Caribbean (9 page)

At the mention of this once-great city she drew back, for it had been believed in her family that when the alien invaders from the west established their new religion there, they destroyed much of the greatness of the Maya people. “It’s a harsh place,” she said. But her uncle remained firm: “Its gods are cruel, its temples sublime,” and with these words the old man struck a responsive chord, and she turned to her son: “When I was a girl your age, Bolón, my grandfather took me
on a journey to see Chichén Itzá, and when I saw the deep well into which they threw young girls to appease the gods, I was terrified.”

“Then why would you go back?” her son asked, and she explained: “But I also saw greatness, and long after the hideous gods retreated from my dreams, I remembered the noble temples and the beautiful courts. You are entitled to see them, Bolón, so that you’ll know what greatness is.”

So, in the dark of night, without a light to guide them lest it attract attention, the three gathered the clothes and goods they would require: the good cotton tunics Ix Zubin had woven and sewed, the extra pair of boots shod with heavy skins, the rain covers made from tightly woven reeds and slender lianas, and most important, the three types of money they would need for the purchase of food along the way: jade, gold and cacao beans.

Ix Zubin produced from various hidden places the bits of green jade she had sequestered through the years; some of them, she knew, belonged to the temple, not to her, but she justified what amounted to theft by telling Bolón: “Your father and I worked for this jade. It’s only proper.” Bolón had gathered up wealth of a radically different kind, and in this case he was certainly entitled to it, for he spread before her the precious cacao beans, each one worth a meal, that the Maya used for money. It was, perhaps, the most interesting kind of coinage used anywhere in the world, for after it had passed as currency for a year or two, it finally gravitated into the hands of some man already wealthy who ground up the beans to make the delicious chocolate drink which Maya people craved. Bolón, treasuring the bag in which he had accumulated such beans by doing small jobs for important families, assured his mother: “This takes us there and back.” Both Ix Zubin and Bolón were surprised when Ah Nic brought forth a small horde of gold pieces which through the years he had hidden from offerings made to the temple, and in the middle of the night they set forth.

The men who owned the big canoe they would be using for the important first leg of their journey were not happy about venturing south in darkness, but since they had taken such trips twice before they knew that disaster was not inevitable, so when Bolón took from his bag four cacao beans, the canoe men grabbed them and started paddling.

As the rowers strained at their oars through the quiet night, with gentle water from the Caribbean lapping at the sides of their canoe,
Ix Zubin revealed her plan: “There is something of importance you must see at Tulúm,” and she explained how they would go south to Tulúm, then to Chichén Itzá before going to Mayapán.

Bolón was not really listening, for her reasoning was so personal and mystifying that he could not follow it; his attention was on the musical, mysterious sea, that strange body of water that he had never before ventured upon, and it captivated him: “Why don’t we build really big canoes and explore this great body of water?” and Ah Nic gave the answer that had been given for the past thousand years: “We’re land people. We know nothing of water like this,” and he told Bolón of how adventurous it had been, many generations ago, for the Maya to quit the land which was their home and make the bold leap across water to Cozumel, a distance of not much more than eleven miles, with land visible at all times: “It was a brave act, and many of those first people died still convinced that catastrophe must overtake them because they had broken with tradition by crossing water to an island.” Ah Nic enjoyed giving such explanations.

“Would you have that same fear about venturing into that sea out there?” and the way in which Bolón phrased his question revealed that he thought of the waters they were traversing as safe, because land was visible throughout the starry night, while that “other water” would be terrifying beyond belief once the reassuring land had become invisible.

His mother confirmed this fear: “When Grandfather first took me down to Tulúm in a canoe like this, four big men paddling, I was sure we were heading for the end of the world. And I can tell you, I was relieved when we climbed back onto safe land.” Chuckling at her fears, she added: “As for venturing out there, I’d be terrified.”

“So would I,” Ah Nic agreed.

It was only about forty miles from the departure point at Cozumel to Tulúm, and since waves could be high and progress slow, it was not until dawn of the second day that they approached the temple area. As the two sailors beached their canoe, the occupants could look up and see some forty feet above them the grim outlines of a fortress tower unlike anything on Cozumel. Poised on the edge of the sea, it appeared to shout a warning to those down below: “Do not attempt to assault the city I guard, for we are impregnable!”

When they had bade their paddlers farewell and climbed the steep slope to the town they found the impression of defense intensified. Once more they faced something Bolón had not seen before: the entire
central area of forts and temples also was enclosed within a massive unbroken stone wall twice as high as a man and unbelievably thick. It did contain several portals, and when the pilgrims passed through the one nearest the landing, they saw a collection of many temples lined along a main street running east to west, the whole creating a strong sense of order, with the homes of ordinary citizens scattered far outside the walls.

But the three had inspected only one temple when Ix Zubin expressed her disgust at the sloppy, inartistic manner in which the edifices had been built: “They’re as gross and brutal as our Chac Mool.”

Tulúm 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 façades 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 principal 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 Chichén Itzá, 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: “Tulúm’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, Bolón. 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, Bolón, 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,” Bolón said, but she would not accept this: “Bolón, 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 Tulúm for the journey to Chichén Itzá, 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 assured 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 Tulúm to the congregation of great buildings at Chichén Itzá, 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. Bolón, 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 Bolón 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 Bolón’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 Yucatán, 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 Chichén Itzá, they allowed Ix Zubin and her companions to borrow some to make their own head coverings.

The strangers, having no interest in Chichén Itzá, 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 Bolón 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 Tulúm, 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 Chichén Itzá 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 leadership of the Maya had passed to Mayapán, 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 passed 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 Chichén Itzá 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 Chichén Itzá ruins.