AT CHICHÉN ITZÁ

Peter Barlow

As he stood in the long, winding line of people waiting to clear customs at Cancún International, Nick wondered why the designers hadn't made the room air conditioned. A thousand people an hour went through the room, all anxious to have their passports stamped as quickly as possible so they could begin shopping or drinking or sunning themselves. The bulk fans that had been installed weren't up to the task of keeping that many people cool. Even though there was no direct sunlight, the room reeked of the humid Cancún heat. Nick's wife, Kate, didn't seem to be much affected by the heat. Their friends Tommy and Gina were just as sweaty as Nick.

When they reached the concourse forty-five minutes later, Nick grabbed the first taxi wrangler who wasn't already trying to sell himself to someone else and gave him the name of a hotel. The wrangler led the group outside to the parking lot, Nick and Kate following closely behind, Tommy and Gina trying to keep up, confused looks on their faces, to a van with a driver looking onto the plague of cars with a disinterest only a local could manage. They were all slightly panicked now, even Kate, who only showed it with a widening of the eyes just big enough that only Nick noticed.

Only one car at a time could fit through the parking lot exit. The scrum of cars and vans in the plaza moved through the opening on wheels of molasses, horns blaring, and drivers beckoning to one another in a near-futile gambit to inch closer to freedom. By the time the van cleared everyone was unsticking their shirts from their chests, except for the driver, who didn't seem to need the air conditioning. When the van reached cruising speed, which seemed to alternate between thirty-five and seventy depending on how thick the traffic was, Nick and Tommy opened every window and the group cooled in the artificial breeze.

Nick looked over at Kate, who had eyes for nothing but the sea that loomed just beyond the buildings on one side of the road, and put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay, honey?" She took his hand and placed it back on the seat between them without a glance. Tommy and Gina didn't seem to notice as they marvelled at a car rental place where for two hundred pesos you could rent an old model Volkswagen Beetle for the day.

The hotel lobby bustled with activity. People in casual wear drifted in the direction of the hotel's restaurant, eager to get a start on the evening's relaxation. The two couples checked in and parted company, agreeing to meet in the lobby in half an hour for dinner. No sooner had Nick closed the room door behind them and set the luggage down with a grunt than Kate collapsed onto the bed. He fiddled with the thermostat controls, trying to set the air conditioning to a reasonable temperature, then sat on the bed next to her. He could see out onto the beach and the Caribbean beyond. The waves rolled in and rolled out again, advertising the sea beyond, uncaring whether or not people ventured in. Sunbathing women slept on chaise lounges dragged from poolside, but no children could be seen. The husbands were probably at the bar, Nick guessed, watching the sports channel, looking for tones of home.

"So?" he said.

Kate didn't say anything for a few seconds. "So?"

"When are we going to tell them?"

Kate didn't respond. In the mirror hanging on the wall opposite the bed Nick watched her chest rise and fall with her breathing.

"Look," she said. "It's been a long day. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm grimy. Do we have to do this now?" She stood up and walked toward the bathroom.

"You never want to talk about it," he said, but the bathroom door snapped shut before he finished.

The restaurant opened onto the beach, a waist-high brick wall the only thing separating the surf from the tile. A live mariachi band occupied one corner, playing music loud enough to make people shout to be heard three feet away from each other. Tommy and Gina arrived first. "You've gotta have a margarita, Nick, I'm telling you," he said, signalling the nearest garçon who emitted the same sort of detached ambivalence the taxi driver had. "Pitcher of margaritas," Tommy said, louder than he needed to even with the mariachi at top volume.

The women started talking about their careers, Kate in mid-level management, Gina as a retail manager; about their common friends, people they knew from high school that they ran into at the grocery or the mall; about their husbands, how Tommy was a lipless wonder and Nick had the sensitivity of a sea cucumber. Tommy interjected from time to time to make a snarky comment, but mostly he watched the mariachi band, clapped louder than anyone else in the restaurant, refilling his margarita glass twice for each one of everyone else's. Nick's chair offered a view of the beach. As the wives talked and Tommy drank, Nick lost himself in watching the moonlit surf. The bit nearest the sea was smooth, the water washing up on to the beach every few seconds and clearing away as soon as it arrived.

"Snap out of it," Kate said, slapping his arm. "We're gonna rent a car tomorrow, go over to Chichén Itzá, climb the Castle."

"You want to drive to Chichén Itzá?" Nick said. Visions of everything that could go wrong flashed through his mind like a blooper reel: the car stalled out at the side of the highway, the sun as high as it could get, Tommy banging on the trunk like it would help jumpstart the dead motor inside, the wives off to one side crying, Nick with his shirt off and one thumb extended, waiting for assistance that might never come.

"Come on, it'll be a blast," Tommy said. His cheeks glowed red in the half-light of the restaurant. "We'll load up a cooler with some ice and some drinks. You know, make a day of it."

Nick planned to visit Chichén Itzá at some point over the trip. He knew touring companies went there every day, gathering up at some central point then heading out on a converted Greyhound. There'd be a stop at a sacred cenoté, and maybe a quick spin through Valladolid, the only town worthy of the name between Cancún and the ruins. "We could take a tour group out. Be simpler, easier."

"Nah. Nowhere near as much fun. Not as independent." Tommy had a gleam in his eye that might have been enthusiasm and might have been tequila.

"Well?" Kate said.

Nick looked around the group. He didn't like the idea, but he could tell from the look in everyone's eyes that they wanted to go. Kate was staring at him more intently than the other two. Every fight they'd ever had, every argument, every time she'd accused him of being no fun at all, burned on her face like a dare.

"Yeah, all right," he said. Kate's eyes widened in surprise. "But I get to drive."

At just past seven the next morning Nick went down to the restaurant in search of breakfast. Gina was already there, sipping a glass of water and staring out at the ocean. The sunlight reflected off the water backlit her, making her hair seem afire. She didn't notice Nick approaching. "Good morning," he said.

Gina made a noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh; she was sipping her coffee when he spoke. The people at the next table over glanced in their direction at the sound, and looked away when it became apparent Gina wasn't choking. "You shouldn't sneak up on a girl," she said, hand to her chest, and offered Nick the other chair with a regal motion. "Kate's not up, I take it?"

"No, she's still asleep. Probably will be for another few hours yet. Tommy?"

"Out cold. He's like that every time he—" She left the sentence there, but Nick couldn't miss the resentment in her voice.

"Everything all right?"

She bit at one of her nails and looked out onto the ocean. "I just wish he'd drink a little less, that's all." The rest of breakfast passed without further comment.

Tommy rented one of the Beetles they'd seen by the road the day before. It seemed like it was in reasonably good shape, though the eggshell white paint did nothing to hide the rust spots creeping in at odd corners. The interior was the black plastic vinyl kind that sticks to bare thighs in temperatures over seventy; the day's forecast was sunny and ninety-five on the coast, hotter still in the interior of the country where the group was headed. The car had no air conditioning, which Tommy felt could be relieved by a full case of longnecks, stowed in a pair of styrofoam coolers in the front storage. "We'll have to pull over every now and then for refills, but no worries," he said. Nick's reservations about whether or not the car would start again if stopped went unspoken.

The women came out side by side, sunglasses and other accoutrements at hand, and looked at the car. The expression on her face said quite clearly Gina wanted to turn around and go back into the hotel. Kate, though, started laughing. "Oh, this is wonderful. I've always wanted to ride in one of these."

Tommy tossed the keys to Nick from where he was standing in front of the car. "Have at it, Jeeves." With two bottles of beer cradled in his other arm, Tommy walked to the other car door. "The ancient Mayans await."

By ten the temperature had climbed into three digits. They hoped the wind whipping in through the car windows would help, but it didn't; it cooled, but was dry and fell short of refreshing. Nick discovered less than a mile outside of Cancún proper that the car shuddered above fifty miles an hour. Tommy laughed and did a voice that sounded like it was being shaken like a martini. He stopped after a couple of sentences when Kate slapped him on the arm. The two of them laughed and started singing something that sounded like a mariachi leftover from the night before. Nick exchanged a glance with Gina, who was riding shotgun, and kept the speedometer low. Between the heat and the bad singing, he was miserable before the trip really got going, and wished he'd ignored Kate's unspoken dare and insisted on the tour bus.

Two hours and four stops to get more beers from the cooler (which Tommy and Kate drank in the backseat, coaxing Gina to join them on the third round), they arrived at the small town of Valladolid. At the center of town was a square, itself a park with a fountain at the center, picnic tables scattered beneath trees, benches lining the paths leading to the fountain from the four corners. Kids ran in every direction, making it impossible to tell which children were with which parents. The shops lining the square were almost all open air, the merchants or their helpers on the pavement outside trying to pull in passers-by. Nick took a parking spot on the square, easier to find than he'd thought given how many people were about. Tommy and Gina went off toward a convenience store in search of snacks, while he and Kate took one of the few shaded benches in the park, one of the few in the shade. Nick glanced around the square and noticed with a combination of alarm and amazement that they were two of perhaps a dozen non-Mexicans in sight.

"Jesus, it's hot," Kate said. She fanned herself with her floppy hat.

A large tour bus entered the square. Nick could see the people inside looking out at the scene like it was a zoo display, the townspeople—and him, by extension—nothing more than a curiosity, animals, subhuman. On a few faces he saw revulsion: how could people live like this? The bus drove all four sides of the square and left on the same road it had come in on, without showing any sign of stopping to let passengers off. "Lucky them," he said without meaning to.

Kate heard him. "That's your problem, you know. No sense of adventure."

Nick knew this argument well, having heard it before more times than he could count. Their conversations ended more and more frequently with her criticizing him, saying he was too lazy or too bumbling or "duller than a pencil." In return he said she was overly critical, needlessly hurtful, as if she only said or did things to spite him. There'd been little playful fights, without venom, as long as they had been together. Now every word was meant to sting.

They sat in silence for a few moments more. A woman passed in front of them carrying a baby in one arm and leading a child with the other. The child stared at Nick as she walked by, one finger stuck in her mouth, her face with the look of amazement children have when seeing something new and unique. Then the mother said andale and their pace quickened, and were part of the landscape again as fast as they'd come from it.

"It's too late for us, isn't it?" Nick said.

Kate didn't answer right away. "I don't know. Maybe. If only—" She made a shrugging gesture with her hands and started crowd-watching again.

"What?"

She looked down at the pavement for a moment before turning to him. "If only you weren't so uptight all the time, afraid to take chances, afraid to have fun."

Nick started to protest, but she shushed him with a motion.

"You are, Nick. You know you are, deep down. Take today. Sure, we could have taken a tour bus, but everyone does that. It's the tourist thing to do, the safe thing to do. Who rents a car and drives halfway into the Mexican mainland?"

"It hasn't occurred to you that we might get lost or break down?"

"And what if we do? We stop, we get directions. Someone will help us. Or they won't. But we're seeing this country in a way most people don't: up close, unafraid. Once upon a time ago, you would have been all over this idea. You might even have suggested it yourself. Now—" Kate sighed.

Nick felt defeated. He wanted to tell her that he was trying. He had agreed to this drive, after all, and felt that should have counted for something. Maybe I should have pointed that out, he thought. Maybe she would concede that I was making an effort at least. Their relationship seemed like it was getting away from him. He struggled to find the right thing to say, the right way to show Kate that he wanted to be everything she wanted him to be, but Tommy and Gina came back before he said anything. Tommy skipped across the street like a teenager, Gina following behind apologizing to the cars that had screeched to a halt to avoid them. There was a cenoté, a sacred water hole, not too far away that they wanted to see. Kate stood up and walked toward the car. Nick sighed and followed the three of them, disappointed that he couldn't find the words.

They located the cenoté with little difficulty. An enterprising soul had cleared out a parking area large enough to house several tour buses, and had put up a small botanical gardens and a building with bathroom facilities, vending machines, and a gift shop. A pamphlet Nick found in the shop gave some history on the cenoté. It was a sacred site to the Mayans when they lived in the area. They dropped trinkets and the occasional virgin to her death in the drink in an attempt to appease their gods and bring some rain. There was no way out of the hole until the late Seventies, when a stairway was carved into the earth and a small viewing platform created just above water level. Now tourists use the cenoté as a makeshift swimming pool, frolicking for a few moments in the crystal blue waters to escape from the heat above. Nick had no intention of getting in. They hadn't thought to bring a towel, and the idea of walking through the ruins wearing wet shorts didn't appeal to him. Gina and Kate jumped in anyway, street clothes and all. Tommy who didn't know how to swim, sat on the platform with Nick, watching their wives frolic in the sapphire blue water. Nick's attention shifted to the foliage hanging down into the cavern, roots from the trees above growing down into the cavern in search of water, sustenance. Water, here, was life. The surface didn't have much of either. The topsoil was thin in most places, not ideal for growth except by the hardiest of plants, and hardly any rain comes. But down below water can be found. Life can be found.

Tommy slapped Nick on the arm to get his attention. "I said are you having fun yet?"

"Oh, I'm okay," Nick said. "Just daydreaming."

He nodded. Nick and Tommy hadn't spoken to each other much during the trip. The few times they had had been strained and, Nick thought, a little forced. Sitting on the platform, Nick realized they didn't really have anything to say to each other. Tommy was loud, excitable, outgoing. Everything Kate wants me to be, he thought. And he and Gina seem like they're happy.

"I think Gina's leaving me," Tommy said, his voice low. He took a drink from the beer he'd brought down with him.

Tommy's tone startled Nick. There was a ring of sadness there that he didn't quite think Tommy capable of feeling. Gina climbed out of the water before Nick could respond. Tommy gave him a look that indicated quite clearly that he shouldn't say anything and then went over to her. "Good?"

"Good, hell. Great! Haven't enjoyed a swim like that in forever." She slivered slightly. "You okay, Nick? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Nick realized his mouth was open slightly, and he'd been unable to hide the surprise from his face. Every moment of the trip now he'd have to re-evaluate, see if he missed a sign that the union wasn't as good as he thought it was. Gina had said something at breakfast, that she didn't like Tommy's drinking. Was that coming between them? If it was, they seemed to be hiding it well otherwise.

"Let's get you up into the sun," Tommy said to Gina. "You can warm up, dry off a little."

As they started up the long winding stair Gina gave the bottle of beer a sour look that Tommy didn't see. A moment later her face cleared and they were talking again in a light conversational tone. Is this Kate and me? Nick thought. Do they have the same problems as we do? Or are they just better at hiding it? He looked down at Kate, floating on her back out in the center, staring up at the light above, and wondered if she knew about Tommy and Gina.

They pulled into Chichén Itzá a couple of minutes before two. There was another stop at the side of the highway so Tommy could get more beers, but he was drinking alone. Kate was asleep in the passenger seat, and every time he checked the rear view mirror Nick saw Gina staring at the scenery without really seeing it. Both of the women squished for a few minutes after their swim in the cenoté, but the combination of the arid heat and the breeze running through the car dried all of their clothes except their shorts. Tommy asked Nick to turn on the radio at one point, but all stations were static, and the rest of the trip passed mostly in silence.

There was no issue finding a parking spot at Chichén Itzá. The portion of the lot given over to cars was barely a quarter full, while the area reserved for buses was packed to overflowing. Nick thought one of them might have been the one that went through Valladolid. They all looked the same, even the ones that didn't.

The entrance building to the complex had a small movie theater showing a film that explained how the ruins were found and what all the buildings were supposed to mean. They went in at Kate and Gina's urging, at least long enough to enjoy the air conditioning. There was no one else inside. Tommy took a seat and reclined, neck resting on the back of the chair, face to the ceiling, eyes closed. Nick watched the movie but wasn't taking any of it in, happy for the relative comfort.

They'd come in toward the end of the picture. The narrator talked about climbing the central structure of the ruins, the Temple of Kukulcán, or "El Castillo," the Castle. Even though the feet of the Mayans were small by modern standards, a fully dressed Mayan priest could not go straight up the stairs. The only way to climb them was at an angle. The pattern of the both ascent and descent was serpentine, and in this way the priest would pay homage to Kukulcán, God of Serpents.

"Whatever," Tommy said. "We ready?" He got up and went out the door back into the main building. Gina and Kate followed. A moment later, lips pursed, so did Nick.

They exited out the back of the building and walked down a path wide enough for cars to pass each other on until they reached a large clearing, in the center of which was the Castle. Other buildings were scattered around the edges. People flitted on and around them, some following tour guides explaining things, some walking around trying to find that one good shot, that one good angle from which to take a picture of the Castle. All of the other buildings and structures between them didn't attract half the crowd that the Castle did.

The stair on the west side was equipped with a rope running down the center. Along it were people in varying states of ascent and descent. As the group watched, two people headed in opposite directions using the rope met in the middle. The person descending took a very tentative step to one side, letting the climber through before scurrying back to the rope and continuing downward.

"Right," Tommy said. "Who wants to climb up with me?" His face was pale and his eyes slightly unfocused, but Nick could hear the robustness in his voice, like nothing was going to stop Tommy from going up.

"I'll come," Kate said.

Nick looked up at the top. He didn't like heights. Kate knew this, but he also wondered if by not climbing she would accuse him of being dull again. "Maybe when you come back down," he said.

"Go on ahead," Gina said. "I'll be up in a minute."

Tommy and Kate climbed the stair on the north side. There was no rope, but less traffic. Kate weaved back and forth as we'd seen in the movie. Tommy went straight up, the heels of his feet hanging over the edge of each step, climbing much slower than Kate. When Kate reached the top she immediately went to rest against the small building there. Nick could barely see her. She seemed like an ant atop a dirt hill, small and far away. You're already gone, aren't you? Nick thought. You're already gone.

"She's leaving me, you know," Nick said. "Kate is." He turned from watching Tommy struggle with his climb still a third of the way from the summit, to look at Gina. She was watching them as well, her hand shielding her eyes from the fierce sun.

"I know," she said.

Nick looked back up at Kate, so far above, and raised his hand to let her know he could see her. Then Tommy lost his footing, fell face front to the stair, and in the million seconds afterwards he failed to get a handhold, someone screamed, and the world fell to pieces around the lot of them.

Nick started shouting for the medics the moment Tommy hit the ground. The ambulance was at the northern base in seconds, Tommy loaded moments after that. Gina was sedated at Nick's insistence before being placed on another gurney. She was wheeled in next to her husband, and the ambulance left at top speed for Cancún. Nick had overheard one of the paramedics say hardly a day passes in summer where someone doesn't collapse from heat prostration, not enough of the right fluids and so forth.

Nick and Kate were interviewed under a tree in the central area, three hundred feet from the base of the Castle by the park director and a policeman. A squad car took Kate and Nick back. Don't worry about the rental, the police said. Everything can be explained at the other end; someone will come along and get it in a couple days. The nurses at the hospital where Tommy and Gina were taken asked few questions. Two folding chairs were placed in the hall outside Gina and Tommy's room. Kate was inside trying to talk to the doctors.

Nick replayed the police interview in his head: what had Tommy eaten, what had he drank, did he have any health problems, any sort of a history? Had he ever passed out before, ever vomited as a result of over-drinking? Had there been anything out of the ordinary in his behavior, had there been any problems at work or at home? He sighed. He told the police he hadn't known of any. No good reason to tell them there were problems. No good reason not to. Maybe Tommy and Gina are working things out on their own. Maybe they've given up already.

Gina was twenty feet away from Tommy when he landed. Her screams echoed through Nick's head, preparing to haunt him like a banshee. She started screaming the second Tommy slipped and not stopped until after she was sedated.

Kate came out of the room and sat in the other chair. "Still sedated?" Nick said.

She nodded.

"How you holding up?" Nick said.

Kate said little during the police interview, and nothing since. Nick thought she was seeing it again and again in her head, perhaps the slip, the tumble, the landing, or perhaps what Tommy looked like there on the ground, bloody and broken. "You did the right thing. For Gina. Sedating her."

He looked at Kate, defeated, dirty and tired, and realized how small the issue had become. "I am trying," he said.

"You weren't ever going to climb the Castle, were you?" she said.

"I—" he said, and thought for a moment. There was nothing to be gained by false bravery. Not anymore. "No."

"That's you. Mister Dependable."

"Yes. Well." Nick placed a hand on her shoulder.

Kate sniffed, and left it there.

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