by Roy Kesey
We cross the river, the headlights of the bus splayed not quite wide enough to show the water beneath us. Jauja, May of 1536, the First Rebellion at full strength. The Siege of Cuzco has begun and Pizarro sends two expeditions from Lima in relief. Morgovejo de Quiñones leads the first to Parcos, captures twenty-four Inca elders and burns them to death. The second is seventy horsemen under Gonzalo de Tapia. Quizo Yupanqui catches them in a ravine near Huamanga, sends rockslides down upon them and they are crushed.
Sixty more horsemen are sent in support, this time not from Lima but from Jauja. Quizo Yupanqui annihilates them as well, sends a cartload of heads to Manco Inca that he might know and celebrate. Jauja all but defenseless now. Pizarro dispatches thirty horsemen under Gaete, another thirty under Godoy, but Quizo Yupanqui arrives first, slaughters the Spaniards, and their slaves, even the horses. Gaete and his thirty are attacked by their own auxiliaries—the puppet Inca he brought has switched sides. Godoy rescues the few survivors and leads his party back to Lima. Morgovejo escapes all but the final trap and the man Segovia chose as the executor of his will should have been one of his two closest friends: either Pedro de Alconchel, the other trumpeter, or Juan García, the Conquest’s crier and executioner. Instead he chose a tailor named Francisco Martínez. Martínez was in Jauja in 1533 and 1534, accompanied Almagro to Piura in the course of the Quitan campaign, and I have found little else of note about him.
An opening, then a denser darkness, the valley walls drawing in, steeper and steeper above us. Jauja, 31 March 1534, Segovia’s signature in halting script—perhaps the only thing he knew how to write. My flashlight fades and dies. Three months earlier Quisquis had attacked but poorly, a single Spaniard killed, the Huanca auxiliaries chasing the Incas all the way to Lake Junín.
Most of the rest of the Spaniards return from Cuzco, and in April comes Jauja’s founding as provisional capital. In May the Crown sends instructions regarding the distribution of labor grants, and Pizarro ignores them, instead rewards his family members and closest friends and allies, and this is the beginning of so much here: so few with such power over so many. In June the city council asks him for additional encomiendas, and he grants them. Two months later, staring down at the endless lines of porters carrying food from the coast, he sees that it is senseless for the capital to be so distant from its port. He chooses a new site near the mouth of the Rímac. The City of Kings is founded in January 1535, Jauja begins its long decline, and already Segovia is dead.
What were Segovia’s intentions when he left his estate in Cuzco? Why wasn’t he given another in Jauja? Was there a falling out with Alconchel and García? Who was Martínez, and why did Segovia trust him so completely? How and when did Segovia die? Why did he leave so little to the Church and so much to Magdalena Clara Coya? How is it that she never received it, and what happened to the original will, and why was the notary’s register never sent on to Spain?
And so I go to Jauja. It is possible that the answers no longer exist to be found. It is also possible that they will be too easily found, too simply explained, are footnotes to a narrative we already have. The third possibility is that Armando was right, that the answers are cracks in the surface of a story we have told ourselves for four hundred years.
I will stay there less than a month, I suspect, though I could remain longer, could travel to Brazil or Bolivia to renew my tourist visa, or return to Macará for the work visa that awaits me there. But I need only a cleaner copy of this protocol, this double, and an understanding of its layered context: of the relationships between the will and the sales records and marriage certificates that surround it in the small register; and between the small register and the larger one within which it is bound; and between the larger register and the archive as a whole. There will then be trips to Lima and Seville. At last back in Irvine I will gather all that I have found and draw borders around what it allows me to say and show, to revise and reinterpret, to think newly about and extend.
With luck what will follow is foreseeable, foresayable. I have not yet told Dr. Williamson of all that the will contains, but he has a sense for when something lays large in the field. He is leery of my past failures but pleased that I have settled on something with relatively well-defined edges, has offered to serve as my new advisor, to help arrange panels and publications and interviews.
Mariángel whimpers and turns. I wait for her to settle again. I look back, and Karina is asleep; Armando stares at or out the window, will spend a week with me in Jauja to introduce me to Alexis Ñaupara, and renew their friendship. Then he will travel the twenty miles from Jauja to Concepción, where he will research images of inherited wealth in a series of illustrated texts at the Convento de Santa Rosa de Ocopa, an eighteenth-century monastery built as gate to the jungle, its library extraordinary for the circumstances, twenty-five thousand volumes, the ceiling bright with paintings of Amazonian flora and fauna, its grounds the setting for the end of Cabello Balboa’s version of Quilaco and Curicuillor. In February Armando will assume his duties as the new vice-dean of History at Universidad Peruana Los Andes. It is located in Huancayo, world capital of suicides caused by unrequited love, less than an hour from Jauja and with luck I will see him a time or two before I go.
The driver’s radio hisses and spits. He mutters into it for a time, calls back that there has been a small rockslide, that we will need to circle around, to enter Jauja from the north, and Karina considers this trip both test and vacation. I have asked her to join me afterwards in Irvine and she seems inclined to go, but is uncertain how much longer her aunt will be able to care for her brother and sisters. Her father is not to be discussed and her mother not to be relied upon. Karina thinks that Irvine is thus unlikely. I hope the odds will improve when I offer her the ring. It is wrapped in a sibling immigration timetable sent to me by the embassy. Our honeymoon will be in Italy, I will say, and opening a bookstore in Irvine will not be unfeasible. Then I will wait for her answer.
My hope, expanded: that a year from now Reynaldo will arrive at the airport in Los Angeles, and Karina and I will be waiting, will drive him to Westwood, help him to unpack. I close the folder, tuck it into my knapsack between a blank pad of paper and a copy of 5 Metros de Poemas, his going-away gift to me. Your goodness painted the songs of birds, is what Oquendo says. I choose to believe that this is true.
My aunt’s hip has healed and I have not yet told my mother that I am returning to California. It is best this way. I will simply arrive in Fallash, will ring the doorbell as if I were anyone else. In my hands will be flanged utensils from Jauja. My mother and aunt will love them and pretend to be furious that I left Peru before they could make the trip down.
When that is done I will walk the hills around the lake. I will visit my father’s grave, and Joel’s, will pack books for Irvine, and the finger I nearly lost is paler than the others, but warm to the touch. I do not understand this at all and wonder if the funds I left Reynaldo will be enough to buy bicycles for Ciro and Iván, if the instructions I gave him for avoiding Segismundo and Félix were sufficiently clear.
Thousands marched in Lima to demand a referendum on whether Fujimori should be allowed to run for re-re-election, and were ignored. I sent notes of thanks and farewell to Eugenia and Don Teófilo, a letter to Dr. Guardiola apologizing for my rudeness, have not heard back from any of them, no longer expect to. The footbridges newly hung across the Piura River were pleasingly referential, and more amusing to walk than I would have guessed. The treaty has not been signed and more troops have massed to either side of the border but Peru and Ecuador are not yet at war.
Máximo Yerlequé, engineering student and Halloween phoenix, nine months in the hospital and six operations and three days ago he died of his burns. An envelope holding a hundred soles left for Hugo the deaf midget. Cabeza de Vaca cannot get to sleep anywhere except on the floor, is uncomfortable in clothing of any sort, ends the story with the memory of a harbor, the finest harbor in the world, full of fish, a place of perfe
ct calm with room for countless ships and we seek to extend each narrative hoping in silence that our own will likewise if not thereby be extended, that our near death will be conclusion rather than sudden cease, and here is what will happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that:
Armando and Alexis and I, we are walking the cement path that crosses the Plaza de Armas. We thread through its scant trees and trapezoids of hard soil, pass the candlestick fountain at its center, continue on toward the church, the Iglesia Matriz de Jauja. Pizarro himself chose the site. The stone has been refaced with concrete that looks now gray, now beige—its color depends on the light, I suspect. The church is unbeautiful but not imbalanced, its bell tower to the left and its clock tower to the right, a vaulted niche in the center that shelters a small mosaic of the Virgin and Christ-child. Through the wrought iron gate, angels in high relief, and the small double doors are open. Through the darkened nave. Hand-carved pulpit beneath the dome, small altars in the wings left and right, and the immense central altar, its carved cedar churrigueresque, florid, Virgin of the Rosary, vast pipe organ, a small door.
Around to the parish offices. Alexis introduces me to the priest, who is seventy years old but speaks and walks as if ninety. Then Alexis and Armando remind me of where we are to meet for dinner, wish me good hunting, turn and go. The priest takes my arm and leads me to the long thin room that serves as the archive. There he presents me to the secretary. She is slightly older and slower than he is. Together they gesture to the shelves: chaotic, overfull. The priest shakes his head, smiles and says he will leave me to it, takes his leave. The air is dry and cool. There is a small table in one corner. I set down my camera equipment and knapsack, hand the call number to the secretary, sit in the single chair. The secretary works up and back along the near wall. At last she stops, reaches, brings a large register down. She places it on the table before me, says that photocopying is permitted for most materials, but not those as old as the documents I have come to see.
The leather cover is well worn, scraped dull in spots, polished bright in others. I open the register, page carefully through. The paper is in excellent condition and the secretary waits at my shoulder. I look at her, and she nods, motions for me to work deeper in. I come at last to the series of small registers at its heart. The fourth is the one I have come for. I run a hand across the parchment of its cover. The secretary smiles. I smile back, and wait. Finally she purses her lips, turns and walks to the far side of the room, opens a window and stares out at the late morning. I work slowly through to the first page of the will. There is a small bit of sand caught in the string of the binding, the remains of what was used to blot the ink, and even these few grains thrill me: Juan de Segovia stood and watched as this very sand was sprinkled across these pages four hundred and sixty-four years ago. The handwriting has faded, is all but illegible, but here too the paper is in excellent condition for its age: near-white at the center, browning to the rough-cut edges, a single small hole burned in by an unnoticed fleck of ink. I set the copy of Alexis’ transcription to the left of the register, and open a clean notebook to the right. The secretary closes the window, says that she will return in an hour, that the priest is in the sacristy, that he is not to be disturbed.
May all those who read this document see that I, D. Juan de Segovia, native of Cogolludo, a cluster of distant lights and a last goodbye: I took Mariángel to the cemetery, and we stood before Pilar. I leaned down, polished the cameo with my handkerchief. Mariángel clutched at it, not as if recognizing Pilar but as if wishing to take the pretty picture home. I made her stop and she cried. We cried. I slumped against the whitewashed wall, came to rest on the ground, Mariángel walking in circles, greater and ever greater. I watched her and abhorred myself and missed Pilar so very much. Then I brought out my knife. The cameo was easier to remove than I would have guessed. It is in my knapsack as well, and home, and the telephone, I call them, Pilar’s father answering, other voices in the background, Pilar’s mother and brothers, their voices rising, voices, the father calming them and I say that it is time if they so wish, that they can take Pilar, take her home to Chiclayo, and they weep, all of them, parents and brothers, weep and thank me one after another, beg me to write to them from California, to send pictures of Mariángel as she grows, to come and visit as often as the world permits and the densest darkness falls away, we ride as if across the top of the earth, stars full in the sky to all sides, we are nearing the pass and I wait, wait, now the scar burns and Karina sighs in her sleep, Mariángel turns, I wait, and yes Atahualpa dead and the Spaniards leaving Cajamarca, higher and higher into the mountains, footbridges hung across gorges unlike anything they have ever seen, the horses terrified, many of the soldiers as well, helped across by small tribes who believe that the Spaniards will free them from their Inca overlords. Chalcuchima rides enchained, but there is a rumor, his army still hundreds of thousands strong and on its way, and the Spaniards ride and ride, the air ever thinner and colder, along the high spine of the Andes, at last across. Pizarro leaves the slowest troops behind, pushes forward with seventy-five horsemen, through Tarma and night falls but the men do not remove their armor, do not unsaddle the horses, there is no food, no water, no firewood, no shelter and it rains, snows, onward, piles of corpses found at Yanamarca, on and on, and now the pass, this pass, the view down a long wide valley, the mountainsides thick with Huanca villages, farther on and in, then Jauja, a lake of golden light: the city is in flames. The Incas themselves have put it to the torch to slow the Spanish advance. Now the trumpets sound, the downhill charge, the slaughter, thousands, a short sharp ascent, a curve and before us the edge, we slide to it and across and before us the same long wide valley, and Jauja, a lake of golden light, but look, the glow is steady, not fire but cradled streetlights, we lower toward them, and a thousand miles away the pacazo wakes.
Acknowledgements.
I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL to the following people for their help in bringing this book into being:
Matt Bell, my editor
Maria Massie, my agent
Jim Ruland, my star reader
Dan Wickett and Steve Gillis, my publishers
Paule Constant, who gave me the gift of a new myth
Victor Velezmoro and Matt Vester, for their answers and patience
My thanks are also due a very large number of people who helped in a very large number of ways:
Eric Abrahamsen, Julia Alba, Carlos Arrizabalaga, Janalee P. Caldwell, Wendy Cotlear, Gastón Cruz, David Djian, Kevin Dolgin, Dave Eggers, Pavel Elías, Arantxa Freire, Hans-Peter Fuchs, Andrés Garay, Mary Gillis, Philip Graham, Jakob Halermann, Elizabeth Hernández, Renzo Honores, Eli Horowitz, Max Houck, Dominic Hudson, Omar Hurtado, John Leary, Pasha Malla, Mary McCluskey, Shauna McKenna, Mark Miller, Alejandro Neyra, Adam Pillsbury, Karla Poggi, Marion Preest, Lelis Rebolledo, Pablo Sebastián, Steven Seighman, Lichi Seminario, David Vann and Reynaldo Villar.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Author photograph by Ana Lucía Nieto.
Cover inset by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
Carlo Ginzburg’s essays (trans. Martin Ryle and Kate Soper) quoted with permission. All other in-text translations by Roy Kesey.
The author would like to thank the editors of the pu
blications in which excerpts of this novel were first published: McSweeney’s, Mississippi Review Online, Backwards City Review, PRISM International, Los Angeles Review, Mud Luscious, RE:AL, Stamp Stories and Ninth Letter.
Copyright © 2011, Text by Roy Kesey
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