The saltwater bit my healing burns and stung my eyes when I opened them and squinted into the depths. I immediately began stroking and kicking toward the bottom. The water was warm, blood warm, like the amniotic fluid of some giant womb.
I'd always loved the sea, had always been drawn to it. I'd been a water rat as a boy, one of those kids who'd go in and stay in until he was dragged out blue with cold. With scuba diving, no matter how large the group, I'd found a splendid isolation in the deeps: just me and the sea.
But now, naked, wet, and warm, I felt an even stronger bond. I was one with the sea. I felt as if I'd . . . come home.
I continued my descent, following the coral bedizened rock wall and waiting for a thermocline that never came—the water maintained its same blood-warm temperature all the way down. A rainbow of angelfish and clown fish made way for me. Popping, squeaking pressure built in my middle ears but I didn't want to break my stroke and risk wasting air to equalize them. I bore the steadily increasing pain. I wasn't going to be here long anyway.
The water was clear—not as clear as Cozumel's, but it had a good fifty feet of horizontal visibility. I spotted a wavering reflection below me. That had to be it.
My lungs started complaining then. I put more effort into my strokes and kicks, but I seemed to be swimming through molasses. Water plays tricks with light, and one of its favorites is making objects appear closer than they really are—just the opposite of the side-view mirror on your car.
I could see the underwater geode directly below, but my lungs were screaming for air now, the pressure driving ice picks into my ears, and I knew I wasn't going to make it the rest of the way. I turned and kicked toward the surface, aiming for the shadow of the dinghy and letting loose a stream of bubbles as I ascended.
When I broke the surface I clamped a hand on the boat's gunwale and clung there, gulping air.
Maya's face hovered over me, her expression hopeful.
I shook my head. “Found it,” I gasped, “but couldn't reach it. Have to try again.”
“Rest a moment first,” she said, and reached down to give me a hand back into the boat.
“In a minute,” I said.
I knew I'd have to get back into the boat. A surface dive wouldn't get me down to the tines—I needed the extra momentum of the leap from the boat. But I wasn't anxious to sit around nude as a jaybird up there while I caught my breath. Besides, the water was so warm and comfortable, I didn't care if I ever got out.
Finally, when I felt rested enough, I clambered up over the gunwale and immediately poised myself on the bow. I lined myself up with the carving, took four deep breaths, then plunged in again.
I had a better idea where I was going this time, and spotted the reflected light of the underwater geode soon after I opened my eyes. It beckoned from directly below. I stroked and kicked toward it with everything I had, but couldn't move as fast as I needed to. I was about ten feet from it when air hunger began hammering at my lungs again and I knew I wasn't going to make it. I forced another couple of kicks, got my outstretched hand to within about five feet of the geode, but couldn't go an inch farther. My air was gone.
Cursing my wimpy, inadequate lungs, I turned and kicked toward the surface with what little strength I had left. The need for air, the screaming urge to breathe was so strong I feared my mouth would open on its own and inhale water.
I was clawing upward, aiming for the dark wedge of the dinghy hovering above when another shadow intervened—about six feet long, blunt-snouted, swimming with a sinuous, almost serpentine motion. It moved off to my left as I rose past and I got a better look— slate gray body and black-tipped fins. I had a sense of it wheeling around to come back to me but I didn't pause to make sure. Sudden terror outstripped the air hunger already propelling me to the surface. I kicked like a madman. I had to get out of the water—now!
In a single motion I broke the surface, grabbed the gunwale, and scrambled over it without help. If the boat hadn't been right there I might have sprinted across the water to reach it. I tumbled onto the floorboards and crouched on my hands and knees, gasping hoarsely, not giving a damn that I was naked. Someone threw a blanket over me.
“What is wrong?” Maya said.
“Shark,” I managed. “Big one.”
Neither Ambrosio nor Maya spoke. Finally, when I'd caught my breath, I sat up and faced them with the blanket wrapped around me.
“Did you reach the tine?” Maya said.
“No. I got close but not close enough. I don't . . . I don't know if I can do it.”
“You can do it, señor,” Ambrosio said. “Ambrosio will teach you.”
“That is a good idea,” Maya said. “Ambrosio is an excellent diver. We will go into shore and he can give you some pointers while we wait for the shark to go away.”
“Sounds good to me. But what makes you think it'll go away?”
“I have seen this shark before,” she said. “He tends to come and go and he has never hurt anyone.”
“You mean, not yet.”
“He will be gone later. It is a Maya word, you know.”
“Shark?”
“Yes. Only a few of our words have found their way into the languages of the world. That is one.”
Maya fell silent. She frowned as she tugged on her braids and stared at the carving on the rock wall.
“What's wrong?” I said.
“So little time. You must obtain your water tine today, for tomorrow we travel to El Silvato del Diablo for your air tine.”
“That means ‘something of the Devil’—what?”
“The Devil's Whistle. And you must return with that tine in time for the full moon two nights from now.”
“And if I don't?”
Her expression was grave. “Then all this will have been for nothing. You must bring all four tines to the holy place up there,” she said, pointing to the plateau behind the village.
I followed her point to the flat-topped mountain with its single tree. “Holy place?”
“Yes. Tradition has it that a branch of the World Tree grows there.”
“That tall skinny tree?”
“A ceiba tree. Some call it a silk-cotton tree, but my people call it Yaxche, the tree that holds up the world and the sky—the World Tree. They say the tree up there is a branch of the World Tree that has broken through from below. You must go there with your tines and place yourself between Gaea and the moon when she is full.”
“That's a small window,” I said.
She nodded. “The moon is Gaea's barren daughter. When she is full, she draws Gaea's power toward her, like the tide. The human body is mostly water—salt water. We all harbor a small sea within. The human body and its spirit have tides like the sea. When you place yourself between Gaea and her daughter at the proper time, the moon will draw her mother's power through you. Gaea will fill you . . . and change you.” She looked away. “We will have only one chance.”
I knew what she was saying, or rather, not saying: Barring a miracle, this coming full moon would be my last.
Ambrosio and I spent much of the rest of the morning and early afternoon practicing breath-holding in the shallows. He could stay under an amazingly long time. But as for technique, he wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know. Practice, practice, practice, sure, but a large part seemed to be natural ability, which I didn't have.
By late afternoon I was as good as I was going to get, so we hopped back into the dinghy and returned to La Mano Hundiendo.
I made three more dives, all unsuccessful. As a matter of fact, none of them brought me as close as this morning's second dive.
“I don't think it's a matter of breath,” I told Maya as I sat panting in the boat. “I think it's strength. My muscles are too weak to take me deep enough before I run out of air.”
“Can you try once more?”
I shook my head. “No use. Each successive dive is worse than the one before it.”
Her crestfallen expression tempte
d me to change my mind, but then I glanced around and saw a gray, black-trimmed dorsal fin cut a winding path along the surface between us and the thumb.
“And besides, how could I concentrate on reaching the tines with him around?”
We all watched the shark until it wandered away.
Maya said, “Very well. We will postpone the water tine. Instead, we will leave early tomorrow for El Silvato del Diablo and return tomorrow night. You can practice your breathing while we travel and then we will try again for the water tine on the last day before the full moon.”
“That sounds like a plan,” I said.
“But not as good as my original plan. I wanted you to have at least a full day's rest before you climbed to the holy place. Now that will be impossible.”
“Will I need all that rest?”
Her eyes locked on mine. “You will need every last ounce of your strength when you meet Gaea.”
Meet Gaea . . . I didn't believe in Gaea, but that didn't stop a chill from dancing down my spine.
All that time in the water had exhausted me, so after a liquid dinner I was ready to turn in. But I had to speak to Maya first. I asked her to come to my hut where I opened my duffel bag and pulled out the Kevorkian kit.
I explained what it was for.
“Why do you tell me this?” she said, staring at the IV solution bags, KCl ampoules, and coiled tubing as if they were poisonous vermin.
“Because . . .” I wasn't sure how to say it, but I had to settle this. “Because I may need your help with it when the time comes.”
“When the time comes?” she said. “That is your problem, Cecil. You do not believe, and because you do not believe, you have no hope.”
She was right—oh, how right she was. And today had brought that home to me more clearly than ever.
Each new day meant more tumor. I accepted that. But where else besides my throat? Captain Carcinoma had its tentacles all through my body by now, eating me alive from the inside. That was why I was dropping pounds and losing inches. And more than just fat was disappearing. When cells—even tumor cells—shout for food, the body isn't particular about where it finds it. Fat cells are good storehouses of nutrients, but muscles cells also offer a rich supply. So I wasn't simply burning fat—I was losing muscle mass as well.
And that worried me the most.
“I'm wasting away, Maya. I've never been a terribly physical man, and I've spent my life in a sedentary profession. So no matter how much I practice breath holding—and I've got to admit Ambrosio has increased my hold time—I'm steadily losing the strength I need to propel me down to thirty feet. I'm losing this war, Maya, and you know it.”
“I know no such thing.” She looked away. “And even if I did, that doesn't mean I will help you kill yourself.”
“Hopefully it will never come to that,” I said. “But what if I hurt myself and can't insert the needle? That's all I'll need you to do— help me start the line flowing, and I'll take it from there.”
“No.” She rose and started toward the door. “I will not do that— I cannot do that.”
“Then I'm out of here.”
That got her. I didn't know if I truly meant it, but I had to make her believe I did. And I knew I had to talk tough to wring a deal from her.
She turned and stared at me. “You do not mean that.”
“Absolutely. I have to know I can chose between a quick death and the lingering agony of dehydration and starvation. If you won't promise to be there for me when and if I should need you, then I'll go find a hotel room somewhere and wait for the end.”
I wasn't bluffing, and she must have known that. She looked torn, uncertain. I decided to push her a little harder.
“You talk about my lack of belief and hope. What about you? If you really and truly believe I have a chance at a cure, why don't you simply say yes, you'll help me. What's to lose if it's a promise you'll never have to keep? That is, if you truly have belief . . . and hope.”
I hated putting her on the spot like this, but I had to have the assurance of her help if I ever needed it. It was my security blanket.
“Very well,” she said in a tight, flat voice. “You have my promise.”
Then she turned and walked out.
I sat alone, feeling none too proud of myself. But this wasn't a game I had ever played before. I didn't know the rules, so I was making up my own as I went along.
The hut was stifling. The heat kept me from sleep, but it had help from a nagging guilt about backing Maya into a position she loathed, plus my worries about ever being able to reach the water tines. And then came all the regrets of my life—Annie, Kelly, roads not taken— recycling through my head for the thousandth time. I managed to turn them off . . . regrets were useful only when you had time to rectify them, and I didn't.
Desperate for some air, I crept outside to lay on the cooling sand and gazed at the night sky.
The moon wasn't up yet but Venus was low on the horizon, and so bright it cast a wavering bridge of light across the water like a miniature moon. I lifted my gaze and gasped when I saw the stars. They didn't have stars like this back in the U.S.—at least not in the Northeast. Where did they all come from? I hadn't seen the Milky Way since I was a boy, had almost forgotten what it looked like, but here it was now in all its speckled glory, a pale path of distant stars trailing overhead from horizon to horizon like a smear of semen from an infinitely fertile ejaculate, its countless spermatozoa streaming away into the night . . .
Semen? Ejaculate? I'd come up with another sexual image. Too long sitting naked in front of a woman with jade eyes and glorious thighs. I felt a long-lost heat growing in my groin as I fantasized a reversal of our roles in the boat today: I was the guide and she was the tine diver. I saw her clothes come off, watched her long lithe body poised to dive into the water—
I jumped as something pinched my leg. I sat up and saw a crab— a dozen, two dozen, a hundred crabs. The sand was alive with dark scuttling forms. Land crabs? Sand crabs? Fiddler crabs? Venus and the stars didn't provide enough light to tell and I wasn't hanging around until the moon rose to find out.
I jumped up and danced back to the hut, trying my damnedest not to step on them. For a moment I watched from the doorway as they scuttled back and forth across the sand in some sort of dance of their own. At least I knew the origin of the sand's morning herringbone pattern.
I retreated to the safety of my hammock. The hut was still hot but it was better than risking getting nibbled to death by crabs.
11
We left early the next morning in the Jeep: Maya driving, I in the passenger seat, Ambrosio crouched in the rear among the gas cans and my duffel—I wasn't going anywhere without my Kevorkian kit. He had a lap full of giant palm leaves and he was stringing them together with some sort of vine.
“What're you up to, Ambrosio?” I said. My voice was even more hoarse and cracked than yesterday.
“This will help you reach the air tines,” he said with a grin.
And that was all he would say.
I sipped slowly at my mixture of milks, trying not to wince with each swallow, and trying to keep it from sloshing all over the interior of the Jeep as we bumped up steep trails into the mountains.
We drove in silence, mostly. I was most hoarse—and swallowing was the hardest—first thing in the morning. The tumor tissue probably became edematous overnight, and only after I'd been up for awhile did it shrink some. I couldn't stand the rasp of my own voice, so I could imagine how it sounded to others.
And Maya seemed a little distant after last night's encounter.
Consequently neither of us was the best company this morning.
Eventually I noticed the terrain looking increasingly volcanic.
“Are we going back to the lake?” I asked.
Maya shook her head. “No. We visit a very old volcano today—or rather, what is left of it.”
The terrain flattened into a high plateau. The vegetation thinned as the soil
became harder and blacker. Finally the trail disappeared and we pulled to a stop at the base of a steep incline.
“We must walk from here,” Maya said.
She handed me a coil of rope—the same we'd used in the sand pit—and shouldered her backpack.
“We're not going to do more spelunking are we?”
“No,” she said as she started to climb. “Come. You will see.”
We left Ambrosio behind, and he headed into the brush with his machete. As we climbed, I began to hear a strange sound, a mournful low-pitched hum, rising and falling. The farther we ascended, the louder it became until it seeped into my bones and buzzed in my head.
The ground suddenly flattened and we stepped out onto a high ridge overlooking an emerald sea of mountains and valleys. But directly in front of me lay a black hole. Not the astronomical kind— this was volcanic.
We were standing atop a volcanic cone. Its mouth stretched fifty yards across. The low moan I'd been hearing echoed from somewhere deep inside that mouth.
Maya moved to the edge but I held back. As I watched her kneel on the rim and stick her head over the abyss, I fought an urge to rush forward and yank her back. But as her head cleared the edge, I saw her braids lift and flutter above her head.
And then it all came together: the moaning sound, the wind pouring up from the depths—this was El Silvato del Diablo . . . the Devil's Whistle.
Maya turned and smiled. She motioned me closer. I got down and approached the edge on my hands and knees. The wind blasted my face and roared in my ears as I peeked over. I squinted against it and peered down smooth, sheer black walls dropping vertiginously to shadows of unguessed depth.
After a moment, Maya pulled me back. I didn't resist.
“The prevailing winds off the sea enter a wide cave mouth far below and funnel up through the chimney. During a storm it is quite frightening. The mountain's screams can be heard for miles.”