"They won't let us get close enough."
It was true, of course; Jeff could see this immediately, but he felt a brief flicker of anger nonetheless, as if Mathias were purposely thwarting him. "What if we tried to clear the hill? Just started chopping at the vine. Pulling it up. If we all-"
"There's so much of it, Jeff. And it grows so fast. How could we-"
"I'm just trying to find a way through this," Jeff said. He could hear how peevish he sounded, and he disliked himself for it.
Mathias didn't seem to notice, though. "Maybe there isn't a way," he said. "Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we're able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it's going to do."
Jeff sat for a moment, examining Mathias's face. Like the rest of them, he looked shockingly depleted. The skin on his nose and forehead was beginning to peel; there was a gummy paste clinging to the corners of his mouth. His eyes were shadowed. But within this deterioration there nonetheless appeared to be some remaining reservoir of strength, which no one else, including Jeff, seemed to possess. He looked calmer than the rest of them, oddly composed, and it suddenly struck Jeff how little he actually knew about the German. He'd grown up in Munich; he'd gotten his tattoo during a brief service in the army; he was studying to become an engineer. And that was all. Mathias was generally so silent, so retiring; it was easy to convince yourself that you knew what he was thinking. But now, talking with him at such length for the first time, Jeff felt as if the German were changing moment by moment before his eyes-revealing himself-and he was proving to be far more forceful than Jeff ever would've guessed: steadier, more mature. Jeff felt small beside him, vaguely childish.
"You have this phrase in English, don't you? A chicken whose head has been chopped off?" Mathias used two fingers to mime running about in circles.
Jeff nodded.
"We're all becoming weaker, and that's only going to get worse. So don't waste yourself on unessentials. Don't walk when you can sit. And don't sit when you can lie down. Understand?"
The Mayan boy had reappeared while they were talking, the tiny one. He was sitting beside the campfire now, practicing his juggling. The Mayan men were laughing at his efforts, offering what seemed to be advice and commentary.
Mathias nodded toward them. "What did your guidebook say about these people?"
Jeff pictured the glossy pages; he could almost smell them, feel their cool, clean smoothness. The book had been full of the Mayans' past-their pyramids and highways and astrological calendars-but seemingly indifferent to their present. "Not much," he said. "It had a myth of theirs, a creation myth. That's all I remember."
"Of the world?"
Jeff shook his head. "Of people."
"Tell me."
Jeff spent a few seconds thinking back, pulling the story into order. "There were some false starts. The gods tried to use mud first, and the people they fashioned out of it talked but made no sense-they couldn't turn their heads, and they dissolved in the rain. So the gods tried to use wood. But the wooden people were bad-their minds were empty; they ignored the gods. So the whole world attacked them. The stones from their hearths shot out at their faces, their cooking pots beat them, and their knives stabbed them. Some of the wooden people fled off to the trees and became monkeys, but the others were all killed."
"And then?"
"The gods used corn-white corn and yellow corn. And water. And they made four men out of this who were perfect. Too perfect, actually, because the gods became frightened. They were worried that these creatures knew too much, that they'd have no need for gods, so they blew on them and clouded their minds. And these things of corn and water and blurred thoughts-they were the first men."
There was a roll of thunder, sounding surprisingly close. Jeff and Mathias both glanced skyward. The clouds were about to obscure the sun; any moment now it would happen. "We didn't see any monkeys," Mathias said. "Coming here through the jungle." This seemed to sadden him. "I would've liked that, wouldn't you? To have seen some monkeys?"
There was such an air of resignation to this statement, of looking back at something now forever unattainable, that it made Jeff nervous. He spoke without thinking, startling himself. "I don't want to die here."
Mathias gave him half a smile. "I don't want to die anywhere."
One of the Mayan men began to applaud by the campfire. The boy was juggling, the rocks arcing fluidly above his head, a look of amazement on his face, as if he weren't quite certain how he was accomplishing this feat. When he finally dropped one of the stones, the men cheered, slapping him on the back. The boy grinned, showing his teeth.
"But I guess I will, even so, won't I?" Mathias said.
There was a question in Jeff's head, a single word-Here?-but he didn't speak it. He was afraid of what Mathias might answer, he knew, frightened of the German's potential indifference to the possibility, his dismissive shrug. Pablo would go first, Jeff supposed. And then Eric. Stacy would likely be next, though maybe not; these things were probably hard to guess. But in the end, if Mathias was right, they'd all be reduced to vine-covered mounds. Jeff tried to imagine what would be left of himself-the zipper and rivets on his jeans, the rubber soles of his tennis shoes, his watch. And this shirt he'd pilfered from the backpacks, too, this fake khaki that he assumed must be some sort of polyester-it would be left draped across his empty rib cage. For some reason, this last image was the most unsettling detail of all, the idea of dying here in a stranger's clothes, so that when someone finally discovered them-and Mathias said it would have to happen, sooner or later-they'd assume the shirt had belonged to him.
"Are you a Christian?" he asked.
Mathias appeared amused by the question. He offered him that same half smile. "I was baptized one."
"But do you believe?"
The German shook his head, without hesitation.
"So what does dying mean to you?"
"Nothing. The end." Mathias cocked his head, looked at Jeff. "And you?"
"I don't know," Jeff said. "It sounds stupid, but I've never really thought about it. Not in a real way." It was true. Jeff had been raised an Episcopalian, yet in an absentminded manner; it had simply been one more duty of his childhood, no different than mowing the lawn, or taking piano lessons. Safely off at college, he'd stopped going to services. He was young, healthy, sheltered; death had held no sway over his thoughts.
Mathias gave a soft laugh, shook his head. "Poor Jeff."
"What?"
"Always so desperate to be prepared." He reached out, gave Jeff's knee a pat. "It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something-our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end."
Saying this, Mathias rose to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. He was getting ready to leave, Jeff could tell, and he felt a thrum of panic at the prospect. He couldn't have said why exactly, but he was afraid of being alone here. It was a premonition, of course, though Jeff never would've believed in the possibility. For some reason, what surfaced in his head was the memory of pulling the vine free from Amy's mouth, the slimy dampness of it, the smell of bile and tequila, the way the tendrils had clung to her face, resisting him, twisting and coiling as he tore them away. He shivered.
"What sort of place do you live in?" he asked.
Mathias stared down at him, not understanding.
"In Germany," Jeff said. "A house?
Mathias shook his head. "A flat."
"What's it like?"
"Nothing special. It's tiny. A bedroom, a sitting room, a kitchen-on the second floor, overlooking the street. There's a bakery downstairs. In the summer, the ovens make everything too hot."
"Can you smell the bread?"
"Of course. I wake to it every morning." It seemed like that might be all he was going to say, but then he continued. "I have a cat. His name is Katschen; it means kitten. The baker's daughter is watching him while I'm away. Feeding him, cleaning out his box. And watering my plants. I have a big window in my bedroom-how do you say it in English? A bay window?"