by Lyn Hamilton
There were two boxes on the closet shelf. One contained a couple of very beautiful antique lace mantillas, both white, and some beautiful white lace gloves. And a gorgeous black lace mask, perfect for a masquerade ball.
The other held a scrapbook.
“Does anyone think Dona Josefina would mind if I looked at her scrapbook?” I asked as we finished packing up the room, this time for storage in the hotel, since Francesca said she had a feeling in her bones that Josefina would be back.
“I can’t imagine that she could care now,” Francesca said, so I took the book with me to the sitting room downstairs.
The first pages held a few cherished photographs of Josefina and her son. In these she was wearing white, as was her son. The black attire must have coincided with the disappearance of her son, not what everyone assumed was her so-called widowhood.
In addition to these photographs, Dona Josefina had kept clippings and photographs of people who had meant something to her. The more recent clippings were articles about Isa and her fashion business, or reviews of the hotel and Francesca’s cooking.
Somewhat earlier clippings alluded to Santiago’s distinguished diplomatic career. There was a small article from a local paper that told how the local high-school soccer team had made the play-offs, thanks to a winning performance by none other than Norberto Ortiz.
There were articles about Don Hernan and his museum, and a long feature on his work with indigenous communities to preserve Maya culture.
There were old dance cards, invitations to what looked to be elaborate parties and gala balls, to theater and gallery openings. Dona Josefina appeared to have enjoyed the good life in Merida, and I was happy for her.
There were several references in the papers to a masked mystery lady who attended a number of social events in the city, and I was reasonably sure I had discovered the use to which the elegant mask in the closet had been put.
Along with these mementos were several articles documenting the successes of a number of businessmen of Merida, many of whom would no doubt be embarrassed to know their financial and social exploits were being documented by what I guessed to be their current or former paramour.
One of the businessmen singled out for attention was Diego Gomez Arias, described in the early clippings as a young man on the way up. The earliest article talked a lot about his windfall in windmills, so to speak. He had apparently licensed the design to a large European and a North American manufacturer.
There were announcements of his various marriages, the birth of his daughter, the champagne launching of his first ship, the opening of his splendid hotel. There were a number of articles about the lavish coming-out party he had thrown for Montserrat, apparently the social event of the season.
Dona Josefina had been keeping close tabs on this man over the years, and I had to wonder why. She had to be at least twenty or thirty years older than he. Maybe she had been responsible for his sexual awakening, I speculated with some amusement. He certainly had a penchant for blondes.
Or maybe it was something else. I remembered her agitation when I had mentioned his name at the hospital. At the time I had thought that it was because she had known he was involved in some way in Don Hernan’s death. Maybe he was.
I thought of my earlier speculation as to his current financial status. I had thought at the time that even if the oil business were in the Dumpster, his other businesses would still be bringing in the cash. But now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe he was just keeping up appearances, as they say. And presumably his wife was well-off.
I would have to check into that in some way. He was one of my prime suspects, and I knew money was a very powerful motivator, although why killing Don Hernan would fix his financial situation, I could not hazard a guess.
I returned the scrapbook to its box, and put it with the rest of Dona Josefina’s things. I fervently hoped that Francesca was right in thinking she would be back to enjoy them.
For the rest of the day I made preparations for my escape. I borrowed a large shoulder bag from Isa and filled it with small necessities, toiletries, a change of underwear, my jeans and T-shirts, and a couple of things I thought I might need: a photograph of Don Hernan and a flashlight.
When no one was looking, I went into the boxes of Dona Josefina’s belongings and took out a long black skirt, a mantilla, gloves and fan, and finally the mask. In my room, I tried on my newly acquired Carnaval costume.
The skirt, which would have been floor-length on the diminutive Josefina, was well above the ankle on me. The skirt was full over the hips, thankfully, and the waist, way too small for me, had to be held together with a large safety pin. I planned to wear a black long-sleeved shirt on top.
I tried again to rest late in the afternoon, the shutters in my room closed tight against the sun. Major Martinez arrived at the hotel and insisted on seeing me personally to assure himself I was still there.
Darkness fell at last. I waited until the inn was totally silent, then leaving a note for Isa telling her not to worry, and asking her if there was any chance she could cajole Jean Pierre into using his banking connections to find out about Gomez Arias’s financial status, I climbed out the bathroom window one last time.
It was considerably more difficult in a skirt and carrying a large tote bag, but eventually I managed it. I waited until a couple of revelers went by, then climbed the wall and ran as fast as I could for the Paseo de Montejo, where I pulled on the mask and mantilla and tried to blend into the partying crowd.
While I had been fairly systematic pulling together my costume, I really hadn’t thought through a plan in any realistic way. I knew I had to rid myself of this knife before I lost my sanity, so I followed the crowds on the paseo until we were near the museum, then moved quickly through the side streets and then once again into the garden.
When I was sure no one was looking, I went back into the museo, filled with real dread. I went down to the basement as quickly as I could, into the fragments room, into Maria Benitez’s desk, and then her computer, to find the drawer I needed. Soon the knife—wiped clean, I hoped, of my fingerprints—was back in the drawer.
Like some modern-day Lady MacBeth, I felt as if my hands were covered in blood. As indeed they were. In my fervent cleaning of the blade, I had cut one hand quite badly. This was not a good start.
I looked for a public washroom, and found one several long blocks away in the bus station. I washed my hand, telling the attendant that I was suffering from too much Carnaval, a lie she found amusing. She was kind enough to find me some iodine and a length of gauze, and soon I was on my way again.
As I passed the ticket window I thought of the ticket stub I had found among Don Heman’s belongings, and I watched as people picked up their tickets. They seemed to match the stub in appearance.
I went to the board that listed departures, looking for somewhere that ended in olid, and found one that seemed to fit the bill. There was a bus leaving almost hourly, every two hours during the night, for Valladolid, some one hundred miles to the east of Merida. I bought a ticket, then melded back into the Carnaval crowds while I waited for the appointed hour of two a.m.
I had very little cash left, only traveler’s checks, but I found an all-night exchange that demanded an exorbitant surcharge, but was not picky about things like identification, a good thing since Major Martinez still had my passport.
When the hour came, I waited until the last possible minute, then boarded the bus. No one seemed to think a tall woman dressed all in black with mantilla and mask out of place here. Perhaps they assumed I had gone to Merida for the evening to enjoy Carnaval and was now returning home.
I moved to an empty seat at the back of the bus and hoped the driver would be turning the lights out as soon as we departed. He did, and I hunkered down in the darkness.
I was very tired and soon drifted off. The bus stopped once at Piste, but soon enough it arrived in Valladolid. Valladolid is much smaller than Merida, and not quite the Carnaval town
that Merida is, so I quickly removed my mask and mantilla, and hiked the skirt up as best I could.
I didn’t think I could check in at a decent hotel, with so little luggage and not wanting to use credit cards with my name on them, so just as dawn was breaking, I found a fleabag hotel not far from the bus station where once again they were not too picky about things like proper identification. I paid cash for a two-night stay.
It was a walk-up, a dingy little place. There was only a sink in the room, the bathroom was down the hall, and the bed creaked horribly. I was afraid to take my clothes off, so pulled back the bedspread, a very nasty green color, checked carefully for bugs, and lay fully clothed on top of the sheets. Not since my student days, and maybe not even then, had I stayed in such a place.
I had only a hazy notion of why I had come here, perhaps because Don Hernan had done so, but even then I didn’t know if it had been a recent trip. I was operating on automatic pilot right now, just going on instinct. Two things I knew for certain: that I had to get away from Martinez, and, more importantly, whoever it was who had tried to choke me the night before; and that all of these events, the robbery, the murders, the disappearances of all these pre-Columbian masterpieces, the jade bead in Don Hernan’s mouth, even Dona Josefina, were all linked in some way I could not yet understand.
I knew I needed to rest, and while I did not think I could sleep in such surroundings, I soon found myself dozing off. As I did I thought that in the Maya calendar this very long day had been Men, a day associated with the eagle, a day that was supposed to be one of wisdom.
If I was any wiser at the end of this day than I had been the day before, it was not immediately apparent to me.
CIB
In 1846, Yucatan seceded from Mexico, and wealthy hacienda owners, fearful of attack from Mexico or from the United States, armed their Maya laborers, virtual slaves on their henequen and sugar estates, thinking the laborers would protect them.
In 1847, however, the Maya used their masters’ arms to sack Valladolid, killing every European they could find, thereby avenging the destruction of their sacred city of Zaci, and the subjugation of its inhabitants by Francisco de Montejo almost exactly three centuries before.
It was the first strike in what came to be known as the War of the Castes.
Valladolid, pronounced Bay-ah-doh-leed, should you ever get there, is now a sleepy little agricultural market town, built around a central square, like Merida its bloody past well hidden by its colonial ambience.
I was forced from a heavy sleep by a slamming door and voices out in the hallway. I opened one eye just in time to see a very large cockroach scuttle for cover in the darkness under the bed.
The room was hot, and I felt as if I had been drugged. My watch showed it to be after noon, which I found hard to believe, even considering the late hour I had arrived in this horrible place.
I had not intended to sleep this long. I assumed Major Martinez would show up at the hotel in Merida at some point during the day, later rather than earlier, I hoped, and the search would be on. I had much to do before that.
I had a sponge bath of sorts from the sink in the room, casting a wary eye out for the cockroach and any other insects that happened to be about, then pulled on jeans and a shirt and went out into the heat and sunshine of the early afternoon.
I reasoned that if Martinez was already looking for me, he’d be looking in Merida. Or perhaps thinking I would be trying somehow to get out of the country, which I might be if I had my passport, he’d be watching the airport. I didn’t want to take any chances, though.
The central square where I headed is not far from the area around the bus station, and feeling like a fugitive, which I guess I was, I kept my head down and walked in the shadows wherever I could.
In the central square, I looked longingly at the pleasant hotels and then found my way to the Bazar Municipal, an arcade on the main square where food vendors put out tables and chairs at mealtimes. It was now about two p.m., time for comida, the main meal of the Mexican day, which can be taken anywhere between two and 5 p.m. The little tables were filled with businesspeople and workers on their afternoon break.
There were few menus to be had, none in English. One simply looked at the food as it was being prepared and pointed at something that looked appealing. I tried to blend into the crowd, and sitting under an awning, facing the square so no one could come up behind me, I ordered a sopa de elote con pimientos, a corn soup with sweet red peppers, and a rice dish with the hot sausages for which Valladolid is famous.
Normally one is expected to order a meat or fish dish after this, and then have dessert, but I wasn’t that hungry, nor was I keen on staying in one place too long. Besides, I had work to do.
I made my way back to the bus terminal by another route, trying to ensure that I had a good idea of the lay of the land in case I needed to make a run for it again.
I had brought the picture of Don Hernan with me. He had been a distinctive-looking man, and I was hopeful that someone would have seen him. I asked anyone who looked to be a permanent fixture about the place—the boy in the newsstand, the man who shined shoes on the corner, bus-line personnel. No luck.
A woman selling flowers about a block from the station thought she remembered selling him a carnation for his lapel. That sounded like the dapper Don Hernan to me, but she had no idea what direction he had come from, nor which direction he had headed to. All she did was give me the slight hope that I was on the right track.
I went into a couple of hotels not far from the bus station. No luck there, either. I hadn’t thought to inquire at mine, but it was unlikely Don Hernan would have stooped so low even on his worst day.
I knew Don Hernan did not drive. He could not have rented a car. If he went anywhere, he would surely have taken a taxi. Near the bus station was a taxi stand where drivers sat together, drank coffee, and gossiped while they waited for fares. From time to time I went there to show the photograph to the various taxi drivers who came and went.
Finally, when I was about to despair, a young taxi driver said he recognized the photograph. I was elated.
“Can you remember where you took him?” I asked.
The young man scratched his chin, a rather grizzled affair, and looked thoughtful. Suddenly I caught on. I handed him fifty pesos.
“American dollars?” he queried.
I obliged, exchanging the pesos for a ten-dollar bill. It appeared to be enough.
“I think I can remember,” he said obligingly. “I could take you there. But it is very far, very expensive.” He named a figure that was close to two hundred dollars.
I was running out of cash, and was not sure I could manage this, but he was obstinate. In his mind, he knew something I didn’t, and I was going to pay for it.
The other cabdrivers were watching this with interest. One of them broke away from the crowd, came over, and literally boxed the ears of the younger man. The young man slunk away.
“My younger brother,” he said. “I apologize on his behalf. I know where he took your friend, and I will take you there, for one hundred dollars. But I cannot take you now, because tonight is the last night of Carnaval, and I must accompany my family to the festivities.
“Be here tomorrow at noon, and I will take you.”
I surmised that as frustrating as this might be, it was the best that could be done at this point, so we shook hands to seal the arrangement. As I left I could hear the two brothers, if indeed that was what they were, arguing. They were speaking very quickly and from a distance I couldn’t follow the conversation, but I thought I heard something that sounded like “Huaca de Chac.”
It was late afternoon by this time. I went back to my hotel to wait until dark when I could put on my Carnaval attire and blend into the crowds.
Curtains drawn tight, I sat cross-legged on the bed, afraid to put my bare feet on the floor lest the huge cockroach return with friends and relatives.
It occurred to me, in my tired, a
nd in retrospect, morose state, that I should perhaps feel a sense of kinship with the creature sharing this room with me, always hiding, and with so strong an affinity for the dark. I wondered what on earth I was doing, and what I had ever thought I could accomplish by coming here.
About nine, I put on Dona Josefina’s clothes and headed out again. I watched in the crowds as the Carnaval parade began. It consisted essentially of two floats, one of them a six-foot conch shell constructed of wire and canvas, painted a bilious pink, mounted on the back of a blue pickup truck.
The other float was a farm wagon pulled by another pickup. On it, several people dressed up as Maya Indians were pantomiming a ritual sacrifice of some sort. In an anachronism of immense proportions, a speaker on the top of the truck was blasting disco music.
Many of the spectators were in costume themselves.
Little girls were dressed up in shimmery dresses with aluminum-foil crowns on their heads, their faces all made up with lots of their mothers’ rouge and lipstick. They were having a wonderful time.