Olmec Obituary

by L. J. M. Owen

  ‘Well, I spent this morning recording basic information for all the infants and juveniles. And this afternoon I did the adults. But they weren’t what Juan said they were.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do you mean they’re not the remains of Olmec people?’

  ‘No, I’ve got no reason to believe they’re not Olmec. What I mean is Juan said three of the adults were men, but my assessment showed they’re all women.’ And I’m right, she thought.

  ‘With you so far,’ said Taid, looking at Elizabeth’s grandmothers, who both nodded. ‘I’m sure you were as thorough as always. What’s upset you then?’

  ‘Carl came back to the lab at the end of the day,’ Elizabeth said, her voice flat. ‘I told him about all the adults being females, and he fired me.’

  ‘Elizabeth,’ Taid looked directly at her. ‘Exactly what did he say?’

  Elizabeth understood what Taid was asking.

  ‘He said, What do you mean, there aren’t any adult males here? Of course there are. Juan said there were. That’s what the grave goods and the writing in the cemetery say. Maybe you’re not very good at this after all.’

  Carl’s voice ripped through her again as she repeated his every word.

  Elizabeth slumped back on her pillows. ‘I’ve lost my chance to be an archaeologist, again!’

  ‘That’s not true. Hear me out?’ Taid was going to be maddeningly reasonable again.

  ‘All right, what have you got?’

  Taid smiled at her. ‘First, you’re being a tad melodramatic.’

  ‘Well, possibly,’ Elizabeth sighed. ‘I admit I’m having a wobbly moment. But it was a shock, and I haven’t had a chance to think it through yet.’

  ‘Ahh…maybe you could have done with some space before being interviewed by the full Grand High Council?’

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Taid looked a little sheepish. ‘But as we’re here anyway?’

  Elizabeth looked at their concerned faces and nodded again.

  ‘If you pay attention to Carl’s words, he was rude, yes, and insulting, but he didn’t fire you. He said he’ll meet you at the lab next Saturday, obviously to have another conversation about this. The question is, do you want to keep working with him?’

  ‘Well…he implied that if I don’t say Juan was right, he will fire me.’

  ‘And are you prepared to lie about your findings in order to remain on the team?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oui,’ said Grandmère. ‘You were never the liar, even as a small child.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Nainai.

  ‘So, if you are pushed by Carl to falsify information, you will refuse,’ Taid continued. ‘He may fire you then, but sometimes there’s a price for doing the right thing.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Sometimes the price is very high,’ said Nainai, ‘but we must pay it.’

  Elizabeth knew there was probably an instructive episode of Chinese history behind Nainai’s comment, but she wasn’t interested in cultural lessons right now.

  ‘And if you leave this Olmec investigation, for whatever reason,’ Taid pushed his glasses up his nose, ‘you can stay involved in archaeology in other ways.’

  ‘Oui. Even though you, my own petite Miss Marple, always need to solve the mysteries, it doesn’t have to be this particular one,’ Grandmère Maddie added.

  Her grandparents were right, but Elizabeth didn’t want to stop working on the women and children from Juluwik. After just one day with them she was hooked. She wanted to know their story, who they were, how they ended up buried in that cave together.

  ‘True, but even though I won’t lie to do it,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I really want to keep working on this site.’

  ‘Perhaps you just have to handle this Carl carefully, then,’ Taid said. ‘Not lie, of course, but explain your findings to him slowly, step by step, so he understands how you reach your conclusions.’

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘I can try that. He might still fire me, regardless.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Taid suggested. ‘How about I go with you to campus next Saturday morning? If things go well, Madeleine can come and pick me up on her way to the markets. If not…’

  Elizabeth felt weak for accepting his offer of support, but was too relieved to refuse. ‘If not, then we can come straight home.’

  Taid nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  Elizabeth nodded back.

  Taid then nodded at Grandmère Maddie, who nodded back, and chuckled.

  Nainai joined in, creating a room of bobble-heads, as Matty walked in carefully on one crutch, Elizabeth’s favourite Eeyore mug in his free hand.

  ‘What are you all agreeing about?’ he asked, setting the tea down in front of Elizabeth.

  The four of them dissolved into laughter. Matty frowned.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you, Matty, I promise,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ said Grandmère Maddie briskly. ‘You must eat before bed.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m sorry, Nainai, I don’t feel like chicken tonight.’

  Nainai patted her hand again. ‘Yes, this dish is too strongly flavoured. You need something restorative.’

  ‘How about you come down to the kitchen, we’ll heat up some cawl mamgu, and do some stargazing from the tower?’ Taid said.

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘Am I allowed to come too?’ Matty asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Elizabeth and Taid replied at the same time. What a strange question for Matty to ask, Elizabeth thought.

  ‘Only if you wear warm clothes,’ Grandmère cautioned. ‘You must wear joggings.’

  ‘Trackpants, Grandmère, not joggings,’ Matty said.

  ‘And there may be a secret cache of rice pudding for afters,’ Taid said, winking.

  Grandmère tsked.

  Despite the difficult day, Elizabeth’s spirits lightened. She would return to the lab next Saturday, she would tell the truth, and if that meant Carl fired her, so be it.

  —

  The following morning, Elizabeth devoured three helpings of the Full Pimms Breakfast. Tomorrow was the first day of her new rotation in the graduate program. She would be serving on the front service desk in the Main Reading Room, so she would need lots of energy.

  Glancing around the breakfast table, Elizabeth noted Sam’s unbrushed mop of carrot-coloured curls resting against the same Greenpeace T-shirt as last Sunday. Elizabeth wondered if Sam had bothered to wash it in the intervening week. As her sister questioned Grandmère on whether the cheese in her omelette was vegetarian, Elizabeth thought she caught faint traces of alcohol on Sam’s breath. Now, now, don’t say anything to stir her up.

  ‘What has everyone been up to this week?’ Elizabeth asked instead.

  Matty and Taid began to answer her at the same time. Sinking her teeth into another delicious pastry, Elizabeth listened as they each recounted the highlights from their weeks.

  Taid attacked his plate a little too enthusiastically as he spoke, splashing his glasses with bacon grease. He didn’t seem to notice. Elizabeth reached out to take the glasses from his face and clean them, but Grandmère Maddie beat her to it. Grandmère looked at Elizabeth’s elbows resting on the table and clucked.

  Dropping her arms to her sides, Elizabeth saw that Grandmère was enjoying her own version of ‘the big breakfast’: Egyptian ful medames, whole boiled eggs fried in ghee and fresh Arabic bread. Yum! Definitely more traditional than Taid’s ‘full Welsh’. Elizabeth knew this bean, fried egg and flatbread combination was popular among the ancient Egyptians, whom she had studied for her doctorate.

  ‘So,’ said Grandmère Maddie, obviously eager to get to her favourite Sunday topic. ‘Is everyone free for the polar after breakfast?’

  ‘Murder mystery, Grandmère, not polar,’ Matty corrected her.

  It was a Pimms family tradition to watch a matinee after Sunday breakfast ‘for the digestion’. Actually, the custom was mostly for Grandmère Maddie – a time for
her to knit, distribute advice and watch film crim. Full stomachs, warm tiled benches, and the click-clack of knitting needles meant the rest of the family often snoozed through the movie. Elizabeth suspected Taid turned down his hearing aids for a better nap.

  Breakfast dishes taken care of, the family moved into the lounge room. It held the house’s only wood fireplace. The masonry heater was a spectacular addition to the home. Once lit, cats and humans could doze for hours on the metres of internally heated benches that surrounded the firebox.

  Everyone settled in their favourite spot, mugs of hot chocolate perching on various sidetables. The sight of the characters from Hundred Acre Wood tripped Elizabeth up for a few moments. Her own Eeyore, Sam’s Rabbit, Matty’s Roo, Taid’s Owl and Grandmère’s Lottie would never again be joined by Mum’s Kanga or Dad’s Christopher Robin.

  ‘Once you’ve finished your drink, you should probably head upstairs and get on with your homework, Mathieu,’ Taid said. ‘I know you have an assignment due tomorrow. How’s it coming along?’

  ‘It’s fine. It won’t take me long. I can do it after the movie.’ Matty’s voice had a rumble in it that Elizabeth hadn’t heard before.

  ‘No, Mathieu,’ Taid said more firmly. ‘I had a look at the questions on Friday, and it will take you many hours to complete. Please go upstairs to your room and make a start as soon as you finish your drink. I will come up after the movie to help you.’

  ‘No! I don’t want your help!’ His face bright red, Matty stood up, spilling hot chocolate all down his front. He threw his cup on a side table, grabbed his crutches and fled the room.

  Elizabeth was stunned. She had never heard Matty be so rude to Taid, or to anyone for that matter. Grandmère stopped rummaging through her knitting basket to stare after Matty. Even Sam’s mouth had dropped open.

  Nainai and Sam looked at each other. Something seemed to pass between them. They stood up and said they would go and see if he was okay. Elizabeth was puzzled – why hadn’t Grandmère gone? Matty was closest to her.

  ‘Taid, I’m so sorry. I don’t understand why Matty spoke to you like that. Should I go and talk to him, too?’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘No, cariad, it’s okay. We’ve had a chance to tell Cho and Sam, but not you. We received a call from Mathieu’s school counsellor on Friday.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She said that Mathieu was in trouble at school,’ Grandmère explained. ‘Hitting people with his crutches and trying to start fights.’

  Elizabeth gasped.

  ‘We still think he’s worrying about his surgery next year,’ Taid said. ‘The counsellor said the school knows it’s unlike him to behave so badly. She suggested we take him to a psychologist who specialises in children with disabilities.’

  ‘But Matty’s legs will eventually be normal again, right?’ Elizabeth said. ‘He won’t need the crutches forever.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ Taid smiled. ‘But you have to remember, at the moment he can’t see that. The promise of no more pain at some unspecified point in the future doesn’t mean much when he’s facing more surgery now.’

  ‘What are we supposed to do then? Do we have to worry that he will go back to…back to…’

  ‘Back to how he was after William passed away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  After losing his mother at the age of four, then his father at twelve, Matty had suffered greatly. For months after Dad’s death, Matty needed someone in the room with him at all times. He couldn’t even sleep alone. Every morning he would be found curled up at the foot of someone else’s bed, pillow and blankets on the floor. It had been heart-breaking.

  ‘No, I don’t think he will relapse,’ Grandmère said. ‘Unfortunately, I think this will be the new challenge.’ Her tone picked up. ‘We will, however, deal with it together, as a family, as we do all other challenges.’

  The strains of murder-mystery theme music began in the background. Today’s offering was a dramatisation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the tale of a lost and rampaging orang-utan.

  ‘It begins,’ Grandmère said, fishing her latest knitting project out of her basket.

  A few minutes later Sam and Nainai returned, indicating Matty was okay. Poor kid. He’d had such a rough time of it. Old resentments flared briefly. It was all Sam’s fault, no matter what Taid said.

  As the complicated murder-mystery plot unfolded before them, Elizabeth reminded herself to focus on getting ready for tomorrow. She was starting a new rotation in the morning, as well as dealing with the strain of waiting to find out what would happen with Carl. That was enough to be getting on with.

  Chapter Eight

  The following morning, Elizabeth stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen. Nainai was pouring boiled water into her favourite glazed teapot. She murmured a good morning to Elizabeth then began flicking her hands over her granddaughter’s outfit.

  Elizabeth looked down and sighed. Overnight, Seshet had applied a fine patina of grey fur to the clothes Elizabeth had laid out for work. She moved to a drawer, pulled out a clothes brush, ran it under the tap, and cleaned herself before gulping down a coffee and heading to work.

  As she pulled into the Library car park, Elizabeth spotted Mai getting out of her own car two rows over. Her! Every time Elizabeth saw Mai she wanted to demand an explanation for the attack during her first week at the library. Elizabeth didn’t want to risk a confrontation where she was perceived as being the aggressor though, so she carefully avoided her instead.

  Walking through the Library foyer, Elizabeth almost turned to go downstairs to the Maps wing: no, straight ahead today. The Main Reading Room was on the ground floor. Judy, as the room’s manager, greeted her at the entrance. She was a cloud of coloured fabric and perpetual movement as usual.

  ‘Morning! We’ve got a meeting first up, one of those graduate ones, but it shouldn’t take long. Then we can get you straight onto the front desk.’

  Great. Ugh. A graduate meeting probably meant seeing Mai.

  Judy’s grey curls bounced as they ascended the stairs to the Library’s corporate wing and entered the meeting room. Elizabeth smiled at Mark, her relinquishing supervisor from Maps. He had been a good sort, leaving her to her own devices. Her buddy, Nathan, was there as well. Paul and Sarah were on time, as were their own buddies and their old and new supervisors, including Sarah’s new supervisor, Mai. Damn.

  The last person to enter the room was Margaret, the graduate program convenor. The meeting dragged by as Margaret asked for observations from the initial rotations. Elizabeth caught the flicker of shadows across Mai’s face when first Mark, then Nathan, complimented the quantity and quality of Elizabeth’s work. When Margaret asked for suggested improvements, Elizabeth kept her comments deliberately benign, focusing on avoiding eye contact with Mai instead.

  Finally, the meeting was over. Elizabeth tried to get out the door first, but had sat towards the back of the room instead of near the entrance. She tried walking between Judy and Nathan; that didn’t work either. Judy bustled through the door, then Margaret cut in with Mai. Elizabeth decided to hang back and wait for everyone else to leave. Nathan halted beside her.

  Margaret turned to Mai and said, ‘Happy birthday, hope you have a good day,’ then sailed down the corridor.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mai replied, then turned towards Elizabeth and Nathan. She stared at Elizabeth.

  ‘Uh, Happy birthday Mai,’ Nathan said, clearly aware of the tension.

  ‘Thank you, Nathan, I appreciate it,’ Mai replied, her eyes never leaving Elizabeth. ‘I know your friend here won’t be wishing me a happy birthday, that’s for sure!’

  With that, Mai stormed off, muttering under her breath.

  What? Elizabeth raised one foot to chase her down the hall, but stopped, swaying on the spot instead.

  Nathan was looking at her quizzically. Elizabeth shrugged. ‘I have no idea what she has against me, and honestly, I’m trying not to care. Let’s move on.’

&
nbsp; Nathan gave her a lopsided smile.

  ‘Come on, Elizabeth!’ She could hear Judy calling her from the stairs.

  — —

  The first few days of working in the Main Reading Room passed in a blur. Judy waited just long enough to ensure Elizabeth was competent with the catalogue search, reservations, and the digital checkout system before returning to her own station in the Meirionnydd Reading Room. Judy helped Elizabeth whenever the queue grew too long, but otherwise left her on her own to attend to the constant stream of university students, retirees and family researchers.

  Despite being tired from long days on her feet, Elizabeth managed to spend her evenings researching Mesoamerican archaeology. If things happened to work out with Carl, she would be well prepared to continue her analyses.

  By Thursday morning Elizabeth felt she’d adjusted to her new duties at work, but as the morning progressed she grew flustered. The queue of patrons seemed endless, with one difficult enquiry after another, and Judy was nowhere in sight.

  As Elizabeth craned her head to try to spot Judy, she smiled at the next customer. It was a teenage girl, brimming with the bad manners of the chronically self-doubting, demanding a book about vampires who go a bit sparkly in the sun. How had it come to this? From the original ancient Greek story of blood­sucking sisters, Mormo, Lamia and Empusa, who struck fear into the hearts of men, to a story of underage heroines sitting around waiting for an old man in tight clothes and eyeliner to come a-calling? Oh well, any kind of reading was better than none.

  Elizabeth submitted the request for her client. Judy appeared briefly to allow Elizabeth to take a toilet break, then disappeared again the instant she was back at the service desk.

  Two hours later, when the teenage girl returned for pick-up and check-out, Judy was still absent. Much to the girl’s annoyance the wrong book had been delivered from the stacks. A vampire novel, still, but vastly different to the one she had ordered. The vampires in this tale burst into flames and died screaming in the first rays of dawn.

  The girl was loud in her derision, denigrating Elizabeth, the Library and everyone over the age of fifteen. Elizabeth was certain she had asked for the correct volume. What had gone wrong? She could see people in the queue growing restless.