Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Sabir turned on him, his face instantly suspicious again. ‘Suicide? Why are you talking about suicide all of a sudden?’

Calque laid a restraining hand on Sabir’s shoulder. All of their nerves were on edge, and Sabir’s most of all. Calque knew that Sabir hadn’t been sleeping. During the past few days the man had been becoming more and more wound up – just as he’d been in the aftermath of his tangle with Achor Bale. It was as though Sabir lacked three or four of the normal protective outer layers of skin that ordinary people possess by default.

At first Calque had made the not unreasonable assumption that Sabir’s newly fledged relationship with Lamia might even serve to calm him down a little. But, paradoxically, the love affair appeared to have had the exact opposite effect, turning Sabir into an even more hyper version of himself. Calque decided that he and Lamia would have to tread very carefully indeed if Sabir was not to crack up on them. He measured his words carefully, therefore, like a schoolmaster addressing a room full of freshmen.

‘He means that the goddess Ixtab acts as a psychopomp, Sabir. A spirit guide. Escorting the newly deceased to the afterlife. Shamans can also fulfil this role, I understand. It’s a quite innocent pastime.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ Acan looked grateful for Calque’s intervention. ‘This is what my mother does. My mother is iyoma.’

‘ Iyoma?’

‘A female shaman. A midwife, really. It is she who tells, when a child is born, if he will become a shaman or not. Whether he is born with a separate soul, like a true shaman, and will give his mother much pain in the birthing. This can be a very bad thing for the mother. Sometimes the iyoma will not even tell the mother and father about their child for this reason, but only reveal what she has learned later on.’

‘Why was your mother called after the goddess of suicide?’ Sabir was still staring at Acan as if the young Maya was personally responsible for his mother’s death.

In his own heightened emotional state, Acan picked up on Sabir’s anxiety and didn’t feel threatened by it. He waved one hand in a downwards movement, as if calming a child, using the back of his other hand to brush away his remaining tears.

‘The old iyoma we had in the village at that time recognized my mother as a shaman at birth. She knew instinctively that my mother was connected by her umbilical cord to the goddess Ixtab. Without telling my father and mother, she went to the old people and suggested the name to them. In our village we respect our elders. We do what they ask of us. So my mother was named Ixtab. She has guided many people into the afterlife – and brought many others into this world as earth fruits. She is a very wise woman.’ Acan nodded, as if what he was saying was self-evident. ‘You will meet her, Adam. We are going to Ek Balam. Very near to my village. My mother will be there, waiting for you.’

Acan looked strangely at Sabir. For suddenly, without any warning, Sabir, too, began to cry.

The Halach Uinic had never known the like before. Who had dictated the events of the past few hours? Hunab Ku? Itzam Na? The maize god? The god who had no name? And what was their meaning?

Why, for instance, had foreigners been needed to find the thirteenth crystal mask – the mask without which the twelve other ritual masks would not sing? And why had it needed another foreigner – a man from Veracruz, of all places – to bring the Maya this incredible gift of a fourth complete codex, to stand alongside the Dresden, the Madrid, and the Paris codices, all of which had been stolen from the Maya by descendants of the conquistadors? The Halach Uinic realized that he was being told something – that voices were being carried to him on the wind, and that he urgently needed to listen to them.

The Halach Uinic turned to the mestizo who had brought him the book. His face in no way revealed the tenor of his inner thoughts. ‘We cannot take this book from you. It has been in your family’s possession for many generations. It belongs to you, and not to us. It would be wrong of me not to tell you what value this book has. If you were to take it out of the country – to the United States, for instance, or to England – the gringos would make of you a very rich man. You could buy cars, and houses, and make love to a different woman every day. You could travel on aeroplanes through the sky, and see things that most of us know nothing about. You must not give us this book, therefore. It is yours. You must do with it as you will.’

As the Halach Uinic said these words, he felt a pain in his lower back, as if a kidney stone had formed there and was struggling to get out. He knew that by saying the words he risked losing the greatest gift his people had ever received. Yet he also knew that he had to say them – and mean them – or the gift would be worthless.

The mestizo was looking ahead of himself, out of the car window. He seemed to be concentrating on the vehicle in front of them – the vehicle that was carrying the gringos.

He half-turned towards the Halach Uinic. ‘And the skull? The gringos found that, not you. Will you offer that back to them as well?’

The Halach Uinic felt the weight of fate descend upon him like the lid of a coffin. How was it possible that this campesino could see things with such clarity? Pose him such questions? The man must have been chosen by God. There was no other possible answer.

Before the Halach Uinic could address himself to the question, the mestizo turned to look at him face on for the very first time. ‘You are the High Priest, are you not? The one they call the Halach Uinic?’

‘So they tell me. I am not entirely in agreement with them on this subject, however.’

‘The other priests…’

‘The Chilans and the Ah Kin?’

‘They will do as you say?’

‘No. They will do as their spirit tells them.’

‘But still. They listen to you?’

‘I am a mouthpiece. Yes. That is so. This much they accept.’

‘Then will you offer the gringos back the skull?’

The Halach Uinic closed his eyes. This was the thirteenth skull they were talking about. The skull of power. He had heard tales about this skull for the entire length of his life. Of where it might be hidden. Of the secrets to which it might provide the key. Some thought that it might even hold the answer to what would happen after the time of the Great Change – the date of 21 December 2012 that marked the end of the Maya Long Count calendar.

The Halach Uinic knew that only with this skull in place, and with suitable offerings, would the twelve other ritual skulls agree to sing and tell the Chilans of what might come to pass in the future – of what might come to pass when all was said and done.

You are being a nicanic, the Halach Uinic said to himself – a simpleton. The others priests would do well to tie you up now and throw you into the X’Canche cenote – let you drown upside down as a sacrifice to the gods.

‘I will offer the gringos back the skull. Just as I have offered you back the book that you brought us. Will that satisfy you?’

‘Yes. And when will you do this? Now?’

‘As soon as we reach Ek Balam. I will order the site closed for the day. We will mount the great pyramid together. I will make you both the offer there. In front of the Ahau Kan Mai, the Chilans, the Ah Kin, and the shamans, all of whom I will request to assemble.’

You nodded. What had caused you to make this stipulation? Why had you spoken in this way to the great man? Had you turned mad? In your entire life, you had never spoken back to one in authority. You had surely entered a realm of being beyond even your wildest dreams.

Your stomach gave a sudden lurch, and you found yourself picturing your hut, and the figure of your mother waiting for you in the doorway at the end of the day. You wished to be back in Veracruz, returning from your day’s work, tired but content. You wanted your mother to scrub your back and face with a damp cloth. To tease you about not yet finding a wife to do these things for you. A daughter-in-law to help her in the kitchen and about the hut. To give her grandchildren.