The River of No Return

by Jon Voelkel

  She hesitated for a second, then strengthened her resolve. “There is more to life than archaeology, bambino. We need to count our blessings. Look at Lola—”

  “Where?” Max spun around in his chair, half expecting to see Lola walking through the restaurant as he had seen her in his drowning moments, still wet from the canal, with seaweed in her hair.

  “Don’t be silly, bambino, she is not here. I meant, look at Lola and how she has never known her parents. Poor thing. We should not take family for granted.”

  “Maybe we could just take more vacations together?” suggested Max.

  But his mother had not finished talking about Lola. “I was wondering,” she said, “have you heard from her lately?”

  “No.”

  His parents exchanged a glance.

  “You’ll meet someone else, bambino.”

  “I don’t want to meet anyone,” mumbled Max.

  “No point in moping.” His father cracked a lobster claw. “How about this girl from Boston? Is she a Red Sox fan? As I remember, Lola wasn’t interested in baseball.”

  Max could feel his cheeks burning. “Stop! Please! It’s not like that. Me and Lola, we’re just friends.”

  A passing waiter nodded in sympathy. “Amore è gioia e dolori,” he muttered.

  “What did he say?” asked Max suspiciously.

  “Love—amore—is a joy and a sorrow,” translated his mother. “We Italians are very romantic.”

  “It’s not amore,” snapped Max. He threw his napkin onto the table to signify how finished he was with both the meal and the conversation. “Can we go now?”

  He half rose from his chair, but his mother pushed him firmly back down. “No, bambino. Not without dessert!”

  “But Mom …”

  “Humor her, Son,” whispered his father.

  His mother looked excited. “Un momento; I will be right back,” she said as she sloshed through ankle-deep water, in the direction of the kitchen.

  “We have to stop her,” muttered Max.

  “You don’t want dessert, Son? I’ll eat yours.”

  “No, Dad, I mean we have to stop her giving up her job. She’ll poison us with her cooking.”

  “Come on, it’s not that bad.”

  “Two words, Dad: salami soup.”

  He saw the fear in his father’s eyes.

  “I think she’s made up her mind, Max.”

  “But you know she loves the Maya more than cooking. Can’t you pull some strings, find a new research project, something she can’t resist?”

  “I’ll do my best, but funding is in short supply right now. Besides, I’m sure she’ll get bored of cooking in a year or two.”

  “A year or two?” Max repeated in horror. “How many dinners is that?”

  A burst of opera rang out from his father’s phone.

  “I’m sorry, Max, it’s a call from Harvard. Must be something urgent. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll take it in the lobby.”

  Max gazed out of the restaurant window. Duckboards had been set up to raise pedestrians above the flooded streets, and a never-ending line of tourists in yellow rain ponchos shuffled along in single file.

  Somewhere in the darkness, a dog snarled.

  Max stiffened.

  It sounded like the savage, acid-dripping bark of a hellhound, one of the monstrous dogs sent by Ah Pukuh to pursue him all around Spain.

  He shrank back in his chair, half expecting the vicious beast to burst through the plate glass window. “Calm down,” he told himself. “The Death Lords can’t get you here. They can’t get you anywhere. You completed the mission. It’s over.”

  As if to prove his point, the barking subsided into bad-tempered yaps, and a soggy poodle stared mournfully in at him as its owner stopped to read the restaurant menu.

  Max smiled to himself.

  He had to stop thinking that every barking dog was a hellhound.

  He had to lose that hunted feeling.

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump out of his skin.

  He turned to see his mother holding out a little glass bowl.

  “Try it, bambino.”

  Max looked in the bowl. Red sludge, flecked with green bits.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s my new invention! Pizza Gelato!”

  “Pizza Gelato?” repeated Max incredulously. “Ice cream and pizza? Mixed together? That’s”—he was going to say “disgusting,” but seeing his mother’s excited expression, he stopped himself just in time—“unusual.”

  “I know, right? Molto perfetto! A stroke of genius! I feel like Leonardo da Vinci!”

  She put down the bowl and took Max’s hands. Her eyes were shining with excitement. “My vision is for a range of main-course gelati. You can be my chief taster! Pizza, spaghetti, clams … there is nothing we cannot make into gelato. We could even diversify into Pasta Popsicles. What do you think?”

  Max disentangled his hands. His future was looking bleaker than ever. “Have you told Dad about this idea?”

  “No, I wanted to surprise you both tonight. Where is he? Let’s tell him together.”

  They found him slumped on a sofa in the lobby, staring at his phone. He looked shell-shocked.

  “What is the matter? Did someone die?” cried Max’s mother.

  “No, but … sit down, Carla. We need to talk. Professor Delgado just called. She had some big news.”

  “Dolores Delgado? Our head of department? Was it good news or bad news?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Frank, tell me. What did she say?”

  “She said that an anonymous benefactor has offered her a grant to excavate the Black Pyramid of Ah Pukuh.”

  “But that is good news, Frank!”

  “Well, it’s just a cosmetic job at this stage. No tombs or interior rooms. They just want it all uncovered and smartened up a bit, so tourists can run up and down the steps.”

  “Doesn’t she know that the Black Pyramid is a deathtrap?” interjected Max. “She should be telling the tourists to stay away. Lola was nearly sacrificed there and—”

  “Now, now,” said his father, “don’t let your imagination run away with you. Things got a little crazy there for a moment with the Jaguar Stones but, these days, the Black Pyramid is just another overgrown ruin.”

  “What about—,” Max tried to argue, but his parents were talking ten to the dozen.

  “And it’s in such a beautiful location,” his mother was saying, “right by the sea. It would make a perfect stop for the cruise ships.”

  “That’s exactly what this benefactor has in mind! They want to capitalize on the buzz about the so-called end of the Maya calendar and get started straightaway. So what do you think, Carla? Professor Delgado says the permits are in order and, with funding so scarce these days, she’s keen to accept the offer.”

  “Absolutely,” said Max’s mother. “I would be happy to recommend some of my graduate students. They could make their names on a dig like this.”

  “Ah,” said Max’s father, “that’s the bad news. It is a condition of the grant money that you and I undertake the job, Carla.”

  “Us? But that’s impossible. We would have to relocate to San Xavier for months, maybe years. What about Max?”

  “The benefactor has included a generous salary to compensate us for the inconvenience. Max could go to the best school in San Xavier, employ a private tutor, whatever he wants.”

  “Is anyone going to ask what I think?’ asked Max.

  His parents ignored him.

  “Who is this benefactor?” asked his mother.

  His father shrugged. “Some committee or other. I didn’t catch the name. But as luck would have it, they’re in Venice right now. They want to meet us at the Historical Society ball tomorrow night.”

  “A ball?” His mother brightened for a moment, then shook her head sadly. “We have to tell them no, Frank. It’s out of the question.”

  “Won’t you even consider
it?”

  “I promised Max I’d take a break from archaeology. We are going into business together.”

  “You and Max? What kind of business?”

  She showed him the cup of rapidly melting herb-flecked red mush.

  “What is that?” Max’s father sounded appalled.

  Max’s mother looked hurt. “Savory gelato. It’s our first flavor. Pizza Margherita.”

  “Is … is this really what you want, Max?” asked his father dubiously.

  Before Max could answer, his mother answered for him: “Of course it’s what he wants. It will be our family business.”

  “But we have a family business,” his father reminded her. “It’s archaeology.”

  They both turned to Max expectantly.

  He looked miserably from one to the other.

  Whichever parent he agreed with, he was doomed.

  If his mother stayed home and cooked all day, he faced a lifetime of Pizza Gelato.

  But if he chose his father’s plan, he’d have to return to the Black Pyramid—where he’d already had two narrow escapes. (The first time he’d almost been tricked into signing away his soul; the second time, he’d narrowly avoided being hurled into the underworld for eternity.)

  He sighed. “So let me get this straight. You promise that you wouldn’t be working inside the Black Pyramid?”

  “That’s right. Our job is simply to make it look pretty so tourists can take photos and get back to the cruise ship.”

  “Maybe we could start up a gelato stand,” mused his mother.

  Max felt like a contestant on a game show.

  He wished he could phone a friend.

  Specifically, he wished he could phone Lola.

  His father pressed him for a decision. “What’s it to be, Max? What do you want?”

  What did he want?

  He thought about it.

  What he really, really wanted was to see Lola.

  Maybe his brain was addled from the octopus incident, but he’d been thinking about her nonstop ever since.

  And Lola was in San Xavier.

  Was it safe to go back?

  Yeah, why not? He rationalized that all the bad stuff was caused by the portal-opening powers of the Black Jaguar. Since that stone—for better or worse—was now hidden away in Xibalba, there was no way anyone on Earth could reactivate the pyramid.

  The question, he told himself, was not was it safe to go back to San Xavier, but was it safe to eat Pizza Gelato?

  He took another look at the mush in the cup.

  “Take the job,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  So that was how it started, the next round in the battle for planet Earth—not with a challenge or a war or a face-off, but with a cup of pizza-flavored dessert.

  In the halls of Xibalba, a cheer went up.

  “We did it!” crowed One Death, most senior of the Death Lords. “Now we will have our revenge.”

  “I can’t believe they fell for it!” agreed the Demon of Pus. He took a handful of fried rat eyeballs from a gourd on the table and munched on them like popcorn. “That dame must be one bad cook.”

  “It will be a night you will always remember,” Max’s mother pointed out as she confiscated the video game controller. “Now stop playing games and start getting ready.”

  “But I don’t want to go to the ball,” wailed Max.

  “Me neither,” agreed his father. “But the benefactors will be there, and if we don’t show up, we won’t get the money.”

  “What’s a ball anyway?” asked Max. “Is it all waltzes and footmen in wigs?”

  “I hope not,” said his father. “I’m planning to show off my new disco moves.” He did an impression of a robotic rooster.

  Max’s mother looked from her husband to her son in despair. “What is the matter with you two? The Historical Society ball is a grand occasion. It is an honor to be invited.”

  Max shrugged. He was feeling jet-lagged and cranky. This was only their second night in Venice and now, thanks to last night’s phone call from Harvard, his father had changed their tickets and they were flying back to Boston the next day. “Can’t I just stay here and order room service?”

  “Sorry, Son,” said his father, “but the benefactors want to meet the whole family.”

  “Besides,” added his mother, “you need to get out and see something of Venice. You’ve wasted the whole day in this room playing video games.”

  She had a point.

  And, to tell the truth, he was getting a little bored.

  Having girded himself in armor to fight lions in the Colosseum (Gladiator Glory!), donned doublet and hose to hunt down poisoners in medieval Florence (Florentine Folly!), and posed in a pin-striped suit to infiltrate gangsters in Sicily (Mafia Meltdown!), he’d come to realize that whoever had designed these Italian video games was more into fashion than special effects.

  In any case, the real reason he’d stayed in the hotel all day was to wait for an e-mail from Lola.

  As soon as he’d got back last night, he’d e-mailed her about his imminent return to San Xavier.

  He’d expected an instant reply.

  Maybe even a spontaneous outpouring of joy.

  But nothing. Not a peep.

  His mother, still talking about the ball, tried a new tack. “We can go for a big dinner afterward,” she wheedled. “I heard of a place that makes pizzas the size of cart wheels.”

  Max sighed. He was helpless to resist the prospect of one last juicy, doughy, cheesy, real Italian pizza. “All right. Just promise that we won’t stay long at this ball. And if you try to make me dance, I’m leaving.”

  “Deal.” His mother smiled. “Let me show you your mask.”

  “Mask? What mask?”

  “It’s a masquerade ball. It’s a Venetian tradition. Look, I’m a peacock”—she waved a greeny-bluey, feathery confection—“and your father is—”

  “Wait, don’t tell him!” Max’s father ran into the other room.

  “Okay now, Max,” came his voice on the other side of the door, “imagine it’s the Middle Ages. You’re lying on your deathbed, covered in bubonic plague boils, waiting for the doctor and … knock, knock!”

  A head popped round the door in a wide-brimmed black hat and a sinister white bird mask with wire spectacles and a long, thin, curving beak.

  “Whoa! What are you? Doctor Death?”

  His father stepped into the room, swishing his floor-length black coat. “Close. I’m a medico della peste, a plague doctor.”

  Max looked him up and down. “I don’t get it.”

  “It was all designed to avoid contact with patients. Doctors stuffed the beak with herbs to ward off plague germs.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I don’t know. I’m more worried about how I’m going to eat anything while I’m wearing it.”

  Max brightened. “Will there be food?”

  “Of course, bambino. We Italians would never throw a party without food.”

  Max’s mother, who was now wearing a peacock-blue ball gown, handed him a black Zorro eye mask with a little gold braid at the edges. “Here, this is yours. It comes with a three-cornered hat and a cape, if you want to try the full effect.”

  Max put it all on and looked in the mirror. Much to his surprise, he looked pretty cool—like a mysterious and dashing highwayman.

  “Andiamo!” said his mother, putting on her own mask. “Let’s go.”

  It was getting dark, and a fog was rolling in from the lagoon. The wet streets bore evidence of an earlier high tide, but for now the canal water was staying within its bounds.

  As Max’s family crossed a little stepped bridge on their way to the water-taxi stop, a fat brown rat waddled across their path, its long tail dragging lazily behind it.

  “And there’s the culprit who brought the plague to Europe,” said Max’s father. “Or its fleas did, at any rate.”

  “Why isn’t it scared of us?” asked Max.


  “Why should it be? They say there are four rats in Venice for every human.”

  “There are three of us, so that makes twelve.” Max looked nervously around for the brown rat’s friends, then stamped his foot to scare it away.

  The rat sat on its haunches, and looked straight at him.

  It seemed to Max that they locked eyes.

  What? Wait! Did that rat just wink at him?

  As the rodent turned and plopped into the water, a bloodcurdling scream cut through the night air.

  “What was that?” Max looked around nervously.

  “Just a cat,” said his mother.

  “Or,” said his father, his voice distorted by the plague-doctor mask, “was it the Blind Doge?”

  “What’s a doge?” asked Max, glad to drown out the spooky noises with conversation.

  “Back in the days when Venice was a republic, the doge was our elected ruler,” replied his mother. “We do not have them anymore.”

  “No?” His father turned his sinister mask toward her. “And yet they say that the Blind Doge, Enrico Dandolo, still walks these streets at night, with burning coals for eyes. In life he was a ruthless warmonger. In death, to atone for the innocent blood he shed, he must carry a sword by its blade, constantly cutting his fingers on it and screaming in pain.”

  “Stop trying to frighten us, Frank. It was a cat,” said Max’s mother firmly.

  “Are you sure?” teased his father. “Or was it that other famous Venetian, the Headless Doge? He was beheaded for treason and buried with his head between his legs. Now, with his hands still tied behind his back, his body wanders in search of his head, sobbing and crying out in shame.”

  “How can he cry out if he doesn’t have a head?” asked Max.

  “The point is,” said his father, “that sometimes they pass on the street, the Blind Doge and the Headless Doge, but neither one can see the other.”

  Max’s mother shuddered. “The streets of Venice are alive with ghosts.” She pulled her shawl tighter around her, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Tonight it reminds me of Xibalba … the chills and damp, the shapes in the mist, the smell of death and decay.”

  “And the rats,” added his father.

  It bothered Max that his parents could reminisce about their imprisonment in the Maya underworld as casually as other people’s parents might discuss a weekend in Milwaukee.