The Falling Woman Read online

  ‘A wonderful and literate exploration of the dark moment when myth and science meet’

  Samuel R. Delany

  ‘Murphy’s sharp behavioural observation, her rich Mayan background and the revolving door of fantasy and reality honourably recall the novels of Margaret Atwood’

  Publishers Weekly

  THE FALLING

  WOMAN

  PAT MURPHY

  Enter the SF Gateway . . .

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  Title page

  Gateway Introduction

  Introduction

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  1 Elizabeth Butler

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  2 Diane Butler

  3 Elizabeth

  4 Diane

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  5 Elizabeth

  6 Diane

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  7 Elizabeth

  8 Diane

  9 Elizabeth

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  10 Diane

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  11 Elizabeth

  12 Diane

  13 Elizabeth

  14 Diane

  15 Elizabeth

  16 Diane

  17 Elizabeth

  18 Diane

  19 Elizabeth

  20 Diane

  21 Elizabeth

  22 Diane

  23 Elizabeth

  24 Diane

  25 Elizabeth

  Gateway Website

  Also by Pat Murphy

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Elizabeth Butler, one of the two viewpoint characters in Pat Murphy’s Nebula Award-winning novel, possesses a rare talent: she is able to see and hear the long-dead people of the past as they go about their daily lives. This is a boon to her professionally, because she is an archaeologist, and her observations of the living past amidst the ruins she and her colleagues are excavating, enable her to make discoveries that can only be explained with reference to ‘luck’ or ‘intuition’.

  But, as all good writers (and observant readers) know, a magical gift never comes free. There is a cost, always, to the user. To a great extent, Elizabeth, once certified insane but now a respected academic, has paid the price by forfeiting close, personal relationships with others. The more interested she is in the dead, the more distant and unreal to her are the people of her own time. Her students and colleagues are used to the way she stares beyond them and a potential lover must settle for a hands-off friendship, while her ex-husband is a chilly enemy, and her own daughter has grown up a virtual stranger.

  Elizabeth’s fascination with other worlds is easy for readers (writers, too) to recognize and sympathize with, because it’s so similar to what happens to us when we’re absorbed by a good book. Even when forced to put the book aside and attend to some other business, that other world still calls to us, and sometimes it can feel more real, and certainly more exciting, than our own lives. Non-readers hate this; they don’t understand, and they feel (sometimes justifiably) threatened, resentful and jealous of the hold that a mere object – words on a page or a screen – has over the one whose attention they seek. These days, when public moral outrage tends to be directed at computer games and pornography, we are no longer warned about the dangers of excessive novel-reading, but they may be as real now as in Jane Austen’s day. Certainly, if a character in the book you were reading started talking back to you, you’d know you were in trouble.

  For Elizabeth Butler, the moment comes when one of the ghosts looks back at her, and speaks. She can no longer remain a passive observer after Zuhuy-kak, once a powerful priestess in the ruined city, recognizes her as a kindred spirit. Or maybe the trouble really starts when Elizabeth’s daughter Diane turns up at the dig and refuses to leave, determined to forge a relationship with a mother she’s known chiefly as an absence in her life. The worlds that Dr Butler has managed to keep separate for so long are about to collide – and during the most dangerously unlucky days of the Mayan calendar.

  The Falling Woman made a powerful impact on many readers (including me) when it was first published in 1986. Too often genre fiction, although fun to read, seems to be set in some alternate reality with very little connection to our own, with ‘Fantasy’ a by-word for pure escapism. I’d be inclined to classify Pat Murphy’s second novel as mainstream literary fiction, if it were not for the fact that the fantasy element is utterly essential to the whole. It’s not treated whimsically, nor is there any ambiguity about it. In mainstream fiction Elizabeth’s ‘separate reality’ would almost certainly be represented as a delusion, a problem in her brain. But although her visionary gift is clearly connected to, or part of, the character’s madness, the author presents it as true – every bit as valid and real as the weather, nature, food, an accident on site, the discovery of an ancient carving, or the pain and anger felt by mother and daughter as they struggle to be understood.

  In many ways The Falling Woman feels like science fiction – it certainly has less in common with the major trends in fantasy than it does with a particular type of classic, Wellsian scientific romance. I’m thinking of the ‘rule’ about allowing just one impossible thing – in this case, Elizabeth’s supernatural ability – and then imagining how a story might flow naturally from that situation. It’s also significant that the main character has a scientific profession, and while the Mayan peoples are hardly ‘aliens’, the clash of cultures is a constant. Conflicts and misunderstandings between the visiting North Americans and the indigenous population are subtly portrayed, and at the heart of the story is a meeting between two individuals from very different worlds. In approach, The Falling Woman is more realist than fantastic, while much of its power comes from the clash between two ways of knowing, or logic vs faith.

  Currently, the much touted new ‘realism’ in fantasy fiction is code for a high level of brutality and graphic violence. Pat Murphy’s realism has more to do with real life – with
psychological and emotional truths, as well as social relationships. Yet this clear and eloquent story is never mired in the inner worlds of its characters: some of the most memorable aspects of The Falling Woman include the vivid evocation of its Central American setting, and the gathering sense of mystery and dread connected to the collapse of the ancient Mayan culture. Despite having been written more than a quarter of a century ago, it has lost none of its impact, but remains fresh, urgent and contemporary.

  Lisa Tuttle

  For my mother, a remarkable woman who taught me many things,

  and

  For Richard, who swam with me in the sacred cenote at Dzibilchaltún

  This is the true account, when all was vague, all was silence, without motion and the sky was still empty. This is the first account, the first narrative. There was neither man nor beast, no bird, fish nor crab, no trees, rocks, caves nor canyons, no plants and no shrubs. Only the sky was there.

  – Popol Vuh of the Quiché Maya

  Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler

  There are no rivers on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The land is flat and dry and dusty. The soil is only a few feet deep, a thin layer of arable land over a shelf of hard limestone. The jungle that covers the land is made up of thin-leafed trees and thorny bushes that turn yellow in the long summer.

  There are no rivers, but there is water hidden deep beneath the limestone. Here and there, the stone has cracked and cool water from beneath the earth has reached the surface and formed a pool.

  The Maya called such pools ts’not – an abrupt, angular sort of a word. The Spanish conquerors who came to the Yucatán softened the word. Cenotes, they called these ancient wells. Whatever the name, the water is cold; the pools are deep.

  Hidden beneath the water are fragments of the old Mayan civilization: broken pieces of pottery, figurines, jade ornaments, and bits of bone – sometimes human bone. In the mythos of the Maya, the cenotes were places of power belonging to the Chaacob, the gods who come from the world’s four corners to bring the rain.

  Dzibilchaltún, the oldest city on the Yucatán peninsula, was built around a cenote known as Xlacah. By Mayan reckoning, people settled in this place in the ninth katun. By the Christian calendar, that is about one thousand years before the death of Christ. But Christian reckoning seems out of place here. Despite the efforts of Spanish friars, Christianity sits very lightly on the land.

  The ruins of Dzibilchaltún cover over twenty square miles. Only the central area has been mapped. One structure, a box-shaped building on a high platform, has been rebuilt. Archaeologists call this building the Temple of the Seven Dolls because seven doll-sized ceramic figures were found buried in its floor. Archaeologists do not know what the ancient Maya called the building, nor what the Maya did in this temple.

  The Temple of the Seven Dolls offers the best view of the surrounding area – a monotonous expanse of thirsty trees and scrubby bushes. Near the Temple of the Seven Dolls, the jungle has been cleared away, and mounds of rock rise from the flat land. Fragments of walls and sections of white limestone causeways are barely visible through the grass and soil. The view would be bleak were it not for the enormous sky, an unbroken expanse of relentless blue.

  Do not look for revelations in the ancient ruins. You will find here only what you bring: bits of memory, wisps of the past as thin as clouds in the summer, fragments of stone that are carved with symbols that sometimes almost make sense.

  1

  Elizabeth Butler

  ‘I dig through ancient trash,’ I told the elegantly groomed young woman who had been sent by a popular women’s magazine to write a short article on my work. ‘I grub in the dirt, that’s what I do. I dig up dead Indians. Archaeologists are really no better than scavengers, sifting through the garbage that people left behind when they died, moved on, built a new house, a new town, a new temple. We’re garbage collectors really. Is that clear?’ The sleek young woman’s smile faltered, but she bravely continued the interview.

  That was in Berkeley, just after the publication of my last book, but the memory of the interview lingered with me. I pitied the reporter and the photographer who accompanied her. It was so obvious that they did not know what to do with me.

  I am an old woman. My hair is gray and brown – the color of the limestone monuments raised by the Maya one thousand years ago. My face has weathered through the years – the sun has etched wrinkles around the eyes, the wind has carved lines. At age fifty-one, I am a troublesome old woman.

  My name is Elizabeth Butler; my friends and students call me Liz. The University of California at Berkeley lists me as a lecturer and field archaeologist, but in actuality I am a mole, a scavenger, a garbage collector. I find it somewhat surprising, though gratifying, that I have managed to make my living in such a strange occupation.

  Often, I argue with other people who grub in the dirt. I have a reputation for asking too many embarrassing questions at conferences where everyone presents their findings. I have always enjoyed asking embarrassing questions.

  Sometimes, much to the dismay of my fellow academics, I write books about my activities and the activities of my colleagues. In general, I believe that my fellow garbage collectors regard my work as suspect because it has become quite popular. Popularity is not the mark of a properly rigorous academic work. I believe that their distrust of my work reflects a distrust of me. My work smacks of speculation; I tell stories about the people who inhabited the ancient ruins – and my colleagues do not care for my tales. In academic circles, I linger on the fringes where the warmth of the fire never reaches, an irreverent outsider, a loner who prefers fieldwork to the university and general readership to academic journals.

  But then, the popularizers don’t like me either. I gave that reporter trouble, I know. I talked about dirt and potsherds when she wanted to hear about romance and adventure. And the photographer – a young man who was more accustomed to fashion-plate beauties than to weatherworn archaeologists – did not know how to picture the crags and fissures of my face. He kept positioning me in one place, then in another. In the end, he took photographs of my hands: pointing out the pattern on a potsherd, holding a jade earring, demonstrating how to use a mano and metate, the mortar and pestle with which the Maya grind corn.

  My hands tell more of my history than my face. They are tanned and wrinkled and I can trace the paths of veins along their backs. The nails are short and hard, like the claws of some digging animal, and the wrists are marked with vertical white scars, a permanent record of my attempt to escape my former husband and the world in the most drastic way possible. The magazine photographer was careful to position my hands so that the scars did not show.

  I believe that the reporter who interviewed me expected tales of tombs, gold, and glory. I told her about heat, disease, and insect bites. I described the time that my jeep broke an axle fifty miles from anywhere, the time that all my graduate students had diarrhea simultaneously, the time that the local municipality stole half my workmen to work on a local road. ‘Picture postcards never show the bugs,’ I told her. ‘Stinging ants, wasps, fleas, roaches the size of your hand. Postcards never show the heat.’

  I don’t think that I told her what she wanted to hear, but I enjoyed myself. I don’t think that she believed all my stories. I think she still believes that archaeologists wear white pith helmets and find treasure each day before breakfast. She asked me why, if conditions were as horrible as I described, why I would ever go on another dig. I remember that she smiled when she asked me, expecting me to talk about the excitement of discovery, the thrill of uncovering lost civilizations. Why do I do it?

  ‘I’m crazy,’ I said. I don’t think she believed me.

  It was three weeks into the field season at Dzibilchaltún that Tony, Salvador, and I held a council of war. We sat at a folding table at one edge of the central plaza, an area of hard-packed dirt surrounded by mud-and-wattle huts. The plaza served as dining hall, classroom, meeting place, and
, at that moment, conference room. Dinner was over and we lingered over coffee laced with aguardiente, a potent local brandy.

  The situation was this. We had thirty men to do a job that would be difficult with twice that number. Our budget was tight; our time was limited. We had been at work for three weeks out of our allotted eight. So far our luck had been nonexistent. And the municipality had just commandeered ten of our workmen to patch potholes in the road between Mérida and Progreso. In the Yucatán, the season for road building coincides with the season for excavation, a brief period in the spring before the rains come. In five weeks – sooner if our luck was bad – the rains would come and our work would end.

  ‘Shall I go talk to the commissioner of highways?’ I said. ‘I’ll tell him that we need those men. I’m sure I could convince him.’

  Salvador took a drag on his cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms. Salvador had been working on excavations since he was a teenager in Piste helping with the restoration of Chichén Itzá. He was a good foreman, an intelligent man who was respectful of his employers, and he did not like to tell me I was wrong. He stared past me.

  I glanced at Tony. ‘I think that means no.’

  Tony grinned. Anthony Baker, my co-director on the excavation, was older than I was by just a few years. We had met nearly thirty years before at a Hopi dig in Arizona. He had been an affable, easygoing young man. He was still easygoing. His eyes were a startling shade of blue. His curly hair – once blond, now white – was sparse where it had been lush. His face was thin, grown thinner over the years, and sunburned as always. Each season he burned and peeled and burned again, despite all his efforts to block the sun. His voice was low and gravelly, a soft rough whiskey voice with a deep rumble in the throat, like the voice of a talking bear in a fairy tale.