Excerpted from:
"Malinche and the Virgin"
("La Virgen Malinche" en Español)
by Mark Plimsoll
Hotel Día de Amantes, Lover's Day Hotel. Beachfront of mostly limestone, with a little sandy area where a small canyon carved into the limestone bedrock disgorges into the sea. Walkways between little stick huts with a couple of beds in each, screens line the inside to keep out most of the bugs. The hotel's restaurant with open-air walls of graceful design elements where tangled driftwood roots weave themselves into the vertical-stick walls, counterpoint to the tropical woods in the Yucatecan chairs that yawn loving welcome in the muggy afternoon's illusory salt-sweat seaside freshness.
The fat amiga hostess-mama, Ofelia
the Protectora of the Sea Turtles, has been the manager here these past
six months, escaping her previous life. Ofelia runs from the a lawsuit
her family brought against her because of the debt incurred while buying
ham and cheese to distribute to mom-and-pop 'convenience' store shacks
(in the local pedestrian-culture neighborhoods strung out throughout
the car-accessible regions of the jungle) and tourist restaurants on
the beaten path. She runs from paying her bills, and runs from the continuous
daily responsibilities of caring for her ungrateful octogenarian mother,
who shrinks with osteoporosis and yet valiantly deals with the constant
pain and difficulty of an unhealing broken right arm, a limp appendage
now coddled in a white cloth sling which she only too readily removes
to show the casual visitor her damaged elbow, swollen into a huge reddish
onion of water-filled flesh.
Ofelia's distributorship allowed her to venture
into nature's outback; that's why she did it. Now she lives in it, right
on the noisy shore, just a couple of kilometers down the road that draws
one back inland to the tiny Mayan community of Tulúm, rapidly becoming
another tourist support node and gateway to the squat yet grandiloquently
beckoning seaside pyramid and archeological site of Tulúm, where the
Mayans thought they would welcome the return of the bearded white man-God
known as Quetzalcoatl. Cortéz came instead.
Her beautiful fifteen year old daughter Talisha,
in the male-fascinating throes of accelerated maturation, handles the
bar and other public relations for the hotel, dressed in a peasant dress
of the flimsiest of black fabric. Her silouhette dances bouncily behind
the veil every time she walks out from behind the bar. The owner, Gilbert
the Soap Opera star from Mexico City, on one of his brief visits, wanders
the grounds with a group of television "Idiot Box" people who will do
an interview this afternoon, using the hotel, ocean, and distant thundering
waves that break on the reef a kilometer offshore, as the backdrop.
It's a miracle this beloved hotel didn't get dashed
to match-sticks during the recent skirting skirmish with Hurricane Mitch.
They all talk about it now with fear and respect, realizing just how
stranded they live, beyond the reach of television and reliable radio,
with only gas-generated electricity, and no cell phone, as one of earth's
largest hurricanes coated the sky above with hundreds of miles of an
ominous cloud like a gray brimmed Mexican sombrero no one could dance
around.
Two local thugs, shirtless hoodlums, gangbangers,
walk distracted, almost stumbling forward through the humidity and careening
insects to add their squirrelly skinny lithe presence to the bar. The
older one, wrinkled and grizzled gray with a militarily short haircut,
introduces himself as "the community-wide famous Chiapaneco ex-General
of the Mexican Army". His companion, a small man that resembled one
of the Tasaday people, the stone-age tribe discovered on Mindanao in
the Philippines, grins fixedly at everything, his large teeth yellowing
as do the whites of his eyes. He's the long-haired Space-cowboy, quasi-religious
boatman with Jesus on his tiller, with an animistic appreciation of
nature and the natural life, always smiling, always high. Both seem
completely comfortable hanging out here in this tourist establishment,
leaning over on the wooden bar in the open-air Palapa restaurant of
coffee-and-chocolate colored varnished tropical woods, flir ng with
Talisha.
"I have to humor them," Ofelia whispers to Richard
as she subtly motions with her head and huge, long-lashed eyes to indicate
the lower-class shirtless men seated beside and behind her. "These two
'poorly raised' men protect me from their own, the local gangs and criminals.
It's no trouble, really. Once again, Ricardo, you've come on a bad day.
I'll be busy until Gilberto goes back to Mexico City."
Her boss the owner, Gilberto, and another man stand
out in front of the restaurant, on the very edge of the rocks over the
ocean, straining upward with both arms, as if in religious supplication.
They stay in that position for almost a couple of minutes, then rest
their arms and repeat it. They call out for Ofelia and all together
they walk far out on the limestone rocks at the ocean's edge, to play
with two cellular phones.
When they return to the bar Richard hears Gilberto
say "Look, Ofelia, I'm going to leave this with you. But to work it,
you must come out here, and stand on this rock and stretch the phone
up way over your head. Be sure the antennae is extended. This way we
can stay in contact without you going to Tulúm, in case of emergencies
or whatever."
He's just lived through the hell of imagining his
hotel destroyed by Hurricane Mitch. Worse even than the time when the
police raided his home in Cancún, looking for drugs.
Ofelia busies herself with the duties of overseeing
the hotel and staff; directing the efforts of the handsome young urban
man from Mérida who prepares the meal, the twin Mayan Indians, short
and stout bent teapots working on replacing the sand washed out of the
stony walkways, the large Mayan Indian man with unruly long hair who
now uncovers the pipe holes to install the posts of kerosene cone-torches
that will light the walks against the coming darkness, the bird-tiny,
stout doll of a no-necked Mayan maid cleaning the rooms to replace the
sheets and rehang the mosquito netting.
"Now, just today, all the Markresses have been
returned to the cabins" Ofelia says.
"Where were they? Where could you put them all?"
"We put them in storage, up there" and she points
down the walkway, "within the second floor cabin of Talisha and I."
The shirtless broken-down ex-general peers intently,
his once-shaven head lowered to see through the dining room and down
the walkway between the cabins.
A European couple walks in, examining the hotel
in search of a room, and the ex-General's nostrils quiver. He begins
to slobber and mumble his squinted wolf-eyed appreciation of the unknown
female, giving the impression of masturbation, so single-minded and
oblivious to the others present as he caricatures himself, uncontrolled
libido, without a trace of humor, humanity, or common decency. His grinning
hippie Rastamon companion, long-hair stiffly bobbing, agrees with his
whole body in spontaneous twitches of stoned mirth, unconsciously giving
in to the spasms and twitches provoked by his thoughts.
Richard sips his beer from a plastic cup and watches
Trevor playing in the newly laid sand with a small Mayan boy a few years
older.
The hippie criminal says "Is that your boy?"
"Yeah."
"You from the United States?"
"Yeah." Richard starts to move his fingers nervously,
probably uncomfortable divulging personal information, such as his son's
name. "Where are you from?"
"Here, here, we live in a camp on the edge of these
hotels. In the jungle."
"Right in the jungle?"
"Yes. You want to see?"
"Maybe. Is it far from here?"
"No, not far. Just a little ways. You have a car?"
"What kind of work do you do?"
"We take tourists out on our launches (small boats)
to the reef to fish or dive. Sometimes we go sell drugs. You need any
drugs?"
"No, not right now. What kind of boats do you have?"
"Just little boats, wood boats with a small motor.
Gasoline. You want to go fish?"
"Is that safe out on the ocean?"
"Oh yes! We can put two motors on a boat, and if
one fails we have the other. We go out on the open ocean, even to Columbia!
I've been to Columbia three times!" he brags.
"Columbia! From here? That's very far away. How
long does it take you to get to Columbia?"
"We can cross the sea for thirty-six hours and
land on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, pick up the drugs, and in thirty-six
hours return."
"That must be why there are so many bales of marijuana
and cocaine that wash ashore. Sounds dangerous."
"It is. We sometimes lose a friend, but we make
so much money."
"How many people do you live with?"
"In the jungle, we are two women and seven men."
"Isn't that difficult, living with other couples?"
"No, no one lives as a couple. One of the women
is German. She lives with us. She was so cold at first, like the people
from Europe, and she wanted to see how we lived, so we let her in. At
first she was so cold, but now she's just like us, when someone comes
back we all hug and kiss, smiling, kissing again and again on the cheek,
so happy to see them again."
"What does she do?"
"She makes little things out of stuff she finds
in the jungle and sells them to tourists. She loves the natural life,
she tells us how lucky we are."
A man from the Netherlands reads Nitche at one
of the tables. A couple finishes their meal, vegetarian as all the meals
here in the hotel, and on our side of the interior wall that tries to
separate the airy wood-filigree restaurant into lounge and dining room,
through the large central window opening, I can see the couple of girls
from Russia who wait for Talisha to deliver their order.
On the other side sits a lone man, in his sixties
with a gray military haircut, whose wardrobe of expensive watch, T-shirt
with obscene quip about how 'Scuba divers go deeper', multi-colored
shorts, and expensive plastic sandals announce his American citizenship.
Ofelia takes Richard over to keep him company, a fellow Midwesterner,
she tells Richard, introducing him as Sean pronounced "Shawn". Then
Ofelia leaves on some errand.
He offers to read Richard's face, a skill acquired
from an old odd book he's found on this trip. His hands feel Richards
cranium as he closes his eyes and tries to guess characteristics of
Richard's personality.
"Only about half of those platitudes near their
mark, unless I don't know myself. I don't want to seem disappointed,
you know, or ungrateful, but I guess you need more practice."
"Or you don't know yourself. That's a common problem
with all fortune telling, you know."
Ofelia comes back and to chat a few moments, stops
by, and Sean and I coerce her to stay seated with them a little longer
by holding her hands, and the giddy laughter of all three cause the
almost immediate appearance of the workaholic Italian Paulo who asks
them with veiled threat if everything is all right. Ofelia waves him
off graciously
Then the long-haired specter of the shirtless Tarzan
boy appears before the three, and he aggressively tells them, through
his toothy grin and wagging black-snake locks, that there are 'güaruras',
bodyguards, around here, so everything better stay cool and groovy.
Sean says he gives massages to support his escapist
lifestyle here. After his wife of thirty years died, he committed himself
to the insane asylum three times through spontaneous acts of madness
so that now he instantly concurs, and swears he has the certificates
to prove it, when his children tell him he's crazy for not staying to
follow through on this powerful love interest with a nurse that his
son introduced him to, and especially for taking three twenty-two year
old girls down into the Yucatan in recent years on platonic adventures
(and one actually fell in love with a Mexican man and relocated), and
also for leaving a lucrative career as an independent business consultant
after a lifetime in the top management at General Motors in Detroit.
The planets appear in the purpling firmament, a
cool night breeze blows in off the ocean.
Sean finishes his meal and asks Richard, "Doesn't
it seem a little dark in here for sunglasses?"
"I've got conjunctivitis. Real bad. You don't want
to see."
"Let me see."
Richard lifts his glasses up and stares into Sean's
face, then drops the glasses and continues eating.
"You know, you're right. You look like the devil.
Keep them on."
They talk about going to Don Armando's, a hotel
for the partying younger set of backpacking Europeans, located almost
at the end of the coastal access road, seven kilometers away. Sean believes
it's the only place with any action, a restaurant that serves until
ten and then becomes a disco when they partition off the eating area
and push everyone to the tables encircling a dance floor sunk below
the semicircle bar.
Through Ofelia and with her assurances that the
language differences won't Marker, Richard arranges for a young Mayan
girl to watch Trevor, and he and Sean take off in a rented Volkswagen
to visit the string of beach bars.
A giant green iris with a small black center floats
in a round expanse of red writhing twisted braided blood vessels. Back
in Richard's apartment, he examines the red enraged whites of his eyes,
pulling down his lower lid to reveal a mass of swollen blood vessels
that appear close to bursting.
"Mago, I swear it's worse. Look at this!"
"You should go to a specialist. You've had that
too long. And your doctor tells you what?"
"Every time he practically yells Better! Better!
And proscribes some new expensive drops and pills. But it's never gotten
better, I can't believe that it could get worse and every week it seems
worse. He says it's a combination of viral and bacterial infections,
and that they have to be treated in sequence. He tells me that swimming
might help, like a mild wash of salt water, then he tells me to stay
out of the water!"
"It's about time you changed doctors. Call a specialist.
An optomologo."
"Optomologist?"
"Here's the phone book. Let me look it up for you.
Looks like you're suffering eyestrain."
"Ha ha. Very funny. I think I've been kicked in
the head too many times lately."
"You've tried to contact Malín?"
"How did you know? I beg her to talk to me, I tell
her I'm sick and suffering, depressed and that I just want a few minutes,
but the response I get is always mercifully tempered by my couriers.
They just say it would be better to not contact her because she angers
so easily. You know, I'm getting the reputation for having the Evil
Eye. Old women cross themselves when they pass me on the street. Even
with my sunglasses on, they know."
"Yeah, well, people gossip. You're something out
of the ordinary around here, gringo. By the way, I've heard about Malín
lately. She's still hanging out at that Flamenco club, staying till
it closes. Seems she leaves with one of the dancers."
"Male or female?"
"A man."
"We've had this conversation before, but I neglected
to tell you I've heard about him. The best sex she's ever had, she told
me. She went home with him once when his wife was out of town, and he
did his little dance behind her, with her bent over the bed. What really
impressed her was that the next time she was in the bar to watch him
dance, he aimed so much of his dancing energy at her, that she practically
had an orgasm in the bar. So much so that a stranger came over to ask
if she was his wife, saying that it was the most erotically charged
seductive dance he'd ever seen."
"Well, I'd bet his wife's out of town again."
"Yeah. So much for Malín's months of recovery from
surgery."
"Why don't you forget about her?"
"I wish I could. My body's been fine-tuned to her
frequency. I can't explain it. I've gone to a whore, and couldn't even
get an erection. I wake every morning thinking of her, and fall asleep
at night trying not to think of her, which of course doesn't work. I
can't even meditate anymore. I've had these dreams, nightmares recently,
with Malín always floating in and out like a rainbow or a dark presence.
Imagine waking up after being in a stone room, like a Mayan ruin, where
these long stone penis shaped things poke out of the walls, and there
are stacks of these six-foot long penises, a pile arranged like firewood,
sculpted limestone shafts, a stack long as a fence and Malín crawls
along the top of them dressed in this tiny black bikini while I follow
alongside, beating her husband who crawls along at my feet. Or the time
I dreamt that we were in some guerrilla camp in the jungle, and Malín
and I tied her husband to a tree, and these soldiers wo d come up and
kiss him and he would beg them to free him, but they just put these
big spiders on him and step back laughing."
"Did you ever wonder if maybe her husband was homosexual?"
"No, never. You know, it does make sense though.
Many of his friends are. And it would even explain why Malín refuses
to take showers before going home after our lovemaking. Maybe she wants
to go home smelling like some other man!"
"It may have even been some arrangement between
the two of them. Might be your only crime was not being bi-sexual."
"Wouldn't that be a great postscript to this relationship.
Better than what happened the other day! I found myself seated on a
park bench out in front of my shop, and I had no idea how I got there,
only that I'd been thinking of Malín, fantasizing or daydreaming. Can
you sleepwalk in a daydream?"