Jeff assumed that the dog must’ve alerted the villagers to their presence, but there was no overt acknowledgment of this. No one paused in his work to stare; no one nudged his neighbor and pointed. The men and women and children remained bent low over their weeding, moving slowly down the rows of plants. Most of the men were dressed in white, with straw hats on their heads. The women wore dark dresses, shawls covering their hair. The children were barefoot, feral-looking; many of the boys were shirtless, dark from the sun, so that they seemed to blend into the earth they were working, to vanish and reappear from one moment to the next.
Stacy wanted to push forward into the village, to see if they might find someplace cool to sit and rest—perhaps they could even buy a cold soda somewhere—but Jeff hesitated. The lack of greeting, the sense that the village was collectively willing away their appearance, filled him with a feeling of caution. He pointed out the absence of overhead wires, and how this would lead to a lack of refrigerators and air conditioners, which, in turn, would make cold sodas and cool places to sit and rest seem somewhat unlikely.
“But at least we might find a guide,” Amy said. She’d removed her camera from his pack and had started to take pictures. She took some of them crouched there, then one of Pablo and Eric walking toward them, then one of the Mayans working in their fields. Her spirits had lifted, Jeff could tell; Stacy had brought her out of it. Her moods came and went; he assumed there was a logic to them, but he’d long ago stopped trying to fathom it. He called her his “jellyfish,” rising and falling through the depths. Sometimes she seemed to find this endearing; other times she didn’t. She took a picture of him, spending a long moment peering through the viewfinder, making him self-conscious. Then the click. “We could just end up walking back and forth along this trail all day,” she said. “And then what? Are we supposed to camp out here?”
“And maybe they’ll be able to drive us back to Cobá afterward,” Stacy said.
“See any cars or trucks?” Jeff asked.
They all spent a moment staring down into the village. Before anyone could say anything further, Pablo and Eric were upon them. Pablo hugged everyone, then immediately began chattering in Greek, very excitedly, extending his arms full length, as if describing a fish he’d caught. He jumped up and down; he pretended to knock into Eric. Then he held out his arms again.
“We saw a snake,” Eric said. “But it wasn’t that big. Maybe half that.”
The others laughed at this, which seemed to encourage Pablo. He started all over again, the chattering, the jumping, the bumping into Eric.
“He’s scared of them,” Eric said.
They passed the water bottle around, waited for Pablo to finish. Eric took a long swallow of water, then poured some on his elbow. He had a cut there; everyone clustered around him to examine it. The wound was bloody but not especially deep, three inches long, sickle-shaped, following the curve of his elbow. Amy took a picture of it.
“We’re going to find a guide in the village,” she said.
“And a cool place to sit,” Stacy offered. “With cold sodas.”
“Maybe they’ll have a lime, too,” Amy said. “We can squeeze it on your cut. It’ll kill off all the nasty things inside.”
She and Stacy both turned from Eric to smile at Jeff, as if taunting him. He didn’t respond—what was the point? Clearly, it had already been decided: they were going to the village. Pablo finally stopped talking; Mathias was putting the cap back on the water bottle. Jeff shouldered his pack. “Shall we?” he said.
Then they started down the path toward the village.
There was a moment, just as they emerged from the trees, when the entire village seemed to freeze, the men and women and children in the fields, everyone pausing for the barest fraction of a second to note the six of them approaching down the trail. Then it was over, and it was as if it hadn’t happened, though Stacy was certain it had, or maybe not so certain, maybe less certain with each additional step she took toward the village. The work continued in the fields, the bent backs, the steady pulling of the weeds, and no one was looking at them; no one was bothering to observe their advance along the path, not even the children. So perhaps it hadn’t happened after all. Stacy was a fantasist—she knew this about herself—a daydreamer, a castle builder. There would be no cool rooms here, no cold sodas. And it was equally probable that there’d been no moment of furtive appraisal, either, no veiled and quickly terminated collective glance.
The dog reappeared, the one who’d been barking at them earlier. He emerged again from the village, but with an entirely different demeanor. Tail wagging, tongue hanging: a friend. Stacy liked dogs. She crouched to pet this one, let him lick her face. The tail wagging intensified, the entire rear half of the mutt’s body swinging back and forth. The others didn’t stop; they kept walking down the path. The dog was covered in ticks, Stacy noticed. Dozens of them, like so many raisins hanging off his belly: fat, blood-engorged. She could see others moving through his pelt, and she stood up quickly, pushing the dog away from her, but to no avail. That brief demonstration of affection had won the mutt over; he’d adopted her. He pressed close to her body as she walked, winding himself through her legs, whimpering and wagging, nearly tripping her. Hurrying to catch up with the others, she had to resist the urge to kick at the animal, smack him across the snout, send him scurrying. She felt as if the ticks were crawling over her own body now, had to tell herself this wasn’t true, actually form the words in her mind:It’s not true . She wished, suddenly, that she was back in Cancún, back in her room, about to climb into the shower. The warm water, the smell of shampoo, the little bar of soap in its paper wrapper, the clean towel waiting on its rack.
The path widened as it entered the village, became something that could almost be called a road. The shacks lined it on either side. Brightly colored blankets hung over some of the doorways; others were open but equally unrevealing, their interiors lost in shadow. The chickens scampered, clucking. Another dog appeared, joining the first in his adoration of Stacy, the two of them nipping at each other, fighting over her. The second dog was gray, wolflike. He had one blue eye and one brown, which gave his gaze an ominous intensity. In her head, Stacy already had names for them: Pigpen and Creepy.
At first, it appeared that there was no one in the village, that everyone was out working in the fields. Their footsteps sounded loud on the packed dirt, intrusive. No one spoke, not even Pablo, for whom silence had always seemed so unattainable. Then there was a woman, sitting in one of the doorways, with an infant in her arms. The woman had a withered quality about her, gray streaks in her long black hair. They were moving down the center of the dirt road, ten or so feet from her, but she didn’t glance up.
“¡Hola!” Jeff called.
Nothing. Silence, averted eyes.
The baby had no hair to speak of, and a raw, painful-looking rash on its scalp. It was hard not to stare at the rash; it looked as if someone had spread a layer of jam across the infant’s skull. Stacy couldn’t understand why the baby wasn’t crying, and it upset her, inordinately, though she couldn’t say why.Like a doll , she thought—not moving, not crying—and then she realized why its stillness bothered her: there was the sense that the infant might be dead. She glanced away, calling up those words again, forcing them into her head:It’s not true . Then they were past, and she didn’t look back.
They stopped at the well, in the center of the village, peering about, waiting for someone to approach them, not certain what to do if this didn’t happen. The well was deep. When Stacy leaned over its edge, she couldn’t see its bottom. She had to resist the urge to spit, or pick up a pebble and drop it in, listening for the distant plop. There was a wooden bucket on a slimy coil of rope; Stacy wouldn’t have wanted to touch it. Mosquitoes hovered in a cloud around them, as if they, too, were waiting to see what might happen next.
Amy took some pictures: the surrounding shacks, the well, the two dogs. She handed the camera to Eric and had him t
ake one of her and Stacy standing arm in arm. There’d be a whole series of these by the time they got home, the two of them gripping each other, smiling into the camera, pale at first, then sunburned, then peeling. This was the first one without matching hats, and it made Stacy sad for a moment, thinking of it—the boys running off along the plaza, the shock of that tiny hand squeezing her breast.
The dog she’d named Creepy, with his brown and blue eyes, went into a crouch, and a long string of shit spooled out of him onto the ground beside the well. The shit was moving; it was more worms than feces. Pigpen sniffed at it with great interest, and this sight finally jarred Pablo into speech. He began to exclaim in Greek, gesturing wildly. He stepped over to peer at the squirming pile of shit, his lip curled in disgust. He lifted his head to the sky and kept talking, as if speaking to the gods, all the while gesturing at the two dogs.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Eric said.
Jeff nodded. “We should go. We’ll just have to—”
“Someone’s coming,” Mathias said.
A man was approaching down the dirt track. Coming from the fields, it seemed, wiping his hands on his pants, leaving two brown smudges on the white fabric. He was short, broad-shouldered, and when he removed his straw hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Stacy saw that he was almost completely bald. He stopped twenty feet away, appraising them, taking his time. He put his hat back on, returned his handkerchief to his pocket.
“¡Hola!” Jeff called.
The man answered in Mayan, with a question, it appeared, eyebrows raised.
It seemed logical to assume that he was asking them what they wanted, and Jeff struggled to answer him, first in Spanish, then in English, then in pantomime. The man showed no sign of understanding any of this. Stacy had the odd sense, in fact, that he didn’t want to understand, that he was willing himself not to comprehend what had brought them here. He listened to Jeff’s words, even smiled at his foray into mime, yet there was something distinctly unwelcoming in his bearing. He was polite but not friendly; she could tell that he was waiting for them to leave, that he’d rather they’d never come.
Finally, Jeff seemed to realize this, too. He gave up, turned to them with a shrug. “This isn’t working,” he said.
No one argued. They shouldered their packs, started back toward the jungle. The Mayan man remained by the well, watching them go.
They passed the woman who’d refused to acknowledge them earlier, and, once again, she kept her gaze averted, the baby, with its mottled cap of red jam, motionless in her arms.Dead, Stacy thought, and then, as she forced herself to look away:It’s not true .
The dogs followed them. So did two children, which was a surprise. There was a squeaking sound, and when Stacy glanced back, she found a pair of boys coming up the trail after them on a bike. The bigger of the two was pedaling, the smaller rode perched on the handlebars. Relative terms, these—bigger, smaller—as neither of the boys was very large. They were hollow-chested, slope-shouldered, with knobby knees and elbows, and their bike was far too big for them. It looked heavy; its tires were fat and bulging; it had no seat. The boy in back had to pedal standing up, and he was panting with the effort, sweating. The chain needed oil—that was the squeaking.
The six of them stopped, turned, thinking to ask the boys where the ruins were, but the children stopped, too, forty feet back, scrawny, dark-eyed, watchful as two owls. Jeff called out, waved for them to approach; he even held up a dollar bill to tempt them forward, but the boys just waited there, staring, the smaller of the two still perched on the handlebars. Finally, they gave up, started walking again. A moment later, that steady squeaking resumed, but they paid it no mind. In the fields, the weeding continued. Only the man by the well and the two boys on the bike showed any interest in their departure. Creepy dropped away as soon as they entered the jungle, but Pigpen persisted. He kept rubbing against Stacy, and she kept pushing him away. He seemed to think this was a game, and threw himself into it with greater and greater enthusiasm.
Stacy couldn’t help herself; she lost patience. “No,” she said, and gave the mutt a slap across his snout. The dog yelped, jumped back, astonished. He stood in the center of the trail, peering at her with what looked like a painfully human expression. Betrayal—this was what his eyes communicated. “Oh, honey,” Stacy said, and stepped toward him, holding out her hand, but it was too late; the dog backed away, wary now, his tail tucked between his legs. The others were continuing forward along the shadowed path, striding into the first of the curves; they’d vanish from sight in another moment. Stacy felt a tremor of fear, a childish, lost-alone-in-the-forest sensation, and she turned, broke into a jog, hurrying to catch up. When she glanced back, the dog was still standing in the center of the trail, watching her go. The boys pedaled past him on their squeaking bike, almost brushing against him, but he didn’t move, and his mournful gaze seemed to cling to her as she vanished around the curve.
Walking back along the trail, Amy tried to think of a happy ending for their day, but it wasn’t easy to come by. They’d either find the ruins or they wouldn’t. If they didn’t, they’d end up back on the dirt road, with eleven miles or more between them and Cobá, and night falling fast. Maybe they’d received the wrong impression of the road; maybe there was more traffic on it than they thought. That was a happy ending, she supposed, them hitching a ride into Cobá. They could arrive just as the sun was setting and either find a place to spend the night or catch a late bus back to Cancún. Amy wasn’t able to muster much faith in this vision, though. She pictured them walking along the road in total darkness, or camping in the open, without tents or sleeping bags or mosquito nets, and decided that perhaps it would be better after all if they could somehow find their way to the ruins.
There’d be Henrich and his new girlfriend and the archaeologists at the ruins. They’d speak English, probably; they’d be welcoming and helpful. They’d find a way to transport them back to Cobá, or, if it was already too late in the day, would happily offer to share their tents. Yes—why not?—the archaeologists would cook dinner for them. There’d be a campfire and drinking and laughter, and she’d take lots of pictures to show people when she got back home. It would be an adventure, the highlight of their trip. This was the happy ending Amy kept in her mind as she made her way back down the trail, with the clearing opening up ahead of them, a circle of sunlight, blinkingly intense, into which they’d soon have to walk.
They paused in the last shadows before the clearing. Mathias took out his water bottle, and they passed it around again. They were all sweating; Pablo had begun to smell. Behind them, the squeaking came to a stop. Amy turned and there were the two boys, fifty feet back, watching them. The mangy dog was there, too, the one who’d taken such a liking to Stacy. He was even farther down the trail, though, almost lost in shade. He, too, had stopped, and was hesitating now, gazing toward them.
Amy was the one who thought of the fields. She felt a flush of pride as the idea surfaced in her head, a childhood feeling, leaning forward in her tiny desk, hand raised, waving for the teacher’s attention. “Maybe the path opens off the fields,” she said, pointing out into the sunlight.
The others turned, stared toward the clearing, thinking it through. Then Jeff nodded. “Could be,” he said, and he was smiling, pleased with the idea, which made Amy even more proud of herself.
She unlooped her camera from her neck, ordered them all into a loose group. Then, with her back to the sun, she framed them in the viewfinder, goading them into grins—even frownful Mathias. At the last instant, just before Amy pressed the button, Stacy glanced over her shoulder, back down the trail, toward the boys, the dog, the silent village, turning away from the camera. But it didn’t matter. It was still a nice picture, and Amy knew it now: she’d thought of their solution, the path to their happy ending. They were going to find the ruins after all.
After the packed-down firmness of the trail, the field proved to be a difficult hike. The dirt
seemed to have been worked with a harrow in the recent past. It was uneven—turned and furrowed—with sudden, inexplicable patches of mud. The mud stuck to their shoes, gradually accumulating, and they kept having to stop to scrape it off. Eric wasn’t in any shape for this sort of adventure. He was hungover, weary from lack of sleep, and beginning to feel the day’s heat in an unpleasant way. His heart was racing; his head ached. Waves of nausea came and went. He was just beginning to realize that he wasn’t going to make it much farther, and was deciding how he ought to announce this revelation, when Pablo saved him from the indignity by stopping suddenly. The mud had sucked his right shoe straight off his foot. He stood there in the field, balanced, cranelike, on one foot, and started swearing. Eric recognized many of the obscenities from the lessons the Greeks had given him.
Jeff and Mathias and Amy had already pulled ahead—they were walking with what appeared to be a baffling effortlessness along the jungle’s margin—but Stacy had tarried alongside Pablo and Eric. She stopped with Eric now to aid the Greek, holding him by the elbow, helping him keep his balance, while Eric crouched to free his shoe from the field’s grasp. It emerged, finally, after several strenuous pulls, with a suctioned popping sound, making them all laugh. Pablo put the shoe back on. Then, without a word, he began walking back toward the trail. Stacy and Eric glanced toward the others, who were a good fifty feet ahead now, moving methodically along the tree line. A silent debate followed, very brief, and then Eric held his hand out to Stacy. She took it, smiling, and the two of them started back across the field, following in Pablo’s footsteps.
SSmith - Ruins Page 5
