by M. G. Harris
Yet it turned out to set the whole tone of my life since then.
I grip the handlebars a little tighter, grimacing as rain trickles down my face. In half an hour we’ll be in Becan. Then Ek Naab and . . . goodbye to all this freedom. What will Ixchel do about Benicio? She’d better dump him. This time, I’ll insist on it.
Drenched to the bone, we arrive in Becan to find the site deserted; not surprising in such relentless rain. The car park is empty. There’s no neat little straw-roofed welcome hut run by INAH – who run all Mexico’s archaeological sites. No little maps and Mayan souvenirs. There’s only a large canvas tent, the kind I recognize from my dad’s excavation trips. We peek inside, first calling out “Hola!” I spot walkie-talkies and a radio, plus some scruffy-looking camping gear. But there’s no one there.
We head down the path towards the plaza that contains Structure IX. The heat is unbearable by now, easily 45 degrees and totally sweltering. The mosquito situation is as bad as I’ve known it. Our clothes are quickly soaked with sweat as we push past the creeping vines and undergrowth that lines the narrow path. It’s immediately obvious that the site of Becan in this reality isn’t as well-cleared or maintained as what we’re used to. In fact, when we reach our destination, we’re both shocked to see small trees growing out of the side of the pyramid. Only the main staircase has been cleared. To our right, Structure VIII is excavated only on the front.
The secret entrance to Becan is on the west flank of that giant pyramid – Structure IX. It leads to a secret elevator inside, which takes you down to the Depths, and then the underground tunnel-lift to Becan. This gateway from Becan was built almost a hundred years ago, according to what I’ve studied about the history of Ek Naab.
So when we find nothing but immovable stone on the side of Structure IX, we’re pretty perplexed. After another half hour I start to worry that we’ll melt away under the incessant rain. We go from anxious to scared, from scared to panicked, from panicked to despondent.
I lean back against the crumbling stone. I gaze out over the trees, listen to howler monkeys yawping in the distance. “There’s no entrance here.”
Ixchel looks perplexed. “There has to be.”
“No.” Exhausted, soaked to the skin and more resigned by the minute, I shake my head. “God spared Mexico, remember? Something is very different here. Let’s face it, if there’s no Internet and all, there might be a pretty serious reason for it.” With the back of one hand, I wipe away the rain water that’s rolling into my eyes. “No signal on the Ek Naab phone, even here. No Carlos Montoyo at Yucatan University. And no gateway from Becan.” I swallow, scarcely able to believe what I’m about to say. “Maybe there’s no Ek Naab in this reality.”
Ixchel doesn’t even raise her voice to argue. She’s too drenched, fed up and tired.
Around three hours later we’re back in the Sanborns hotel of Chetumal, showered, finally back in dry clothes and ready to meet Dr Velasco. She arrives in a car that looks old but carefully maintained. Or maybe it isn’t old? Generally, I’ve noticed how different motor vehicle design is in this reality. All pretty boxy. Velasco herself is as tidy as her car: about forty years old, dark brown hair in a sleek, bobbed haircut, neat and elegant in a navy blue linen trouser suit.
We’re almost too worn out to stand up. Dr Velasco notices. As we sit in the back of her mercifully air-conditioned Nissan, she asks us what’s wrong. Have we changed our minds about selling the golden bracelets?
Naturally, we haven’t. Neither of us has the heart to ask our questions, though. Where do we start? What happened to this world? Why does everyone say “God spared Mexico”?
Not exactly questions that will help us to keep a low profile.
If there’s no Ek Naab, then we are really and truly, terrifyingly, on our own. It doesn’t really matter how nice and cosy the Mexico of this reality might be – we’ll still need money. As kids with no relatives, no friends, no home and no jobs, we need as much money as we can get.
Right now, those golden bracelets are the key to everything.
As she drives, Dr Velasco talks. “The woman we’re going to see is an American; she moved here after the war, married into the Vargas family. They own a big medical supplies company. Her husband is dead now, but they started collecting antiquities many years ago. Not everyone in the antiquities business is entirely honest, to tell the truth. The Vargas family has always dealt straight with me. Mrs Vargas won’t be keeping your Mayan gold for herself. She will sell it on. Do you understand what that means?” In the car’s mirror, her eyes find mine. I nod, wrapping my fingers around Ixchel’s. “She’s going to sell for much more than she pays.”
I say, “How much do you think we’ll get?”
“Leave that to me. I’m taking twenty-five per cent, remember? So I’ll do my best to get a good price.”
The Vargas house is a lavish mansion. We reach it after a thirty-minute drive, leaving the narrow road and driving along a dirt track, surrounded by wild scrubland. Then from nowhere a marble gate appears, then a straight, palm-lined avenue set in a manicured green lawn. The car passes through a fine mist of spray as the grass is watered. The driveway leads to a red-roofed, Spanish style hacienda covered with dark pink bougainvillea and a tall jacaranda tree in front. Dr Velasco leads us to a caramel-tinted pine door, ornately carved. A minute later the door opens.
I stagger for a second, transfixed at the sight of the woman who opens the door. Instinctively I glance at Ixchel. But she barely reacts, just gazes directly ahead.
Susannah St John.
Susannah is more glamorous-looking than I remember; her hair is thicker, she’s better-dressed, looks younger too. Before, I’d have guessed her age at sixty-five but now she looks around ten years younger than that. There’s no possible doubt – it’s her.
And Susannah doesn’t recognize us at all.
We watch the two distinguished-looking women greet each other and Dr Velasco introduces us. As we enter the house I’m still buzzing from the shock of seeing Susannah. I hold Ixchel back slightly as the two women stroll casually through a tiled vestibule that’s leafy green with hanging plants. “It’s Susannah!” I whisper, my eyes wide.
Ixchel nods slightly. “I know! But in this reality, she’s married to Vargas.”
“And she’s lived in Mexico since she was a child!”
Ixchel wrinkles her nose and whispers back, “When did Velasco tell us that?”
“Remember? She said Susannah moved here after the war.”
“Right! Then I guess she never met Arcadio.”
“Maybe he doesn’t exist.”
Breathless, I follow Ixchel into a large study. Immediately we’re struck dumb by a huge display on two walls. Glass cases protect a giant collage of newspaper cuttings. Photos, headlines in English and Spanish. Ixchel and I can’t tear our eyes from those images and words, even with the two women staring at us, amazed at our reaction.
Gigantic mushroom clouds. The Eiffel Tower – a melted, twisted wreck. London in ruins. New York with the Twin Towers, and every other skyscraper in the vicinity, reduced to rubble. Headlines that scream their horrific news.
The images and words are utterly mesmerizing. I’m still struggling to absorb what I’m seeing when Susannah’s voice breaks through to me.
“My dear, are you quite all right?”
I face Susannah suddenly, totally unable to speak. Her eyes trail over to the walls; her voice becomes low, her tone reflective. “Quite a shock to see it all in one place, I imagine. I guess your school history lessons are somewhat less intense?”
Now it’s Susannah who draws my gaze. That face, that voice. The same woman who looked at me so tenderly last December. The same keen intelligent eyes within a soft pink complexion and fair hair. All that familiarity is absent. Instead there’s a cool, businesslike formality. Until she sees how Ixchel and I are affected by the newspaper displays. For a second I glimpse a hint of the same concern we saw before. An old friend lookin
g out for two kids in trouble.
Ixchel is riveted by the display cases. “God spared Mexico,” she murmurs.
“You moved to Mexico . . . after the war,” I say, suddenly understanding. But not as a child. Dr Velasco wasn’t talking about World War Two. This world had another war, a nuclear holocaust.
“Indeed,” remarks Susannah drily. “Rather fortunate for me that I happened to be visiting this country when the bombs started to fall on the United States. Nineteen sixty-two. . .”
It’s crushingly obvious now why there’s no Internet or mobile phones, why the cars seem so old-fashioned, why there are no American cars and so many Japanese ones, why Cancun is only just being built decades later than in the world we remember. All the other weird little differences too.
This world has been reeling from a global nuclear war. Around fifty years ago, from what Susannah is saying. One headline in particular grabs me, twists my guts into anxious knots.
EUROPE A RADIOACTIVE WASTELAND
“What happened to everyone back home?” I ask.
Susannah seems a little reluctant to answer. “They died, dear, most of them. My people were from Virginia, you see. Near Washington, DC. It used to be the capital of the United States.”
“Used to be. . .” I echo in a hollow voice.
“Before Seattle,” she says.
Hesitantly, I nod. “Seattle is the new capital of the USA. Right.”
“You have a British accent,” Susannah observes curiously. “How unusual.” She sighs, a sound of deep regret. “I went to England once, before the war. It was quite, quite lovely. Sandstone cottages, emerald-green fields, the rivers, the gorgeous little village pubs. Just dreadful to think that it’ll be poisonous for another fifty years.”
Tears come to my eyes when she mentions England, the deep ache of homesickness combined with a sheer disbelief at what she’s saying. Susannah doesn’t seem at all surprised, just pats my arm comfortingly and says, “It’s too bad, I know.”
She turns to Ixchel. “How about you? You don’t say a great deal, my dear, do you?”
“I’m Mayan,” Ixchel says blandly. “And we’re not here to make friends. We’re here to sell the bracelets.”
There’s a brittle silence. Susannah gives us both a steady look, then places both hands flat on a huge mahogany desk. For the first time I notice the collection of Mayan stone carvings and paintings. Part of the desk is covered in glass, under which I spot pages of a Mayan codex. I’m immediately distracted.
Could this be part of the Ix Codex?
Susannah’s already anticipated a question. “It’s from the Madrid Codex. The real thing. A friend of mine went into the ruins of the museum and brought it out. Damaged, of course. He rescued only a few pages; that’s one.” She runs one hand along the desk past statues, an obsidian knife, a carved-stone incense burner. “I don’t collect jewellery as a rule. But I know people who do. Your pieces are quite extraordinary – Monica showed me yesterday.” Her voice goes flat. “So tell me, where did you get them?”
Ixchel puts her head on one side. “I already told Dr Velasco: we can’t say.”
“I’m not interested in buying stolen goods.”
“We could tell you,” I interrupt, “but you wouldn’t believe us.”
Susannah shrugs. “So tell me. What do you have to lose?”
Ixchel smirks. “The sale.”
“The sale, you may already have lost.”
I blink twice, incredulous. But Susannah means it, I know.
“A couple of teenagers alone out here? A British boy with a Mayan girl? I thought maybe you were cashing in your family jewels. But your people don’t have any money. All the rich Brits went to Australia and Argentina.” Slowly she nods. “There’s something rather peculiar about the two of you. So, unless you persuade me right away that some gangster isn’t going to come after me for buying his treasures, there’s no sale.”
Ixchel and I share a glance. Then I open my mouth. “Before you married Mr Vargas, your name was Susannah St John,” I begin. “You were a nurse. You came to Mexico for a nursing conference . . . in Veracruz.” I stop, aware of Susannah’s narrowed eyes and Dr Velasco staring at me, open-mouthed. “You visited a little town called Tlacotalpan. With a friend, I think. Another nurse.”
“And then the bombs fell. . .” murmurs Susannah, incredulous.
“We’ve met before,” I tell her. “You, me, Ixchel. In another reality. We’ve travelled in time. With a sort of . . . device. Sometimes what you do when you travel in time, it changes things. Creates a parallel reality.”
I’m panting slightly, hardly believing what I’m saying. The air is crackling with anticipation. Even Ixchel looks stunned.
Dr Velasco erupts with a scornful laugh. “What utter nonsense!” I can see she’s furious. “Susannah, I’m sorry. Come on, children, let’s go. You’ve had your fun.”
But Susannah doesn’t flinch. “No. Stay.” She faces me. “You’re saying that . . . you changed something?”
My eyes flick from Susannah to Dr Velasco, who looks horrified and embarrassed all in one.
“Not us. We’re not the only ones travelling. The time-travel device has had other owners throughout history.”
“A parallel world. . .” she murmurs to herself, wistfully.
Dr Velasco grabs Ixchel by the bicep. “I’m sorry, Susannah, but I’m taking these silly children off your hands. Please accept my apologies. I really have no idea how they got that information about you. I swear to you, I don’t have such things written down. I had no idea they planned such a ridiculous scene.”
“Indeed you will not, Monica.” Susannah fixes Dr Velasco with a beady glare.
“But Susannah, time travel? A parallel world?”
“It’s an entertaining story. Indulge me.”
Dr Velasco looks exasperated. “I’m not staying here to be made a fool of.”
“That’s all right, my dear,” Susannah says gently. “Why don’t you go see if Carmita can fix us a snack.”
I’ve never seen an adult woman look as offended as Dr Velasco does then. Susannah must be a very important customer, though. Dr Velasco straightens a lapel on her navy blue jacket and leaves the room, stiff with dignity.
“Tell me about your parallel world,” Susannah says smoothly. “Tell me about time travel.”
I continue, “Where we’re from, this didn’t happen, your nuclear war. I was born in Oxford, in England. Almost fifteen years ago.”
“England is uninhabitable,” Susannah says flatly.
“Not where I come from. In our world, you and me,” I tell her, “we’re friends.”
Susannah lapses into another tense silence. She sounds amazed. “And . . . that’s how you know all those things about me?”
“Yeah. You told me the first time I met you. The other-you, I mean. We’re trapped here now, in this reality. Alone.”
“We brought the golden bracelets from another reality,” Ixchel says. “They aren’t stolen.”
“They’re our only way to make money.”
“If this is true, then you’re risking a great deal,” Susannah remarks. “Telling me that you are alone here. Alone, and with a valuable treasure.”
I gaze at her steadily. “Like I said, I know you.”
Susannah purses her lips. “Do you indeed, young man? Time forks perpetually towards innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy.” For a second or two I hold my breath, waiting. Then a twinkle appears in her eye and for an instant I catch a sense of that same warmth, the way Susannah acted towards me the morning that we climbed Mount Orizaba.
Hesitantly I mumble, “You’re not my enemy.”
“I am not. Yet you couldn’t know that.”
“Unless he’s telling the truth,” Ixchel adds.
Susannah speaks thoughtfully, almost to herself. “So, you didn’t steal these bracelets from your family.”
“What . . . how could I?”
“It happens. Europea
n refugees with a stash of family jewels, ancient treasures looted from museums before they fled the radiation. Is that what’s going on here?”
Bowing my head, I murmur, “You don’t believe us.”
Susannah stares at me with a knowing look which fills me with dread. In a tiny voice she says, “Oh yes. I do.”
I whisper. “How? Why?”
Please don’t mention Arcadio.
