When we reached the parking lot, several more Army thugs were waiting,
grown-ups now, khaki shirts and dense mustaches, the regulation G-2
sunglasses even though it was still dark, with 9mm automatics in
holsters at their belt. I took one look at them and I think I blacked
out. Steve and I were about to "disappear," and possibly Sarah too.
Probably in another hour or two. My tattered mind finally just slipped
away.
Soon afterward, I sensed myself being transported in a large vehicle,
and after that I was being carried, up, up, as though I were floating
into the coming dawn. When I regained consciousness, I realized I was
standing in a rainstorm near a small stone building. A dozen Army men
were huddled inside, shielding their cigarettes from the blowing rain
while they guarded a row of olive-green bassinets. Around me, censers
were spewing _copal_ smoke into the soggy air.
I became aware of the cooling sensation of the fresh rain across my
face, and wondered if it might clear some of the toad venom (surely
that was what it was) from my brain. Maybe it was working. Instead of
seeing vivid colors everywhere, I was abruptly experiencing a hyper
acute clarity of every sensation. The stones beneath my bare feet were
becoming so articulated, I felt as though I could number every granule,
every crystal, every atom. The paintings and carvings on the lintel
above the door to the stone room--I recognized it as where I'd spent
the first night--sparkled, leapt out at me.
"Stand there on the edge of the platform," Alex Goddard commanded,
urging me forward. It was only then I realized we'd come up the back
steps of the pyramid, where the G-2 men had parked their black Land
Rovers, unnoticed and ready.
Looking down at the crowd of people gathered in the square, I realized
they couldn't really see much of what was going on atop the pyramid. To
them it was just a cloud of _copal_ smoke and foggy rain. Although the
sun was starting to brighten the east, the only real light still came
from the torches stationed around the plaza.
Then like a ghost materializing out of the mist, Marcelina moved up the
steep front steps, leading a line of Maya mothers from the clinic--I
counted twelve--each carrying her newborn, the "special" baby she would
give back to Kukulkan, perhaps the way Abraham of the Old Testament
offered up his son Isaac in sacrifice to Jehovah. It was a sight I
shall never forget, the sadness but also the unmistakable reverence in
their eyes. I wanted to yell at them to run, to take Sarah's votive
babies and disappear into the forest, but I didn't have the words.
Next the women arrayed themselves in a line across the front of the
pyramid, facing not the crowd below, but toward Alex Goddard and me.
Then, holding out a jade-handled obsidian knife, he walked down the
line, allowing each woman to touch her forehead against its flint
blade. I assumed each one believed it was the instrument that would
take her child's life, ceremonially sending it back to the Maya
Otherworld whence it came. Had he drugged them too, I fleetingly
wondered, hypnotized them or given them some potion to prevent them
from comprehending what was really going on?
I kept remembering . . . a hundred other insane episodes of immortal
yearning leading to a mass "transport" to some other "plane." This, I
thought, must be what it was like in the jungles of Jonestown that
death-filled morning. And Alex Goddard was their "Jim Jones," the
spiritual leader of the moral travesty he'd imposed upon the lost
village of Baalum.
I was going to stop it, somehow. By God, I was. I stared at the women
and felt so sad at the sight of the hand-woven blankets they held their
babies in, primary greens and reds and blues lovingly woven into
shimmering patterns that mirrored the symbols across the sides of the
stone room. Their faces, especially their eyes, were transcendent in a
kind of chiaroscuro of darkest blacks and purest whites, as though all
their humanity had been caught by their blankets and shawls, surely
created for this ultimate moment. And the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz was
there, carrying him, the baby I'd so wanted to hold one last time.
Next Alex Goddard emerged from the stone room bearing a basket filled
with sheets of white bark-paper. He approached Tz'ac Tzotz's mother,
then took a wide section of the paper and secured it around her face
with a silk cord, covering her vision. Down the line, one after
another, he carefully blindfolded the women, while they stood
passively, some crying--from joy or sorrow, I could not tell. Finally,
at the last, he also covered Marcelina's face.
So she's not supposed to know what's really happening. Nobody's
supposed to know except him, and me. And, of course, Ramos and the G-2
secret police and whoever else is in on this crime. But, secretly, she
does know. The God of the House of Darkness.
When he finished, he put down the basket, then turned to me. "Stand at
the front edge of the platform and lift your hands in benediction. They
all want to see you, the new bride."
I took a couple of steps, then looked back to see him adding more
_copal_ to the main censer, sending a fresh cloud of smoke billowing
out into the rain. As the incense poured around us, the Army thugs
who'd been loitering at the back of the stone room began coming
forward, each carrying one of the bassinets. They set them down on the
stones, ready to start taking the children. My outraged mind flashed on
Ghirlandajo's "Massacre of the Innocents." Here, though, Sarah's
children weren't being stabbed to death; they were being--kidnapped and
stolen.
Revulsion pierced through me as though I'd been hit by a jagged shaft
of lightning, but instead of being knocked down, I was energized. Or
maybe the final effects of the toad venom were giving me a spurt of
adrenaline. Letting his criminal charade continue one second longer
became unbearable. What would happen to me, I didn't know, but I
couldn't let it go on.
"No," I yelled, startling myself by the sound of my own voice. "In
God's name, stop."
The rain was growing more intense, and I was soaked and bleary-eyed,
but before I could think I found myself stalking over to Tz'ac Tzotz's
mother, shouting at her. The next thing I knew I was ripping the paper
from her frightened eyes. I hugged her as best I could, then yelled
back at Marcelina.
"Tell them all to take off their blindfolds. This is obscene."
Then I went on autopilot, shutting out everything around me--the rain,
the perilous sides of the pyramid, the pistol-carrying G-2 thugs, even
Alex Goddard. The way I remember it now, it all took place in slow
motion, like some underwater dream sequence, but surely it was just the
opposite.
Anyway, I do know I snapped. I started shouting again, and with the G-2
hoods momentarily frozen, I started flinging the still-empty bassinets
down the steep side of the pyramid, where they just bounced away into
the rain. As I watched them disappearing, one after another, I felt
marvelously emboldened. I would throw one and watch it go flying, and
then I would throw another. Yes, damn it, yes!
I wanted to show anybody with two eyes that it was all a sham. Once
they realized what was really happening, surely they would rise up and
drive Alex Goddard from their home.
For a moment it seemed to be working. A stunned silence was slowly
spreading over the square, while everybody around me was paralyzed,
like waxworks. Maybe it's the same way you're temporarily caught off
guard when a stranger on the street goes berserk.
By the time I'd flung away the last bassinet, the women had all removed
their blindfolds and were staring at me, dumbfounded. Finally, Tz'ac
Tzotz's mother whispered something to Marcelina, and she turned to me.
"She wants to know why you're angry. You're the bride. They only want
to please you."
Angry? I was terrified, but also fighting mad.
"Marcelina, this is all a ghastly lie." I'd finished throwing and I was
moving to the next stage. Get control. Could he risk killing me in
front of all these people? "Tell them to take their babies and hide in
the forest."
That was when I heard a cry that pierced through the rain and across
the square beyond, and I turned back to see Alex Goddard shoving toward
me. He's coming to murder me, since I've exposed him. But I wouldn't
let it happen without a fight. I clenched my fists, waiting, feeling my
adrenaline surge.
Instead, though, he just brushed past me, headed toward the edge of the
platform. At first I didn't know why, but he was intent on something
off in the mist, his open hands thrust up at the rainy skies.
That was when I heard the Guatemalan Army hoods yelling curses.
"_Vete ala chingada!_"
They also were staring off to the south, in the same direction.
Hadn't they noticed I'd just dismantled their sick pageant? I wanted a
reaction that would drive home the truth to Marcelina, to the mothers,
to everyone.
"Damn it, look at me," I yelled, first at him and then at the G-2
thugs. "_Mira!_" But their focus still was on something beyond the
square.
Finally I turned, following their gaze, and for a second I too forgot
all about everything else. An intense red glow was illuminating the
morning sky from the direction of the clinic, a vibrant electric rose
weaving its hues in the mist. Then I saw spewing spikes of flame,
orange and yellow, dancing over the top of the clinic. There was a
finality about it that momentarily took my breath away.
Then it hit me. Steve's in there. It was a horror that, in my initial
shock, I couldn't actually process, the thought just hovering in the
recesses of my brain defying me to accept it.
Then Alex Goddard turned back, shouting at the Army men in rapid
Spanish--I recognized the word for fire--that galvanized them to
action. They snapped out of their mental paralysis and headed down the
pyramid, toward two Land Rovers parked at the back.
Next he turned around and fixed his gaze on me. At last he knew / knew
he was capable of unspeakable evil, and I knew he knew I would do
everything in my power to stop him.
"All my records." His voice sounded as though it was coming from
another world, and it held a sadness that touched even me. "You have no
idea what's been lost."
He was distraught, but also obsessed. With his wild mane of hair, he
did, finally, look like Shiva the Destroyer. He stalked over and seized
the obsidian knife, then turned toward me.
I looked for something to defend myself with. The bassinets, which I
might have used as a shield were gone. I only had my bare hands.
I had to get away from him, get down the pyramid and find Sarah and
Steve. But as I started toward the front steps, the women were all
clustered there, blocking my way.
Then, for no reason I could understand the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz
stepped out of the group and handed me her baby, saying something in
Kekchi Maya and reaching to touch my cheek.
I was so startled I took the bundle that was Sarah's child. But then I
thought, No! Alex Goddard will just kill him too.
"She said he must not harm you," Marcelina whispered moving beside me.
"You are the special one. She wants you to give her child back to
Kukulkan."
She still believes, I realized. They all do.
Holding Tz'ac Tzotz, my eyes fixed on Alex Goddard, I'd entirely failed
to notice a new presence on the pyramid a ghostlike waif in a white
shift who now stood silently in the doorway of the stone room. Sarah!
Marcelina had said she'd wanted to come for the ceremony. She was being
helped to stand by the two Maya women who'd fed me the _atole_.
Somehow, she'd gotten them to bring her.
"Morgy, are you there?" Sarah asked gazing up at the rainy skies, the
downpour soaking her blond hair, her eyes unblinking. At that moment, I
felt we'd joined become one person--me the dogged rational half who'd
just gone over the line, her the spiritual part that needed to float,
to fly free. "I wanted to be with--"
"Sar, get back," I yelled and started to go to her, but there wasn't
time. Now Alex Goddard was moving toward me holding the knife, as
though tracking a prey, oblivious to Sarah, to everything. He'd
concentrated all his hatred on me and me alone, and I hated him back as
much. Death hovered between us, waiting to see whom to take.
But then the woman who had borne Tz'ac Tzotz said something in Kekchi
Maya, pointing back at me and her child, and lunged at him. They
collided together in the rain and next she slid down, first seizing his
leg, then losing her grip and slipping onto the stones, her long black
hair askew in the hovering smoke.
She's trying to save me, I realized. Why--?
Then I saw Sarah pull away from the women supporting her and slowly
move across the platform.
"Morgy . . ."
She was walking in the direction of Alex Goddard, but then she stumbled
over the fallen woman's leg and her hand went down as she sprawled
across her. She must have touched something, because she recoiled
backward, and only then did I notice the flare of a torch glinting off
the obsidian knife now protruding from the woman's chest.
Sarah rose up, her eyes full of anger, and awkwardly flung her arms,
searching. I could feel the passion that had been pent up all those
months she lay in the coma, feeding her madness. She managed to catch
hold of Alex Goddard's arm, and they began an awkward minuet, neither
realizing how close they were to the stone platform's edge. I stood
mesmerized a moment, then dashed toward them, but only in time to watch
them vanish into the rain and haze. It was as though there had been
some sleight of hand. One second they were there and the next they
weren't. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then
I realized it was real. They were gone.
"_Sarah!_"
I reached the side in time to see them land on the first tier of stones
below. She'd fallen near the edge, but she was solid and safe. Alex
Goddard, however, hit with one foot on and one foot off, and the result
was he slid away, then vanished into the dark rain.
It's her final act of self-destruction. She's joined me in my rage, but
we've both been spared. That's the miracle of _Baalum_.
"Sar, don't move." I finally found my voice. I was still holding Tz'ac
Tzotz, who'd begun to shriek, his blue eyes flooded with fear.
Now several village men from the square were running, shouting, up the
slippery steps. Their faces looked like they'd been painted at one
time, but now the rain had washed most of it away.
While I yelled down to Sarah, again begging her not to move, Marcelina
was asking them something, and their answers were tumbling out.
Finally I turned to look at her, the screaming Tz'ac Tzotz still in my
arms.
"No one knows where he is," she was saying as she looked down over the
side. "He's gone into the forest."
"Good." I pulled Tz'ac Tzotz to me and kissed him, trying to tell him
to calm down. It wasn't working.
"Marcelina, here, please hold him. I've got to get down to Sarah."
She took him. Then I walked over to where his mother lay bleeding on
the stones. The woman wasn't moving, the obsidian knife still
protruding from her chest. She'd saved me, but now death had taken her.
There was nothing anyone could do.
I was trembling, but I turned and began easing myself over the side of
the stone platform and onto the first tier of the pyramid.
"Sar, don't move." I inched my way across to her. "Just
stay still." The rain was pouring again, but the electric bloom of
sparks and flames from the direction of the clinic was unabated. It
would be completely gutted. Was Steve awake enough to get out? He'd
seemed alert when I left him.
"Morgy, is that you?" She was holding out her fingers. "I can't see
you. Where are--?"
"I'm here, Sar. Right here." I reached down and took her hand, which
was deathly cold. "Come on. Let me help you get up."
Carefully, leaning against the wet stones of the side of the pyramid, I
gradually pulled her to her feet and away from the treacherous edge.
Then it hit me what she'd said.
"Sar, what do you mean, you can't see me?"
"I'm okay. It's just . . ." She was gripping my hand now, and then she
brushed against the stone side of the pyramid and put out her other
hand to cling to it. "Morgy, I took it again. To go to their sacred
place. But sometimes you can only see visions and then after a while
everything goes blank."
That bastard. Alex Goddard had given her the drug again. Now she was
lost in a world of colored lights, a place I'd just traveled through
myself. She probably had no idea she'd just pushed him off the pyramid
and into the dark.
"Your hand feels so soft," she was saying. "You're like warm honey."
"Sar, try to walk. We're going to turn a corner and then we'll be at
the back of the pyramid. Next we'll come to some steps, and then we're
going down."
As I inched our way along, scarcely able to keep our footing because of
the rain, I wondered again about Steve. Please, God, let him be all
right.
When we finally got to the steps, Marcelina was there, standing
expectantly, holding Tz'ac Tzotz. He was still crying, intermittent
sobs.
"He belongs to you now," she said, holding him out for me. "It's what
she wished.
"What--?" I took him before I realized what I was doing.
As I cradled him, gazing down at his tender little face, I realized he
truly was Sarah all over again. And I was so glad she couldn't see him.
Never, I thought, she must never, ever know.