“From the sugar dick?” Jenny asked. Her head was swimming a little from the cane liquor.
“The sugar...” Kisa began to repeat, then she laughed and shrugged. “Sugar dick.”
Jenny snickered while she returned her cup to the tamale vendor, and Kisa paid him from the roll of pesos Alexander had provided.
“Ka xi’ik teech utsil,” the man said. Good luck to you. It was a way of saying goodbye.
“Béey xan teech,” Jenny replied. And to you.
The next stall sold a combination of local textiles and tourist trinkets, including a number of t-shirts. Many shirts featured a man in what looked like a black ski mask, with the letters “EZLN” printed in red. Other shirts featured a drawing of a young girl with long braids on either side of her head. A red triangle of cloth hid most of her face, except for her eyes. The letters “EZLN” were printed in black on the cloth. The words above her face were “Las Mujeres,” and the text beneath her face read “Con la Dignidad Rebelde.”
“What are these?” Jenny asked, pointing to the T-shirt.
“Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional,” Kisa told her. “The army of the revolution. Against the power in Mexico City.”
“Do you like them?” Jenny asked.
Kisa nodded quickly. “Good for our people.” She pointed to the text under the girl's face and translated slowly: “'Women with rebel dignity.'”
“Okay, I definitely like that,” Jenny said. “Should I buy one?”
The T-shirt vendor turned to them, after completing a transaction with a group of well-dressed Mexican tourists. He was a young man with dark sunglasses, smoking a cigarette. He wore jeans and one of the black Zapatista t-shirts with the masked man. When he saw Jenny, he pushed the STOP button on his boom box and removed the Spanish-language rap CD he'd been playing. He switched it out for another disc.
“For the pretty American girl,” he said. Cyndi Lauper played over the speakers, and Jenny laughed. She pointed to one of the Zapatista shirts featuring the little girl in her bandit-like mask, and the vendor quickly pushed it into her hands. Kisa paid for it. Alexander had entrusted her with the shopping money, since the locals were far less likely to overcharge a Mayan girl than a white tourist.
Jenny added her new shirt to the woven shopping bag she carried, which already held a pair of leather sandals and a mixture of Mayan and Western-style clothes she'd bought here in the open-air market. She wouldn't need to borrow Kisa's clothes anymore.
They moved on to another stall, where Kisa stopped to admire the amber jewelry. The old woman behind the table smiled, her eyes flicking over Jenny, possibly sensing a gringo tourist with money to burn.
Jenny looked back over her shoulder. Manuel was at a row of butchers' stalls, negotiating over some smoked meats.
“So nice,” Kisa said, looking over the yellow and red amber pieces crafted into beaded bracelets, earrings and necklaces.
“You can have one if you want.” Jenny reached for a bracelet of red amber pieces, and Kisa gasped and shook her head.
“Red is very...” She rubbed her fingers together.
“Expensive?”
“Very expensive.” Kisa nodded.
“Okay...what about this one?” Jenny picked up a necklace of yellow amber pieces, with one small red piece right at the front. She spread it across her palm—Jenny wore a pair of gloves Kisa had made for her with the bright colors and intricate geometric weaving of Mayan craft. They covered Jenny up to the elbow, when fully unrolled. A great gift.
Now Jenny held the amber necklace out to Kisa, who studied it with wide, admiring eyes.
“Is there enough money to buy this?” Jenny asked.
Kisa hesitated, then nodded.
“Then go ahead.”
Kisa paid the jeweler, and the old woman spoke a cheerful stream of mixed Mayan and Spanish, which Jenny didn't understand. Jenny put the amber necklace over Kisa's head and pulled it down to her shoulders. Kisa lifted the single piece of red in her fingers and gazed at it, and her eyes turned moist. Then she dropped the necklace and threw her arms around Jenny.
Jenny tilted her head back to avoid any contact that might kill her friend. She hugged Kisa back, cautiously, careful not to do any harm.
“Yum botic,” Kisa whispered. “'in yabitmech.”
“Mixba,” Jenny replied. She knew Kisa's first phrase meant thank you. She wasn't sure about the rest of it.
They followed the sound of drums to an area where street performers in traditional costume put on a dance. One of them was dressed as a deer, including a deer head mounted on top of his own like the stacked faces in a totem pole. Others in black and white body paint pursued him with spears. He leaped back and forth, more and more frantic as the hunters closed in around him and the drums and flute music accelerated in tempo.