by Lyn Hamilton
At five every day, I’d be back out at the highway to pick up Ines at her place, to bring her to the hacienda to finish preparing dinner. In between I ferried people and supplies between the site, town, and the hacienda as needed.
At some point every day I went to the commune to check on my two young charges, as I quickly came to think of them, Puma and Pachamama. I rather surprised myself with this sentimental attachment to the two kids. I didn’t quite know how they had wormed themselves into my affections, but it seemed they had.
They’d been assigned a little hut, and Pachamama, with the help of the other members of the group, very quickly made it quite habitable, for a hut, that is. They’d found some woven rugs somewhere which were nailed to the walls to keep the dust and sand out, and someone had lent them a little wooden table and a couple of stools. They were still sleeping in their sleeping bags but had a little platform to put them on. Puma immediately set himself the task of learning Spanish, although it was hardly necessary for life on the commune, the inhabitants being, by and large, Americans. He spoke Spanish to me whenever I visited, and while it was certainly rudimentary at this stage, I thought he showed some real facility for the language.
The head of the commune was a man, who, in a fit of hubris, had named himself Manco Capac, after the first Inca king, said to be the son of the Sun and the Moon. When I asked him why he’d chosen the name, he replied, “Whatever works,” a statement I began to realize was the motto of the commune. That, and “go with the flow.”
Manco Capac was not a tall man, rather short, in fact, about my height, but what he lacked in stature, he made up for in presence. He’d been an actor at one time, apparently, before he became the original Inca reincarnated, and it showed. He had a large head, in proportion to his body, moved with a certain grace, as if he’d studied dance, and had a voice that commanded attention. He had piercing eyes, an unusual shade of blue; rather splendid cheekbones; and grey hair pulled back into a very long braid at the back. I’d have put him in his early fifties. One of the other commune members, a middle-aged man who had inexplicably chosen the name Moonray—I gathered that taking an alias was part of the ritual of leaving one’s past life behind—told me that Manco Capac had been on the verge of a brilliant career in Hollywood, when he’d become sickened by the excess, and come to Peru to get back to basics. I could certainly understand someone being sickened by Hollywood, but Manco Capac, imposing though he might be, didn’t look familiar to me, so how close to the verge of success he had actually been was debatable. Failed actor seemed more likely.
The commune consisted of a group of small huts, where most lived, and a main building, with water and electricity, where the kitchen and eating area were located, and in the back of which Manco Capac resided. About twenty people, of all ages, shapes, and sizes lived there, and everyone was given a job. Pachamama worked in the kitchen, and Puma, who struck me as not being particularly bright, but a sweet kid, was assigned a lot of the grunt work, such as finding wood, or clearing more land for the primary activity which, according to Moonray, was farming. At least they called it farming. Gardening is what I’d call it, and difficult gardening at that. The soil was very sandy, and the commune sat on the edge of a clump of trees, algarroba or carob trees with beautiful spreading branches, but some of the nastiest thorns I’d ever seen. They covered the ground beneath the trees and would tear through thin soles in a flash. All in all, it had an indelible air of the sixties, right down to the faint whiff of marijuana.
Never having been one inclined to togetherness, I’d often wondered what people saw in such a lifestyle, and for some reason I decided that in Puma I’d found a kindred spirit in that regard. Pachamama liked the bustle of the main house and the kitchen, made friends easily, and seemed to regard all of this as a bit of a lark. I had a feeling that when she’d had enough of the life of the commune, she’d just blithely move on. But on more than one occasion I’d found Puma alone on the edge of the property, deep in thought. Not wanting to startle him, I’d watched him from a distance.
The place was peaceful and very quiet, the silence broken only by some distant voices singing in the commune and the chink and scraping of a trowel nearby. Puma looked up finally and saw me. “Hear that sound? Farmer over there,” he said, gesturing behind the commune. “Putting up a wall between us and him. Not too keen on us, I’d say. I offered to help, but either he didn’t understand me, or he didn’t like me. I’m not sure which. He should learn to go with the flow like Manco Capac says. I told him about the ‘pocalypse too, but I don't think he understood that either.”
Lucky man, I thought.
He smiled slightly, as if he could read my thoughts. “Reminds me of home, that sound. I lived near a quarry.”
For a moment I saw him for what he probably was: a homesick kid a long way from home. It was a feeling I could understand. “Why don’t you pack up and go home, Puma?” I asked him. “Is it the money? Do you need money to get home?”
He looked at me for a moment, and I thought, as the rims of his eyes went red, that he might cry. “I can’t go home right now. I don’t have any money, but it’s not that. I just can’t go home right now.”
“Neither can I,” I said. We sat in silence for quite a while.
“Is there any chance you’d have any time to help me out with the work I have to do at the project, Puma?” I said at last. “I have a little trouble loading the water cubes and the propane tanks into the back of the truck, and could sure use some help.” It was hardly subtle, and Puma, bright though he wasn’t, saw through it immediately, but he agreed right away.
After that I stopped regularly at the commune, not once a day, but often enough, and if he didn’t have any communal chores to perform, I drove him into town. Town with Puma was an experience, particularly the market, where all was grist to his mill. Avocados, oranges, bananas, pots, pans, scarves disappeared and reappeared to the amazement of all, particularly the children. No matter his Spanish was rudimentary, his magic spoke for him, and we were never without a little crowd about us.
I decided I’d been wrong in thinking him not very bright. He was poorly educated, yes, and a little weird, marched to a different drummer as it were, but he had a phenomenal knowledge of history, and regaled me with stories of the conquistadores and the Inca, in particular, that breathed life into textbook history. On a few of these trips, he tried to engage me in conversation about the ‘pocalypse,’ and whether or not I believed in past lives, but I refused to be drawn into the discussion. Neither of us spoke of home.
I offered to pay him to help me with my work, but he refused. So I sent him on errands, to pick up the water, several yards of rope, or whatever, and told him to keep the change from the bills I gave him. That seemed to be acceptable to him, didn’t offend his pride. It was a silent pact of some kind, I think, between two people who, for their own reasons, in both cases unstated, couldn’t go home just then.
It was on one of those many trips to town that I met Carlos Montero. On that particular occasion I’d driven Puma and Pachamama into town so they could spend a little of Puma’s hard-earned cash on some ice cream, and Tracey to the Telefónico del Peru office to call home. After her phone call, Tracey and I left Puma juggling oranges for the children, and went to the market to search out some supplies she needed for the lab. I was rather enjoying myself, I recall, taking in all the smells, sights, and sounds of a busy marketplace.
Campina Vieja is a pleasant place, not pretty, perhaps, but always interesting, one of many such towns strung like little beads along the Panamericana. It has the requisite Plaza de Armas in front of the church, this one so small it is difficult to get back far enough to fully appreciate the statue of the conquering hero at its center, in this case, Simón Bolívar, one of the liberators of Peru. Day and night, the little square is a hive of activity. In the evenings, couples come to pass the time, strolling in tight little circles around Bolívar. A rabbit warren of streets, more lanes really, radiates out from
the square. Not wide enough for our truck, many of them, they are the domain of little motorcycle taxis that ply their trade up and down and around the town.
The market is more expansive than the rest of the town, situated as it is in a large open area. But once inside, the aisles take on the character of the laneways elsewhere: crowded, noisy, busy all the time, almost claustrophobic in their closeness.
We were wandering around on the upper level of the market, munching happily on alfajores, sublime little shortbread sandwiches with a sweetened condensed milk filling, as we walked about.
“Yuk!” Tracey said. “He’s back!”
Yuk? I turned to see a round-faced, middle-aged man in grey slacks and a pink, short-sleeved shirt, the buttons of which strained against a belly of some proportions. He was waving and yahooing at Tracey from two aisles away.
At closer range, Carlos Montero, our sponsoring angel, proved to be a man with bad teeth, his smile a flash of gold fillings, and what can only be described as roving hands. No wonder all the women on the project had winced when they heard from Lucho that his uncle’s return from Trujillo was imminent.
If I thought at my age I was immune, I was soon disabused of that. Any female, no matter her age, size, or general disposition, was apparently appealing to Señor Montero.
“Rebecca, this is Señor Montero, our sponsor, to whom we owe so much,” Tracey said brightly. From where I was standing, I could see her fingers crossed behind her back. “Señor Montero, this is Señora MacCrimmon, the latest addition to our team.”
“Señor Montero,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, “I’ve heard so much about you.” That much was true. “Steve has told me about the wonderful reproductions you make at Paraiso,” I went on. “I do hope I’ll have a chance to come and see your factory sometime.”
Montero gave me a smile that was essentially a leer and kissed my hand, holding it way too long for comfort. “And are you an archaeologist too, señora? Such an admirable profession. How I wish I had been able to study archaeology myself, but my family was not wealthy, and it was necessary for me to begin working with my father and older brother when I was very young.” He shook his head sadly, still holding my hand. I pulled it away and Montero turned his attention to Tracey, who was looking very fetching in white, a cool blond ice princess in white sleeveless tee, linen pants and sandals, thin chains of gold at her wrist and her neck.
Carlos liked what he saw obviously: He was practically salivating. “And how is Señorita Tracey?” he asked in a greasy tone.
“Just ducky!” she replied in as pleasant a manner as she could muster. “And how about you, Señor Montero?”
“Carlos, please. You must call me Carlos,” he oozed. “I am extremely well. And may I dare hope that in my absence you have been successful in finding some excellent artifacts, or God willing, even, perhaps, a tomb?”
“Nothing really exciting, Señor Montero,” Tracey said, assiduously avoiding his attempts at familiarity. “You won’t have got your money’s worth this week, I’m afraid.”
“But it is not the money,” he said unctuously, making a pretense of appearing pained at the mere thought. “My sponsorship is all in the name of scholarship.”
“Of course,” we both muttered.
Getting nowhere with Tracey, he turned back to me. “It would be a great honor to personally show you around Paraiso, señora. I do hope I will have that pleasure very soon.”
Tracey began to make excuses, and after a few more minutes of expressions of appreciation for Señor Montero’s great generosity and commitment to scholarship, and a promise of mine that I would come for a visit, we began to take our leave. Tracey, wisely as I was to learn, backed away from him. Naively, I turned around, bringing my first encounter with Montero to a close with a sharp pinch on my derriere. So unfamiliar was I to such treatment—I hadn’t had my bum pinched since I’d been backpacking my way through Italy at the age of eighteen—I actually said nothing. Being a quick study, however, I vowed to back out of Señor Montero’s presence thereafter.
“The word yuk, colorful though it may be, does not begin to describe that man. Carlos Montero goes way beyond yuk!” I hissed at Tracey when we were out of earshot. “Now I see why you don’t think Lucho is so bad. I mean, he only points a gun at you. This fellow drowns you in drivel and then pinches your rear.”
Tracey giggled. “Oops. Should have warned you about that.” I glared at her, but then I had to laugh.
Armed with Montero’s invitation, I found an excuse to visit Paradise the following day. The hacienda didn’t have a telephone, and part of Montero’s so-called sponsorship included the use of his telephone and fax machine. Steve asked me to send a fax to one of his colleagues back home to ask him to try to find an X-ray machine he could borrow to help in the study of Benji.
The Fabrica Paraiso was on the far side of the highway, just a little north of the turnoff to the road to the hacienda. It was a sprawling complex of faded pink buildings that housed the factory, a body shop, and a small gas station. Montero was quite the local businessman.
There was no sign of Montero in the body shop or at the gas pumps, so I entered the farthermost building through a doorway marked on either side by rather large ceramic pots decorated with Moche-style drawings. Just inside the door, in the dark little entranceway, was a table on which were displayed a number of ceramic items, including three or four pots with stirrup-shaped handles, and various ceramic animals, most notably sea lions and deer. The entranceway led to the right, and I turned into a row of three little rooms, one leading into the next.
The second room had been set up as a little exhibit, with large poster boards on the walls that explained how Moche ceramics were made. Before I had time to look around, however, a timid little woman approached me quietly, as I glanced in the cabinets. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m looking for Carlos Montero,” I said. “Steve Neal has sent me, from the archaeology project,” I added. Heaven forbid Montero should think I’d come for personal reasons. I heard Montero grunt as he hefted his not inconsiderable paunch out of a chair in the next room and came to see who was looking for him.
“Señora MacCrimmon,” he exclaimed, his face breaking into a smile. “What a great pleasure!” I stayed well back as I asked him if he wouldn’t mind sending the fax for us.
“Consuelo,” he ordered, “get Señora MacCrimmon a soft drink. Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward a chair as Consuelo, who I decided was Montero’s wife, poor thing, brought me an Inca Cola, a drink that is very popular in Peru, but which tastes to me like bubble gum in a glass. One sip was enough from my perspective. To cover up this lack of social graces on my part, I asked Montero if I could have a look around the factory while he took care of the fax.
At Montero’s “of course” and gesture toward the back, Consuelo led me past Montero’s desk and through a door into a very large work area where maybe twenty people turned from their work to look at me as I came in. It looked like any large industrial building anywhere: very high ceilings, open to the rafters, with louvered windows high up for light and ventilation. Ventilation in particular was needed, because at one end of the place, to my right, there was a very large kiln blasting away. On either side of the kiln were large doors open to cool the room.
Filling about half the room, opposite the kiln, were several long tables at which workers, a number of them young women, were painting ceramic vessels in preparation for firing. At the far end of the room, to the left, there was a drafting table set up at which worked a middle-aged man.
I wasn’t really quite sure what to look for, now that I’d got there. Earlier I’d decided, sitting in the museum cafe in New York, that Campina Vieja was the point of origin of some Moche artifacts that were being passed off as fakes, but which were, in fact, authentic. There was only one crafts factory in town, and I was in it. So I looked around for anything suspicious, for locked doors, large pieces of equipment or packing that would cover up
a trapdoor, some telltale sign of a hidden room. I couldn’t see a thing. Other than the two garage-type doors on either side of the kiln, there were only three others: One was open to the back to let in some air—the kiln made the place stifling, another door was the one I’d come through from Montero’s office and the rooms at the front, the other led to the washroom.
The storage area, situated in the same area as the kiln, was quite open; rows of metal industrial shelving about eight feet high were lined with various ceramic objects arranged by type. One cabinet had rows of identical fish, another had rows of Moche warriors, still others were plants, animals, and so on in various stages of finishing. Nearer the kiln there were some figures that were still wet clay, others with a first firing only, others decorated but not yet finished, and then a packing area for the finished product. I’ve visited similar places in my line of work, and it looked perfectly normal to me.
I took a quick look through one of the doors to the outside and saw what was left of a building about 500 yards away, four brick walls in various states of decay, no roof on it, and no windows on this side. It might have been a storage area at one time, I supposed, or a very small house, but now it could serve no useful purpose, whatever it once was.
Montero joined Consuelo and I shortly thereafter. He shooed his wife away and took over her duties as tour guide. He proved to be very knowledgeable about Moche ceramics, and how they’d originally been made. He told me that the Moche were the first in this part of the world to use molds, that the most common form of Moche pottery were vessels that had spouts in the shape of stirrups, and how it was possible to date the pottery, particularly in the southern part of the Moche empire, by the length of the spout and the type of lip on it.
