Island of the Sun (8 page)

Several minutes passed, the wind up here cold with an almost Arctic aggression. Eleanor was already listening for the wail of approaching sirens, imagining the rapid convergence of multiple police cars from
all directions on the turismo office, so that when she heard the sound of a real siren, she broke out in an instant sweat and felt her entire body go cold. But it turned out to be an ambulance, and it barreled by the square without slowing.

Shortly after that, Betty returned.

“No problems,” she said, slicing the air in front of her horizontally with her hand. “They made some calls and set something up with a guy named Amaru. He's got a boat, and he'll meet us in Puno.”

“That's the next big town,” Luke said. “Right on the lake.”

“They said we could hire a cab to take us there,” Betty said.

Dr. Powers clapped his hands. “Let's get going. The less time we spend in one place drawing attention, the better.”

They flagged two more taxis and headed out of town. Eleanor and her mom ended up in a cab with Betty and Finn, while Luke, Dr. Powers, and Julian ended up in the other. They rolled through Juliaca and passed a stadium of some kind off to their left, and after that what appeared to be a small university. When they reached the edge of town, the road collapsed from four lanes to two, and they entered a wide, flat plain. Tall grass and crop fields spread away
from them on both sides, tossed by the wind in waves as unremitting as the ocean.

The highway shot along a straight course for several miles, the sky overhead a rich blue punctuated with frenetic, ever-changing clouds, the road lined with billboards in Spanish that Eleanor couldn't read. But she could understand the G.E.T. billboards, which bore images of happy and prosperous Peruvians.

But that was a lie. Skinner's plan held prosperity for only a few. For those in poverty, things would only get worse.

“Looks like the G.E.T. are making inroads here,” Betty said, apparently having noticed the billboards, too.

“It's what they do everywhere,” Eleanor's mom said. “They come in promising jobs and economic relief. But it usually doesn't quite work out that way.”

Eventually, the road veered to the left to skirt some low, rounded hills that had risen up, and away on her left Eleanor caught another short glimpse of the dark lake. From there, the highway inclined upward, gently winding them over and through some of the hills, their folds and valleys sprouting with tall trees.

A few miles later, they crested the hump of the highest hill, passed under a sign that read
Bienvenidos
a Puno
, and entered a town that resembled Juliaca,
with its brown and red brick construction, and the same juxtaposition of old against new. They followed a sudden bend in the road, and as they made the turn, a wide vista opened up below them.

The city rolled away from their vantage, thick and congested, filling a hilly valley bowl to the brim and leading right down to the shores of the lake. Titicaca was enormous, its contours reaching inward and outward around distant mountains to a point on the far horizon, its water a rich shade of blue that would no doubt confound anyone trying to replicate it.

They followed the road as it curved around and down the valley sides to its floor, and there the cab turned left and took them into a nice part of the city, clearly its center of tourism. Here the streets had tree-lined islands in the middle, and the old colonial architecture had been restored. There were more churches, hotels with balconies and ornate details, and restaurants with painted murals.

“We're supposed to meet this Amaru fella in the Plaza de Armas,” Betty said. “In front of the Puno Cathedral.”

“We almost there,” the cabdriver said.

T
HE
P
UNO
C
ATHEDRAL WAS AN IMPRESSIVE EDIFICE, MADE
of gray stone, with two solid, square bell towers on either side of its arched entry. Eleanor and the others waited at its feet by a set of wide stone stairs that led up to the church. The square around them bustled with business and tourism, and the air carried the scent of woodsmoke and grilling meat.

“That is making me hungry,” Luke said.

“Me too,” Eleanor said. It smelled like chicken, and she realized it was lunchtime now, and she hadn't eaten anything that day. “How long do we have to wait for this Amaru guy?”

“I don't know,” Betty said. “At the tourism office,
they made it sound like he knew we were on our way.”

“Perhaps we should eat something,” Eleanor's mom said.

“Perhaps?” Luke said, and took a step away from the group, both hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Who's with me?”

“I'll go,” Eleanor said.

“Me too,” Julian said.

“Don't go far,” Eleanor's mom said. “We still don't know if the G.E.T. are anywhere nearby. There's probably something right here on the square you could find.”

“The rest of us will stay here,” Dr. Powers said, “and wait for Amaru.”

Eleanor gave a little salute, like Betty had back in Juliaca. “We'll bring you back something.”

They stepped out into the square and through a series of stone-encircled beds of manicured shrubs and trees. Luke seemed to be literally following his nose, walking with it high in the air, as Julian and Eleanor followed behind him.

“So what were you and Finn talking about?” Julian asked her.

“When?”

“Back on the plane. In the cargo hold.”

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “He was just trying to
make me feel better about that fight I had with my mom. I'm sure you heard it, too.”

He nodded.

“Why do you ask?” Eleanor said.

“Just curious,” he said. “I wondered if he said anything about me.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “I don't get along with my mom, either. I think I might want to live with my dad. When this is all over. That kinda pisses Finn off.”

“Why?” Eleanor asked.

“He's jealous. Little-brother stuff. But I don't know why. Everybody says
he's
the one just like my dad.”

Having heard Finn talk about it, Eleanor didn't think it was quite that simple. But she was still trying to figure out her own mom, let alone somebody else's dad, so she kept quiet, and Julian didn't say anything more about it.

“There,” Luke said suddenly and with such intensity, Eleanor wondered if he'd heard anything she and Julian had been saying right over his shoulder. He pointed off to the right and walked that way with increased vigor. “That's what I'm smelling.”

Eleanor noticed the food cart on the side of the street, billowing fragrant, meaty smoke. A young woman worked the grill, wearing the same kind of
clothing as the women back in Juliaca—a long skirt and bowler hat. But her shawl held an infant wrapped up against her back. The baby was a little girl, perhaps a year old, in a knit cap that came down almost over her eyes, and she rested against her mother's shoulder quietly.

“Hola,” Luke said, approaching the woman.

Her broad smile was missing a tooth, and she bowed her head without saying anything, waiting.

“Mmm,” Luke said, surveying the food. “¿Qué es?”

“Anticuchos,” she said.

The grill bore various kinds of skewered meat, sizzling over white coals that burned red where they gathered close together. Eleanor didn't know what kind of meats they were, or whether some of it might be guinea pig, but it all smelled incredible. Luke picked out a variety, a dozen skewers all together, which the woman wrapped up in a blanket of tinfoil.

Eleanor took the hot bundle from her, and then Luke asked, “¿Pollo?” He held his hands out in front of him like he was holding an invisible basketball between them, so Eleanor didn't think he was talking about the skewers.

The woman smiled and nodded, and went to a metal door in her food cart. Steam rushed out as she opened it, and then she reached into it with a pair of
tongs and pulled out a whole roasted chicken, which she set on the grill. Its blackened skin soon began to crackle, and after a couple of minutes over the heat, she wrapped it in foil and handed it over as well.

“Gracias,” Luke said with audible sincerity.

The woman showed the gap in her teeth again and nodded.

They left her and returned to the cathedral, where the others still waited, and together they all dove into the food. The skewered meat was good, some of it a little chewy, the flavoring full of garlic. The chicken was spicy enough to bring tears to Eleanor's eyes, but it was delicious enough to endure the heat. Luke devoured nearly half the bird by himself, though Dr. Powers and Betty seemed to enjoy it, too. Eleanor's mom nibbled on some of the meats but stayed away from the skewers Luke guessed to be beef heart.

It would have been unthinkable to find food like this sold on the street back in Phoenix, at least not at a price most people could afford. And Eleanor was pretty sure no one in the refugee camp around Mexico City would turn it down the way her mom was doing, beef heart or not. This mission they were on might have been about the Concentrators, but it was also showing Eleanor a great imbalance that existed in the world, which would only get worse if the G.E.T. got its way.

They were all still sitting there on the steps of the cathedral, finishing up their meal and licking their fingers, when a handsome young Peruvian man approached them. He wore jeans, white sneakers, and a soccer jersey, his jet hair cropped short.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you waiting for Amaru?”

“We are,” Dr. Powers said.

“Then you have found him,” the man said, touching his chest. “I am Amaru.”

Everyone got to their feet, and Dr. Powers extended his hand for a shake. “Very nice to meet you,” he said.

“We would offer you some food,” Betty said, holding a wad of crumpled tinfoil. “But I'm afraid it's all gone.”

“Please, do not trouble yourselves,” he said. “Besides, if that was Nina's chicken”—he nodded in the direction of the food cart with a grin—“it is much too spicy for me. Are you all ready?”

“Yes, please,” Eleanor's mom said.

Amaru clasped his hands together in front of him. “Then please, come with me. I have a car.”

He turned away, and as they followed him through the square and down a colorful side street, it occurred to Eleanor that they were putting a great deal of trust in a man they didn't know. She was sure tourists did that every day, and if Eleanor had been a tourist, she
probably would not have worried. Amaru seemed like a very nice man. But she was not a real tourist, and trusting the wrong person could be very, very dangerous.

Eventually, they reached Amaru's vehicle, a long, tall, boxy white van. He opened the door for them and helped them all climb in, and Eleanor found that the van had three rows and was big enough to fit them all comfortably. It was also very nice inside, with leather upholstery and a clean scent of citrus. Once they were all in, Amaru walked around the front of the vehicle to the driver's side and got behind the wheel.

“How long have you been in Peru?” he asked as he turned the key and started the engine.

“A week,” Dr. Powers said. “We were visiting Lima.”

Eleanor wondered if the lie was necessary but decided it was better not to take unnecessary chances.

“Ah,” Amaru said. “I see. Do you have luggage?”

No one answered at first. Everything they had was back on the plane.

“We left it at our hotel,” Eleanor's mom said. “It'll be safe there.”

Amaru nodded and pulled the van into the road, taking the streets of Puno at a leisurely speed. “So, you want to see Lake Titicaca,” he said. Eleanor could see his eyes in the rearview mirror as he looked back at them.

“Yes, a boat tour,” Eleanor's mom said.

Amaru nodded, his left hand draped over the steering wheel. “It is a very large lake. Are there any areas you would like to see in particular? The tourism office mentioned the Isla del Sol?”

“People have recommended it,” Dr. Powers said.

“That's a popular destination,” Amaru said. “I think you'll like it.”

“Do you still get many tourists?” Eleanor asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “But there are fewer every year. I worry for my business.”

“Is there time to go to the island today?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“Yes, but it's sixty miles to the southeast,” Amaru said. “We will reach it before evening, but I suggest you stay the night in Copacabana, which is close to the island, and then we can do more sightseeing tomorrow, if you wish. Will that work?”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Dr. Powers said.

“Sixty miles?” Julian said. “How big is this lake?”

“It's about a hundred miles long, and fifty miles wide,” Amaru said. “About half the size that Lake Erie used to be.”

“You're familiar with the Great Lakes?” Luke asked.

Eleanor had learned about them in school, of course,
but they were entirely covered by the glacial ice sheet now.

“My grandparents immigrated to New Jersey before the Freeze,” Amaru said. “When the ice reached Montreal, my parents moved to Florida. That's where I was born. When the ice reached New York, my family came home to the Altiplano. Now I am married with a son of my own. South America is now the land of opportunity.”

Eleanor wondered how long that would be the case. There were glaciers clawing their way up from Antarctica, too. They already covered the southern half of Argentina, and much of Chile, and could eventually reach Peru. How long would the rich keep coming to Lake Titicaca? How much longer would there be tourists anywhere? And what would Amaru do then to support his family?

He drove them through town until they reached the city's pier, where numerous tour boats were either lined up along the docks or moving about on the water. The part of the lake around Puno appeared to be more of a lagoon, with shallow waters and island-like patches of reeds, and long-legged birds with curved beaks flying about.

There were also a couple of policemen wearing dark-blue uniforms, patrolling the pier in a way that
seemed designed to appear casual but that only looked suspicious. As Eleanor and the others left Amaru's van and walked toward his boat, she worried that, together as they were, they would likely match any description that had made it to the Peruvian authorities. But as the officers passed them, they gave Amaru a plain-faced nod and walked on without taking any note of the rest of them.

Eleanor's mom exhaled and shared a look with Dr. Powers. It seemed they had been nervous, too. But should they have been?

If the cops didn't know anything, perhaps Eleanor was being paranoid to worry that the G.E.T. had as much influence here. Perhaps the conspiracy was not as far-reaching as Skinner had made it seem, and Betty's skepticism was deserved. Could they be safe here?

“This is mine,” Amaru said as they thumped along the wooden pier. He gestured toward a long, wide pontoon boat. “The
Consuelo
.”

“You're kidding,” Luke said, before he could stop himself.

But he wasn't. The name was right there, painted in blue against white on the side of the boat.

“That's kind of reassuring, isn't it?” Betty said.

“Why?” Amaru asked.

“We've seen a craft with that name before,” Luke said, and left it at that.

Amaru opened a little door on the side of the boat, and everyone stepped aboard. A blue canopy arched over the vinyl seats that ran the length of the boat on either side. A captain's chair perched near the steering console at the front and right—Eleanor could never remember if that was starboard or port. Everyone found a place to sit, and Eleanor ended up between Finn and Luke, facing her mom, Dr. Powers, and Julian on the opposite side. Betty took a seat at the rear of the boat, in the sun, facing forward.

“I get seasick if I'm not looking straight ahead,” she said.

Amaru untied the boat from its moorings and heaved it away from the pier before hopping aboard. The sound of water sloshing and slapping the pontoons echoed beneath Eleanor's feet, and the boat gently bobbed on the lake's small waves.

“Here we go,” Amaru said, jumping into the captain's chair. He turned a key on the console, and the boat's engine chugged awake and sputtered them along until they were a safe distance from the dock. “To the Isla del Sol,” Amaru said, and pushed on the throttle. The engine grew louder, and the boat leaped over the water.

With the wind whipping at them, and the lake spray against her face, Eleanor felt cold pretty quickly. Amaru sped them across the lagoon, around and through some of the patches of reeds. As they entered a deeper channel, he pointed at some islands off to the left and shouted above the motor and the wind.

“Those are man-made!” he said.

Eleanor looked more closely and saw that what she had thought were flat, natural islands resembled floating mats and bore houses made of straw, and people, and even cattle.

“Those people are the Uros,” Amaru said. “They make those islands out of reeds, and they live on them.”

“That boat looks like a dragon,” Finn said.

Eleanor looked, and in the distance, two men paddled a swollen-looking boat made of bundled reeds, with an animal head snarling from the end of its high, curved prow.

“It's not a dragon,” Amaru said. “It's a puma. Some people translate Titicaca to mean ‘rock puma.'”

“Cool,” Finn said.

Some distance later, they left the lagoon and emerged into a wide expanse of the lake, where the waves came at them higher and stronger, tossing the boat more up and down and sometimes slamming into them in a way that jarred Eleanor's back. The constant
sounds of the motor, and the wind, and the tearing of a seam in the water by their boat, soon became background noise, at least until she or one of the others had to shout over it to be heard. So none of them really tried talking.