LTHOUGH a marionette would have been of much service to the priests in the teocalla, to lend an aura of reality to the fantastic faith of the sun-worshipers, two reasons convinced Lassiter the figure was a woman. The promoter did not believe that any sculptor on Motobatl could handle the human figure with such mastery; and last, a school that could produce such art would condemn the vast baroque façade in which it was housed. The two were incompatible. The figure was a woman.
No doubt she knelt in some sort of trance. Primitive peoples are often skilled in such occultism: the fakirs of India, the Aissaoui of North Africa, the snake-dancers of New Mexico. He turned to the
“How long has your abuela been like that, Tilita?”
“Ever since my madre was a tiny niña. Her husband, my grandfather, was drowned in the lake, so my abuela joined her lord in the Sun.” She paused, then added, “My grandmother has thirty-nine years now—sixteen in the sun.”
The number registered on Lassiter with odd emphasis. The Venus in the teocalla was, or had she lived, would have been, precisely his own age. By some means it had been possible to preserve a beauty such as Tilita possessed even in Molobatl.
The two lovers were now walking up the jungle in the angle between the river and the cliffs. The sound of rushing water was so pronounced as to make conversation difficult. In the jungle were their bird snares, and Tilita ran before to examine each one before Lassiter reached it. One had caught a bird, a tanager. The girl beckoned gaily for Lassiter to come and hold it while she tied on a message to the outer world.
She did it gaily, as a sort of game, because Motobatl was not a prison, but a universe to her who knew nothing else.
The two worked their way through the jungle to the bank of the river where.it debouched into the cliff. The stream was about forty yards wide at the place of its disappearance. The volume of water rushed down its stony bed, struck the opposing wall, piled up, was deflected in a great whorl back on itself, then spun around a hole in the center of the flood and vanished with a gigantic sucking sound.
The whirlpool stirred a cool breeze on the sultriest days. The green fronds and flowers along its banks waved in a perpetual blast. But what always held and amazed Lassiter was the hole in the maelstrom. From the shore, it seemed a yard or two in width. It swung here and there in the wheeling waters. Its glassy funnel twisted and bent with that strange sucking sound that ranged from a ground bass to a shrill cacophony. Once every hour or so the hole would close with a sort of gulp; would ensue a confused roaring, a spouting, a coughing up of tons of water as if some monster were suffocating. After some minute or two of this confusion, the hole would suck open again and take up its spin.
All water seems alive, but the debouchment of Motobatl river with its sucking, gasping, swallowing and renewed sucking gave the most ferocious impression that Lassiter had ever observed.
While Lassiter watched the green whorl, another bird was entangled on one of the limed cords. Tilita saw it and hurried to get it before it smeared its wings. Presently she came pushing back through the undergrowth with some sort of goldfinch in her hands. She held it aloft jubilantly for Lassiter to admire its bright orange body and black wings. She put the bird in his hands to hold while she bound the message to its leg. Tilita had a child's instinct for divination. Now, to test the fate of the message, she tossed it in the air to see what direction it would take. This infallibly showed what course the bird would fly. Lassiter entered into her little superstition and entertained her by telling what cities the bird would find in that direction. This always led to a description of trains, ships, buildings, theaters, bull fights—thus in a way, every message Tilita sent forth carried her fancy on wonderful journeys.
This time the bit of paper danced in the air and sailed toward the brink of the whirlpool. The girl darted to its rescue. She leaned so far out that Lassiter was frightened. The paper eluded her, went over a little bank of stone down to the very water's edge. Tilita was after it instantly, with a girl's limberness. She was out of sight under the bank for only an instant when Lassiter heard her shriek above the suck of the maelstrom.
The man leaped to the bank and looked over. To his relief, he saw the girl just beneath him. She was apparently in no danger at all, but was stooping and staring into the water.
“Lord, Tilita, what a turn you gave me—What is it?”