Authors: Matilde Asensi
“Could it really have been built fourteen thousand years ago?” Jabba asked, amazed.
“Who knows…,” I replied. “In Tiwanaku, everything is very strange.”
Once you went down the stairs of Kalasasaya Temple and crossed through a big doorway of solid rock, very deep inside, on the right, you could make out the silhouette of the Gate of the Sun, with the relief of the Staff God and the supposed depiction of the chamber of natural sounds; but we unanimously decided to postpone its examination until we thoroughly knew the other archaeological remains, just to be sure. So, at the bottom of the stairs, in the very center of the patio of Kalasasaya, there was a strange human sculpture called the Ponce Monolith, about six feet tall, which represented a strange being with two square eyes. Certain archaeologists, very definite in their interpretation, claimed that it was the image of a monarch or priest, but the fact was no one knew. On the patio, there were also some odd statues of men of an unknown race, with big mustaches and goatees very similar to mine.
“But does Kalasasaya mean traveler, or not?” Jabba asked impatiently.
“No,” Proxi answered. “I just read the meaning: ‘the upright pillars.’”
“Damn.”
The small Semi-Subterranean temple, to the east of Kalasasaya, also had stelae representing men with beards.
“I’m beginning to think,” Jabba commented, “that there’s too much beard around here, yet the American Indians don’t have facial hair, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“Well, no one would say that, looking at Tiwanaku!”
Next to Kalasasaya Temple, on the left, there was another small construction, similar in size to the Semi-Subterranean Temple. It was Putuni, “the right place,” a rectangular palace of which only a few stone blocks from the facade remained, as well as the entry gate which had been sealed in the past with a great stone, making it impregnable. The conquistadors, seeing so much protection, thought that great treasures were hidden there, and they caused serious damage to it, without finding anything at all, since all that was there was a bunch of hollows in the stone, in the shape of boxes, measuring fifty inches wide by fifty-five inches long and forty high. Despite the almost square shape and the size, the Spanish believed that they were tombs, and Putuni was known from then on as the Palace of Tombs, without anything to prove or disprove such a supposition. It was taken as a given that in each of those hollows there had been a mummy with all the necessary tools for its journey to the afterlife, since the Aymara believed that death was some kind of journey with a round trip ticket back to life, something like reincarnation. For them, a dead person was only a
sariri
, a traveler.
“We have it!” I shouted.
“Don’t be an idiot, Arnau!” Proxi rebuked me, with a snort. “We don’t have anything.
Putuni isn’t a pyramid, okay?”
“And what about the traveler?”
“Jabba, please, tell him to shut up!”
“Shut up, Root.”
The Pyramid of Akapana, the Semi-Subterranean Temple, the Kalasasaya Temple, and Putuni Palace made up the compact nucleus of buildings in the center of the excavated part of Tiwanaku, but, spread out around it, and in better or worse condition, there were many more, the majority of which weren’t even mentioned in the pages about the archaeological complex, or, of course, represented on the maps. Nevertheless, the names of four of those places came up, here and there, with some frequency: Kantatallita, Quirikala, Puma Punku, and Lakaqullu. We thought, disheartened, that if none of them corresponded with the descriptions given by Daniel in his delirium, we were going to have a serious problem since excavating in Tiwanaku was something beyond our legal and economical reach, and we didn’t have time for it.
Of Kantatallita, or “light of dawn,” nothing remained but a few vestiges scattered around the place where it should stand, but among them there was a strange door ending in an arch. Various sources claimed that Kantatallita had been a building with four walls oriented to the four cardinal directions, with a central patio which, according to some, had housed the workshop where the architects of Tiwanaku had worked—models of some palaces, decorations, and construction materials had been found there—and, according to others, had been used to celebrate ceremonies in honor of Venus, the brightest star in the sky after the sun and the moon, also known as the Morning Star, because it was very visible at dawn, which harmonized with the name of the place. Furthermore, to confirm this second theory, among the ornamental objects found there, an abundance of allegorical motifs about Venus stood out. In short, maybe it was used as a temple and a workshop at the same time. No one could confirm either.
Quirikala, or Kerikala, “the stone oven,” was supposedly the residential palace of the Tiwanakan priests. It had barely been investigated, and all that was left of it were some walls in very bad repair that didn’t say anything. Like many of the stones of the rest of the buildings of Tiwanaku, those of Quirikala had also been used to construct old buildings in La Paz and in other nearby cities, and the heaviest had been blasted to pieces so the rubble could be used to build the Guaqui-La Paz railroad (which is how Putuni, Kalasasaya, and the majority of the statues had disappeared).
Puma Punku was another story. It’s not as if much of it remained standing either, but it gave the impression of having been a very important place. Puma Punku (the “Gate of the Puma”) appeared defined as the second most important temple after Kalasasaya, although the majority of the data described it as a pyramid identical to Akapana, just as gigantic and majestic, with which, from a distance, it would form a kind of couple, because they were more than half a mile apart from each other, with Puma Punku to the southwest. According to archaeological surveys, the pyramid remained almost whole underground, and for that reason, it was possible that it may be recovered some day when the money was there to unearth it. Puma Punku had also had seven terraces, alternately colored red, green, white, and blue, and in its vicinity there must have been a wide grounds accessed by four gates with solar-themed reliefs, similar to the Gate of the Sun, of which only three crumbling ones remained. Among the rubble and fragments that were haphazardly scattered around the place, some of the stone blocks
—
easily weighing thirty tons
—
that had formed part of the floor of the grounds could still be seen; these were the most colossal blocks extracted from the quarries of all of South America. But the “Gate of the Puma” held other secrets that made Proxi happy:
“At last!” she proclaimed. “This is what I was looking for!”
“You almost didn’t find it, huh?” Jabba teased her.
Part of the perimeter of Puma Punku was surprisingly demarcated by two large port docks that currently led to dry ground and mountainous crags, making the landscape an incongruous space. Despite the fact that Lake Titicaca was almost twelve miles away, geological studies done in the area had detected important accumulations of marine sediments and fossils of obviously aquatic origin, and the decorations found among the ruins of Puma Punku showed innumerable friezes with fish motifs.
“The history of the Yatiri that Daniel reconstructed is real!” she exclaimed, satisfied. “Lake Kotamama-Titicaca came up to the docks of the port of Taipikala-Tiwanaku. Isn’t it fantastic?”
“Repeat it, please!” I laughed. “You’ve come up with a perfect tongue-twister.”
“Simmer down, you fools,” the thick smelly worm growled grumpily. “We still haven’t found our Pyramid of the Traveler, and all we have left to study is that wreck of Lakaqullu.”
“Relax. I’m sure it’s there,” I felt obligated to say, but when we began to look for information on “the mountain of rocks” (which was the translation of the name), I wished I had swallowed those words: Lakaqullu was, in a manner of speaking, a minuscule promontory lost to the north of the Tiwanaku site, much higher than the rest of the structures, and its only outstanding feature was a doorway worked in stone known as the Gate of the Moon (as an opposite to the Gate of the Sun, although, aesthetically, they didn’t have anything in common).
“First requirement, fulfilled,” Proxi announced.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Nothing, just some nonsense of mine! Don’t mind me.”
Although it didn’t look at all like it now, Lakaqullu had apparently been the most sacred and feared place in Tiwanaku. Despite there having been no excavations done in the area, a plethora of human bones hundreds of years old, especially skulls, had been found buried at a certain depth in the little hill.
“Second requirement, fulfilled,” Proxi announced again.
And she didn’t have to say anymore. Jabba and I automatically understood that we were nearing the objective: According to the Yatiri’s account, the Pyramid of the Traveler was a way off from the rest of the buildings, and it was the most sacred place in Taipikala. The mention of the skulls was one more point in its favor.
According to experts, the Gate of the Moon was an incomplete work, a state that it shared with Puma Punku and other structures, as if the builders had been in a big hurry to leave, and had abandoned the hammer and chisel overnight. This peculiarity gave it the sad appearance of a simple opening trimmed with a smooth lintel and two stone door posts without reliefs or decorations.
“Third requirement, gentlemen,” she announced triumphantly.
“This one I didn’t catch,” I said nervously.
“The Yatiri left Taipikala in a hurry because they saw in the sky that the Incap Rúnam were coming, and after them, the Spanish. To hide the Pyramid of the Traveler, they erected a hill of earth and stones on top of it at top speed, removed the original door, whose reliefs showed the pyramid and the chamber below, and put another one without decorations at the apex. I don’t think they had time to make that one very pretty. By the way, Jabba, since you’re closest to the dictionaries, what word did the Aymara use to mean ‘pyramid?’ Or rather, how would they say ‘Pyramid of the Traveler’?”
“You’re such a pain, darling!” Marc complained, twisting around to reach the books.
“So…,” I muttered, “under that promontory would be the pyramid with three floors that’s depicted at the feet of the Staff God.”
“You help Jabba, and I’ll see what I can find.”
When Proxi organized a job, no one questioned her orders, not even the boss (which was me), so I picked up one of the dictionaries and started to look. A while later, and after consulting quietly with Jabba so as not to bother Proxi, we made a new discovery which we explained to the mercenary, when, at last, we saw her brow smooth: the Aymara didn’t use the word “pyramid,” for them, those constructions were mountains, imitations of mountains, and were therefore called as such: hills, peaks, mountains, promontories….
“In conclusion?”
“In conclusion,” I explained, “the word they used instead of pyramid was ‘qullu.’”
“As in Lakaqullu?”
“As in Lakaqullu,” I agreed, “which, besides ‘mountain of stones,’ also means ‘pyramid of stones.’”
“Exactly what the Yatiri did to hide the Traveler: a pyramid of earth and stones.”
“And you, did you find your part?” Jabba asked, in competitive mode.
“Of course!” she exclaimed, beaming. “The Bolivian government has a very good website with a great tourist information page. If you search for Tiwanaku,” she quickly punched a couple of keys to move the article to the foreground, “you can find wonders like this: ‘The Gate of the Moon is located on top of a square pyramid with three tiers.’”
“Nothing else?” I inquired after a pause. “Just that?”
“What more do you want?” she asked, surprised. “You should be happy, kid. We’ve found the only pyramid with three tiers in all of Tiwanaku,” she said, looking at Jabba, “And he asks if the note about the Gate of the Moon says anything else! God, Root, you are so weird!”
“It’s just that this whole mess gets to me.”
“It gets to you?” Jabba asked. “What the hell is it that gets to you?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” I replied, getting up. “This is getting serious! Don’t you see? All this insanity is true! There’s a curse, a perfect language, there are some guys who claim to be descended from giants and who have the power of words…. And there’s a damn pyramid with three floors in Tiwanaku!” I finished, bellowing, then threw myself like a lunatic on the folders and rifled through all the papers until I found the one I was looking for, while Proxi and Jabba, frozen, followed me with their eyes. I suppose that what was happening to me was that I had discovered irrefutably that the history we were messing with as if it were a game was something very real and dangerous. “My brother doesn’t have agnosia or Cotard’s…! ‘Can’t you hear, thief’?” I began to read heatedly without lowering my voice. “You are dead. You tried to take the stick from the door. This very night, the others all die everywhere for you. This world will cease to be visible to you. Law. Closed with a key.” I shook the paper in the air. “This is what my brother has!”
I dropped onto one of the armchairs and went quiet. Jabba and Proxi didn’t say anything either. We were all alone in our thoughts for a few very long minutes. We were not crazy, but we didn’t seem sane either. The situation was mad, yet, then more than ever, the fantasy of curing Daniel with those cursed magical arts was coming true. My brother was never going to get better with medication, I thought. There was no medication for cerebral programming written in Aymara code by the Yatiri. The only way of deprogramming him was to use the same language, apply the same magic, witchery, enchantment, or whatever the hell it was that the secret words used by the priests of the ancient Taipikala possessed. For some reason that I couldn’t
understand, in that text (probably taken from one of the hundreds of textiles with
tocapus
copied onto Daniel’s computer, transformed into the Roman alphabet by the damned “JoviLoom” and partly translated by my brother), someone had put a curse to punish a thief who had stolen something that was hidden behind a door… or under a door.
“Hey!” I shouted, rising. “I just got an idea!”