by Teresa Bruce
“I can’t even fathom how your father could repair the entire frame of the Jeep by himself,” Gary says, beads of sweat dripping off his eyebrows.
My father’s camper was far too heavy for crude leverage. It had to be jacked up and the truck driven out from under it just to assess damage. Even more amazing than the fact that my father somehow fixed the frame by himself in the middle of the desert is that he continued to search for the cat that caused the forty-fourth vehicular catastrophe of the trip.
It was my mother who spotted a black lump on the side of the road: tail flicking at flies. Pantera jumped into the laps of two overjoyed little girls, and before he drove off in an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the convoy, my father took a picture of our camper parked on the side of the road.
It is the photo I am clutching in my hand. The wind has whipped the dunes into peaks and hollows like a stiff meringue. Over time the colors of the baked, pale sand dunes have faded into mauves and lavenders, but somehow the road is still as black as a ribbon of onyx across a snowy moon.
The odds of recognizing one lonely cross section of my memory are minuscule. The Sechura Desert is a vast plain devoid of any signs of life, except one. Miles from sporadic human settlements, plastic bags catch the cold air currents from the sea and ride until they strand themselves on tumbleweeds.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Teresa,” Gary says.
The wind is too fierce to roll down the windows. We are straining to see through a crust of sand slowly caking over the windshield.
“Oh, come on. How hard can it be to find a sand dune in the desert?”
I am trying to lower my expectations and laugh my way out of disappointment. But then, like a parachute landing on a target, a shredded plastic bag settles in the foreground, and I have something to focus on. Framing the bag are shapes that look intimately familiar.
“Quick, let me see that picture,” Gary says, pulling over to the side of the road.
We turn on the windshield wipers to brush off the sand, and there they are—side by side. The crests of dunes before us match peak for peak those in the print I am gripping in my hands.
It is as if I never lived in South Africa, moved back to America, grew up, and married the man sitting beside me. I am staring at a landscape unchanged in thirty years. I am in the same exact place, overlapping my childhood like a sheet of tracing paper. A tissue-thin shiver pencils down my spine. If Pantera stood still long enough for me to find him again, the camper might be waiting too.
WE DRIVE UNTIL WE REACH AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE JUST OFF THE Pan-American Highway and set up camp outside the gates of the Túcume ruins. Which is where we are serenaded by two of the ugliest stray dogs I have ever seen. Losing Wipeout has rendered me powerless to fight the emotional pull of any friendly dog, but these two make me physically recoil. They are grey, like everything else in their environment, and hairless save for clumps of orange, whisker-like fur jutting from their chins and ears. Their hides are cracked with open sores, and the female is in heat, leaving a trail of blood wherever she walks. An image of a forlorn cat, ooze draining from an empty eye socket, floats through my conscience. These equally repulsive dogs welcome us to Túcume as if they too have patiently waited in the desert for us to rescue them.
“I think we still have Wipeout’s antibacterial cream in the camper,” Gary says, accepting what must be done with his customary calm.
I cradle the female’s festered head in my lap, and she doesn’t even whimper as Gary squeezes the healing ointment into her open wounds. The male stops scratching his crusted ears and lets me clean them with a wet cloth and squirt medicine deep inside. The grateful dogs deposit themselves below our camper door to wait out the night.
The next morning they appoint themselves our escorts through the ruins. We are the only people here, and the hairless dogs lead us through a fence of low, scrubby trees and along a dry riverbed to what appears to be a huge termite mound. It is actually one of twenty-six pyramids of mud—carved out of the earth, supported with remnants of thick beams, and at one time plastered over with some sort of painted adobe. The Túcume site is still under excavation, and there are newly poured cement stairs that climb the hillside to a vista called El Purgatorio. Only from this vantage point is it possible to grasp the grandeur. Spread over acres and acres below are the buried foundations and eroded shapes that once sheltered a civilization: patterns of order that created a culture.
From a collection of guidebooks and signs, I piece together a timeline. The Lambayeque Indians occupied the site from AD 1000 to 1375, then the Chimú culture took over, and finally the Incas claimed it as their own. It was abandoned, like most of the great Incan strongholds, after the treacherous Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro deceived and captured the Incan emperor Atahualpa in 1532. To prevent reoccupation, the conquistadors spread the rumor that the site was haunted.
“Glad we didn’t know that last night,” Gary says. “It gets pretty dark out here.”
But the clever suggestion of ghosts in tombs is why Túcume has remained relatively undisturbed for centuries. This morning, with only two hairless dogs at our sides, it is as if Gary and I have stolen upon the scene of a crime: the disappearance of an empire. Suddenly the chances that a single handmade camper has survived even thirty years in South America seem slimmer than they did a day ago.
Chapter Thirty-Two
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
We approach Lima from the north and end up lost—an hour to the east of a city of almost nine million people. It is so sprawling and stuffed full that I am certain we will never find a place to safely park the camper. The most destitute of villages we saw in the highlands of Ecuador and the deserts of northern Peru at least had room to spread out; poverty came with some privacy. Lima feels concentrated and claustrophobic, clamping down conversation between us. Even the hand that Gary gently rests on mine feels suffocating, and I pull my hands to my lap. And then a pair of traffic cops spot us.
I brace for my body’s usual reactions: guts cramping, palms sweating, temples pounding, guilt rising, spirit sinking. Soon I will be able to hear my own blood pressure muffling out my rumbling stomach and grumbling husband. This will be Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua all over again; we are overdue. One cop waves us over while the other steps out into the road in front of us and holds up a fleshy hand. The scene is so familiar I can predict the choreography. When we pull over they move from center stage to the wings in an intimate, window-side duet. In perfect synchrony they bow from belted waists to be eye level with their audience: Gary. It is a performance I dread, a movie I want to switch off before it begins.
“Gracias, señor,” comes the first line of dialogue. This cop can’t be more than eighteen years old, but there is a hardness in his eyes. “Usted hizo una maniobra ilegal del carril.”
Gary looks at me, rolling his eyes. He recognizes the illegal part; I figure out that we are being accused of changing lanes.
“Well, isn’t this handy,” Gary says as the second cop hands him a laminated card. “The fines for everything he could possibly dream up are right here, preprinted and everything.”
Even more conveniently, the young cop goes on to explain that we can pay right now, on the spot. Our dubious infraction would only cost us twenty-six dollars, but it might as well be twenty-six hundred. In one deep breath I realize this is just an opening line. When the credits roll I will still be sitting side by side with the man I trust, and the lights will come back on. We are no longer rookie road-trippers, navigating a marriage untested by stress or danger. I can hear my own voice; it is not drowned by my fears. I take out a pencil and notepad and ask the cop to diagram exactly what he is accusing Gary of. He refuses and repeatedly demands the fine.
I try another tactic. “Mire, tu presidente dice que mordidas son ilegal en Peru.” I am leaning over Gary, trying to convince an eighteen-year-old Lima police officer that bribes are actually more illegal than changing lanes. I need a visual aid, so I reach unde
r my seat and pull out the satellite phone. I will call the US Embassy, I tell him, but the phone is having no effect that I can measure.
The word for bribe means “little bite,” and I find myself making convulsive, snapping motions with my teeth as I repeat “mordida” over and over. I am vaguely conscious of Gary whispering something through my theatrics.
“Keep it together, babe,” he says. “You’re the only one who speaks the language.”
I’m not following.
“You need to be the one they want to deal with. Instead of me.”
We are two continents past stepping on each other’s toes or second-guessing feelings. Even without rehearsal I anticipate the pivot: Gary will out-outrage the cops. In English, with a tone of voice that needs no translation. The color of his face keeps pace with the string of curses escaping from his mouth. Among more colorful names, he repeatedly calls the second cop a criminal, a word conveniently the same in Spanish.
Disbelief morphs into insult on the faces of the cops. Their collars seem too tight; the visors on their military-style helmets literally begin to steam. One takes the bait and starts swearing back, saying “hijo de puta” and worse. But I know Gary still has the upper hand, because both of them refuse to look this crazy American in the eye. Other vehicles pass by, slowing for a look at the scene we are creating. The first cop checks his watch. With every passing minute he is missing easier opportunities to collect mordidas from more compliant drivers.
“Look at him. He’s afraid you’re mental,” I whisper to Gary.
“Good. Let him think I’m goddamn nuts,” he answers back, shouting words the cops have no idea are meant for me.
“Tranquilo, tranquilo,” the first cop says. But he is speaking in my direction, still avoiding a direct confrontation with the man on the verge of implosion beside me.
I shrug, palms up. He needs to believe I am both understanding and helpless. So that he can gallantly save the day by letting me go. It’s working. I can feel the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, ready to release at any point for more leverage. I point again to the satellite phone. See? I’m helpless but not completely without recourse.
The cops confer, lowering the voices they know I understand. Heads shake. Throats clear. Chins retract into tensely corded necks. They are trying on the costume of a stern warning layered over a thin undergarment of desperation.
“Por favor, señora. Controlese su esposo. No este en una rabia.” He motions for Gary to roll up the window.
“So he thinks I’m some kind of rabid dog, eh?” Gary says. With pride.
“No, he wants to pass along some advice.” I nod and shake my head at the cops, yes or no or maybe. This could go any way.
“What did he say?” Gary says. “I can’t keep this up forever.”
“Control your rage. I’m pretty sure he said control your rage.”
Gary’s mask drops, just for a second.
“Don’t you dare laugh now. Just put the truck in gear and use your signals.”
AN HOUR LATER WE ARE SQUEEZING INTO TOO-TIGHT ALLEYS AND DEAD ends, one of which deposits us at the gate of what looks like a huge green space or park on my map. It turns out to be a public recreational compound in one of Lima’s infamous shantytowns.
I would be willing to pay any price just to stop and get my bearings, but the armed guard on duty charges us only the entrance fee listed to park for the night—literally pennies. It is midweek and the park is empty, so we drive through the parking lot and onto a shaded path between a swimming pool and public restroom. Every surface in the compound, from soccer fields to banana trees, is covered with fine grime the consistency of volcanic ash. What should be green is grey, and the absence of color is crushing. I look up to see where all the grit and dust are coming from. I would gasp, but inhaling too quickly would choke me. If there is a rabbit hole big enough for a one-ton truck we have fallen into it.
Our conspicuous rolling castle is surrounded by thousands of desperately poor people literally burrowed into towering piles of dirt. Their homes are chipped and staked into the sides of a disintegrating hill, connected by footpaths that look like the zigzagging trails of a toy ant farm. The soot in the air comes from cooking fires and burning garbage piles; there is no running water or electricity.
An hour ago I felt invincible, capable of talking my way out of any danger. But now, for the first time in South America, I think about the gun hidden under our books. It has been there since the earthquake in Guatemala, like a cancer in remission. I feel paranoid and contagious, a scary Alice in a gloomy Wonderland. I’ve read that almost half of Lima’s population lives in places like this, officially called asentamientos humanos—human settlements. Gary does the math in his head.
“That’d be like if you took New York City and drew a line down, say, Madison Avenue. Everybody to the east of that line has to live in cardboard boxes and pee in the gutters.”
The writer Sebastián Salazar Bondy nicknamed his native city “Lima the horrible,” Herman Melville called it “the saddest city on earth,” but I am determined to write my own description.
For the first time in months we have an appointment. We’ve been invited to lunch at the home of distant relatives of a friend back in DC. Cristina and Fernando live in a Lima suburb called Miraflores, a business and banking center with armed-guarded office complexes, functioning stoplights, and flowers in medians.
When Cristina greets our taxi she takes us on a stroll through the garden behind a high brick wall that separates her home from the bustling street. She has coaxed everything from fig trees to lemongrass from the soil. The aromatic scent of growth keeps the pungent traffic fumes at bay, and there is a calm to her garden that belies the tension outside the gates. This is a luckier Lima, but she and Fernando have not been immune to the struggles and violence of modern Peru. They live life fully but privately—always on guard. Which is why it is such a privilege to share a meal with this family and the two close friends they invite to hear our story.
Jorge is an art lover and businessman, and his wife Eleanora is a young and confident mediation lawyer. The four friends pepper us with questions of where we have been and what we think of all we’ve seen. But when Eleanora starts rattling off a list of wonderful places in Lima that we should visit, it is as if she is describing a completely different city than the one our camper is parked in. If she had never traveled outside Peru, I would discount some of Eleanora’s enthusiasm as provincial hyperbole. But everyone in the room has lived in other places and seen other cultures—Fernando and Cristina lived in Maryland for years—and still they speak of their home country in loving largesse. Each person in the room has the means and the influence to leave, but they remain in their troubled homeland by choice.
“I just love living where there is so much to do and so much to feel,” Eleanora explains. “The sky is so open and the sea is so vast.”
There may not be an actual elephant in the room, but the one in my head is trumpeting, “How can you stand it here?” I can’t stop thinking of the pollution and squatters surrounding our Avion. Traveling through the third world in a new truck and comfortable camper offers just a temporary taste of the tension and inequalities our gracious hosts live among permanently. I know that if I lived in the squatter settlements, I couldn’t look down on a silver camper and two unburdened travelers without rage and resentment. If I lived in Miraflores, I would have to harden my soul to tune out the guilt. Yet Fernando and Jorge, Cristina and Eleanora rise above it. They hold on to their faith in the future and delight in sharing what they can.
We end the afternoon with a sampling of the national drink: pisco. Curiouser and curiouser, my first sip evaporates on my tongue like the Lima fog. Then it opens like a desert flower in the base of my brain, as piercing and complex as Peru.
“You must visit our cousin Claudio,” Cristina insists when it is time to leave. “He makes his own pisco in the town of Pisco, and it’s only a day’s drive south of Lima.”
> Chapter Thirty-Three
THE MAD TEA PARTY
A few hours down the coastline, the Lima fog lifts. There are tollbooths along the Pan-American Highway where it passes through swanky beach resorts, and we have to pay entrance fees—as if for permission to glimpse the glamorous.
Tucked into one cove is a villa that belongs on the cover of Architectural Digest—soaring white stucco walls and a cliff-perched turquoise swimming pool lean out over the Pacific. Around the next curve are empty reed mats skewered into the sand like cubes of straw. These huts are built by destitute residents of the nearby highlands in the hopes of staking a claim to land that might someday be valuable. There are billboards advertising pisco for sale but no signs of farming—until we pass the town of Pisco and take the turnoff to Claudio’s distillery.
Here, rising from the desert like a mirage, are billowing fields of thigh-high asparagus and vine-wrapped trellises bearing thick-skinned, opalescent green grapes. We make our approach cautiously, as though around the corner we might disturb a giant rabbit with a pocket watch.
We pull into the sandy parking area of a one-story Spanish ranch house, but there is no one around, and all we hear is the breeze rustling through grapevines. The sun sets, flat and purple, and still there is no Claudio.
“Cristina wouldn’t have forgotten to call him, would she?” I wonder aloud, too drained to even contemplate finding another spot to camp for the night. We are 184 days into this nomadic life, and it startles me to realize that squatting on a stranger’s land no longer startles me. Or that I am not plotting how to find an Internet café to confirm, reschedule, control in any way whatever this night has in store. I’m beginning to understand that these are the chances that come before dips and twists in the plot of life. I am content to be the kite now instead of huffing and puffing like the wind. Finally, when the night’s first stars are beginning to punch through the twilight, a pickup rumbles through the gates in a cloud of powdery, backlit dust.