01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (8 page)

After several minutes of gazing almost hypnotically at the masks, I became aware of the sound of water. At the far side of the cavern was another tunnel. This one, however, dropped off precipitously into darkness.

At the bottom, Jonathan told us, was a cenote, a smaller version of the Well of Sacrifice we had seen earlier at Chichen Itza. A rather rudimentary rope fence strung from wooden stakes protected the edge. Leaning over, it was not possible to see the water below. Jonathan dropped a pebble. It bounced down the sides, and then splashed. The water was a long way down.

“Are there artifacts down there?” I asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Jonathan replied. “We aren’t planning to dredge the cenote until we finish the work up here, several weeks from now. As you can appreciate, it will be quite a task, with no daylight to help us.”

Over to one side was a mound of pieces of rock, bits of bone, pottery, and other things.

“What are these?” I asked.

“That”—Jonathan smiled—“is what we archaeologists lovingly refer to as the GOK pile—God Only Knows. We’ll work on identifying it all later.

“But come and see what we can identify,” Jonathan urged, taking us over to some large wooden crates, about three feet by four feet, in which were laid out trays of pottery shards, all carefully numbered and cataloged and set in unbleached cotton, beads that might be jade, and in one tray, beautifully carved flint blades, each different, and each a magnificent work of art.

“So far we have found eight of these blades,” Jonathan explained.

“There will be nine,” Lucas said. “Nine blades for the nine Lords of Darkness.” His infrequent contributions to the conversations never failed to surprise me.

“Lucas may be right. There is no question these caves were considered to be entrances to the underworld, to Xibalba. We believe this must have been a very sacred spot. We don’t really know why these blades were hidden here, or what ceremonies may have taken place beneath the surface of the earth, but we feel it must have been important,” Jonathan said.

“Perhaps this was a place their king, the ahau, would come alone to fast and commune with the ancestors and gods. After days of fasting and praying, in a trancelike state, the king would pierce his tongue or his genitals with a stingray spine. The blood thus shed dripped onto paper which was burned to appease the gods. The king would then appear before his people, his white robe stained with his own blood. As gruesome as it might seem to us, blood was believed to carry the soul, and this was a powerful ritual for the Maya, one that, like the ball game, ensured the continuing cycle of life.”

“Think of the people working underground, without benefit of electric lights, carving these magnificent masks,” Isa breathed.

She was right. While their friends and families toiled and played above them, Maya artists must have conquered the most primitive of fears, that of the dark, and with the aid only of torches, made their way to this spot to carve these awesome faces.

As we turned to leave I noticed on the wall around the tunnel opening the faint outline of a carving that the workmen had not yet uncovered. It was of a rather intricate design with what appeared to be two tendrils extending up from a base, rather like two raised arms.

I would have liked to ask more about it and to take a closer look, but it was clearly time to go. We were each immersed in our own thoughts as we left the cavern and made our way slowly to the surface.

We returned to the Jeep and headed back toward Merida. About halfway, we once again pulled off the road and stopped at a charming little house.

“Humble, but mine own,” Jonathan announced. “Or at least it’s mine while I’m supervising the dig. Let’s go for a swim!”

The house may have been small, but it had everything one could want. A large open kitchen, a fireplace in the living/dining area, and a very nice bedroom overlooking a patio and swimming pool. We all had a dip and a cold drink beside the pool.

After about an hour, as the sun set, we began the long journey to Merida.

Even seeing Major Martinez at the front desk could not spoil the day for me, although it was obvious that my escape had made him even more irritable than usual. He merely harrumphed when he saw me and made a big show of looking at his watch.

But we were not late, and there was nothing much he could do about it.

I invited the others to join me for dinner but all had other plans: Isa to help her mother in the kitchen, Lucas and Jonathan some other engagement.

As they left, Jonathan’s hand brushed mine. “I hope you will come back to visit my little house very soon, just you and me. Would you do that?”

“Love to,” I said. And I meant it.

When I went upstairs to my room, I had a very strong feeling that someone had been there. Not the young woman who made up the room, but someone else. It’s strange how you always know, even when nothing appears to be out of place.

I tried to cast the idea out of my mind. The thought of an evening with Jonathan in his delightful little house helped a lot.

CIMI

CIMI. Another death day.
The Popol Vuh, the great epic of the Quicho Maya, portrays a mythic battle between the Lords of Death, denizens of an underworld called Xibalba, and the Hero Twins. The Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, offspring of the Maize Lord and a banished underworld princess, play a ball game with the Xibalbans by day and submit to a series of tests by night.

They survive tests of fire, rain and hail, bats, razor-sharp stones that come to life and try to slash them. One is beheaded; they are drowned, their bones ground up and thrown into the sea. In the end, of course, they outwit the Lords of Death and rise through the earth into the sky to become the sun and the moon. In so doing, the heroes are said to have brought hope to the world: a soul called to Xibalba can defeat the Lords of the Underworld as they did, and triumph over death.

Today, although I do not know it yet, is Don Hernan’s last, the day that his soul enters the maw of Xibalba and begins his personal battle with the Lords of Death. He dies without finding what he sought.

That he does so on Cimi, the day of the human skull hieroglyph, would have seemed only natural to the ancient Maya.

But his death is anything but natural. Whichever human emissary of the Lords of Xibalba has been the cause of his death has a sense of history—and theater.

today I was once again confined to barracks, as it were. Isa and I had a late breakfast with Francesca and Santiago in the kitchen while Santiago told me of the efforts to have me sprung from captivity again.

I myself made a call to the Canadian embassy in Mexico City, and after several infuriating attempts to get through the bureaucratic morass, I found someone, a Margaret Semple, who had worked with my father several years earlier and said she would get right on this.

Knowing that “get right on this” in Mexico meant something different and more protracted than the same statement back home, I decided to relax and enjoy the day with the Ortiz family.

Alejandro was in the hotel, and he looked pale and withdrawn, not the least the cocky kid I’d had a short beer with a couple of days earlier. That morning he had attended the funeral of Luis Vallespino with a group of his friends, and the experience had obviously subdued him.

“I’m sorry I was so rude to you the other day, Alejandro,” I said to him when we had a minute alone. His eyes teared up a little. “I am terribly worried about Don Hernan. I don’t know what any of this is about, Alejandro. But I will remain silent, I promise you. I just wish you’d talk to me about it.”

His mouth moved as if he were about to speak, but then he turned and walked away.

Later Isa and I swam in the pool in the courtyard, sunned ourselves, and gossiped, supervised, in a manner of speaking, by Dona Josefina, who, in keeping with her epithet,
The Empress,
regally surveyed the comings and goings of everyone from the shade of the veranda.

“Okay, Isa, tell me about the boyfriend.”

“He’s lovely. He’s a banker, but not too stuffy. From France. Fortunately for me he got posted to Mexico two years ago. We met shortly after he got here. With the Mexican peso as volatile as it is, I don’t think he regarded this as a plum assignment. Now the question is what we will do if he gets called back to Paris?”

“What kind of banking does he do?”

“Currency, international transfers of money for large accounts. That kind of thing. He’s been very helpful with my business actually. He’s always giving me advice as to when to buy and sell US or Eurodollars. He’s very talented.”

“Talented and… ?”

“Cute. Maybe even adorable, what can I say? Very French, very charming, very funny, nice dresser. And he gets along with my family; even Alejandro. But your turn. Where are we, exactly, on the subject of our two archaeologists?”

“Actually I was thinking about Alejandro. He’s rather quiet these days, isn’t he?”

“Yes, we’re concerned about him. I think this is the first funeral he’s ever attended. Luis, as I told you, was the younger brother of a friend of Alejandro’s, Ricardo Vallespino. I didn’t know they were such good friends, just part of the same circle, but I suppose at that age, death, particularly such a violent one, always seems remote.

“But don’t try and change the subject. Back to the archaeologists!”

“I’m not sure, I guess. You know my history with men as well as anyone, Isa. I always go for the cads. So what should we think would you say?

“Well, there’s no question which one is the better conversationalist. Or the better dresser. Gucci loafers, no less!”

“That’s good, is it?” I asked, grinning. Isa thought I knew absolutely nothing about fashion, and I loved to tease her, and she me, about it.

Isa sighed. “Lara, your knowledge of fashion is appalling. I really will have to take you in hand. G-U-C-C-I. Italian, trendy, expensive. Jonathan is unquestionably the best-dressed archaeologist I’ve ever seen. Even his casual clothes are Savile Row. He’s also the better conversationalist. Lucas isn’t exactly wordy, is he?”

“No, but he dresses like an archaeologist. I don’t suppose there is any point in asking who, where, or what is a Savile Row?”

Isa treated my question with the contempt it deserved. “I think we can safely assume Jonathan is not living off an archaeologist’s salary. He must be independently wealthy, upper-crust, Oxford-educated, old school tie, tea parties at Buckingham Palace, that sort of thing. I think we should make inquiries.”

Just then Norberto came over with a tray with two margaritas for us. “On the house.” He smiled. “Mother says to just get whatever you want to eat from the kitchen. She’s gone to pay her respects to Luis and Ricardo’s mother.”

“Have you heard anything more about the police investigation, Isa?” I asked after Norberto had gone back inside.

“The police are saying it was some kind of gang war,” Isa replied.

“That may be what they are saying officially, Isa, but as I told you, Major Martinez has hinted—more than hinted—that Don Hernan is involved.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Try telling that to Martinez. And Luis was found on the roof of the
museo.
How on earth would a gang war put him there?”

We both pondered that for a while.

“Isa, I have a favor to ask.”

“Sure.”

“I need an address and directions to the home of Diego Maria Gomez Arias.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“His name or rather the initials D.M.G.A. appear rather often in Don Hernan’s diary, if I remember correctly.”

“How are you going to—
the tree
!”

I nodded.

Later that afternoon she went out, and returned in an hour or two.

She handed me a slip of paper with an address and a hand-drawn route map. She also slipped me a set of car keys.

“You’ll need transportation,” she whispered conspiratorially. “My car will be on the side street by eleven p.m. I’ll go stay with friends for a couple of hours, then pick it up on the way home and drive it to the garage.”

The day dragged on after that, except for the time when Jonathan dropped in for a drink, “to visit die prisoner,” as he put it. We had a pleasant visit, but he couldn’t stay for dinner. He had work to do, he said. I looked at his shoes with new respect. Italian, trendy, expensive…

We watched the television news in the kitchen. The death of Luis Vallespino had caused an outpouring of rage and grief in the city. His funeral had made the news, and was obviously well attended. I scanned the crowd for signs of Alejandro, but did not see him.

Right after eleven, I turned out the light, put the dark pants and sweater on again, and crawled out through the bathroom window as I had previously.

I had to wait up in the tree until a couple out for a stroll passed by, then I was down and around the corner.

The Mercedes was there, as promised, and I pulled away as quickly as I could.

Isa’s directions took me north on the extension of the Paseo de Montejo to a part of town known to be the haunt of the nouveau riche and famous. When the henequen trade had dried up, victim of the arrival of man-made fibers, and the upkeep and modernization of the houses on the
paseo
became too expensive for succeeding generations, the rich moved north along the road to Progreso.

Indeed, if you take the Plaza Major as the heart of Merida, the farther north you go, the wealthier the residents. The Gomez Arias family lived well to the north, out beyond even the country-club set. The houses out here were enormous, and even though it was now about eleven-thirty, almost all were still ablaze, a testimony to the Mexican penchant for staying up half the night.

I was glad to have the Mercedes. There were several private security personnel on patrol, some in cars, some on foot with dogs. The Mercedes, in this neighborhood, raised no suspicions.

I had a little trouble finding my way through the winding streets, but eventually I pulled up at the gate of the palatial estate Diego Maria Gomez Arias called home. I pushed a button at the entrance and spoke my name into a little box, asking in what I hoped was impeccable Spanish for a brief meeting with Senor Gomez Arias. There was a lengthy pause, during which I got to consider how silly this all was. Of course they would not open the gates to a stranger at eleven-thirty at night.