Caribbean: a novel Part 2

Tulm had been built in the days when Maya glory was fading, when architects were content to use rude chunks of rock on which no attempt had been made to achieve a finish. The buildings showed faades that were inherently ugly and were so oriented that no lovely vistas resulted. A few apertures did look out upon the Caribbean but they were very small, as if the priests inside had been afraid to face the frightening sea, preferring instead the scrub woodland which attacked from the west and with which they were familiar. The princ.i.p.al temple did serve one useful purpose: it was convenient as a pilgrimage center for those who could not afford the longer journeys to Cozumel or Chichen Itza, but the men who served it were as uncouth as their building. The temple had as its prized adornment an exceptionally hideous Chac Mool whose reclining body was so cramped and distorted that it seemed hardly human and whose brutal scowl was terrifying. There was little else that might awaken spiritual understanding, and Ix Zubin was harsh when she helped her son evaluate what he was seeing: 'It's a hodgepodge. No beauty. No lifting of the spirit. No inner sense of majesty inspired these architects and sculptors. No reason, really, for the temples at all, except maybe to serve a population that couldn't afford the trip to a real one.'

Her son, acquainted only with the temples on Cozumel, could not agree: 'Tulm's twice as big as anything we have. I like the way it overlooks the sea. It's high, too, up on this cliff, much higher than any of ours.'

Ix Zubin was impatient with such limited reasoning: 'Big is no measure, Boln. Look at that Chac Mool. Horrible though ours is, in comparison to this it's a work of art. Ours is well carved, properly finished, and the boots and headdresses are handsomely done. It's a real statue, and if you can tolerate Chac Mool, which I can't, ours must be considered effective. But this one!' and she scorned its manifold defects. 'What's most irritating, Boln, it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.'

'What is that?'

'Create a sense of awe ... a feeling of mystical power.'

'When I see that stone saucer resting on his belly and imagine what's to go in it, I feel awe,' Boln said, but she would not accept this: 'Boln, look at the hideous thing. It offers nothing but shock,' and she elaborated on the principle that had guided both her grandfather and her in their service to their island: 'Whenever you do a job, do it right in its essentials, but then add something to make it more important than it would otherwise be. I hate our Chac Mool, you know that, but I admire the way the sculptor took pains to make the boots so perfect, the helmet so right. Let that be your guide when you become High Priest of our temple.'

As they prepared to leave Tulm for the journey to Chichen Itza, Ix Zubin had an opportunity to study her son, and the more she saw of him as he stood on the verge of manhood, the more pleased she was. 'Look at him!' she whispered to herself as he marched ahead. 'What a handsome body, what a quick mind in its own way.' And she saw with motherly satisfaction that the countless nights she had spent binding boards against his forehead had borne fruit, for his face sloped backward in a perfect unbroken line from the tip of his nose to the top of his head in the way a Maya head was supposed to. No forehead bone interrupted that unblemished sweep, and with such a profile her son was a.s.sured of being judged one of the most handsome young men in any community. She could not understand why some mothers, and she could name a few in the better families of Cozumel, failed to train their son's heads properly, for all it took was patience and the application of pressure every night for the first six years.

There was a haphazard, poorly tended trail from the temple at Tulm to the congregation of great buildings at Chichen Itza, but it could not be called a proper road. However, along it did come, now and then, some important personage riding in a chair covered like a tent with woven mats and carried on the shoulders of four slaves. Boln, watching one such entourage sweep hurriedly by, with those behind the chair following at a run, told his mother: 'That's the way I'd like to go,' and she reprimanded him: 'What a lofty ambition! To ride on the backs of others,' and he blushed at having been so presumptuous.

The narrow path received enough shade from the low trees to protect the travelers from the blinding sun, but the humidity was so great that they did perspire profusely; Ix Zubin's thin garment was damp most of the time, and although Boln traveled bare to the waist, his scanty breechclout was soaked. Whenever they reached one or another small village in a clearing, they were more than eager to stop for whatever refreshment the place provided. Gingerly and only after the most cautious calculations and the careful counting of Boln's cacao beans did Ix Zubin decide that she could risk a small piece of jade or fragment of Ah Nic's gold from her horde to pay for the food they needed. But she was gratified when her son scouted to find things they could eat without surrendering further treasure: a monkey killed with a sharp spear and roasted, a turkey trapped in a net, succulent buds of familiar trees, a fish which Ah Nic caught from a sluggish stream, roots of proven nutritional value and even young, carefully selected leaves of bushes. At night they slept under trees, using leaves and extra clothing as their bedding.

When they broke out of the low woodland they saw stretching far before them the great, flat plains of Yucatan, broken only occasionally by forlorn groups of scraggly trees. Now the sun beat so relentlessly upon them that they feared they might faint. But their good luck persisted, for one day when they fell exhausted beneath a tree that offered meager shade, they were joined by a group of pilgrims who had come from another part of the forest. These men and women carried with them light woven mats which they attached to pairs of forked branches, to form a comfortable protection above their heads, and since they were taking surplus mats to a trading center near Chichen Itza, they allowed Ix Zubin and her companions to borrow some to make their own head coverings.

The strangers, having no interest in Chichen Itza, broke away well before the ancient site, but Ah Nic, loath to lose the protection of his head covering, cried like a little child: 'I want to keep mine!' and when Ix Zubin offered the traders a small piece of jade for the three mats, the purchase was completed. The strangers gone, Ix Zubin said: 'I'm glad we're alone, for these are solemn moments,' and when Boln asked why, she explained: 'When you travel you must not only look but also think,' and as they sat in their newly purchased shade she talked with her son regarding the glories of their people. She was delighted when she saw that he was following carefully what she said, and that night when she lay stretched upon the ground she thought: He's becoming a priest. Given enough time, he'll make it.

The next day Ix Zubin continued to discuss issues with her son: 'Whoever becomes the High Priest at our temple, and I'm sure it will be you, must be strong in defense of old beliefs. He must know the great traditions of our people, or he won't be able to fulfill his responsibilities,' and she spoke of her introduction to the grandeur of Maya life: 'When my grandfather realized that at five I could handle counting and the mysteries of numbers better than most men of twenty striving to be priests, he said: "Cozumel isn't big enough for your dreams," and he stopped everything he was doing to cross the water to the big land and take me down the jungle paths to Tulm, where he showed me how miserable that temple was, then through the dark paths we followed to just about this spot, where he told me: "Now you shall see the greatness of our people." When I asked why we had walked so far, he said: "Unless you've seen what greatness is, you can never achieve it in your own life. When you study the papyrus in our temple, I want you to read it not as a singular thing, but as one among thousands, found in a hundred temples across this broad land, and each confirming all the others. That's what we travel to Chichen Itza for," and that's why you and I have come, so many years later.'

As they approached the vast collection of buildings, now empty because leaders.h.i.+p of the Maya had pa.s.sed to Mayapan, Ix Zubin saw that temples she had so vividly remembered, and with such frightening memories, were now even more awesome, for they had been captured by crawling vines which pa.s.sed over them like clutching fingers. Confronted by this mystery of the land reclaiming the temples, she became a different woman, a priestess self-ordained and inspired by her memories of dreams and nightmares. She was again that child of dazzling brilliance, the adventurous young woman who had preserved the long memories of her Maya people. Her first visit to Chichen Itza had so awakened her to the terror and glories of Maya life that she now became hungry to instill in her son an equal appreciation. With that resolve, she strode past the Chac Mool and plunged her son into the grandeur of the Chichen Itza ruins.

Boln was staggered by the vastness of the buildings, their architectural brilliance, their variation and the manner in which they linked one with the other, providing large open s.p.a.ces for the a.s.sembling of people, ball courts for games with rubber b.a.l.l.s and deep, mysterious wells called cenotes into which, after the strangers came with their new religion, maidens were thrown, throats slashed, so that the G.o.ds might be appeased. Even though the invaders from the west had reached this spot a full five hundred years earlier, Ix Zubin still thought of them, because of the cruel religious customs they had imposed, as strangers.

But it was a trial of a different order that she wanted to impress upon her son, and as she stood over one of the cenotes, she told Boln: 'Whenever the city faced a crisis that required immediate instruction from the G.o.ds, the priests brought twelve naked maidens here at dawn and tossed them one by one into the deep water down there. At noon they came back with long poles to fish out as many girls as had survived, and these lucky ones were supposed to bring with them specific instructions from the G.o.ds.'

'What if none survived?'

'That meant the city was in trouble.'

'I think it was the twelve girls who were in trouble,' Ah Nic ventured, but his niece reproved him for making light of a religious tradition, horrible though it was.

It was two quite different features which Boln would remember longest: the n.o.ble pyramids falling into ruin but with high temples still atop their pinnacles, and the artistic excellence of the Chac Mools who, with their gaping saucers on their bellies, seemed better carved than the ones he had known at Cozumel and seen briefly at Tulm.

But his mother now called his attention to something else: 'Look at how these temples were built, the perfection of their stones, the magical way in which one blends with the other,' and as he studied these details she continued in an almost mystical monotone: 'These temples were built by men who talked with the G.o.ds, who had seen a vision of a more perfect world.' At one point, when the three stood together sharing a view of four temples whose facades seemed to intertwine, each serving its prescribed purpose, Ix Zubin grasped Boln's hands and cried: 'In spite of the horrors I saw here, if I'd never seen the glories of Chichen, I would have died blind,' and she continued in an unbroken litany to describe its wonders.

For three days they remained among the ruined temples but seemed barely to have touched the richness of the place, for when Boln believed that he had exhausted the things he wanted to inspect, he came upon a ball court much smaller than the imposing one he had first seen, and this lesser court was so handsomely set down among larger buildings that they seemed to protect it and the two stelae that marked its end lines. It was a gem, a practice court no doubt, and he was led to dash into the middle of its playing area and leap and twist as if he were engaged in a vigorous game, and soon he was shouting as if to unseen teammates. His mother, watching as she waited beside one of the handsomely carved markers, said to herself: He's caught the spirit. He's prepared to be a priest. And that night, as they camped near the little court, she told him: 'You're ready to be a priest, perhaps even a great one like Grandfather, but in your own way. The problem now is, are you ready to be a man? Let's move on to Mayapan to see how you do battle against the powers there,' and they went to bed hungry yet satisfied, for the richness of the temples had satiated them.

In the morning Boln was up early, eager to resume the journey to Mayapan and test his will against the rules of that city, but before they could get started they were surprised by the arrival at the temple of a group of eleven somber men and women, obviously dispirited and without a leader. When Boln ran forward to interrogate them, one said sullenly: 'We're from Mayapan,' and he cried: 'That's where we're going!' whereupon all spoke at once: 'Don't do it!' and 'No reason to go!' and 'We've just left and all is confusion.'

Ix Zubin hurried up to ask: 'What happened there?' and a man with a black spade beard said almost tearfully: 'When our leaders saw their power slipping away, great Mayapan sliding into the dust, they became frantic and did all the wrong things. Stupid laws, beheading citizens who disobeyed those laws, riots everywhere. Flames, houses gone and temples too. The end of the world.'

When the Cozumel people moved among the newcomers they heard ample confirmation: 'Yes, Mayapan was in turmoil for many years. When all was chaos, new invaders swarmed from the south with new G.o.ds and new laws. Many loud promises ...' The speaker, a workingman, shrugged his shoulders, and his wife, gathering her daughter to her, completed his observation: 'Promises ... and now ... who knows?'

'Even to attempt to go there,' the man with the beard warned, 'would be to risk life and reason.'

'Where, then, are you going?' Ah Nic broke in, and a very old man with white hair gave a long evasive reply, punctuated with lamentations: 'Ah me, when the heavens fall in tempest, wise ones huddle close to the earth so that lightning does not strike them.'

'Good counsel,' Ix Zubin said impatiently. 'But where will you find that protective earth?' for she was concerned about her son's safety, and the old man, after more expressions of grief, started another aimless answer: 'In these days we seek consolation ... courage ... the wisdom of those who went before,' and a woman who showed irritation at these ramblings broke in with a solid statement: 'We're going to Palenque, where the G.o.ds first took us under their protection,' and at the mention of this almost sacred name, both Ix Zubin and her uncle gasped, for that ancient site was strong in their minds, and this sudden opportunity to see it was compelling. Without consulting her two companions, and abandoning any thought of visiting moribund Mayapan, Ix Zubin cried: 'Can we go with you?' and before anyone could respond, Boln cried with equal pleading: 'Can we? Can we?'

The verbose old man smiled, and said with condescension: 'It's many days travel, west and south. As a woman, you couldn't possibly-'

Boldly Ix Zubin interrupted: 'I'm the granddaughter of Cimi Xoc,' and when the man with the spade beard heard that august name he held out both hands to greet Ix Zubin, but then he posed certain sensible questions whose answers would prove or disprove her relations.h.i.+p with the revered astronomer. She responded properly, going far beyond expectations and revealing herself as one who had some knowledge of the secrets of the planets and even considerable information about how the Maya people had governed themselves in ancient times.

Her questioner was a prudent man who did not want his group to be saddled with weaklings, so before he gave his answer he pointed to the heavens where a waning moon still showed visible in daylight, and said: 'Palenque is far. Before we reach there, that moon will stand once more where it stands today. Before we are able to return, it will have stood there twice.'

Turning to her men, Ix Zubin started to query them to see if they deemed themselves equal to the task of continuing on to Palenque, and when Ah Nic, whom she questioned first, displayed the reticence which she expected, she heard the people from Mayapan murmuring against admitting him to their group. This distressed her, for she could see animosities festering which would destroy their expedition, so with great force she challenged her uncle: 'You are a priest of the Temple of Fertility in Cozumel. These women from Mayapan would travel a far distance to receive your blessing. You are the conscience of our people, the custodian of good things. Brace yourself and a.s.sume the leaders.h.i.+p to which your rank ent.i.tles you.'

Her words had a double effect. The women among the newcomers, realizing how indebted they were to the rites at Cozumel, and to any priest who supervised them, began to whisper, while Ah Nic himself acknowledged the truth of what his niece had said. Mustering his courage and a.s.suming a proper demeanor, he spoke quietly: 'I am your priest and it is my duty to see that all of you reach Palenque, that holy place, in good stead. Of course Boln and I can stand the rigors, and as for Ix Zubin, she's stronger of heart than any of us. Let us move forward,' and the long trek to Palenque began.

Although the Mayapan men were impressed by the old man's willingness to a.s.sume command, they needed two more a.s.surances. 'This could well be the last journey any of us will ever make,' they said, 'so we must be sure. When you walk from here to Palenque, you travel through jungle, swamps, streams overflowing suddenly ... Days without seeing the sun ... A million insects, snakes ... Few villages ...' Staring at the would-be voyagers, the spokesman asked: 'Can you face that?' and Ah Nic said grandly: 'Yes.'

Then came the crucial question: 'We'll have to buy many things along the way ... whenever we have a chance. Do you carry anything of value?'

Boln started to tell them that yes, they had ... but Ah Nic gently placed his hand on the young fellow's arm, smiled at the Mayapan people, and a.s.sured them: 'We do,' and they, approving of his reluctance to disclose the exact level of their wealth, nodded and said: 'In that case, off we go,' and the company of fourteen started the thirty-three-day walk to Palenque.

It was a magical journey, and, sooner than Ix Zubin expected, the narrow roadway, used only occasionally by the most intrepid wanderers, dived into dense jungle where the upper limbs of towering trees interlocked to form a canopy which obscured the sun and sky. Then the travelers moved in perpetual twilight, with parasite lianas, thick as a man's leg, drooping down from the trees like writhing snakes seeking to entrap them. Birds screeched as the men struggled to push aside the vines before taking their next steps, and the air was so heavy that bodies glistened with perspiration. Now Uncle Ah Nic came into his own, for as a man devoted to the natural world, he knew immediately which leaves and roots were edible, in which direction the hunters from Mayapan should venture if they wished to catch some animal whose meat would provide food, and which trees might be hiding combs of honey which Boln could collect. As soon as the boy shouted 'Bees!' Ah Nic was first there to light the fires that would smoke them out and allow others to grab the honey. And it was he who distributed the food supplies to the women cooks, with instructions as to how they should prepare them. He was a fussbudget and the brains of the expedition.

Boln was amazed that a major road to a place as important as Palenque had been should now be only this grudging track through jungle. But Ix Zubin knew that this experience with the power of the jungle to smother land would be the best preparation for what he would probably see at Palenque, if it remained as it had been when her grandfather described it; she doubted that the ancient city could provide anything equal to what Boln had already seen in the drylands of Chichen Itza.

There were, of course, a few small villages in clearings where the pilgrims could find food and water, but they were such mean affairs that Boln asked the white-haired man: 'How could Chichen be so grand and these places so miserable?' and the old fellow replied in sorrow: 'People and places know greatness for a while, then decline.'

'Why are you making this long journey?'

'To see, once again before I die, the greatness our people knew in the old days, and to mourn its pa.s.sing.'

The man was so patient with Boln that the boy stayed close to him, discussing ideas relating to temples and proudly explaining the important role played by his family in the Temple of Fertility at Cozumel. The old man listened attentively, but what really intrigued him was Boln's insistence that his mother really did know the secrets of astronomy and the manipulation of numbers, for he had never known a woman conversant in such matters. When he had heard Ix Zubin say earlier that she understood something about astronomy, he had a.s.sumed that she knew where the starry figures stood in the sky. Real astronomy? Never. But now, discovering that she really was learned, he sought her out.

The two conducted long talks, both as they traveled and when they rested, and the Mayapan man marveled at this woman's facility. Once, when they came upon a small temple left in ruins, he led her to a broken stela whose bottom third remained upright and asked her to decipher its glyphs and carvings, and she did so with ease, evoking for him the long-dead events which had once so excited the people supporting this temple that they had carved this stela to commemorate them.

'I wonder what the missing part would have told us?' the man mused, but not even Ix Zubin was clever enough to reconstruct that.

On the long days when nothing happened except dull plodding through jungle, Ix Zubin and her son pursued different interests, the boy heading off with the other hunters to see what food he might find or catch, and Ix Zubin talking with the two women who had accompanied their husbands from Mayapan. One interested her especially. This strong-minded woman had a daughter of fourteen, Ix Bacal by name, who was especially beautiful by Maya standards in that her mother had carefully trained her to be conspicuously cross-eyed: 'When she was four days old I kept a feather dangling before her eyes on a length of gra.s.s, and as she stared at it, day after day, her eyes began to cross rather nicely. Then, when she was older, I asked her father to get us a piece of bright sh.e.l.l, and this was hung so that light from the sun reflected into her eyes, and this too helped to train them inward, the way a mother wants them. Finally, when she could walk, I would stand before her and bring my finger from way back here straight to the point of her nose, and in time her eyes locked properly, the way you see them today.'

Then the mother apologized for her own inadequate eyes: 'My parents did not take such pains, and you can see that my eyes barely cross, and for certain they're not locked. Eyes that wander get a woman into trouble. Eyes that turn in bring illumination to her soul, and you can see that Ix Bacal has such eyes.' So the two Maya women, as they rested in the jungle, congratulated themselves on the proofs of their maternal care-Boln's nicely sloping head and Ix Bacal's lovely crossed eyes.

To Ix Zubin's dismay, her son seemed unaware of the beautiful girl, and since he was soon to be seventeen, she was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to discover the other s.e.x, for to have an unmarried priest in charge of a fertility temple would be unacceptable if not preposterous.

When they were about two-thirds of the way to Palenque, with the tropic moon verifying their progress each night, they came upon a clearing occupied by a gang of ugly, dirty men who were tapping a grove of wild rubber trees to collect the precious sap which could be used in so many ways. Boln saw that the blackness on their hands and faces came not from ordinary dirt but from the soot that acc.u.mulated when they heated the sap over slow fires to cure it and convert it into the rubber he had known when playing the ball game.

He noticed also that the Mayapan travelers treated these workmen with considerable deference, but even this recognition of their power did not prevent the ugly fellows from trying to grab at Ix Zubin, for they had not seen women for many days. When this happened, Ah Nic cried out in protest and Boln leaped forward to defend his mother. But the men's gestures had been a ruse, for what they really wanted was the young girl of fourteen, Ix Bacal, but when they tried to drag her away, Boln heard her screams, and he and two of the travelers leaped at her attackers and drove them off while Ah Nic tried to hit them with a switch. Hurriedly, Ix Zubin and the man with the spade beard collected the pilgrims and fled the area of the malevolent rubber gatherers, who jeered at them as they left.

Back in the safety of the arched-over jungle trail, Boln found himself trapped in an enticing mental problem: What would the ugly men have done with Ix Bacal if they had made away with her? and he now looked at the girl in a new way. No more long conversations with the old man, no more consultations with his mother. In his spontaneous leaping to the defense first of his mother and then of the girl, he had unknowingly taken the subtle step from boyhood to young manhood, and it was a development that Ix Zubin approved. She knew that her son's ultimate effectiveness as a priest at their temple would depend in part upon the kind of young woman he would have as his partner. Her famous grandfather had been helped in many subtle ways by his good wife, and she herself had been of inestimable value to her husband, therefore, there was good reason to hope that Boln would find himself a worthy mate.

So she took as much interest in this young girl as did her son. In appearance Ix Bacal was already a superior girl and gave promise of becoming an even finer-looking woman, but when Ix Zubin attempted to engage her in conversation, she quickly learned that the girl was ignorant and not interested in any aspect of Maya life, not even in her potential role as a mother. She was a pretty nothing, and for a young man as promising as Boln, that was not enough.

But Ix Zubin was a wise woman-this astronomer who understood not only the heavens but the human heart-and she realized that she must not in any way openly oppose young Ix Bacal, for Boln had reached the age when he must begin to make his own decisions, and when she saw her son lead the girl into the darker edges of the forest she was sensible enough to leave them alone. But she did wonder how, when she and Boln returned to Cozumel, she could help him find a proper wife.

After many days the pilgrims reached the edge of the once-great religious and political center of Palenque, and both Ah Nic and Ix Zubin, knowing the disappointment the others in the group were about to experience, prepared to soften the blow. Ix Zubin moved close to her son, but this did no good, for when he looked at Palenque, all he could see were trees, in a jungle of such profusion that nothing was visible more than six lengths in any direction. 'Where is Palenque?' he asked fretfully, for this had been a long journey to end in so little, and his mother said: 'Climb that tree and look about you,' but when he did he called down: 'I still see nothing,' and she cried: 'Boln, look at the clotted mounds!' and when he did he began slowly to see that the area was covered with spots where the trees leaped upward as if they were hiding something below, and he called down: 'It's like the waves on the sea at Tulm,' and indeed it was. There were great temples below him and scores of revealing stelae and beautiful palaces too, but none were visible, for human beings had left the area nearly a thousand years earlier, leaving the jungle free to confiscate the place, and it had.

Palenque, as Boln saw it from his tree that October day in 1489, was nothing but a vast collection of mounds buried under a sea of trees, twisted roots and creeping lianas. Not even a vestige of the grandeur that once characterized the site was discernible, and as he climbed down to rejoin the other pilgrims waiting amid the jungled mounds, the site of one lost building rarely visible from another, all were overcome with a sense of mourning for past glories.

Then the man with the spade beard began, in whispering voice, to explain what had happened: 'In its time, thousands of moons ago, this was a place of n.o.ble range, but it lived its day. Its people lost their enthusiasms. Its proud message was moved to other centers, and it perished.

' "Why, then, do we come here?" you ask. To remind ourselves of what we stem from, and to uncover our past. Yes, to uncover.' And he explained that when he had been here, years ago, he and his group had fixed upon one mound and had torn away the trees and matted vines to reveal the treasure hidden below, and that in the morning this group would do the same. Pointing to two of the men and Boln, he said: 'Choose the mound and we'll see what it hides,' and the committee of three spent some hours prowling among the mounds that hid the monuments. But as they were about to settle upon an imposing one that seemed certain to hide something of merit, the man with the spade beard came to them with a caution: 'Not something too big. There'll be too much digging before we come to the walls,' so they chose a small, clearly formed mound not overburdened with tall trees.

In the morning they hurried to their exciting task, but they had worked for only an hour when everyone realized that it would be impossible to clear the entire mound; that would take a moon of effort, but they could, as others had done on visits past, clear a tunnel of sufficient size to allow reasonable inspection of some portion of what lay hidden below, and to this more limited task the diggers applied themselves.

On the second day Boln was deep in the tunnel, ripping away roots that clung avariciously to some hidden object, when, with a mighty pull of his arms, he tore the last roots free and cried: 'It's here!' and the others rushed up behind him to finish enlarging the pa.s.sageway so that their companions could stoop and walk through to see at least this remnant of Palenque's greatness. Then, when a substantial surface of the buried temple had been cleared, all could examine the exquisite workmans.h.i.+p that had characterized Maya building at its zenith.

'Look!' the bearded man cried, his eyes alight with wonder. 'See how each stone fits exactly every other, on all sides. And how the surfaces are polished. And if we could locate a carved stela, we'd see real wonders.'

This challenge so excited Boln and the two other diggers that they scrambled about among the debris, shoving and hauling, until they uncovered not a traditional stela but a carved portion of wall, and when it had been cleaned, the pilgrims saw revealed what their man had promised: a piece of carving so fine that the figure of an ancient chieftain who had accomplished something of merit seemed to leap off the wall to resume command. 'Why did they always dress themselves in those tremendous head adornments?' Boln asked as he stared at the fantastic crown composed of serpents, leaves, flowers and the head of a snarling jaguar with teeth bared.

'Our ancestors knew that a man was a limited creature,' the bearded man explained, as if he were living at that time, 'so they adopted a headdress that made them taller, that brought all mystical powers to their support.' Then he smiled and added: 'Also, it impressed and even frightened the ordinary people.' Turning to the others, he asked: 'Can you imagine standing before that judge, with those snakes and jaguar teeth staring down at you, and admitting that you'd done something wrong?' The headdress of the life-sze figure was three feet high.

Only a corner of the little temple had been cleared by the diggers, but now Boln and another man decided to probe just a bit farther, and in doing so, came upon the blocked entrance to an inner room. When this was opened and torches brought, Ah Nic led them inside to the true miracle of Palenque, for there in the dim and gloom, protected by thick outer walls from the inquisitive roots, rose an inner wall some seven feet high and twelve feet long, covered completely with glyphs and scripts and figures of the most beautiful composition, some carved, some painted, summarizing an account of what must have been a heroic action in times long past.

It was a work of majestic art, a communication from the heartland of the Maya composed in the days before the new religion came in from the west, and Ix Zubin especially was staggered by its size and magnificence, but when her son asked: 'What does it say?' she had to confess that neither she nor Ah Nic nor anyone living that day could read the old writing. This was tantalizing, because obviously it conveyed a specific message about events of consequence which the writers wanted to record for posterity. 'It's infuriating,' Ix Zubin grumbled, 'that not one of us is able to read that message,' but though she was frustrated, she did find satisfaction in solving the date, comparable to Thursday 14 June A.D. 512.

While she was doing this, Boln was mesmerized by the carvings, for they were so grand in their gray-white purity, with colors applied sparingly here and there, that he could not fathom how they had been made. 'What is this?' he appealed to the others, knocking his knuckles against what he took to be a stone, but unlike any he had known.

Ah Nic knew the answer. 'The hills near here gave them a remarkable stone, easy to crush, easy to mix with sand and broken pebbles and lime and just enough water. It formed a plaster, not solid, not liquid, and it was easily worked. As it dried it could be carved, but when it hardened ...' Picking from the floor a small rock, he banged it mightily against the carved face of a ferocious G.o.d, and the pebble cracked while the G.o.d's cheek remained unscarred. 'We call it stucco,' Ah Nic said, 'and it accounts for the beauty of Palenque.' When Boln inspected this little treasure room he saw that the walls, the ceiling, the decorations and the statues were all of stucco, and when he left, reluctantly, looking back till the last flare died, he realized that the first figure he had admired had been constructed in the same way: a pillar had been covered with wet stucco which, when hardened, could be carved into fantastic configurations.

As the time approached to start the return journey, Ah Nic led the group through a jungle mora.s.s to the edge of a ma.s.sive mound reaching high into the air and covered by a literal forest of trees: 'If that little corner of such a minor temple revealed such wonders, can you imagine what grandeur will be seen when great mounds like this are uncovered?' Then he allowed his voice to fall to a whisper: 'And as we have seen, there are scores of such mounds, scores of temples lying hidden all around us,' and in the silence that followed, Boln understood why his mother had insisted on this pilgrimage, for he knew that knowledge of the past gave men courage to face the future.

When Ix Zubin led her son, now a proven man, back to the point on the mainland where they would catch the ferry to Cozumel, they found confusion, for the men who customarily sailed the large canoes were nowhere to be seen, nor were their craft. Instead, a group of catch-as-catch-can little craft were swarming around in the hands of men who knew little about them. When the three travelers chose one in which they had scant faith, the young fellow in charge told them a doleful story: 'Much bad this year. n.o.body in Mayapan to give orders. n.o.body in Cozumel to set rules.'

'What's happened?' Ah Nic asked, sensing that it would not look right for a woman to be seen asking political questions, and the doleful young man said as he propelled them inexpertly homeward: 'Much burning in Cozumel. Many old buildings gone in the fighting.' None of the three wanted to query the fate of the Temple of Fertility, but without being asked, the man volunteered: 'No more pilgrims coming to our temples. Too much trouble in Mayapan. No more big canoes here to carry them.' He paused, studied Ah Nic, whom he did not want to offend, then added tentatively: 'Maybe all people ... not believe priests anymore.'

When they landed, ignoring people who might want to interrogate them about having been absent for more than half a year, they walked benumbed toward their temple, and wherever they looked they saw scars and things torn away. Then Boln, running ahead, stopped aghast, for the Temple of Fertility which he should have inherited had been wantonly destroyed, its walls torn down, its cl.u.s.ter of supporting buildings burned. Even its detestable Chac Mool had been carried off to a more exposed site where human sacrifices could be staged with greater spectacular effect.

But what appalled Ix Zubin beyond consolation was that the precious papers on which her grandfather had computed his calculations on the planet Venus had been burned, along with his predictions of eclipses for centuries to come. She was enraged when she learned of this savagery, but she did not confide her feelings to Boln lest he react spontaneously as he had when the rubber tappers a.s.saulted her. She did, however, caution him: 'We may have caused the destruction of our own temple ... going on pilgrimage without their permission ... Beware, son. They may have other punishments awaiting us. Beware.' And she monitored whatever he did, trying to keep him away from his superiors in hopes of protecting him.

But very soon attention was diverted from them by the arrival of a long canoe, unprecedented in width and construction, whose rowers indicated in sign language that they had come from a big land far to the east containing tall mountains and fine rivers. The legends of Cozumel held that a huge island lay well to the east, occupied by savages of a totally different breed. With these mysterious islanders men of olden times had sometimes traded Maya rubber b.a.l.l.s and bits of green jade in return for cruder items, and Boln a.s.sumed that these rowers were the very men his elders had sometimes spoken of.

It was obvious to him that they had traversed the same sea that he had speculated upon when gazing out from the towers of Tulm. He therefore became one of the eager young men who conversed with the strangers; they knew no Cozumel words, but like all traders, were able to convey their needs and explain what goods they had to offer in exchange.

To his superiors, Boln explained: 'They are like the long-ago people you spoke about. They want from us only two things. Pieces of jade and rubber b.a.l.l.s for their games.'

'What have they to offer?'

'Beautiful mats, best ever seen,' Boln said with enthusiasm, betraying the fact that he had become excited by the mysteriousness of their sudden appearance. 'Seash.e.l.ls, beautifully carved. Rowing paddles of a strong new wood.'

When the rude men who now ruled Cozumel growled: 'We have no need of paddles,' Boln unwisely protested this decision, pointing out that the time could very well come when the men of Cozumel might want to venture out upon the sea which these strangers had apparently crossed with ease.

'No!' the new rulers snarled. 'The sea is not for us. We're people of the land.'

But Boln found himself opposed to them, for he had fallen under the spell of the sea that rolled in such majesty onto the eastern sh.o.r.e of his island, and he began to speculate upon its significance: If these men have come to us in their large canoe, perhaps others will arrive in much larger ones? Cheris.h.i.+ng his thoughts, he began walking for hours along the sh.o.r.e, staring eastward as if striving to glimpse the lands which he suspected might rest invisibly in the distance. At electrifying moments during his speculations he began to comprehend secrets of the sea, and it seemed as if bolts of lightning struck his imagination: Is it not possible that the future of Cozumel will lie not with the mainland to the west where all things seem to be crumbling, but rather somewhere in this unknown sea to the east where things seem fresh and new? At the conclusion of one such vision he strode into the waves and cried: 'Waters of the world, I embrace you,' and from that moment his decision was made.

He a.s.sociated constantly with the rowers of the canoe, taking them bits of jade from his mother's store and rubber b.a.l.l.s from his friends, and these items he used to trade for mats and carved seash.e.l.ls. Significantly, he did not keep these for himself, for he had conceived the idea that he might be going with the men when they left Cozumel, and if he did accompany them to their homeland, it would be foolish to carry with him the things they made. But he would pay a terrible penalty for this generosity, because one of his friends had turned informer, whispering to the authorities: 'Boln trades with the strangers despite your instructions, and he may even be considering sailing away with them.'

Both charges were true. Boln had been so awed by his visit to Palenque that he had returned to Cozumel yearning to do something that would re-create the grandeur lost in that buried city. But now, with his temple destroyed and any possibility of his becoming a priest erased, he was casting about for other areas in which he could exercise his energy, and the idea of carrying Maya concepts of life to new lands became inviting. So one morning, without carefully exploring what such an emigration would entail, he hurried down to where the canoe was loading and indicated to the rowers: 'I'd like to go with you,' and they replied that he'd be welcome.

That night, after sunset, still unaware that the Cozumel authorities were closely watching his behavior, he told his mother: 'I've been thinking. With the loss of everything here, maybe it would be better if I sailed with the strangers when they leave in the morning.'

For some moments Ix Zubin did not reply, for since their departure from Palenque she had been worried about her son's future. Some of the signs she detected were ominous, like his constant a.s.sociation with the newcomers; others rea.s.suring, like his increased maturity and willingness to discuss important matters with her. But what really disturbed her were his frequent wanderings along the sh.o.r.e, for she guessed that he had become infatuated with the sea. Recalling how profoundly it had affected him during their trip to Tulm, she warned: 'Boln, do not fall in love with a stranger. Keep your feet dry.'

Trying desperately to determine whether her son was still a boy or had truly become a man, one night she shared her a.s.sessment with him: 'At Tulm you said you liked it better because it was bigger than Cozumel. Remember that foolish statement? Also, when the official in the palanquin pa.s.sed us on the road, you said your ambition was to ride in one when you grew up. How silly. And on the ball court at Chichen you were a mere boy, playing with dreams.'

Then she rea.s.sured him: 'But in seeking out honeybees on the trip, you were better than the men. In fighting off the rubber tappers, you were strongest of all. And with lovely, cross-eyed Ix Bacal you behaved as a proud and proper young man should. But it was in the explorations at Palenque that you really led the way-in uncovering the treasures ... in understanding what you found.'

For some moments she rocked back and forth, bending from the waist, then she leaned sideways and embraced her son: 'I took you away from Cozumel a boy. I brought you back a man.' Then, taking his hands, she whispered: 'You say you may be going away with the strangers in their canoe. That's the kind of decision only a grown man is eligible to make. Well, you're a man now. Think carefully, son,' and she drew his hands to her lips and kissed them in a kind of benediction.

The realization that he might be leaving Ix Zubin forever overwhelmed him and he fell silent, not knowing what to say. Ill at ease about revealing the love he felt for her, he made a totally different observation: 'It's difficult when the world's changing ... when the old dies but you can't yet see the new.'

In the hours that followed, these two good people who saw so clearly that their world was disintegrating, with nothing better to take its place, sat in a darkness alleviated only by the stars which they had studied so faithfully, and they became mourners for the death of Palenque and Chichen Itza and even huge Mayapan that had served a useful purpose during its good days. They had been great cities motivated by worthy purposes, but they had either vanished or were in the process of doing so. Cozumel, too, was doomed, as fatally wounded as Tulm, and soon there would no need for astronomers or mathematicians or men who knew how to make and use stucco. 'Everywhere the jungle will reclaim the land,' Ix Zubin said, but she refused to lament. Straightening her little shoulders as if to muster new resolve, she said: 'New worlds, new tasks,' but she could not envision what purpose either she or Boln, trained as they had been, could serve in the new order.

The long night ended strangely, with mother and son sitting in silence, he desolate because he could not fathom his future, she even more anguished because she saw that with the destruction of her records her past too might be lost, and each convinced that the present must continue bleak.

A few days later Boln had to make his crucial decision, for the newcomers had warned him: 'On the morrow, we row back to our island.' Upon rising, he ate nervously, kissed his mother, and wandered almost aimlessly down to where the canoe was being loaded, still undecided whether to jump into it for the great adventure or merely wave them an affectionate farewell. When he reached the water's edge the men shouted: 'Hola! Hola!' indicating that he was invited to join them, but at the last moment he drew back and allowed them to depart.

Ix Zubin, watching from a distance, felt a surge of joy in knowing that he would stay with her, but this euphoria vanished when she asked herself the question that would haunt her remaining days: Should I have encouraged him, even driven him, to leave this doomed place and find a better life? Her fears that she might have acted improperly were temporarily a.s.suaged when her son strode back from the sea with a decisive step, spotted her watching, and came to her, saying in a voice from which irresolution had been cleansed: 'My life is here. To help you rebuild our temple. To save this island from a terrible error,' and he led her off to launch their first steps in that effort. Following behind, her heart sang: He has become the man we needed.

But as they approached their shack seven guards leaped upon Boln lest he try to run down to the departing canoe, pinioned his arms, stripped him of his clothing, and informed him in loud voices: 'You're for the next sacrifice to Chac Mool. At the feast, three days hence,' and they rushed him away to the wicker cage in which the human sacrifices were imprisoned while awaiting the feast day.

In wild panic Ix Zubin tried to rescue her son from this terrible end, but she was powerless; the rulers had lodged such serious charges against her that her pleas were nullified. She had gone on pilgrimage without permission. She had encouraged her son to have dealings with the strangers. And worst of all, she had kept in her possession pages of papyrus containing mystic calculations which ought to be administered only by men. Had custom allowed women to be sacrificed to the rain G.o.d, she would surely have volunteered to take her son's place in the waiting pen. Instead, she had to suffer her grief and outrage alone.

In her lonely shack she reviewed the horror of the situation and her role in it: I took such pains to rear a worthy son ... applied the boards to give him a n.o.ble appearance to his head ... taught him the rituals of our temple ... instructed him in the stars ... trained him to be responsible ... encouraged him when he met that lovely girl. What more could I have done?

She knew the answer: I could have demanded that he flee this dreadful island with those men in the canoe. He knew that his destiny lay in the sea to the east, but I intruded. Then came the most terrible recrimination of all: I helped to strike him down in the very moment when he became a full man, and to her mind's eye came that final vision of him as he strode back from the seash.o.r.e, his body bronzed by the sun, his mind and courage forged in the fires of his generation. Wailing to herself, she cried: 'He was the best man on this island, and I helped destroy him,' and she cursed the G.o.ds.

Boln, held tightly in his cage, knew neither rage nor fear. His recent experiences at majestic Chichen Itza and sacred Palenque had given him a new understanding. He realized that civilizations waxed and waned and that he was unfortunate in having been born into an era when old values were dying, dying beyond recall. He was glad that his mother had rejected her original plan of going to Mayapan, for he sensed that such a visit to a moribund center would have been not only unproductive but also depressing. Palenque, on the other hand, had been like a flame in a dark night, throwing beautiful shadows in corners that would otherwise have been completely dark. He was proud to be the inheritor of the men and women who had built Palenque.

Also, he remembered his sudden courage in fighting off the rubber tappers, for it had made him aware, now that he was seventeen, that a world of women waited with their own mysteries; life was twice as complicated and interesting as he had perceived it earlier. This thought did bring flashes of regret; he did not want to die before those other avenues were explored; he was unwilling to go before he knew from what lands to the east the strangers had come.

But above all, he was a Maya, profoundly indoctrinated in the lore of his people, and he truly believed that if he behaved poorly at his execution, he would bring shame upon his mother and a punis.h.i.+ng drought to his island, and this he would not do. So he huddled in his cage, erased all fear, and awaited the moment when he would be taken to the stone altar beside which Chac Mool waited with the stone saucer resting on his belly.

At the appointed time the guards came to the cage, unlocked it and pulled him out, but this required no effort, for Boln was in a hypnotic state. He saw the ruins of his temple as he was dragged along, but they signified nothing. He saw the waiting Chac Mool, but its hateful features no longer terrified him. He saw his weeping mother, but he was so self-benumbed that he could not even make a gesture of farewell.

Now the guards threw him roughly, face up, on the big stone altar, whereupon four young acolytes leaped forward to grab his arms and legs and pull them tightly backward so as to force his chest upward. Boln actually watched with personal concern as the high priest, wearing a robe covered with arcane symbols painted in gold and blood and a tremendous headdress two feet high crawling with snakes and jaguars, lifted his obsidian knife, plunged it into the left side of the rib cage, drew it deeply across, and while Boln was still alive, reached in and grabbed the beating heart, ripping it from its hiding place. Boln remained alive just long enough to see his own heart placed reverently in the waiting saucer of Chac Mool.

On the very day that Boln died on the island of Cozumel, a council of some importance was meeting in the Spanish city of Sevilla, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella listened attentively as a team of three learned savants cited six reasons why the Italian navigator Cristoforo Colombo, now converted into the Spanish supplicant Cristbal Coln, was egregiously wrong in his preposterous theory that Asia could be reached by sailing westward out of a port in southern Spain: 'First, we already know that the Western Ocean is infinite. Second, since the voyage he proposes would require at least three years, it would be impossible for him to get there and back. Third, if he did reach the Antipodes on the other side of the globe, how could he sail back up against the slope? Fourth, St. Augustine has clearly said: "There can be no Antipodes because there is no land down there." Fifth, of the five zones into which the earth is divided, the ancients have a.s.sured us that only three can be inhabited. Sixth, and most important, if so many centuries have pa.s.sed since Creation, is it reasonable that any lands can still wait undiscovered?'

When everyone present finished acclaiming the irrefutable reasoning of the wise men, Coln stepped forward, and like a tough-spirited bulldog refusing to surrender a bone held in its teeth, growled: 'I know Asia lies where I say it does. I know I can get to it by sailing westward. And before I die, with G.o.d's help I shall do so.'