Starfields

by Carolyn Marsden

  As Rosalba moved into the light of the fire, she said, “The ladinos are making a road from the highway to San Martín.”

  At those words, the boys looked up.

  Papa plunged the needle into the strap of his sandal. “How do you know this?”

  “I saw it. I saw the bulldozer working. I heard the men say so.” The rain picked up, drumming on the thatched roof. “The road is killing frogs.”

  Papa gave a sharp tug to the thread. “Those ladinos are trying to take our land again. The road will help them do that.”

  Rosalba hadn’t thought of that possibility. She glanced at the photograph of Papa and Mama with the black pasamontañas worn across their faces, and at Papa’s gun from the Zapatista days tucked under the blankets.

  “Ouch!” Anselmo cried out. He’d nicked his finger with the pocketknife.

  Was Papa right? Would the ladino soldiers and their green helicopters really come again? She had no idea, but if Papa believed such a thing, he might make a good ally. “We have to stop them, Papa!”

  “But wouldn’t a road be good?” asked Mateo. “We could buy a truck and ride back and forth to town. . . .”

  Anselmo sucked his finger.

  “They’re building a road right to the Earthlord’s cave!”

  Mateo shrugged. “Easier to get to the festivals.”

  “Your sister’s right,” muttered Papa. “A road wouldn’t be good.”

  “If you want stupid roads,” said Rosalba, glaring at her brother, “you should go live in town.” With that, she slipped out into the rain, letting the blanket drop behind her.

  We shamans walk out of the cave into the night.

  The visible world, even in the darkness of a moon-dark night, is too much to bear. As I walk, objects loom larger. When I look behind me, they have grown small again. This shape-shifting unsettles me. I shut my eyes and walk blind, as I have done my whole life.

  The night surrounds us with the husky croaks of frogs, with the long, slippery hoots of the owls. Each of us carries his own silence.

  Hearing the slap of water against a shore, I open my eyes to the bottomless lake that has manifested in my dreams. Our group draws closer.

  At one with our ritual silence, others greet us by starlight. By their painted faces, I know them to be fellow shamans. From a hiding place in the tree roots, two bring a canoe.

  Mauruch climbs into the canoe, and beckons me until I join him. He dips the oars into the water, propelling us forward into the lake. All on the shore grows tiny.

  When we arrive in the middle, Mauruch stops rowing and sits motionless. The boat stills.

  I look up into the blazing starfields. They are hotter, sharper, whiter than what I have seen behind my eyes. Each tiny point streams through my eyes, filling my body with light.

  Some say the wide band of stars is the road along which souls walk to the Underworld. Others call it the World Tree — roots in the Underworld, branches in the heavens — or the White-Boned Serpent.

  For the first time, I look upon the three stars that form the Hearth of the Heavens: the Jaguar Throne, the Snake Throne, and the Water Throne.

  From his bag, Mauruch pulls a young coconut, cupping it in both hands. A small hole is drilled in the firm green husk. He hands this husk to me.

  I shake my head. With eyes to see the world, I don’t need the drink.

  “You need to witness more than this world, Xunko,” Mauruch says softly, uttering the night’s first words. “Much more.”

  I take his drink to honor his wish. I find it sweet and cool, pleasant on my tongue. I feel no need to retch, and the potion moves into me quickly, powerfully. I lose contact with the wooden canoe, the water around us. Above me the starfields swirl, forming a great whirlpool in the sky.

  The whirlpool darkens, a funnel of black in the black night. The tunnel stretches down to the earth, down to the lake, the base hovering over our canoe.

  The head of a serpent, eyes glittering, emerges from the tunnel. It stretches its head down to the lake, as if to drink, unfurling its black tongue.

  When the tongue comes looking for me, I cringe backward in the canoe.

  “Sit up, Xunko,” Mauruch commands. “Not sacrifice, but this serpent is your destiny.”

  I think of the ancestors astride the tongues of the smoke serpents. Am I to become an ancestor tonight?

  “Go into him, Xunko,” says Mauruch.

  And those are the last words I hear.

  The next night after supper, Papi invited his brothers to join him around the fire. Tío Miguel, with his fat little stomach, and Tío Josue, his hair cut in a straight line across his forehead, had both been Zapatistas along with Papa.

  Sitting at the edge of the firelight, Rosalba tried to imagine the three men in black ski masks, marching down the pine-needled trails, shouldering rifles. Surely, these three could defeat the new enemy of the bulldozer.

  They passed a gourd of sugarcane beer among them.

  “We have to stop those men!” said Papa, lighting a cigarette.

  “But how?” asked Tío Miguel. “They have all the power.”

  “Not all the power. I have an idea.” Smiling, Papa lifted the gourd.

  Rosalba cupped her hands around her ears. What clever plan had Papa devised?

  “I’ll pour sugar in the gas tank of their bulldozer,” he declared. “That’ll ruin the engine.”

  The fire crackled in response, sending up a spray of orange sparks. Rosalba felt her own heart spark as well. What a great idea! So simple! There would be no more arguing with those men. A little bit of sugar and the piece of government paper would be useless.

  Tío Josue handed Papa the gourd, saying, “That would be foolish, Gerardo.”

  “You’ll be caught and put in jail,” added Tío Miguel.

  “I’m willing to take the risk.” Papa flicked his cigarette. The red ash made a wide arc before falling.

  Papa in jail! Rosalba almost stood in protest.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be you,” objected Tío Miguel. “Maybe they’d pin the blame on one of the rest of us. On someone innocent.”

  “Besides, they’ll just bring another bulldozer,” said Tío Josue.

  And another and another, Rosalba thought. Those people probably had lots.

  “They’re not trying to take our land, Gerardo. They’re just trying to modernize us.”

  “They want us to be like them.”

  All three men laughed. The fire was getting smaller, but no one put on another log.

  “They want to get rich off us.” Tío Miguel drained the last of the beer. “They’ll bring in businesses where we’ll spend our money.”

  “But they don’t know we don’t have any!” said Papa, and the three laughed again. He laid the empty gourd facedown on the table.

  The three made their way to the nearby hammocks and grew quiet. At the sound of their snoring, Rosalba stood up and threw a pinecone into the fire. It popped loudly as the seeds burst in the heat. Papa had had just one idea, a silly idea it seemed. The Earthlord was in danger. And Papa had given up.

  “The ladinos are building a road to our village, Sylvia,” Rosalba said as they lowered bundles of flowers onto the sandy shore of the limestone spring. “You don’t want a road, do you?”

  Sylvia remained silent, and Rosalba thought of Sylvia’s desire for auto parts, brooms, and buckets.

  “The road is making a huge scar,” Rosalba persisted. “The trees have been cut down. The frogs are dead.”

  Sylvia said, “I don’t like frogs anyway. With a road, we can get everything brought here. We won’t have to walk. We might even get a store in San Martín.”

  A store would be nice, Rosalba thought as they wove the spicy-smelling geraniums into the pine boughs, decorating the white cross. She could buy candies and refrescos. But still a road would bring such changes. “The road will make everything change. If our village doesn’t want a road, the government won’t build it. Please, Sylvia.”

&nb
sp; “They’ll build it no matter what.”

  Rosalba’s fingers had grown sticky with pine sap. “What if they build a road all the way to the Earthlord’s cave?” She gestured toward the peak above them.

  A faint shadow passed over Sylvia’s face.

  “What if they do, Sylvia? Then what?”

  A group of women arrived with bamboo rakes and plastic bags. They busied themselves with cleaning trash out from under the bushes and rocks, raking the sand clean, all the while gossiping.

  “She loves his brother instead . . .”

  “And I’ve heard her husband consulted a bruja . . .”

  “For a love spell?”

  “And one for money. If he had more, she might love him.”

  Normally, Rosalba listened carefully to such talk. But now she was thinking only of the words she was about to utter.

  The night before, when she’d described the bulldozer, Nana had said it would be sad to bring all the bustle of a town to little San Martín. And Mama had said they couldn’t afford a truck in any case, so what good would a road do them?

  When she’d brought up the possibility of a road to the very threshold of the Earthlord’s cave, Mama had said the government didn’t have money to go that far.

  Rosalba wasn’t so sure about that.

  After Rosalba plunged the last geranium into the pine boughs, she stood up and approached her aunties.

  She explained what was happening with the road, concluding her speech by saying that the scientists who’d been studying frogs thought the road was a really bad idea.

  “The scientists are ladinos themselves,” said Tía Merced, leaning on her bamboo rake. “The ladinos want to keep us quaint. They don’t realize how hard our lives are without the conveniences they enjoy.”

  Rosalba thought of Alicia’s tent with the fingernail polish, the hair clips and ribbons, and the teddy bear nestled inside. Did Alicia want to keep her from having things like that?

  Tía Socorro said, “My husband could have an auto repair business like his uncle does in town.”

  “But the road will make it easy for the ladinos to take our cornfields,” Rosalba protested.

  Tía Sandra waved a hand, as though swatting away a fly. “No ladino would try that now.”

  “We’ll get electricity at last.”

  “Maybe even telephones.”

  “What if,” Rosalba said, stepping forward, her hands on her hips, “what if the Earthlord doesn’t like the road?”

  Tía Sandra and Tía Socorro stared up at the cone-shaped peak.

  Tía Merced said, “The Earthlord would get used to it.”

  “What if he doesn’t get used to it?” Rosalba persisted. “What if he leaves? What if he leaves and the world can’t go on without him and it ends? What then?”

  Tía Merced laughed and shook her head.

  Sylvia stepped up. “The trucks might run over our chickens,” she said, tossing a small smile at Rosalba.

  I surrender as I have been taught, abandoning myself to the will of the universe. I let myself be sucked into the serpent’s jaws. Into his foul black breath. Into the tunnel of his body.

  The journey takes me. It takes my breath. It crushes my bones. It takes my heart as a priest would take it. I have been sacrificed after all.

  Suddenly I am out of the tunnel. I rest in a silence so complete it stills my heart.

  I am above the stars, floating in ceaseless blackness. I look down onto the fate I have been born to.

  I sit first upon the Jaguar Throne, gaining the ferocity of a wild cat. I sit upon the Snake Throne, learning a viper’s agility. And finally, the Water Throne teaches me to flow like the rivers.

  I stand upon the floor of the heavens. As if commanded, I stretch out my arms, the palms raised.

  I receive the blue-green gem of the earth in one hand. I cup my fingers around that sphere, with its precious mountains and valleys, its cloud shapes and jags of lightning.

  The glorious hot jewel of the sun is placed in my other hand. It is the Fifth Sun, for this is the Fifth Era.

  Suddenly, the sun is torn open. The fiery flesh is ripped as if by a giant hand. A great bolt of fire escapes.

  The flames travel the distance of darkness. They travel from one of my hands toward the other. Although I try to hurl the earth-sphere out of harm’s way, it stays in my palm, fatally attracted. The conflagration flames from orb to orb, licking the blue-green planet.

  The oceans boil. The land burns. The jungle-covered empires heave as the earth is wrenched apart.

  Then all is quiet.

  I look down the tunnel. The Green Morning Star, Icoquih, has appeared. Dawn is breaking and the canoe drifts.

  Mauruch is bending over my body. I lie, pale, as if dead.

  And then I am sucked down again. With a soft clap, I become one with my flesh, yet lie as if a flame has been blown out.

  “Tell me what you saw, Xunko,” Mauruch commands.

  But I have sunk far away. I sense Mauruch inside my mind now, sorting through its memories. I hear his soft gasp.

  From a large wooden trunk, Rosalba took her ceremonial huipil as well as Adelina’s. This brocaded clothing, passed down to them from their great-grandmother, was different from the everyday huipiles; it was feathered, the iridescent green of the quetzal bird woven into the fabric.

  Adelina stood, her eyes bright, ready for the moment.

  As Rosalba lifted the special huipil over her head, she said, “Remember that when you wear this, you place yourself at the center of the world.”

  “I know! I know!” Adelina said impatiently, tugging the hem down to her waist, stroking the feathers.

  Rosalba lifted the feathered garment over her own head. In doing so, she suddenly entered an unexpected darkness, as if in a tunnel.

  “Where are you, Rosie?” Adelina asked. “Are you stuck in there?”

  With a jerk, Rosalba wrested the huipil down, emerging at last into the light.

  “Are you all right, Rosalba?”

  “Of course,” she replied, resting a hand on her pit-patting heart.

  As Adelina dashed up and down the trail in her feathered huipil, pretending to fly, Rosalba watched the procession winding up the mountain, which had grown green during the few days of rain.

  Tall trees, their needles shining with light, gave way to cornfields perched precariously on the mountainside.

  When the trail made a sharp turn, Rosalba looked back to see people from town, including some ladinos, joining the procession. The Mayan women used shawls tied across their backs to carry bright, sweet flowers. The men hauled bundles of fireworks and food.

  The ceremonial huipiles, the bright shirts and ribboned hats, shone like rainbows against the green hillsides.

  Rosalba waved at Sylvia, who walked behind, then waited for her to catch up.

  “Only this ceremony can make the world right again,” Rosalba said to her. “We have to stop that road.”

  “That’s what you think,” Sylvia said. “Others have other opinions.”

  “Well, others don’t know,” Rosalba retorted, wishing she hadn’t waited for Sylvia.

  When the procession arrived at the limestone spring, halfway up the mountain, the scientists in their khaki clothes and broad-brimmed hats were already waiting. They stood with their hands clasped in front of them, as if not sure what to expect.

  Alicia came darting through the crowd.

  Rosalba was surprised to see her wearing, not her ladino clothes, but a blue-and-white huipil.

  “Papi got this for me at the market,” Alicia said, looking down at the bright threads. “I thought of what you said about helping the Earthlord. I want to help too. But, oh!” she exclaimed, laying a fingertip on a green feather. “Your huipil is extra beautiful.”

  Rosalba rose up on tiptoe, making sure Papa wasn’t watching this meeting with the ladina. She spotted him, under his hat with the waterfall of ribbons, on the far side of the spring.

  “The ter
rible thing,” Rosalba said to Alicia, lowering her voice, “is that so many people want the road.”

  “They may want it now. But they’re not thinking of all that will be lost.”

  “Sylvia wants it,” Rosalba said, betraying her cousin. “Tell her why, Sylvia. Tell Alicia why.”

  Sylvia spoke softly — her large eyes lowered. “It would be nice not to have to walk so far. Especially when it’s cold or hot.”

  “But what about the frogs?” Alicia asked. “What about the way they’re dying?”

  Sylvia opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.

  “My papa doesn’t want the road,” said Rosalba. She didn’t mention his silliness of the other night.

  Rosalba turned to see Sylvia slipping into the crowd.

  “You’ll have to change their minds, Rosalba.”

  “I don’t know how. Can’t your father do something?”

  “He went to town and called Mexico City. He ended up on hold for two hours. He’ll try again in person when we go back. . . .”

  At that, a little shadow passed over Rosalba. How could she fight the road with her friend gone?

  A group of musicians settled close to the spring, tuning up a violin, guitar, and harp. When the ceremonial music filled the air, the crowd hushed.

  “The musicians keep the water happy,” Rosalba said into Alicia’s ear. “If the water isn’t happy, the spring might dry up.”

  Yet not everyone hushed. Rosalba noticed the town boys talking on their cell phones. Some had on earphones, listening to other music. They didn’t care if a road was built to San Martín.

  When the music ended, Señor Tulán stood over the spring. Lifting his bamboo staff, he recited the usual Mayan prayer in his singsong voice: Yea, pleasing is the day, you, Huracan, and you, Heart of Sky and Earth, you who give abundance and new life, and you who give daughters and sons . . .

  The crowd listened with bowed heads.

  “What’s he saying?” Alicia asked.

  “He prays that the water will be preserved for the health and prosperity of all.” She wished that the shaman had added something about the dying frogs. About the road. About the end of the world itself. But perhaps he was saving those messages for the Earthlord himself.