Her husband Mauricio comes from the back of the house. His hands are grease-blackened so I shake his elbow instead. He has another hour of work, he says, and it is still too early for lunch. He asks his daughters to take us to the tourist market, and this is a common misconception, that as a rule I would enjoy such a place.
The market consists of three blocks of a narrow street off the plaza. There is pottery from Chulucanas, more pieces involving cunnilingus and fellatio than one might expect, and also many globular men and women, some of them waving white ceramic handkerchiefs as if dancing. Karina says that as a child she danced tondero. She tells us that in fact she was not very good, would surely have been better at marinera, and I do not know what to do with this information.
Next there is work in silver filigree—earrings, musical instruments, horses and helicopters. There is also jewelry involving shells and semiprecious stones. Chaquira necklaces are the most common, carved bits of spondylus rarely stolen from ancient tombs though the vendors promise that all of them are and I tell Socorro’s daughters about the second voyage, Bartolomé Ruiz dropping Pizarro off to camp at the mouth of the San Juan, then pushing south along the Ecuadorian coast. The massive balsa is spotted, pursued, gaffed and drawn close, its bright cotton sails gone limp. Eleven of the twenty Huancavilca sailors dive into the open sea. Ruiz captures the rest, sets free all but the three he intends to train as interpreters for the third voyage—the invasion, the Conquest proper—but for now they are only captured sailors and the Spaniards paw through the raft’s baled supplies. Threaded strings of crimson shells precisely like those from which these necklaces came, I say. Gold diadems and silver mirrors, I say. Embroidered mantles. Emeralds and quartz in beaded bags. Gold tweezers, gold rattles, Ruiz stows it all and Xerez takes up his pen if it was in fact Xerez and not Oviedo or Sámanoe comwrote that infamous and giddy Relación; if the native merchants were in fact Huancavilca rather than Inca; if the crystals were in fact quartz and not amethyst, and Karina is laughing. So are Elsa and Ema. Marucha asks me if I always talk like that, or only on Sundays. Always, I say, always always, and Eva says that she approves, that it is a perfectly fine way to talk.
Farther down the street there is woodwork, cups and platters and serving spoons, and slabs bearing sayings meant to be hung in one’s kitchen. And there is leatherwork, saddles and purses and keychains. And there are straw sombreros, some of them expensive and very well made, the weave so tight and the straw so pliable that even when the hats are folded and stuffed into one’s back pocket and left there for hours, they spring immediately back to true size and shape.
Scattered through the ceramics and jewelry and hats are mounted animals for sale, all of them whole-body and bared teeth: squirrel, cat, lop-sided German Shepherd. Staring at these animals are tourists. Almost all of the tourists sound Piuran, but walking parallel to us on the far side of the street is a French family. The boy wants a stuffed squirrel. The mother and sister are repulsed. The father does not opine.
Elsa and Eva are surprised to learn that I do not already know the French family personally. They are more surprised still that I do not want to meet them now. Ema says that at times there are also stuffed pacazos, that perhaps I would be interested in obtaining one, and seems embarrassed by the volume of my reply.
As we turn to head back up the street, Marucha says that in her opinion I should buy three of the best sombreros. Therefore I do. Karina’s makes her look as though she were another person entirely—someone quiet in her heart. Mine spreads wide enough to shade Mariángel in the carrier as well, and the one I have bought for Mariángel, the smallest size sold, will not fit her for five or six years, so it becomes a gift for Marucha.
Karina declares that it is late enough for lunch. I buy assorted earrings for the other girls, and we walk back to Socorro’s house, then out again with her and Mauricio. Catacaos is famed as a good town for lunch, and its many small dusty dirt-floored restaurants are the reason. The food: seco de chavelo, rachi-rachi, tamales and humitas, majado de yuca, cabrito. Also there is fish and seafood, and I consider making Oscar successful and happy, but cabrito is so very good.
Socorro sits beside Karina and in the corner are two thin men, one playing a cajón and the other playing a guitar, both singing, criolla. They sing and play with great skill and love, Quinteras and Pinglo Alva and Polo Campos, and we applaud, also with love, and sunlight sidles in through the bamboo shades. Dust rises and they play, dust hangs and they sing, dust falls and we listen with a slow sort of desperation.
We are nearly done eating when Oscar arrives. He rattles, sits down, calls to the waiter: chicha de jora. Refusing a local delicacy can of course cause untold offense. I once cared in all contexts, and still care in some.
Oscar recovers quickly from his disappointment, and drains the large gourd from which chicha de jora is poured into the small gourd from which it is drunk. He is careful to toss the last ounce of each small gourdful to the dirt in accordance with a custom I have always liked no matter how sentimental: a sip for Pachamama. Then he suggests a walk to the ruins of Narihualá.
It is a longer walk than would interest me most days and Karina says it is the perfect idea. I ask Fermín if he wants to ride his bike alongside. He shakes his head, says that the bike was stolen a month ago, that he went to my house to tell me and decided to run away instead.
I ask if the bike had been properly locked up. Fermín looks at me and Karina pinches me hard on the back of the arm. I tell Fermín that it doesn’t matter, that I will get him another for his birthday. He frowns. I look at Karina. She asks him when his birthday is. Last week, he says. Karina pinches me harder. I pinch her back and tell him that any day now a new bicycle will be arriving at his front door.
The walk is long and very bright, and I thank Marucha: the tube of sunblock I brought is almost empty, and without my new hat, Mariángel and I would soon be peeling thick dead skin from our necks and faces. We pass half a dozen picanterías with the white flag at full mast to show that fermentation is complete, and at each flag Oscar looks at me as if to say that there is still time. Finally we are out of town, and he leads us along a dirt road between empty fields, then into a grove of coconut palms.
Karina holds my hand and Oscar tells us of the grove owners and their plan to train monkeys for the harvest as seen in some film or documentary. The monkeys were brought from the jungle and refused to do the work. In the end they were made into uncomfortable hats.
The story is clearly intended to entertain Fermín. He breaks sticks into smaller sticks. We rest, and the dense shaded space reaches uncommon heights, and wind moves the fronds and shadows. Narihualá can just be seen, but from this distance it looks like nothing more than another slumped hill.
More walking along dirt roads and another grove and more walking, and at last we arrive. The gate is locked but the guard is a friend of Oscar’s and the cousin of Ema’s godmother and so the key is brought. Inside there is a small museum. It is closed, and the guard asks if I would like it opened, but I have seen its skulls and pots before, do not need to see them again.
Behind the museum are huge rolls of muddy plastic. Yes, says the guard, we removed it all last week—we thought the rains had ended for good. I nod, say that I had thought the same, and a pack of hairless dogs is running toward us, and a boy, and the boy is shouting.
I lift Mariángel and push Karina behind me. Karina slaps the back of my neck and asks me to please be less ridiculous and she is right: the dogs came hoping for food, and when they see that there is none they wander briefly in circles, then lie down in the dusty shade beside the museum. The boy has not stopped shouting. You need a guide, he yells. I would like to be that guide, he yells. I am a good guide, he yells, the very best.
We establish that his name is Walter, that he is ten years old, that he is a classmate of Elsa’s, and that he needs to stop shouting. It is difficult for him not to shout but finally he manages. Elsa tells him that we do not need a guide because I am a historian and already know what there is to know about Narihualá. I thank her and say that all the same I would like to hear Walter’s telling, which in the end is very good—a Tallán religious and administrative center for two hundred years, forty thousand square meters of adobe pyramids and ramps and storehouses, but then came the Chimú, he says. And then the Incas. And then the Spaniards. And then the rain.
We thank Walter and pay him, and he waits. We pay him a little more though Socorro tells us not to. He shouts his thanks, tells Elsa that he will see her tomorrow in school, and runs away.
There does not appear to be any active excavation. Oscar asks Mariángel if she will join him for a moment, and finally she reaches out. He puts her on his shoulders, calls to the other girls, and when they come to walk alongside he tells them stories of the gods of the Tallán returning to earth and being astounded by microwave ovens. Mariángel loves his hair above all things. She winds her hands in the thick black curls and pulls, and Oscar pretends to be wounded, mortally, on the very verge of death.
We circle through the ruins for perhaps an hour, then climb to a Catholic church built on top of the main pyramid. The church is pale green and dirty white and pocked with what look like bullet holes. Also it seems to be vibrating. We stop walking. I ask Oscar why the church is vibrating. He hands Mariángel to me and walks to the door, then turns and runs back toward us. We watch a brown cloud seep from the outer walls and the vibration is now clearly sound, the cloud pours toward us and we run downhill as well.
We stop at the bottom and ask one another urgently. No one has been stung. We find this remarkable and pat one another’s backs. We rest. Oscar rearranges his necklaces. Then Marucha starts crying. She has lost her sombrero. I look at Mauricio. He looks at Oscar. Oscar looks at me. Karina says we are cowardly cojudos and Socorro agrees. The two of them head back up the hill, get the sombrero and return, each stung only once.
We return to Socorro’s home, and she and Karina hug. Fermín turns, walks away. Oscar watches him go, says we cannot leave just yet because he has a gift, some art for Mariángel. We wait and he runs, and I am not convinced my house has room for the art of Oscar, but then he arrives with a very small painting on wood, and it is beautiful, black and cobalt and gold, shards of mirror embedded, a stylized deity, part woman and part bird standing simply, sadly, a waning crescent moon at her feet.
- She is extraordinary, I say.
- Thank you.
- A Tallán goddess, yes? But I don’t remember her name.
- They called her Shi. This isn’t quite how they represented her, of course. This is just my thought of her.
I tell Oscar that I like her best this way. I clasp his shoulders and thank him. He says that I am welcome, and that if we ever need a prophet we now know whom to call.
The reason I am late is that there was a march along the Panamericana, several hundred people, and what they were marching for or against was not wholly clear though many held signs bearing mosquitoes drawn in crayon. I go to Arantxa’s office and stand at the door. Without looking up she frowns, so instead of issuing my excuse I go to my office, drop my belongings on my desk.
Yesterday I failed and Mariángel is burned badly though only in small areas, irregular shapes down her legs. Classes begin in four minutes. There is a great deal of noise and movement in the lounge back beside the photocopier: other professors chatting, describing their weekends, recounting. I prepared today’s classwork last night, a final day of review before midterms, but there is always exactly one element which escapes one’s notice until this very moment. I put my fingers to my temples. Which element have I missed?
I walk toward the photocopier in case that is it, and no, I need no copies. I turn. At the center of the table in the lounge is yesterday’s
El Tiempo
. Time and tense, weather, period and era, quarter and movement. I set down my briefcase and sit, pull the paper toward me to learn the latest euphemisms.
The headline is about a young woman who has been raped and killed: Daniela Rocío Espinoza Farfán. The police found her body yesterday near the highway north of Piura. In the middle of the page is a picture of her with her arms around her two brothers. She is no one I have seen before, was quite pretty, dark eyes and long black hair.
I check to see if anyone has noticed me reading. It appears that no one has. I empty my briefcase, and put everything back in. I stand and sit and stand. There is another picture farther down, a confrontation, policemen, other people. The article is undetailed but apparently the family does not trust the police, has had problems with them before, seized Daniela’s body before the autopsy was complete, refuses to give it back. I have thoughts of daggers, of a fer-de-lance brought from the jungle. Then at last I remember: colored chalk.
THE MANILA ENVELOPES SIT FAT ON THE TABLE BESIDE ME. Giving perfect scores to all of my students: that would be one way to address the deadline Arantxa has set. I stare at the envelopes, then opt to leave the exams ungraded for now, inviolate, to go instead for my new goggles and gloves and chisel and three-pound sledge—there is no longer any reason for stubbed toes and cut shins.
I swing and swing at the dike in my bedroom doorway, and the shards of concrete that skitter across the floor, the clouds of cement dust that rise, these are celebrations of the river’s slow steady fall though that is not how they feel. I swing, and grit sprays across my face, rattles off my goggles. I swing again, harder and harder.
I will not finish the whole house tonight and this does not matter. Tomorrow begins my penultimate visa trip if Eugenia is to be believed, and now Karina comes, Mariángel hanging from one of her legs. Karina too is holding a hammer, small and clawed and blue-handled, has taken it from my toolbox and I have no idea why. Together they mock me for a time, mimic my sloppy broomwork. Then Karina invites me to come see their accomplishment.