “But she’s a bruja, Rosalba. When she paints people, she bewitches them.”

  Lots of people believed that. Just in case, no one wanted to be near Catarina. She sometimes disappeared from the Highlands. But she always came back, and now lived in town in a small house of her own.

  Rosalba was now near enough to see the thick brushstrokes of Catarina’s paintings.

  Instead of being laid out on the ground, the paintings were set up on easels: men working in the cornfields, women kneeling to wash at the river, musicians at a fiesta, the dance of the men who pretended to be the deer and jaguar.

  For a moment the figures seemed to move as if they were really laughing, dancing, or playing instruments. When Rosalba blinked, the figures became mere paintings again.

  “Come on, Rosalba. Let’s go!” insisted Sylvia, tugging at the edge of Rosalba’s shawl.

  I behold the world through senses other than sight.

  I feel the prickle of shells hung in strands around my neck, looped as bracelets around my wrists. My skin warms adornments of cool jade.

  I run my fingertips over Mauruch’s face, pausing at the deep lines. I compare his face of many details with my own smooth one.

  In our cave I press my palms onto the slippery lumps of the stalagmites and stalactites, one formation stretching to the stars, the other to the Underworld. Bathing in the water of the dzonot, I never linger. I immerse my body quickly and pull myself out with the rope. That cold sinkhole leads straight to Xibalba.

  Outside I walk the paths, sensing direction and the time of day by the warm pulse of the sun on my face.

  Mornings, the cries of the roosters wake us. Softer is the flutter of their wings. Far off, in the fringy jungle, my ear discerns the noisy calls of the howler monkeys as they move in black troops through the trees. Swimming in the river, I become one with the loud plunge of the waterfall.

  Traveling sightless, I guide myself by listening to sounds bouncing off trees and rocks.

  Sometimes I lie down on the ground, becoming one with it, feeling the Earth’s grainy touch against my bare skin. I welcome even the sharp sensations of the insects’ bites.

  I breathe the cave air musky with bat guano, the smoke, the damp odor of the earth, the lightning’s bitter scent.

  Finally, there is always a taste on my tongue: rainwater; clear, sweet coconut milk; dark pataxte; the musky meat of the wild pig. . . .

  By the time Rosalba and Mama arrived in San Martín, the sun had dropped into the Underworld.

  On the final stretch of the path, little Adelina ran to greet them, crying out, “Nana is teaching me weaving!”

  As the Mayan words reached Rosalba’s ears, she relaxed. Now she was truly home.

  Adelina threw her arms around Mama first, then Rosalba. “Nana, let me help her.”

  Nana stood smiling, surrounded by pecking chickens. Behind her, Rosalba glimpsed Papa coming down the mountain through the mist. He carried a huge load of firewood on his back. With a cry of exhausted triumph, he threw the wood down.

  Anselmo, age seven, and Mateo, eleven, appeared, staggering under smaller loads. Papa helped Anselmo untie his bundle.

  When Papa was tired, Rosalba knew to stay away, to say nothing. When hungry, Papa could snap like a dog.

  “Help me set the table, Adelina,” she said, taking her sister by the hand.

  While Mama reheated the tortillas and lit the fire under the pots of beans and squash, Rosalba handed Adelina the enamel plates, then the cups. Finally, she carried out a bowl of dried chile flakes.

  Once everyone had eaten, they grew quiet. One by one, the night stars popped out. Rosalba was glad to be home from the market, the highway, the town. She liked to go out, but loved even more to come back. Now she heard only the sounds of frogs and crickets, the crackle of the fire. She fingered a collection of yarn scraps in her lap.

  At last Papa lit a cigarette, saying, “We passed the camp of tents the ladinos have set up.”

  “They’ve brought lots of boxes,” added Mateo, propping his feet on a log. “They don’t seem to be tourists.”

  “They’ve come to study us so they can write books,” said Nana.

  “And make a lot of money,” Mateo said.

  Mama said, “They must be looking for another lost city. For pyramids.”

  Anselmo’s eyes grew wide. “Pyramids? Pyramids close by?”

  “If they find a pyramid, many people will come,” said Nana.

  “I don’t think it’s pyramids they’re looking for,” said Papa. “These may be the same ladinos who years ago tried to grab our land.”

  Mama sucked in her breath.

  Rosalba had heard stories of the days when land-hungry ladinos had come to the Highlands. The Mayans had fought back, calling themselves Zapatistas after the famous revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. Just before Rosalba’s birth, both men and women had taken up guns and donned the black knit ski masks called pasamontañas. Papa had been the village leader. His gun still lay beside his bed.

  In some places, where the Zapatistas had lost, their land had been taken. But the villagers of San Martín had kept their cornfields.

  Listening to the conversation, Rosalba braided yarn into a pretty bracelet for her new friend. She alone knew that the men weren’t pyramid or land hunters, but scientists. She mustn’t reveal the secret of her meeting with Alicia. Yet, in spite of Mama’s reassurances, she couldn’t forget what Alicia had told her.

  “When I was in the market today,” Rosalba said carefully, “I heard something strange. A man said that the world will end soon. In just over a year.”

  Papa ground his cigarette butt into the dirt. “Who told you that?”

  “I overheard someone talking.”

  Mateo laughed very loudly. He jabbed his elbow into Anselmo’s arm until he too laughed.

  “But it’s a Mayan prophesy,” Rosalba persisted.

  “People want to make us Mayans more exciting than we really are,” said Nana.

  “And I told you just this morning the lilies would know,” said Mama, pulling Rosalba close on the narrow bench.

  Rosalba relaxed against Mama’s shoulder. Of course Alicia’s story wasn’t true.

  As an owl flew overhead, flapping its pale wings, everyone grew quiet.

  In spite of Mama’s embrace, Rosalba shivered. An owl could be a brujo come to steal a soul. An owl could mean death. Or, as Alicia might say, it could mean the death of the world.

  I see when Mauruch decrees it.

  When he brings me the bitter hot drink, I down it without question. Crouched in the back of the cave, I conquer the demon of my nausea.

  With the drink circulating in my veins, I dream the world.

  I surrender to visions of the king and his priests whirling in quetzal-feathered headdresses. I witness maidens wearing white dresses, armies of slaves dragging great stones to build pyramids and majestic cities, serpents with plumes on their backs. I see a great stone calendar. Rubber balls bounce across the stone ball courts of the temple-pyramids rising above the forest canopy. I behold the blue, yellow, and red macaws, and the iridescent green and gold tail feathers of the quetzal birds. In the lagoons crocodiles and caimans laze, iguanas strut over hot rocks while boa constrictors and venomous fer-de-lance slither through the tall grass. Beneath the mahogany, sapodilla, and bread-nut trees, the jaguar stalks.

  Here in the heart of the world.

  “You didn’t come yesterday!” Alicia called out.

  Rosalba waved, breathless from running. Her heart beat quickly. “I went to market with my mother.” She handed the yarn bracelet to Alicia, who sat on a rock.

  “How pretty!” Alicia exclaimed, examining the strand of colorful braid. “I can tell it’s really
Mayan.” She held up her arm so that Rosalba could tie the bracelet around her wrist.

  “And that looks so nice on you.” She pointed to the sparkly barrette in Rosalba’s hair.

  At the last turn of the path, Rosalba had stopped to clip the butterfly onto one of her braids. She sat closer to Alicia than she had the first time. She was about to put an end to Alicia’s end-of-the-world talk so they could just have fun together. Folding her hands in her lap, she said, “I asked my family about your prophesy. They’ve never heard of it.”

  “Well, they should have. Look at this.” Alicia held up a shiny blue book. On it was a picture of a Mayan pyramid surrounded by storm clouds. “Here’s the proof.” She opened the book and put it in Rosalba’s lap.

  Rosalba stared at the black markings.

  “Turn the book over, Rosalba. You’ve got it upside down.”

  Rosalba turned the book around, yet still just stared, her cheeks growing warm.

  “You don’t know how to read Spanish?”

  Rosalba shook her head. “I don’t read at all,” she said in such a low voice that Alicia leaned forward.

  Alicia glanced around the forest, then stated, “You don’t have a school here.”

  “The school’s in town,” Rosalba said quietly. Mateo had attended when he was very small, and Anselmo, too, before Papa had needed him in the cornfield. But she, a girl, had never gone. Mama needed her too much. Who else would watch Adelina while Mama did laundry at the river? If she went to school, when would she find time for her weaving?

  “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have school. It’s so boring.” Alicia yawned. “But listen.” She took the book back and began to read aloud: “‘According to the ancient Mayans, the solar system rotates in cycles of 25,625 years around the center of the galaxy. Once every 5,125 years, it reaches the center. Then the whole galaxy is illuminated by a burst of light. When this spark hits the sun, it causes solar flares as well as changes in the sun’s magnetic field. Because the burst changes the earth’s rotation, great catastrophes can occur.

  “‘According to Mayan beliefs, the world is now entering the starfields.’” Here Alicia broke off to say, “The starfields is a special place at the heart of all the stars.” She waved a hand at the sky, then looked down at the book again. “‘The earth will meet the next burst of galactic energy on December 21, 2012, the date when the Mayan calendar ends.’”

  Alicia set down the book. “Now do you believe me?”

  Rosalba hadn’t been listening carefully. She was awash in shame at not knowing how to read, and the words had flown past her. Alicia was obviously very good at reading. How could she want a friend who didn’t know how?

  To Rosalba’s relief, Alicia closed the book and set it aside, saying, “Let’s make a Mayan pyramid.”

  “For the frogs,” said Rosalba.

  “Yes, for the frogs.”

  They stood up and began to gather stones. As Rosalba worked, piling small rocks into her apron, Alicia’s confusing words swarmed back into her mind. Finally, she asked, “Which Mayans know about the end of the calendar? No one in my family knows.”

  Alicia hesitated, staring up into the tall pines. At last she said, “Maybe the ancient ones.”

  “But the ancient ones didn’t write those kinds of words,” Rosalba protested. She’d seen pictures of the swirly glyphs from old temples.

  Alicia brushed off her hands, saying, “What’s important is that our planet is traveling with the other planets from the Milky Way. When the earth gets into the starfields, a big light is going to shoot our sun.”

  Rosalba glanced toward the sun dropping through the trees.

  “The light will make the sun act so crazy it might kill the earth,” Alicia went on.

  “The earth can’t die.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just can’t.” A sharp rock scratched Rosalba’s palm.

  “The frogs are dying, aren’t they?”

  Rosalba shrugged. “I haven’t seen any dying.”

  “Come to our camp, then.”

  Although Rosalba didn’t want to see dying frogs, seeing the green tents up close sounded like fun.

  Alicia turned to the pile of rocks they’d collected, saying, “We can make a pyramid just like on the cover of the book.”

  “Let’s build the pyramid next to the house,” Rosalba suggested. Though some of the sticks had been knocked out of place, perhaps by a curious animal, the little structure still stood.

  They laid a solid square for the base, the rocks clattering softly. The stream murmured, and soft patches of light fell onto the forest floor.

  They put down fewer rocks for the next layer, fewer still for the next, building a cone shape.

  As Rosalba worked, questions still wound through her mind. Who had written that book? In the end, it was all just words, wasn’t it? The words weren’t even words spoken by a shaman. Nor were they the words of the holy Bible the priest read from in the white-steepled church in town. Was all that Alicia had read true or not?

  “Ta-da!” said Alicia as Rosalba balanced one rock on the tip top of the pyramid.

  Rosalba stepped back to inspect their work. When Alicia held up the book, the little pyramid looked lumpy compared to the picture on the cover.

  “We should name this place,” said Alicia.

  “It’s quiet here,” said Rosalba slowly. “There’s lots of frogs.”

  “How about Frog Land?”

  “Or Frog Heaven?”

  “That’s it!” Alicia clapped.

  Rosalba smiled. Alicia could read, but she’d come up with the name.

  “Next time,” said Alicia, tucking the book under her arm, “I’ll take you to our camp. I’ll show you the frogs. I’ll read you more about the prophesy.”

  One day when Mauruch gives me a handful of dried mushrooms to chew, I vomit. Nonetheless, before my entrails can spew the potion out, the essence enters me.

  This time I see the priests with their great feathered headdresses stripping a man of his clothes. The man does not resist; his eyes are dazed, as if looking within.

  The priests paint his skin with pigment as blue as the winter sky. They lead him to a blue-painted stone, where they lay him face-up.

  The victim is grasped by his arms and legs. His mouth opens in a wide circle, but I hear no scream. He squeezes his eyes shut. Against the merciless eye of K’in. Against the sight of the flint knife.

  The priest wearing the largest headdress lifts that knife high into the air.

  In spite of my drowsiness, I sit up and stare into the world behind my eyelids.

  The high priest brings the knife down, dividing the victim’s chest. The man’s mouth closes, and his eyes open. My breath leaves me.

  The priest reaches inside to bring out the still-beating heart. He holds it high to a roaring crowd. He drinks the blood, hot red liquid oozing down his chin and onto the feathers he wears.

  I wake, clutching my own heart and crying out, “Why? Why, Mauruch?”

  Mauruch rouses himself from his own dreams. He stirs, then says, “The gods demand it. They gave us blood to live, and now we must give our own. Without such sacrifice, the sun won’t shine. The earth will shrivel. Without the blood of life, our people will perish.”

  That night as Rosalba lay with Adelina breathing softly beside her, she thought again of Alicia’s prophesy. It couldn’t be true. The earth had always been the same way it was now, and always would be. As Mama had pointed out, beautiful flowers still bloomed. To ensure that sameness, men tended the corn, women wove.

  Rosalba’s own life was as it had always been. Inside the hut, the dampened fire glowed, the air smelled of sweet smoke. Mama’s bucket of shelled corn mixed with lime water simmered gently. Outside, the night rang with the cries of crickets and frogs.

  Tonight another sound wove itself in and out of the outdoor sounds. Rosalba leaned up on her elbow to listen. Were the crickets louder than usual? Or was it — she could hardly believe this �
� the roar of trucks on the highway? But that couldn’t be. The highway was too far away.

  The noise was like the buzz of a pesky mosquito. Why had she never noticed it before? Was it because in meeting Alicia, she was paying attention to new things?

  Rosalba pulled the blanket over her head, but couldn’t block out the sound. She’d always considered her village completely separate from the highway and its activity. The village seemed like a nest of tranquility. But it wasn’t really. She’d been fooling herself.

  Plugging her ears, Rosalba began to toss. Adelina cried out in her sleep and Rosalba hushed her, yet she too felt like crying out. Be quiet! she wanted to shout at those trucks.

  Rosalba turned over so quickly, she yanked the blanket off Adelina. She wished she’d never met Alicia, had never heard her story.

  The next day, Rosalba didn’t go to Alicia. She didn’t want to know more about the prophesy, didn’t want to see the dying frogs at Alicia’s camp.

  Instead she carried her backstrap loom outside. She tied one end to a tall tree, then unrolled it and slipped the other end around her waist. The loom stretched in front of her, the bright-red yarn of the warp shining against the green forest.

  Nearby, Adelina played at making tortillas with round leaves.

  When she’d been just a little older than her sister, Rosalba had learned to weave plain blue-and-white striped cloth. At first it had been like weaving spider webs, the threads had gotten so tangled, but with practice she’d gotten good at making napkins, tablecloths, and even simple huipiles.

  Mama and Nana had taught her more than just weaving. She was learning to brocade, using a pointed stick to insert colored yarns into the woven fabric.

  She had planned a very traditional design for her huipil: the squarish figure of the Earthlord and his squatting toad. A line running across the bodice would show the path of the sun through the heavens and the Underworld.