Open Doors
   

Mexico City
    Annie stood on the roof of the hotel and peered over the railings. The city stretched beyond her vision. On the street below, hundreds of people milled around. Arguments raged amongst groups of men. Old women stood and gossiped on the hotel steps, ignoring the doorman who was flapping like a chicken, trying to shoo the women away. A couple kissed and groped in a doorway. Beetles and combis hurtled around corners, narrowly missing those who queued for tortas at a food stall. There was noise everywhere. Annie took a lungful of the filthy air, and went back inside, skipping like a ten-year-old.
   
    Before flying to Mexico City, there had been a three-day stopover in San Diego. One night, Annie sat on a concrete slab on Broadway, the main street downtown, into which a ‘No Parking’ sign had been fixed. She was eating a Chinese meal with a plastic fork. The meal had taken ten minutes to eat. In that time, she had seen three cars and one taxi. She had seen one couple walking. They were walking to their car.
   
    Annie and Jon walked through the Mexico City backstreets, weaving their way through the crowd. Hawkers and stallholders were packing up for the day. Commuters were finishing their after-work drinks and making their way home. The first of the night-flies were coming out to play. In the distance, cinema and casino lights flashed on and off.
    Closer to home, dim neon marked the entrance to a quiet bar. Jon pushed the door open for Annie. She walked inside, then looked back angrily at Jon.
    “What’s up with you?” he asked.
    “I can open doors for myself.”
    “Fine. A beer?”
    “Please.”
    Jon waited at the bar. The barman put a bottle of Sol in front of him. The men on barstools stopped and looked at him. Jon thought for a moment, then asked for two Negras. The barman took the Sol bottle away, smiled, and said: “Yes, my friend,” then something else which Jon didn’t understand. Jon gave a false grin and nodded, hoping he hadn’t agreed to anything that he’d regret. One of the men shook his hand. Jon felt like he’d passed some sort of test.
   
    “I didn’t mind you opening the door, Jon.”
    “Good.”
    “It was just that they stared at me.”
    “Who?”
    “Them.” Annie gestured towards the bar. No one was looking in their direction. “They’ve stopped now.”
    “Hmm,” Jon said, and drank the rest of his beer.
    “You think I’m paranoid.”
    Jon shrugged his shoulders.
    “Hmm,” said Annie, frowning, “my round?”
    “Same again please.”
    Annie went to the bar.
    “Two Negras please.”
    “Ah, the wife of the Yankee,” said the barman, “how do you like Mexico City?”
    “It’s very nice, very... exciting?” said Annie, hoping she’d got the word right. Apparently she had. She took the drinks back to the table. Jon was staring towards the corner of the room, where a band was setting up.
    “You’re an American,” said Annie.
    “Eh?”
    “According to the barman.”
    “Oh dear.”
    “And we’re married.”
    “Oh, right... nice place for it.”
    The band began to play a slow waltz.
    “Darling,” she said, “they’re playing our tune.”
    “Very funny.” He lit a cigarette.
    The waltz finished to the sound of scattered applause. The band played a polka. Two old men mimed a tango across the dancefloor on their way to the bar. The barman rushed over to the stage and picked up a microphone. He spoke too quickly for Annie to comprehend. Then he shouted: “María López!” which brought applause from all around the bar.
    A fat woman in a billowing black dress, with hair tied back in a face-stretching bun, danced up onto the stage with implausible vigour. More applause. Someone whistled. María López smiled and waved. The she covered her face with her hands. The barman reached behind him and turned the lights down. María brought down her hands to reveal a sad, determined expression. The guitarist played a ringing minor chord. Trumpets echoed him, and then she began to sing.
    “Flamenco?” whispered Annie.
    Jon nodded.
    They were wrong. The song was a torchy jazz ballad, but sung without frills, allowing the simple tune to come across. Around the tables, all conversations stopped. Someone dropped a glass. No one made to pick it up.
    At the end of the song, the barman brought up the house lights. People started talking again. Drinks were bought. A drunken man in the corner was wiping tears from his face.
   
    In San Diego, Annie had walked back along Broadway, to the youth hostel. She heard footsteps behind her. She sped up, but still they were there. She slowed down so as not to seem scared. The steps continued to follow her. Finally she swung around to face her pursuer, but there was no one there. She had a thought, and stamped her foot. The echo was clear and distinct.
   
    Jon tried to keep up with Annie on the way back to the hotel. He was drunk, and kept stumbling, unable to keep in step. An old woman was walking ahead, down an alleyway. He fixed a grin to his face for when she turned to face him. She didn’t look around. As he passed her, she said in a hoarse voice: “Good evening, Señor.” He spun on his heels, widened the grin, and tipped his cap.
    “Annie!”
    “What?”
    “Slow down, for Pete’s sake.”
    “We should get back.”
    “Listen, the old dears aren’t scared walking around here. Let’s just take it easy, OK.”
    Annie linked arms with him. “You’re pissed, you know that?” she said.
    “Hmm,” said Jon.
   
   

Building Blocks
   

Teotihuacán
    From the Pyramid of the Moon, the city was laid out in perfect symmetry. This was power, oppression and magnificence in stone.
    The Pyramid of the Sun dominated. It stood on one side of a wide avenue. There were thousands of tourists, all Mexicans, walking the Avenue of the Dead between the Temple of Quetzalcóatl, and the pyramids - a paved mile that had been walked by sacrificial victims. Nonetheless, the sheer scale of the place made the Avenue seem empty. The structure was everything, the people insignificant.
    In the distance were mountains; volcanic, sharply defined against the clear sky.
   
    200 B.C. The elders of a prosperous tribe are standing on a hill overlooking rich farmland. Nearby tribes have been conquered and enslaved. The elders worry that their fortunes may change. Some of them are old enough to remember famine. They have performed sacrifices to ensure good harvests, but as the population grows, their fears have been increasing. Something more must be given to the gods.
    They will make their own mountains. These will be aligned to meet the rays of sun and moon, to illuminate the grandest rituals. They have engineers who will plan; they have slaves who will build.
   
    Teotihuacán had been abandoned fifteen hundred years before. At its height, it had ruled most of Mexico. Even in decline, its influence had laid the foundation for the cultures of the Zapotec and the early Maya.
    Opposite the Temple of the Sun were platforms - pyramids with the top three-quarters unbuilt. Some had been the foundations of temples or palaces - others simply of houses and stores. Flat stones provided the base for stylised sculptures of snakes and eagles, square and solid, and decorated with space-filling intricacy.
   
    At three o’clock, Annie and Jon took a bus back to the centre of Mexico City.
    Jon walked slowly around the base of the Aztec temple. Swollen green cacti grew in cracks, where the building blocks had disintegrated. The temple was smaller and less impressive than the pyramids at Teotihuacán - but most of the stones had been looted to build the cathedral which stood opposite, imposing and black with pollution.
    At least for symbolic purposes, this place could be regarded as the centre of Mexico. Tenochtitlán, the city on the lake, was the citadel of the final, most powerful, and most brutal Indian civilisation - itself conquered and exploited by Cortés. What was left was a crumbling pyramid standing defiantly next to the Metropolitan cathedral. Around it was the Zócalo, a wide, paved square built onto the filled-in lake bed. This had given its name to the central plaza of every Mexican town. Beyond the Zócalo was the city which housed a quarter of Mexico’s population, from the wealthy enclaves of San Angel and Coyoacán to the shanty towns which stretched out to the foothills of the mountains.
   
   

Tiny People Who Built Empires
   

Mexico City
    Jon had left Annie seeing the temple exhibits for herself. He had stared at them for a time, but had not been able to picture things as they were in the pre-Columbian city. He felt as if he were in a theme park.
    Outside the temple, Jon bought a stick of sugar cane, sat on a wall and began to chew. The cane-seller clapped his hands once, grinned hugely, and began to speak. Jon rolled his eyes in frustration. Just then, Annie emerged from the exhibition room and joined the men on the wall.
    “What did you say please? My friend speaks no Spanish.”
    “I said I’ve sold him my last sugar cane. Would you like to talk?”
    “Yes. We talk. Very good.”
    “Yankee?”
    “No, Australian. He is English.”
    “Your husband?”
    “No. My friend.”
    “Are you making babies?”
    Jon’s eyes widened in half-recognition. “Is he trying it on with you?”
    “No, but I think he’s about to.” Jon looked down at his feet.
    She continued, in Spanish: “He is my protector.”
    The cane-seller stifled a chuckle. Jon chewed.
    “Tourist?”
    “Travellers,” answered Annie. It was Jon’s turn to bite back a snigger.
    “This isn’t Mexico,” said the cane-seller after a pause. “This is Europe. Look at the people.”
    A queue had formed outside the exhibition, made up of tall, white backpackers; clones of Annie and Jon in denim shorts or long skirts with printed T-shirts, adorned with charms and friendship bracelets. Mingling with them were a few middle-aged American couples, in polyester slacks and Hawaiian shirts, scowling under their hats.
    “I am from Oaxaca,” said the cane-seller; adding with a flourish: “that is Mexico!”
   
    Taking a tube-train to the museums, there was no doubt as to where they were. They were the only foreigners on the train, and they stood a head taller than everyone around them.
    “See their faces, Jon.”
    Aztecs were all around; quiet and dark, with straight black hair hanging over angled foreheads, these tiny people who had built empires.
   
   

Mapping The Place
   

Oaxaca
    The bus from Mexico City arrived in Oaxaca at dawn. It was cold and misty. Jon sat on a bench in the bus station, while Annie made telephone calls to sleepy hoteliers. Around him, there were tears and kisses as Oaxacans were met my waiting friends and relatives.
    Half an hour later they were in the grubby reception area of a cheap hotel, talking to an elderly woman who seemed to be running the place single-handed. Señora Garcia was trailed by a grand-daughter, about three years old, on whom Jon was trying out his Spanish. The little girl giggled at him. The matriarch purred her approval. Annie checked in, then asked about Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruin a few miles from the city.
    “Take the workers’ bus,” said the Señora, “it’s cheaper and there are no tourists.”
   
    It was raining when they reached Monte Alban, and the mist was becoming ever thicker.
    “Better get out there before it all disappears,” said Jon.
    He walked the length of the excavated site. Unable to see more than a few yards ahead, he was mapping the place in his mind. At the north and south ends were two huge platforms, and between them, the citadel: the palace, the ball-court, and a temple altar, where both victory (on the ball-court) and defeat (in battle) received the same reward - death.
    He met Annie at the foot of the pyramid temple. Halfway up the structure was a ledge.
    “It says here they had a drain for the blood,” Annie deadpanned, reading from a leaflet. They stood in silence until driving rain forced them under cover. They sheltered under a stone arch.
    “Christ, Look at these!” he said. Leaning against the back of the arch were large stones, carved in relief. The carvings depicted victims of sacrifice and torture; tongues ripped out by disembodied fists, amputated penises held aloft, the stumps erect. Bodies were shown pierced like a bull in the ring. Within the child-like cartoon scenes, agonised expressions were displayed graphically.
    The rain eased a little and Jon began to wander. He climbed the steps of the south platform and stood alone. There were a few other visitors, but the mist muffled the sound of their voices. Jon could picture the place as a living city; the religious elite, holed away in the stone palaces, prescribing and dominating the lives of shack-dwelling farmers for miles around.
    Like Teotihuacán, and like every other Mexican civilisation, Monte Alban had collapsed when ritual superseded the practical agrarian life which it was intended to support. Grand as it was, the citadel bled the life out of the city. Cortés conquered the country with five hundred men, plus horses and smallpox.
    That was five hundred years after Monte Alban. Jon’s vision became clearer; visualising the horror of pre-Columbian life: solemn, formal brutality, performed as a routine and as a celebration.
    In those days, Europeans were busy nailing each other to crosses.
   
   

The Bandstand
   

Oaxaca
    It was market day.
    Jon watched Annie disappear into a knickknack shop. Through the window, he saw her admiring dreamcatchers. He made his way into the covered market hall. The centrepiece of the market was a bandstand, where mariachi musicians were taking a break. Next to the bandstand was a musical instrument stall. Balgo guitars and mandolins were lined up against a wooden support. Jon picked up a mandolin and played the first few bars of “Losing My Religion”. The instrument had a discordant ring to it, and was hard to tune. The decoration was beautiful though, hand-painted in primary colours. The vendor took the instrument back and strummed a fast, minor-key flamenco rhythm. Discordancy disappeared as his right hand traced the time signature and picked out harmonics so high as to be barely audible.
    Jon felt suddenly self-conscious. He had been staring in wide-eyed admiration for a very long time. He coughed into his hand, said “thank you”, and hurried away to get something to eat.
    With a stomach full of pollo con mole - chicken in bitter chocolate, Mexico’s secret delicacy, Jon walked through the market, listening to the animated banter, the mariachi music, and the relentless chatter of children.
    A group of belching drunks were sitting on the pavement outside an unmarked shop. Jon walked in and bought two bottles of mezcal, along with some mango juice and lemonade. The mezcal bottles were wax-sealed and had hand-painted labels, with an abstract design in pastel shades. The rain had stopped, and it was getting hot outside. He guzzled the lemonade down and left the market. He walked up a wide avenue, toward colonial buildings. Skinny and frightened dogs jumped out his way. The first of the colonial buildings was the army barracks. Through the gate, a mestizo sergeant was leading a company of Indian squaddies on parade. Their steps were hesitant. The sergeant shouted abuse at the least coordinated of the soldiers. The boy’s next attempt to present arms was, if anything, more ragged than his first. The sergeant shook his head. Jon continued on his way, past mansions with high, greeny-white outer walls. Two jeeps turned a corner toward the army compound. Jon turned and walked the mile or so back to the zócalo.
    He stood outside a café, looking for a spare table, and felt an arm around his waist.
    “Hi Annie.”
    “Hiya. What have you been doing?”
    “Buying booze.”
    She smiled indulgently, then said: “Do you fancy going to the theatre?”
   
   

The Actress
   

Oaxaca
    The audience sat in a circle, ten rows in depth, around the stage. Annie felt conspicuous. She had put on rudimentary make-up, and pressured Jon into shaving, but they still looked out of place in their travelling clothes.
    Throughout her travels, in smart gatherings, dressing down had seemed like a nicely subversive act - especially in England, where it felt like a patriotic duty to offend stuffy Poms. Here, she felt like a spoilt child slumming while the locals put on their Sunday best.
    The lights went down and she relaxed.
    The play was a broad melodrama, with death and misery aplenty. Every few moments she whispered the plot and choice lines into Jon’s ear. It was all she could do to avoid a running commentary on the linguistic nuances, each diminutive, exaggeration and feminisation which provided the poetry and rhythm. Amidst all this was character of the heroine, middle-aged, yet overpowering in her sexuality.
    Annie felt wooden in comparison. There was something going on here, something which her own culture could and would not deal with - in real life possibly, and in art definitely. Hollywood’s idea of passion was a parody of teenage lust, and the English denied the existence of passion. The best Australia could come up with was a mixture of the two. A woman of fifty, overtly sensual as this, would have to be portrayed as a madwoman or a sad act.
   
    Back in the hotel, Annie was trying to explain this to Jon.
    They sat on the floor of the high indoor balcony. Above them the rain hammered down onto the glass roof. The leakage through a broken pane in the centre of the roof sent water gushing down to the courtyard, where Señora Garcia was hurriedly changing the buckets. The owner of the hotel peered across the courtyard at his mother. He made no move to help.
    Annie stared at Jon. They sat cross-legged, opposite each other. Between them was an empty bottle of mezcal.
    Had he been looking, he would have seen her lip quiver slightly. Instead he was concentrating on trying to get the wax seal off of the other bottle with a penknife.
    “Jon, look at me, dammit.”
    “Shit!” said Jon, slipping and cutting his finger.
    “Sorry.”
   
    Annie had come out of the theatre full of thoughts about the culture and about herself, anxious to talk things through with someone. Jon had seemed eager to listen.
    “It’s not just the play, Jon, it’s the whole attitude of the people here.”
    “About sex, you mean?”
    “No, more than that. They don’t seem afraid of anything. Sex is part of it, but there’s other things - death for example.”
    “Are you surprised? They’re lucky if they live past forty.”
    “And they celebrate it! The Day of the Dead, it’s as real as birth.”
    “Superstition.”
    “No, it’s honesty. That’s what’s lacking in the west. We’re afraid of death, so we have these awful tidy cremations; we’re afraid of each other, so we drive everywhere and the cities are empty all night.”
    “So who are ‘we’ then? Everyone except you, I suppose.”
    “It’s all of us, but I really do believe in honesty.”
    “What about secrets? You wouldn’t tell me every single thing about yourself, would you?”
    “Yes I would.”
    “Oh.”
    “There’s that whole English attitude Jon, sweeping everything under the carpet, never really talking about anything, never admitting any feelings.”
    “Here, have another drink.”
    “Thanks.”
    She had had three cups of mezcal, and was feeling hot and giddy. Jon seemed to have come alive today, going off on his own in the market, and now arguing his case with her, rather than just following her around and saying nothing, as he had done in Mexico City. Maybe they could get closer now. She wondered whether to kiss him. He lit another cigarette and she wished that he hadn’t.
   
    Jon looked into his mug. A clump of wax from the seal had got in there. He downed the mezcal anyway, coughed hard, and then refilled both mugs. He felt awkward now, quite drunk, and had a queasy feeling in his stomach.
    And he wanted Annie. On the bus to Oaxaca, they had slept curled up on the seat together under a blanket, heads in each other’s laps, like yin and yang. He had kept his desires to himself then, and he would now. He needed her too much as a friend and a translator to risk it with a come-on - a drunken, late-night come-on.
    “The way the English treat sex, it’s just sad,” she said, “you’re all too repressed to open up.”
   
    ‘The English, the English’, why did she keep going on like that? He had heard it too often - usually from Annie’s type. Try it on with them and they act like you’re molesting them; leave them alone and they sneer at you for being ‘English’.
    “Yeah, that’s right,” he answered quietly, and poured himself another drink.
   
    Jon woke with his head spinning and with an aching stomach. He ran to the toilet with diarrhoea and then was sick, retching loudly and painfully. He stepped straight into the shower and cleaned himself up. Annie had slept through his heavings. Best not to wake her now. He pulled his rucksack into the bathroom to dress. Shaky and dehydrated, he walked to the zócalo and bought a glass of orange juice, sweet and cold. He sat outside a café and wrote postcards home.
   
    Annie woke with the sun shining through the glass roof. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. A half-empty bottle was on her bedside table. There was a brown stain running down from the neck. Jon’s blood.
    “Jon?” No answer. Gone out somewhere.
    His pack was gone.
   
   

The Grey Blanket
   

Oaxaca
    Through a muddle of hungover thoughts, Annie composed herself. She had seen enough of Mexico in the last few days to know that she wouldn’t be safe travelling alone.
    Nonetheless, she was secure for the moment and could allow herself to be angry with Jon. The spineless bastard hadn’t even bothered to tell her he was leaving. If nothing else, it proved her point about the English. She took out her address book, found his name, and in tiny letters wrote ‘Dickhead’ underneath. He would get a mention in her journal.
    Satisfied, she considered her options. She needed someone with her. A man. She had gone into a cafe on her own the day before and sat down with two American women who were touring Central America. After three months of constant harassment, they were going home.
    It wouldn’t be hard to find a man - but that would mean staying in Oaxaca, and she wanted to keep travelling. She opened her guidebook and was looking up the address of the nearest youth hostel, when the bedroom door opened and Jon walked in, carrying a bottle of orange juice.
    “Christ, it’s pissing down,” he said, grabbing her towel from a bedpost and drying his hair.
    “Excuse me!” said Annie.
    “What?”
    “Good morning.”
    “Oh... yeah, sorry. Here, I’ve got you some orange.” He handed her the bottle. She climbed back into bed.
    “I thought you’d left me,” she said, but the words caught in her throat and came out as a mumble.
    “Pardon?”
    “Nothing.” She pretended to read the guidebook. Jon shrugged his shoulders and disappeared into the bathroom. He came out carrying his rucksack, which he began to pack.
    “Going anywhere?” said Annie.
    “Just sorting my stuff out.”
    “Do you want some lunch, once the rain stops.”
    “I can’t, I’ve got the shits,” he replied.
    “Oh no!”
    “Yup.”
    “Turista.”
    “Eh?”
    “That’s what they call it here, ‘turista’.”
    “Bastards,” said Jon.
    “Will you be OK?”
    “Hope so. Anyway, you’ll be alright.”
    “That isn’t what I meant!” Annie turned back to the guidebook.
   
    It was late in the morning before the rain stopped. In town, Jon pointed into a shop window.
    “I’d like one of those blankets.”
    “They make them around here, you know,” said Annie. “We could go to a village if you like - make a day of it.”
    “Do you want to?”
    Annie rolled her eyes. “That’s why I said it.”
   
    An ancient bus dropped them by the side of the road. The driver pointed towards a rough path. “Teotitlan, that way,” he said.
    After twenty minutes of gentle wooded hills, they reached the first houses of Teotitlan del Valle; two rundown shacks with holes in the walls and weeds growing from inside broken doors. A few steps further, set back from the road, was a large farmhouse, built in pale green stone like the Oaxaca townhouses. Horses grazed in an adjoining paddock.
    The path joined a dirt road as it entered the village. The road was ankle-deep in mud after last night’s rain. A prefabricated hut served as a shop and a bar. Annie walked in and asked about buying a blanket.
    “Any of the houses,” said the shopkeeper, “any of them, just walk in.”
    There was a line of small wood-and-tin houses on one side of the road. Adjoining them were open-sided sheds. One of the sheds had a huge blanket hanging from the front of the roof, as a makeshift shutter. It featured a central motif of Quetzalcóatl, the Feathered Serpent, around which were Mayan hieroglyphics and flat-headed Toltec figures. There was a pyramid in each corner.
    Jon stared. Was the design ironic? It seemed to juxtapose every Mesoamerican cliche. Yet it was undeniably beautiful - and it seemed too big, the result of too much hard work to have been done just for the sake of a joke. For that matter, was there anything wrong in admiring the ultimate tourist artefact?
    “Going to stand in the mud all day?” asked Annie.
    Jon ducked under the blanket and entered the workshop. It was dark and primitive, containing a massive wooden loom. A man stood beside the loom, knotting strands of wool at the corner of a blanket. Jon mumbled a greeting. There was no answer. On the walls were rough-woven blankets with tacky designs - Mexican and American flags, Indian figures in garish colours. One had “I love Mexico” on it.
    Further along the road, Jon could hear Mozart. The sound came from another workshop, bigger and brighter than the first. He went in. No one was working the loom, but Jon’s greeting was returned by a middle-aged man who sat behind a counter, smoking a pipe. The man turned around and hurriedly switched the tape to an overwrought ballad, of the type Jon had heard sung in Mexico City.
    One wall of the workshop was decorated with Magritte and Goya prints. Above the prints, blankets hung from the ceiling. Details from the prints, and from Picasso and Rivera, were woven into the designs. On the opposite wall were traditional-looking blankets and serapes.
    “This village,” said the man behind the counter (repeating the phrase twice until Jon understood), “is Zapotec. You see?”
    “Monte Alban?”
    “Our fathers.”
    Jon gave the weaver a rueful glance and said: “Money.” The weaver took him to a corner of the workshop, where smaller, cheaper blankets sat in a pile. The weaver nudged Jon aside and began to pull blankets from the pile, all of them with vulgar designs like those in the other workshop. Jon’s heart sank.
    Then the weaver pointed at the blankets he had taken out, and said: “Tourist shit.” He pointed to the depleted pile and said: “My work. Good for you?”
    A game had begun. Jon played along, giving grunts of appreciation or disapproval as he looked through what was on offer. Amongst the colourful work, he saw a light grey blanket with a simple design in squares and chevrons. Each end was finished with white tassels. The weaving was tighter than the others, and the feel was softer. Jon raised his eyebrows. The weaver lifted the rest of the blankets and pulled out the grey one.
    “Good?”
    “Good.”
    Jon paid, and the weaver made out a receipt in a barely-literate hand.
    There was a cloudburst. Rain battered the workshop’s tin roof. The weaver picked up a chair and placed it on Jon’s side of the counter.
    “Cigarette?” said Jon, proffering a packet.
   
    Annie and Jon walked back to the road and waited for the country bus. Out of sight of Teotitlan, the road and a few fields were the only sign of human habitation. Beyond the fields was a rich, dark-green forest, blanketed with thick low cloud which obscured the far slope of the valley. There was a windless silence.
   
    Annie sat in the courtyard of the hotel. She was deep into the luxury of tablecloths and Californian wine. She took the bones from her baked trout. It was delicately spiced (rather than splashed with chilli), and served with parboiled vegetables. She watched Jon pick at his food.
    “Don’t you like it?”
    “It’s gorgeous. Got to be careful, that’s all.”
    “You’ll be alright for heading south, then?”
    “Reckon so.”
    As they were finishing the meal, rain began once again to batter the glass roof. Someone - maybe even young Señor Garcia - had fixed the broken ceiling pane. The rain made everything feel cosy.
    “We’ll have to go out in it, or we’ll miss the bus.”
    Outside, boxes, water-bottles, even half-full milk crates were floating down the centre of the road. The water reached the tops of the wheel arches of four VW Beetles which were parked outside. Jon took two plastic ponchos from his rucksack, one of which he used to cover the pack, and the other, he opened out into a large square.
    “OK., you take that end, I’ll take this end, lift it up, then...”
    “Go!” yelled Annie.
    They waded to the end of the road, reached dry ground and then ran to the bus station.
   
    “Two tickets for San Cristóbal de las Casas please.”
    “Las Casas?” asked the ticket-man, incredulously.
    “Yes please.”
    “Why?”
    Annie was lost for words. She had never been asked that question at a ticket counter before.
    “Just to see it... to see Chiapas.” The man shrugged his shoulders and made out the tickets.
    “Together?” he asked.
    “Separate seats please,” said Annie.
   
    The nearly-empty bus skidded out of the station and out of town. It was pitch dark outside, and Jon thought he would get his head down for the night. He pulled off the jeans which stuck muddily to his legs, then covered himself with his new blanket. He tried to block out the sound of the blaring radio.
    He lay for an hour or more, brooding and trying to sleep. The seat was cold and uncomfortable, without cushioning for the rough roads. Most of all though, it lacked another person. He wished he was travelling alone rather than in this limbo. Annie plainly didn’t want him around, yet she stuck with him, to fend off the local men. ‘My machista-protector’, she’d called him. Maybe they were just the people Jon needed around him.
    Throughout his travels, in the guise of an amiable drunk, Jon had wandered casually into people’s lives, always tolerated and usually welcomed. With Annie, he felt stifled.
    Maybe he should have tried to bed her last night. Like it or not, he still wanted her. Likely as not, she would have told him where to get off, and the decision to split up would have been taken for him.
    He wondered what Annie was thinking about. She’d be asleep. She never seemed to fret about anything. He sat up and looked over the back of his seat. She was lying down. Her eyes were wide open and stared up at him. She reached up and held his hand, stroking his fingers.
    “I can’t sleep on my own,” she said.
    “I thought you wanted to.”
    “I thought you did, after last night.”
    He got up and moved beside her, rested his head on her shoulder and pulled the blanket up around them. She held him and ran her fingers through his hair. She was warm. He waited for the time to kiss, but fell asleep before it arrived.
   
   

No Harm Done
   

San Cristóbal de las Casas
    Jon woke with sunshine on his face. He felt the slight rise and fall of Annie’s chest underneath him. The breath was shallow; she was still asleep. The bus was still moving. He tried to relax back into the shared comfort under the blanket, but felt nauseated, travel-sick. There were sharp pains in his stomach. He pulled away from Annie and climbed over into his own seat.
    As they descended a steep hill, the air became hot and muggy. Sunlight disappeared as the road cut through the forest canopy. They reached Las Casas and the light returned.
   
    The bus station was crowded and chaotic. Jon dragged the rucksacks from the luggage bay and then hammered on the window by the seat in which Annie still slept. All around, buses were arriving, two or three at a time. It was Saturday morning, and whole villages seemed to be migrating into town. Sackfuls of goods were piled onto the villagers’ backs.
   
    There was a small tourist market in the oldest part of town - within the grounds of a church. Women sat on the floor behind rows of shawls and trays of trinkets. Men walked up to people and tried to sell hats, blankets and Guatemalan bags. Small children followed in the men’s footsteps, carrying armfuls of bracelets.
    Jon took out his camera, then put it back in his bag as he received a stern look from a trader.
    “You know better than that,” said Annie.
    “Hang on, I’ve got an idea.”
    Beside the church was a ruined building. It looked like another, smaller church. The main building no longer had a roof, but the bell-tower still stood. Jon ducked in through a broken door. Weeds grew among the tiles on the floor. He heard Annie shout from outside: “What the hell are you doing?”, but he ignored her. The stairs to the bell-tower were mostly intact, at least as far as he could see. He climbed up, nervously at first, but with more confidence as he felt each step to be solid. Part of the wall was missing and it was bright inside. At the top, he felt his footing become unsteady. He crouched down, peered over the edge and saw Annie pacing below him. Hurriedly, he took a photograph of the market, then he climbed down slowly, on all fours.
    “It’s not right, Jon. You know they hate people taking photos of them.”
    “Oh come on, there was no harm done.”
   
    The sun blazed with hostility. There were no shadows. Las Casas reflected gleaming white from the polished frontages of the buildings surrounding the zócalo. Jon stood still in the centre of the paved square. He arched his back, stretched and took a long breath. He straightened and grinned ruefully.
    “What? said Annie.
    Cheese tortas: hot fresh rolls hammered flat, with goat’s cheese and tomatoes from the icebox mixing and melting in the hand and mouth. He could smell them. He licked his lips. Then his stomach turned again. He tried to eat a banana instead. He managed a mouthful, which tasted like cardboard.
    “I do wish you’d talk to me sometimes, Jon.”
    Last night she had shared his blanket. Her breasts had been his pillow. Her heartbeat had lulled him to sleep.
    “Sorry Annie, I was miles away.”
    “Let’s walk.”
    Avenues with dates for names were arranged into a distorted grid. 20th of November Street led from the 31st of May Square to 16th of September Avenue, and on towards the edge of the town. Beyond the town it became a farm track leading eventually to a village, a little way ahead of them.
   
    Annie spun round to see Jon standing still, twenty metres behind her. He was staring boggle-eyed at a rough grassy levee which separated the track from a field.
    “What’s up?” she shouted. He beckoned her to him.
    Jon pointed into the grass. At first she saw nothing, but then a slow movement broke the camouflage of a grass snake, which forged a deliberate path over the mound and into a furrow of the field. A lizard, spotting the snake’s advance, darted for cover.
   
    Topography deceived the eye. After half an hour of walking, they seemed no nearer the village.
    “The country’s lovely,” said Jon, “but it never stops.”
    Annie reached into her pack and pulled out a bottle of water. They stopped and looked back towards Las Casas. The climb had been gradual, but they were now high above the town. Above them, the woods began. The trees were gnarled and old. The treetops made mushroom shapes, joining to form what would once have been a rainforest canopy.
    “I’m going home after this,” said Annie.
    “What?”
    “Not now - I mean after we’ve finished in Mexico.”
    “I see.”
    “Did you think I’d leave without you?”
    Jon shrugged.
    “You still don’t trust me, do you,” said Annie.
   
    The track ended at a paved road. The village was no longer in sight, and they walked rather aimlessly along the side of the road, which climbed steeply around the hillside. It was a surprise when a hairpin bend led straight into the centre of the village.
    The small village was on a flat terrace cut into the hillside. Opposite a small church, there was a square and a low wall, over which could be seen the valley that led down to Las Casas. Old men - Indians in white suits, scarlet serapes and stetson hats - sat on the wall, talking. They passed a bottle between themselves.
    Jon looked at them for a moment. Two of them glowered back. Jon looked away.
    “What’s wrong now?” said Annie.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Come on Jon, you’ve been like this all day.”
    Someone staggered out of the church. He was young, but was dressed the same as the old men. He carried an empty bottle, and weaved along the side of the square, crashing repeatedly against the whitewashed wall of the church. The sound of his mumbling and hiccupping was followed by harsh laughter.
    Braying voices speaking English echoed from within the church. Then they came out - two American couples, sneers and sunshades to the fore. They strutted around the square, taking photographs of each other. The women talked incessantly, managing to laugh without smiling. One man followed the drunkard down the street. The other marched over to the men on the wall and pointed at one of them. The Indian shook his head. The American ignored the gesture and pointed his camera at him.
    “No,” said the Indian, quietly.
    “Goddammit,” muttered the American. He fished money out of his back pocket and held it out towards the Indian.
    “No!”
    Another of the Indians - apparently a less photogenic one - stood up and walked into the American’s shadow, staring up at his face in an unambiguous threat. The American retreated and rejoined the women.
    Jon turned to Annie.
    A combi van rounded the hairpin into the square.
    “Time to move on?” said Jon. Annie nodded disconsolately and picked up her pack.
   
   

The Wolf
   

San Cristóbal de las Casas
    The combi pulled into Las Casas at dusk. Annie and Jon got out as soon as soon as they recognised the tourist market. By now it had closed down, and the square became once again a quiet, cloistered area inhabited by cats, dogs and ghosts. The ruined monastery, whose bell-tower Jon had climbed earlier, stood as a reminder to the ornate church that it too would one day crumble.
    Annie walked down a hill towards the zócalo in silence. Jon buzzed around her, skipping ahead and then hanging back, nipping into alleyways and looking in shop windows. She ignored him and kept to the path. She was hot and tired and she smelled bad. She wanted a rest and a shower.
    “I’ll go on ahead,” she said.
    The zócalo was crowded and noisy. Groups of Indians walked together, the men and women separate. Dirty and ragged tourists haunted café verandahs in couples, sipped coffee, and stared into the centre of the square where a Mariachi band played. A Lacondón man danced for an audience, whilst his compatriot passed the hat around.
    Jon began to feel dizzy - and not a little dirty and ragged himself. Walking back to the hotel, he heard an unearthly howl.
    He had yet to see a Mexican dog that wasn’t a half-starved, whimpering mongrel. They couldn’t even bark properly, never mind howl. He followed the sound upwards. There on a balcony, huge and sleek, a wolf paced back and forward. It was tied to the balustrade. The wolf caught Jon with piercing blue eyes. They stared at each other and the wolf tilted its head to the side.
    The animal was so beautiful. He hated the thought that when he looked away, he would no longer see it. But the moment had to come, whether he stared at it for a minute or for a day. He shut his eyes, spun round and ran back to the hotel.
    He got to the room, ran into the toilet and threw up. He cleaned himself up and looked in the mirror. It didn’t look good. He showered, shaved and combed his hair. Another look in the mirror. Improving.
    Annie woke up as he was getting dressed.
    “You’re not well, Jon.”
    “No, I’m not.” He sat down on her bed. She stroked his hand. He lay down.
    “You should rest,” she said.
    “I can do that any time,” he said, “I want to keep going.” He got up and stretched. “I want to go out again,” he said.
    “Hang on then, I’m coming with you.” She got out of bed and stepped into a long, patterned dress. She splashed water on her face and followed him out of the door.
   
    The zócalo was bright with electric light. The band was still playing. Annie and Jon sat on a bench. The mauve of a café’s flycatcher sparked intermittently as insects fell. A fat, smiling Indian woman sat down on the bench next to Annie.
    “Good evening,” she said, “are you here for the service?”
    “No, we’re just visiting.”
    “You must hear the minister, he is an inspiration to us all!”
    “Is that him?” Annie pointed to a young bearded white man, who was building a platform out of wooden boxes. A crowd was gathering around him. The fat woman nodded and beamed.
    The evangelist climbed up onto the platform. He began to preach quietly, drawing the crowd nearer. He switched rapidly between Spanish and an Indian language - which, judging from the congregation’s reaction, he was using to make humorous asides. He made open gestures and fixed people with harsh stares. A group of women got onto the stage and sang a song, accompanied by fervent handclapping. The sermon then continued with greater intensity. The fat woman sat with the palms of her hands facing upwards and gazed, awestruck at the stage.
   
    Annie was hungry. In a side street, she found a vegetarian restaurant. They sat down and she ordered. Jon tried a few bites but gave up. He was flagging by the time they got back to the hotel, and he went to sleep immediately.
    Annie sat up and made plans for the next day. A waiter at the restaurant had offered them a cheap ride to a Tzotzil village - San Juan Chamula, and another market.
   
   

Pale Giants
   

San Juan Chamula
    First there was the light, then the sound. The smell took longer to register.
    A bright, random flickering filled the knave of San Juan church, the product of a thousand candles, melted onto stone or perched in bottles. The daylight which shone weakly through small windows didn’t stand a chance of outshining the burning amber glow.
    The sound was a polyphonic, polyrhythmic chant. It came from all around the church, an apparently wordless mumble punctuated by wheezing breaths as the chanters hyperventilated themselves into internal frenzies.
    Annie stared at the worshippers. The knave was full. Annie pointed to the floor. She had located the smell. Pine needles were scattered everywhere. Jon looked along the side pews at the men who slouched exhaustedly, rehydrating themselves with Coke or beer.
    A short, skinny man with long hair and a boyish moustache, dressed in a football shirt and a cloak, trod a cigarette out with his bare foot, drained his beer, and picked up a candle from the pile by the door. He lit the candle and stuck it in the neck of the empty beer bottle. He shuffled back into the main body of the church, laid a mat on the floor and placed the bottled candle in front of the mat. He was joined from the other side of the knave by his family. Three children - a girl and twin boys - trailed a tiny woman in a turquoise shawl, little more than a child herself. The family knelt together; the man in front, the woman and the girl behind him, twins at the rear. The man began a chant. He started slowly in his own time, sped up a little and then held a steady monotone as he began to rock gently, forward and back. The rocking increased, but the chant kept strict time and constant volume. He leaned back onto his heels, then forward onto his hands. His singing was now augmented in a higher pitch. His wife was chanting. She cut across his rhythm. Her chant was harsh and staccato. She crossed herself, then pulled the shawl tighter around her throat. Behind her, the twins exchanged glances.
    Jon felt a lump in his throat. The air was hot, perfumed and stifling. He sweated. He started to reach for Annie’s hand, but then stopped, instead gripping his own hands together. He dug his nails into his palms. An instinct to bolt and a compulsion to stay fought it out while he stared at the family groups; all chanting, all rocking; headed and surrounded by candles and invisible boundaries.
   
    There was an uneasy truce here between the God of Rome and the gods of the Maya. Priests were allowed into the church at Christmas and at Easter; otherwise they were banned. Icons were worshipped as idols. Little plastic Jesuses and Marys stood next to, and were towered over by candle-holding Coke bottles.
    Christian confusion over the Holy Trinity, and the worship of God and Mary, was resolved by the Maya. Polytheists all, they just added them to their canon.
   
    Annie had seen all she wanted. She had been round the church twice; read every inscription, seen the wall-paintings, and watched the extraordinary Mayan rituals. She thought about how close this must be to witnessing an ancient sacrifice. Certainly the candle-glow and the chanting would have been much like this. All that was missing was the blood and the screams.
    A story was circulating that an American tourist had been killed in this church for taking a photograph.
    Jon hadn’t moved. Annie took his arm gently and led him to the door.
    Outside on the steps, he brightened and grinned.
    “Want to check out the market?” he said.
    Annie stared at him. His eyes betrayed nothing.
   
    They both bought shawls in the rich, light-swallowing turquoise of San Juan, then sat on steps at the edge of the market square, opposite the church. For a while, they played ‘spot the tourist’. It wasn’t a difficult game. Ten pale giants with rucksacks were dotted in pairs amongst the crowd.
    Jon fidgeted. The giants were being pursued by peddlers and beggars. Sitting still, here on the steps, it was only a matter of time before they too were besieged.
    A little girl stood silently in front of them. She held out two crudely-woven friendship bracelets.
    “We can’t,” said Jon, “they’ll be on us in a flash.”
    “I know.”
    “I’d like to buy you one though,” he added nervously.
    “Really? I... can I get you one as well?”
    “Yes, I’d like that.”
    “Would you wear it?”
   
    It had been a year since Jon had travelled like this. With a New Englander named Rob, he had gone across America. And back again. For three months, they had drunk from the same cup and shared secrets. When they parted, they had exchanged friendship bracelets.
    Jon’s had been stolen from the shower-room in a hostel. He and Rob had met up again in San Francisco, a month before Mexico. The first thing that Rob had noticed was that the bracelet was gone. They hung around together for a week, and there had been nothing but coldness between them.
    Travelling friendships had suddenly seemed very shallow. It was time to take a chance again.
    “Yes, I’ll wear it,” Jon answered.
   
    The little girl was in no hurry to leave. Her expression dropped from calculated cuteness to simple fatigue. She climbed the step, peered around to Jon, and then leaned on Annie. Annie put an arm around the girl in an awkward hug. The girl held Annie’s hand. Her tiny palms were rough and calloused, like those of an old woman.
    “What’s your name?” said Annie.
    “Carmen.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Seven.”
    “My name’s Annie.”
    “Anita!”
    “Thank you for the bracelet,” said Annie.
    “I made it myself,” said Carmen. Then she glanced at Jon. “Why doesn’t he talk to me? Doesn’t he like his bracelet?”
    “He can’t speak Spanish.”
    “I’m learning Spanish at school. Am I speaking well?”
    “Very well. Do you speak it at home?”
    “No.”
    Carmen got up and pecked Annie’s cheek.
    “Daddy’s waiting for me. Goodbye Anita.”
    They waved back at Carmen, then watched her scamper across the square and into a sidestreet, disappearing behind the wooden facade of a shop. They tied the bracelets around each other’s wrists.
   
    “So where to next?”
    “Palenque.”
    “Land of the Maya.”
    “Land of the tourists.”
    Annie telephoned from Las Casas bus station. There wasn’t a room to be had in Palenque.
    “Go to Ocosingo,” said a receptionist at a Palenque hotel.
    “Where?”
    “O-co-sin-go.”
    Annie phoned again. There were rooms in Ocosingo.
   
   

Into A Hollow
   

Ocosingo.
    A clamour from outside; banging on the windows; a sweet, dirty new smell. They were in town.
    Annie felt herself shaken. She moaned and held on to Jon.
    “Wake up love, we’re here.” Jon shook her again.
   
    It was nine o’clock in the evening and dark. Warm rain poured down as they walked along the main street into the centre of town. Annie groaned under the weight of an overfilled rucksack. She had transferred all the heavy items from Jon’s pack into hers. She saw him miss a step and stagger into the road.
    “Come on Jon, we’ll soon be there.”
    Ahead of them, the narrow street widened into a square. The zócalo. They approached a large stone building. Annie guessed it to be the town hall. There were two flashes of sheet lightning, briefly illuminating the building’s back garden. Behind iron railings she saw a campsite - neat rows of khaki tents.
    As the thunder rumbled, its sound mingled with shouts, followed by the clatter of off-time marching feet. Entering the zócalo, she saw a group of soldiers standing to attention in front of the town hall, whilst another group paraded at a quick-march in front of them, the sergeant major bellowing commands.
    “What the...?” Annie began.
    “God knows,” answered Jon.
   
    Jon was in no mood to find out what was going on. He felt too much weight on his back, though the rattling contents of his pack reminded him of how little he was carrying - as did the sight of Annie, bent double under at least twice the weight. He wanted to dry off and get into bed.
    Of the other buildings which surrounded the zócalo, only one had a light on. It was a café. Jon waited while Annie walked inside. She emerged after a couple of minutes and said: “There’s a hotel just up here.” She pointed to a side road.
   
    Annie filled a jug of water and placed on the table between their beds. The heavy load, the hot rain and the sticky, jungle atmosphere had left her tired and irritable. She took a long cool shower, put on a clean T-shirt, took her diary from her pack and climbed into bed.
    She was now three weeks behind. Her previous entry had begun to describe a night in the Arizona desert. She thought of the cool dry air, when she had slept outside by a campfire. She thought of Sam.
    In the four months that she had travelled, there had been two affairs. Sam had been the second, and it had started that night in the desert. Come to think of it, that was where she had met Jon too. It had been a full day, walking in the raw heat and beauty of Monument Valley. There had been a singsong around the fire, and Annie had curled up on a mattress with Hilde, a young German girl who had adopted her that day as a sort of surrogate elder sister. Sleeping had been difficult. Several of the men were drunk, and were still singing and laughing. By three o’clock, Annie was fed up with catnaps and went over to join the revellers. There were only two left. Jon, the Englishman playing the guitar, greeted her with an easy grin. The other, an older American, raised an eyebrow to her, quietly finished his drink, said “excuse me” to Jon, then turned to face Annie, regarding her with an intensity that was both intimidating and compelling. For the next three hours, Annie and Sam talked incessantly. He entranced her with his stories, his strong feelings and his willingness to listen. It was dawn before she noticed that the Englishman was gone.
    Sam led Annie away from the group, into a hollow. They made love at sunrise.
   
    Annie felt a curious lack of emotion as she wrote in the diary. Her affair with Sam had lasted a fortnight. While they were on the road, it had been wonderful. Sam had been the ideal combination of zipless fling and devoted lover. Annie loved to explore alone, and Sam had left her alone every day. At night, he had been indefatigable; they had explored every avenue of intercourse, philosophical and sexual, arguing with an openness and intimacy that carried over into their lovemaking.
    By the time they reached San Francisco, it was as good as over. The affair struggled on for another week, but they had run out of things to talk about. Sam revealed a taste for sado-masochism. Annie felt repulsed and claustrophobic.
    Leaving Sam, Annie had gone with Jon, who had remained close to Sam, visiting his apartment a few times, often with Hilde in tow.
    Annie wrote her diary for hours. She put her final full-stop after meeting Jon at the airport, the morning after she had left Sam. Jon was seeing Hilde off, and Annie was buying her ticket to Mexico.
    Just a couple more lines, Annie thought. She smiled as she wrote down the conversation that had brought them here.
    “Fancy coming to Mexico, Jon?”
    “Erm... yeah, alright.”
   
    Jon sweated and fretted. He drifted from sleep to delirium and began to hallucinate. First he saw multiples of Annie’s face. She was talking to him but he couldn’t hear. There was a cacophony of voices, unintelligible, half-tinged with the music of Spanish, but with the rawness of the demonic-sounding Indian dialects. He saw the candles in San Juan church; heard the chanting, the spirits of the Maya welling up in their descendants, the small, alien mountain men. For a moment, Jon was lucid. Then he rose up and saw himself pulling away bedsheets, tearing off clothes and thrashing on the hard, sweat-drenched bed.
    Suddenly he returned to himself, felt the fever pass, and ran to the toilet to be sick. He climbed back into bed, spent but still shaking.
   
    Annie was worried. Jon seemed to be taking this food-poisoning business very badly. As he fell back into bed, she went over and covered him with a sheet. The night was getting colder. He dragged the sheet off again. She felt awkward and tried a lighter approach. “I can see your bum,” she said in a singsong voice. Jon pulled the sheet back on.
    “You must drink,” said Annie, “you’re dehydrated.”
    She forced herself to stay awake until she heard his first snores.
   
    Jon woke, struggled up, showered and dressed. He felt weak, as well as embarrassed by last night’s performance, but the nausea had gone. He badly wanted to eat. Annie was still asleep. He went down to the reception, found the kettle and teabags and made two cups of tea. Annie was sitting up in bed when he returned to the room.
    “Thanks for last night.”
    “What for?”
    “For stopping up with me.”
    “That’s alright. You were in bad shape.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Maybe you should stay here today.”
    “No, I’ll be fine, I’ll just go at my own pace.”
   
   

Sweet-looking Boys
   

Postscript: The Diary
   

Canberra, Australia (two years later)
    “I want to see the diary, Annie.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know, it just seems important.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
   
    Annie got back from the bus station and found me in the café in Ocosingo. She had hurt herself the night before, carrying the heavy pack around, and limped the three kilometres back to the town square. She didn’t tell me that until later. When she found me, I was trying without success to explain to the waitress why I seemed in such a panic. I never did find out how to say “my friend is missing” in Spanish.
    We got a bus to Palenque, saw the sights and then carried on to Mexico City. She flew home to Australia and became a college lecturer. I flew back to San Francisco and ate like a pig for a week, trying to put some weight on. Eventually I went back to England.
   
    A year later, Annie came to stay. When she left, I followed.
    I’ve been living with her in Canberra for two months and it’s not working. Sometimes she can’t stand to touch me. Sometimes I can’t stand to talk to her.
    I’ve got a book coming out, and I’m going home to promote it. I won’t be returning.
   
    “Look, if it means that much to you, I’ll let you read the diary.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “No, but if that’s what it takes to still be friends... well, go ahead.”
    “Thanks Annie.”
   
    I wait until she goes to work, and then I start reading. I suppose I just want to know what’s gone wrong between us, because I can’t work it out. As I read, I can see that she doesn’t know either. I put the book down, feeling deflated and disappointed.
    I have a cup of tea and start skimming through some of the entries before she came to England. I shouldn’t be doing this. There’s stuff about her family, and about other men. Then I read the first page of the diary and realise that she started it when she was travelling.
    I see Sam’s name. My hackles rise, but I’ve got my writer’s head on, and keep flicking through the pages. There’s a scene at San Francisco airport:
    “Fancy coming to Mexico, Jon?”
    “Erm... yeah, alright.”
    And then it stops. I look over the page, but it’s blank. The next entry is the interview for her lecturing job. She hasn’t written a word about Mexico.