Invisible City

by M. G. Harris

  “Why would the NRO care about gangsters, Tyler?” I say, raising my voice. “They’re a joint operation of the CIA and the U.S. Air Force! How is a little weed smuggling going to upset them?”

  “I think they were trying to confuse us,” Ollie says in a soothing voice.

  “I think they succeeded,” I reply angrily.

  There’s a long, deeply uncomfortable silence.

  “Where did you go, Josh?” Ollie asks. “Who gave you the case? And what did you do with it?”

  Ignoring her questions, I say, “That guy in the blue Nissan, he was going to kill me, you know. After he’d tortured me to find out what I knew. He shot Camila, drove her car off the road. I almost drowned, and she died. These NRO people are dangerous. And you want me to go back and tell them?”

  “They weren’t like that with us,” Tyler says. “They were all bark, no bite.”

  “Because they could see you didn’t know any more than them,” I yell in frustration. “With me, it’s a different story.”

  “With you, they know they can get real information,” agrees Ollie.

  “The blue Nissan guy is called ‘Simon Madison.’ Whether that’s his real name or not, I don’t know, but that’s what his passport says.”

  Very curious, Ollie asks, “How do you know that?”

  “I just do.” I can see she’s not satisfied with that, but I don’t care. “He wanted the case. And to know how to get into Ek Naab. But I’m not sure I could get in again. They were waiting for me. They led me there.”

  Tyler and Ollie stare at me. “They?”

  I sigh. “I’ve already said too much.”

  Tyler scratches the stubble on his chin. “Now you’re scarin’ me. Josh, you’re in danger so long as you keep this to yourself. Just tell ’em. They’re on our side, right—the Americans? What harm can it do?”

  “I’m not sure I agree with you there,” Ollie says carefully.

  The taxi driver interrupts to tell us he has to stop for gas at the next gas station. Do we want to grab some snacks? He pulls in at the crowded station, where half a dozen tourist buses have stopped to refuel. Tyler and Ollie go for the drinks while I visit the bathroom. Washing my hands with pink liquid soap, I watch them on the other side of the concourse, talking to local people selling homemade cookies, chips, and fresh juice. There’s something too cozy, too familiar about the way they are together. He even feeds her a chip while she laughs at something he’s said. I’m suddenly jealous.

  Who gave you the case? Just tell them!

  If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if I could even afford to trust my two friends. But they did save me.

  Or did they?

  What if the NRO somehow got to them—made a deal? Maybe they just saved me from drowning so that they could make sure I’d deliver myself into the hands of the NRO again.

  A sudden feeling of desperation sweeps through me. I have to grip the sink to stay upright.

  What if the NRO got to them?

  I can hardly breathe. Standing over there, they look so calm, relaxed. I watch them smile, choose bags of fresh potato chips sprinkled with lime and chili; watch them wait as a woman cuts green-skinned oranges, lining them up to be squeezed for juice.

  Between us, an aging yellow bus prepares to pull out of the station, blocking my view of Tyler and Ollie. I make my decision. I race out of the bathroom and jump onto the bus just before its door closes. The driver isn’t unduly surprised, just asks me how far I’m going. I ask, “Where are you headed?”

  “Valladolid,” he replies. “Via everywhere.”

  I’m not sure where Valladolid is, but it sounds fine. Not on the beaten track, that’s for sure. And I like the sound of “via everywhere.” For what I’m planning, that sounds perfect. I peel off a fifty-peso bill and wait for change. There’s nowhere to sit on the bus, which is full of tired-eyed workers coming home from night shifts at the tourist resorts and plantations around here. I check my watch—it’s almost nine a.m. I’m pretty conspicuous at this time of day. Backpackers carry backpacks and they don’t show up anywhere before ten a.m.

  I catch a final glimpse of Tyler and Ollie as the bus drives off. They’re tasting the juice. It looks good. I wish I’d thought to bring something to drink. How long, I wonder, until they figure out that I’ve gone? Another bus pulls out almost at the same time, the destination listed as Cancún.

  They must have chosen to chase the Cancún bus, because my bus takes a leisurely journey through villages from Felipe Carrillo Puerto to Valladolid without ever being followed by a taxi containing two curious British teenagers.

  The minute we’re away from the bus station, I take out the Ek Naab phone, give it a hard shake, and try the power switch again. Absolutely nothing. I’m not surprised, but my heart sinks. I stand, legs still aching from exhaustion, hanging on to my leather bus strap. I stare out the window. Like the road to Becan, this road cuts directly into the jungle. The sides of the road are littered with black patches that, when we draw closer, I realize are made up of big tarantulas warming themselves on the early-morning heat of the tarmac. They rear up as we rush past.

  I disembark at every bus stop to keep an eye out. At one stop I buy a map to keep track of our route. I get a drink from the omnipresent street vendor who’ll sell you a fizzy drink cheap if you chug it straight down and return the bottle to him. The bus isn’t air-conditioned, and by eleven in the morning, the temperature inside is one hundred degrees, with almost 100 percent humidity. The sweat pours off my head and down my sides.

  If they think I’ve run, where do they think I’d run to? I figure that I’ll stay hidden better by taking short trips on local buses, avoiding the main cities.

  I could try to go after my grandfather’s Muwan in the museum in Veracruz. But without the contents of the briefcase, how will I break in? It’s not as though I have a natural talent for thievery. I could aim for Mexico City, hide out with some colleagues of my father’s, maybe find a way to contact the Mayans of Ek Naab. I even toy with the idea of trying to find my way back into Ek Naab, but I wouldn’t dare be seen anywhere near Becan. I could be leading Simon Madison and the NRO right to the city they seem so driven to destroy.

  My plan to aim for Mexico City has a tricky flaw, though. I’m assuming that I can find a colleague of Dad’s just by walking into the archaeology department of the university. Picking a name to trust, that’s another matter. But Carlos Montoyo didn’t turn out to be who he claimed to be. What if there are other secret agents posing as Mayanists? If any of them have connections with the NRO, I’m sunk.

  So, it has to be the museum. I check the map again—it’s in Jalapa. If I manage to dry out the cell phone from Ek Naab and get it working again, I could call Benicio up to Jalapa. With another case of equipment, we’d be back in business. If the Ix Codex is there, I’ll do my job and then leave the Mayans to it.

  I smooth out my road map until I can see only the states along the rest of my route: Tabasco to Veracruz.

  Via everywhere.

  In this part of Mexico every town looks the same: rough buildings covered with political graffiti on the outskirts of town; cramped roads that can hardly fit a bus and yet seem to be the main thoroughfare into town; street vendors with their boxes of roses, phone cards, Chiclets, trays of pink meringues, or whatever they happen to be selling.

  I never step out of the bus without taking a good look around the station. I’m on a constant watch for police, smartly dressed men in sunglasses, people who carry nothing. In almost every station there’s something to set me off. A guy in a sleeveless T-shirt who stares openly at me. The helmeted guy on a Harley who, I’m almost certain, has been behind my last two buses. A guy in a shirt and tie who makes urgent-sounding calls on a pay phone, casting nervous looks around. Could any of these people be selling me out?

  When I’m hungry, I buy potato chips and cupcakes. Even though I’ve spent the whole day sweating uselessly in the muggy, blistering heat, by early evening I’m
dying to eat something hot.

  I’m staring out the window, watching the endless jungle scroll by. The light is beginning to fade. It’s on my mind that I’ve been on the go since five a.m. As we cross into the state of Veracruz, the vegetation turns into banana and coffee plantations, orange groves with fruit at the bullet-hard, shiny green phase. The surroundings become mountainous. Volcanic peaks with coatings of mossy green frame the distant landscape like moldy shark’s teeth.

  Somewhere around here, my eyes close.

  I wake to find myself the last passenger on the bus. The driver is shouting at me, “Hey, dude, get off my bus!” I stagger to my feet and stumble to the front. Through the window, at the end of a street, there’s water stretching as far and wide as the eye can see. Somewhere along the way, there’s been a big mistake. The bus I’d taken was supposed to go deep inland.

  In Spanish I say, “What the heck—is that the sea?”

  “The lagoon,” replies the driver. “Catemaco.”

  Catemaco. He pronounces it to rhyme with taco. I’ve never heard of the place. I grab my map, baffled. “I thought your last stop was Acayucan.”

  “It was. You missed it. I started on my next route and, abracadabra, we’re off to Catemaco. Shouldn’t be such a sleepyhead, should you?”

  I study my map and groan loudly. Catemaco turns out to be a big detour on the way to nowhere.

  For some reason the frustration hits me incredibly hard. On my own, I can’t do anything right. What am I thinking? How can I possibly live up to all these people’s expectations?

  I can’t hold back the tears. I put my hand across my face to try to hide them, but it’s no use. I stumble off the bus, sniffling like a little kid.

  Chapter 37

  The bus driver locks the ignition, staring at me. “Hey, kid, don’t take it so hard! I just need to park the bus for the night. I’m not mad at you …”

  I shake my head, wiping my nose. “No … it’s just that I really needed to get to Jalapa.”

  “Well, Catemaco’s nice too. Why not take a rest? You look like you could use it. Buy a charm or a cure. Swim in the lake, visit the waterfall. It’s really beautiful.”

  I take a look around. Catemaco feels unlike anywhere I’ve ever been in Mexico. There’s a claustrophobic feel to the town, on the banks of a mysterious sea that goes nowhere, hemmed in by an intense mist. The lake and town are surrounded by thick jungle, and you know about it from the constant noise of birds, insects, and the occasional screech of howler monkeys.

  The bus driver follows me to the gift stand near the bus stop, where a huge display of postcards catches my eye. It stops me in my tracks, dries my tears in an instant.

  Again and again, I see images of statues, a Buddha-like stone figure; old boats moored on water; the lake in the morning, blanketed with mist.

  There’s something very, very familiar about them. Is it possible that I’ve been here before … with my parents? I begin to feel disoriented.

  In a complete daze, I stumble down to the lakeside, where a deep ocher sunset silhouettes the low volcanoes and cliffs around the lake. Mist rolls slowly toward the town, enveloping tiny islands that are just visible within the swirling fog. There’s a mystical feel to the place.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that the bus driver is still behind me. I try to avoid his gaze. What’s wrong with the guy? Can’t he leave me be?

  In the distance I see something else that jolts my memory. A light-blue-painted boat carries a load of passengers under a canopy toward a twin pair of straw huts. The huts seem to be suspended in the middle of the lake until I notice that a trick of the early-evening light hides a long pier. But something doesn’t look quite right. I hurry to the edge of the pier. When I look straight down the pier and see the two huts framed symmetrically on either side, the image looks right.

  Finally it makes sense. I’ve seen these places, these images—in a dream. It’s the scene of my grandfather’s death.

  The bus driver is right next to me now, by the water’s edge. He stares at me, long and hard. “Something wrong, friend? Maybe I can help you out? A little charm, a cure for what ails you? I’m as good as any of the brujos you’ll meet down on the Malecón, you know.”

  Confused, I turn to him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, don’t get mad, but ever since you got off the bus, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He grins. “In Catemaco, that means you probably have.”

  “What …?”

  He folds his arms. “Come on, pal. Maybe I can help?”

  “I’ve seen this place before,” I mutter, half to myself. “In a dream.”

  “A dream, you say? What good luck—Catemaco is the perfect place to explain your dreams!”

  “Catemaco? I’ve never heard of it.”

  He laughs, incredulous. “Come on now. You’ve never heard of the brujos of Catemaco?”

  I stare at him. Brujos? He’s talking about witches?

  “I’ve never heard of it,” I repeat, with a straight face.

  Suddenly he stops laughing. “Your being here is no accident, friend. You’ve been led here by the spirits. They must know about your dream.”

  “Sounds like crazy talk to me.”

  He looks insulted. “Hey—don’t be saying things like that. You’ll offend the spirits!”

  I start to back away from him. The guy is beginning to unnerve me.

  “The spirits have led you here, pal,” he says, chasing after me. “There must be a reason. Why don’t you tell me your dream? Maybe I can help you out.”

  I look at him. “You’re a bus driver. What do you know about dreams?”

  “I was born and raised here. The witchcraft, it’s in my blood. But you know how it is. The town is full of charlatans, con artists trying to cash in on the fame of the brujos. They’re bad for trade, push the prices down. Driving my bus—it pays better.”

  He comes closer and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not messing with you here. Tell me your dream.”

  I hesitate. “You want money?”

  He blushes and shrugs. “Well, sure, boss. But only when you’re satisfied with the result.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred.”

  I gasp. “You’re crazy.”

  “Dreams are about destiny. And destiny costs.”

  I hesitate again. Five hundred pesos—that’s almost forty pounds!

  “You don’t like what you hear, you don’t pay.”

  I sigh. What could it hurt? In a way, I’m itching to tell someone.

  In the fading sunlight, under tall palms whose fronds rustle in the cooling air, I tell this brujo who moonlights as a bus driver about my dream. He listens without saying a single word, his face blank. When I’m done, I throw him an expectant look.

  He’s quiet for a very long time, staring past me, into the lake.

  “Well, you got me,” he says. “Could mean anything.”

  “What …? But you said …”

  The bus driver takes a few steps away. He shrugs. “What can I say? I was wrong. I don’t have a thing to say to you. Sorry for wasting your time. Okay?”

  And with that, he just walks away, leaving me even more puzzled and confused than before.

  The unbearable heat of the day has dropped off. There’s a sudden chill. It feels as though a storm might be coming. In the last half hour, the sky has filled with heavy gray clouds. With a sigh, I start walking down the pier, looking for somewhere to stay the night.

  Hotel Los Balcones is just a little farther along. The rooms are arranged in a modern, long, two-story building around landscaped gardens. Deep balconies filled with flowers separate the layers. One look is enough to tell me that it’s the fanciest joint in town. I wonder how I’m going to persuade them to let a thirteen-year-old boy check in all alone.

  I only know I need to sleep. To call Ek Naab, then maybe the museum.

  But talking to that bus driver has unsettled me. Catemaco is where m
y grandfather died. That’s what the dream is telling me—it has to be. Why did the bus driver go cold on me?

  I find I can’t focus on finding the Ix Codex anymore. The threads of my life have become wrapped around me in a messy tangle. I feel their blood run hot inside me: my grandfather’s and my dad’s. I sense the call of a destiny I can’t and don’t want to understand.

  Chapter 38

  In the end, it isn’t too hard to persuade someone to give me a room at Hotel Los Balcones. “You here with your parents?” the receptionist asks, obviously suspicious. “Of course,” I reply, all innocence.

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re taking a boat ride. They wanted to be alone. You know, romantic. So they sent me to check in by myself.”

  She’s immediately sympathetic. “How selfish of them! You poor boy! I’ll give them a good talking-to when they get here.”

  The receptionist gives me a first-floor room with a lakeside view. The sudden change in weather hasn’t taken the people of Catemaco by surprise—a tropical storm is picking up in the Gulf of Mexico. I ask her how bad it gets, this far from the coast. “We’ll survive,” she tells me with a friendly grin. “But by the end of the night it’s going to rain, and how!”

  In the room, I hunt for the hair dryer and turn it on, blowing warm air over both of my useless cell phones. I take my time, being careful not to let the metal heat up too much, forcing myself to be patient, turning the phones over periodically. And finally, the moment of truth: I hit the power switches.

  Both phones power up. I’m ecstatic, breathless with the excitement of sudden hope. It strikes me that Catemaco is an even better place for the Mayans to pick me up. Plenty of cover in the countryside nearby for a Muwan to land.

  My British cell phone lights up for a few seconds and then bleeps with the empty-battery signal. The Ek Naab phone remains lit. The problem is, there’s no signal. Not a single bar.

  I step out onto my balcony. There’s no improvement. I walk up and down the entire corridor, holding the phone out to try to reach a phantom signal. Zero.