The Mayan Codex

53

Acan Teul had been spending the entirety of every day at Kabah since the news about the eruption of the Pico de Orizaba volcano had reached the Halach Uinic.

There had been many occasions during that period when he had been tempted to bunk off and visit his girlfriend at her juice shack six kilometres down the road, but each time he felt tempted by the anticipation of the joy she would no doubt show at his presence, he allowed his thoughts to wander back to what exactly the Halach Uinic might do to him if he was caught abandoning his post, and he thought better of it. There were always the evenings to look forward to, when the Kabah site was shut.

The problem was that Acan didn’t really know what he was looking for. The Halach Uinic – who was the most important Maya priest in the whole of the Yucatan, or so people told him – had not exactly bombarded him with information.

‘We are expecting something to happen at Kabah following the eruption. This has been predicted. But we do not yet know what it will be. You were once a guide at Kabah, were you not, Acan? You will stay there during the day, therefore. If anything strange happens, you will use the security guard’s cell phone, and you will call me. Your brother Naum will keep watch during the night. After the first two weeks, you will both be allowed time off.’

‘Two weeks?’

‘You will be paid from the fund. More than you could earn from labouring. Isn’t it better to laze around drinking Coca Cola than to break stones for a cheating boss?’

As always, the Halach Uinic had put his finger straight on the meat of the matter.

‘I shall do as you say.’

‘Anything. Anything strange. And you will call me?’

‘I will.’

Now, eight days in, Acan was sitting under the shade of a carob tree, fantasizing about his girlfriend and wishing he was sitting in her fruit booth pinching her bottom. He loved the way she shrieked at him when he surprised her in this way. Sometimes she would even hit him with her towel, which afforded him great pleasure.

Just as he was beginning to doze off in the early morning sun, Acan’s attention was caught by a stranger – a mestizo, it looked like – arriving on his cousin Tepeu’s triciclo.

How did Tepeu, who spent his entire time hunting, ever get to know a mestizo? And, even more unlikely, give him a lift on his triciclo? Acan stumbled to his feet and shaded his eyes. Tepeu and the mestizo were negotiating with the man at the gate. Voices were briefly raised, and then Tepeu handed over a dead iguana, and the gatekeeper waved the mestizo through.

Acan watched as the mestizo walked towards the Palace of the Masks. The man stood for some time staring at the multitude of carved masks that adorned the wall, and then he shook his head, as if something puzzled him. After a moment’s further hesitation he turned around and walked down towards Acan. At first, Acan thought the man was going to talk to him, but then the mestizo chose a neighbouring carob tree, about twenty metres to Acan’s right, and sat down beneath its shade. Then he lay down, using his bag as a pillow, and prepared himself to sleep.

Acan glanced over at the gatekeeper’s lodge, but his cousin had already cycled away. Acan shrugged. What did it all have to do with him anyway? A mestizo turning up at Kabah, although rare, was not an event in itself. And the man was now clearly asleep.

Acan allowed himself to collapse back onto the ground again. He took a languid sip of his Coca Cola, and then set himself back to thinking about his girlfriend, Rosillo, and what he might do to her, come Saturday night, if he could only persuade her to drink just a little of his aguardiente stash.