01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (16 page)

“Who could not enjoy this? A Matisse, isn’t it?” I asked, gesturing toward the painting in front of me.

“It is,” he replied. “One of my favorites. May I tell you a little bit about it?”

I nodded, and he sat his cigar and drink down on a small side table and began to describe the painting in some detail.

There was no question that he was very knowledgeable. But what was truly extraordinary was the passion the man brought to his subject. As he spoke, his voice became a whisper. He may even have forgotten that I was there.

For him, I am convinced, the lines of the painting were like the contours of a lover’s body, the colors those of a beloved’s eyes, lips, and hair, the painter, the godlike being who had brought her to life. As he spoke he moved his hand across the surface of the painting, almost, but not quite, touching it, almost as if he was caressing it. For him to describe the painting was, in some very deep sense, to make love to it.

When he had finished he stood silent for a moment, then turned to me with an embarrassed smile. “As you can see, I’m a slave to art.” He laughed.

I smiled back. “You have an equally impressive pre-Columbian collection, I understand,” I said.

He nodded. “I like to think so. It’s one or two short, however.”

No one had dared mention the subject of the theft of his statue of Itzamna during the dinner, but here he was talking about it quite openly.

“Most unfortunate. I was there actually, that night, at the Ek Balam.”

“Were you? And what do you think of our Children of the Talking Cross?”

“I’m baffled, actually, as to motive. I understand no one has ever heard of this group before, and they haven’t done anything since, at least nothing they will publicly acknowledge.”

“My thoughts, exactly. That is why I am taking the theft so personally.”

“And why, presumably, you suggested to the police that Dr. Castillo was responsible.”

He looked surprised at my comment rather than annoyed. “Actually it was my daughter, Montserrat, who told the police about our quarrel. I merely corroborated what she had said.

“Frankly, if she hadn’t mentioned it, I don’t think I would have. Dr. Castillo and I had our disagreements over these works of art. But I do not delude myself. I know that people think he was on the side of the angels in these arguments, not I. It is, they think, a failing on my part that I wish to possess these things.

“You know, despite the fact that I’m on the board of directors of a museum, I often have trouble with some of the philosophy behind them. Almost eighty percent of any museum’s collection languishes in storage. At least mine gets seen by the public. You can argue that only a select group of people get to see these works of art in my home or my hotel, but it’s more than a couple of curators!”

“What about the research the museum does on these artifacts?” I interjected.

“If they want to do research on mine, they have only to ask,” he countered. “As to the idea of giving the artifacts to original peoples,” he went on, “do we actually think the Children of the Talking Cross are going to share their newly acquired piece of pre-Columbian art with their people? What nonsense! They will sell it on the black market to the highest bidder, a collector who, because it is stolen, will keep it hidden somewhere where only he can see it.”

I wanted to tell him the idea that Don Hernan espoused was a shared responsibility for an artifact between the Indigenas and the museum for the mutual benefit of all, but I knew there was no point. This was an obsession for him.

“You mentioned that you were one or two short. Have you lost another one?”

“Yes, about a year ago. A beautiful sculpture of a couple embracing. It was stolen from the house when I was away on business. Insurance covered it, of course, as it will the Itzamna. But in my heart”—he paused for a moment—“these things are irreplaceable for me.”

I believed him.

By this time it was very late. I told him that I would be leaving shortly, and that I had enjoyed the evening and his hospitality immensely.

“I hope you will visit again before you return to Canada,” he said. “My wife does not have many friends here, and it is good for her to have company.”

At that moment the object of his words came into view. She had appeared to me tc be drinking moderately throughout dinner, but had clearly made up for it since. Montserrat was leading, almost pulling her across the foyer. “Get upstairs,” she hissed. “You are a disgrace to my father and to me!”

Sheila moved past us on the stairs, tears in her eyes. Diego looked at his daughter, then the retreating back of his wife, and sighed. He descended the stairs to say good-bye to his guests, who were now beginning to leave.

Jonathan was at the door. “Do you have a car? Can I give you a lift?” he asked.

“I can just take a taxi,” I said.

“I won’t hear of it. I’ve called for my car and it will be here in a minute.”

Just then Montserrat reappeared. “Would you like to stay for a nightcap, Jonathan?” she asked.

“Not this evening, my dear,” he said. “I’m giving Senora McClintoch a lift back to her hotel.”

Montserrat did not look pleased. She was obviously accustomed to getting everything she wanted, including people. This was quite the family.

The car arrived, and we got in. Jonathan drove partway down the driveway, then pulled over to the side.

“How about moving our date up an evening or two?” he said. “My place?”

“Why not?” I replied. No one was waiting up for me, and despite a sense that I was still stepping out on my husband somehow, I could think of no real reason to say no.

Jonathan brought the same confidence and assurance to lovemaking that he brought to everything else, and I began to feel as if a part of my psyche I’d shut down was beginning to come to life again.

Later, though, as I lay in his bed, watching him sleep, pale in the moonlight streaming through the slats in the shutters, one arm slung proprietarily across my stomach, I wondered why I did not feel content.

EB

I awoke to the sound of rain, and an empty bed. A tropical downpour, stunning in intensity but mercifully brief, was passing through, appropriate enough for Eb, a rain day. Ten minutes later the skies had cleared, but my personal gloom had not.

I wandered to the kitchen to find a note on the counter.
Called away. Problem at the site. Help yourself to anything you want,
I read.
Lucas will be by about eleven-thirty to take you back to Merida.
Then ending on a slightly more positive note:
Tonight?

It was not quite ten, so I decided to take a dip in the pool, lack of bathing suit notwithstanding. The pool was still in the shade, quiet and pleasant, and well protected from curious onlookers by a thick hedge.

Climbing out, however, I found myself face-to-face with a tiny Maya woman dressed in the traditional embroidered
huipil.
We were both very surprised to see each other, but she had a considerable advantage over me. She had clothes on.

She regarded me with deep suspicion, and possibly curiosity, as I clutched my towel and dashed to the bedroom. I showered and dressed, and as I did so I could hear her moving about the house.

I had nothing to wear except my silk dress from the evening before, a tad overdone for ten-thirty in the morning. I was inclined to stay holed up in the bedroom until rescued by Lucas, but I realized this was foolish, so I went into the kitchen.

We regarded each other once again across the kitchen counter. She was under five feet tall, with dark hair streaked with gray, pulled back into a bun. Her eyes, surveying me, sparkled with good humor, I thought, and intelligence.

Finally she smiled, and gestured toward a coffeepot on the stove. It smelled delicious and so I nodded, and she poured me a cup.

She spoke no English, and a heavily accented Spanish. Her native tongue, she told me, was Yucatecan. We exchanged names; hers was Esperanza, and she was, she informed me, Senor Hamelin’s housekeeper. She came in every day to clean, and to prepare something for his supper.

Her interest in my dress was apparent, so I told her about my friend Isa. Soon we were chattering away. I said I was from Canada, visiting my friends in Merida. Like so many who have never been there, many of them with considerably more formal education than Esperanza, I might add, she assumed Toronto was under several feet of snowdrifts all year round, and was eager to hear how we managed to get around, and what snow was really like.

“I have heard that every snowflake is different,” she said. When I nodded, she added, “Our world is filled with wonders, is it not?”

She asked me about my family, where I had grown up, gone to school. Her curiosity was boundless. She told me about her village, not far away.

“It was much bigger when I was growing up,” she said. “Now many of the young people leave. They go to the cities in search of a better life, but I do not think it improves life for them. So many have lost their center, their grounding, somehow.

“They have begun to think of Maya civilization as something in the past, something which has been superseded by another—European—civilization. And as young people do, they want to be part of the new.”

“Would you have them go back to the old ways? Cut themselves off from European civilization?” I asked, thinking that was what she meant.

“Obviously that is not possible,” she said. “But it is also not possible for us to embrace European civilization in its entirety, without losing an important part of ourselves.

“The young people must come to understand that European civilization has not superseded ours. Rather, the two civilizations now run parallel. Only that way can they be successful participants in contemporary life.”

“We have a saying that goes something like those who forget their past are doomed to repeat it. Not quite the same idea, but the basic notion is the same,” I said.

“I like that.” She smiled.

“So what do you think of the Children of the Talking Cross?” I asked her.

“If you’re asking me if I personally approve of stealing, even for a just cause, then the answer is, I do not.

“But if you are asking me if I understand the frustration that makes my people resort to such activities, then of course I do. My people have been subjected to centuries of oppression, some of it violent, some of it merely political and much more subtle.

“Think of our Maya brothers and sisters in Guatemala who have been driven from their land, and who live in terror of government-sanctioned death squads. At least one hundred and fifty thousand Maya have been killed there in the last twenty years; tens of thousands more have disappeared!

“Let’s just say that I understand there are many ways to survive oppression. One is simply acceptance, perhaps acquiescence is a better word. Another is accommodation, a denial of what you are—becoming more European than your oppressors—there are many of us who have done that. Yet another is resistance, armed and violent if necessary.”

At this point in the discussion, Lucas joined us, giving Esperanza a hug before sitting down between us at the kitchen counter.

“My godmother,” he said, smiling at her, but speaking for my benefit.

If Lucas had an opinion on the new status of my relationship with Jonathan, he kept it to himself. It did not escape my notice, however, that he was avoiding looking directly at me when we were talking. When our eyes met inadvertently, his quickly moved away.

Not so his godmother, whose eyes seemed to see right to my core. If there was an X-ray machine for the soul, she was it. When Lucas went to bring the car to the door and I was making ready to leave, she suddenly grasped my hand.

“My people have an image of the sun that I like very much,” she said. “In the Maya cosmos, the sun is in our world by day, but must pass through the dark underworld at night. I think sometimes that is a metaphor for our souls. Sometimes we must pass through the darkness before we can truly appreciate the light.”

With that, she said good-bye and turned back to her work in the kitchen.

I climbed into the Jeep for the trip back to Merida. I knew it would be a long and silent one unless I could get Lucas to speak.

“I like Esperanza very much,” I said as a conversational gambit. “Is she really your godmother?”

“Yes,” he replied. Silence. This was going to be tough.

“She seems kind of young for that, not all that much older than you are.”

“Yes.” Another silence.

“Not very wordy, are you?”

“No.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“She is a cousin of my father’s,” he said finally. “Life can be hard here. People mature early. Even though she would only have been in her mid-teens when I was born, it was considered appropriate for her to be my godmother.”

“I suspect she was wise beyond her years even then,” I said.

He glanced suspiciously at me to see if I was making fun of her in some way, but saw that I was not. “You noticed that, did you?” he said.

“She is an important person in my family. Her brother, my father’s cousin, is the patrilineal head of the family, what some Maya people would call the mother-father, the daykeeper.”

I knew from my studies that daykeepers were the diviners, the interpreters of omens and the sacred texts.

“Esperanza has status because of her relationship to the mother-father, but she also has it in her own right. She is considered a person of great wisdom.” He laughed a little. “Some even say she can foretell the future. I think it is because she understands people and the world around us so well.”

“I can see how that would be so.” I thought of her comment about the darkness of the soul. “You are Maya, then?”

“Mestizo. My grandparents were pure Maya. My mother is Spanish.” Mestizo, I knew, was more a cultural than a racial term. Those of mixed Indian and Spanish blood who so defined themselves tended to consider themselves more allied with Hispanic culture.

“Your name—May—is famous in Maya history, is it not?”

He glanced at me again. “Infamous, you mean. I assume you are referring to a distant relative, General Francisco May, who sold out to the Spanish. May is a very common name here in the Yucatan.”