by Roy Kesey
In the kitchen there are bunched plantains and short stacked lengths of cane. The living room benches are covered with knit cloth. There is also a bright painting with shapes evoking landscape. It hangs by its corner, rhomboid. And the flowers: roses, carnations, irises in the coffin, random arrangements leaning against the far wall, and Doña Silvana’s daughter asks if I am ready for lunch.
The daughter is surely seventy years old. I thank her and say that there is no need for her or anyone to go to such trouble. She says that the food has already been prepared, that all guests must eat, that everyone but me has already eaten. I thank her again, tell her that I am still feeling a bit rough from the trip, say that under no circumstances would I be capable of eating anything of any kind, and she nods and brings me a fork.
There is a large crucifix resting on Doña Silvana’s chest, which makes it hard for me to breathe. The whole of the coffin is covered with nearly transparent netting, though there do not seem to be any insects present. I hold the fork like a weapon.
Old women circle for a time, and when they are done my lunch is ready on the table which now sits two feet from the corpse of Doña Silvana. I am encouraged to sit down. On the plate is boiled white rice, a flank steak, chifles. The toddler brings me a quarter of a glass of lemonade.
The edges of the coffin are scrolled like bits of banister. At its foot are three letters, SPR, most likely Doña Silvana’s initials but perhaps something else. The lid leans in the corner, and beside it is a box filled with candle stubs burned down too far to serve. I chew my food carefully, turn each particle to mush, and smile.
Men missing teeth come in. I am hugged an inordinate number of times. The men sit on the benches, lie down, sleep. Children enter on tiptoe, pull at the petals of the flowers, stare briefly at Doña Silvana in precisely the way I stare at books written in languages I do not speak or plan to learn.
After an hour I am made to understand that I may leave. Fermín follows me out and I give him an envelope. The money inside will not buy comfort for Casualidad but might rent something close. Fermín thanks me, says that Doña Silvana’s burial will be tomorrow morning. I agree that it will, and say that I hope it goes well.
We stop by his grandparents’ house, and Casualidad still sleeps. There is nothing for me to do until she wakes. I tell Fermín that I will see him soon, and walk down to the plaza. The town’s two hotels stand side by side adjacent to the church. One is open and the other is not. The room I eventually choose has three beds. Two have mattresses filled with damp straw, and I nap what is meant to be briefly in the swaybacked third.
When I wake it is dark and getting cold. I return along empty streets to Casualidad’s house, and inside there is no sound, no movement, no light. I walk back to the plaza, find a restaurant, eat a breaded chicken fillet and drink five beers. The television program the waiters and I watch is professional wrestling from the United States. The overdubbed translation is flawless but unnecessary: good and evil however feigned are clearer here than anywhere else on earth.
I watch carefully, as if scanning the rabid crowd were useful. Then there is someone standing very close beside me, and I turn to look. The man does not pull away. He appears intent on studying my pores. It is not the first time I have been observed in this way, and always in towns of this size. He is very drunk, wears a muddy poncho, is perhaps from the group of mourners though I do not recognize his face, and now he sweeps his poncho back to show a machete in a scabbard on his belt.
- I know you, he says.
- I doubt that, I say.
- You work for the C.I.A.
- As a matter of fact I do not.
He pulls out the chair opposite me, sits heavily, and on the screen an immense man in blue breaks a chair across the back of an equally immense man in gray.
- Yes, the drunk man says. We’re going to have to go.
- Go where?
- The police station.
- Why would we go there?
- Because you are lying. And I am a bounty hunter.
His elbow slips off the table and he slumps, rights himself violently, pulls out his machete and holds it up to me. I look around. Only two of the waiters are watching us, and neither looks likely to intervene.
- What do you think about this? the man says.
- It is a very nice machete. Please put it away.
- To the police station. Right now.
- I would be happy to go with you to the police station, or perhaps instead to buy you something to drink. First, however, I will need to see your identification.
- Fine. Perfect. I am very proud to show it to you.
He stands, sets the machete on the table, searches his pockets. It is a very slow, very thorough search. With each pocket proved empty he grows slightly sadder. Finally he finds a scrap of paper. He looks at it, stands at attention, holds it out for me to read.
It is an ATM receipt from last June, a Chiclayo branch of the Banco de Crédito. I read it aloud to him, and he nods, tucks it away. We stare at each other for a moment. He sways, says that he forbids me to move, that he will be back immediately.
He sheathes his machete, walks to the door, stands staring at the night, and then stumbles down the stairs. I look at the waiters. They are watching the wrestling again. The immense man in gray throws the immense man in blue out of the ring, lets his head fall back and roars. I call for the bill, pay, and when the waiter brings my change, he says that I was lucky. I tell him he has no idea. He nods, looks over my shoulder, turns abruptly away.
Of course the drunk man is back. He walks over to me, stands very close, stares up into my face.
- I know you, he says. You work for the C.I.A.
- As a matter of fact I do. And I could not be more pleased about the ways in which our two great countries have cooperated and collaborated in recent years.
I call to the waiter for a pair of beers. The drunk man smiles. We drink to both cooperation and collaboration. I tell him how good it is to have made his acquaintance, and say that I will be right back. I walk to my hotel, and rain beats the roof all night long.
My last waking is later than it should be. I dress, take up my knapsack, stand for a time in the plaza. The roads are wet and bright with sun. It is not clear to me how I am to speak to Casualidad without being obliged to attend the burial, and before I have reached an answer, Fermín arrives on a short thin horse. Walking behind him are his grandparents. They smile and ask what I am doing in the plaza when the burial is scheduled to begin at any moment. Did I have trouble finding the house? They take me by the arms, and are remarkably strong.
I explain that I wish only to speak briefly with their daughter, that if I stay for the burial I will miss the van that must take me back home. But no but no, they say. For a guest of honor to miss the burial would cause the greatest of possible offenses. Also, the vans will not be leaving for some time, as the drivers are all from Frías, all knew Doña Silvana, will all be at the burial as well.
The drunk men are still gathered outside the house, and some are awake. Inside, the candle-stub box is overflowing. We sit and wait for an hour. Then the true wailing begins, forty long and Biblical minutes, screams rising each time a nephew attempts to nail down the lid, falling off slightly each time he desists.
Finally the lid is managed. The coffin is carried, two men on one side and three on the other, and they do not walk straight lines. We work uphill. As we pass storefronts the owners come out to join us, and we grow. All of the women are wearing only black. The cemetery is not far away.
Most of the plots are set in the ground, old and ornate and untended; there is only one whitewashed cluster of niches, recently begun. There is no priest, no reading. The niche intended for Doña Silvana has not yet been cleaned, and we wait as the rocks and dirt and dust are removed. There is more wailing. The coffin is slid into the niche and each bearer touches it, palm flat against the wood. The hole is plugged with bricks and plaster and the women begin to lose consciousnes
s. They are lowered carefully, and water is called for, and they are revived in the order they fell.
People begin to shout at one another in Spanish and Quechua. I search the crowd for Casualidad, and now Fermín runs to me, offers a tour of the cemetery. I tell him that no tour will be necessary, that I need only to speak with his mother, that I must hurry so as not to miss my van. He points out the drivers, who are among the shouters. I ask how long and he says perhaps an hour. I ask if there is any other way. He says yes, horses, a two-day trip, and also his mother just went home to take a nap.
And so we tour the cemetery, Fermín and I and a mute named Teobaldo who cackles and burps. On one side is a brick wall, and the children sitting on it watch us walk. One of the tombs has something like a ten-foot church built above it. I observe it for a time, until Teobaldo comes and stands directly in front of me. He stares at the church. I look at the back of his head. It has a normal shape. I move on to the next tomb, and so does he, again precisely in front of me.
There are palm trees planted in many places and Fermín begins to speak. First he says it is a shame that the son from Jaén did not arrive in time. Then he tells me about the English classes he had before moving to Piura, and the karate classes, and the two American doctors who were here for a day five years ago. At the next tomb we stop to observe, he pushes Teobaldo out of the way.
- The man buried here ran off to Lima with his girlfriend, he says. His wife tracked them down. There was blood all over the floor.
I nod as thoughtfully as I am able. The next tomb too holds a man killed by his wife for unfaithfulness, and the next as well. Casualidad has never mentioned Fermín’s father in any context. All things are possible. At some point I will have to decide whether or not to ask.
Fermín points to the closest peak, tells me of climbing it, of looking for the spot where a tomb full of gold was once found. I ask if he is sure, and he insists. The story is somewhat confused in the telling, has something to do with two brothers and a storm and the Chiclayo police, and now I remember not a fact but a phrase: the Venus of Frías.
- It was not a simple climb, Fermín says. It was a complicated climb.
Casualidad’s father comes to us and says the vans will be leaving soon. We stop by the house. Casualidad lies sleeping and her breathing is not easy. Her parents thank me for coming. I say that it was a pleasure, and the old man shakes his head. Fermín says that if he had been the one to find the gold, he would have buried it forever there on the mountain. I say that that would have been a fairly good plan, that there are things I need to tell his mother, things I want her to know. Casualidad’s father says that she already knows them. I have no idea what he means and rain starts falling, lightly.
I do not want to stay another day. It is absurd for me to have come all this way only to say goodbye by letter. But there is no third option, and I ask Casualidad’s mother for paper, a pen, an envelope.
Teobaldo shuffles up just as I finish, burps, takes my knapsack and turns as if to flee. I grab him by the back of the shirt, and he goes limp and falls. I pull my knapsack away. He stretches for a stick, and draws a picture in the dirt. The picture involves unnecessary curlicues but is clearly of a van leaving a cow or a fat man behind. I lift him, thank him, and he sticks a finger up my nose. Then he runs and everyone waves and I follow.
24.
MARIÁNGEL SITTING ON MY SHOULDERS, her hands tight but open across my eyes as I veer from one room to the next and there is no longer a question to be asked: El Niño has come. The true rain began a week ago as the van arrived in Chulucanas. My slow climb out and down, the rain so thick that mist rose beneath it, and the far side of the street could not be seen. There were no taxis waiting. I ran to the closest shop, sat on a stool and counted owls, hoped to outwait the worst.
Kitchen to dining room to patio to dining room to bedroom to bathroom and back. When I was done counting I went and stood at the window. I waited, sat and waited, stood and waited. Then I chose and bought Christmas ceramics for Socorro, for Arantxa, for Reynaldo and Günther, for all the other university professors and authorities with whom I am on friendly terms.
The rain fell so hard for so long that I even bought a vase for my mother; the shipping costs make the clerks giddy and the vase will surely break on the way and Mariángel lets her hands slip from my eyes, grabs my ears, steers. There was no one left for whom to buy, and a single taxi passed, the water up to its rims. Slowly away from the shop, slowly and expensively to the bus station, and there another complex of downpour and puddle and unpleasantness. The ride home was much longer than eighty minutes. In a tree beside the highway I saw, I thought I saw, was quite sure but then no, it was only a dead branch five feet long, a small piece of bark rising something like a crest.
There have since been no days without rain. At first it was easily absorbed or ran into drains and away, but this is no longer the case. Water stands, rises, stands. The streets are creeks and my yard is a pond and tonight is Christmas Eve.
Patio to dining room to patio to dining room to living room. At last she tires or appears to and we rest for a moment on the couch. Tinsel hangs from each protrusion on our walls. It does not look particularly festive but seemed necessary as this year we have no tree. Real conifers are not to be found at reasonable prices in Piura, and when yesterday I brought out our plastic pine, I found it dense with mold. Mariángel and I hung ornaments on the almond tree instead and in an hour the rain had felled them all.
Now we hear new dripping. This means it is time for the Game of Leaks. At the birth of each I place a dish to catch the drips, and use the shape and size and texture of other ceiling stains to guess the location of the next leak to appear. I have not yet guessed successfully, but there is always hope.
I put a pot in a corner of the living room, a salad bowl in the center of Mariángel’s bedroom, and the clock says it is lunchtime. Socorro is spending Christmas with her family in Catacaos so our lunch is leftovers: broccoli and mashed potatoes and roast beef. We eat at the kitchen table because of its proximity to the refrigerator, and also because the dining room table is full of gifts, some received, some yet to give.
When we are done I stack the dishes, gather wrapping paper and tape, and it is too humid for tape, I know this already, put it back and bring out a stapler. Mercedes Sosa sings of love and justice intermittently as the electricity comes and goes. I wrap the first present precisely, staple a bow to the top, and give it to Mariángel.
She bangs it on the ground, grows bored, and I help her free the gift from its paper. The rubber pig delights her. She chews on its head, and I wrap the present I have gotten for her to give me: a short monograph by an amateur historian from Chiclayo on the tomb Fermín described. Then I unwrap it and thank her and she chews her pig and smiles.
I read the monograph last night. It is not badly handled. 1956, September, the police stop a nervous stranger in the Plaza de Armas, and in his suitcase there is an unlikely amount of gold. The director of the Brüning Museum traces it to Frías, to the base of a peak called Cedrillo, to a tomb sixteen hundred years old that had been opened by violent rain. The pieces are in some ways stylistically improbable. There are links, perhaps, between the little-known local culture that produced them and the Moche or Vicús. Or perhaps the pieces are not local at all, were carried in from Ecuador or Colombia. Or perhaps the explanation is otherwise, and Frías floats free in history.
In other museums were pieces that had never quite settled into any collection—figurines and goblets, pendants and necklaces—and these were brought and compared. A few were clearly of the same lineage as the crown, the scepter, and the finest piece from this new find. The Venus of Frías is a hollow statuette only six inches tall, but no one who sees it can look away.
A young woman, naked except for the raindrop-shaped flecks of gold hanging from her ears, at her waist, and they flutter at any movement. Her figure built up of layer after layer of laminated gold. Immense eyes of inlaid platinum. Narr
ow hips, long neck, elongated skull. Her arms at her sides but her wrists bent sharply, her palms perpendicular to her thighs, as if stylized in dance, as if balancing on an unseen beam: beautiful in a wholly disturbing sense.
I did not take any notes as for me the text is of no professional use. It was nonetheless good to feel old muscles stretch, and Mariángel tears at the paper of more gifts recently arrived. I lean to help, and first is a box from my mother. It came inexplicably clean through customs, arrived at the university with no fees due, and in it are animal-oriented books for Mariángel—the bull, the ant and the elephant, the bears, the other elephant, the wild things and the dog who does not like all but one of another dog’s hats—and a packet of three fine dress shirts for me, white and beige and pale blue.
Next is a box from Pilar’s parents. Inside are shoes for Mariángel in many styles, all perfectly sized. Then box after box from friends at the university, all for Mariángel, mainly clothes and mainly lovely and she ignores them.
Now we are left only with gifts intended for others and meant to have been mailed last month or hand-delivered days ago. Each is already in its box and I wrap, a furious wrapping, paper swaths of no particular dimension around and around until only paper can be seen, and staples at every corner. For this process Mariángel is of precisely as much help as I would have guessed.
Slightly less than halfway done, and our wrapping paper is slightly more than halfway gone. I look for the scissors, and do not see them. I check the far corners of the table, check my back pockets, check the floor. Mariángel turns away, and I call to her; at the sound of my voice she runs, falls as I stand and she screams, I leap and lift her and the scissors fall away, there is blood on the tips, on Mariángel’s face, I wipe and wipe and the wounds on her cheeks are not deep, are in fact more scratches than cuts.
In the bathroom there is antiseptic cream, and there are bandages. Five minutes later she looks deformed but is chewing her pig happily again and I am exhausted. Also I am fortunate, in that I decided some time ago that I wished for the two of us to spend tonight alone together, and thus declined the invitations we received.