Life Blood ---XX---Page No--65

My hopes at war with my nerves, I turned my back on the scummy, fetid Rio Tigre and headed back up the jungle trail toward the plaza.

When I got there, I was struck all over again by the vision of

the pyramid. Something like it might have been here originally, but
in any case it had been completely redone, with newly cut
yellowish stones and white lime plaster, an exotic castle nestled in
the green lap of the rain forest, rising above the square like a
haunting presence. It must have been well over a hundred feet
high, a stone wedding cake with a dozen steep tiers between the
ground and the platform at the top, which also was square and
roughly fifteen feet on the side.

Standing there gazing at it, I think I'd never felt more

disoriented. Sarah, Sarah, how could we both end up here, at the
last outpost of the known world? But seeing is believing. I took a
deep breath, then turned down the pathway toward the thatch-
roofed huts.

Through the mist it was gradually becoming clear that Baalum
actually was a village, and a sizable one. The walkway led past a
string of clearings, each with clusters of one-room huts built in the
ancient, classical style, with walls of mud over rows of vertical
saplings, their roofs and porches peaked with yellow-green thatch
weathering to browns and grays. The structures, outlined starkly
against the towering green arbor of the forest above, were
grouped around paved patios. It all was neat and meticulous, like
a jungle Brigadoon. Although the effects of the storm were every-
where—blown thatch and bamboo—I still felt as if I'd fallen into a
time warp where clocks had gone backward. What . . . ?
        Then I began to catch the outlines of people, as though they
had materialized out of the pale fog. All pure Maya, short and
brown, shiny black hair, they appeared to be just going about their
daily lives. I was approaching a workshop area where, under a
wide thatch shade, men with chipped-flint adzes were carving
bowls, plows, various implements from mahogany and other rain
forest woods. Next to them, potters were fashioning brown clay
jugs. They all were wearing white loincloths and a large square
cotton cloth knotted around their shoulders, their hair tied back in
dense ponytails. It must have been how the Maya looked a
thousand years ago.

Their earnestness reminded me of the villagers I once filmed
in the Yucatan for the Discovery Channel—with one big difference:
There I was the big-shot gringo; here I felt like a powerless time

traveler. The sense of being lost in another age was as

compelling as the "colonial" mock-up at Williamsburg, but this was real and it was decidedly spooky.

Finally one of the men looked up and noticed me. Our eyes locked for an instant—it seemed like forever—and then he reached over and, in a way that seemed breathless, shook the man next to him, gesturing toward me. Together they gazed back as though viewing a phantom, their brown faces intent, and then they turned and called out to the others, alerting them.

What are they going to do with me? I wondered with a sudden
chill. A stranger here in their hideaway midst. Would they just turn
on me?

Find some women. Get off the street.

I turned and headed as fast as I could down the cobblestone
central path, till I saw a cluster of females on a whitewashed stone
porch, long hair falling over their shoulders as they bent to their
tasks beneath the thatch overhangs. Some were stirring rugged
clay pots of corn soaking in lime; others were grinding the
softened maize to tortilla thinness on wide granite platters. Behind
them was another group that appeared to be part of a sewing
commune, young wives busy at their back-strap looms, layering
thread after thread of dyed cotton. None of them was wearing a
huipil—the traditional multicolored blouse I'd remembered from the
waitresses in the restaurant. Instead, they all had on a kind of
handloom-woven white shift I'd never seen before.
        Talk to them. Let them know you're no threat to anybody.
        As I moved down the hard clay pathway toward them, two
 looked up and took notice. Their first reaction seemed to be
alarm, as they tensed and stared. But then I tried a smile and it
seemed to work. Their looks turned to puzzlement, then
embarrassed grins, as though they wanted to be friendly but
weren't sure how to acknowledge my presence.
        When I reached the porch, several reached out to touch me.
One older woman, short and wizened and extremely brown, even
tried to stroke my hair.

What was going on? I was taken aback, but I also was

determined to get through to them. Why not just ask them point-
blank if Sarah's here? Is there any chance they understand
Spanish?

"Buenos dias." I smiled and nodded. "Dispenseme. Quiero
descubrir . . . esta una gringa de los Estados Unidos aqui? "