by Lyn Hamilton
The counterpart of Dr. Schwengen’s on the men’s side was Steve Neal’s. Next to him, working toward the back, was Ralph’s, and then a room that was used by visiting scholars, and sometimes, Tracey told me, by one Ricardo Ramos, a Peruvian archaeologist who was, I gathered, a friend and colleague of Steve’s.
Hilda and Steve, I was told, had private bathrooms, the rest of us shared small bathrooms with toilet and sink. There were communal showers at the back of the second floor, the women’s on the right, the men’s on the left.
“The hacienda was built in the late 1800s,” Tracey said, in answer to my query. “It belonged to a wealthy family, who had, I’m told, the most amazing parties in the courtyard. But the water ran out, and the house had to be abandoned,” she said, “until about thirty years ago, when someone opened it for a short period of time as an inn. It was way too isolated to be successful, and the owner went bankrupt.”
“Who owns it now?” I asked.
“Carlos Montero,” she replied, making a face. “Awful man. An old lech. His father held the mortgage on the place, so he got it when the inn closed. You’ll meet Carlos soon enough, maybe too soon for your taste. He likes to hang around. But you’re a lucky girl. He’s gone to Trujillo and won’t be joining us this evening.”
As she spoke, I was unpacking Rebecca’s duffel bag, placing everything on the bed.
“You didn’t bring much,” Tracey said dubiously, eyeing my rather pathetic little heap of belongings.
What could I say? That I was on the lam, using someone else’s identity and someone else’s clothes? “I didn’t know I was coming until the last minute, so I didn't have much time to pack,” I said lamely. “Even so,” I said, peering into the tiny cupboard, “there doesn’t seem to be any way to hang this stuff up.”
“Oops,” Tracey said. “That’s because I scoffed all the hangers. I brought more than enough clothes for both of us. I’ll lend you some of my stuff. I’ve got lots. Come on into my room and see.”
I smiled nicely, even though it was quite apparent to me that I had about twenty pounds on Tracey, and knew nothing would fit. But she was right about one thing: She’d brought lots of clothes, enough for an army really. Her room was crammed with clothes, shoes, photos, stuffed animals, and trinkets of all kinds.
“I really love my work,” she said, noticing me looking around. “But I hate being away from home, so I always pack lots of stuff, so I feel sort of as if I’m home. I miss my mom and my stepfather, my brother, my pals, my boyfriend Jamie,” she said, pointing to photos of each in turn. “I phone home once a week, and sometimes twice. I even miss my car,” she said, handing me a photo of the vehicle in question. Well, who wouldn’t? I thought. A Saab convertible. I too might miss such a car, should I ever make enough money to own one. Tracey was beautiful, smart, and apparently rich as well. But not spoiled somehow, I thought. “Here,” she said, tossing some clothes on her bed, “some hangers.”
Just then we heard Steve call from below, and went out onto the hallway. “Cocktails,” he yelled so all could hear, “now being served in the lounge.”
Hilda Schwengen was in the little lounge, sitting ramrod straight in a rather uncomfortable-looking chair, a halo of smoke winding sinuously around her head from the cigarette she held between long, elegant fingers. On the table beside her there was a very large drink, scotch, I thought, no water, no ice. She did not get up as I came in. In fact, she did not so much as lean forward when we were introduced. Instead, she extended her hand, palm turned down slightly, in such a way that for a moment I felt I was expected to lean over and kiss it. Perhaps, I thought, she believes her own publicity, about being a legend, the high priestess of Peruvian archaeology, as Steve had described her. She was tall, I thought, and very slim, with a long neck and aristocratic cheekbones. She was wearing an off-white linen shirt and pants with a silver metal belt. Her hair, silver-grey, was long and worn tied back loosely.
“Welcome to the Hacienda Garua and to our little project,” she said to me, her tone gracious, but her voice rubbed raw by the smoke of a million cigarettes. “I understand Lucho pulled a gun on you when you arrived,” she said. “I really must apologize on behalf of my staff. You must have been terrified.”
“It was certainly an exciting start to my work here,” I agreed. Everyone laughed, Steve appeared at my elbow, bottle of scotch in hand, and the party began. Everyone on the directors’ team squeezed into the little room and chatted away about the day, what they’d found, what they hadn’t. I got to meet Pablo Vela, the foreman, a nice young man, medium height and thin, with a beginning moustache that was quite fetching. He lived in town, he told me, but had dinner at the hacienda every evening to plan the next day. “Better food here than at home.” He laughed. In honor of my arrival, the students who lived and normally ate in town had been invited to dinner: Alana, Susie, Janet, and Robert, students from the University of Southern California, George, David, and Fred from Texas A&M. The only person missing was Lucho, who preferred to stand guard outside, preparing himself, apparently, for the rigors of the life of a freedom fighter. Against what or whom he was guarding us, no one said.
Although the tiny room was packed and the scotch flowed freely, cocktails at the hacienda were, that evening and others to follow, a rather subdued affair, more ritual than anything else. Everyone made a point of going over to talk to Hilda, deference in their manner, who always sat the same way in the same chair, cigarette in one hand, glass of scotch in the other. Everyone, I should say, except Tracey, who stayed as far away from the legend as she could in such a small space.
When Ines appeared at the door, we went in to dinner. And what a meal it was. First there was a spicy corn and sweet potato sopa, which Ines served from a large tureen on the sideboard, followed by large platters of corvina, a type of sea bass, I was told, in a walnut sauce, avocado slices smooth as silk, marinated vegetables, and sliced potatoes covered in a sauce I didn’t recognize but instantly fell in love with. All of us tucked into the food with real gusto, except for Hilda Schwengen, who pushed her food around her plate between gulps of scotch. Several times I saw her look down the table in the general direction of Tracey, who was talking in an animated fashion to Pablo and Steve. There was something in that glance that gave me pause. I couldn’t interpret it, but I knew it wasn’t friendly. Perhaps it was simple jealousy. Tracey was certainly someone who could arouse envy in almost anyone, were it not for the fact that she seemed to me to be genuinely friendly. But I’d just got here; maybe Hilda knew something I didn’t. Ralph too, I noticed, watched Tracey a great deal more than was necessary, confirming my earlier impression that he was more than a little besotted.
In any event, a few minutes into the meal, Hilda arose from her seat at the head of the table, almost all her food left on her plate, and excused herself. Hefting the half filled bottle of scotch off the side table, she left the dining room. I could hear her slow steps on the stairs and on the upper hall as she made her way to her room.
For a moment, no one said anything until Tracey broke the silence. “Ines,” she said, “please take a tray up to Dr. Schwengen, will you?”
“She doesn’t eat,” Ines replied.
“I know,” Tracey said quietly, “but take it up anyway.”
If Hilda didn’t eat, she was missing a good thing, I decided, as Ines’s food continued to flow from the kitchen. Then Tracey left the room, and I began to wonder what was really going on here, but she returned minutes later with her hands behind her back.
“I’ve been saving these for a special occasion,” she said, “and I think Rebecca’s arrival and her narrow escape from death at the hands of the ferocious freedom fighter Lucho must qualify. Ta dah!” she exclaimed, and produced from behind her back three very fine bottles of wine. Now, how could you dislike someone like that? I thought to myself, and judging by the chorus of cheers that greeted the gesture, we agreed on that. From then on the conversation and the noise level rose considerably. Everyone had an ar
chaeological adventure to tell, each more exciting and more unbelievable than the last. Steve and Tracey told stories of helping the police with their investigations of crimes long hidden; Pablo told tales of townspeople angered by the archaeological digs taking place in their region, robbing them of their livelihood, the illegal traffic in artifacts. The students had funny stories about the primitive conditions under which they’d lived from time to time.
But the best story was reserved for last: the time Hilda Schwengen held off four banditos. Hilda and Steve were heading back to town in an open Jeep on a narrow country road lined by high embankments, not far from one of their dig sites, when four men leapt from the bushes into the path of their car, brandishing metal pipes and, in one case apparently, a sword. Steve and Hilda were ordered to get out of the vehicle. Hilda calmly reached over, pulled a gun out of the glove compartment, and started shooting over their heads. “I believe they thought she was a poor shot,” Steve said amid much laughter. “Even I thought so. I was cowering on the floor of the Jeep…if you can imagine someone my size cramming himself into that small a space. Which I did. But Hilda kept firing, and eventually it occurred to them she might get lucky and hit something, so they turned tail and ran.”
It was a story, I could tell, that had been told time and time again until it had reached almost mythic proportions. It was also apparent to me as the story was being recited that there was a great deal of affection as well as reverence for Hilda, no matter how she appeared to me.
It was a really enjoyable evening, the first I’d had in a while, and I began to relax just a little, enough so that I’d kicked off my shoes and sat curled up in the chair. As we all sat around the table enjoying the camaraderie, the power went out. This was, apparently, a reasonably regular occurrence, because candles and matches were right at hand. The evening was getting cool, however, and I decided to get my sweater from my room to cover my shoulders. I padded up the stairs in my bare feet, enjoying the feel of the cool marble on my toes, and careful not to make any noise to disturb Hilda. As I got to my room, I noticed the door was partly open, not as I had left it, and I thought I could see a flicker of candlelight within. Carefully, I eased my way very quietly around the door.
Ines was there, her back to me, a candle flickering on the night table. She was touching each article of clothing I had left on the bed, and I thought I heard her whispering. When each piece had been touched in turn, she straightened, and without turning around, she said, “So you’ve come at last, as it is spoken.” Then turning to look at me, rigid in the doorway, she whispered, “Cuidado al arbolado!” Beware of the woods. “If you are to succeed, you must survive the woods.”
Suddenly there was a gust of wind, the candle went out, a door banged sharply. I turned, distracted by the noise. When I turned back, she was gone, although I was blocking the door. I looked to see if she had gone through the little bathroom to Tracey’s room, but could not see her there. It was perplexing and unsettling.
I went back downstairs a few minutes later, and Ines was there, cleaning up in the kitchen. She didn’t say anything to me; in fact, she didn’t acknowledge my presence in any way. Shortly thereafter, her brother, Tomas, came to take her home and Steve, Tracey, and I walked her to the door. Tomas had a little motorcycle taxi, a bike with a seat in the back. Ines climbed on and sat primly, her hat pulled down firmly, her bag clutched in front of her. As her brother, whom I’d not met, wheeled the bike around to head back into town, I saw a figure caught for a moment in the beam of the headlight, standing under one of the ghostly arches of the little folly outside. He was a workman, a campesino or farmer, perhaps, judging from his clothes, and he was holding something in a sack—burlap, I thought, or plastic—a rice sack most likely. He quickly melted back into the shadow of the arches as the beam passed by.
Strange place, I thought.
Later that night, I lay in bed unable to sleep, although perhaps I dozed. The episode with Ines preyed on my mind, as did the vision of the man under the arches, and so I started at every little noise. At some point, I began to realize that the breeze had begun to whisper, and I got up quietly and went to the door, opening it just a crack. There were indeed voices, whispers, down below. I sensed, rather than saw, the big front door open a little and someone slip in. A match flared for a second or two just as I moved to the railing to see who was down there. Steve, I thought, a stranger and someone else I couldn’t see. The conversation was short and it seemed, an angry one, and then the second person, whoever he was—the man of the arches perhaps?—slipped out again. I was back in my bed, door closed tight, before Steve reached the second floor.
A moment or two later, I thought I heard Tracey’s door, next to mine, click shut. I got up once again and looked out. The night sky was fairly bright, despite the haze, and I caught a glimpse of Tracey gliding along the balcony on the opposite side of the courtyard. She went right down to the end, and although I waited for a few minutes more, didn’t return. Steve and Tracey. I wasn’t surprised, but it was a little disappointing just the same.
10
I first made the acquaintance of Señor Carlos Montero, owner of the rather preciously named Paradise Crafts Factory, and my personal choice for man most likely to have smuggled Moche artifacts out of Peru, a few days after I’d arrived. It was not an auspicious start to the relationship, as I recall, and certainly not one that improved his standing in my eyes, Montero more than living up to his advance billing from the women on the project. But at least it afforded me an excuse to visit the factory, something I’d been trying to accomplish since I’d first arrived.
The problem was that my life as Rebecca was seriously cutting into the time I needed to solve the problems of my real life. In the morning I rose to the crowing of the rooster in the yard outside the hacienda, not long after five A.M. By six, I’d washed, the degree to which I did so dictated by the state of the water supply, I had the coffee on, some fruit, bread, and peanut butter out on the table, as the team, yawning, made their way to the kitchen, such as it was. Shortly after six, I drove into town, picked up Pablo, the foreman, at one end of town, and a group of students studying with Steve and Hilda who were billeted in a small apartment building right in town. Some piled in the back of the truck, others in the cab. I then drove them to the site, a dusty area just a few hundred yards off the Panamericana, dropped them off, and headed back for a marker on the highway, where I picked up the team of Peruvian workers, eight in all, and ferried them to the site. Then I returned to the hacienda. By that time, Steve would be eager to get going, and Hilda, who apparently thought there were three food groups—caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol—would be well into the cigarettes and coffee she lived on all day. I’d take them out to the site to join the others.
At seven-thirty or so, I picked up Ines Cardoso at the highway and took her to the market in Campina Vieja to buy groceries. While she was doing that, I picked up whatever supplies were needed for the hacienda and the dig: scotch every day, drinking water almost always, film for the cameras, rope, wood, chains, propane for the refrigerator, whatever. As soon as that was done, I headed out to the site to assist with the work there, dropping Ines and her bundle of groceries off at her home. She didn’t mention the incident in my room in the whole time I was there, and neither did I. I didn’t think she’d explain herself if I asked, and furthermore it was difficult to take a warning about the woods very seriously when there were so few trees around.
When I wasn’t running errands, I worked in the lab. Every single artifact at the site, no matter how small or insignificant they might look to me, was sent back, usually in a plastic baggie with a tag on it with details of where it had been found. Each article had to be entered into the computer on a template designed for that purpose: the first cut at information included location, depth in ground, size, material, and a description of some sort. Then there was a more detailed template, depending on the type of material, which was much more specific. Here Ralph and Tracey tried to classi
fy the material by period and culture—middle Moche for example. It was painstakingly detailed work for them. For me it was a kind of mindless activity, simply taking the information given me and entering it in the appropriate place on the template.
At some point every day, and sometimes more than once, I’d pick up the little bags of whatever artifacts had been found at the site, delivering them to Tracey and Ralph, who worked all day in the lab.
If I had a moment to spare, I worked at the site, sometimes as what is called a digger assistant, working under the supervision of Steve or Hilda. The excavation site was about twelve feet square marked off in sections by a grid of string. I was occasionally allowed to clear areas of the site, but usually I either helped with the recording of the artifacts that had been found—by and large, ceramic shards—or carried debris from the pit to the sieve. The sieve was made of a large piece of mesh, about two and a half feet square, framed and mounted on legs, so that it was about waist height. The debris was placed on top, and then the frame was rocked back and forth on its legs so that the dirt fell through, leaving tiny artifacts on the top. These were recorded and bagged to take back to the lab. Nothing, I learned, is removed from a site until it’s been mapped on a grid of the site, recorded, and often photographed.
On a hot day, I was supposed to be out at the site between two and two-thirty to bring everyone back; on a cooler day they worked a little later. Not much though. In the afternoon, the breeze, which would normally be welcomed in the heat, gained in intensity until the dust whipped and swirled around the site. It got in your eyes, your clothes, your hair. You could taste it in your mouth. Worse yet, on a bad day, it drifted back into the excavation, covering up much of the day’s work.