CHAPTER SIX: DREAMTIME

Early the next morning, Hornsby promptly informed me that I would have two more weeks at this settlement at which point I would return to San Cristobal de las Casa for further instructions.
“Every time I visit this settlement,” Hornsby complained, “you’ve been ill prepared. You have an obligation to produce something more sufficient to at least validate your graduate work, which I might add, I’ve signed on as your advisor. I am beginning to wonder what you are doing here?” Hornsby was indignant.
“Yes, of course,” I sheepishly replied.
I wanted to counter with complaint about Cassarina taking up my time, cataloging her plants, but I could see Hornsby had a short fuse to a big stick of explosives.
“To speak plainly, Jules, I can’t afford your tone with me.” Hornsby turned and marched off.
I stood there swaying in perplexed emotions, feeling that the man wanted to shoot me, but I didn’t want to judge him that harshly.
“What can he expect from me?” I thought.
For the most part, Cassarina had over heard our conversation from the field station tent. She was unusually silent the rest of the day, keeping her distance. I emotionally withdrew. I kept out of her way. Why is it that those who have suffered much, cause others to suffer? Even the villagers sensed my compunction and kept their distance. Later in the evening, as Cassarina and I ate our meal of paella and tortillas, she broke the daylong silence.
“Don’t be so penny wise and pound foolish. You ought to apologize.”
“It’s not my style.” I didn’t want to dare hint at the very thing that had caused the riff between Hornsby and I.
“He’s a bit mad, you know.” Cassarina set down her empty bowl on the table before her and leaned back against her camp chair, relaxed and cross-legged in the lantern light.
“He’s not mad.” I protested.
For a few moments, she twirled a long curl of her long dark hair, contemplating her thoughts. My colleague spoke frankly with me with a pose of magnificent eloquence.
“You could have looked through your analysis microscope to see it. But then again, you’re in the petri dish along with him, so how could you?” Cassarina fell silent for a moment then said with frankness.
“He really can’t go back.”
“Back?”
“The university -- Cambridge and his tenure. It’s much too desolate for him. This is where he belongs.”
Cassarina words dissipated the blinders about my eyes. She was absolutely right. Hornsby had crossed over. How could one expect him to re-adapt to the occidental milieu after immersing oneself in the aboriginal world. And more so, as Cassarina pointed out, he is a solitary man.
“I can see it in his eyes, Jules. During our meetings, he was always looking hopefully at you, like you were his protégée. His tough exterior is just ornamental.”
I had no conception of this. Her counsel fascinated me and echoed within me the truth of Hornsby’s aching solitude. At the core of it, his wilderness was my wilderness.
“The two of you are like two ships rafted together in a becalmed sea, impatiently waiting for a stiff breeze to fill your sails,” Cassarina philosophized.
I put down my bowl, wondering if she wasn’t just patronizing me. Cassarina reassured me that not all was lost. She dared to say that she would advocate for my continuance with her, as I had proven to be a reliable assistant for her work.
“Cassarina, how can you compare me to him?” I ventured to understand her motivation for talking with me in such context. “I don’t have the same abilities as him.”
“You both are insurgents to social change. However, one is more seasoned than the other. But each of you keep each other alive, that’s enough.” Cassarina turned to look out at the shadowy jungle brush about the field station tent where an uncommon rustling was heard. “I’d hate to see him abandoned. A man with such ideas, vision,
he needs you like an antidote for poison.”
Lost for a thoughtful reply I excused myself for the evening, retiring in my hammock under the lean-to I had constructed. I didn’t sleep, but lay awake fidgeting in restlessness, watching the passing of a golden slice of moon augmented by glittering stars moving across eternity. The luster of the celestial sky, the Milky Way, was crowded out by the long shadow of gloom pressing upon my heart.
All the while that Cassarina had been talking, I was slipping down a steep emotional ravine. The dream, that confounded dream that I had for several nights in a row, I couldn’t belie its existence. I forced myself not to talk about it. I was fearful that it would prove prophetic. I knew this without a doubt. But the more I tried to keep its secret the more it tried to creep into my conscious reality.
Its phantom presence was now overshadowing my every daily thought and action. I could hear the dream’s voice whispering when the Lacandon starred into my eyes, tacitly knowing. I sensed that their telepathic powers slipped through my mental shield of denial.
These indigenous people didn’t tolerate lies. No, such cunning was considered dishonorable. One must shoulder the burden of their vicissitudes no matter how bitter the taste of its truth. Least of all, I would get no absolution from them if I continued to harbor the danger to my situation because they would consider my silence as bringing ill will upon them. By daybreak, I had had the fill of my distraught emotions that conflicted with my inscrutable purpose to be honest with myself. I was desperate to find a resolve to this nightmare.