“Appropriate for what?”
“Sorcery. A spell to trap a god.”
“And you agreed?”
“Not immediately. I thought she was mad. Then I met her associates, and it turned out they were all legitimate. A pair of sorcerers, the Zavala brothers. And Vucub-Kamé, of course. All conspiring against the Lord of Xibalba.”
“What happened?” he pressed on.
“What do you think? I played my part. It was simple. I was merely supposed to serve as bait, they were busy with the rest. And they managed it, lopped his head off, stuffed his body in a chest.” The old man snapped his fingers twice. “Pour me another drink.”
Martín obeyed, carefully grabbing the decanter and filling his grandfather’s glass. “Why would they leave the chest with you? Here? In Uukumil?”
“Vucub-Kamé couldn’t take it with him. The chest needed to remain above ground. Hun-Kamé was a Lord of Xibalba, and the earth was his mother, so burying it was impossible. But Middleworld is not the land of the Xibalbans. Middleworld owes them no favors and no blessings.”
Cirilo wet his lips with the brandy before continuing. “He could have given it to one of his associates, but he didn’t. Anyway, it needed to remain here, in Yucatán, and he entrusted it to me. It was not as if there are bandits in Uukumil. I thought it would be safe enough. Until your cousin opened it.”
“You could have taken better precautions,” Martín replied.
For a moment Martín thought his grandfather was going to get up from his bed and beat him with his cane, like he’d done when he was little. He wouldn’t put it past him. But instead the man glared at him.
“I took the damn precautions,” he sputtered. “First two years I slept with a shotgun by the bed, in case intruders came at night. I hardly did anything except watch the damn thing. But then more years went by, and it became obvious it was a wasted effort. No one was looking for it.”
Grandfather had leaned forward as he spoke, clutching the glass tightly. He relaxed his grip and tossed the glass on his side table as if it were a cheap jug made out of coarse clay.
“Vucub-Kamé came by in those first few years. I don’t know if to gloat or why. But then he stopped visiting, and after a while…well, after a decade had gone by, I began to think I’d dreamed it.”
“You thought you’d dreamed it,” Martín repeated.
“That’s what I said. I did not open the damn chest, so it’s not as if I could refresh my memory about what was inside.”
“If you thought you’d dreamed it, why didn’t you open it?”
“It’s best not to know certain things, and besides, it no longer mattered. Real. False. Life was what it was.”
Martín, who had a rather atrophied imagination, incapable of considering for long periods of time anything that was not directly in front of him as worthy of interest, could understand this reaction.
“What did you get in exchange for your assistance?”
“What do you think?” Cirilo replied, extending his arms and pointing to the cabinet, the curtains. “All of this. He paid me off. I was nobody and then I was someone.”
“You might have told me.”
“Told you what? That I had a strange dream? That I believed in sorcery? I know you all, you vipers, you’d have had me committed.”
Martín thought about his aunts and his father. He wouldn’t put it past any of them to drag Cirilo to the insane asylum if he gave them the chance. His father was meek and soft, but he had never gotten along with the old man. As for Martín’s sisters, their husbands, and his assortment of cousins, they were all vying for power, clawing at each other.
“Well,” he said. “It didn’t do you any good to keep quiet about it. Not with that traitor running around. You gave her access to this room, to your things, and she’s not even a real Leyva.”
“That’s precisely why she had access to my room and my things. Do you think I could have trusted you to take care of me, Martín?” the old man said with a chuckle. “You are careless and lazy, but you must shape up now. The family has need of you.”
“I’ll do what I must and go where I must,” Martín replied.
“Do not muck it up, as you are wont to do.”
He did not enjoy the look his grandfather gave him. The old man did not much like Martín, although this was not terribly surprising, since he seemed to like no one. But he had never been more aware of Cirilo’s distaste. None of this was his fault, so why was he being judged so harshly?
“When have I mucked it up? I’ve only ever done as you’ve said,” he protested.
“Listen, boy,” Cirilo said, reaching for his cane, which rested by the bed, and slamming it hard against the floor, making Martín wince. “You may think I’m unkind to you and harsh, but you do not know him.”
The young man recalled Vucub-Kamé. When his grandfather had woken him up and roughly ordered him to get dressed, haltingly explaining they had a divine guest, he’d simply thought him mad—Cirilo was right, such revelations would lead a man to the asylum—but one quick look at Vucub-Kamé and poor Martín had to admit to himself that no man could have eyes like the stranger did, nor the hair to match. And there had been too the shimmering sense of power, crackling around them, that made Martín sheepish despite his enormous pride.
“Your idiocies, they won’t do with him. You must serve him and serve him well. Bow low, address him properly, flatter him, and most of all do as he says so that we may not be cursed.”
“Cursed.”
“Yes. What, do you think we will keep all this if Vucub-Kamé fails and his brother regains his throne? Would you like to be a pauper, begging for coins on a streetcorner? Worse even, serving Casiopea? Imagine if Hun-Kamé should reward her and punish us.”
Martín panicked at the thought of his cousin ending up with the house at Uukumil, all of his expensive boots and his fancy belt buckles and the silver cigarette case snatched from his grasp.
“Fine, fine,” Martín said, running a hand through his hair. “Then tell me how I should address him and any other tidbits you may know. Christ, I may need them.”
Cirilo gripped his cane with one hand, but let it rest against the wall and began talking.
Every state, and sometimes every city, earns itself a reputation. The people from Mexico City are haughty and rude. The people from Jalisco are brave, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. But the people from Veracruz, they are all laughter and joy. Reality and rumor do not always match, but Veracruz, lately, had been trying to build up its happy façade. In 1925, two years before, the local authorities had instituted a carnival.