The Ball. Volume#1. “Kuluangwa”

CHAPTER 11

With the onset of dusk, as soon as the serpent Chaak descended with its grey shadow down the steps of Kukulcan, Kuluangwa’s group sang a traditional hymn of victory, the echo of which reflected off the Temple of Warriors and drowned in the Southern Temple right at the stadium’s entrance. A special ceremony was underway, forbidden to ordinary tribesmen and attended only by keepers of the secret. The chiefs and priests of the tribe, the long-time performers of these rituals at Chichen-Itza, met at every full moon. The chosen team for the ball game was selected just a few days before the momentous event, right before the match. This time, however, the entire team was invited by the High Priest much earlier than usual. The ceremony involved a special ritual, called Chaak-Chaya – the spilling of tears.

As the God of Rain, the serpent Chaak, descended from the peak onto the hot ground, the priest Vak Balama raised his dry hands towards that peak and hoarsely called all ten team members to follow him up the steep steps to the main temple of Kukulcan. A foot could barely fit on each of the hundreds of narrow steps, placed at an angle of almost forty-five degrees, reaching the temple, which was not visible from the base of the pyramid.

The interior of the temple was cavernous. There was nothing inside the hall other than a large stone table. From floor to ceiling, the walls were decorated with drawings and writings written in small ligature. The corners of the secret hall had inconspicuous, small height gaps from which priests emerged during ceremonies.

The red beams of the last sunlight of the day penetrated through the narrow vertical slits in the wall. The whole town at the bottom, with its temples, residences, and stadium, already delved into a dark haze that did not bring the expected night-time cool. The light from the slits fell in six beams onto the middle of the room.

In the middle of the temple, whose dimensions were so great that it could hold several dozen people at a time, stood a wide stone table, twenty by twenty cubits. It was a platform of four low and well-polished stone slabs no higher than knee-level. If desired, one could move the table into a corner, or even out of the temple. But today it was meant to be at the centre of the Chaak-Chaya rite – the spilling of tears. The mirror-like polished surface of the table was dotted with numerous engraved and colored drawings of the life of the gods. The images were divided by the troughs coming from the center – three troughs per each side, twelve in total. Running down a slope, they stopped at the darkening hole in the middle of the table. If viewed from above, the picture of the troughs resembled four lotus flowers growing from one point in the middle of the table. But the beauty of this had quite a utilitarian function. The table was assembled in the center of the temple only for the most important rituals – the blood sacrifices.

In the middle, between the four polished stone blocks just below the hole, a wide stone vase was placed, upon which a black rubber sphere rested like an overgrown coconut. The ancient vase was of a dark brown color. The limestone permeated a powerful natural colorant.

The priest, Vak Balama, made a wide circular gesture, commanding the audience to take their places around the table. His head was hidden by a mask, painted with bright red and yellow horizontal bars. His black-oiled belly reflected the rays of the torch, revealing a cross of four deep, white scars. Four other scars – long, narrow, like cat scratches – ripped up each shoulder, starting just above the collarbone and ending above the nipples.

Ten adult men in full war paint slowly approached the table and equally slowly knelt down on both sides. There were five soldiers on each side of the table. Balama’s hand motioned for Tolana to take a seat opposite him, which she immediately did, sinking to her knees and bowing her head. Then Vak Balama walked off into one of the room’s dark corners where flashes of flames only occasionally revealed strange engravings on limestone blocks and melted into the darkness.

In a few moments, the priest re-emerged with his outstretched arms carrying something resembling a large palm leaf with a long stem, with its edges hanging down and touching the ground with every step. The leaf’s stalks bent down from time to time, but not in sync with the slow gait of the priest. When Balama returned into light at the table, it became evident that he was holding a blue sea ray. Raising the animal high above his head, Vak Balama shouted: «Hei olay! Leth soro ta kama vok! Are you ready? Do not be afraid, be strong!» Then he swung and threw the ray on the table. The animal fell flat, issuing a squelching sound and scattering lumps of transparent mucus. Its tail bone, similar to a sharp spear, weakly rapped on the table twice and then calmed down and held still. And only a small tremor occasionally running through the body of the marine creature reminded that the ray was still alive. However, the warriors in attendance did not pay any attention to this creature. All ten men and Tolana, heads bent low and hands humbly folded on the table, were expecting commands from Vak Balama.

«Kon na luva-na!» The priest’s command rang through the hall and all men obeyed without hesitation. They dropped their clothes, remaining only in masks, and returned to their previous poses complete bare. Then, as if by a silent command, the warriors launched a monotonous guttural sound: hmm-m-m-m-m-m, hmm-m-m-m-m-m.

Tolana also made a move to shake off her cloak embroidered in coloured threads, but Balama’s gesture made her stop and she immediately returned to the table where she remained in the same humble posture, head bowed down and hands clasped in front of her. Her voice joined the chorus of the warriors. The sound echoed loudly between the walls and continued in eternal echoes.

For there to be a woman in the temple, the holy of holiest of the tribe, on top of the pyramid Kukulcan, was unusual. This was actually the first time in the history of the tribe. At least Kuluangwa, sitting on his knees at the table, could not recall a single previous time when the Chaak-Chaya ritual was attended by a woman. Not once, neither his father nor grandfather, have ever told him anything like this. Tolana did not enter properly but crept into the temple on all fours and only after the priest’s permission could she stand up in full growth.

Vak Balama again stepped into the shadows, arms folded on his chest, and for a while silently and sullenly watched the kneeling naked warriors. Tolana occasionally frowned nervously, trying to keep her back straight and not pressing her stomach against the cold surface of the table. The priest could see that in a few more weeks the body of this woman will bring another fruit to the tribe. This bothered Balama the most. In his plans, women were designed for an entirely different purpose. They were among the most important instruments in the sacrifice-bringing of the tribe when it was required to propitiate the angry gods. But not here, not now – at top of the pyramid. Not in the temple, and not with a new unit of ball players. Later, in a few days… it will be a special occasion.

Usually, the chosen victims were virgins, and Tolana of course no longer fit this category. Virgins were usually sacrificed as follows: three-to-six girls were washed in hot stone baths, their bodies were rubbed in oils of special plants, and then the priest would exercise his control over the innocent girls in front of the raging mob. After that, the priest’s assistants would dress the poor girls in beautiful clothes and gold jewelry. All of the girls received a ritual drink, and soon – in just a few minutes – the girls plunged into their first and last trance.

The secret of this drink had long been passed down through generations of priests by inheritance and was certainly known only to the leader and the high priest of the tribe. The secret of the potion lay in its duality. Two drinks were mixed not to complement each other, but to simultaneously deny each other in the human body. Alcoholic tincture from selected cactuses was mixed in undisclosed proportions with a squeeze of water lilies. The cactus extracts increase the drinker’s mood, the tone of the whole body, and blood pressure. The extract of lilies caused severe hallucinations and dramatically lowered blood pressure. Balama always prepared the drinks himself, not allowing even his closest aides to witness the process.

As a rule, the young victims’ hearts could not withstand the conflicting ingredients present in the drinks and the girls died, plunging into hallucination, apathy, and afterlife. In their final paths, the girls’ bodies, richly dressed, decorated, and painted with colourful tattoos and intricate patterns, were carried by male warriors. The warriors, leading the procession and being followed by the entire tribe, threw the dead girls down into the Cenote – the lakes of sacrifice, hidden in deep sinkholes.

One of the cenotes was at Chichen-Itza, to the north of Tzompantli – the plateau of Eagles and Jaguars. Another Cenote was at Chtuloq, right in the heart of the city, near the main well. These two Cenotes failed to produce fresh water for a long time and filled once a year by torrential mid-spring rainfall, although to less than half their height. Then the water began to blossom and became suitable only for the irrigating of cornfields, which began just behind the Northern temple and the field for ball games.

Now, the tribe’s cornfield was dead. Studded with dry stem shoots that barely rose above knee-level and burned under the hot sun, the cornfield terrified the whole tribe.

Vak Balama’s last offering was made four full moons ago. The gods wanted blood only at full moon. Today was a full moon and the gods demanded new blood. This was also indicated by the three stars of the Three Holy Warriors, which lined up with another star, the brightest and most beautiful star of the Queen of Water. And the Sun of the God Chaak stopped and froze under this sign for several hours without movement, before lowering the world into the realm of darkness and coming back the next morning. This only happened once a year, on December 21. This would be in twenty days from now.

However, the strange occurrence that happened at the Sacred Cenote of Chichen-Itza six full moons ago identified the sacrificial rites in a whole new way.

The Cenotes used to be full of cold spring water at a depth of several dozen metres. They had several cunning outflows through a variety of underground caves into the salty Caribbean Sea. Today, the Cenotes were shallow and dry. Besides the fact that they took in the sacrificial victims whose bodies were eventually carried by the water through the underground rivers flowing into the sea, the sinkholes were the only sources of fresh drinking water.

The bodies of the six latest sacrifices were not carried anywhere by the water. They remained lying in small ponds, like beautiful gilded puppets. Buckets were dropped into the wells on long ropes woven from the bark of trees, but the water from these sources was not drinkable anymore. Twitching from the smell, one of the residents took a few timid sips, immediately threw up, and the next day he became one of the first deceased to be carried by citizens to outside the city and buried in stones. The city was entirely without water. There was no rain for six full moons – the same length of time that no sacrifices had been made to the gods by those that wanted to come closer to them through death and enter the Temple of Joy.

Now, when the whole city was quietly complaining of having to take the dead bodies of friends and relatives outside the city walls, the priest decided that the time has come and that there will be no more waiting.

CHAPTER 12

21° 20» 70» N

86° 80» 81» W

Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula

December 14, 1971

The trip to Mexico, which Dalma mentioned in a conversation with her husband, happened just over a year ago, before Christmas. Dalma had strongly insisted that the whole family was to be back home in Buenos Aires for the holy feast. «No exceptions! Otherwise, your things will be in a suitcase at the door!»

At the time, Diego Sr. worked for a small construction company that temporarily employed many seasonal workers who were often quite illiterate and unskilled. They were sent to prepare construction sites, removing trees and debris, building fences, cleaning the beaches, and guarding the area. Diego had worked for the company for a full twelve years, had good skills in construction, laying brick walls, decorating interiors, and even reading blueprints. And most importantly – he knew English, which was necessary for communicating at construction sites abroad. The chief of the firm by now already trusted Diego to manage the construction brigades of a few more or less professional builders and a couple of dozen general labourers. His salary increased and Dalma was grilling the head of the family much less for his meager income.

In May 1971, the company was chosen by an American construction giant to lay the groundwork for a chain of resorts in Cancun, a fast-developing coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The contract turned out to be beneficial to both parties. The Americans got relatively inexpensive and skilled labour, without having to spend on training local workers. Diego, for the first time, received an international contract – in particularly, such a profitable one by Argentinian standards. His duties included, among other things, the delivery of the construction crew to Cancun and placing them in the territory. There they were to prepare the construction site for the Hotel Caracol, which was to be part of the American-controlled Stanebridge chain. So, an Argentinian crew was headed to Mexico, crammed inside five rusty school buses, of bright-yellow colour and Californian origin in a former life. The buses were accompanied by a 1964 Volkswagen caravan painted with bright exotic flowers, leaves, marijuana, and fingers in a «V» gesture. Diego bought this vehicle for three hundred dollars (and two bottles of good house wine from Aunt Amia) from a young American couple that decided to permanently remain in such a glorious corner of the world, Argentina.

The two weeks in Mexico flew by swiftly. Diego Gonzalez, Sr. only returned to his sleeping trailer late at night, spending all the days at the construction site. All these days, Diego, Jr. was completely on his own. Running around on miles of white beaches, he discovered more and more secrets. His friends from school could only envy how much Diego was able to discover in the past week. Sometimes, while wandering in the thickets of the dry jungle, he found a peculiar house with strange statues carved from white limestone. The figures were scary, with bulging eyes and bared fangs. Their gaze was constantly fixed on Diego, no matter where he went. He was taken by panic. That is why he couldn’t get close to any of them.

One day, while playing in the woods, Diego got lost. There was only a dirt road here leading to the construction site. There was just the sound of the sea, which Diego would have readily followed. But it all disappeared. Diego was frightened, because all the landmarks that his father had pointed out in case he’d get lost were no longer there. He let out a few shouts from between the palms of his hands, but he only heard back the singing of the birds and the rustle of dry leaves.

Suddenly, a man of small height emerged into the clearing where Diego stood. The man raised his eyes at the sky. He had a crooked walk and was dressed in a ridiculous loin skirt, coarse, but bright. This black-tanned man with a big, lumping head asked Diego something in a guttural and completely incomprehensible language. Seeing that the boy did not understand, the old man smiled broadly and made a hand gesture inviting Diego to follow him. What could Diego do? The sun was setting, and he could not find his way back without assistance in any case. And, of course, spending such a long day under the sun, the last few hours of which the boy was without food and water, was taking its toll on Diego’s body. Not to mention, the stranger did not look evil at all.