A Ballad of Two Brothers

Is it a city or a lizard? It splashes its rugged tail, it frolics by the mangroves. The tail widens into a body of boulders all tangled in vines and bushes, sprinkled with palms here and there. The beast’s belly is a pink beach. The head is that hill, its eye blinking.

Mazatlán, says the flight attendant as she points to the rocks, the promontories, the stone mansions, the thatch huts, beaches, the tangle of greenery. She pans to the blinking light.

That is the second tallest lighthouse in the world.

Then she looks at me.

And you are Mayte? The Parkour Girl?

That is what they call me, with capital letters. But I am not a girl: I am eighteen. I run on buildings and climb posts, leap above crevasses formed by streets and alleyways. I have trained for years to dominate, to look down on cities. And now I am here to compete in my mother’s land. We’ll see if the Land of Deer delivers on its promises.

Mazatlán is two cities. A modern one flows on cars and bakes in the sun, while an ancient one sings and dances under the stars, the dark broken only by moon and fire: bonfires, candles, gaslight torches; and the matches as long as candles the lamplighter deploys to light his charges. He buys the matches at Casa Pantoja, a business throngs walk in and out of constantly, as soon as the sun goes down.  

I enjoy scaling houses in the semidarkness. I have learned to map shadows above roofs and trees. While my Parkour trainer, organizers, and buddies sleep I leap on balconies, climb above their snoring heads.

Late this afternoon I climbed to the Customs building at Playa Sur, where the waters were calm. I played with the waves a bit and as the sun approached the horizon I returned to the beach, only to find that my shoes were missing! I decided to go back to the water and get to my hotel on Olas Altas by sea rather than walking barefoot. Just swim out with the peninsula on my right, turn the corner on Crestón Hill, and swim back with the peninsula on my left, straight towards Olas Altas.  

As I approached the tip of Crestón the waves increased. I soon heard a strange melody in a man’s voice: a high note rolled downward in a scale that was not ionic or dorian or anything I could recognize.  Then another voice started on the lower note and retraced the same notes to the top. As I turned the tip I was faced with two great white rocks. And on each, a young man. One would dive from his rock, singing the descending scale, and then climb up his rock again, with the music retracing its steps to the top.  Then the other would do the same. They greeted me with a smile, but did not stop for a long time. They soon resumed their diving, swimming underwater, climbing, singing.

Is there a lot to fish here? I asked.

Yes, said One. But…

We are fishing for a sea shell, said the Other.

A shell? There are a lot on the beach, I said, pointing at Olas Altas.

It is not just any shell, said the Other. We are looking for the most beautiful …

In the sea, said One. A shell like…

A pearl, said Other. His green eyes shone. There was something ghostly in his complexion. And in One’s. Their long hair was tangled and greenish like seaweed.

Look at my catch, said One. He opened his sack full of scallops, oysters, conchs, all manner of shells, pink or gold or ivory or iridescent. His skin was coarse and scraggy, and it shone in the same hues of his many treasures.

Other followed suit, his hands brimming with lovely specimens. What do you say about this one?

Who is it for? I asked.

A beautiful—said One.

Woman, said Other. You might meet her. She lives on Olas Altas.  Her hair is long, crazycurly tight, and her skin shines like burnished—

Gold, said Other.

Rosa! Is her name Rosa by any chance?

Of course not, said One. She…

Is Estrella, said Other.

I wished them luck and said goodbye, but they would not let me go alone.

The currents are too strong, said Other.

One said We’ll show you how to skirt them.

And so I turned around Crestón Hill, escorted by two inseparable brothers, seaworthy and strong like their white rocks, rough-skinned like the shells they sought, luminous like the sun their eyes reflected, doomed to I know not what fate by a woman who shone like a dark star. As we reached Olas Altas they pointed at one of the thatch-roofed huts surrounding the mansions.

She lives there, they said in unison.

They turned around in a hurry, as if afraid of being held in the thrall of that golden woman of their dreams.