Life Blood Part 38

"But come." He turned his gaze toward the south. "Let me show you the thing I'm proudest of here. It's just up there." He was pointing toward a dense section of the rain forest, in the opposite direction from the river and up a steep incline.

I couldn't see anything but trees, but then I still had the feeling I'd stepped through the looking gla.s.s and found Sarah trapped there. The next thing I knew, we were on an uphill forest trail, headed due south.

"I think it's time you told me what's going on back there in the village," I said. What was it about this place that had seized such a claim on Sarah's mind?

"_Baalum_ is difficult to explain to someone encountering it for the first time." He paused. "Much of it is so--"

"I think I can handle it."

"You have every right to know, but I don't really know where to start."

"How about the beginning?" Why was he being so ambiguous?

"Very well." He was taking out a pair of gray sungla.s.ses,

as though to gain time. "It actually goes back about ten years ago, when I was prospecting for rainforest plants up here in the Peten and accidentally stumbled across this isolated village, which clearly had been here since cla.s.sical times. I immediately noticed a huge mound of dirt everybody said was haunted by 'the Old Ones,' and I knew right away it had to be a buried pyramid. They're more common down here than you'd think. So I struck a bargain with the village elders and acquired the site. But after I unearthed it and began the restoration, I became inspired with a vision. One day I found myself offering to restore anything else they could find--which eventually included, by the way, a magnificent old steam bath--in exchange for which they would help me by undertaking a grand experiment, a return to their traditional way of life."

"So you deliberately closed them off to the modern world?" It told me Alex G.o.ddard could control a Mayan village just as he controlled everything else he touched. It also confirmed he had a weakness for the grandiose gesture. Would a time come when I could exploit that?

"I told them that together we would try to recreate the time of their glory, and perhaps in so doing we could also rediscover its long-lost spirit, and wisdom. On the practical side, they would help me by bringing me the rare plants I needed to try and rediscover the lost Native American pharmacologies, and in return I would build them a clinic where families can come for modern pediatric and public-health services. So _Baalum _became a project we share together. I call it a miracle."

That still didn't begin to explain why it felt so eerie. Something else was going on just under the surface. What was he really doing here?

Then the path uphill abruptly opened onto a clearing in which sat a large two-story building, its color a dazzling white, most likely plaster over cinder block, with a thatch roof and a wide, ornate mahogany door at the front. The building was nestled in a grove of trees whose vines and tendrils had embraced it so thoroughly, there was no telling how far it extended back into the forest. There also was a parking lot, paved and fed by a well-maintained gravel road leading south.

Seeing it, I felt an immediate wave of relief. Even better, the lot itself contained half-a-dozen well-worn pickup trucks, while sunburned Maya men were lounging in the shade of a nearby tree and smoking cigarettes. They were not from Baalum. They wore machine-made clothes and they were speaking Spanish, unlike the men in loincloths down in the village.

Yes! That's how I can get us out of here. A few dollars . . .

Parked there also was a tan Humvee, the ultimate all-road vehicle, which I a.s.sumed belonged to Alex G.o.ddard. Maybe I should just try to steal it.

As we pa.s.sed through the door and into the vestibule of the building, I glimpsed a cl.u.s.ter of Maya women and children crowded into a brilliantly lit reception area. G.o.ddard smiled and waved at them, and several nodded back, timorously and with enormous reverence. They were being attended by a dark-eyed, attractive Maya woman in a blue uniform--the name lettered on her blouse was Marcelina--who was holding a tray of vials and hypodermic needles. She was pure _indigena_, all of five feet tall, with broad cheekbones and deep-set penetrating eyes.

Unlike the other women in the room, however, there was no air of resignation about her. She was full of authority, a palpable inner fire.

"One of my most successful programs here"--he nodded a greeting to her--"is to provide free vaccinations and general health resources for the villages in this part of the Peten Department."

"I thought USAID already had public-health projects in Guatemala." The sight deeply depressed me. They all looked so poignant, the women with their shabby _huipils_ and lined faces, the children even more disheartening, sad waifs with runny noses and watery eyes.

Which confirmed again that they'd come in the pickups parked outside, driven here by the men.

I had six hundred cash in dollars. I could just buy one of those worn-out junkers for that.

Alex G.o.ddard glanced around, as though reluctant to respond in the presence of all the Maya.

"You saw those 'security guards' down there just now. They're nothing but boys with guns, 'recruits' kidnapped by the government on market day and pressed into the Army. They're all around here. The powers that be in Guatemala City are very threatened by what I'm achieving, so they've got these Army kids hanging around, keeping an eye on me. They also hate the fact I can provide health services better than they can.

But to answer your question, most of the AID money gets soaked up by the bureaucracy in Guatemala City, so the people up here have learned to rely on me. The Army, however, despises me and everything I'm doing."

What a load of BS. You just admitted you had an inside track with Colonel Alvino Ramos. Anybody can see Children of Light or Ninos del Mundo, or whatever the h.e.l.l other aliases you use, is thick as thieves with the Guatemalan Armed Forces. Don't insult my intelligence. It just makes me furious.

I turned to Marcelina. She'd begun pa.s.sing out hard-sugar candies to the mesmerized children, showing them how to remove the cellophane before putting them into their mouths. Though she was pure Maya, she looked educated. I instinctively liked her. Maybe she could tell me what was really going on here.

"Do you speak English?"

"Yes." She was gazing at me with a blend of curiosity and concern.

"If--"

"I've got a procedure scheduled shortly," G.o.ddard interjected, urging me on down the tiled hallway. "But I need to take a moment and recharge. Come with me and we can talk some more."

Near the end of the hall, we entered a s.p.a.cious, country-style kitchen.

He walked over and opened the refrigerator.

"Care for a little something to eat?" He looked back, speckled white hair swinging across his shoulders as his ponytail came loose. "I had Marcelina whip up some gazpacho last night and I see there's some left.

It's my own secret recipe, special herbs from around here. It's good and good for you."

"I'm not hungry." It wasn't true. I was growing ravenous. But I was repressing the feeling because of everything else that was going on.

His "village" was holding back its secrets, and now his clinic of "miracles" also felt suspiciously wrong. I'd seen plenty of rural public-health operations in developing countries, and this setup was far too big and fancy. The whole thing didn't begin to compute.

"As you like." He gave an absent shrug.

I looked around and noticed that just off the kitchen was another s.p.a.ce, which was, I realized, his private dining room. There was a rustic table in the center that looked like it had been carved from the trunk of a large Cebia tree. I walked in, and moments later he followed carrying a tray with two calabash bowls of gazpacho and some crusty bread.

"In case you change your mind and decide to join me." He placed a bowl opposite where he was planning to sit. "Like I said, there're unusual herbs around here with flavors you've never dreamed of."

He began eating, while behind him I glimpsed Marcelina moving down the hall, carrying more trays of vaccine and headed out toward the vestibule again. I had to find a way to talk to her.

As I settled into the rickety chair that faced my plate, I glanced down and saw a red lumpy mixture with a spray of indefinable green specks across the top like a scattering of jungle stars. No way.

When I looked up again, he was swabbing his lips with a white napkin, his penetrating eyes boring in.

"Now," he said, "it's time we started concentrating on you. Got you going with your program."

Chapter Twenty-two

"My program?" I stared back at him, feeling a jolt. With my thoughts completely focused on Sarah, the last thing on my mind was my own baby.

"Now that you're here"--he smiled--"there's no reason we shouldn't proceed. This is, after all, a place of miracles."

Right. You let Sarah destroy her mind and now you want me to . . .

Don't even think about it.

"I have to tell you, I'm not overly impressed thus far with your 'program,' " I said. "First I pa.s.sed out in your clinic, and then my doctor in New York told me those drugs Ramala gave me are highly illegal, and for good reason."

"What is 'legal' is more often than not the judgment of medical reactionaries." He dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand. "My work has moved far beyond anything the FDA has ever dreamed of." Then his look turned grave. "I hope you'll give me a chance to try to help you. I've been giving your case a lot of thought since our first examination, about what we should do. But first let me ask you . . . do you have a partner who could come here soon?"