Sacrifice

by Farris, John

  The airport at Cobían was new: it was about the size of a high school gymnasium, with a mezzanine at one end and a solarium roof in the shape of a pyramid. For some reason we had to go through Customs and Immigration again. I had two carry-on bags with me, all currency and traveler's checks in a money belt.

  Inside the airport and on the perimeter there were government soldiers, too many of them kids, like gang members I'd known in South Central LA., carrying the same kind of firepower but wearing military fatigues instead of home-boy colors. A Humvee and an armored weapons carrier were parked behind a heavily sandbagged guard post beside the airport exit. Our aid dollars at work, I assumed, to protect what passed for democracy in Guatemala.

  There was a van going to the Itzá, but it was full of German tourists and a delegation from Amnesty International—several middle-aged women with crow's feet and pinned-back hairdos—by the time I got to it, so I let a taxi driver hustle me. He had a battered, old, pea-green V-8 Chevrolet that looked as if it had been rolled a couple of times, and hammered back into shape with a two-by-four. The hood was as rumpled as an unmade bed.

  I found out why his car looked the way it did: He was the driver-ed equivalent of a dyslexic. I had a stress headache by the time we reached the hotel, which was on a broad low hill facing the south shore of Lake Petén-Itzá, a few kilometers from Cobían. And my mind had been racing for days. I understood why Sherlock Holmes needed a touch of the needle now and then. In my room, which overlooked a complex of tennis courts and a jungle garden with ten bungalows half-hidden beneath the trees, I took Tylenol and ate some dried fruit to kick my blood sugar back to a normal level. The faint dizziness went away after a tepid shower. I put on walk shorts and toured the hotel grounds.

  So I had some time to wait before Greg and Sharissa arrived. Assuming they would show up at all. But I had a hunch as I looked around, a hunch certified by a persistent buzz at the nape of the neck, that on arrival I may have crossed paths with the real Frederick Sullivan. A trail grown so faint no bloodhound could pick it up. Much of the Itzá Maya looked as if it had been built during the last dozen years, but there was an older, smaller, cloisterlike building behind the wing in which I was quartered on the third floor. Most of the windows were shuttered; flowering vines grew on the stained outer walls of thick square stones. On the ground floor there was some construction work going on, at a slow pace. Scaffolding in the inner courtyard, cement mixers, dust in the air.

  I had listed myself on my passport as a "corporate travel advisor." I carried embossed business cards testifying to my eminence in my fictitious occupation. I also had a dummy magazine cover that I took with me to the mezzanine office of the woman in charge of promotions for the Itzá Maya. Her name was Carlotta. She was attentive and helpful, and spoke pretty good English.

  "As far as we're concerned," I said, "Central America has been seriously neglected as a setting for the small but important high-end business conference."

  "I could not agree more, Mr. Butterboss."

  "We're looking for destination resorts with unique attractions in the vicinity, luxurious accommodations for up to two hundred executives and their wives. The resorts must be near an airport that has the capacity for the largest business jet flying today."

  She looked at the cover for the proposed boutique magazine. "Work on the runway at Cobían International Airport is due for completion in early May. It will then be possible to fly directly to the Petén from the United Estates. And of course this region is second to none in historic signification. Folk festivals, ah, and the grandeur of the ruins! Always there is much to see and do."

  I frowned. "There's no golf course, which I'm afraid is a drawback."

  So she got out all the plans and renderings for the 18-hole "Jack Neekloss championship course" they were going to build on adjoining land.

  "What I'd like to do," I said, "is prepare a comprehensive report on the Itzá Maya for our newsletter subscribers, then follow up with a photo spread in, let's say, the upcoming fall issue of our magazine."

  "Whatever I can do to help you—"

  "I had a couple of ideas for the report I'm going to write. Some background on the origins of the hotel."

  "I know is hard to believe, but the original building, which now has begun to renovate, dates back to 1827."

  I nodded enthusiastically. "That's exactly the sort of thing I need."

  "The hotel has been in the Colon family since that time. Our president, Francisco Colon, is the grandson of the founder."

  "Grandson? Only three generations since the early nineteenth century? That's almost—two hundred years."

  "Claro. They are very long livers, the Colons. Don Santiago, who die only last year, have one hundred twenty-one years when he pass away. His father before him, more than a hundred years, I believe."

  I made a note of that. "I wonder if I could look through the registrations, you know, going back twenty or thirty years, to see if there are any famous names who stayed here."

  "No problem. The film director once upon a time, I think it was John Hooston, start to film a movie here. That was before I was born, but my mother tole me the story. Anyway, the moneys was not guaranteed, or something, so they all go back to Hollywood."

  "Mind if I get a crack at those registrations today?"

  "Well, for ten years now, everything is on computer. Before that, like, file cards, I think. And a long time ago, big ledger books. They have not done so well, you know, because of humidity and cucarachas in the old days. But everything is stored now in air-condition room downstairs. Why don't we go now, I will introduce you to Señor Colon, and arrange a place for you to do your work."

  Francisco Colon was a stocky, dark-complected man who wore a pink guayabera and three diamond rings. He was so soft-spoken and polite it was easy to overlook how alert his eyes were. He had television monitors built into a paneled wall of his office. Twelve color screens that gave him one or more angles on every public place in the Itzá Maya. He welcomed me to his hotel, told me his entire staff was at my disposal, and set me up in a small unused office lined with deep bookshelves and card-catalogue files, each drawer labeled by year.

  I pulled 1973 and went to work. It took me less than ten minutes, and there it was: January 26. Frederick Sullivan. Bonnie Sullivan. New Lost River British Columbia. Canadian passport numbers. Two rooms, adjoining.

  Although it was what I'd been hoping for, I needed a little time to believe what I was reading. My pulses were really jumping.

  Then I unfolded a sample of Greg Walker's handwriting which Adrienne Crowder had provided, and compared the signatures. My father had been an amateur graphologist all of his life, and when I was thirteen, about the same time I discovered Sherlock Holmes and became infatuated with detective work, I learned a little about handwriting analysis.

  There were two points of comparison on the signatures which even someone who had no interest in the subject could isolate without difficulty. Large, stand-alone capital letters (a vigorous slash representing both the crossbar of the G and the top of the F in Frederick) and a tendency to squeeze the loops of e's until they all but disappeared. Psychologically this expressed a huge ego bound by a need for secrecy.

  An older-model Xerox machine occupied a corner of the windowless office. I copied the Sullivan registration card, one for me, one for my father, who could work up a really impressive personality profile from signatures alone, and put the file drawer back.

  At that point my mind wandered, into a reverie that was almost like a trance. I'm not sure how long it lasted. The hairs on the back of my neck sizzled in a pleasurable, sensual way. I saw, in the smallest detail, an old post-wedding photograph taken in New Lost River, British Columbia. Of course I was familiar with every detail: I was a photographer myself, and I'd thoroughly studied the groom's youthful, shadowy face. Now, as I meditated on the remembered photo, these numbers appeared across his face, bold as a billboard: 1954.

  And I thought, If there is no so
such person as Greg Walker, then who is to say Frederick Sullivan was the real thing?

  The sizzle of intuition, the sense of ghosts swarming behind a facade of lies and superficial plausibilities, prompted me to take a few steps to another file cabinet. Registration cards for the Itzá Maya, 1954.

  I began again with January, and a couple of minutes later there it was, jumping out at me, the tell-tale capital letters and the loopless e, but the name this time was Barnaby Wilde, address 188 Post Oak, Prichard, New Hampshire. In residence from January 22 until February 10, 1954.

  Accompanied by his daughter Naomi.

  Copy for me, copy for my father.

  Now I was trembling, inside and out, from amazement and trepidation. And if Barnaby Wilde was not the real thing—

  I looked for a file drawer labeled 1935.

  There wasn't one. I had to start going through the ledgers, which were large and musty, so much so I needed to hold a handkerchief over my nose with one hand, or else have a sneezing fit, while I laboriously leafed through them. And they all had a lot of stuck-together pages. Excited as I was, my mouth dry and my lower lip sore from biting it. (I wondered if Holmes ever had had tongue ulcers, from sucking on his pipeful of shag tobacco in those hours of intense concentration before the answers gleamed suddenly like gold in chaff-piles of mundane facts.) But Sherlock Holmes never had been the real thing, either, even if I did need to have him around sometimes, the way I'd needed my teddy bear when I was four.

  The name appeared on the day of January 19, 1935. Robert Canfield, Bartstown, Rhodesia.

  And under that, in her own hand: Cynthia Canfleld. Who, I assumed, was not his wife, but another daughter. Like the others, she had occupied a separate room at the Ixtá Maya.

  I couldn't Xerox the oversized page, but I made a note of the names and the address of a town that had probably been off the map for a while, or hadn't existed since Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

  Carlotta looked in on me while I was bringing another long-unopened ledger to the small desk.

  "Would you like something to drink, Mr. Butterboss?"

  I ordered a beer, and kept going, back nineteen years at a time. January 30, 1916. Eben Edward Porter, New South Wales, Australia. Two minor children had accompanied Mr. Porter to Guatemala: Ellen and Joseph.

  In 1897, the January sojourner was Emile de Louquier of Avignon, France. But de Louquier either had come alone, or with a companion who had a different last name.

  1897! Almost one hundred years ago. If the handwriting analysis I planned to have done confirmed it, then Greg Walker, the man I was dealing with, had been returning to Guatemala at least once every nineteen years, always in the latter half of January. Assuming Emile de Louquier had been an adult, then Greg Walker was at least one hundred twenty years old.

  I couldn't quite bring myself to call this conclusion sheer insanity. I didn't know enough to account for anything yet.

  The beer helped my parched throat, but I wasn't able to sort through more old ledgers just then. Allergies had me feeling weak and as tired as death. My eyes were hurting; I took out the contacts and put my glasses on. I planned to come back with another camera, for photographing documents, in a day or two. Every link of the chain I had put together begged for a conclusion that was not credible, for an explanation that leaped over reason into a fog of the supernatural. A nice soupy Victorian fog that Holmes might have relished; but I didn't want any part of it. Because there had to be things in that fog that would make my flesh creep.

  "You're from a very unusual family," I said to Francisco Colon. He was slicing a crescent of melon into small chunks, rind and all, and didn't look up. "Unusual?" he said politely.

  "I was told that both your father and grandfather lived to be well past a hundred."

  "Oh, I see." He ate two bites of melon and then he did look at me, without expression. "Yes, it is true. A few of the men of our family have been blessed with good health, and they have lived long."

  "Only the men?"

  He thought about that, and nodded. "It seems to be so. My own mother died of complications from a miscarriage, when she was only thirty-four. My grandfather married, oh, many times. Seven, eight wives. Most bore him children who did not survive for long. Even though he was a privileged man, a landowner, this place—" he looked around from the terrace of the Itzá Maya, where we were having our lunch—"the Petén Department, was primitive and poor, with little or no health care until very recently. My people, especially, have suffered."

  "The Maya?"

  "Yes. Although my family, we are descendants of priests who build the great cities of the Petén. So we have, how should I say it, enjoy many benefits of this kinship." He touched a jade carving, a bird of some kind, that he wore on a gold chain around his neck. "Have you visited?"

  "You mean Kan Petén? No, not yet." With my father's old Waterman fountain pen I made a couple of notes on the legal pad beside my plate. "That's a real interesting angle, Señor Colon."

  "Angle—? How do you mean?"

  "Your ancestors were builders—temples, pyramids—and you've built all of this, in the last twelve years. The new wing of the hotel, the gardens—"

  "Well—" He smiled, for the first time we'd sat down to eat. "I have more of an interest in business than my father.

  For many years he welcome only select guests, entertaining them as you would entertain in your own home. What they pay was small compensation for the attention he lavished on them. I think you see what I mean. So the Itzá Maya was not so much a business to him. Confidentially, it did not make money." He gestured ruefully, as if this was a patriarchal sin that still kept him awake nights. "Every year was necessary to sell some important asset to balance the books, to afford the luxuries the hotel provided its clientele. A piece of rare jewelry from a king's tomb, a few hectares of good land."

  He shrugged and finished his melon; almost immediately a waiter whisked the plate away, and another waiter served avocado soup. A third appeared with a bottle of white wine. Señor Colon nodded after a glance at the label, and the wine was poured, pale gold in the sunlight that checkered the table through the latticework of a palm umbrella.

  "I think you will like this, a Clos Blanc de Vougeot I choose myself. Three times a year I travel to Europe, study the business of the finest hotels, call on former guests, visit vineyards. I am happy to say that after nearly twenty years of effort, the Itzá is on a paying basis, and our creditworthiness is second to none."

  I lifted my glass of wine. "To your continuing good fortune and long life."

  "Salud."

  "Delicious," I said. "So you personally keep up with former guests of the hotel?"

  "A few. Old friends of my father's. During the past year, there were those I wished to notify myself of his passing."

  "I wonder if you have any photos of your father and grandfather I could run in my newsletter?"

  "Certainly, if you would be so kind as to return them."

  "I'm curious about why your grandfather decided to build a hotel here. Of course you never knew him—"

  "He died before the beginning of this century."

  "Wasn't much here, I mean, in the way of tourist attractions?"

  "The lake, the forest. The ruins, all hidden after centuries of abandonment. There was nothing that one could dignify by calling it a road."

  "Then why build a hotel in such a location?"

  Francisco Colon had noticed something, a small chip on the side of the shallow soup plate. He signaled with a sharp turning of his head, and a waiter came quickly. Señor Colon raked him with a barrage of Spanish; the soup plate was taken away. He looked back at me, thoughtfully, "Why did he build here? For religious reasons."

  "Oh. I don't think I understand."

  "I am not speaking of worship, as such. Nowadays we are Catholic. But there are traditions of the great Maya civilization one wishes not to lose, if one is at all conscious of his heritage. Traditions that are preserved by certain cofradías—there
is no exact translation. Brotherhood, fraternity—more sacred than that, although no formal priesthood exists. Men of respect and learning, who pass on the traditions to their sons."

  "Like yourself. How many sons do you have?"

  "Oh, I have not married. Time for that later."

  "You must expect to live as long as your father," I said.

  "Perhaps." Another plate of soup was set in front of him. He had a couple of spoonfuls. "You seem more interested in this matter of, what is the English—longevity?"

  "Everyone's interested in living as long as they can. Staying healthy while they're at it. Did the Maya usually live long lives?"

  "No more than other peoples. Probably they live less than average, because of the hard life."

  "Do the privileged have longer lives? I wonder. How about some of your father's friends—the ones you said you visited? Were some of them as old as he was?"

  He was so long in answering, intent on his soup plate, that I thought he might have discovered another flaw there. "No. I don't believe so. Not nearly as old as my father."

  "That's surprising. Your friends tend to be your own age, don't they?"

  "I haven't thought about it. I have many acquaintances, but few friends. You make friends through hobbies, clubs, and so forth. But I have little time for those things." He glanced at his wristwatch, a simple Piaget with a black face that looked expensive. "I'm afraid I must go—another appointment, a particularly bothersome Department official I am forced to deal with from time to time. I am delighted to have had this opportunity to become acquainted with you. Perhaps I might have a look at the article you're preparing before it is published?"