Gods of Jade and Shadow

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “Hun-Kamé,” she said, trying his name experimentally.

  He raised an eyebrow at that, hauteur in the gesture. “Lord of Xibalba,” he corrected her.

  “I can’t go around calling you that. Do you think if we are in the street I can cry ‘oh, Lord of Xibalba, could you come here?’ ”

  “I am not a dog for you to call me,” he replied, standoffish.

  Casiopea made a scoffing noise; it lodged in the back of her throat. She scratched one of the oranges with a single nail.

  He was quiet, and she imagined they would spend the remainder of the trip in silence, just as they’d traveled in silence to Mérida and then to Progreso. He minced his words, as though they were precious stones, probably thinking her unworthy of them. She had rationed her words too, having to conceal her thoughts in the presence of her family members, but this was not her nature. It was an act born of sheer necessity.

  “I suppose you do have a point,” he said, surprising her.

  Casiopea raised her head, thinking she’d heard him wrong.

  “Hun-Kamé you may call me, while we are in Middleworld.”

  “That is very generous of you,” she said sarcastically.

  “I realize that,” he replied in earnest.

  She was unable to suppress a chuckle. “You don’t have a sense of humor, do you?”

  “What good would that do me?”

  His voice was flat and she smiled, feeling the rest of the trip might not be all silent stares after all. It was her first trip by boat, her first trip by anything, as a matter of fact, and she did not particularly relish the thought of spending it pretending she was a nun who had made a vow of silence.

  “Do you have more fruit?” he asked.

  Casiopea grabbed another orange and tossed it at him. He caught it with his left hand.

  The crew had finished securing all the bales and the ship slid out of Progreso, on its way to Veracruz. She did not even realize when this happened, as she was too engrossed in their conversation and had forgotten she was supposed to feel nervous about being alone with him.

  “There, in the cabinet. Get me a brandy,” Cirilo ordered.

  Martín obeyed, opening the cabinet that contained some of his grandfather’s favorite trinkets. It also housed a wonderfully expensive set of glasses with a matching decanter, decorated with a row of hexagons and stylized ferns. Grandfather had said Martín could have it as a gift on his wedding day.

  He poured the old man a drink and handed it to him. His grandfather had slid back into bed, pulling the covers up, and drank his brandy slowly. Martín was not ordinarily invited to share a nightcap with the old man, but he was rattled and did not bother asking him for permission, pouring himself a drink too. When he was done, he sat on a chair by the side of the bed and chuckled.

  “Christ,” Martín said. “Fucking Christ.”

  “Watch your blasphemous mouth,” Grandfather said.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve recently met a god,” Martín snapped back.

  Despite his impertinent tone, Martín stared down at the floor, unable to look at the old man. He, like everyone else in the house, regarded Cirilo as an intransigent stone idol who must be meticulously obeyed, lest they incur his wrath.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? A lord of the Underworld, a chest filled with bones. Nothing,” Martín muttered, feeling cheated.

  “I didn’t think you were ready. And I believed I had more time.”

  For all his aches and pains and complaints, despite leaning more heavily on his cane these days, the old man was indestructible. His eyes shone bright and alert in his weathered face and his teeth, yellow with time, remained sharp.

  “Well…will you tell me now?”

  “What do you want, Martín? A bedtime story?”

  “An explanation.”

  “What is there to explain?”

  Cirilo busied himself with a pillow, trying to make himself more comfortable, and then deciding that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t do it, gestured for his grandson to finish the task. It was the kind of request that Casiopea would have fulfilled, but she was gone. Martín placed another pillow behind the man’s back, frowning.

  “Grandfather,” Martín said when he was done, hoping the man would deign to answer his question. Cirilo looked irritated, but he spoke all the same.

  “I was a nobody, with no prospects, minding my own business and carrying on as best I could, when one day this woman came to see me. She was very beautiful, unhumanly beautiful, and she told me I’d been born on the appropriate day, of the appropriate month.”

  “Appropriate for what?”

  “Sorcery. A spell to trap a god.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “Not immediately. I thought she was mad. Then I met her associates, and it turned out they were all legitimate. A pair of sorcerers, the Zavala brothers. And Vucub-Kamé, of course. All conspiring against the Lord of Xibalba.”

  “What happened?” he pressed on.

  “What do you think? I played my part. It was simple. I was merely supposed to serve as bait, they were busy with the rest. And they managed it, lopped his head off, stuffed his body in a chest.” The old man snapped his fingers twice. “Pour me another drink.”

  Martín obeyed, carefully grabbing the decanter and filling his grandfather’s glass. “Why would they leave the chest with you? Here? In Uukumil?”

  “Vucub-Kamé couldn’t take it with him. The chest needed to remain above ground. Hun-Kamé was a Lord of Xibalba, and the earth was his mother, so burying it was impossible. But Middleworld is not the land of the Xibalbans. Middleworld owes them no favors and no blessings.”

  Cirilo wet his lips with the brandy before continuing. “He could have given it to one of his associates, but he didn’t. Anyway, it needed to remain here, in Yucatán, and he entrusted it to me. It was not as if there are bandits in Uukumil. I thought it would be safe enough. Until your cousin opened it.”

  “You could have taken better precautions,” Martín replied.

  For a moment Martín thought his grandfather was going to get up from his bed and beat him with his cane, like he’d done when he was little. He wouldn’t put it past him. But instead the man glared at him.

  “I took the damn precautions,” he sputtered. “First two years I slept with a shotgun by the bed, in case intruders came at night. I hardly did anything except watch the damn thing. But then more years went by, and it became obvious it was a wasted effort. No one was looking for it.”

  Grandfather had leaned forward as he spoke, clutching the glass tightly. He relaxed his grip and tossed the glass on his side table as if it were a cheap jug made out of coarse clay.

  “Vucub-Kamé came by in those first few years. I don’t know if to gloat or why. But then he stopped visiting, and after a while…well, after a decade had gone by, I began to think I’d dreamed it.”

  “You thought you’d dreamed it,” Martín repeated.

  “That’s what I said. I did not open the damn chest, so it’s not as if I could refresh my memory about what was inside.”

  “If you thought you’d dreamed it, why didn’t you open it?”

  “It’s best not to know certain things, and besides, it no longer mattered. Real. False. Life was what it was.”

  Martín, who had a rather atrophied imagination, incapable of considering for long periods of time anything that was not directly in front of him as worthy of interest, could understand this reaction.

  “What did you get in exchange for your assistance?”

  “What do you think?” Cirilo replied, extending his arms and pointing to the cabinet, the curtains. “All of this. He paid me off. I was nobody and then I was someone.”

  “You might have told me.”

  “Told you what? That I had a strange dream? That I be
lieved in sorcery? I know you all, you vipers, you’d have had me committed.”

  Martín thought about his aunts and his father. He wouldn’t put it past any of them to drag Cirilo to the insane asylum if he gave them the chance. His father was meek and soft, but he had never gotten along with the old man. As for Martín’s sisters, their husbands, and his assortment of cousins, they were all vying for power, clawing at each other.

  “Well,” he said. “It didn’t do you any good to keep quiet about it. Not with that traitor running around. You gave her access to this room, to your things, and she’s not even a real Leyva.”

  “That’s precisely why she had access to my room and my things. Do you think I could have trusted you to take care of me, Martín?” the old man said with a chuckle. “You are careless and lazy, but you must shape up now. The family has need of you.”

  “I’ll do what I must and go where I must,” Martín replied.

  “Do not muck it up, as you are wont to do.”

  He did not enjoy the look his grandfather gave him. The old man did not much like Martín, although this was not terribly surprising, since he seemed to like no one. But he had never been more aware of Cirilo’s distaste. None of this was his fault, so why was he being judged so harshly?

  “When have I mucked it up? I’ve only ever done as you’ve said,” he protested.

  “Listen, boy,” Cirilo said, reaching for his cane, which rested by the bed, and slamming it hard against the floor, making Martín wince. “You may think I’m unkind to you and harsh, but you do not know him.”

  The young man recalled Vucub-Kamé. When his grandfather had woken him up and roughly ordered him to get dressed, haltingly explaining they had a divine guest, he’d simply thought him mad—Cirilo was right, such revelations would lead a man to the asylum—but one quick look at Vucub-Kamé and poor Martín had to admit to himself that no man could have eyes like the stranger did, nor the hair to match. And there had been too the shimmering sense of power, crackling around them, that made Martín sheepish despite his enormous pride.

  “Your idiocies, they won’t do with him. You must serve him and serve him well. Bow low, address him properly, flatter him, and most of all do as he says so that we may not be cursed.”

  “Cursed.”

  “Yes. What, do you think we will keep all this if Vucub-Kamé fails and his brother regains his throne? Would you like to be a pauper, begging for coins on a streetcorner? Worse even, serving Casiopea? Imagine if Hun-Kamé should reward her and punish us.”

  Martín panicked at the thought of his cousin ending up with the house at Uukumil, all of his expensive boots and his fancy belt buckles and the silver cigarette case snatched from his grasp.

  “Fine, fine,” Martín said, running a hand through his hair. “Then tell me how I should address him and any other tidbits you may know. Christ, I may need them.”

  Cirilo gripped his cane with one hand, but let it rest against the wall and began talking.

  Every state, and sometimes every city, earns itself a reputation. The people from Mexico City are haughty and rude. The people from Jalisco are brave, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. But the people from Veracruz, they are all laughter and joy. Reality and rumor do not always match, but Veracruz, lately, had been trying to build up its happy façade. In 1925, two years before, the local authorities had instituted a carnival.

  Oh, there had been a carnival before, despite the mutterings of the Church. But it had been a sporadic, tumultuous affair, flaring up and cooling down. Its purpose and its organizers had been different. Now the carnival was modernized, molded by civic leaders who saw in it a chance to quietly insert useful post-revolutionary values into the community, amid all the glitter and dances. The newspapers said this was a festivity for “all social classes,” exalting the beauty of the women on display—models of Mexican femininity, filled with softness and quiet grace. A few years before prostitutes had been engaged in civil disobedience, protesting rental prices. Unions had been busy agitating workers, buzzing about bourgeoisie pigs. But Carnival smoothed out differences, brought people together, pleased the organizers. There was also, most important, money to be made.

  Casiopea and Hun-Kamé arrived in Veracruz a day before Carnival. This meant the hotels were bursting at the seams and there was little chance of proper lodging to be had. After a few inquiries they managed to find a run-down guesthouse that would take them in.

  “I have two rooms. I don’t see no wedding rings on your fingers, so I imagine that is what you need,” the owner of the guesthouse said with a frown. “If that is not the case, off you go. This is an honest home.”

  “That will be fine. This is my brother,” Casiopea said. “We’ve come from Mérida to see the parade and do some shopping.”

  Underneath the shadow of his hat and with the sun glaring so fiercely around them, it was difficult to discern Hun-Kamé’s features. This, along with the ease of Casiopea’s lying tongue, smoothed the old woman’s concerns.

  “The door of my house closes at eleven. I don’t care if there are revelries outside, if you come by later, you’ll have to sleep on the street,” the woman told them, and they followed her to their rooms.

  The rooms were more than modest, and the woman was overcharging, but Casiopea knew there was no point in complaining. She placed her suitcase by the bed and paused before a painting of the Virgin, which served as decoration upon the sterile walls. Ordinarily she would have made the sign of the cross upon coming in contact with such an image, but now she considered it futile to engage in genuflections in front of a deity, who, very likely, did not reside in her vicinity.

  It also made it a lot easier to fly down the hallway and knock on Hun-Kamé’s door, bidding him to go out with her. There was a city to see, the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, the most important port in the country. Always beleaguered, poor Veracruz; when Sir Francis Drake had not been assailing it, the French looted it, and then the Americans seized it. It was tenacious, one must say that about Veracruz: it weathered Spanish conquistadors, British buccaneers, French soldiers, and American marines. Perhaps that was why its inhabitants were said to be so cool and collected, dressed in their guayaberas and laughing the night away to the music of the harp and the requinto. When war has knocked on one’s front door that many times, why should the minuscule daily ills matter?

  They went for supper. There were many places offering elaborate seafood dishes near the arches of the downtown plaza, but Hun-Kamé avoided the larger restaurants. Too much noise there, too many people, and no tables to spare.The air smelled of salt and if you walked down the malecón you could glimpse the sea, but it wasn’t the Pacific Ocean from the postcard which she longed to gaze at. It seemed fun, though, this port. They said it resembled Havana, and there were frequent dances for the younger set at the Lonja Mercantil. Or else, sweethearts from middle-class families walked around and around the main plaza under the watchful eye of their older relatives: courtship still followed strenuous rules.

  Since they were not courting and they had no nosy relatives to trail behind them, Casiopea and Hun-Kamé wandered around without direction, heading wherever they pleased. They took a side street and ended up sitting in a café, all whitewashed outside, like most buildings in the city, where the patrons smoked strong cigarettes and drank dark coffee, safe from the muggy heat that assailed the port.

  The café offered a minimal menu. It was not the kind of place where one had a decent meal; instead it sold coffee with milk, poured from a kettle, and sweet breads. To summon the waitress, one clinked a spoon against the side of a glass and the glass would be refilled with coffee and steaming milk. The patrons could also avail themselves of a café de olla, sweetened with piloncillo.

  Casiopea, imitating the other customers, clinked her glass and summoned a waiter this way, ordering bread and coffee for both of them, although, as usual, her companion was
uninterested in their meal.

  Hun-Kamé took off his hat and she noticed, for the first time, that he had acquired a black eye patch that contrasted with the whiteness of his clothes. Though white was not his color—she suspected he had elected to blend in with the other men in town who outfitted themselves in this fashion—he looked rather fine. He always did and yet the novelty of him never ceased.

  Casiopea stirred her coffee while he ran a finger around the rim of his glass. The table they were sharing was so small that if she moved a tad forward she might bump her elbow with his or knock his glass to the floor. Others had come earlier and secured bigger tables, and now they were playing dominoes.

  “How will we find the Mamlab? Where is he?” she asked.

  “The Huastec people are cousins to the Mayans, and their gods are cousins of mine. The Mamlab are not one god, but several.”

  “Loray spoke as though he was referring to one.”

  “Oh, he is referring to one. The Mamlab live in the mountains, where they play music, drink, and make love to their frog wives. But some of them venture into town to partake in festivities and seduce enticing women. And the youngest, he is more insolent than the rest, and that cousin of mine has my ear.”

  She knew of Chaac, who carried his stone axe and beat the clouds to release the rain. And there was the Aztec Tlaloc, with his heron-feather headdress, but the Mamlab she did not recall.

  “And he, this god, he has a name, then?”

  “The Mam is called Juan,” Hun-Kamé said laconically, sipping his coffee.

  “Juan? What kind of name is that for a god?” she asked, dismayed to discover deities had names taken out of the Santoral. It hardly seemed creative, or appropriate.

  “Sometimes he is Juan, sometimes he is Lord Thunder, sometimes not. Are you not Casiopea, Lady Tun, a Stone Maiden, and other permutations? And beyond these is there not some secret name in your heart, which you keep under lock and key?”

  Casiopea’s father, he’d called her kuhkay—firefly—because the little bugs carried lights from the stars, and she was his little star. She wondered if he meant this, if this might be her long-lost name.