The Mayan Codex

by Mario Reading

  ‘Friar de Landa stared at me for some little time. I felt then that he was delving into my soul like one Death and Seven Death, the Lords of Xibalba, in the Place of Fear – that his eyes were piercing through me to the five levels of creation that made me up.

  ‘This is when the terrible fear came upon me that our understanding of the five levels of creation would be lost forever were I, too, to be killed. Which Chilan would be left to teach our children the knowledge of the first level of stone and fire that makes up their bones, their heart, and their gall? Who could tell them of the second level of plants, flowers, and trees, that makes up their flesh? Of the third level of waters, lakes, and rivers that makes up their blood, their nerves, and the liquid essences of their body? Who could describe to them the fourth level of wind and animals that encompasses their breath and their vision? Who would be left to tell them of the fifth and final level that makes of them “earth fruits”? That makes of them human beings, similar in essence even to Friar de Landa?

  ‘“And you?” he said to me. “Can you read these books and write this script? I conjure you, upon your Christian oath, to speak truly.”

  ‘Then came upon me the spirit of the Lak’ech. The spirit of our Maya code of honour. The Halach Uinic had called upon me to mould myself, pari passu, with the Spanish. To defend our people from my place of concealment. To this end there was a saying amongst us: “I am another yourself.” Before this day, I had attempted to put this into practice. To understand Friar de Landa – to place myself in his shadow and understand his doings to the extent that I was able. The time for understanding had now passed.

  ‘“On my Christian oath, I cannot.”

  ‘“And the thirteenth crystal skull? The so-called ‘singing skull’? The skull that the most credulous amongst your people think activates the twelve skulls stolen from Nachi Cocom’s secret library? My soldiers and my friars have searched everywhere, and put many people to the question, and still they have not found even one of the thirteen. I know these skulls exist, for I have seen them. Who has them now?”

  ‘I pointed to the greatest of the dead chiefs. “He does. He was the guardian of the skulls.”

  ‘Friar de Landa smiled, and his smile was terrible. “Shall I put you to the question, too, Salvador, my son?” Here he used the name the Spaniards had given me. My so-called baptized name. The name by which I was known to all but the dead.

  ‘“I am your loyal servant, and a loyal servant of the Church. I will answer all of your questions, however they are posed to me.”

  ‘Now the friar laughed. How he laughed. He clapped his hands together and he danced a dance, his skirts swinging in the dust. He shouted to his soldiers, his voice like the song of the macaw. “Bring me their books. Bring me their idols. Bring me their altar stones.”

  ‘The Spanish soldiers drove our people who were their slaves before them, staggering under the weight of our patrimony. Now the sacred books that Nachi Cocom had shown to Friar de Landa were laid out like strips of maize across the square. As were the sacred objects. As were the sacred altar stones. Stakes and shafts of wood were piled across them, then brushwood was placed on top of these. Incense was interleaved inside the branches, and crosses made from withies were planted on the periphery of the pile. Soon, the skeleton of a great bonfire was revealed, twenty feet high, and one hundred feet around in its circumference, and designed in the form of a volcano.

  ‘Night was falling. I, Akbal Coatl, the “night serpent”, whom the Spaniards call Salvador Emmanuel, had never feared the night. Now I feared it.

  ‘Our people stood in lines around the unlit bonfire. Some vomited. Others took out knives and slit their own throats.

  ‘I stood next to my master, Friar de Landa. I raised my pen and wrote as he dictated. The friars had provided me with a lectern for my convenience. They also brought me water to drink, from the very same source they had used to fill the mouths of their victims. I brushed it away. My throat was parched. My eyes were streaming. I could scarcely see the vellum on which I wrote for tears.

  ‘A soldier brought the Friar a burning branch, swathed in cotton and liquor. The flames from the branch played over the Friar’s face.

  ‘I thought of our code, the Lak’ech. I thought of our saying, “I am another yourself.” I knew then that this friar was no part of me, or of anything that I represented or believed in. I was glad that the thirteenth crystal skull had been given into my possession. Glad that I knew the location of the greatest of our sacred books. For through me, the future of the Maya might be secured. Through me, our customs and beliefs would not be lost when the skull and the book were once again reunited at the end of the period known as the Cycle of Nine Hells.

  ‘For was I not Chilan and ak k’u hun – priest and chief guardian of the sacred books? Was I not the friend and devoted servant of the friars? Party to their confidence, and privileged witness to their outrages? Was I not destined to travel back to Spain with Friar de Landa and visit the monasteries and libraries of our order when the time for an accounting came? Had I not sacrificed myself sufficiently to placate the gods?

  ‘Friar de Landa turned to me. He pointed to the skeleton of the mighty bonfire. He made the sign of the cross over me and he smiled. “Here.” He handed me the burning branch. “You light it.”’

  84

  ‘No more. It is enough. The road of words must end here.’

  The Halach Uinic’s voice echoed out over the assembly. The light from the guttering candles reflected back off his face, which was drained of all colour, like a corpse’s.

  The Chilan who had been reading the codex handed the book to the Halach Uinic. The Halach Uinic held it at a distance, as if he was scared that it would burst into flames and consume him. Freed from his burden, the Chilan stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. Some of the younger priests hurried forwards and helped him away.

  The Halach Uinic closed his eyes. ‘Bring the thirteenth crystal skull.’

  A sigh passed over the crowd.

  Acan stepped forward. He unwrapped the crystal skull and offered it to the Halach Uinic.

  ‘Give it to the shaman.’

  Acan hesitated. It was clear that he did not know to which shaman the Halach Uinic was referring.

  Ixtab gently took the skull from her son’s hands. She passed it to Sabir. Her movements were so forceful that Sabir had no choice but to accept the skull.

  ‘Why are you giving it to me? I’m no shaman.’ Sabir tried to pass it back, but Ixtab shook her head.

  Sabir looked wildly around him. ‘Look. We came here with no idea of finding anything like this. No idea at all.’ He looked entreatingly at Calque and Lamia, as though they might be persuaded to intercede for him in some way. ‘I don’t understand what is going on.’ His words trailed off irresolutely.

  The Halach Uinic lowered his voice so that only those nearest him could hear it. ‘Of course you were sent here to find this. There is more written in this book than was read out by the Chilan. Much more. There are urgent questions I must ask you. Questions to which you may not consciously know the answer. A secret which is not a secret. But for this we need a touj.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Later. Later I will explain everything to you.’ The Halach Uinic turned back to his people. He stood waiting, the codex held high in his left hand.

  Sabir’s eyes opened wide. It dawned on him that the entire assembly, including the Halach Uinic, was patiently waiting for him to act.

  He looked around himself in ill-disguised panic. Here he was, after a week spent trying to outrun and outwit the eleven brothers and sisters of a man he had inadvertently – or as far as the Corpus Maleficus was concerned, very much advertently – killed. And all he could think of to do was to stand on top of a pyramid in the Yucatan, with a thousand strangers drinking in his every move, and wave a crystal skull over his head. Was that some kind of dumb, or was it not?

  No sooner had this absurd thought flashed through Sabir’s mind th
an an extraordinary sense of well-being began to flow through his body, as if he briefly added up to more than the actual sum of his parts. He glanced at Ixtab, certain that the support he felt was coming from her.

  She smiled at him and nodded.

  All at once Sabir knew exactly what to do. He walked towards the Halach Uinic, holding up the crystal skull so that the crowd below could see it. He bowed before the Halach Uinic and then stretched the crystal skull out before him, as though he were about to throw it down the steps of the pyramid. Then he motioned to Lamia with his head.

  She hesitated, and then stepped towards him.

  ‘I want you to translate for me. My Spanish is too rough. It will mean calling out to all these people in your loudest voice. Do you think you can do it?’

  Lamia hesitated once again. Then she inclined her head

  He mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to her.

  She held his gaze with hers and mouthed the words back to him.

  ‘Tell them that a great man, who died almost four years to the day after the events they have been hearing about, showed us, more than four centuries later, and seemingly from beyond the grave, where to find the skull.’

  Lamia frowned. But then her face cleared in sudden understanding, and she began to translate his words.

  ‘That this great man intended the skull as a gift to the Maya people. A gift of something they had once possessed and must now possess again.’ He paused, waiting for Lamia to translate his words. ‘That we from across the sea ask them to accept this gift in the same spirit as our friend from Veracruz has offered them the return of their sacred book.’ Sabir glanced around, searching for inspiration. The fresh words came to him in a sudden rush, as though they had been banked up behind the others, just waiting to pour out. ‘That we foreigners are proud to have been the unwitting guardians of the location of your treasures – the only two objects saved from Friar de Landa’s annihilation. That we offer them back to you with the greatest respect, and in only partial restitution for the evils done to your people in the name of our Christian Church.’

  Sabir knew that these were not his own words he was speaking, but the words that Ixtab and the Halach Uinic desired him to speak, channelled through his lips. The hidden, super-rational part of him still resisted the possibility that one could be fed words via other people’s thoughts.

  The Halach Uinic accepted Sabir’s offer of the skull. He held the skull and the book high above the assembly for a moment, before handing them to the attendant priests. ‘The book will be copied and translated. What it contains will be available to all as soon as the work has been completed.’ He waited for the murmuring of the crowd to die away. ‘The skull can only be reunited with the remaining twelve skulls on the final day of the Cycle of Nine Hells, which falls on 21 December 2012. Only then may we learn what the thirteen skulls have to say to us. Is this acceptable to you all? Will you permit me to represent you in this matter? If not, I will step down and make way for another.’

  A great crashing and banging began from below. Sabir squinted into the gloom. He shook his head in wonder. The Maya women had brought their cooking implements with them in preparation for the forthcoming feast, and now they clashed their saucepans over their heads while their menfolk twirled their machetes, smashing them one into the other as in a sabre dance.

  Sabir sat down on the top step of the pyramid and put his head in his hands. He felt drained. Unwitting. Incapable of action. Lamia crouched beside him and rested her head against his.

  ‘You did the right thing. What you said was beautiful. How did you grasp so perfectly what was needed?’

  Sabir leaned across and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. Then he tilted back his head, looked at her speculatively, and kissed her again. ‘If I told you, you’d never believe me.’

  85

  Abi held the cell phone tightly to his ear. He protected his other ear from the racket with his free hand. With all the din going on around him, now seemed as good a time as any to get his telephoning done. ‘All well at the warehouse? No unwelcome visitors?’

  ‘It’s quiet as the grave here. I’ve told Berith to get some sleep while he can.’ Oni cocked his head. ‘What’s all that banging I can hear?’

  ‘Sabir’s been playing the crowd. And our sister’s been translating for him. Went down a storm. Like something out of King Solomon’s Mines.’

  ‘What mines?’

  Abi shrugged. Pointless explaining. You could take a horse to water, but you couldn’t make it drink. ‘Athame’s gone to see if she can find out where they are taking the skull and the book. In these happy egalitarian days, nobody dares object to a female even smaller than themselves, so if she’s unlucky enough to be seen there’s a fair chance that nobody will dare pay any attention to her. The rest of us are in hiding and have the camp encircled. When the main body of the Maya have fed themselves, and either gone to bed or drifted off home, we’ll pounce. We’ll fix it so they’ll think Sabir and Calque changed their minds and ran off with their holy relics. Greedy gringos, out for the main chance – that sort of thing. Playing to the archetype, Monsieur, our father, would have called it. Should create one hell of a stink, and keep us nicely in the clear. We don’t want trouble at Cancun airport when we leave the country. There’s no telling with these people.’

  ‘Wish I was with you.’

  ‘No you don’t. It’s boring as hell out here. This could take hours yet. I’m beginning to wish we’d thought to bring some sandwiches.’

  ‘I’ve got sandwiches here. Chorizo. Lomo. Cheese. Chicken. Aguacate …’

  ‘Fuck off, Oni.’

  86

  The Halach Uinic motioned to Calque, Sabir, and Lamia that they should enter the sweat lodge ahead of him. ‘This is the touj I was telling you about. What they call a temazcal in other parts of Mexico. Please wear no metal or other ornaments about your person. Any such possessions will be taken out and looked after for you while the ceremony is under way.’

  Ixtab stood at his side, as did the Chilan who had read from the codex. The mestizo from Veracruz stood a little behind them, looking apprehensive. The evening’s events had clearly told on each of them, just as they also appeared to have done on Sabir, for he stood there, staring at the sweat lodge, shaking his head like a horse tormented by flies.

  The Halach Uinic glanced at Ixtab, and then made a small inclination of the head towards Lamia.

  Ixtab approached Lamia and lowered her voice. ‘Señorita, forgive me, please, but I have to ask you this. Are you menstruating? For it is not allowed to enter the touj when that is occurring. It is not good for the womb, you see.’

  ‘I am not.’

  The Halach Uinic nodded and cleared his throat. ‘This place will allow us to talk freely amongst ourselves. No one can hear us in here. I have prepared four substances. Firstly, peyote, from the Huicholes, which we call aguacolla. Secondly k’aizalah okax, which is known to your people as psilocybe cubensis or the “magic” mushroom, and to our people as the “lost judgement” mushroom. Also seeds from the quiebracajete, which you would call “morning glory”, which we shall mix with balché, our sacred drink that the Spaniards forbade us to make. And finally venom from the cane toad, bufo marinus, which we shall mix with tobacco made from the water lily, nymphaea ampla. Some amongst us also use vuelveteloco, datura, for spiritual purposes, but Ixtab tells me that this is not suitable for use by Westerners. She has heard of gringos going mad under its influence. These substances will allow us to see clearly, and for our bodies and souls to unify, as they should, and allow the life force to come through. Ixtab will search inside each of you, and decide which of the preparations is in tune with your nature, for they may not be mixed. Are you willing to experience this?’

  ‘I’m not going in there.’ Sabir’s head was still now, but his face was deathly pale. ‘I’m claustrophobic, you see. Nothing you say or do is going to make me go in there.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I don’t mea
n that I just don’t like small spaces. I mean that I’m seriously claustrophobic. Shrieking the house down claustrophobic. Drooling and gibbering and pleading to be let out claustrophobic. Grovelling and mewling and scratching my fingernails to the quick claustrophobic. Bashing my head against the wall claustrophobic. Do you get the picture? Have I made myself clear?’

  There was a short, awed silence.

  ‘I’ve heard about these places before. They seal you inside with a bunch of red-hot volcanic stones. Then they ratchet up the temperature to 180 degrees. You can’t see anything. You’re in pitch darkness. Sort of like hell, but without the River of Fire.’ Sabir gave an involuntary spasm. ‘I can’t do it. Drugs or no drugs.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it? What am I talking about? I won’t do it.’

  The Halach Uinic placed his hand on Sabir’s arm. ‘Ixtab has warned me of your fears. She has prepared you a bowl of chocah, which is principally made of chocolate, which we call xocolatl, and peppers, and honey, and tobacco juice. This will calm you before you enter.’

  ‘How the hell did Ixtab know I was claustrophobic? Who told her?’ Sabir glared at Calque and Lamia.

  Both of them shook their heads.

  Sabir’s voice trailed off after his initial diatribe. He was getting used to Ixtab’s uncanny insights into his psyche. ‘You don’t understand the half of it. Six months ago I had a crazy experience. It was like being buried in one’s grave, but with all one’s everyday faculties still intact. I died, in a manner of speaking, and then came back to life again.’ He glanced at Lamia, hoping she’d forgive him for rekindling memories of her brother’s death, and also for his tacit accusation that she had betrayed the secrets of his claustrophobia to Ixtab. ‘It echoed a similar experience I’d had as a child, in the trunk of someone’s car. But not in a way I ever want to relive. I can’t go in there, I tell you. I don’t see why I should do it.’