69

Sabir felt at peace. He didn’t fully understand why this should be so, but neither did he feel any particular desire to investigate his newfound condition. He was content simply to bask in the unfamiliar harmony, and allow the long-awaited healing process to begin.

After half an hour or so of near total detachment, something snapped Sabir out of his reverie. He began to monitor the preparations being made by the Halach Uinic with more than the usual amount of interest. At first he couldn’t understand what had triggered this intense curiosity, but then he realized that the High Priest was communicating in some quasi-telepathic way with a middle-aged woman standing halfway up the stone steps of the pyramid. It was this that had caught his attention.

Sabir was at a loss to understand how he had achieved this insight, but he could definitely sense the energy passing between them. It resembled the sudden flapping of a curtain in the wind, or the unexpected tightening of a sail out at sea in the run-up to a squall. The impression was so overwhelming that Sabir was instantly overcome by the conviction that he could intervene between the two of them if he so desired, transforming their duologue into something approaching a round table discussion – but that it would probably be considered the height of rudeness were he to do so.

He glanced at Calque to his left, and then at Lamia to his right. Both were deeply involved in watching the preparations for the ceremony.

Had he gone stark staring mad? It was obvious that his companions hadn’t the remotest idea of what was going on his head – and neither were they picking up anything of a similar sort themselves. Instead, they were watching the preparations going on around them with the natural interest of the outsider.

Had his never-ending litany of sleepless nights caught up with him at last? Was he hallucinating? Sabir shook himself like a dog and concentrated all his attention on the scene around him. Best drag yourself back to reality, man. No more airy-fairy nonsense. You’ll be dreaming of pixies next.

The first thing Sabir noticed following his reality check was that the Maya en masse were even smaller than he had imagined them to be – much smaller than a similar random grouping of Westerners, or even Latins, would have been. Both men and women had round faces and wide cheekbones – they smiled a lot, and were quick to mirth. Most of the women standing in the group nearby were squat, square, and useful looking, with a low centre of gravity. Some had an almost Asiatic cast to their features. The older women were stocky, with solid bellies and protruding bottoms, although some of the younger women were very beautiful, with an almost sinister cast to their features – they had curved noses, almond eyes, dark, fine hair, and expressive, sensual mouths. Their colour varied from a light macadamia to a darker chocolate. Few of the women were heavy-breasted, with the young girls in particular seeming to retain their flat chests well into adolescence. Most of the women Sabir could see wore their hair long, while some of the men cut theirs en brosse.

Sabir also noticed that the Maya strolled rather than strode – in fact they almost bundled along, blowing their noses onto the ground whenever they felt like it. Ponytails were popular amongst the women, with the hair pulled tightly back from the forehead. The older women wore white shifts, with floral borders, visible petticoats, and occasional rebozos, worn across the shoulders like a shawl. The younger women wore wheel earrings – Sabir noticed that both the men and the women’s ears aimed backwards, just as in the sculptures.

‘Come on, Sabir. Snap out of it. We’re on the move.’

‘What?’

Calque was staring at Sabir as if the American had taken leave of his senses. ‘The ceremony. The one they’ve been preparing for two hours right in front of your face. All that clattering and banging. Don’t tell me you missed it?’ He turned to Lamia. ‘Do you think an alien life-form has taken over our friend here?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think so too.’ Calque turned back to Sabir. ‘Oh, Alien. Return our friend to us. You have taken all his secrets. You know that he is simply an empty vessel with nothing inside. Be satisfied with that. We earthlings are no threat to you.’

‘Yeah. Very funny. I love a good joke. Maybe you could become a stand-up comedian when you get back to France, Calque? You could call yourself “Flic-Flaque”. Otherwise known as the “Wet Policeman”.’

Calque stared incredulously at Lamia. ‘My God. He really is an alien. That was a halfway good French pun he managed there.’

Acan, Naum, and Tepeu were approaching from the direction of the pyramid. It was this that had triggered Calque’s wake-up call to Sabir. None of the three were carrying rifles, and they had changed from their usual work clothes into simple white shifts.

Acan split off and came towards Sabir. Naum had clearly been detailed to mind Calque, while Tepeu walked up to Lamia and invited her and the mestizo to accompany him.

Sabir was still feeling awkward following his unintentional detachment from his companions. Even Lamia was staring at him as if he had recently undergone some disastrously botched plastic surgery. He decided to try and patch up their fractured bond with a little forced bonhomie. Plastering an artificial grin on his face, he said, ‘Everything’s sweetness and light, now. Do you see? They’ve even ditched their rifles.’

Calque shook his head in mild despair. ‘Sabir, you probably haven’t noticed, but there are maybe a thousand Maya surrounding us at this very moment. Who the heck needs rifles?’