Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Then the policeman came back. He was carrying the bag in which you kept the codex. ‘Is this your property?’

‘Yes, Senor.’

‘This is a valuable property no doubt?’ The policeman took out the codex and began to leaf through the folded pages.

‘No. It is not valuable.’

‘Then you will not mind if I confiscate it?’

You shook your head. Your heart was as ice in your chest. ‘I would very much mind for it to be confiscated. This thing belongs to another. I have promised to take it to him. I have taken an oath.’

‘The thieves gave me two hundred pesos. What will you give me?’

You opened your hands and turned them upwards. ‘The two hundred pesos the thieves gave you belonged to me. It was the money the thieves stole from me.’

‘I am sorry for this. But I can do nothing. If you want your property, you must pay a fine. That is the law.’ The policeman opened the notebook he was carrying at a certain page, and pointed to the text, which you, of course, could not read.

You reached down and slipped off one of your shoes. In it, you had fifty pesos of your one hundred remaining pesos. You took out the fifty-peso note and placed it in the policeman’s book.

The policeman shrugged. ‘Is that all you have?’

‘The thieves…’ You also shrugged. But still, hidden inside your other shoe, was the remaining fifty-peso note. You prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe that the policeman would not ask you to reveal what was in that shoe as well. If he did this, you would be lost.

The policeman snapped shut his book. ‘Very well then.’ He dropped the bag with the codex onto the ground, as if by error. ‘You have paid your fine. You are free to go now.’

You quickly picked up the codex, bowed to the policeman, and turned away.

Now you knew you would certainly starve. You had just fifty pesos left to your name. And you still had to pass through Ciudad del Carmen, Champoton, and Hopelchen, before you reached your final destination at Kabah, at the Palace of the Masks.

A friendly Indio had told you that there was a chance, if you waited for the ending of the market, that if one of the market traders had done particularly well, they might possibly agree to take you back with them in their empty truck. Many came from Ciudad del Carmen to the market in Villahermosa – almost as many as went to Campeche. If you were lucky, and had the patience to wait without complaining, you might find such a person.

In the meanwhile you knew you would be forced to loiter around the market all day, praying that you would not meet the policeman again, and that one amongst the many market traders might throw some of his rotting fruit away into the gutter. If this was the case, then you would be able to eat a little, and settle your stomach. For the fifty pesos that you had left in your shoe would doubtless be needed at Kabah – as a bribe, maybe, in case the man at the main gate would not let you in to wait.

When you fell to thinking about this waiting, your stomach pained you even more than it had before. It was like the ache of a blow – your belly seemed to expand and contract with the pain at one and the same time. Originally, you had promised yourself eggs – in the form of salsa de huevo – for breakfast that morning, in a bid to keep up your strength. But now, because of the thieves, you dared not waste your remaining money on such luxuries.

Truly, this had been a bad day. Probably the worst day that you had ever suffered in your life.

‘Despite all that you say about her, Madame, my mother, is an honourable woman.’

Sabir checked out Calque’s response to Lamia’s statement in the Cherokee’s rear-view mirror. Calque was clutching his head as if somebody had just struck him a glancing blow on the temple with a meat mallet. Fortunately for Calque, Lamia did not appear to notice the movement.

‘What’s all this “Madame, my mother” bit? I’ve been meaning to ask you that for some time now.’ It wasn’t the smartest question in the world, but Sabir knew he had to do whatever was necessary to divert Lamia’s attention away from Calque, who was behaving as if he wanted to trigger a riot. Where it concerned the Countess, the ex-detective’s mind was unquestionably a no-through-road.

‘It’s a term of respect. All of us children use it. Monsieur, my father, was a very old man when we knew him – more like a grandfather than a father, really – and it seemed only right to show him respect. The usage then carried over to Madame, my mother. And we have never seen any reason to change it.’

‘So you still respect her?’

‘Of course. But I also disagree with her. In the strongest possible terms.’

Sabir pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine. They were a little way short of Ciudad Madero and Tampico. The trucks and pickups on nearby Highway 80/180 buffeted the Grand Cherokee each time they passed, causing the vehicle to rock on her springs like a spavined old lady. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t possibly drive and concentrate on a conversation like this at the same time.’ He turned to Lamia. ‘Let me get this straight. You still respect the woman who had you drugged and tied up, and who would most probably have had you killed if Calque’s buddy hadn’t ridden in on his white charger and rescued you?’

‘Madame, my mother, would never have had me killed.’

‘Oh, really? Well she sicced Achor Bale, your brother, onto a bunch of entirely innocent Gypsies, two of whom he killed, one of whom he as good as crippled, and the other one of whom he tried to give permanent, screaming nightmares to. And that’s not to mention a security guard, his Alsatian dog, and Calque’s assistant, Paul Macron, each of whom suffered lethally in the fallout.’

‘Rocha thought they had information we needed.’

‘Oh. So that’s okay then?’

‘I don’t believe Madame, my mother, knew quite how out of control Rocha was. I don’t believe she wanted to have anyone killed. Rocha was working to his own agenda.’

Calque chose that moment to wade back into the conversation. ‘Rocha, or whatever you want to call him – I can’t think of him as anything other than Achor Bale myself – was definitely not working off his own bat. He was working at your mother’s instigation, and doing her bidding in everything.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Of course not. That has always been my problem. Which is why the Countess got away with her dirty little scheme. In any halfway decent society she would have gone down for at least five years as an accessory before the fact. But she was far too well connected for that, wasn’t she? My Commandant actually admitted as much to my face. Which is one of the reasons why I took early retirement.’

‘Perhaps you were wrong? Perhaps she was innocent all the time? Have you thought of that?’

Calque made a pfaffing sound through his nose, like an irritated horse. ‘I knew it then, and I know it now – she’s guilty as hell.’

Sabir turned to Lamia. He took a deep breath. One part of him felt he needed to pin Lamia down about her family – the other part felt he ought to cut her a little slack. The first part won. ‘And your twin brothers? Were they just out to have a friendly little conversation with me up there in Stockbridge? Just chewing the fat, so to speak? Did I misunderstand their intentions? Maybe they didn’t really intend to burn down my house. Maybe they were just joshing me?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lamia. What’s got into you? Are you regretting coming with us? Would you rather go take your chances back with the Corpus?’

Lamia turned on Sabir. The unmarked side of her face had gone a deathly white. ‘No, of course not. But I don’t want you to demonize my family either. They really believe in what they are doing. They really believe that the de Bales have been tasked with protecting the world from the thousand-year return of the Devil. We have been doing it – not unsuccessfully – for nearly eight hundred years now.’