"You're full of baloney,” Jared said.
There were no takers for the snakes, and no one seemed to be buying T-shirts either. The Mayan women slumped passively on low stools, hardly lifting their eyes from the ground.
"Let's buy a couple,” Julie said. “T-shirts, I mean."
Gideon nodded. “Let's."
Julie liked one with a reproduction of a mural on it. Gideon pointed out that it was based-loosely-on one from Teotihuacan, not Chichen Itza, but she stuck with it anyway.
"What about you?” she asked. “How about the one of that man all dressed in feathers?"
"Quetzalcoatl? No, thanks, but, you know, I kind of like that one there, with that naked girl spread-eagled on the altar, ready to have her heart cut out. Very artistic."
"You have to be joking. I hope you're joking."
"No, I think it's very colorful. But, okay, I'll settle for the one with the picture of El Castillo."
From the gate it was a leisurely five-minute walk to the site. There was a light bulb strung from a tree every fifty feet or so, enough-barely-to keep them from stumbling off the path and into the scrub but not so bright that they couldn't see the stars.
They had taken the path to the site several days before, but that had been in the afternoon, and the ruins had come gradually into view through the branches. Now, however, at the end of the path the central plaza of Chichen Itza opened before them with throat-catching suddenness, chalky, vast, and silent in the starlight. El Castillo, the great, temple-topped central pyramid, loomed on their right, infinitely more overwhelming than it was in the daytime, a stupendous, bleakly gleaming tower of gray ice. Beyond it, obscured by a wispy night fog, was the blood-soaked Temple of the Warriors and its Thousand Columns. Ahead of them was the immense ball court, and all around, invisible but felt, the jungle, biding its time, waiting to swallow everything up again when the cycle of time decreed.
It was enough to stop Julie in her tracks. “Oh, my,” she said quietly. “Will you look at that?"
Gideon squeezed her hand, not above a slow, rolling shiver of emotion himself.
To their left, things were on a friendlier, more human scale. There was a long double row of battered, folding metal chairs set out on the grass, starkly but ineffectively lit by a single lamp behind. At one end of the rows was a wagon where soft drinks and candy were sold. Most of the chairs were already filled by people bussed in from Merida especially for the show, and the ground was littered with food wrappers and plastic cups, some of them probably left from the Spanish-language performance at seven.
The only seats Gideon and Julie could find together were at the far end of the second row, next to Jared and the harried-looking woman.
"Don't I get any candy or anything?” the boy was complaining as they sat down. “How about a Mars Bar?"
The woman emitted a muttered groan under her breath but got up promptly.
"And a Coke or something!” the boy yelled after her. Then he turned to Gideon and Julie. “That's my mother,” he announced. I live in Puerto Vallarta when I'm with her, but I spend the summers with my dad in Connecticut. They're divorced."
"That's too bad,” Julie said.
"That's okay, I don't mind,” he said tolerantly. “Did you ever see this show before? We saw it last night. It's awesome. It freaked my mother out of her pants."
"That's nice,” Julie said after a brief pause.
"Especially the part about the sacrifices. That's really gross. I'll tell you when they're gonna do that part."
"That's all right,” Gideon said. “You don't have to bother."
"Oh, that's okay. I'll tell you when to hold your ears too. The music gets pretty loud."
Gideon glanced around, hoping that there might after all be another pair of empty seats they'd missed, but they were all filled now.
"You know what a man in our hotel calls this place?” the boy said, giggling. “Chicken Pizza.” He wriggled with amusement.
The woman came back with a bottle of Coca-Cola and a candy bar. The bottle was accepted without comment, but not the bar.
"Snickers?” he said with outraged disbelief. “You brought me a Snickers?"
"Jared,” she said tiredly, “this is Mexico. They don't have all the same candy here. What's wrong with Snickers? Snickers are good. I like Snickers."
"I do too,” Gideon said, rooting for the underdog.
The single light behind them went out. From a loudspeaker a horn began to wail a weird, lonely melody. The crowd hushed, except for Jared, who was not finished with his mother.
"You know I hate Snickers."
"This,” Gideon muttered to Julie, “is what comes of naming a kid ‘Jared.’”
"Jared,” his mother said, “it's made by the same company that makes Mars Bars. Look at the wrapper."
Jared did not find this logic persuasive. “I hate them."
"Jared, how can we work this out?"
"We can't,” he said,
"Jared-"
Gideon grabbed Julie's hand and together they ran off through the darkness toward the ball court a hundred feet away. “We can sit on the steps,” he whispered. “The view will be better anyway."
The tlachtli of Chichen Itza is the most impressive ball court of ancient Mexico, consisting of an enormous open space 545 feet long ("almost the length of two football fields,” as American guidebooks endlessly point out) and 225 feet across, enclosed by two thick, high, parallel ramparts, each one with a stone ring set about 25 feet above the ground. Here the Maya had played their ceremonial game of pok-a-tok, in which competing teams tried to heave a hard rubber ball through one of the rings. Depending on whom you believed, the successful competitors either got to keep their heads or they cheerfully gave them up and went as heroes to live forever with the gods.
At the south end of one of these walls-the one nearest the folding chairs-is a flight of stone steps to the top. Julie and Gideon made for them and sat down on the lowest one as the plaintive melody died lingeringly away.
"Welcome,” boomed an accented, echoing voice, “to the lost and mysterious world of the ancient Maya. Tonight you will learn of the early days of our fathers and forefathers, the days before the foreigners came, the days of the sacred places: of Zubinche and Timozon, of Zizal and Cumcanul, and of the great city known as the Mouth of the Well of the Itzas…CHICHEN ITZA!"
The slow, cadenced words slid away into the jungle on the moist breeze, and they were left in black silence.
Then, louder, the voice echoed once more. "Behold," it boomed, "behold the wonders of our ancestors!"
A crash of drums, and the Castillo leaped abruptly out at them like a colossal faceted crystal, drenched in flaming light, seemingly glowing from within. The grand stone staircase was a deep sapphire blue, the massive bulk of the pyramid a paler, under-the-sea turquoise. The Temple of Kukulcan on top was parrot green, its interior-seen through the rectangular entryway-a boiling, riveting crimson. The stars, the jungle, the rest of the structures vanished against this brilliance, as if a huge backdrop of black velvet had been rung down.
At the sight there was a distant, collective gasp from the rows of spectators, and Julie impulsively clutched Gideon's hand.
"I'm not sure,” she said, “but I think this may be freaking me out of my pants."
Gideon laughed. He himself had felt another slow chill riffle up between his shoulders and stir the hairs at the back of his neck. This was accompanied by a mild sense of guilt. Professional anthropologists were not supposed to get goose bumps from hokey, overloud extravaganzas consisting of bogus music, sham history, and meaningless colored lights.
"I'm going to watch the rest from the top of the steps,” he told Julie. “Want to come?"
She looked behind her at the narrow, rail-less flight of stone steps, steep even by Mayan standards. “Up those? In the dark? Are you kidding?"