Etiquette for the End of the World

chapter Nine





Even after the exhilarating sight of tall palm trees lining the shore of the vast expanse of Lake Chapala against a flawless, azure sky, Harriet’s house—located only one block back from the lakefront in the “Mexpat” town of Ajijic, Jalisco—was the best surprise Tess had ever had in her life. The outer wall of the property was an Alice blue that looked as if a child had painted it in a fit of whimsy; an arched doorway opened into a private, tiled courtyard. At one end of the courtyard was a small wall fountain, with water trickling down from the mouth of a gargoyle-ish head, which Tess later found out was a spirit to help attract the scorpions and keep them away from the front door of house. (Although, as Harriet explained, red cedar oil—used to clean every wood surface inside the house as well as the patio—was the real bug deterrent, no matter what spirits some people wished to believe in.) Inside the house, the stucco walls were painted marigold yellow, with accents of bright color everywhere—red, aqua, rosy pink, even periwinkle. The lovely dark wood furniture, the kind that was both heavy and elegant, added to an aesthetic Tess thought of as old-church-meets-cool-hippie. Some might have found it a bit too clichéd—like a movie set of a typical Mexican villa. But Tess was delighted, and she almost fainted when she found that outside, next to the spacious eating terrace with its view of the boat-dotted lake, there was a solar-heated saltwater swimming pool. (How was it that Harriet had never mentioned this posh detail of her Mexican retreat?) She knew that Harriet had bought the place more than fifty years ago, when she was in her bohemian phase. So Tess had expected something rustic, hidden away in the hills with no amenities, or at least something simple. But this—this was unmitigated luxury!

She had read that the area was very touristy, with fifteen thousand Americans and Canadians in residence, and she could already see for herself that the town was filled with middle-aged white people in lime green golf clothes and little pink sweater sets. But she was too enchanted with the balmy air and newness of the sights and sounds to care. On the way in from the airport they had passed narrow streets where houses were painted with murals. She figured at least some of these paintings were for the benefit of tourists. But so what? Why didn’t everyone paint the outside of their houses with colorful pictures? What a simple way to create a happy atmosphere. It was like dancing architecture, or silent music coming from the buildings.

Another pleasant surprise was Harriet’s unbelievably sweet “caretaker” couple, the Delgados, who were her live-in housekeepers. The woman, Ana, who was in her early to mid-twenties, made and sold her own pottery; the man, Carlos, was a few years older and was a chef at a restaurant in town. Harriet had met the young woman years before, when Ana was only sixteen and working part-time as a maid. Harriet had been staying in Ajijic for several months, and she had helped the girl develop her English, giving her novels to read (naturally, they were mostly ones Harriet had published). Ana and Carlos now lived in the house for virtually nothing. They only had to pay for the upkeep of the house and pool, and the property taxes (which were minimal, according to Harriet), in exchange for which they gratefully—in fact, as far as Tess could see, almost passionately—donned the role of servants whenever Harriet came down. This used to be once a year but was now much more infrequent. And because Ana and Carlos had the run of the place for most of the time, they were more than happy to move into the tiny room over the garage during Harriet’s stay. Harriet had not been to Mexico in three or four years, and Tess could feel how relieved the two young people were to see her. Considering Harriet’s advanced age, they were probably nervous about the day she would come no more, and the house would be sold.

However grateful for the arrangement with Harriet’s house the Delgados were, it was obviously mutual. Harriet told Tess it thrilled her to have someone she liked in the house. “One of the biggest drawbacks of any country house—especially a country house in another country—is the time and trouble it takes to keep it up, to keep track of everything,” Harriet said to Tess after Carlos and Ana had whisked away their suitcases like overeager bellhops. “And this way I never have to worry about any of that. Besides, god knows I wouldn’t want to be anybody’s landlord.” Of course, Tess could tell it also made Harriet feel like the Grande Dame of Lake Chapala, to be able to extend so much generosity. Noblesse oblige.

Tess was not sure she would ever get used to the incessant sound of the mariachi bands, but she felt it was a small price to pay for the otherwise heavenly setting, including the best weather on the planet. It was always 75 and sunny in the daytime, and 55 at night. And not only were there so many birds that they would walk right up to you—in all their tropical splendor—while you were sitting and eating your breakfast, but all around the area were huge poinsettia trees, as well as lovely trees with vivid purple trumpet blossoms, which looked to Tess as though someone just poured bright purple paint over them. There were also gardenias, jasmine, and honeysuckle everywhere (and lots of bright yellow flowers she could not identify), as well as birds-of-paradise, which up to now she had only seen in botanical gardens.

Since Harriet could no longer manage stairs, the second-floor master bedroom suite was bestowed upon Tess, who was beginning to feel like a person who has won first prize in a game show. (To think she had almost not come!) There were tall wood-framed French windows that opened on to the lush green mountains, and at night she could look out and see the moon, and more stars than she had ever seen in any sky before. Over the bed was a painting of a proud-looking dark woman in a beautiful lace veil; when Tess asked about it Harriet informed her that it was of a famous Mexican woman whose husband owned a silver mine. He had been fascinated by European and American intellectuals, and the couple had both been lovers of D. H. Lawrence (and perhaps, his wife, Frieda, as well) when Lawrence wrote in Chapala in the 1920s. According to Harriet, the rumor was the four of them had frequently stayed in the house together.

During the plane trip Harriet had regaled Tess with stories about when she had first started coming to Ajijic in the sixties, a time writers and artists had flocked to the area—when it had been a real Mexican fishing village, with only one telephone line and almost no English-speaking inhabitants. Terry, Harriet’s second, common-law husband, had loved the place as much as Harriet. (In all the years Tess had known Harriet she had never talked about Terry and Tess was not sure what had happened to him.) They had decided to pool their money and buy this property, which was dirt cheap at the time. “In fact, it was not only dirt cheap but had some dirt floors!” was Harriet’s claim. “The pool—Terry’s insane idea—and the other improvements, the mosaic in the kitchen, the tiles in the courtyard, the terrace, which was just ground and weeds before—we used to move the chairs from inside out there, or sometimes just a blanket—we added everything gradually over the years.” As Harriet’s asthma gradually grew worse, she had valued the house more and more, because the climate was so good for her sinuses and her lungs. For many years she had spent most of January and February in Ajijic.

“Margie used to come with me, for company, and it was here we got the idea for our little faux pas book,” Harriet told Tess. “We made so many horrible gaffes … . We felt as we were always embarrassing ourselves, two stupid Americans trying to be Mexican.” Harriet snorted with vehemence. “Who could have foreseen then what would happen to this place? Now it’s one big f*cking gated country club … . All these people coming here just so they can go out and play a round of golf for cheaper than they can play golf in Florida, and then after golf go right back into their compounds.” Tess couldn’t help thinking that Harriet, even with her special rough-terrain wheelchair with its balloon tires, went out very rarely, and certainly lived a cushy Mexican lifestyle, with servants, no less. But Tess kept her mouth shut.

While Tess nodded in agreement whenever Harriet complained about the current state of Ajijic, the truth was that almost with each passing hour, Tess could feel herself slowing down, and opening up. It was not the same kind of slowing down one got from watching TV or sleeping for ten hours. The fresh sounds, the sweet air, the unfamiliar bright rays of sunlight streaming in the windows, even the soft exotic textures of the bedclothes—all this newness was like a cleansing rinse to her entire being, especially after the cold misery of New York. In fact, what with the daily dips in the saltwater pool, and the delectable Carlos-home-cooked food, and the boat rides and walks by the lake (she had even found an hour-long Intro to Tai Chi class to take), the whole Peter debacle was receding from her thoughts more quickly than she would have believed possible. It seemed as if that was something that had happened way in the past.

She was actually thinking about Matt more than Peter, she realized, as she explored the villages along the lake—Chapala, Chula Vista, San Antonio, Las Floresta, San Juan Cosala, and Jocotepec. Not that she wished he were here. (“Dear Matt, having a great time, glad you’re not here.”) Part of the relaxation she felt was not having to consider anyone else’s sightseeing needs and desires (Harriet had said to her the first afternoon, “You do what you want, have fun. No need to babysit me.”) Traveling with Matt had always been somewhat stressful, as he was always focused on making sure they saw and did all the things recommended in the New York Times travel section. However, Tess could not help thinking about how much he would have loved to hate the Exquisites hot dog stands, the vendors selling imitation flowers made from corn husks, and the tacky bar at the end of the Ajijic pier with the ridiculous donkey dressed up in a colorful blanket.

It was when she was brushing her teeth one night in front of the sun-shaped tin mirror in the bathroom that she realized her tooth had even stopped hurting, and she thought,: Why not? After all, teeth can’t hurt in paradise, can they? She felt almost guilty at the resort-like living, here at Casa Harriet. But after all, she told herself, it’s not as though she wasn’t planning to endure a grueling two-day bus ride to see the ruins at Palenque the next week. She would definitely earn her “roughing it” points during that trip, from what she had read.



***



Four days after they had arrived in Ajijic, Tess came home from a morning of writing—on the patio of a quiet little coffee place in Chapala called Café Nido del Pajaro (well, mostly she just stared out at the lake watching pleasure boats go back and forth from Scorpion Island, but she had a pen in her hand, and paper, didn’t she?)—to find Carlos and Ana bustling about with more than their usual energy in the kitchen. They told her they were making “una cena especial.”

“I like very much to make my very good birria, with goat, for the guests,” smiled Carlos, pressing the back of a spatula against some chilies toasting in an iron skillet. “This, they never let me to prepare at the restaurant. There, it is always all steak, all grilled salmon, all French fries, always all the time!”

Guests. She had forgotten that Margie and Chilam Balam were expected for dinner tonight. Harriet had alerted Tess two days before that they were coming to stay in a nearby hotel.

“That man better not cross me, that’s all I can say,” Harriet had huffed with an all-too-familiar combative look in her eye. “Once you get on my bad side, you know, Tess, it’s extremely hard to make the journey back over to the other!” But Tess could tell that Harriet was happy-feisty, not really out for blood—that she was mostly filled with nervous anticipation about seeing Margie again.

At six that evening, Tess, having showered and dressed, was just putting on her makeup when she heard the doorbell ring. At least she assumed it was the doorbell, though it sounded more like a clock chiming—the sound of two metallic cuckoo bird calls in a row: cooo-koo, cooo-koo! She opened the bathroom door so she could hear what was happening downstairs. She wanted to give Harriet and Margie privacy for the first few moments together after all these years. But she was too curious not to try to listen in.

She heard Carlos open the door and say, “Hola, Señorita Adams. Please come in. I am Carlos.”

Then she heard Harriet’s booming, husky voice, with a half-plaintive, half-accusatory edge to it. “Well. Finally. Margie Adams! My long lost friend. What have you got to say for yourself?”

There was the sound of the door shutting, and a muffled “Harriet! Oh, my god! Harriet! How are you?” Then the voices got too quiet to hear. After a moment, a voice that was obviously Margie’s said, “I’m so happy to finally see you again, Harriet. You, really … you just look wonderful.”

“Liar! I look horrible. I’m a falling-apart wreck. You’re lucky I’m still breathing after all these years.” Good old Harriet, twisting the knife.

Margie said something Tess could not make out.

“Never mind,” came Harriet’s imperious tone. “And Mr. Chilam Balam, hello. Do sit down. I remember you perfectly.” Now Harriet had switched to her fake sweet voice. “So nice to see you again—it’s been such a very long while. How are you? Doing well, I hope? We saw your murals—is that what they were? I can’t remember if they were murals or paintings—at the Met. It’s so funny, the last time I saw you we were all having dinner at La Rusa, and the next thing I know you’ve absconded, or eloped, or elapsed, with my former assistant, and I do believe, just to add injury to the insult, I even picked up the check that night … .” Former assistant? Tess stopped in the middle of applying her lipstick. For a second she was confused and thought Harriet meant her. Then she realized she was talking about Margie. Harriet had never told her that Marge Adams had been her assistant.

The man said something unintelligible. (It was no surprise that Harriet’s was the only voice that really carried, Tess thought wryly. She had always known how to project.) But Tess did catch the words “didn’t mean to cause any trouble” in there.

“Oh, you didn’t? Do you know I called the embassy? You are lucky you are not rotting in some Mexican jail, Mr. Balam … . No, Margie, don’t defend him. I know if you had been in your right mind … .” Harriet’s tone had started out in the teasing zone but had now crossed over into dangerously angry territory.

Tess quickly put the cap back on the lipstick and almost threw it down on the side of the sink. She better get down there to try to throw some cold water on things before they got out of hand.



Chilam Balam was not at all what Tess expected. For one thing he was obviously American, and for another, he was surprisingly bland-looking, considering he was the artist who had painted all those vivid paintings of people melting and screaming and dying. All his clothes were beige, or in the beige family. Even his face and his hair (a mixture of blond and gray) looked sort of beige. As he sat across the table from Tess in his super-skinny tortoiseshell eyeglasses and long hair, it was hard to tell how old he was. Sixty? Sixty-five? Whenever he laughed he sounded slightly embarrassed, and he would push up slightly on the skin of his left temple and then immediately run his finger quickly across his upper lip. He seemed self-conscious, slightly nerdy.

If Tess had had to guess which one of them was the artist, she would have said Margie, not Chilam. Margie had on chic-looking, loose clothing, the kind of outfit Tess always envied—so simple and understated, and yet so elegant—the kind of outfit that Tess herself could never seem to find, or looked frumpy in when she did. The material of Margie’s pants, top, and scarf were all in slightly different shades of red, from brick to cranberry, which should have clashed but somehow didn’t. From her ears hung chandelier-style sterling and turquoise earrings in the shape of peacocks, and a silver comb held up her long hair into a loose bun on top. Her hair was a sleek silver, with a few strands of brunette showing through.

Once in a while, Tess would come across an older woman who she felt she wanted to be like when she herself got to be that age. Margie was one of these. Probably in her late fifties and entirely comfortable in her body, Margie seemed like someone who practiced yoga regularly—lithe, centered, at home in her skin. For the most part she did not look at Chilam when he spoke, but she was almost always touching him gently, on the back of his hand, on his shoulder, on his knee.

Of course, it turned out his name was not really Chilam. It was Will. William Ball, “of the Balls of Virginia,” he said laughingly, while Carlos was pouring out the wine. “And yes, if you have to know, I am one of the blueblood Balls.” He said it with the air of someone who has gotten good at making the joke before someone else can. He had probably grown up with so many cracks about his name that it had become a part of who he was. But, joke or not, Tess knew, from her mother’s love of all things aristocracy, that the Balls were in fact a prominent old family in Virginia.

“I confess,” Will went on, “if confessing is the right word, I adopted the name when I first became so immersed in the Maya. First it was a joke, a razz from my friends, because it sort of rhymed with William and they could not believe I had gone so very Mayan in my thinking. But then I stared using it for real, as a show of solidarity, for the beliefs of WOOSH. I imagine you’ve probably heard of the Books of Chilam Balam?”

“I have,” said Tess, taking a bite of the delicious, spicy birria. “I don’t know that much about them, but I know there is an important reference to the December 2012 date in one of the books.”

Will nodded. “But now I just use the name for my painting. It’s good for PR.” He smiled happily. “Though people are always taken aback when I show up. I mean, imagine, here I come—this gringo answering to the name of Chilam Balam. They expect a Mayan priest, or at least a Mexican. Not a Wasp from Virginia!” But he looked quite pleased with himself.

“Actually it’s ruffled the feathers of more than a few of the Maya we’ve met,” said Margie. She turned to Will. “I still say you’ve got to think about using your real name for the new project, Will.” He sloughed off her hand and said quickly, “Let’s not discuss that now, corazón.” Margie took a deep breath and picked up her fork.

“So Will-am,” Harriet asked, purposely mispronouncing it to sound more like Chilam, “when I last saw you, you were a sculptor, were you not? When did you make the transition to painting? And not to belittle your obvious talent, but how exactly did you end up at the Met? Side by side with Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros? That’s quite an achievement.” She raised an imperious eyebrow.

Will had a habit of nosily slurping the broth from the birria when he wasn’t the one talking. And now, after this none-too-veiled insult from Harriet, he slurped even louder. Margie gave Will a slightly disapproving look. Tess noticed she did this with a small, silent intake of breath and a tightening around her mouth.

Tess was reminded of a couple she had seen at the café that morning; the man had been using his knife to scrape up bits of egg on his plate, and then was eating right off the knife. His wife, without even looking at him, handed him a fork. She just held it out, until he took it and started using it instead. The whole time the wife kept on talking to the person next to her. Tess had wondered, How many years of marriage does it take to get to that point?

“Actually, Harriet, if you must know,” said Will with a stiff smile, “I was lucky enough to meet a curator at the Arte Moderno in Mexico City, and he really liked my work and felt my pieces would fit nicely into the exhibition. I was incredibly lucky.”

Harriet peered over at him like a suspicious detective shining a flashlight. “I should say so. Siqueiros was a dedicated—not to mention famous—political activist, a brilliant social realist … . As striking as they may be, William, it was … just surprising … to see your Armageddon paintings alongside Siqueiros.”

Will brushed his finger across his lip, then leaned back, took a swig of wine, and smiled in a thoughtful manner. “Well, actually, you know, I did conceive those pieces as a comment on the fall of the common man, the ultimate oppression of the masses, you know, the tragic result of the corporate—”

Margie suddenly started coughing, almost choking. They all realized she was laughing. Will turned his head sharply toward her. She gave him a “come on, now, be honest” look, and he smiled again, this time somewhat sheepishly.

Margie rubbed him fondly on the back. “It didn’t hurt that Will went to Choate with the curator at the Met,” she said.

Everyone laughed long and loudly at this, including Harriet. It seemed to ease the tension that had been with them the whole evening.

Margie turned and regarded Tess. “So, Harriet tells us you are doing an assignment for Wayne Orbus?”

“Yes … well,” said Tess, taking a piece of the sourdough bread called birotes from the basket in the center of the table. “It’s just a paid gig.” She was immediately afraid that sounded too defensive. She did not really know how they felt about WOOSH. “I mean it’s an interesting writing project but …” Tess switched directions, “So, I gather, I mean, do you all know him well?”

“We knew him as much as most people did. But we don’t talk to Wayne anymore,” said Margie. She and Will looked at each other with volumes in their eyes.

“Tess, you don’t have to worry too much about Wayne, but just so you know—” began Margie.

Will turned and put his hand on Margie’s shoulder. “Marge, Tess is very bright. She doesn’t really need to—“

Harriet interrupted. “Yes, Tess does really need to. Chilam, or William, don’t tell me you are still defending Orbus? After everything, all this … ? I want you to tell Tess what she needs to know. I don’t want her disappearing for ten years, like some other people.”

There was an awkward silence, broken only by Ana coming in from the kitchen with more warm corn tortillas. Will looked down at his plate.

“Well, here’s one thing that might give you an idea about Wayne,” said Margie in an arch tone. “After we started moving away from the organization a bit, we found out that when he first started the group in college, it was known as the ‘Wayne Orbus Organization for the Subjugation of Humanity.’”

“Oh, come on, Margie, don’t exaggerate. It was ‘the Saving of Humanity,’” Will insisted.

“Whatever,” said Margie, rolling her eyes.

“That was a million years ago when he was a kid. The point is,” continued Will, “He’s not a cult leader. When Margie and I decided we did not really believe in what WOOSH was doing, because for one thing the more Maya we talked to, the more we realized the whole 2012 phenomenon was made up … There are actually only two specific references to that date in any end-of-the-world way. But anyway, when we decided we wanted to go our own way, no one tried to stop us. We were incommunicado for most of all those years by choice. We were … you know, expatting it. Doing our own thing.”

Here Harriet raised her eyebrows so far up in disdain Tess was afraid they would touch her hairline and set it on fire.

“We just wanted to be around people who thought like us,” continued Will. “We were disgusted with America—”

Margie interrupted, “You were disgusted. I was being supportive.”

“Now it seems,” Will said in a more gentle, apologetic tone, “well, we realized it’s probably it’s not a good idea, not really a positive action, to cut oneself off like that, from so many people.”

Margie reached over and squeezed Harriet’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Harriet. I really felt I was visiting another planet and could no longer breathe the air back in the old one. It just seemed too hard.”

“Well, I’m just glad you are okay,” said Harriet, her eyes moist. “I thought I was going to have to have a hit put out on you, Señor Balam, and have Margie kidnapped and deprogrammed. Thank god you both finally came to your senses … All this f*cking apocalyptic mass hysteria … . I think we can agree the only real end of the world is when Carlos tell us there’s no more birria.”

Everyone laughed, but Will smiled mischievously, pushing his hair back from his ear. “Wait … . Who said we don’t believe the world is ending?”

Margie turned quickly toward him. “Come on, Will, stop it. You’ll freak everybody out.”

Will ignored her and poured himself some more wine. “Listen, no one can deny that something big is happening. Just look at the news. The honeybee is disappearing. Bats are disappearing. Fish are becoming extinct.”

“And Newt Gingrich is running for president!” Tess interjected. She was happy when everyone laughed.

“The point is,” Will continued, “when the food supply shrinks, famine grows. There will be more famine unless the consciousness of the world changes. Famine leads to plague—”

Margie turned to Harriet and winced. “I’m sorry, Harriet, he gets on a roll with this stuff.”

Will leaned back and tilted his head to the side. “Listen, people who prophesy about the end of the world, you know, are successful, and get followers, partially because the theory they hang their hat on has some truth to it … . Like, I’ve recently learned that the super-volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park last erupted over 640,000 years ago but that, unlike most other super-volcanoes on the planet, it is not extinct. The volcano sits on top of a magma chamber that is about fifty miles long, twenty-five miles wide, and five miles deep—that’s a chamber large enough to fit New York City inside it three times over—and this volcano in Yellowstone is still alive and kicking. The crater from the volcano is something like thirty by fifty miles in size. Now, if I wanted to start a movement about it, I could easily put together some history of Earth’s volcanoes, overlay a few portentous Nostradamus passages, and voilà! And that’s just one potential earth-changing phenomenon. There’s—”

“Please! Will, now just stop it!” said Margie, taking her napkin and pretending to tie it over Will’s mouth to shut him up.

Just then Carlos entered from the kitchen and looked in concern at Will and Margie and the napkin. “Everything is okay? Does señor need more water? Birria too spicy?



***