Invisible City (29 page)

I smooth out my road map until I can see only the states along the rest of my route: Tabasco to Veracruz.

Via everywhere.

In this part of Mexico every town looks the same: rough buildings covered with political graffiti on the outskirts of town; cramped roads that can hardly fit a bus and yet seem to be the main thoroughfare into town; street vendors with their boxes of roses, phone cards, Chiclets, trays of pink meringues, or whatever they happen to be selling.

I never step out of the bus without taking a good look around the station. I'm on a constant watch for police, smartly dressed men in sunglasses, people who carry nothing. In almost every station there's something to set me off. A guy in a sleeveless T-shirt who stares openly at me. The helmeted guy on a Harley who, I'm almost certain, has been behind my last two buses. A guy in a shirt and tie who makes urgent-sounding calls on a pay phone, casting nervous looks around. Could any of these people be selling me out?

When I'm hungry, I buy potato chips and cupcakes. Even though I've spent the whole day sweating uselessly in the muggy, blistering heat, by early evening I'm dying to eat something hot.

I'm staring out the window, watching the endless jungle scroll by. The light is beginning to fade. It's on my mind that I've been on the go since five a.m. As we cross into the state of Veracruz, the vegetation turns into banana and coffee plantations, orange groves with fruit at the bullet-hard, shiny green phase. The surroundings become mountainous. Volcanic peaks with coatings of mossy green frame the distant landscape like moldy shark's teeth.

Somewhere around here, my eyes close.

I wake to find myself the last passenger on the bus. The driver is shouting at me, “Hey, dude, get off my bus!” I stagger to my feet and stumble to the front. Through the window, at the end of a street, there's water stretching as far and wide as the eye can see. Somewhere along the way, there's been a big mistake. The bus I'd taken was supposed to go deep inland.

In Spanish I say, “What the heck—is that the sea?”

“The lagoon,” replies the driver. “Catemaco.”

Catemaco
. He pronounces it to rhyme with
taco
. I've never heard of the place. I grab my map, baffled. “I thought your last stop was Acayucan.”

“It was. You missed it. I started on my next route and, abracadabra, we're off to Catemaco. Shouldn't be such a sleepyhead, should you?”

I study my map and groan loudly. Catemaco turns out to be a big detour on the way to nowhere.

For some reason the frustration hits me incredibly hard. On my own, I can't do anything right. What am I thinking? How can I possibly live up to all these people's expectations?

I can't hold back the tears. I put my hand across my face to try to hide them, but it's no use. I stumble off the bus, sniffling like a little kid.

The bus driver locks the ignition, staring at me. “Hey, kid, don't take it so hard! I just need to park the bus for the night. I'm not mad at you …”

I shake my head, wiping my nose. “No … it's just that I really needed to get to Jalapa.”

“Well, Catemaco's nice too. Why not take a rest? You look like you could use it. Buy a charm or a cure. Swim in the lake, visit the waterfall. It's really beautiful.”

I take a look around. Catemaco feels unlike anywhere I've ever been in Mexico. There's a claustrophobic feel to the town, on the banks of a mysterious sea that goes nowhere, hemmed in by an intense mist. The lake and town are surrounded by thick jungle, and you know about it from the constant noise of birds, insects, and the occasional screech of howler monkeys.

The bus driver follows me to the gift stand near the bus stop, where a huge display of postcards catches my eye. It stops me in my tracks, dries my tears in an instant.

Again and again, I see images of statues, a Buddha-like stone figure; old boats moored on water; the lake in the morning, blanketed with mist.

There's something very, very familiar about them. Is it possible that I've been here before … with my parents? I begin to feel disoriented.

In a complete daze, I stumble down to the lakeside, where a deep ocher sunset silhouettes the low volcanoes and cliffs around the lake. Mist rolls slowly toward the town, enveloping tiny islands that are just visible within the swirling fog. There's a mystical feel to the place.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that the bus driver is still behind me. I try to avoid his gaze. What's wrong with the guy? Can't he leave me be?

In the distance I see something else that jolts my memory. A light-blue-painted boat carries a load of passengers under a canopy toward a twin pair of straw huts. The huts seem to be suspended in the middle of the lake until I notice that a trick of the early-evening light hides a long pier. But something doesn't look quite right. I hurry to the edge of the pier. When I look straight down the pier and see the two huts framed symmetrically on either side, the image looks right.

Finally it makes sense. I've seen these places, these images—in a dream. It's the scene of my grandfather's death.

The bus driver is right next to me now, by the water's edge. He stares at me, long and hard. “Something wrong, friend?
Maybe I can help you out? A little charm, a cure for what ails you? I'm as good as any of the
brujos
you'll meet down on the Malecón, you know.”

Confused, I turn to him. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, don't get mad, but ever since you got off the bus, you look like you've seen a ghost.” He grins. “In Catemaco, that means you probably have.”

“What …?”

He folds his arms. “Come on, pal. Maybe I can help?”

“I've seen this place before,” I mutter, half to myself. “In a dream.”

“A dream, you say? What good luck—Catemaco is the perfect place to explain your dreams!”

“Catemaco? I've never heard of it.”

He laughs, incredulous. “Come on now. You've never heard of the
brujos
of Catemaco?”

I stare at him.
Brujos?
He's talking about witches?

“I've never heard of it,” I repeat, with a straight face.

Suddenly he stops laughing. “Your being here is no accident, friend. You've been led here by the spirits. They must know about your dream.”

“Sounds like crazy talk to me.”

He looks insulted. “Hey—don't be saying things like that. You'll offend the spirits!”

I start to back away from him. The guy is beginning to unnerve me.

“The spirits have led you here, pal,” he says, chasing after me. “There must be a reason. Why don't you tell me your dream? Maybe I can help you out.”

I look at him. “You're a bus driver. What do you know about dreams?”

“I was born and raised here. The witchcraft, it's in my blood. But you know how it is. The town is full of charlatans, con artists trying to cash in on the fame of the
brujos
. They're bad for trade, push the prices down. Driving my bus—it pays better.”

He comes closer and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I'm not messing with you here. Tell me your dream.”

I hesitate. “You want money?”

He blushes and shrugs. “Well, sure, boss. But only when you're satisfied with the result.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred.”

I gasp. “You're crazy.”

“Dreams are about destiny. And destiny costs.”

I hesitate again. Five hundred pesos—that's almost forty pounds!

“You don't like what you hear, you don't pay.”

I sigh. What could it hurt? In a way, I'm itching to tell someone.

In the fading sunlight, under tall palms whose fronds rustle in the cooling air, I tell this
brujo
who moonlights as a bus driver
about my dream. He listens without saying a single word, his face blank. When I'm done, I throw him an expectant look.

He's quiet for a very long time, staring past me, into the lake.

“Well, you got me,” he says. “Could mean anything.”

“What …? But you said …”

The bus driver takes a few steps away. He shrugs. “What can I say? I was wrong. I don't have a thing to say to you. Sorry for wasting your time. Okay?”

And with that, he just walks away, leaving me even more puzzled and confused than before.

The unbearable heat of the day has dropped off. There's a sudden chill. It feels as though a storm might be coming. In the last half hour, the sky has filled with heavy gray clouds. With a sigh, I start walking down the pier, looking for somewhere to stay the night.

Hotel Los Balcones is just a little farther along. The rooms are arranged in a modern, long, two-story building around landscaped gardens. Deep balconies filled with flowers separate the layers. One look is enough to tell me that it's the fanciest joint in town. I wonder how I'm going to persuade them to let a thirteen-year-old boy check in all alone.

I only know I need to sleep. To call Ek Naab, then maybe the museum.

But talking to that bus driver has unsettled me. Catemaco is where my grandfather died. That's what the dream
is telling me—it has to be. Why did the bus driver go cold on me?

I find I can't focus on finding the Ix Codex anymore. The threads of my life have become wrapped around me in a messy tangle. I feel their blood run hot inside me: my grandfather's and my dad's. I sense the call of a destiny I can't and don't want to understand.

In the end, it isn't too hard to persuade someone to give me a room at Hotel Los Balcones. “You here with your parents?” the receptionist asks, obviously suspicious. “Of course,” I reply, all innocence.

“Where are they?”

“They're taking a boat ride. They wanted to be alone. You know, romantic. So they sent me to check in by myself.”

She's immediately sympathetic. “How selfish of them! You poor boy! I'll give them a good talking-to when they get here.”

The receptionist gives me a first-floor room with a lakeside view. The sudden change in weather hasn't taken the people of Catemaco by surprise—a tropical storm is picking up in the Gulf of Mexico. I ask her how bad it gets, this far from the coast. “We'll survive,” she tells me with a friendly grin. “But by the end of the night it's going to rain, and how!”

In the room, I hunt for the hair dryer and turn it on, blowing warm air over both of my useless cell phones. I take my time,
being careful not to let the metal heat up too much, forcing myself to be patient, turning the phones over periodically. And finally, the moment of truth: I hit the power switches.

Both phones power up. I'm ecstatic, breathless with the excitement of sudden hope. It strikes me that Catemaco is an even better place for the Mayans to pick me up. Plenty of cover in the countryside nearby for a Muwan to land.

My British cell phone lights up for a few seconds and then bleeps with the empty-battery signal. The Ek Naab phone remains lit. The problem is, there's no signal. Not a single bar.

I step out onto my balcony. There's no improvement. I walk up and down the entire corridor, holding the phone out to try to reach a phantom signal. Zero.

I notice that the lakeside lights are already burning. Boats too have turned on the rows of white lights around their canopies. Night is drawing in, but there's no sign that I'll be able to phone for help anytime soon.

There's nothing for it but to try the phone farther away from the hotel. So I go outside again, begin to stroll. On the busy part of the promenade, I notice that some tourists are negotiating with local men dressed in
indígena
—native—garb. From the sounds of it, they're discussing medical matters: back pains, frozen shoulders, tumors. I guess these are the
brujos
I've heard about.

A crowd of tourists has assembled to listen to a trio of musicians. They play guitarlike instruments and strike up the popular
tune “La Bamba,” a
jarocho
song I've often heard my dad sing. I watch for a few seconds, check my cell phone for a signal.

When I don't detect one, I give up and turn back to the hotel. The sky's looking really threatening now. At a hot food stall I buy barbequed corn on the cob and munch it all the way back to the hotel.

By the time I reach my room, the rain has started. Heavy from the outset, within minutes it's a spectacular downpour. Not the gentle type of rain we get in England—a real soaking. The balcony floor floods with water and overflows. The next floor up does the same, because suddenly there's a torrent of water coming down from the balcony above. Engulfed in sheets of rain, Catemaco seems even more isolated from the rest of the world.

In my bedroom, I pull aside the polyester bedcover and slide under the sheets. There doesn't seem to be any point undressing—it's already uncomfortably cool. Before long, I'm on the brink of sleep.

I find myself thinking back to something Camila said about the dream. The dream that she, my dad, and I had all shared. She'd mentioned the Olmecs, how they know techniques to enter other people's dreams.
It all connects
, she'd said. But how does it all connect? Is it really possible that my being here is no accident? Is there someone in Catemaco who knows what happened to my grandfather? Can it really be possible to enter the dream of someone you've never met, never seen?

The sound of the rain continues into my dreams. I dream that I'm in my bed, at home in Oxford. My mom is knocking on my door. Have I finished my homework? Have I written my essay? I'm trying to ignore her, but she turns the doorknob. I must have a new kind of lock because she can't get in. She fiddles with the door. I laugh to myself. She can't get in. But then the door gives way and she does.

The next few moments are confused. My eyes open, and after a second or two I remember where I am. It's dark, but I sense that someone else is in the room with me. I reach out for the bedside lamp when they grab my arms, pin them both behind me. I'm trying to leverage myself up with my legs when another hand grips my jaw, forces my mouth open. A warm, acrid liquid burns its way down my throat; I try to spit it out but the hand closes up my jaw, pinches my nose until I have to swallow. There's alcohol in the drink, and a strong flavor of herbs. When it hits my stomach, I start to convulse. My entire body tries to reject the fluid, panic surging through me: I'm certain I'm being poisoned. I'm gagging; I taste stomach acid, but nothing quite comes out. When I open my mouth to protest, a hand clamps over my face, cutting off the scream.