Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,91
terribly hot: they called the road south of Tijuana the “road to hell” for a reason. Even the shade of the whitewashed shed that served as the train “station,” with a few benches and little else for show, offered no solace. Hun-Kamé and Casiopea fanned themselves with their hats and contemplated the border town.
Prohibition had been good to Tijuana. Avenida Revolución, the artery of the city, was jammed with hotels and establishments selling curiosities to the tourists. There were rows of eateries, many advertising themselves in English. Peddlers walked around the streets trying to entice the newcomers with their wares. At a corner, a man stood with a donkey painted as a zebra, offering to take photographs of children riding on its back for a low fee.
The number of saloons had doubled in the span of a few years. Gambling clubs mushroomed: Monte Carlo, the Tivoli Bar, the Foreign Club. Raunchy establishments mixed with others that promised a glimpse of “old Mexico,” a false creation more romantic than any Hollywood film. But what did the tourists know? The Americans streamed into Mexico, ready to construct a new playground for themselves, to drink the booze that was forbidden in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, but flowed abundantly across the border. Lady Temperance had no abode here. The longest bar in the world was in Tijuana, and it charged fifteen cents for a beer. Even as far away as New York people talked about casinos like the Sunset Inn, where one could win or lose a fortune playing faro and monte. There was music too. Dancers, even magicians pulling rabbits out of hats.
Everyone visited Tijuana, jamming the crossings at Calexico and San Ysidro. Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, they all ventured there. Rich men in tweed suits from back east, very formal, would let loose upon the dance floor. Wild types with a thing for jazz hustled their way through town. Criminals, prostitutes, liquor runners, and the cream of the crop, crammed together, smoking cigarettes, pushing back tequila, slamming down the dollar bills.
Casiopea and Hun-Kamé found their way across this haven of hedonism and into one of its hotels, where they spoke to a clerk who said that they’d need to hire an automobile to get to Tierra Blanca.
“It’s the damn best hotel and casino in this state. You head off down the coast, past Rosarito,” the clerk told them. “There’s cars willing to drive you down in the morning, but they get scarce at night.”
Since it was now nighttime, and since they were both tired from their adventure in El Paso—although at this point Casiopea was always tired, not for any reason—Hun-Kamé booked two rooms. The clerk assured them he’d fetch them an automobile in the morning.
Casiopea lost no time in slipping into her nightgown and falling upon the bed. The room was cramped and stuffy. There were also too many pillows, and she shoved them to the floor.
She had evaded Xibalba the previous nights, but now the nightmare returned. She saw the Black Road, the gray landscape with its strange plants. Casiopea had the sensation she was not alone, the rustling of wings alerting her to something strange in the air. Again she arrived at a lake of pure blue, glowing softly, and then there was the blood welling from her wrists. The blood ran down her body, the skin sloughed off her bones, leaving the pulsating flesh, and birds with mighty beaks pecked at her, tearing chunks of meat. They pecked her bones clean and then those bones were laid beneath the obsidian throne, and Vucub-Kamé sat on this throne with a necklace made of human skulls around his neck.
She woke up screaming. The rooms were connected, and Hun-Kamé must have heard her because he rushed in, looking startled. At first Casiopea said nothing. She was terribly embarrassed. She’d roused him, and he seemed entirely unsure of whether he should speak or dash out.
“What is it?”
“I died,” she told him, her mouth trembling, although she had meant to say “I had a dream, I’ll go back to sleep,” even if the dream had followed her, the room eerily quiet, the shadows much too dark. On the floor, a pillow might have been a wild creature ready to strike, and the wallpaper, it was the foliage of a distant jungle.
“I was in Xibalba.”
The name, so soft, like an insect’s wing, and his face, upon hearing it, strained, uncertain. She kicked the covers away and stood