Vilcabamba
SOME KIND of rain—some soft kind of rain first. Then the prickle of imagination or remembering; I’m never sure which. Another mist almost like this one, though, and tunes of old songs I wonder if I’ll ever hear again or if I really heard before. A different language. Guaya gocomadi. Guaya go comaditu. What does it mean? And there is a sign: the hand palm up, then turning over and back again, and repeated. A graceful gesture. I remember, too, a funny little backward step-dance. And whistles! Each child had both a name and a whistle to be called by, and the whistles echoed sharp and clear about the mountains. I’ve forgotten my special whistle but I think I remember my name. I was Akuhu. And I think I remember they told me I was Ipa. “You are Ipa,” they said. “Ipa! You will marry Ipa and no other. There will be no children, and there never have been children, unless Ipa marries Ipa.” (I think not all of us, even there, were Ipa.)
It turned out to be true: there are no children. I married one of these women. She left me for one of her own kind and now she does have a child. If I do not find Ipa, I fear I will be childless. But are there any Ipa—and what is Ipa?
I do remember they said Ipa had dogs that came from the wombs of pumas, Ipa had cats from eagles’ aeries. I remember this, but I forgot the language I learned it in.
Here they call me Mac, though some call me Joe. Also Big Nose, Nosey; Nose it All, Slanty Head… Sometimes it seems they took me only to laugh at me. (They had, by then, and as a favor, cut off my two sixth fingers.) I imagine all of us looked more or less like me back in that place, and I think that the burden of proof of my ugliness is on them. I think I remember Mother, or perhaps big sister…Yes, a sister: Woialala. I rode on her back sometimes in a little yellow sling with tassels. I remember her… I do remember her because it’s her face I began to see in the mirror, more and more, as I grew older. My nose, her nose. My black eyes, her black eyes. My long, strong fingers, hers. When I think of her, I think this is a good way to be looking.
They took me from the food I knew and loved and fed me pickled fish, onions, sour cheeses. I remember the first crab I ate. There was nothing else to eat, so I ate it. (We are mountain people. Such food is alien to us.) They never let me do any work that I wanted or felt suited for. First I was set to polishing their shoes. Later to polishing their vehicles. I polished silver, brass, and bronze, glass, glasses, doorknobs…
Always they tell me my people are gone. Even the kindly ones tell me I have no more people, our land a broken wilderness: bridges, roads, and terraces fallen into the valleys. All now impenetrable. Also I know it’s not a trip to take alone, but I have nothing to lose, and I would be happy if I found even one person like me, or one a little like me, or one like Woialala. I want to die in that place, somewhere near the terraces and tarns of home even if in ruins. But it’s been so long I wonder if it will seem like home anymore.
I have a box of things I came with—what I had on when they took me: a sort of vest of stained white cotton with a border of red and gold threads. Much too small for me now, of course. I’ve often wondered if the stains are blood. They’re the right brown color. I don’t think it’s my blood, but I don’t remember whose it could be. I don’t know who was hurt or maybe even killed when I was taken. Perhaps I don’t want to remember. There’s a rattlesnake-skin belt with no buckle. I think they took the buckle. There’s a red wool hat. That still fits. I remember clinging to these even after they’d dressed me in their clothes. It was as though something of mother, aunt, or sister might be in them. They saw how the things comforted me and they gave me a box and let me keep them.
Kopi, kopi,
Bra ta apu.
Kopi, kopi,
Bra ta pu.
Kopi, kopi,
Rintu kopi,
Bruha tapu,
Tapapu.
Children said that. Over and over.
“Ama sua, ama llulla, ama quella.” I do not steal (sua), but I have stolen, I do not lie (llulla) but I have lied—already five lies. Or, rather, the same lie to five different people. What I have stolen is only the exact (are and not one penny more, but it is stealing none the less, even though I, myself, could be said to be stolen goods. Can’t I steal, then, in order to restore myself to myself and to the place where I was stolen from? But I know something about that place. I know I left my golden bracelet on the edge of a cliff and would come back and find it still there. Though perhaps I only dreamed this and that once I had a golden bracelet.
My heart is a stone. (An idea I think I learned in that place: golden heart, silver heart, a heart to reach the top of the mountain, a heart to go on a long journey.) I cried after they first took me. I have not cried since. I looked for love after they first took me, I have not looked since, nor believed in it, not even in my marriage. “Go,” I said to Lillian. ‘’You haven’t broken your word for there was only a stone to make promises to.” My trip, then, not only to find my people and Ipa, but to make my heart the navel, the cuzco of my being, where all directions merge.
Now the happy dawn of the first steps into the desert of the coast. Leave behind the ocean foods. In my pack, dried corn and potatoes, nuts and fruits. Also my little red and gold-trimmed vest and my snake belt. Only now, three hours’ hike into this damp desert, have I dared to take out my red hat and put it on. It’s a funny little hat with a fringe along the edges. It must have been loose and rather like a beret when I wore it as a child, but now it fits more like a low fez. In the center of the front I think I once had a golden ornament—must have been real gold because that was torn from it when I was first taken. Now there’s a ragged hole there. I’ve not tried to repair it. I’ve left it as it was. A hat with a hole. I would like my heart, one day, to be as open as my hat.
For the first time in my life—that I can remember—I’m full of hope and eagerness. I don’t care if I find my own mountain. I have come here to be in that brisk air. I have come here to taste the little round seeds of home. I have come here to see, if not big noses, then at least the groups—the majorities in fact! —of small, brown people.
But of course I’ve seen them already, when I first landed. People, not exactly like me, but rather like me. Some almost as small and some hawk noses. But a strange thing happened. I tried to come close to them to see if I remembered anything of their language, but they turned their backs and whispered. They covered their mouths with their hands or their hats and stopped talking. They looked in some other direction or kept their eyes on the ground. I thought I heard one of them whisper “Nawpa runa” and I remembered—or thought I did—that nawpa meant old and runa meant person, but I am not old. That they turned away worried me, but not much because I have little to do with these people of the hot lowland cities here on the coast. Also I’m used to being looked at as the stranger. I’m used to the hand that covers the mouth, though of course I’d hoped that here, at least, that would stop.
At this early part of my journey I feel I should avoid the roads, stick to paths. I cross the edges of banana plantations. The people I see all do as the ones in town did, whisper, turn away… I keep to a more or less straight course. Not hard since I can see my goal: the heights in the East, snow on the tops of some of the peaks. The ground is flat here, so I walk as fast as I can. I don’t stop to rest. Even at noon, I don’t look for a shady spot. I nibble parched corn and sip chicha as I walk. By late afternoon I come, already, to the cliffs. I look for seldom-used trails. I want to sleep at least part way up, out of this heavy air and away from these people who seem less like my people, even, than those others, my captors, though they look more like me. I wonder if, the closer I get to my own, the less comfortable I’ll feel?
At the head of one trail a serpent is sunning itself. Large and beautiful. A series of diamonds, yellow, tan, white, black… It comes into my mind that this is Serpent-Ipa. Ipa-Serpent. Fully fledged birds fly out of its eggs. If a snake should lead the way, then so be it, I will be led, especially by this prince of snakes. Yes, I think… No, I think, no.
I tell myself I am no longer superstitious. All very well, but how else shall I pick the trail? I move forward. The snake coils off his rock. “Ilma sua, ama llulla, ama quella” I say to it, and, “Guaya comaditu.”
The snake looks at me with its little eyes, making me realize I have not been looked at since I came except by this prince. We stare at each other and then he moves aside to let me pass.
I manage to climb out of the damp heat before dark, so I sleep where I can breathe and where I can see the stars, clear and close.
Before I left the town, I had bought not only food with the last of my money, but a poncho such as these people wear and a heavy sweater. I had thought perhaps then I wouldn’t be looked at as the stranger… the peculiar stranger anymore. I’m wearing these as I reach the top of the cliffs the next day and see before me the grassy plain with the mountains… my snow-touched mountains… beyond it. I see three clusters of little thatched houses and not far off-perhaps a mile or so from me—I see a group of farmers planting in the old-fashioned way, six or seven pairs of them, each man with his digging stick and each woman leaning toward the man and laying in the seeds.
I’m thinking that these people of the high plain will be more like my people, and now that I’m dressed more like they are, they’ll see I’m one of them even if I can’t speak as they do.
But first I rest a bit after my climb, my lungs… even my heart…opening. I will greet them, palms up. I angle toward their hill. They’re singing a planting song and they’re working so hard they don’t see me. I hold out my hands. “Ilma sua, ama llulla…” I begin the greeting, but they’re running off before I finish it. It seems they hardly have a chance to look at me and they’re running away. In the distance dogs bark.
“Per que? Pourquoi?” I shout and, “Imatataq?” but they’re already into the valley beyond the hill. I’m upset and yet elated. I have remembered, Imatataq. It popped out-in the right place. And I know I will remember more. But why did they run?
And now almost the same thing has happened again; I’ve crossed the high plain and here behind rolling hills, I see another village. I think to ask for shelter for the nights up here are cold. Also for something to eat if they’ll share with me. At the nearest house I see an old man in a yard behind a low, stone fence. He is threading red wool tassels into the ears of a llama. When he sees me he’s so startled he pulls on the tassels and frightens the beast. It jumps the low wall and runs off in front of me while the old man hides in his hut, squawking out, “Nawpa runa. Nawpa auqui.”
“Per que? Por que?” (Which is right?) But then I shout, “Imatataq,” as though it were a curse. And then yet another “why” comes to me: Kotpo. What language is that? Is there yet another language I used to know? Guaya go cocomaditu? Kotpo?
Away, then, from the people of the high plains. These are not my people. I will walk all night or at least as long as the moon shines. I will get into the heights as fast as I can.
Have good heart, I tell myself Even my captors said, “Take heart,” and “Don’t lose heart.” Walking keeps my courage up. (Now there’s another word of hearts. Coeur. I will keep up my coeurage.) Auqui? the old man said. Didn’t that mean prince? Or was it magic mountain spirit?
They told me my people were gone. Is that why these people treat me as though I am a ghost? Or am I so very different? But, yes, perhaps I am, for what I haven’t let myself think about, nor do I ever let myself think about, is that I had been put to the board as a baby. I have a head like no other head that I have ever seen except—and even these are rare—in drawings and on statues.
Sometime after midnight I lie down, flat out on the plain, sheltered by nothing. The moon has set. I look up at the stars. I look from under my flat, slanting brow; (I must admit it). I watch them until I fall asleep, dreaming fires on the hillside. These are my fires. I have set every single one but I don’t know if they are the fires of rage or fires of celebration. Then I dream falling and landing here on this plain as if from a great height, and wake as the sun is coming up over Vilcabamba and begins to warm me.
How can I stay angry, how can I be discouraged on such a bright morning, my lungs expanding? My chest, I can feel it, becoming a chest like the chests of my people? And it’s always been a chest like this, but never, till now, had a chance to breathe to its full capacity. Sky bright. Air thin. Morning. Sun. And my singing heart has remembered another old tune. I will go, singing it.
And now I come upon the royal road. Here it’s forty feet wide and still well used. I’m passed by mountain people coming down to get corn because they can’t grow it where they live. Again, these people don’t look at me or speak when they pass. They hurry by even though I lean over as though weighted down by my pack though it’s not that heavy. But I lean over more than I need to. I remember that is the polite way. It says, “I am burdened. I am like a beast of burden.” I keep my eyes on the mountains or on my feet. I never look at anyone passing.
The road is well kept up. I cross a wonderful, swaying bridge. Armies crossed on bridges just like this, six or eight men abreast. But they told me this would end, as I near my jungle home, the roads would not be left, and that’s true. As I turn away toward my own land, the road dies. One needs a machete to chop one’s way along it. I don’t follow it. I strike straight out—no reason not to—into the “eye-teeth,” the “tusks” of the world. Now I cling to the slopes with fingernails and toes and sleep half standing up or wedged into some cleft. No way to go but up or down or crabbing along crosswise, but soon I find trails, hidden trails. I follow them, but each trail rises up out of the jungle and then ends suddenly with a drop-off as though these were all dummy trails to fool the enemy. I try again and again, always with the same results. Three days of it. Now four. I have walked all day sometimes and then retraced my steps to try some other branch and to sleep huddled on the trail. I see no one. I go nowhere, but I’m being watched. Bird calls come too clear in places where no bird seems to be. Pebbles come down on me. At first I didn’t think they had been thrown on purpose, but now I think they are. Sometimes they come from a great height, many small stones that sting. Three times a boulder has come down just behind me. Purposely missing, that’s clear. A warning, perhaps, but I keep on trying. Now, at the end of the fourth day, I come to yet another drop-off No sign of a path along the far cliff Nothing to dare to leap for. Why? Why so many false trails and not one single one of them a real trail? This one has a stepping stone at the end as though to stand on and leap off into nothing. Others have had that, too. I eat the last of my food and settle in to spend the night behind the stepping stone to nowhere. It seems if I die here it may well be of starvation unless I find a trail soon that goes somewhere.
That night I have a dream that all the boulders and pebbles coming down on me are friends and are sending me messages, the small ones whispering, the large roaring. I wake with a headache. I stare out over the mountains, puzzling over the dream for a while. There’s nothing to eat. I try to concentrate on the dream so as not to think about that. Then I get up to start back, but I take one more look over the drop-off and there’s a rope of thick pilu grass hanging over beyond it… a great leap beyond it. It wasn’t there last night. Is it to lure me to my death in one jump, or is it to help me on my way? And if to help, why do they hang it so far from the last step? But I had said that I would die here, and what better place than with this view of snow-capped needles.
I call upon the sun and wait for it to warm me. I remove my gloves. I will also leave my backpack here so as to be as light as possible. I will even leave my little vest and snake belt. Then I have the idea to take off my boots and leave them, too. It’s as if, if I do that, it will be in answer to what the pebbles and boulders of my dream were saying. And of course the boots are heavy. Then I call upon the sun again, as well as the mountain peaks. I worship the view one last time, my Vilcabamba: up, down, out. I let my heart fill. I think I remember… yes, I do remember, Grandmother told me I had a heart of gold… that my heart
was like the sun. Guaya, gold! Shall I leap to my death just when I’m remembering words in another… in the secret language of my birth?
I leap. I touch. I just touch the rough fibers of the rope but it is jerked away from me at the last minute. But I’m so light! I’m such a small, thin man! The joints of my fingers and, yes, even my toes… they’re not like the joints of other people’s. Have I always known that! My slanted head against the rock as if pressed to a breast, and I cling (easily!) like a spider, to the tiny rough places of the cliff I cling and then I climb. And I know for sure that there is another language. There is Spanish, then Quechua, and then this secret language and these gestures and whistles, these secret other people, they, watching me.
At the top they’ve left me a pair of sandals that leave the toes free. I put them on and climb down this side as I climbed up that other, over and down and down again, until I drop beneath a false forest planted on platforms. I enter my hidden land. Men, women and children come to me. They’re small with thin, strong hands. Six fingers. Noses like the condor’s beak. Their heads are slanted, but I understand now that they were never put to boards. These are their natural heads. These are the people from which the idea came that others tried to imitate, tying up heads, wanting to make themselves and their children more like us. No doubt these people had once roamed all this land before the conquest.
They’re singing in that language. Guaya go. Guaya gocomaditu. Go comaditu. Here the Ipa, all in white. They make way for me. They bring me to the once-gold chair, to the once-gold dais, to the once-gold house. Guaya yaputu. Gold is gone. Guaya go comaditu. Long live your golden heart. They bring the woman, Woialala. “This is your sister. This is your wife.” I understand it. I answer, “Gatu. Gatu.” They put a yellow glass bead in the torn hole in my hat. No gold here, yet all is gold. It shines in their eyes and hearts and in the sun. “Go as gold,” they tell me. “Go in gold,” they tell me, “to the end of your days.”
The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1 Page 50
