“This was the first time the earth’s insanity had affected her. The Little Town was riddled with bullet holes and tunnels bored by five centuries of voracious silver list, and from time to time some poor soul accidentally discovered what a half-assed hob they’d done of covering them over. A few houses had already been sent packing to the underworld, as had a soccer pitch and half an empty school. These things happen to someone else, until they happen to you, she thought. She had a quick peek over the precipice, empathized with the poor soul on his way to hell. Happy trails, she said without irony, and then muttered Best be on with my errand.”

The opening scene of the novel provides a symbolic connection to the underlying theme of the Aztec underworld. Makina links the deadly sinkhole with hell; though she has (narrowly) avoided death, it now frames her journey, mirrored by her descent into darkness in the final chapter.

“Those were the rules Makina abided by and that was why she was respected in the village. She ran the switchboard with the only phone for miles and miles around. It rang, she answered, they asked for so and so, she said I’ll go get them, call back in a bit and your person will pick up, or I’ll tell you what time you can find them, sometimes they called from nearby villages and she answered in native tongue or latin tongue. Sometimes, more and more these days, they called from the North; these were the ones who’d often already forgotten the local lingo, so she responded to them in their own new tongue. Makina spoke all three, and knew how to keep quiet in all three, too.”

The technological differences between the North and the South, evidence of the wealth gap between the two regions, are first demonstrated by the switchboard that Makina operates. Makina’s role as a translator and her skill with multiple languages carry her through the treacherous world of the South and the alien world of the North.

“Three years earlier one of Mr. Aitch’s thugs had turned up with some papers and told Makina that it said right there that they owned a little piece of land, over on the other side of the river, that a gentleman had left it to them.”

The land that Makina’s father allegedly acquired in the North was enough to tempt her brother into crossing the border, and it led to his disappearance. Land ownership is linked to wealth; Makina’s brother is willing to risk Aitch’s treachery for success. In the three years he has been away, Makina’s brother has only sent three letters.