The Fifth Harmonic (14 page)

Will be in touch.

—Terziski

Baffled, I reread the message twice, then stowed the laptop away. I lay back in the hammock, staring at the tools and utensils dangling above me like some giant mobile, and tried to make sense of this.

If Terziski was right, Maya's Berkeley degree was a fraud. But why lie about a degree when she didn't need one to be a New Age alternative “healer”? I couldn't find a rationale.

And if her degree was bogus, what else was she was lying about?

As I swung gently back and forth, I felt my eyelids begin to droop.

No sleep last night . . . climbing walls and crawling through caves today . . . I was bushed.

The chorus of uneasy questions swirling through my brain tried to keep me from dropping off.

They didn't have a prayer. . . .

“Wake up.”

I opened my eyes to find Maya standing over me, gently jostling my shoulder.

“Time to eat. I cooked in another hut so as not to disturb you.”

I appreciated that. Thoughtful, beautiful, resourceful—and she cooked too. How had she managed to remain unattached?

I swung my legs to the side and almost dumped myself from the hammock.

“Easy,” she said. “They take some getting used to.”

“I'll have to be careful during the night.”

I stretched and glanced at my wrist, but I'd left my watch in the duffel after cleaning up. Through the door I could see that the light was fading. How long had I been asleep?

“What time is it?”

“Dinner time.”

“Great,” I said and let my annoyance show. “I ask where I am, I'm told ‘Mesoamerica.’ I ask the time, and it's ‘dinner time.’ Why can't I get a straight answer?”

I realized I was overtired and cranky, like a child who's just been awakened from a nap, but all this indirection coupled with Terziski's latest e-mail had me on edge.

Maya handed me an earthenware bowl filled with something steaming and spicy-smelling.

“It is dinner time in Mesoamerica,” Maya said, a small smile playing about her lips. “What more do you need to know?”

“How about the name of the country, dammit. If I'd known you were going to be so mysterious, I'd have brought along one of those GPS doodads.”

She seated herself crosslegged on the dirt floor near the door,
next to a plate of tortillas.

“And what good would that do you?”

“I'd know my latitude and longitude to the second.”

She looked up at me. “I repeat: What good would that do you?”

“I have a thing about knowing where I am. Whenever I've traveled I've had to have maps. Annie and Kelly used to call me a ‘map nerd.’ I suppose I was. I'd get to a city and immediately buy a street map and locate our hotel in relation to the major thoroughfares and landmarks. It made me feel secure—something I'm not feeling right now.”

Maya was unimpressed. She patted the spot on the floor on the far side of the tortillas.

“Sit and eat.”

With my knees creaking in protest, I grumpily assumed the position. Outside, the village was quiet—no children or chickens about, and the two weavers apparently had quit for the day. The wisps of wood smoke and the rich smells of cooking food wafted among the huts.

“What am I eating?” I said.

“Corn and beans in black chili sauce.”

I spooned some into my mouth. Spicy but flavorful—the chili didn't overwhelm the beans and corn. I swallowed with a minimum of discomfort—the warm, moist mix slid down fairly easily.

“Delicious,” I said. “But is this Mexican food, or Guatemalan, or Belizian, or what?”

“It's Mayan,” she said.

I must have looked ready to scream in frustration, so she went on, speaking quickly, fire growing in her voice.

“I do not recognize the artificial borders that have been imposed upon my people's land. This is Mayaland, and it stretches from the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula down through the illegal and criminal states of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This is the land of the Maya nation, but these other so-called nations have usurped it. For centuries they have sought to destroy the Maya, using my people as either cannon fodder, scapegoats, or target practice, stealing our land, burning our crops and villages, raping our women, and slaughtering our men and children.” She fixed her blazing green eyes on me. “So please do not ask me again what country you are in.
The answer will always be the same: Maya country.”

I ate in silence and let her cool. Obviously I'd touched a nerve. She had always been so calm and in control. Here was another side, an intensely passionate side. I found this little peek behind her façade oddly exciting.

I ate slowly. I had trouble getting the tortillas down unless they were slathered with chili sauce, so I stuck mostly to the mix.

“Fair enough,” I said finally. “When people ask me where I've been, I'll just say, ‘Maya country,’ and let them figure it out.”

A small smile as she stared out the door and nodded.

I said, “But you don't look like any of the Mayan women here.”

This was obvious—she stood a good six to eight inches above the tallest Mayas—and I knew the reason, but I wanted her to tell me. I was testing her, I guess. She didn't know that I'd done a background check on her. I wanted to see if she'd tell me the truth.

“I am only half Mayan. My father was a French journalist who traveled here on assignment. He met my mother, they fell in love, and he took her back to Europe.”

“You were born in Europe?”

“No. Algiers. Another of my father's assignments. It was his idea to name me Maya. My mother did not like the idea, saying it's the name of a people, not a person. But my father so loved the Mayas and the name that she finally gave in. He led an exciting life, my father. During the war he joined the French resistance. He worked with Albert Camus on the underground paper,
Combat
.”

I was feeling a bit guilty now for testing her—this jibed with everything I knew. But the matter of the questionable Berkeley degree hung over me like a sword. I tried an oblique approach.

“How did you get into all this New Age stuff? I mean, was it part of your education in Europe?”

She laughed. “Hardly. There is nothing the least bit ‘new’ about what I do. It is ancient. I learned from my mother. We traveled back and forth often to visit her family.”

“Did you ever have formal schooling? You know, college and the like?”

“I was educated all over the world, but it was here in Maya country where I learned the things that matter most.”

Was she avoiding the question, or simply giving what she thought was a relevant response? As I was searching for a way to home in on the subject of higher education in the U.S., she took my empty bowl and moved back toward the hearth.

“More?”

I shook my head. “That was plenty. Thank you.”

As she set the bowls down, I felt a tremor run through the ground, and heard, rather than felt, a low-pitched rumble. I'd never been in an earthquake, but I was sure the earth had just shifted under me. I turned and saw Maya standing in the center of the hut, still as a heron, her head cocked, listening.

“Was that—?” I began, but she cut me off with an abrupt wave of her hand.

I waited. Finally she relaxed and returned to my side. “Yes. That was an earthquake. A tiny one. They are common here. It is gone now.”

“Nothing to worry about then?” I had visions of all these tools and utensils raining down on us from the ceiling.

“No. We are safe.” She frowned. “I just hope . . .”

“Just hope what?”

“It is nothing. Show me your tine.”

“It's in the duffel.”

She looked concerned. “Oh, no. You must always keep it with you. Please bring it here.”

I struggled to my feet and retrieved it from the duffel.

“I washed it,” I said, holding it out to her, watching the firelight dance off the golden-hued surface.

“It is beautiful,” she said. “And it is good that you washed it. That is your earth tine.”

She kept her hands folded in her lap, and then I remembered what she'd said about not letting anybody else touch it. As I sat again, I plucked its pointed tip and listened to its hum, watching the light dance on its shimmering triangular surface. I wondered what it was made of. Too light for gold.

“What kind of metal is this?”

Maya shrugged. “I do not know. Each of the tines you must find is made of a different metal, metals I have seen nowhere else.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Keep it always on your person, even when you sleep.”

“That could get a little uncomfortable, couldn't it?”

She gave my poor attempt at humor just the amount of attention it deserved: She ignored it.

“Your tine needs to be near you, to imprint the unique wavelength of your personal energy.”

“Energy?” I said. “What kind of energy? I hear people talking about energy all the time, like they're a microwave oven or something, or a battery that's got to be recharged every so often.”

“The energy of your life force,” she said. “It is generated in every cell of your body. Every living thing radiates energy; it creates an aura around them. Each of your tines must become attuned to your energy, so that it can harmonize with it. Your earth tine there will provide your first harmonic.”

“My first harmonic,” I said, turning it over in my hands. “Is it something I'll hear, like the tone when I pluck it?”

“No. It will be something you feel. You will know when it happens . . . it will be very much like the spiritual harmony you experienced atop the pyramid on your first night here, only far more intense.”

More intense than that? I didn't know if I could handle that.

“You mentioned four tines, so can I assume that each of the tines will find their own harmony with me?”

“Yes. There are four tine harmonics, and one other. The most important of all: the Fifth Harmonic.

“Where's that come from?”

“From Gaea, from you, from everything. It is almost impossible to explain to someone whose third eye is blind. Do not concern yourself with the Fifth Harmonic now. Concentrate on the first. Let your earth tine find its harmony with you so that it can release to you what is stored within it.”

I held up the tine and let it reflect the dying light of day.

“And just what exactly is stored within this baby?”

“A tiny droplet of the Mother's power, Cecil.”

“You called me Will earlier.”

“That was because I feared for your life. You are still Cecil. And let us not get off the subject of the power the All-Mother can store in
that tine, a power you doubt.”

“That's because I've never had any contact with your All-Mother, your Gaea.”

She shook her head—sadly, I thought. “Yes, you have. Every day of your life. But you are blind to it, unaware behind your walls.” She sighed. “The Mother wants me to heal the wounded healer, and to truly heal you, I must do more than heal your body. I must heal your mind and spirit as well.”

There, I thought, is a tall order.

“And you think these tines will do that?” I said.

“If you let them, if you do not build more walls against them they can open your mind and free your imprisoned spirit, allowing you to rediscover your connection to nature and the divine.”

Ah, if only something could do that . . .

I tightened my grip on the cylindrical handle of the tine and plucked again the wavy triangular head.

Harmonics . . .

I had no hope of a cancer cure, but I was open to finding a new way to look at the world in my final days. I'd give it a shot—that was part of the adventure—but I didn't see much chance of a spiritual awakening in my short future.

At least I'd be spending those days with a fascinating woman in a fascinating land.

I gave her my most innocent smile. “You've got your work cut out for you, don't you.”

“Yes,” she said, but didn't return the smile. Her expression became grimmer. “And I pray I am equal to the task.”

I awoke to the sound of an angry voice—a male's, and not Ambrosio's. I looked across at Maya's hammock. In the early dawn light it hung limp and withered like an empty cocoon.

I rolled over in my own hammock and felt a jab in my flank. The tine. At Maya's insistence I'd stuffed it inside my shirt before sleep. It was warm against my palm as I pulled it out. I squeezed its handle, waiting, wanting to feel something different about it, about myself.

Nothing. Just a piece of metal.

I left the hammock and shoved the tine into a pants pocket as I padded to the doorway.

I couldn't find the sun, but the clear sky was bleaching to the east. A dozen feet away, a little Mayan man in a white shirt and loose pants was gesticulating angrily at Maya. His eyes were level with the base of her neck, so he had to tilt his head back to look at her.

I didn't know what all his glottal stops and
shhh
es meant, but I had no doubt that he was angry. Maya was nodding, trying to placate him in the same tongue, but he wasn't having any of it. In fact, it only seemed to make him angrier.

Responding to an instinctive protective urge, I took a step forward. Maya spotted me and made a surreptitious
it's-okay
gesture with her hand.