A Signal Victory (26 page)

The Maya were a processional people. They looked neither to left nor right. In a stately manner they moved off
gravely into eternity, and he had joined the procession. That was as it should be. It was what he had wished. It even filled him with a certain awe. But he was almost fifty. His son must go on. The name must survive.

For even more than what we are, we want what we love always to be there, untouchable, after us.

But in his day they were not so far from reality as that. The Spaniards, though ignorant of India, still played circular chess. The prime minister was called a queen. Time had elapsed so much as that. But a bishop was still a bishop, a rook a rook, a knight a knight, and a pawn was a pawn. All of them, in the co-operation of that enormous two-sided parable the board, which in circular chess, such is the refinement of the oriental mind, had no sides at all, knew their movements and their places.

But the Maya were an oriental people. It was the Wheel of the Sun they followed, not the triune verity. They were a subtler people than the Occidental. They could see that we know where we are only because the same constantly revolving pattern reaches over and over again the same position, only to pass on to the next, and that nothing, like a pyramid of smoke, goes up to heaven and that’s the end of it. Even the gods die and are replaced and come back again. Brahma breathes the world in and out, and is himself breathed in and out. It and he are the same in all respects each time, and yet they are not the same example of themselves. He does it by the katun, the aeon, and momently. Just because it is, nothing is. And simply because it is not, it is eternal. Everything is passing, because it does not pass.

And yet it makes one a little weary, to realize all that.

And one must make one’s exit, before the carpenters come to tear the theatre down.

So one gives this last, perhaps a little hurried, performance.

So Guerrero travelled in pomp, with a small guard of warriors, and ten slaves to carry his litter, though unless he were leaving or approaching a town, he preferred to get out and walk, which was faster. But he kept up the proper forms,
out of piety, to his wife, his daughter, this world, Chetumal, and Nachancan. Out of piety to what he was.

He could not be sure of his reception in Sotuta. Nobody ever could. The more panoply he travelled with the better. For like most men, the Cocom of Sotuta had a respect for such things. Indeed, now he was capable of them, he respected them himself. Now they had no meaning left, he knew what they meant. Since we are to be destroyed anyway, we may as well keep up the proper forms, until such time as we are to be. There is a protocol to be followed, on that last tramp towards the pyramid. Otherwise we offend both our survivors and ourselves.

He found Sotuta festive, with the intangible pathos of flowers, that are so triumphantly there, and yet they must die. The day before they were not. The day after they will not be either. That makes living in today a little strange. The Maya were a people in love with flowers, and who could blame them for that? But their flowers were not the sedate ornaments of Europe, but a parable which leapt savage from the pod and hung there, on their stalks, as though quivering at the leash, scorched in an hour, and therefore, while they blossomed, doubly terrible.

His bearers swerved on to the sacbe leading to Otzmal. Running straight and well kept into the city, it was as deserted as that to Tulum, twenty-five years ago.

He soon found out why.

The Lords of Xiu were coming.

So, for that matter, was he. He had sent messengers ahead, as the form required, and now had himself announced by conches. That meant nothing, all this pomp was terminal, though sometimes he thought only he, and some of the priests perhaps, realized that. But it was also necessary. One did not, if one wished to survive, approach the Sotuta as an underling.

It was also something he owed to Nachancan, that benign warm ghost who sat smiling in his heart, and to Chetumal, which was now a ruin.

And to his wife, of whom it was better not to think.

He wondered what had brought the Lords of Xiu here. It was unbelievable that they should come here. They were too unscrupulous ever to humble themselves, too proud, except among equals, and they recognized none, ever to humble themselves.

It must mean that at last they too suffered from some doubt. At last doubt had touched them, after a thousand years. They were on their way to ask the gods to do something about their appointed and anointed sons.

He entered the city, and there were those who came out to see him. For in a way he had become their last magic person, their ultimate sacrifice, the thing they would give to save themselves, even though that meant going with him to the sacrifice.

The Cocoms received him well. He was a great man, as they reckoned such things. But in twenty years he had come a long way. He now knew certain things it is not right for a peasant to think of, such as that greatness is only a disease, that pulls us down in time. We have not the stamina to withstand it. It destroys us.

It destroys everyone.

It had destroyed him. But then, so would have squalor. It was better to end this way. It at least had dignity.

The bearers carried him into the square of Sotuta. He could tell at once that his arrival was not welcome, by the degree of politeness it evoked. It was not his place to ask questions. His son was among the first to receive him. Everything was as it should be. And yet it was not. His son, too, who had always been so honest, seemed evasive here. Yet it was good to see him.

He did his best to shrug it off. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him.

The cacique and his nobles he did not trust. They seemed on edge. He had the feeling he had interrupted something. There was something a little too deliberate about their cordiality, a little too evasive about his son. Hun Imix was
grown up now. He had become a handsome stranger. Guerrero would rather have had him for a friend.

He had begun to think of these people as strangers again, no longer as a group he wanted to belong to, but as a group he had outgrown.

If life was a walk through a suite of rooms, he had opened one door too many, by accident, and found himself outside. There was nothing outside. All the same he did not want to go back in, and he certainly did not want to retrace his steps to the beginning of the stroll. Nothing was something not entirely unenjoyable, like physical exhaustion, which means you will sleep well. But unlike fatigue, it makes you sharp-eyed about what is under your nose.

Why were the Xiu coming?

Because they had asked to come.

Why had they been given permission to come?

It wasn’t exactly permission. It was a safe conduct they had wanted, through Sotuta territory, to Chichen Itza. They were on a pilgrimage.

The cacique smiled. No doubt Guerrero was surprised. It was what he had always advised, that they should forget their feuds and unite against the possible return of the Spanish. It was the only way they could keep their country, to unite. Was that not so?

Guerrero said nothing. He was not exactly a pessimist, but he had once been an optimist, he was older now, and experience had made him cautious. He was given now only to deliberate risk. Besides, if you believed the worst of people, rather than the best, you were seldom disappointed and sometimes delightedly surprised. With his son he awaited the arrival of the Xiu, in the plaza before the palace. Otzmal was not a capital, but even so, it was grander than Chetumal, for the Cocoms were a richer and older people. He looked around the company.

Bernal Diaz, the
conquistador,
had once bribed his way back to Cortés in comfort with a handful of quetzel feathers. There were enough quetzel feathers here to feed a city. Both
priests and nobles were top-heavy with wickerwork head-dresses from which sprouted ciliated plumes, and were gorgeous in jade, in gold, in ceremonial armour and embroidered, jewel infested breechclouts. Nachi Cocom himself sat cross-legged in the midst of all that, elevated on a carved wooden platform, under a canopy. He was talking amiably. It could have been any state company, receiving a deputation of an equally powerful state, but Guerrero did not like the way his son avoided his glance. He could not help but try to ask a question.

The Xiu arrived in the afternoon, preceded by musicians playing drums, the armadillo ocarina, owl and frog and bird whistles, bone scrapers, and maraccas. It was not a visit but a progress, and though they travelled only with their high priests and assistants, slaves, and a bodyguard, the Xiu were more gorgeous, more full of pomp, and more stately even than their hosts. It was haughty, not tactful, but it was certainly magnificent.

It was almost ten years since anyone had made a state pilgrimage to Chichen Itza. This progress was a holy and almost divine event, and besides, pilgrims were sacred. They were going to offer human sacrifice at the Sacred Well, to appease the gods who had for so long behaved so badly, and now, it seemed, had had a change of heart. It was not merely a procession for the Xiu, but for the nation, which is perhaps why the Xiu had undertaken it. They were not stupid to the uses of propaganda. It was something the Sotuta had not thought of, to embody the nation in such a way.

Guerrero found it sad, simply because it was so assured, the magnificence so touching. He was moved perhaps to join the thanksgiving himself.

The company swayed down the sacbe and into the town. The sacrificial victims walked in a hollow square of priests, some girls, and two pretty boys brought up for that purpose, and trained toward no other. The high priest was in a closed litter high above them. A Xiu himself, he could not be seen, and would stay at the temple quarters.

Behind the priests came the guard, and among the guard, on the shoulders of the slaves, Ah Dzun Xiu, and Ah Ziyah Xiu, his heir, together with forty of the chief men of the nation, all cousins and cognates, some of them walking, but some in litters almost as rich as Dzun’s.

The litters were set down in the plaza, which had been purified. Now the high priest of the Xiu, together with those of Sotuta, purified it again, and the Xiu stepped out on to the flags.

If they were nervous, nothing of that showed in their manner. The father was a little wrinkled, but one had only to look at the son, to know that he was also proud and wiry. The nobles had the same look. It was easy to see how closely related they were.

Guerrero tried to press forward. The Xiu had been so self-centred and so foolish, that he wanted to speak with them and see what manner of men they were. He could not contrive the meeting. Somehow something always happened. He did not think it happened by chance. The deference with which his hosts treated him was too firm.

Yet for four days nothing happened. He began to relax. He was introduced to his son’s wife, who pleased him. It pleased him even more that she was gravid. But though he was treated with respect, he knew very well that his son had been given orders not to talk to him, except in front of witnesses.

He wondered why not. He could not get over a certain uneasiness. The Cocom hated the Xiu. A diplomatic agreement was one thing, but all this affability did not ring true.

Unless it were meant as an irony.

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day Nachi Cocom gave a farewell banquet, for the pilgrims were to advance the next day. Guerrero had decided to go with them. It could do no harm, and might do much good. For his coming expedition he could use the best omens and auspices. His son would also go, as would the Cocom leaders. They, too, had had the time to think about the uses of propaganda. They had to go.

Guerrero was seated well down the room, drowsy with wine, tired, and even bored. There had been too much liquor, too much food, too much music, and far too many dancers and acrobats. Even the Xiu seemed relaxed. They were not, of course, drunk. Drunkenness was a serious criminal offence, as well as a lapse from dignity. But they were not sober either. The caciques of Xiu and of Cocom sat on a dais at the end of the room. The music stopped for a moment, and the acrobats filed out two of the four doors. There was a longish pause.

Outside somewhere somebody sounded a conch.

Nachi Cocom had been leaning over, talking to Ah Dzun Xiu. Ah Dzun Xiu abruptly screamed, and Nachi Cocom drew back, holding the sacrificial knife he had had hidden about him somewhere.

Guerrero tried to get up, and found his arms held at his sides by the men to his left and right. There was nothing he could do but watch.

Warriors came in through the doors. The Cocom guests, too, had hidden weapons. So did the Xiu, but they had been taken by surprise. Guerrero saw his son pull out a knife.

He had forgotten. This son, like the other one, was half an Indian, and so more Indian than the others. He enjoyed revenge, even when it was not practical. The Spanish only when it was practical. It made Guerrero feel hopeless. All men want revenge. One cannot blame them for that. Our emotions are as irrelevant to politics as the weather. But battles are sometimes lost because of the weather, and with battles, causes, and that they should want revenge even at the price of their destruction was inopportune.

He had wanted revenge himself. This sight sickened him, and he realized that for some time he had not wanted it any more. He had only wanted to save a world, not for himself, but just because it was one, and because men should not be able to destroy everything, simply out of greed.

But there was a stronger force even than greed. It did no
good even to hide behind poverty. There was that hate that springs from a worse than Castilian pride. And hate is a hydra with a hundred different heads. It belongs to the best causes, and fights in the most justified wars. When it purrs we call it love, but even when it is well fed, it is still there, a mechanism that allows us to survive the little crises to go to a worse death.

He knew he must not think that way. He would not think that way. But he felt so futilely tired. For the world is beautiful after all. There should be somebody there to see it, after we have gone.