When we got out of the plane, climbing down some portable steps, we saw the battered bodies of two dead-looking planes.
“Oh, my word,” somebody expostulated. “Look at these planes that didn’t make it. I wish we could walk back to San Sebastián.”
I looked around. The landing strip was not very big, and jungle was pressing in on all sides. A jeep-type car bounced to a stop near one of the planes, and Jorge ran to meet two children who jumped all over him, hugging and shouting. He put his arms around them, asking Captain Nausinio to help him with his camera equipment. It was stowed carefully in the back of the car by Captain Nausinio and Jorge’s wife, who had black hair hanging down her back in a thick braid, which I was beginning to think of as the Vespugian way of wearing hair.
Siri had walked over and was standing near me. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Gorgeous.” Mrs. Maldonado got in the jeep and they bounced off, and Captain Nausinio and the rest of us followed along a narrow path that cut through thick bushes, with overhanging trees.
Captain Nausinio talked as we walked, pointing as he spoke, and I couldn’t understand a word he said. Finally Cook told him to speak Spanish, and he’d translate.
“Yay, thanks, Cookie!” Sam exclaimed.
Someone else said, “I thought I could understand Spanish reasonably well, but the Vespugian accent is beyond me. Thank goodness for you, Cookie.”
It was a ten-minute walk to a clearing in the jungle where suddenly, as we left the trees behind us, we saw the pyramids. Here, in the middle of nowhere, were great stone edifices even larger than the pictures in Aunt Serena’s photo album had indicated. The largest one was a massive series of steps rising up at least ten stories. The photographs hadn’t conveyed their majesty, or how amazing it was in the middle of the Vespugian jungle to see signs of what obviously had been a sophisticated culture.
Esteban spoke to Cook, who told us that the pyramids were estimated to be about three thousand years old, and very little was known about the civilization that built them.
I wondered what would be known about our civilization in three thousand years. I looked around at us all, the women mostly in cotton dresses or pants, many of the men in shorts and T-shirts. By contrast, Captain Nausinio and Esteban were sweltering in their uniforms, rifles slung over their shoulders. Esteban’s fair skin was pale, and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip. As well as his rifle, he carried something in a long, black leather case. Another gun? Or maybe it was his oboe.
Esteban, with Cook translating, told us that the pyramids had been discovered by the early Spanish explorers, in the sixteenth century. The monks thought it was a pagan place and smashed many of the stones and statues.
I looked around and saw fragments of stone all around, and on some of the carvings the faces had been mutilated. I suddenly understood the word “defaced.”
Cook translated in an emotionless voice, and I wondered what he thought of monks mutilating anything they thought represented a religion different from theirs. But he continued translating for Esteban without changing expression. “The monks, Esteban says, felt that the pyramids were sacrilegious, and after they had done their damage they went away and the jungle took over again, completely. The pyramids weren’t rediscovered until the nineteen-sixties. The largest has four staircases of ninety steps each, adding up to three hundred and sixty days, which was their calendar year, so whoever built the pyramids was mathematically and astronomically literate.” He listened to Esteban and told us that if we had the energy for the climb, there would be a beautiful view from the top.
“Come on!” Sam called to me, and started to climb. If Sam could do it, so could I, and when he stopped to rest I paused with him. We were both streaming with sweat. The thought that we’d be seeing icebergs in a few days was incredible. The sun was searing, hotter than it ever gets at home, and the insects were finding me delicious. Sam said, “They ignore me, I’m so old and stringy. And my cigar is protection.” It was clamped in his mouth, slightly chomped on, and, as usual, it wasn’t lit.
I had my backpack on, so I’d have my hands free for climbing. Most of the others were climbing, too, and there was lots of complaining about the bugs, and people who’d thought to bring bug repellent were passing it around. The two soldiers were also climbing, their rifles banging against their sides. Esteban kept glancing at me, but did not say anything. It was the first time I’d encountered this kind of language barrier that kept us from speaking to each other without an interpreter.
When we arrived at the top, the view was indeed spectacular. We could see other pyramids, and many smaller buildings spreading out in all directions, until the jungle took over. Sam told me that there was still excavation going on. At least there had been under the old president, El Zarco, but General Guedder was not putting money into archaeology.
Having given me this information, through huffs and puffs, Sam lowered himself onto one of the high steps to either side of the shallower ones we’d climbed. I sat down by him. What a great guy! I was pretty much out of breath myself. My shoulders were itching, so I slipped off my backpack and put it in my lap. Sam was still breathing heavily, and I wanted to give him time to catch his breath, so I reached in my backpack and pulled out Adam’s letter about the pyramids. I was reading intently and didn’t realize that the two soldiers were near us until I heard the older one snap out some kind of order, and suddenly Esteban turned to me, speaking urgently. I couldn’t understand a word. He kept pointing at Adam’s letter and then at himself. Finally he touched the letter, tugging it gently.
My fingers tightened on the page. “Hey, that’s mine!”
Why would he want a letter he obviously couldn’t read?
He spoke incomprehensibly to me again, then reached for the letter, and suddenly I felt myself falling, losing my balance, and pitching backward off the steps.
Sam yelled.
And then I was grabbed, shoved, and I fell on one of the wide steps, trembling. Esteban stood by me, and he was trembling, too, and gabbling in Spanish.
Sam said, “Quick work, lad!” Then he asked me, “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” I was pretty sure I had been pushed. Not by Esteban, who was standing below me, but by the older soldier; I couldn’t be sure, and it was a terrible accusation. Why would anyone want to push me?
Esteban’s skin looked grey, and his blue eyes were dark with horror. Captain Nausinio scowled. People crowded around.
Cook was coming up the last of the steps. “What’s the matter?”
Sam said, “Vicky started to fall. This young lad, here”—he indicated Esteban—“managed to catch her.”
My heart was pounding with fear and relief. I said, “I was looking at a letter from Adam—it was in my backpack—I think Esteban wanted to see it—”
Captain Nausinio spoke to Cook.
Cook said, his voice level, “Captain Nausinio tells me his young colleague collects postcards from America. It was a postcard he was hoping for, not the letter.”
Had the postcards even been visible? I hadn’t pulled them out.
Cook and the soldier talked again, while Esteban hung back, and finally Cook said, “They are terribly sorry there was nearly an accident, Vicky. Lieutenant Esteban is apologizing profusely, and hopes you will forgive him.”
“But he’s the one who saved me!”
Sam stood up and stretched and yawned. “All’s well that ends well.”
Shakespeare again. My teacher said that Shakespeare and the King James translation of Scripture have permeated our language and our very being.
“Going down is going to be even worse than climbing up,” Sam said. “I’m doing it backward, Vicky, and I think you’ll find that easiest, too.”
I grunted and started down beside him. When we’d gone about halfway, he stopped and asked, “What was that about?”
I stopped, too. “What?”
“The way you nearly fell. I wasn’t looking at you, but—”<
br />
“But?” I really wanted to know what Sam’s “but” was about.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of kid who’d be careless of your own safety.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Vicky, I do not think that handsome young soldier collects postcards. My Spanish is just adequate enough so I could hear the older man telling him to take something from you.”
“Why on earth—”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t like it.”
I didn’t either. “No. But Cookie said they were sorry …”
“I’m glad you’re with Cookie,” Sam said. “I think you should talk to him about this.”
Five
Stay awake, Vicky. Stay awake.
I moved slightly away from the tall tower of ice against which I was leaning, and swayed on my feet. Even with my eyes wide open, my mind seemed to slide the way it does just before you go to sleep, when you’re not actually dreaming but you aren’t thinking ordinary, rational thoughts, either.
Actions have consequences. But what had I done that would lead me to an iceberg in Antarctica? Times and places slid in and out, maybe the way they did for Aunt Serena when she was tired. The seal said that the past and present converged in—
I jerked awake. The seal was still off, fishing. If I lay down and slept, I would die. As long as I stayed awake, there was a possibility I would be rescued. I’d put my family through enough grief, and as for Aunt Serena, she’d given me the tickets to Antarctica, the trip was her gift to me, and if anything happened to me, she—
She’d had enough grief. I couldn’t add to it. I shaded my eyes and scanned the horizon, keeping up hope.
When we reached the ground Captain Nausinio came up to us, lugging a case of Coke, which Cook and Sam and I helped him pass around, and we all drank thirstily. Then we were handed cardboard boxes with sandwiches and an orange, and Cook said the sandwiches had been prepared by the hotel and were okay to eat, and of course the orange could be peeled. Esteban and Captain Nausinio stood near us, looking hungry. Although they had carried the lunches to the pyramids, they evidently weren’t on the list for lunches, only the tourists were.
Esteban spoke to Cook, who then told us that the people who built these pyramids had not discovered the wheel. He spoke again, and Cook translated. “It seems they were fairly advanced mathematicians. Esteban is very interested in this culture.”
Esteban then pointed to some stone slabs, which Cook said were stelae, carved with pictures of men and women in elaborate headdresses. When Esteban had finished giving Cook his information, he squatted down near me.
Captain Nausinio came up to us, barked out something, and Esteban turned to Cook, who explained that Captain Nausinio was going to lead the way to a sort of outhouse, and if anyone wanted to follow him, the privy was only a few hundred yards away. A few people got up and went after him. Esteban watched until the group had turned a corner past one of the smaller pyramids. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a postcard and handed it to me, a rather crumpled one of the largest of the pyramids, the one we had climbed. I thanked him and because he still looked very hungry I gave him half my sandwich. He smiled, and his cheeks were pink. I wished I could speak Spanish so I could ask him why he’d wanted my letter from Adam. I looked at Esteban’s friendly face, and none of it made sense.
Then Esteban reached for his black case and carefully pulled out his oboe. So I had been right, and it was not another gun. He put it to his mouth to wet the reed, then began to play—a soft, haunting melody.
Not at all to my surprise, Siri came hurrying over to us and knelt on the rough grass, listening intently. When Esteban had put down his oboe, she asked, “Rodrigo?”
He shook his head. “Juan Ormondan. Vespugian. Ours.”
“That was a lovely piece.” Siri clapped her hands in applause to explain her words. Then, in Spanish, “Más, por favor.”
Esteban lifted the oboe and began to play a strange, minor melody, not quite our own scale. I watched his face, fascinated by his dark hair and immense blue eyes. He put his oboe down as Captain Nausinio and the others returned, and we were called to get back on the planes. As we walked across the rough grass, Siri said, “He’s a real musician, that young soldier. I wish we could hear him play more.”
Sam nodded. “He’s okay, that kid. He was doing his best to apologize for whatever it was that happened up on the pyramid. Playing his oboe for you was the only gift he knew how to give you.”
“It was wonderful,” I said.
Siri suddenly shivered. “The music was superb, and the pyramids phenomenal, but there’s a feel to this place, something unsettling. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m glad we’re leaving.”
A lot of people were audibly upset about getting back in planes which really appeared unsafe, but our plane, at least, took off smoothly, and there was no turbulence in the air.
I sat next to Cook, who asked, “Are you okay, Vicky?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
“How did you happen to fall?”
“It didn’t just happen. I think somebody pushed me.”
“By mistake?”
“I don’t know.”
He took quite a while before replying, “It was crowded on those narrow steps at the top. Someone could easily have bumped into you, inadvertently.”
I shook my head. “It was all part of Esteban’s wanting the letter. It scared me.”
Cook sighed. “Yes, Vicky, I’m sure it did. Let it go, if you can.”
My backpack was shoved under the seat in front of me. I pulled it out, put it on my lap, reached in, got the two warning cards from my locker at school, and handed them to Cook.
He looked at them, turning them over, reading and rereading the messages, then asked sharply, “Where did these come from?”
“They were stuck in the door of my school locker.”
“Recently?”
“Yes.” In showing Cook those cards, I’d committed myself. I reached into the backpack again and got Adam II’s unfinished letter, but I didn’t hand it to him directly. I said, “Cookie, remember I gave you an air letter addressed to you, one I found up in the attic? An old one that had never been mailed?”
Cook was always quiet, but an added stillness seemed to fill him. He turned slowly to look at me.
I gave him Adam II’s unfinished letter. “Did it have anything to do with this?”
He read, slowly. His hand shook, slightly. “Miss Vicky.” Then, “Vicky, this is old trouble. It was long ago. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Somebody doesn’t want me to know about it. Or tell anybody about it.”
“Who?”
I could not tell him John’s suspicion. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
He put the letter down on his lap. “This all happened—before you were born.”
I asked, “Did Adam II’s letter—the one I gave you—did it maybe make you feel he might not have been killed if you had been there?”
“Of course. But that is a foolish way of thinking. We can’t rewrite the past. What happened, happened.”
He had answered the question I had not actually asked. “But you think he was killed.”
“It is hard to avoid that conclusion.”
“What happened?”
“Adam got word to Washington and to the UN that Guedder and his son were planning to use heavy explosives on the Antarctic continent to try to see what was beneath the ice cap. Once the plans were made public, it was possible to stop them.”
“And so they killed Adam?”
“We do not know.”
“It would stop him from spying on them, finding out what their other plans were, wouldn’t it?”
“It is possible.”
“How much does Aunt Serena know?”
“She knows what there is to know. Those of us who loved Adam wanted him avenged, but there were no facts, nothing to go on. Madam said that some judgments are best left to God. And that
is where this should be left. It was long ago. It has nothing to do with you. Nothing.”
“What about those cards in my locker?”
“They must be part of some practical joke.”
“Why?”
“There’s no other explanation.”
“I wrote Adam about them,” I said. “And about Adam II’s journal and letters.”
He looked troubled. “Perhaps it would have been better if …” His voice trailed off.
“Cookie—if somebody pushed me—”
“There’s no reason. No reason you should be a threat to anybody.”
“But if they’re planning something new—”
“It still has nothing to do with you.”
“I could tell people.”
“It’s far-fetched.”
“Is it?”
“Did you show this letter to anybody?”
“John. He didn’t say anything. He promised. John keeps his promises.”
Cook handed me back the cards and the letter. “Don’t show these to anybody.”
“Of course not.”
“We’ll be out of Vespugia tomorrow. By late afternoon you’ll be on the Argosy, and you’ll be safe there, no matter what this is about.”
“You do think it’s about something?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was low.
I put everything in my backpack. I had not told Cook about the tiny piece of Scotch tape I’d put on my suitcase zipper which had vanished. But that could well have been my imagination. The Scotch tape could easily have dropped off by itself in that steamy weather.
But. But. I turned to him. “Esteban did want Adam’s letter. And what about Adam’s weird postcards? They were warnings, weren’t they?”
“It would seem so. I’ll be glad when we’re on the ship. I want you out of this, whatever it is.”
I reached for his hand again, and he clasped his fingers around mine, reassuringly.
But he was worried. He took what I said seriously. As Adam had written, there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, something miching mallecho, but I had no idea what.
Troubling a Star Page 10
