The Xibalba Murders

KAN

I carry a picture in my mind now, of Hernan Castillo Rivas, on this particular day. It is Kan, day of the lizard, symbol of the Maize Lord, bringer of abundance.

As I have reconstructed events, Don Hernan is sitting in a cafe in a dusty little village on a dirt road leading to nowhere.

The village consists of the tiny cafe“ in which he sits, a one-pump gas station, and a couple of stores. One of these is a souvenir shop, a triumph of hope over reason, since few tourists come this way.

There is also a small doctor’s office—the doctor is in on Tuesdays only—and five or six little houses with whitewashed walls and thatched roofs, with chickens and small children scratching in the front yards.

Despite, or perhaps in defiance of the impoverished conditions, bright red flowers grow up trellises in the front yard of each house. Behind the little houses stretch the milpas of the occupants, gardens and fields of corn separated from their neighbors by fences of stone. Despite the dust, I can smell orange trees.

Because it is so hot, Don Hernan sits at the shadier of two tables on the veranda of the cafe. Because it is the day of the lizard, I picture one here, skittering from time to time across the tiles of the veranda and up the trellis at one end.

Guadelupe, the wife of the proprietor and mother of three-year-old Arturo, brings her visitor panuchos—tiny tortillas piled high with chicken, avocado, refried beans, and hardboiled eggs—and cold beer with lime.

Don Hernan is a big man. One is struck immediately by his size, but also by his expressive eyebrows, two circumflex accents over dark eyes. He has a mustache and goatee, still dashing, but a mop of gray and yellowing hair that would become unruly if not for constant attention.

Despite his girth and age, he has always been a dapper man. Since his wife’s death, and now without benefit of her ministrations, he has become somewhat rumpled, but in a genteel sort of way, dressed always in the cream colors of the tropics, right down to his shoes and his cane.

Childless himself, he dotes on others’ children. I can imagine little Arturo venturing to the veranda, curious about this stranger, being charmed by him and sent on his way with a peso or two.

Several days, or possibly weeks, earlier, poring through the myriad artifact drawers in the archives of the museo, peering at each piece through the magnifying glass he keeps on a chain around his neck, he finds and deciphers the message that brings him to this little cafifi in this tiny village.

Knowing that he will need younger, stronger eyes, arms, and legs to help him, he tries to think of someone who will be impervious to the politics and avarice that will inevitably surround this discovery, and places the call that brings me to Mexico.

At some point, perhaps even as my flight crosses the Caribbean, he suspects that someone else has found it, too, and begins a hasty and ill-conceived journey.

Suspecting that he may be followed, he does not return to his room at the inn, but embarks on a circuitous route from his little office in the museo: by taxi through the back streets, then on foot for several blocks, puffing from exertion, by public bus to Valladolid, where he stays a day or two making his arrangements, and then on to this village by hired car.

At the general store he purchases a flashlight, compass, and a length of rope.

At some point during this process, mindful of his social obligations, he calls me at the Casa de las Buganvillas to cancel dinner, but tells me nothing of what he has found.

And so now he sits, folding and refolding the crumpled piece of paper that brought him here, waiting. For what? For help? For salvation? For his killer?

He does not call me again, or another friend or colleague. Perhaps he notices the battered blue pickup truck that passes his post rather too often on a road going nowhere. Perhaps he senses the gathering forces closing in on him, some good, some evil, and wants to protect us.

There is one person who might save him, who even now is desperately searching for clues to his location.

But how could Don Hernan know? How could he choose between those who can help him and those who wish him dead? The answer is far from obvious.

the corpse behind the water tank, I learned the day after I found it, belonged to a young man by the name of Luis Vallespino.

To this day, my recollection of what happened right after I touched his dead hand is very hazy. What I do know is that I will never be able to forget his face. It was still smooth, with long, long eyelashes and just a hint of down above the mouth, the first attempt at a mustache perhaps, a youth on the threshold of adulthood. He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen.

The mark of the blow on the side of the head that had killed him, and the rather Raggedy Andy appearance of the body stuffed so incongruously behind the water tank, added to the sense of youth and vulnerability.

Whatever attributes Luis Vallespino had possessed in life, in death there was a sort of sweetness about him. His face had, I thought, a sadness in its expression, as if in recognition of life’s opportunities lost. But perhaps I am projecting my own sorrow to that still young face.

Time stood still for me for a few moments as I gazed at him. Then the horror of what I was looking at came over me. As in a nightmare, I remember trying to scream, but no sound would come out. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move.

Then I was up and clawing at a trapdoor. It was unlocked, and soon I was half falling down a wooden staircase that led to the floor below, then to a stairwell that exited at the back of the museo.

I have a vague recollection of flagging down a cab near the plaza in front of the building, and directing the driver to the Casa de las Buganvillas. I’m not sure how coherent I was, but Santiago understood enough to call the police. A doctor was also called. He gave me a shot, and I was out until morning.

When I got up I discovered there was a police officer stationed outside my room. This didn’t do much for the ambience, in my opinion. It didn’t do much for my mood either.

I guess that when I poked my head out the door, the police officer on duty had called in that I was awake, because by the time I’d showered and dressed, my favorite policeman, Ignacio Martinez, was waiting downstairs.

Now, this might prove to be a little tricky! No doubt his first question would be something along the lines of “What exactly were you doing on the roof of the museo, senora?”

In the shower, I’d rehearsed several answers. The trouble with lies, as we all know, is that once you get into them, it is difficult to extricate yourself. I had been guilty of a lie of omission in not telling Martinez what I knew about the robbery in the bar and anything about why I had come down to see Don Hernan, as unclear as that might be. I like to think that this would not be my normal way of dealing with situations—lying, that is—but Martinez was not the kind of man I was prepared to turn my friends over to—or myself, for that matter. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to my trying to search the office, so now I was having to lie my way out of that one, too. The question was which answer would I use?

The “I’d gone up the stairs hoping to find Don Hernan, accidentally got lost in stairwell, found myself on roof answer.

Or perhaps the one that was something a little closer to reality, the “I went to see Don Hernan, had key, climbed out on fire escape (why, God only knows!), window locked behind me, took ladder to roof to find way out” answer?

But Martinez, in his usual take-control manner, surprised me.

“I believe your life may be in danger, senora,” was his opening gambit.

I was momentarily nonplussed.

“You really must tell me where Dr. Castillo Rivas is.”

“Are you implying your first and second statements are related in some way?” I managed.

He looked at me as if I were mentally deficient or terminally naive.

“Let me lead you through this, senora,” he said in his most patronizing tone. This man raised condescension to an art form. “Dr. Castillo and Senor Gomez Arias have a disagreement over, according to Senor Gomez Arias himself, a statue. This same statue is stolen shortly thereafter by a group calling itself Children”—he emphasized the word children—“of the Talking Cross.

“The very next day, a young man dies in, or in this particular case, on top of, the museum Dr. Castillo has been associated with for several years.

“Coincidence, senora? I rather think not.”

I was inclined to agree with him there, although my conclusions were quite different.

“Very interesting, I’m sure. But”—as they say in the movies, I thought—“the evidence so far is circumstantial. What facts do you have to support this contention, and how exactly does this put my life in danger? I found a body. Unfortunate though that may be, I can’t see any reason why someone would want to kill me for that reason.”

“But not for that reason alone, senora. It is because you know too much.”

Those movies again. What would the man say next? Hasta la vista, baby? Or perhaps we would soon be quoting dialogue directly from High Noon.

“I know nothing. I’m as baffled by all of this as apparently you are.”

He, too, ignored the gibe.

“You knew where to find the body. Not everyone who visits our museo is so fascinated that they feel compelled to visit the roof!”

He had a point.

“I got lost. I was checking to see if Dr. Castillo was in his office—”

“And was he?”

“No. But I got lost in the stairwell, and saw blood on the roof. I thought someone might be hurt…” I was launched into one of my well-rehearsed answers.

“Enough of this!” He rose from his seat. “Even if you insist on telling me this nonsense, I am responsible for your safety. You will remain in the hotel here under the protection of my officers until we have found Dr. Castillo.”

So yesterday I was confined to the country, my passport confiscated. Today I was confined to the hotel. All for my personal safety, of course.

I walked with Martinez to the front door.

“You haven’t even told me who the young man on the roof was,” I said to him.

“I assumed you knew. Luis Vallespino.”

The name meant nothing to me, but it certainly appeared to mean something to Alejandro, currently staffing the front desk.

His hands shook as he retrieved a key from one of the other hotel guests and handed her her mail.

Very interesting, I thought. Do I now know two of the robbers?

I wanted to talk to Alejandro, but it was not possible while he was at the desk. And as it turned out, this was the last I would see of him for a while. Soon after his father came to relieve him at the desk, he disappeared.

I spent the rest of the day, needless to say, at the hotel, under the watchful eyes of two policemen, one at the front door, one on patrol throughout the hotel.

For all the talk of this being for my personal protection, and despite the comfort of the surroundings, it felt like house arrest to me.

I paced the floor of my room for hours, going over everything in my mind. Was there really a connection between the robbery in the Hotel Montserrat and the murder of Luis Vallespino? Was Alejandro involved? Was he in danger? Where was Hernan Castillo, and what was his involvement, if any? Who were the Children of the Talking Cross?

It was clear to me that nothing was going to be solved in this hotel room, and the inactivity was beginning to drive me crazy. I decided I had to do something.

This hotel room, as I mentioned, is my favorite. Not just because of its beautiful view of the courtyard, however. When Isa and I were growing up together, those many years ago, we used this room, when it was unoccupied, as our center of operations. After all was quiet in the hotel, we would let ourselves in with the passkey. From there we had devised a way of getting out the bathroom window, onto a ledge that led around to the back of the inn where we were able to climb onto a large ceiba tree.

For hours we would sit in the branches of that big tree, gossip about the boys in our classes—we were both attending the international school at the time—and, of course, smoke. If our parents knew about this, they were polite enough not to mention it.

Partway through the school year, we discovered it was possible to move out along one of the large branches and lower ourselves onto the wall surrounding the hotel, and thence to the street. We only did it a couple of times: smoking was about as daring as we got, but it was a great secret that we shared.

And so it was off with the lights at about eleven p.m. as if I’d turned in for the night, into dark pants and turtleneck and running shoes, then into the bathroom. I put the vanity chair into the bathtub as Isa and I had always done, and then hauled myself out through the window.

It was more difficult than I remembered. The window, regrettably, seemed to have gotten smaller over the intervening years, as had the ledge. And I was already more than a little tired of hanging out on ledges and fire escapes. But the tree was still there, its branches would still hold me, and within a few minutes I was over the wall, and moving as quickly and as quietly as I could along the darkened street.

In a few minutes I found myself at the Cafe Escobar. I inquired if anyone had seen Alejandro and, when the answer was negative, asked to use the telephone. I was directed to a pay phone in a dark hallway behind the bar and placed a call to my neighbor Alex Stewart.

One of the best things about the little Victorian cottage in an old Toronto neighborhood that I bought when Clive and I parted is the neighbor I acquired with it.

Alex is a dapper little man who spent thirty-some years in the merchant marine before settling into the cottage next door to mine. He lives his retirement years growing native plants—the other neighbors call them weeds—and supporting various environmental and social causes. In the first few months after I met him, he dragged me to community meetings on several subjects, serving me herbal tea on our return and telling me stories of his life at sea.

He is also, quite unexpectedly, a whiz on the Internet and spends considerable time surfing in cyberspace. I’m not sure if he adopted me or I adopted him, but he reminds me of my favorite grandfather, long deceased, and I adore him. In many ways he has provided me with an emotional lifeline through the turbulent times of the past year.

Alex is a nighthawk, and even with the two-hour time difference, which would have made it about one-thirty in the morning, I was reasonably sure he would be up. I placed a collect call.

He picked up the phone immediately and accepted the charges with enthusiasm, quite charming when you considered the hour and the fact that he lives on a pension. I felt better just hearing his voice.

We talked briefly about my cat, whom, to my surprise, I actually missed, and my little house—both were, I gathered, just fine—and then I got to the point of my call. “Alex,” I said. “You’re up on all these various causes. Have you ever heard of a group called Children of the Talking Cross?”

“Children of the Talking Cross, no. Followers of the Talking Cross, yes indeed! The history will be a little too recent for you, I expect. Last century, actually. You’re into much older stuff than this. But it’s interesting nonetheless.”

“Never mind the lecture on my lack of social conscience, Alex.” I laughed. “Tell me about the Cross.”

“I believe the miraculous Talking Cross first put in an appearance in about 1850 right in your part of the world, the Yucatan,” he began.

“That would be shortly after the War of the Castes, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Just to prove to you that my knowledge of Mesoamerican history is not entirely restricted to the classical Maya period,” I added.

“Perhaps I have underestimated you.” He chuckled. “But, yes, you are right. As you and I have discussed from time to time, the Spanish conquest of the Maya was not in all respects successful.

“There are many reasons for this, not the least of which was the cruelty of the Spanish overlords, who subjected the Maya to forced labor and extracted the dreaded encomienda or tribute.

“Many Maya would not submit to the oppression. The War of the Castes—that was the European name for it of course—broke out in 1847. The Maya, driven no doubt by desperation, were stunningly successful. Soon the only part of the Yucatan peninsula that was still held by the Spanish was Merida, more or less.

“The end of the war is the stuff of legend. When the time came to plant the corn, the Maya left for their villages, their army disintegrated, and the Spanish began to regain all that they had lost.”

“Was that the end of it, then?”

“Oh no. In about 1850, in some village in the Yucatan, there was said to be a miraculous ‘Talking Cross’ that prophesied a holy war against the Spanish oppressors. Fighting continued from time to time, but the Spanish were ultimately victorious in 1901. But Talking Crosses proliferated throughout the region, and many say that they simply went underground after that. There have certainly been recorded accounts of Talking Crosses until fairly recent times.”

“Do you consider them to be superstitious claptrap, as many would no doubt call it?” I asked.

“Well, of course I don’t believe in talking inanimate objects of any kind. I’m not daft. But I do believe they were a very powerful symbol of resistance to oppression and may still be so, for all I know.

“It’s kind of interesting that it’s crosses, isn’t it? From what I’ve read, the Maya have a profound belief in ritual, which the Spanish church capitalized on in subjugating them. Now the Maya have incorporated Christian symbolism and turned it against their oppressors.”

“Sort of like being shot with your own gun, you mean?”

Alex laughed.

“Can you think of any reason why a rebel group would steal a statue of Itzamna?” I asked.

“Well, leaving aside something straightforward like monetary value—you know what a good price pre-Columbian art commands these days, what with all the controls of its export—isn’t Itzamna one of the top gods in the Maya pantheon? Perhaps your statue of Itzamna is to be the newest symbol of rebellion—the 1990s’ version of a Talking Cross. But I don’t know, really. It’s anybody’s guess.”

We chatted a little while longer. I told him I’d reimburse him later for the collect call and gave him a carefully edited version of my last few days, and I could hear the concern in his voice.

“Don’t worry, Alex, I’ll be fine,” I said. But I hung up wondering if this was indeed so.

And then it was back through the cafe, carefully watched by all the late-night customers, and along the street to the wall. Isa and I had climbed back up by pulling a loose stone out slightly to give us a leg up. I checked the wall. Reassuringly, the stone was still there, all these years later. I reversed my earlier route and climbed into bed in the dark.