The Travel Writer

by Jeff Soloway

  From the stone igloo behind the Kallawaya, half a head poked out, along with a few wisps of long hair, and an arm extended and waved. Then the image was sucked back into the hut. I stood up.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, and stepped forward.

  The attendant frowned and held up both hands, like a mime pushing back an invisible wall. “It is customary to hear the Kallawaya speak before you retire to the Temple of Contemplation.”

  The disembodied arm reappeared with an okay sign. I clapped my mouth shut and sat down. “Carry on,” I said. The Kallawaya remained frozen, his eyes shut.

  The attendant dropped a hand on the Kallawaya’s shoulder, as gently as a leaf falling. We waited. The breeze died, as if it too were holding its breath in anticipation. Finally the attendant poked the Kallawaya in the kidney, and the older man’s fingers flew up like leaping spiders. He descended from his throne and crouched before us, wincing slightly as he bent his knees. He dipped his hand into a basket of coca and arranged his handful of leaves in a tic-tac-toe formation.

  “The Kallawaya was reflecting on the wisdom of the Pachamama, our Earth Mother,” explained the attendant, with a little sigh. “Would you like to ask him any questions?”

  Do people really fall for this? I wanted to ask. But I knew that everybody likes fortunes, especially when, as paying guests, they can reasonably expect good news. I glanced at the hut and hoped the fake good tidings would be brief.

  “What kind of questions?” asked Kenny.

  The attendant paused, to give the inquiry due consideration. “Any kind,” he announced at last. “The Kallawaya will do his best—which is the best that the spirits of the mountains and the Pachamama will allow him.” I thought of Hilary seated here for her consultation, inwardly rolling her eyes and wondering if they’d comp the wine at her next meal. She was a pro like me and would be unimpressed with New Age foolery. She would have let her mind scamper about the terrace as she pretended to listen. Perhaps she recalled the face of a certain bellhop. Perhaps she focused on the slow cramping of her folded legs. Was the hidden greeter—it had to be Pilar—comfortable in the stone hut?

  “Okay,” Kenny said. “Here it is: Am I going to find”—I charley-horsed him with my elbow—“fuck! What I’m looking for! That’s all! Dickwad. Am I going to find what I’m looking for?”

  The attendant translated the query into Aymara.

  The Kallawaya tossed a few leaves before him with an arthritic spasm. A coca leaf has a glossy side and a dull side; most of the tossed leaves landed glossy side up. The Kallawaya grunted, satisfied, and tossed again. He said something in Aymara.

  “The Kallawaya requires more information,” the attendant told him. “He believes you are speaking of matters of the heart.”

  “He’s got it,” said Kenny. “I’m talking about a girl. A girlfriend. Maybe. Does she have feelings for me? Would he know that?”

  The attendant relayed; the Kallawaya tossed, and spoke.

  “She has deep feelings for you,” said the attendant.

  “Congrats,” I said.

  The Kallawaya glanced over at me and frowned down at the coca leaves, as if some malevolent nuance of their message had only now become apparent to him.

  “What’s in the future?” asked Kenny. “Will we make it? Will we get together?”

  The relay; the throw; the rumble of indecipherable syllables.

  “The Kallawaya would like to be invited to your wedding.”

  The attendant chuckled, inviting Kenny to chuckle. He did, his whole body shaking in relief. He even played the bongos on the tops of his thighs and shimmied his shoulders. The attendant roared, and even the Kallawaya contorted his earth-brown, wrinkled face into a grin. I could suddenly see the charming older guy from the village who liked to kick back with a beer after a hard day of Kallawayaing. When Kenny calmed down, the Kallawaya shed the grin and extended his gnarled hand slowly across the tic-tac-toe board until he finally let it rest on Kenny’s shoulder. He murmured something comforting in his language. Like the best fortunetellers and psychiatrists, he knew instinctively what Kenny needed from him.

  “Kids?” said Kenny softly. “What about kids?”

  The attendant spoke, and the Kallawaya tossed again. It took several tries to get a leaf landing glossy side up.

  “It will be difficult, and may require some time, but you will have a little girl,” the attendant said.

  Kenny pumped his fist. “That’s what I want,” he said. “Someday. Boys are trouble. What about Jake? My buddy. The writer. He’s trying to find my girl, Hilary Pearson, you heard of her. But keep that on the hush-hush, right? Jake’s got his own girl. So what do you see? Wedding bells for him too?” Kenny cackled mischievously and scooted off the cushion, out of my reach.

  The attendant duly translated, and the Kallawaya turned to me and stared. I finished glaring at Kenny and stared back at the Kallawaya, to show I wasn’t afraid. He squirmed on his rock and spoke sharply to the attendant, who answered back in Aymara.

  “What’s he saying?” I asked. I looked again at Kenny, but he was gazing at his toes, probably mentally dressing Hilary in a wedding gown.

  The Kallawaya stood up, gathered his poncho about him, and stormed off while continuing to argue in Aymara with his attendant, who was clearly trying to persuade him to come back. I was reminded of a James Brown concert.

  “The Kallawaya is disturbed,” said the attendant. “I will ask him to explain.”

  The attendant jogged after him to continue the argument, but the Kallawaya swiped his hand at him. The attendant trotted back.

  “He sees a beautiful wedding with all your family in attendance,” announced the attendant.

  “He does not,” I said. “Tell me what he said.” Hilary’s name had upset him. Perhaps he really did know something; perhaps being a Kallawaya was worth more than I thought. People—not just guests but local working suckers too—confessed to him, like to a priest. Or maybe he just pretended to be upset in front of all the guests, to pique their interest.

  “He will return to explain himself further.”

  But the Kallawaya continued pacing around the next-door altar, mumbling to himself.

  “Was he asleep when we got here?” I asked. “He looked asleep.”

  “He was meditating deeply. He’s had a very long day. He threw his first leaves at six-fifteen, just before the first pony trek upon the Riobamba.”

  “How old is he?”

  The attendant shrugged. “About sixty? He doesn’t know himself.”

  Maybe forty years of dispensing wisdom, flipping coca leaves, and gathering sacred herbs; or maybe forty years of planting and digging Andean potatoes before he scored this gig.

  The Kallawaya returned and settled again on his rock, squirming irritably. He was hiding something. Why would anybody hide anything about me? No, it was a secret of his own.

  “The Kallawaya apologizes,” said the attendant, though the Kallawaya hadn’t said anything. “He finds it difficult to maintain concentration for so long. Do you have a question for him?”

  “Yes,” I said. I decided to take a chance. “Does he know anything about Hilary Pearson? Something I should know?”

  The Kallawaya threw up his hands.

  “These stupid questions!” he said in Spanish. His attendant spoke sharply in Aymara, but the Kallawaya only grimaced and turned away.

  “You speak Spanish?” I asked in that language.

  “We all know who you are,” said the Kallawaya. “All of us! You pretend to come in peace, but you try to destroy all our jobs. You are young and stupid, and people who know English say your book is not very good.”

  “Be a professional!” said the attendant in Spanish.

  “What kind of Kallawaya are you?” I said.

  “I am fully registered as a Kallawaya. Would you like to see my license? The hotel granted it to me more than one year ago.”

  “I believe you. I don’t want anyone to lose his job.” />
  Kenny was now gaping at me; he probably thought I had just learned Aymara myself.

  “Don’t ask me about Hilary Pearson. She is an angry spirit, whether she is alive or dead. You are too young to understand what this means.”

  “How could she be dead?” the attendant demanded.

  “She is a curse upon our entire country,” said the Kallawaya. “She is an ill-educated girl. I myself saw her swimming without any clothing.”

  “You were asleep,” said the attendant, waving his hand at him, in a near perfect mime of the Kallawaya’s own gesture.

  “In your country your black people are always dying,” the Kallawaya lectured me. “Policemen shoot them, and the military. You North Americans die also when you eat your unhealthy food from cans. And your Coca-Cola.”

  Kenny perked up at a word he recognized.

  “You are disturbing the spirits of our country when you come here with bad intentions. Look!” He threw coca leaves on the ground. “Bad side! Bad side again!” He kept pointing at their pale undersides, like a referee counting out a boxer.

  “You’re doing that!” I said. “With your wrist.”

  “Bad side! Again! You and the woman Hilary Pearson. Bringing evil. During our consultation, she asked me if she was going to win a fortune of money. A fortune! Why ask such a question? You should ask about finding a little money, never a fortune.”

  “She doesn’t have much money,” I said. “For an American.”

  He stood up and, muttering and waving his hands, walked past the hut and out of sight.

  The attendant watched him go. “Any more questions?” he said in English.

  They all knew me, everyone at the hotel, just as Antonio at the Gran Hotel París knew me, and they all hated me for what I intended to do: expose the hotel’s guilt, thereby destroying their livelihoods. I was to them another American avenger, raining down reprisals on the guilty and innocent together, crucifying a whole community—even a whole nation—to avenge the misfortune of Hilary Pearson. Pride stirred within me. Let them be right. A vengeful god was still a just one.

  “What kind of Kallawaya is he?” I asked again.

  “He feels the spirit very deeply,” said the attendant. “He is correct very often—not always, but mostly. Sometimes he misinterprets the leaves, or the emotion that overcomes him.”

  Perhaps I myself had misunderstood the Kallawaya’s condemnation. Perhaps he saw that I was a pompous fraud who had convinced everyone, even myself, of my influence, and he was merely insulted by my delusions. On the other hand, maybe he was a Condepa agent assigned to riddle me with guilt. Maybe he had even hired a female assassin to knife me in the hut afterward, when he was gone. Either way I knew I had earned his enmity.

  “Does he always get so upset?” I asked.

  “My mother said he was like a fire in the dry grass. But he was always kind to her and to me,” he said. So the attendant was the Kallawaya’s son. How had this young man learned English, and Spanish as well? Had he escaped from his dirt-farming village and mud home and old-fashioned, kooky dad to put himself through private school in the city? Or perhaps he was a genius and picked up languages by studying books from the municipal library. This young man’s life had opened to me, but I was sure I would forget him in a few days. Why didn’t he have an investigative journalist profiling him? He had rescued himself from poverty and ignorance. Didn’t anyone care?

  “Perhaps you would now like to contemplate the Kallawaya’s words in the temple?” he continued. “Or we can walk with you back through the tunnel, if you don’t want to contemplate at this moment.”

  “We’ll contemplate,” I said.

  The attendant nodded and began sweeping up the spent coca leaves with a brush he kept in his pocket.

  We crouched and paddled ourselves through the hut’s low opening. The inside was musty but well lit by recessed lights embedded in the pseudo-stone ceiling. The floor was covered with pillows and thick carpets, like a harem. Pilar was seated there, leaning back, smiling at her own cleverness. I took her hand. She let me.

  “You’re all right,” I said.

  “Of course I am. Why did it take you so long? Arturo’s such a slow driver. You can’t tell anyone you saw me here—either of you.” We nodded, like two little boys swearing allegiance to an older sister. “Dionisius let me off in the garage. He told me to take one of the staff cars back up to La Paz while he attended to his business. He doesn’t want me here.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think he doesn’t trust me with you. I waited until he left and then snuck up here through the freight elevator. That’s how they brought up the stones for this temple. There are all sorts of tricks to this place, Jacob, and I know most of them.”

  “What did he want with you?” I asked.

  “He just wanted to lay down the law. He’s not happy with me. All because of you, Jacob. He thinks you want to bring down the hotel, and he knows I hired you. I told him he was crazy—you’re just a writer I had worked with before. But if he knew I was still here and not back in La Paz—well!”

  “Well what?”

  She just shrugged. “I’ll go back up tomorrow morning. Early, before anyone’s up. I have a friend who can help me get away quietly. They don’t need me until tomorrow evening, when I have to collect the new guests at the airport.”

  “So what are you doing here now?” I said.

  “I had a few things to settle. It’s still up in the air, Jacob, but I’ll tell you everything later. I’m so glad you made it.”

  “Me too?” asked Kenny.

  “Both of you.” She smiled at him like a proud sister.

  “I asked the Pachamama guy about you and Jake,” said Kenny. “Do you know what he said? He sees a wedding! Believe that?”

  “I never believe the Kallawayas. But you can talk more with them later. Most of them come to dinner. They eat like horses.” She touched my arm. “You should go back the way you came.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have a little hideaway in the hotel. I can get there by the freight elevator. Don’t tell anyone I’m here! I need some time to get you the materials we spoke of, Jacob.”

  “The picture of Hilary? The kidnappers’ notes?”

  “Yes. We’ll talk tonight, Jacob. Late.” Before she crawled out of the hut she whispered in my ear, “Don’t be asleep.”

  Chapter 19

  I was almost overcome by the narcotic aroma of the word asleep, but I gritted my teeth and the weariness passed. Seeing Pilar was better than chewing coca leaves. What would she tell me tonight? And would she again let me spend the night in her room, wherever it was? Clearly she was in a good mood; perhaps I could even take credit for it. As Kenny and I filed back through the tunnel to the lobby, I found myself grinning in self-satisfaction. At one point, we had to press ourselves against the wall to let a train of German tourists rumble past. Their skinny Bolivian guide nodded curtly in annoyance. Screw him, and all the fat tourists on their pleasure trip. I was working.

  Gabriela charmingly (she had no other manner) assigned a young man to escort us to Soldán’s office. We followed him behind an unmarked door into the forbidden employee-only zone, where the corridors were white and fluorescent-lit and tended to swerve mysteriously and fork at irrational places. Perhaps immovable, unblastable chunks of mountain rock dictated their paths, or perhaps the jumbled hallways were meant for some obscure aesthetic reason to resemble ant tunnels. Or maybe huge blind worms had done the tunneling here; bringing them up from the jungle was cheaper than taking heavy equipment down the road from La Paz. The worms rested out back in a cool pit, beside the llama and vicuña stables, responding only to the commands of a specialist worm-master Kallawaya.

  Soldán was nervously stowing something under his desk when we entered his office. The secret FBI report, I thought, but then I noticed the wisps of smoke floating above his head and the scent of tobacco. As I fell into the grip of one of the chairs before h
is desk, my exhaustion came rumbling over me. I shut my eyes, just to pretend for a moment that I was allowed to sleep, and had to tear them open immediately when consciousness wavered.

  Soldán didn’t notice. “Did you enjoy your consultation with the Kallawaya?” he asked, the fluster evaporating from his expression.

  I gathered my wits and shot Kenny a preemptive glare, but he was examining a poster of a farmer leading a loaded alpaca up a mountain path. The caption read, “Bolivia: Where the Past Is Always with Us.”

  “He was rude,” I said.

  Soldán gingerly ventured a grin and spread his arms helplessly.

  “He and his colleagues have had such difficulties with the American journalists,” said Soldán apologetically. He folded up his wings. “People are afraid for their jobs. The emotion is understandable, yes?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But Hilary Pearson is well known in New York. When I return, people will ask me about her case, and I need to tell them something.” I tried to speak as one friend of the Matamoros to another. Kenny nodded, perhaps agreeing with me that this was the best way to win Soldán’s sympathy, or perhaps just agreeing.

  Soldán rubbed both cheeks with his hands. Was he just buying time to compose the most politic of responses, or was he struggling with the conflicting emotions the woman’s death had set swirling in his mind? I wanted to trust him. I wondered if he trusted himself or if his brain floundered in doubts all day, like those of everyone I liked.

  “I spoke to her once during her visit,” he said. He looked not at me but at the alpaca poster. “After I brought her to the Kallawaya, she returned and invited me for a drink. American girls are known to be very open, not timid and frightened like our Bolivian girls. I accepted. We discussed what the Kallawaya told her, that she would soon be married. She thought the prediction was extremely amusing. She told me about her boyfriend.”

  “What did she say?” asked Kenny.