The Xibalba Murders

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.”

There was something in his voice that told me this was not a subject to pursue, so I left it at that.

We sat in a rather more companionable silence for a while, then I tried another tack.

“I believe I have met a friend of yours,” I said.

He looked surprised. “Who might that be?”

“Eulalia Gonzalez. I met her at the morgue. She seems very nice, so we had a coffee together yesterday.”

“My cousin,” he said. Kissing cousin, I thought maliciously.

“Did she mention me to you?” he asked.

“No. I saw you, actually, as I came to the restaurant.” That gave him pause.

“Yes, she is very nice,” was all he said on that subject, too.

I tried another approach.

“Jonathan mentioned there was a problem at the site,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. Another silence.

“Oh, come on, Lucas. Talk to me!” I said, my exasperation evident, I’m sure. “I’ve seen you engaged in what appears to be animated conversation with other people. Why won’t you talk to me?”

We sat in stony silence now, watching the pavement ahead.

“There’s a work stoppage at the site,” he said at last. “The workers all walked out.”

“A mutiny!” I said. “Whatever for? Not that it can be fun working away down there. Both painstaking and backbreaking work, I’d say.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s not the reason they’ve… mutinied.” He smiled for a moment at the term.

“They say the Lords of Darkness are angry that we’re working there. That horrible things will happen—are happening—because of our work.”

“What kind of bad things?”

“Just little things. One of the workmen cut himself quite badly on one of the flint blades you saw. Another found marks in the sand in the cave that he says are the work of the Lords of Death. That sort of thing.

“These are not well-educated people, you understand,” he said in an apologetic tone.

“Well, that might explain it, I suppose. Either that or there really are bad things happening. My experience here to date would say that it was so.”

“Yes, you’ve had a bad time,” he agreed. “Anyway, when I get back, I’ll be negotiating the conditions of their return to work.” He smiled.

We’d arrived at the hotel. I thanked him for the ride and went inside.

Isa and Santiago were at the desk. He looked at me sternly, no doubt feeling that he was my parents’ representative while I was here, no matter how old I was. Isa, however, smiled when she saw me. “I guess my dress was a big success,” she said. I made a face.

There were two messages, one from Margaret Semple, my contact at the Canadian embassy in Mexico City, the other from Alex, informing me that there was a small leak in my basement, nothing to worry about, but would I please call him.

I called Margaret Semple first, from the hotel. After expressing her sympathy at the passing of Dr. Castillo, she got down to business.

“This is one nasty policeman you’ve got yourself tied up with,” she began.

“Couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But what specifically are you referring to?”

“While I couldn’t pin down anything—which doesn’t surprise me, I assure you, the military and the police here are not subject to the same controls we’ve come to expect at home—I get the impression your Major Martinez is not above a little illegal activity himself. I’d try to stay on his good side, if I were you.”

Too late for that, I thought, but thanked her for the warning.

“We’re still working on the passport, although I gather you are cleared to leave the hotel. I wouldn’t go out of town without checking in with the major, though. Don’t give him any excuse to go after you.”

I thanked her and went to hang up when she said, “Call me every couple of days, will you, so that I know you are okay?”

I guess she really was concerned. I wondered what it took to worry someone like Margaret Semple. More than it took to worry me, no doubt. And she was the second person after Eulalia Gonzalez to comment on Martinez’s dishonesty.

I then slipped out of the hotel and headed for my favorite public phone in the dark hallway of the Cafe Escobar.

Alex answered right away.

“I’m glad it’s you. I was beginning to get a little worried,” he said. I decided not to mention where I’d spent the last fifteen hours.

“What have you got for me, Alex?” I asked.

“Lots of stuff. Fascinating stuff, I must say. Where would you like me to start?”

“The books.”

“Okay. You may know this already, but it won’t take that long, because quite frankly, books of the Maya are fundamentally very rare. The most important, in terms of our knowledge of it, is the Popol Vuh. This is the book of Maya mythology, kind of the Iliad and Odyssey of Mesoamerica. It contains what are essentially fragments of myth—the story of creation, exploits of very witty gods called Hero Twins, and an account of the origins and history of the Quiche Maya, who, I gather, were one of the more important groups of Maya at the time of the Conquest.

“We have the benefit of this book only because in the middle of the sixteenth century, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet by a young Quiche nobleman, and a copy has survived.

“The other post-Conquest books we know about are those of the Chilam Balam, which are, I gather, books of the jaguar prophet. I didn’t do much research on these, since you told me to skip them, so I’ll mention only that these are also probably fragments of earlier pre-Conquest stories, they, too, are in European script, and they are named after the places they are kept.”

“What about even earlier books than these, Alex?”

“Now this is where it gets really interesting. There are only four Maya books in the world today in the original hieroglyphics.

“I was surprised how few there were—imagine judging our civilization on just four books!—until I read about the infamous friar Diego de Landa, who, with some of his colleagues in Christ, took it upon themselves to systematically wipe out all the Maya hieroglyphic books. He wrote to the King of Spain at the time saying something to the effect that since the books contained superstitions and falsehoods of the devil, they had burned them all. Any Maya caught with one of these texts risked torture and death.

“The four hieroglyphic books, called codices, are named for the places they were first exhibited. Three are in Europe: the Dresden Codex, the Paris Codex, which you can see under glass in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Madrid Codex. They all contain information on gods and rituals and all are in a very fragile state.”

“And the fourth?”

“The Grolier Codex. In some ways it is the most fascinating. It turned up recently, very recently, in codex terms—1971, actually. There is a story that it was found in a wooden box in a cave in Chiapas by looters, and was held by a private collector in Mexico for at least three decades before it surfaced at the Grolier Club.

“These codices are made of paper of some sort. How long do you figure something made of paper would last in the humidity of that climate? And yet the Grolier Codex has been dated to the early thirteenth century, thereby making it the oldest of the four! Many thought it would not be possible for it to have survived so many centuries outside the controlled environment of a museum, but the texts I’ve researched give the impression that its age has been established through carbon dating, and that it is authentic. It is in very bad shape, though.” “So what would these books look like?” “They were written on long strips of paper folded like screens, kind of accordion-pleated, with a cover of wood or fur. You read through the stack from top to bottom, I think.”

I thought of the rabbit scribe on the piece of pottery at the museum. He had appeared to be writing on a stack of folded paper, and there was a spotted material that covered it top and bottom.

“So one of these books would be exceptionally rare.”

“Absolutely! Imagine a literate civilization reduced to only four books! What would ours be? A volume of Shakespeare, a book on physics by Stephen Hawking, the Bible, a book of poetry or philosophy?

“Anyway, that discussion is for another day. Let me tell you what I’ve found out about the people you asked me about. Gomez Arias. Pretty much what you told me yourself. Born in Merida, lived much of his childhood in Panama. After his father died when he was in his early teens, he ran away from home, or his mother kicked him out, depending on which account of his life you believe.

Worked at various menial jobs, until he made a lot of money, a fortune I’d say, in water systems.

“Owns a number of companies. He seems to like naming them after himself and his daughter. There’s the Hotel Monserrat, Monserrat Shipping Lines, and something called DMGA Investments, which I gather invests the profits from his other enterprises.

“Three marriages, one to Innocentia, one child, the aforementioned Monserrat; the second to an Englishwoman, Sharon, ended in divorce after a year and a half. No children. Currently married to Sheila Stratton, wealthy American socialite. They’ve been married five years, also no children. He likes art and blondes, I’m not sure in which order.

“Jonathan Hamelin. Cambridge-educated archaeologist. Has published some papers in various scholarly journals. Worked in the Yucatan for the last six years. Credited with some interesting archaeological discoveries, the most recent in a site near Tulum. Seems to have had some bad luck with some of his finds, though. Grave robbers always seem to be a few steps ahead of him. One of the objects he was looking for, a jade mask, turned up in a private collection in Europe not long ago.

“Good family, apparently. Seat in the House of Lords. Although they don’t appear to be wealthy. Family home has been given to the National Trust. His parents have the use of it until they die, then it becomes the exclusive property of the trust. More family status than cash, I would say. Probably broke, but in an aristocratic British sort of way.

“Lucas May. Now this one is a cipher. Studied archaeology both in Mexico and at the University of Texas. Interned at the Museo National de Antropologia in Mexico City ten years ago. After that, absolutely nothing. No papers, no attendance at conferences, no archaeological discoveries.

“Major Martinez. Strange. Up until about five years ago he appeared to have a distinguished career with the federal police. Much-decorated hero, in fact. He was a member of an unofficial antiterrorism squad that captured one of the leaders of a group of Indian rebels.

“Then he got involved in a nasty little affair at one of the archaeological sites. Seems there was this lovely little local market in the shadow of the ruins. The government went and built another marketplace about half a mile away. The local people didn’t like it—it sounds like a concrete bunker to me, so I can sympathize.

“Anyway, the locals refused to move. I gather nothing happened for a while. But then one day the bulldozers arrived, accompanied by the federal police, Major Martinez in command; machine guns at the ready. The locals were given forty minutes to vacate the marketplace… one can only imagine the hysteria.

“Martinez took his assignment very seriously. One could say way too seriously. By the end of the day, the old marketplace was gone, absolutely flattened. I’m sure the authorities regarded it as a job well done, but a couple of people got hurt, badly hurt—a really brutal affair— and there was a public outcry. The government went looking for someone to blame, and Martinez ended up the villain.

“He kept his job, but seems to have been assigned to lesser cases from that moment on, like the theft of a statue from a bar, cases you would think would have been beneath him. He’s a bitter man, no doubt.

“That’s about it!”

“Thanks, Alex. You are a wonder. This is really helpful.”

“If you need any more, call me. My computer stands at the ready!”

Later Jonathan called to say he’d have to be in Merida in the late afternoon, and could we meet for dinner. He treated me to the dining room of the Hotel Montserrat, a rather extravagant affair that must have set him back a bit and something of a surprise considering how annoyed the young woman after whom the hotel was named had been when he had refused a nightcap the previous evening.

At some point during the meal, our conversation turned to his work at the site.

“Someone was telling me that you’ve had some problems with grave robbers on your digs,” I said, recalling what Alex had told me earlier in the day.

“Rather!” he said. Then, losing his air of British detachment: “Bloody pigs! Sorry for the language.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You don’t want to know. Do you, really?”

“Sure. I’m fascinated by this stuff.”

“Well, I spend the rainy season, when fieldwork is impossible, doing research and writing papers on the various rulers of this region.

“A couple of years ago I was reasonably sure I could find the tomb of a prominent Maya ahau—a nobleman— dating from the late classical period. I’d found a fragment of stone that indicated he’d been buried with a jade mask.

“Anyway, I could hardly wait until the rain stopped so I could go back looking for it. I found the tomb, all right, underneath a pyramid in the forests of the southern Yucatan, but there was no mask.

“What there was, however, was evidence of very recent entry into the tomb. The footprints were very new.

“About a year and a half later, six months ago, a jade mask appeared at auction in Europe. I couldn’t afford it, of course. Tens of thousands of pounds sterling. Now that there are export controls on pre-Columbian artifacts, they’re very scarce in Europe, and very pricey. Quite beyond my means.

“I can’t prove it, but I’m sure it is the mask I was looking for.

“What really burns my butt about this, if you will excuse the expression,” he said heatedly, “is that this is the second time this has happened to me here.

“The first season I was here, I was lucky enough to find another tomb, and this one, too, had recently been plundered. I have no way of knowing what treasures were taken from that one.

“It’s almost as if someone’s looking over my shoulder as I do my research, then he gets there first and profits from it. Irritating as hell, I must say,” he concluded.

“Are you looking for something special at this site?” I asked.

“Not really. It’s just a ripping great site, that’s all.”

“What made you choose archaeology as a career in the first place?” I asked.

“Exactly the question my parents asked me when I told them my choice of studies many years ago.” He laughed, then added soberly, “We’ve been rather politely estranged since, actually. They thought the life of a Harley Street physician more suitable for their offspring, you see.

“But I grew up reading about the great British explorers and archaeologists. While my friends dreamed of being soldiers and statesmen, I devoured the stories of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb, Sir Leonard Woolley in Mesopotamia, Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos on Crete. As long as I can remember, an archaeologist was what I wanted to be.”

“Any regrets?”

“Of course. I dreamed of fame and fortune, but in reality, the big discoveries are few and far between. And I haven’t found my own Lord Carnarvon to bankroll my work. But perhaps life never works out exactly the way we want, and no occupation is as exciting as it appears when we first choose it.

“To be perfectly honest, the life of a Harley Street physician has never had any appeal for me, nor has the family’s seat in the House of Lords. That will go to my older brother when our elderly father dies, and he’s welcome to it.”

We were both silent for a few moments. I thought a little of the disappointments in my life—how I’d developed my business from scratch, nurtured it, suffered through the first tenuous years. I’d only made one mistake: I’d married my first employee, a designer by the name of Clive Swain, and given him a half interest in the business as a wedding present.

Suddenly Jonathan reached across the table and took my hand. “My only real regret is that I haven’t been able to find a woman prepared to share my peripatetic and occasionally frustrating lifestyle…

“At least not, perhaps, until now,” he said, squeezing my hand.

We went back to the hotel, and when no one was at the hotel desk for a moment, I rushed him up the staircase. Staying with friends of your parents can have its drawbacks.

At some point in the night, while we were companionably curled up together, Jonathan said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day at the morgue, about the police investigation of Don Hernan’s murder.”

“Ummm.”

“I think maybe you’re right. Martinez is a bit of a weird duck, isn’t he? Maybe there is something strange about this investigation.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you go back to the morgue?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Don Hernan was probably killed outside the city. He had dust on his shoes and trousers, and there were traces of forest vegetation on them.”

“Maybe you and I could do a little research on this ourselves?”

“Like what?” I said cautiously.

“Well, Don Hernan called you down here on a project. Maybe we should try to figure out what the project was.”

“I guess,” I said noncommittally.

We drifted off to sleep.

Sometime later, in the very, very early morning, he got up to leave. We were both a little embarrassed at the thought of his going out the front door, so I showed him how to exit through the bathroom window. He said it made him feel like a teenager all over again.