Starfields (3 page)

Next, Sylvia stopped to examine the displays of bright yarn looped over the poles. Usually Rosalba loved to finger the yarn, imagining it glowing on her loom. But today she only glanced impatiently at the rainbows of color and sighed loudly.

With the few coins left, Rosalba bought two apple-flavored
refrescos,
one for herself and one for Sylvia.

As she was taking her first sip, Rosalba saw Catarina Sanate, surrounded by a group of American and
ladino
tourists.

“Don’t go over there, Rosalba,” said Sylvia. “My mama says to stay away from her.”

Rosalba’s mama had said the same thing. But Rosalba was fascinated by Catarina. She felt certain that Catarina, like her, wouldn’t be afraid to walk alone to the pool.

Catarina had been a bit older than Rosalba when she’d taken up folk painting. Everyone had disapproved. At the river, as the women did laundry, Rosalba had overheard the gossip.
Weaving
was the job of girls and women, they’d said. Painting on canvas was for men. Just as a woman was known as lord of the house, and a man was the lord of the cornfield.

But Catarina had gone on and painted everyone in the village, whether they liked it or not. The women whispered that her paintings were more lifelike and beautiful than those done by the men.

As Rosalba drew closer, she heard Sylvia’s loudly whispered warning: “But she’s a
bruja,
Rosalba. When she paints people, she bewitches them.”

Lots of people believed that. Just in case, no one wanted to be near Catarina. She sometimes disappeared from the Highlands. But she always came back, and now lived in town in a small house of her own.

Rosalba was now near enough to see the thick brushstrokes of Catarina’s paintings.

Instead of being laid out on the ground, the paintings were set up on easels: men working in the cornfields, women kneeling to wash at the river, musicians at a fiesta, the dance of the men who pretended to be the deer and jaguar.

For a moment the figures seemed to move as if they were really laughing, dancing, or playing instruments. When Rosalba blinked, the figures became mere paintings again.

“Come on, Rosalba. Let’s go!” insisted Sylvia, tugging at the edge of Rosalba’s shawl.

I behold the world through senses other than sight.

I feel the prickle of shells hung in strands around my neck, looped as bracelets around my wrists. My skin warms adornments of cool jade.

I run my fingertips over Mauruch’s face, pausing at the deep lines. I compare his face of many details with my own smooth one.

In our cave I press my palms onto the slippery lumps of the stalagmites and stalactites, one formation stretching to the stars, the other to the Underworld. Bathing in the water of the
dzonot,
I never linger. I immerse my body quickly and pull myself out with the rope. That cold sinkhole leads straight to Xibalba.

Outside I walk the paths, sensing direction and the time of day by the warm pulse of the sun on my face.

Mornings, the cries of the roosters wake us. Softer is the flutter of their wings. Far off, in the fringy jungle, my ear discerns the noisy calls of the howler monkeys as they move in black troops through the trees. Swimming in the river, I become one with the loud plunge of the waterfall.

Traveling sightless, I guide myself by listening to sounds bouncing off trees and rocks.

Sometimes I lie down on the ground, becoming one with it, feeling the Earth’s grainy touch against my bare skin. I welcome even the sharp sensations of the insects’ bites.

I breathe the cave air musky with bat guano, the smoke, the damp odor of the earth, the lightning’s bitter scent.

Finally, there is always a taste on my tongue: rainwater; clear, sweet coconut milk; dark
pataxte;
the musky meat of the wild pig. . . .

B
y the time Rosalba and Mama arrived in San Martín, the sun had dropped into the Underworld.

On the final stretch of the path, little Adelina ran to greet them, crying out, “Nana is teaching me weaving!”

As the Mayan words reached Rosalba’s ears, she relaxed. Now she was truly home.

Adelina threw her arms around Mama first, then Rosalba. “Nana, let me help her.”

Nana stood smiling, surrounded by pecking chickens. Behind her, Rosalba glimpsed Papa coming down the mountain through the mist. He carried a huge load of firewood on his back. With a cry of exhausted triumph, he threw the wood down.

Anselmo, age seven, and Mateo, eleven, appeared, staggering under smaller loads. Papa helped Anselmo untie his bundle.

When Papa was tired, Rosalba knew to stay away, to say nothing. When hungry, Papa could snap like a dog.

“Help me set the table, Adelina,” she said, taking her sister by the hand.

While Mama reheated the tortillas and lit the fire under the pots of beans and squash, Rosalba handed Adelina the enamel plates, then the cups. Finally, she carried out a bowl of dried chile flakes.

Once everyone had eaten, they grew quiet. One by one, the night stars popped out. Rosalba was glad to be home from the market, the highway, the town. She liked to go out, but loved even more to come back. Now she heard only the sounds of frogs and crickets, the crackle of the fire. She fingered a collection of yarn scraps in her lap.

At last Papa lit a cigarette, saying, “We passed the camp of tents the
ladinos
have set up.”

“They’ve brought lots of boxes,” added Mateo, propping his feet on a log. “They don’t seem to be tourists.”

“They’ve come to study us so they can write books,” said Nana.

“And make a lot of money,” Mateo said.

Mama said, “They must be looking for another lost city. For pyramids.”

Anselmo’s eyes grew wide. “
Pyramids
? Pyramids close by?”

“If they find a pyramid, many people will come,” said Nana.

“I don’t think it’s pyramids they’re looking for,” said Papa. “These may be the same
ladinos
who years ago tried to grab our land.”

Mama sucked in her breath.

Rosalba had heard stories of the days when land-hungry
ladinos
had come to the Highlands. The Mayans had fought back, calling themselves Zapatistas after the famous revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. Just before Rosalba’s birth, both men and women had taken up guns and donned the black knit ski masks called
pasamontañas.
Papa had been the village leader. His gun still lay beside his bed.

In some places, where the Zapatistas had lost, their land had been taken. But the villagers of San Martín had kept their cornfields.

Listening to the conversation, Rosalba braided yarn into a pretty bracelet for her new friend. She alone knew that the men weren’t pyramid or land hunters, but scientists. She mustn’t reveal the secret of her meeting with Alicia. Yet, in spite of Mama’s reassurances, she couldn’t forget what Alicia had told her.

“When I was in the market today,” Rosalba said carefully, “I heard something strange. A man said that the world will end soon. In just over a year.”

Papa ground his cigarette butt into the dirt. “Who told you that?”

“I overheard someone talking.”

Mateo laughed very loudly. He jabbed his elbow into Anselmo’s arm until he too laughed.

“But it’s a
Mayan
prophesy,” Rosalba persisted.

“People want to make us Mayans more exciting than we really are,” said Nana.

“And I told you just this morning the lilies would know,” said Mama, pulling Rosalba close on the narrow bench.

Rosalba relaxed against Mama’s shoulder. Of course Alicia’s story wasn’t true.

As an owl flew overhead, flapping its pale wings, everyone grew quiet.

In spite of Mama’s embrace, Rosalba shivered. An owl could be a
brujo
come to steal a soul. An owl could mean death. Or, as Alicia might say, it could mean the death of the world.

I see when Mauruch decrees it.

When he brings me the bitter hot drink, I down it without question. Crouched in the back of the cave, I conquer the demon of my nausea.

With the drink circulating in my veins, I dream the world.

I surrender to visions of the king and his priests whirling in quetzal-feathered headdresses. I witness maidens wearing white dresses, armies of slaves dragging great stones to build pyramids and majestic cities, serpents with plumes on their backs. I see a great stone calendar. Rubber balls bounce across the stone ball courts of the temple-pyramids rising above the forest canopy. I behold the blue, yellow, and red macaws, and the iridescent green and gold tail feathers of the quetzal birds. In the lagoons crocodiles and caimans laze, iguanas strut over hot rocks while boa constrictors and venomous fer-de-lance slither through the tall grass. Beneath the mahogany, sapodilla, and bread-nut trees, the jaguar stalks.

Here in the heart of the world.