Death in the Andes (26 page)

“Speaking of mutes, in some villages in La Mar province, in Ayacucho, they feed parrot tongues to people who can't talk,” said Dionisio. “And that cures them. I bet you didn't know that, Corporal, sir.”

“You'll forgive us, won't you, Little Father?” a man whispered hoarsely in Quechua, transfixed with grief, barely getting the words out. “You'll be our saint, you'll be remembered at the fiesta as the savior of Naccos.”

“Give him more booze, you bastards, quit fucking around,” ordered one of the tough ones. “If you're going to do something, do it right.”

Instead of the quena or flute he played on other occasions, this time Dionisio began to play the harmonica. Its sharp little metallic voice irritated Pedrito's nerves; many hands supported his arms and back, kept him from falling. His legs were rags, his shoulders straw, his stomach a lake with ducks, his head a whirlwind of phosphorescent fireflies. The stars twinkled, and quick-moving rainbows colored the night. If he'd had the strength, he could have reached out his hand and touched a star in the sky. It would be soft and tender, warm and friendly, like the neck of a vicuña. From time to time he was shaken by retching, but there was nothing left to throw up. He knew that if he focused his eyes and wiped away the tears that clouded them, there, floating in the immensity of the sky, he would see the joyful flock of vicuñas trotting over the snow-covered mountains to the moon.

“Those were different times, better times than now for lots of reasons,” Dionisio added with an air of sadness. “Especially because people wanted to enjoy themselves, knew how to enjoy themselves. They were as poor as they are now, and there were troubles then, too, in a lot of places. But here in the Andes, people still had what they've lost now: an enthusiasm for enjoying themselves. A desire to live. Now they move and talk and get drunk, but they all seem half dead. Haven't you noticed that, Corporal, sir?”

If there were stars, he was no longer in Dionisio's cantina. They had taken him outside, and that was why, even though tiny fires blazed inside his body, warming his blood, he could feel the icy night on his face, the tip of his nose, his hands, his feet, which had lost their sandals. Was it hailing? Instead of foul smells, his nostrils breathed in a clean aroma of eucalyptus, toasted corn, the bubbling cool water of a spring. Were they carrying him? Was he on a throne? Was he the patron saint of the fiesta? Was a good father there at his feet, praying to him, or was it the prayer of the woman who sold religious pictures and slept in the doorway of the slaughterhouse in Abancay? No. It was the voice of Señora Adriana. There must be an altar boy, too, hemmed in by the crowd, ringing the little silver bell and swinging the censer whose fragrance flooded the night. Pedrito Tinoco knew how to do that, he had done it in the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, in the days when his skillful hands made the tops dance. He could spread the incense around so that it went straight up to the faces of all the saints on the altar.

“They even had a good time at wakes, drinking, eating, telling stories,” Dionisio continued. “We went to a lot of funerals with the troupe. The wakes lasted for days and nights, and the demijohns were emptied. Now, when people leave this world, their relatives say goodbye without ceremony, as if they were dogs. That's a kind of decadence, too, don't you think, Corporal, sir?”

A cry, or a sob, abruptly shattered the reverent silence of the procession carrying him up the hill. What were they afraid of? Why were they crying? Where were they going? His heart began to pound, and suddenly the sick feeling left him. They were taking him to be with his friends again, of course. Of course. They were there waiting for him, up in the place they were carrying him to. He was overcome by an intense emotion. If he'd had the strength he would have started howling, leaping, thanking them with bows down to the ground. His joy was overflowing. They would stiffen when they heard him approach, and stretch their long necks, their damp snouts would quiver, their huge eyes would look at him in surprise, and when they recognized his smell the entire flock would be happy the way he was happy now, looking forward to their meeting. They would touch and embrace, their limbs would entwine, and he and they would forget the world, playing and rejoicing because they were together.

“Let's finish it, you motherfuckers,” pleaded the tough one, who had lost his earlier certainty; he, too, was beginning to doubt, to feel frightened. “The air's sobering him up, he'll know what's going on. No, damn it.”

“If you believed even a tenth of that story, you would've arrested us and taken us to Huancayo,” Doña Adriana interrupted, coming out of her self-absorption. She gave Lituma a pitying look. “So don't try to trick us, Corporal.”

“You and these ignorant serruchos sacrificed him to the apus,” said the corporal, getting to his feet. He was overcome by fatigue. He continued speaking as he put on his kepi. “I know it the way I know my name is Lituma. But I can't prove it, and even if I could, nobody would believe me, least of all my superiors. So I'll have to stick my tongue up my ass and keep the secret to myself. Nobody believes in human sacrifice nowadays, right?”

“I do,” said Doña Adriana, wrinkling her nose and waving goodbye.

I know it seems strange, us staying in Naccos instead of some other village in the sierra. But when our traveling days were over and old age caught up with us, Naccos wasn't the ruin it turned into later. It didn't seem like it was dying minute by minute. The Santa Rita mine closed, but it was still a busy place, it had a strong campesino community and one of the best fairs in Junín. On Sundays this street was full of traders, they came from all over, Indians, mestizos, even white señores, buying and selling llamas, alpacas, sheep, pigs, looms, wool that was sheared or ready for shearing, corn, barley, quinoa, coca, skirts, hats, jackets, shoes, tools, lamps. Anything men and women needed was bought and sold here. Back then there were more women than men, go on and drool, you lechers. Our place had ten times more business than now. Dionisio went down to the coast once a month to stock up on demijohns. We earned enough to pay two drovers to drive the mules and load and unload the merchandise.

We both liked Naccos, liked the people passing through. Strangers coming and going, climbing up to the barrens in the Cordillera, or going down to the jungle, or on their way to Huancayo and the coast. This is where we met, where Dionisio fell in love with me, where our connection to each other began. There's always been talk of a highway to replace the mule trail. They talked about it for years and years before they decided to build it. It's a shame, when they finally started work and all of you came with your picks and shovels and drills, it was too late. Death had won its battle with life. It was written that the highway would never be finished, that's why I don't even pay attention to those rumors that keep you awake at night, that make you get drunk. Stopping the work, firing all of you, those are things I saw a long time ago in a trance. I hear them, too, in the heart beating inside the tree, inside the stone, and I read them in the kestrel's innards, and the guinea pig's. The death of Naccos has been settled. The spirits decided and it will happen. Unless…I've said it before and I'll say it again: Great troubles need great remedies. That's the history of man, says Dionisio. He always had the gift of prophecy, and with him I got it, too, he passed it on to me.

Besides, thanks to these hills, Naccos had an aura, a magic power. That suits Dionisio and me. Danger always attracted us. Doesn't it represent true life, life that's worthwhile? But security is boredom, it's stupidity, it's death. It was no accident pishtacos came here, like the one who dried Juan Apaza and Sebastián. That's right. El Padrillo. The decay of Naccos attracted them, and the hidden life in the burial mounds. These mountains are full of ancient tombs. Without those presences there wouldn't be so many spirits in this part of the Andes. It was a real struggle for us to get in touch with them. Thanks to them we learned a lot, even Dionisio, who already knew so much. A lot happened, a great effort was needed for them to show themselves. To know when the condor flying overhead was a messenger and when it was an ordinary hungry animal hunting its prey. Now I never make a mistake, one glance and I can tell the difference, and if you doubt it you can test me. Only the spirits of the tallest, strongest hills, the ones that have snow all year round, the ones that pierce the clouds, only they take on the bodies of condors; the small ones, they're kestrels or falcons, and some of the puny little hills are thrushes. Those are weak spirits, they can't make catastrophes happen. The worst they can do is harm, like bringing misfortune to a family. They're satisfied with the offerings of liquor and food the Indians make when they cross the gorges.

So many things happened here in the past. Long before they opened the Santa Rita, I mean. The gift of prophecy allows you to see behind as well as ahead, and I've seen what Naccos was like before it was called Naccos, before decay won its victory over the desire to live. There was a lot of life here because there was a lot of death. Plenty of suffering and plenty of joy, the way it should be; the bad thing is how it is now in Naccos, in the whole sierra, maybe in the whole world, when there's only suffering and nobody remembers what joy was like. In the old days people had the courage to face great troubles by making sacrifices. That's how they maintained the balance. Life and death like a scale with two equal weights, like two rams of equal strength that lock horns and neither one can advance or retreat.

What did they do to keep death from defeating life? Hold your stomachs, you might want to vomit. These truths aren't for weak trousers but for strong skirts. Women took on the responsibility. Women, that's right. And they did what they had to do. But the man the people chose in council to be lord of the fiestas for the coming year, that man trembled. He knew he would be a leader and authority only until then; after that, the sacrifice. He didn't run, he didn't try to escape after he presided over the fiesta, after the procession, the dances, the feasting and the drinking. No, none of that. He stayed to the end, willing and proud to do good for his people. He died a hero, loved and revered. And that's what he was: a hero. He did some hard drinking, he played the charango or the quena or the harp or the tijeras or whatever instrument he knew, and he danced, stamping his heels and singing, day and night, until he drove out sorrow, until he could forget and not feel anything and give his life willingly and without fear. Only the women went out to hunt him down on the last night of the fiesta. They were drunk, too, wild like the wild girls in Dionisio's troupe, just like them. But back then the husbands and fathers didn't try to hold those women down. They sharpened knives and machetes for them, and urged them on: “Look for him, find him, hunt him down, bite him, make him bleed, so we'll have a year of peace and good harvests.” They hunted him in a chako, just the way the Indians in the community used to hunt the puma and the stag when there were still pumas and stags in this sierra. The hunt for the lord of the fiesta was just like that. They formed a circle and closed him inside, singing, always singing, dancing, always dancing, shrieking to encourage each other when they felt him near, knowing that the lord of the fiesta was surrounded, that he could not escape. The circle got smaller and smaller until they caught him. His rule ended in blood. And the next week, in a great council, they elected the lord for the following year. The happiness and prosperity in Naccos, that's how they paid for it. They knew it, and none of them lost their nerve. Only decay, what we have nowadays, is given away for nothing. You men don't have to pay anybody anything to live in uncertainty and fear, to be the wrecks you are. That's free of charge. Work on the highway will stop and you won't have jobs, the terrucos will come and there'll be a slaughter, the huayco will come down and wipe us off the map. The evil spirits will come out of the mountains to celebrate, they'll dance a farewell cacharpari to life, and so many condors will be circling overhead they'll blot out the sky. Unless…

It's not true that Timoteo Fajardo left me because he lost his courage. False that the big-nose found me the morning after the saint's fiesta, at the mouth of the Santa Rita mine, holding the lord's manhood in my hand, and was afraid he'd be chosen lord for the following year and ran away from Naccos. That's just talk, like the story that Dionisio killed him so he could be with me. When those things I'm telling you about happened in Naccos, I was still floating among the stars, pure spirit without a body, waiting my turn to take the form of a woman.

Like pisco, music helps us understand bitter truths. Dionisio has spent his life teaching them to people, but it hasn't done much good, most cover their ears so they won't hear. I learned everything I know about music from him. Singing a huaynito with feeling, giving yourself over to it, letting yourself go, losing yourself in the song until you feel that you're the song, that the music is singing you instead of you singing the music, this is the path to wisdom. Stamping your feet, stamping and spinning, adorning the figure, making and unmaking it without losing the rhythm, forgetting yourself, leaving yourself, until you feel that the dance is dancing you, that it's deep inside you, that it commands and you obey, this is the path to wisdom. You are no longer yourself, I am no longer myself but all the others. That's how we leave the prison of the body and enter the world of the spirits. By singing. Dancing. Drinking, too, naturally. You travel when you're drunk, Dionisio says, you pay a visit to your animal, you shake off worry, you discover your secret, you become who you really are. The rest of the time you're in prison, like the corpses in the ancient tombs or the cemeteries we have today. You're somebody's slave or servant, always. When we're dancing and drinking, there are no Indians, no mestizos, no white señores, no rich or poor, no men or women. The differences are wiped away and we become like spirits: Indians, mestizos, señores, rich and poor, women and men. Not everybody travels when they dance or sing or drink, only the best ones. You have to have a will for it and lose your pride and shame and come down from the pedestal where people have put themselves. The man who doesn't put his thoughts to sleep, who doesn't forget himself, or throw off his vanity and pride, or become the music when he sings and the dance when he dances and drunkenness when he drinks—that man does not leave his prison, does not travel, does not pay a visit to his animal or rise up to become spirit. That man does not live: he is decay, he is the living dead. And he cannot nourish the spirits of the mountains, either. They want first-rate creatures who have freed themselves from their slavery. Many people, no matter how drunk they get, do not become drunkenness. Or the song or the dance, even though they yell and shout and stamp the ground until it gives off sparks. But that little mute who works for the cops, he does. Even though he's mute, even though he's a half-wit, he feels the music. He knows. And I've seen him dance, all alone, going up or coming down the hill, running his errands. He closes his eyes, he concentrates, he begins to walk in rhythm, to take little steps on tiptoe, to move his hands, to jump. He's hearing a huayno that only he can hear, that they sing only to him, that he sings without making a sound from deep inside his heart. He loses himself, he goes away, he travels, he leaves, he approaches the spirits. The terrucos didn't kill him that time in Pampa Galeras, because the spirits of the mountains were protecting him. Or maybe they had marked him for something greater. They'd receive him with open arms, like those lords in the old days who were offered up by the women, the ones who sleep now in the tombs. But you, in spite of your trousers and the balls you're so proud of, you're shitting with fear. You prefer to have no work, to be dried and sliced by the pishtacos, to let the terrucos take you into their militia, let them stone you to death, anything before you'd shoulder a responsibility. It's no wonder there are no women left in Naccos. They withstood the attack of the evil spirits, they maintained the life and prosperity of the village. It began to go down when they left, and you men don't have the courage to stop it. You let life slip away, you let death fill the empty places. Unless…