Oni now reckoned, by dint of careful counting, that Sabir was choosing the twentieth mask in each separate mask section. Must be some significance to that, wouldn’t you say? He punched his cell phone and passed on the information to Abi.
Sabir had snuck in to the Kabah site not half an hour before, just as Abi had said he would, wearing a rucksack and carrying two tyre irons. The policeman had snuck in beside him. Lamia wasn’t with them. Probably recovering from her orgy, out in the car. Oni grinned. Bet she was sore. She’d probably be walking splay-legged for days. Serve the bitch right for leaving it so long to get started.
That footman who got himself squished – Philippe, yes, that had been his name – he’d been dogging her for ages. But Lamia had brushed him off like a cobweb. And now he was dead, propping up the walls of a girls’ school in Cavalaire-sur-Mer. Did people still have sex in hell? Oni shrugged. Only one way to find out. On second thoughts, though, maybe he’d leave that little task to Philippe.
Oni swung around and focused his night goggles back on the Indian. Yes, the man was still hiding behind the tree, watching Sabir’s every move. Next, Abi swung his goggles over to the courtyard on the left of the Temple of the Masks. Yup. The night watchman was still lurking in a doorway there. The guy was whispering into his cell phone like he was making love to it.
It seemed pretty much impossible that Sabir and the policeman weren’t aware that they were being watched by at least three separate parties, but then Oni had to accept that they didn’t have the advantages he had – his night-vision goggles turned the whole of the scene in front of him into a sort of pallid, moonlit playground, where everything took on the surreal shape of one of Salvador Dali’s dream landscapes.
Oni could hardly wait to find out what would happen when whoever the night watchman was calling – cops? museum archivists? eco-warriors? – would come piling in through the front gates like the 7th Cavalry in a John Ford movie. The expression on Sabir’s face would be worth the price of entry alone.
Oni whispered once again into his own cell phone, bringing Abi up to date, and ending up with, ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Stay where you are. Watch. And wait. Don’t – I repeat don’t – interfere.’
Oni grunted, and slapped at another damned mosquito. Easier said than done. He squirted out another palm full of ‘Scoot’ and plastered it all over his face. ‘Fucking buzzers!’
59
You watched the two gringos with a sinking sensation in your heart. What were they doing? Why were they here in the middle of the night? The younger gringo was counting the masks in each section, and then taping sheets of paper over the ones he chose. A strange procedure, surely? And no doubt illegal. Otherwise why would they come here at dead of night rather than during the daytime, when their activities would have been open to the public gaze?
You recognized them both from earlier on in the day. Only now the woman that had been with them, the one with the blood-soaked face, the one the guide had thought had the mal de ojo – yes, you had noticed him making the phallic gesture with his hands to ensure that the mal de ojo did not turn into the more dangerous ojo pasado – this woman had gone away. Maybe, being a woman, she did not approve of what these men were doing?
Earlier that evening, Tepeu had tried to persuade you to travel home with him on his triciclo. Tepeu was an estimable man. A man to honour. You had told him that you needed to stay here, near to the temple, and he had not questioned your motives, or tried to dissuade you. Instead he had arranged for a blanket for you, and also that you would be brought some iguana stew from the wife of the gatekeeper.
This woman and the gatekeeper lived in a hut about half a kilometre from the site. At eight o’clock Tepeu had cycled over and he and you had eaten the stew together, and shared a litre bottle of beer. You had told Tepeu that you could not repay him, but he had brushed your protestations aside like a man who flaps his hand at a hornet.
Now the gringos were here, and you did not know what to do. Did they intend to steal, as all gringos did? And why would they steal the masks? What could they hope to do with them? Sell them? Impossible, surely. The authorities would discover them, and then they would face prison.
As you watched, the younger gringo retrieved an implement from his rucksack and started to lever at the first of the stones. The older man took a similar implement and began to work at the stone from the other side.
You stood up behind your tree to get a better view of what they were doing. It was nearly full moon, and the two men were bathed in the reflected light off the white face of the temple.
What should you do? Speak to them? Run off and fetch Tepeu? Or the gatekeeper? Yes, maybe that would be the correct thing to do in the circumstances. The man lived only half a kilometre away, and you knew where his hut was situated, thanks to Tepeu’s description.
For some reason, however, you did nothing, and simply watched the gringos as they levered and struggled with the masks.
60
‘Do you think we’re crazy doing this? I mean, we’re standing here in a foreign country, at night, on a protected archaeological site, destroying one of their ancient monuments. If they catch us at it, they’ll toss us into prison and throw away the key.’ Sabir’s face had taken on a livid tinge in the moonlight – he did, indeed, look half mad.
‘We’re putting the stones back, Sabir. Nobody will know the difference.’
Calque and Sabir were onto the third of the marked masks. Each time they succeeded in levering one of the stone masks partially out of its sconce, one of them would hold the torch while the other felt around in the space behind the mask, pretending not to be worried about scorpions, biting spiders, and snakes.
‘Maybe Mexico doesn’t have scorpions?’
‘Of course they do. They’re strictly nocturnal creatures, though. And they only get angry when disturbed.’
‘Thank you, Calque. Thank you very much indeed.’ Sabir was feeling around behind one of the sconces with his hand. ‘They’re not deadly, are they?’
‘Just the Centruroides. The rest are okay.’
Sabir snatched his hand out of the hole. ‘Nothing there.’ He shivered, as if someone had just walked over his grave. ‘Where the heck do you come up with this sort of information, Calque? Do you just gen up for the fun of it? Or is it a nervous tic?’
‘Yes to both.’
‘You’re doing the next hole, then.’ Sabir’s cell phone buzzed. He slapped at his pocket as if he thought there might be a scorpion lurking in there too. ‘Yeah?’ He listened. Then he nodded. ‘Okay. Thanks. We’re fine here. No luck yet. Three to go. Then we can all go back home and have a holiday. The Caribbean, preferably. I’ve already got the double-hammock and the rum punches lined up. And there are no scorpions over there to leap out at you.’ Sabir pocketed the cell phone and turned to Calque. ‘Lamia says the roads in each direction are clear. She’ll continue to run interference for us until we call her in.’
‘The Caribbean is full of scorpions. You really are an ignorant man, Sabir.’
Sabir pointed at him. ‘Okay then, how’s this for ignorant? The Maya write from left to right, just like us. Except that everything’s in pairs with them. Glyph blocks, and suchlike. You told me that yourself, didn’t you?’
Calque gave a cautious nod.
‘What if we miss out the next section and just start at the far corner, which we probably should have done in the first place? Not waste our time here pussyfooting around on the right. In fact, why don’t we treat this whole temple wall as if it’s the stone equivalent of a written parchment?’
‘Why not just toss a coin?’ Calque sighed. ‘If your theory is right, Sabir, we have been wasting our time looking behind the wrong stones. We have been counting the twentieth mask from the right in each of these sections. If we had followed Maya practice, we ought to have counted the twentieth stone from the left. And started from the top. Is this what you are saying?’
‘My point exactly.
Only I’m a stupid idiot who doesn’t know there are scorpions all over the Caribbean.’
‘It was a joke, Sabir. If a man is really secure in his intelligence, he doesn’t need to lash out whenever anyone teases him.’
Sabir was only slightly mollified. ‘Okay. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too. And I’m even sorrier that your theory, much as it pains me to admit it, seems a good one. Let’s go straight to the twentieth mask from the left.’
‘What forfeit will you pay me if I’m right?’
Calque sighed. His face took on the expression of a cartoon dog being forced to placate an over-bumptious puppy. ‘I’ll speak up for you with Lamia whenever she asks me about you. Which she does, incidentally, nearly all the time. How would that be? Previously I’ve always tried to drop you in it on account of my sexual jealousy. But from now on I’ll praise you to the skies. Will that satisfy you?’
‘It’s a deal.’
‘Of course, if we don’t find whatever it is we’re looking for, I will still consider myself free to undermine you at every opportunity.’
Sabir shook his head. ‘Thank God you’re French and not Belgian, Calque. Otherwise I might have a real problem with your sense of humour.’
61
‘Your turn to stick your hand in, Calque. Are there any particular bequests you wish to make? I’ll see to it that your posthumous instructions are carried out to the letter.’
Calque ignored him. He felt around in the first of their new series of holes. Then he closed his eyes. ‘There’s something in here. Something smooth. And cold.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No. I can feel it quite clearly. It’s got teeth. And a nose. I can even feel the indentations of the eyes.’
‘Jesus Christ. What is it? I’ll kill you if you’re bullshitting me.’
‘I’m not bullshitting.’ Calque withdrew his hand from the hole. ‘We’re going to have to take the whole sconce out. There’s no way I can lever this thing through the size of hole I have here.’
Sabir stuck his hand into the hole and felt around. ‘You’re right. But we can’t risk taking the whole mask out of its niche. It’ll be too heavy. We’ll never get it back inside again.’
‘Then we’ll just have to leave it here on the ground. Maybe they’ll think it fell out due to condensation?’
‘Yes. That’s likely. Good call, Calque. I can just see the curator now. “Hey, guys! We just lost another of these 1,200-year-old masks. Bastard thing must have fallen out due to condensation.”’
Both men stepped back and stared at the sconce.
‘We’ll just have to tug like hell and then get out of the way. Thing’ll probably lose its nose when it hits the ground. That’ll really buff up our grave robber credentials. One thing I can tell you, Calque. When we get hold of whatever it is that’s tucked in behind this mask, I’m not sticking around.’
‘Neither am I. Come on. Let’s do it.’
The two men levered with their tyre irons until the mask was teetering at the very edge of its sconce.
‘It’s going to tip. Watch your feet.’ Sabir pulled at the mask, and then stepped quickly back as the entire structure overset towards him.
The mask hit the ground and bounced.
‘Christ. It’s still going.’ The two men turned around to watch the mask pounding its way down the steps behind them, stone-chips skittering in every direction.
Only then did they see the eight Maya standing in the moonlit courtyard. Each man held a rifle in his hands. Lamia was standing beside one of the Maya. Her mouth was bound with a cloth.
Sabir glanced at Calque. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Any more funny jokes to share?’
Calque sucked at his teeth. ‘Not offhand.’ He gave a sudden Burt Lancaster grin. ‘No. Wait. Maybe these gunmen aren’t interested in us after all? Maybe they’re on a night training exercise for the Mexican army?’
‘Yeah. Right on, Calque. That’s a good one. Glad I fucking asked.’
62
Tepeu watched the two gringos with a horrified sort of fascination. They were smiling. It seemed impossible, but it was true. Here they were, facing eight armed men, seconds after being caught by the Halach Uinic in the very act of plundering the holy temple, and they were smiling. Had they no idea what might happen to them? Had they no idea of the severity of what they had been doing?
The younger man sat down at the top of the stone steps and put his head in his hands. The older man stood beside him, staring down at the Halach Uinic.
The Halach Uinic stepped forwards and indicated that the band should be taken from the woman’s face.
It had been Tepeu who had captured her. He felt very proud indeed of this fact. He had turned his triciclo over in the middle of the road and had lain beside it, as if he had been involved in an accident.
For one brief instant he had thought that the woman had not seen him and was about to run him over. But at the very last moment she had stopped and climbed out of the car – it later transpired that she had been talking on her telephone at the time.
Tepeu had then stood up and covered her with his rife. His cousin Acan had warned him about the mal de ojo, but Tepeu only saw that this woman had a defect from birth on her face. This he had seen before, in Merida, on a man in the market. It was certainly no mal de ojo, but something to be regretted instead. How would it be to spend your entire lifetime being looked on and pitied by everyone who passed? And the woman was beautiful, too, apart from her blemish – at least for a gringa. Acan, as always, was dramatizing the situation out of all proportion to its significance. Still. The man was little better than a guero. Endlessly chasing after girls, and dollars, and the main chance. Tepeu was fond of his cousin Acan, but he did not respect his way of life.
Now he looked furtively around for a sign of his new friend, the mestizo from Veracruz. He had to be here. Wisely, though, he was hiding. Tepeu liked this man. It was not his fault that he was of mixed blood. But he was an honest man. And modest. This shone out of him.
When Tepeu had first come across the mestizo, he had immediately realized that the man was close to starvation. At first he had not known how to play the situation. It was not customary among the Maya to invade a stranger’s privacy unless specifically requested to do so. Tepeu had decided to leave the outcome up to God. He had told the man that he was going hunting, but that when he came back he would take the man with him to his home. In this way face had been saved by both parties.
If the man did not wish Tepeu to feed him, he would go away. If he was too weak to go away, Tepeu would find him again, and take him under his wing. Tepeu had always taken people under his wing. This was his nature. The first animal that had crossed the invisible circle his mother had marked around his birthing bed had been a hen. From that moment on, Tepeu had had no choice in the matter.
Now the Halach Uinic was walking up the steps towards the two men. The woman was accompanying him, as well as Acan, and his brother, Naum. Tepeu hurried up to join them. From there, he would get a better view of the surrounding forest. If he saw the mestizo, he might be able to signal him away. Indicate to him in some manner not to become involved.
The older of the two gringos was speaking to the Halach Uinic in broken English. Pointing backwards to the hole where the mask had been ripped out. Making a shape with his hands.
The Halach Uinic flapped his fingers, and this older gringo now started up the remaining steps ahead of him. The whole party, Tepeu included, followed the gringo until they stopped near the opening.
The older gringo then stepped forwards and thrust his hand into the hole he and the younger gringo had made.
Tepeu could feel his breath catch at the back of his throat.
Something was about to occur.
Would the gringo bring out a weapon of some sort? And why was the Halach Uinic humouring him? Tepeu had not fully understood the English the gringo had used. Perhaps the older man had begged for his life,
and the Halach Uinic had agreed to spare him if he thrust his hand back into the rain god’s mouth?
The older gringo pulled an object out of the hole. This object was pale and round, and appeared to capture the light of the moon within its circumference.
The gringo held it up so that the Halach Uinic could see it.
The Halach Uinic dropped to his knees. Acan and Naum dropped to their knees. Tepeu, without quite knowing why, did the same. Behind him, the three remaining men who had accompanied them prostrated themselves on the ground.
It was at this exact moment that Tepeu’s friend, the mestizo, chose to appear from behind the shelter of his carob tree.
Tepeu froze into place, halfway between kneeling and stretching himself out. There was a sudden noise in his head like the hissing of a thousand snakes. Through this noise Tepeu could hear the mestizo’s voice echoing off the walls of the buildings.
‘What you are holding,’ the mestizo said, ‘is pictured. Here. In this book I have. This book that I must now give to you. See? I have it here in my hands. I have brought this book all the way from Veracruz, but it is too heavy a burden for me to carry alone any more. My father, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather protected this book for you before I did. Now that the great volcano of Orizaba has burst into flame, the time has come for the book to return to its own people. This is what I have been told to tell you. That we have done as we promised.’
63
‘You’re not going to believe this, Abi.’
Abi stared at his cell phone. ‘What am I not going to believe? Wait. Don’t tell me. There’s been a crime passionel. Calque has murdered Sabir through thwarted love for our sister.’ He shook his head, half convinced by his own casuistry. ‘All joking aside, Sabir must be blind. Or maybe Lamia’s just hot as hell in bed, and they’ve both gone pussy crazy?’
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 27
