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 Mérida, 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?’
‘No. No. It’s nothing like that, Abi. It’s not that at all.’ Oni was so excited that he failed to pick up the customary sarcasm in Abi’s voice, or even to notice the new wave of mosquito attacks that were being unleashed against him. ‘You’ve still got all the roads out of here covered, haven’t you, Abi?’
‘Oni, get to the point.’
‘The point. Yes. Putain. The point.’ Oni was sweating even worse now – the perspiration was streaming off him in runnels, diluting the ‘Scoot’ until it was only fractionally better than useless. ‘You should have been here, Abi. It was like an Indiana Jones movie. Picture this. Sabir and Calque are standing out there in the moonlight, levering away at one of the temple masks, and trying to grab at something that is tucked away behind it. Then the mask they are levering at topples out of its niche and clatters down the temple steps like that bouncing bomb that flattened the dam in that stupid war movie the Rosbifs have.’
‘That’s two movies in one sentence, Oni. I can only take so many movies.’
‘Okay. Okay. No more movies.’ Oni slapped at a rogue mosquito that had broken away from the flotilla encircling him. ‘So then Sabir and Calque turn around like the idiots they are and stare at the mask as if it’s going to stop bouncing and magically swoop back inside its hole again. And that’s when eight Mayan guys appear out of nowhere, with our sister in tow, and cover them with rifles.’
‘What did they find, Oni? Calque and Sabir?’
‘What? But I was telling you about the armed men.’
‘Forget about the armed men, Oni. I already know about the armed men. You may find this impossible to believe, but you’re not the only fucking fish in the fucking sea. Now tell me what they found.’
‘Who’s telling this story, Abi? You or me? I was just building up to the punchline.’
Abi glared at his cell phone as if he intended to sink his teeth into the keyboard and chew it up. ‘Then you’d better get to the fucking punchline, Oni, or I’ll fucking flatten you just like that fucking dam you were fucking wittering on about.’
‘Yes, you and what man’s army? And you shouldn’t swear so much, Abi. Madame, our mother, says it’s a sign of a lack of imagination.’
Abi consciously reined himself in. It was either that, or swear out a contract on his brother. What was the point in working himself up over nothing? He knew what Oni was like. Had always known. He sometimes forgot that the idiot was only eighteen years old.
He had actually received reports of the coming of the armed men some little time before. For some reason the news had not surprised him. You don’t single-mindedly follow three people day after day without the expectation of some sort of violent payback. And here it was, beckoning to him like one of Homer’s sirens.
Abi had immediately ordered the others to stand by, and to follow when and where possible. Now all he needed was to get a little sense out of his humungous fool of a brother, and he would have the situation nicely back under control again. ‘I’m sorry, Oni. Continue in your very own time. I’m entirely at your disposal, as always.’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I know I get a little carried away sometimes. But this was special, Abi. Listen.’
‘I am listening.’
‘When the mask had finished bouncing, there was a sort of powwow, with everyone putting in their centime’s worth. Lots of hand-waving and rifle-shaking. Then a decision must have been made, because Calque turns around and leads everybody back up to the face of the temple. Then he stands there like a stage magician – like George Sanders as Svengali in that movie with …’
‘Oni …!’
‘ …until he shoves his hand up inside the hole left by the mask and comes out with a …’ Oni stopped. He was grinning at his cell phone like a chimpanzee.
‘With a what? For pity’s sake, Oni, tell me what he came out with.’
‘A crystal skull, bro. A crystal fucking skull. Can you believe it?’ Oni shook his head at the cell phone, as though it might somehow jerk into life and be able to discern his thought processes. ‘It was more than a foot tall. With a jaw on hinges like a real skull. And something black for its eyes. Emeralds probably. Or maybe jade. I couldn’t make it out. Well the assholes with the guns take one look at this thing and drop to their knees like they’ve just seen the Pope. And what do Sabir and Calque do? Do they leg it? Do they leg it hell. Instead of sprinting back to their car, they stand there like they’re expecting to be given a gold medal at the Olympics for their trouble. Like they expect a pat on the back rather than the bullet in the head they’ll probably get when these bozos with the rifles come to their senses again.’
‘What happened then, Oni?’
‘Wait for it. It gets better. Much better. What happens then is that this guy I’ve been watching for the past three hours – the guy hiding behind the carob tree I told you about, Abi – this guy comes breezing out from his hiding place waving a book. “It’s all written down in here,” he shouts. “I can’t carry this thing about with me any longer. The volcano has spoken.” Or some shit like that. My Spanish isn’t too good.’ Oni was really getting into the swing of things now. ‘Well the gunmen nearly pissed themselves, I can tell you. They were lurching around, not sure who to cover, who to shoot, or whether they should throw themselves on their knees again and start worshipping Calque and Sabir as gods.’
‘How did it all end?’
‘Three of the gunme
n got together and manhandled the busted mask back into its hole. Then they tidied up all the stone chips and made the whole place shipshape again, just like nobody had ever been there. Then the boss man gathers everybody up, they have another powwow – believe me, these guys are good at powwows – and then they head off to wherever they need to get to in three separate cars, including Sabir’s Grand Cherokee.’ Oni searched wildly for a suitable flourish with which to end his story. ‘Now there’s nobody left here but us chickens. And a few bloodthirsty fucking mosquitoes feeding on us. Can I come home now, Abi?’
64
‘I recognize you. You’re the guide, aren’t you? The one who told us about the 942 masks?’ Sabir was driving the Grand Cherokee. Acan was seated beside him, with Calque and Lamia taking up the back seats. ‘So you were out there watching us all the time? How come? Were you expecting us? But that’s impossible.’ Sabir turned his head sharply. ‘You’re not with the Corpus are you?’
Acan was still nervously watching the woman. Hoping she wouldn’t stare directly at him. Give him the evil eye. He was clutching his rifle between his legs, so he wasn’t able to make the appropriate countermovement to diffuse the curse. ‘The Corpus? What is that?’
‘Forget it. It’s not important.’ Sabir glanced at Lamia in the rear-view mirror. ‘Look. Do you have to keep staring at my girlfriend that way? You may not realize it, but it’s damned off-putting. What is it with you people? Isn’t kidnapping us enough?’
Acan blew out noisily between his lips. Now that the subject was out in the open, he felt better. ‘She has the evil eye.’
‘The what?’
Calque leaned forwards. ‘He thinks Lamia has the evil eye. On account of her face. That if she stares at him he will be cursed.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake …’
The Mayan Codex Page 28
