For a moment or two, as I sat in the cafe and waited to meet my soon-to-be employer, my attention was diverted by a crowd of uniformed schoolchildren, wearing red blazers and navy slacks and jumpers, on an outing in the square. “Ms. MacCrimmon, by any chance?” the voice asked, and for a moment I was about to say sorry, no.
I liked Steve Neal immediately. He had a kind of large, rumpled look, a warm handshake, a friendly and open face, with eyes that crinkled at the corners when he laughed, which he did a lot.
“Beer?” he asked as he sat down. “Dos cervezas, por favor,” he said to the waiter, as I nodded. “Pilsen Trujillo,” he added.
“So how do you like Lima so far?” he asked. “And how is Lucas? I hear he’s taken up politics. I suppose archaeology does tend to get a little political from time to time.” He laughed.
“Both Lucas and Lima are fine,” I replied, handing him the letter Lucas had given me for him. I waited while he read it. As I’d promised, I hadn’t looked at it, but my curiosity was piqued as Neal’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly at one point in the text.
“Okay,” he said, carefully pouring his beer. “Let’s talk about the job.”
This was the moment I had been dreading. Lucas had done exactly what he said he would do. He had got me to Peru and had provided me with a way to get to Moche country. The rest was up to me. But I was certain the first question would be from which august institution of higher learning had I received my degree in archaeology or anthropology. My degree was in English. The second question would undoubtedly be, tell me what you know about the ancient cultures of the north coast of Peru.
Unfortunately, my experience in archaeology was limited to spending a few pleasant afternoons with Lucas on sites he was digging. He’d let me help with the work, under his supervision, but no one would ever call me an archaeologist.
As for the second topic: As recently as two weeks ago, I had only a passing interest in the ancient cultures of Peru, and that related solely to studies I had done a few years back on the Maya in Mexico and Central America. In a gesture that I knew was futile, I had spent the morning before my job interview dashing around Lima from museum to museum. The sum total of my knowledge to date was that there were a number of cultures that had inhabited the northern coastal desert of Peru long before the Inca and the Spanish conquest, including Chancay, Chimu, Chavin, Moche, and Lambayeque, but that, in my opinion, the Moche were the most brilliant craftspeople of them all. If anyone was capable of the artistry that made the little gold man I still carried with me, it was a Moche craftsman.
I had seen rooms of ceramics, textiles, and metal-work made by these peoples and had been quite overwhelmed by the artistry and technique they had shown. I had even seen rooms filled with Moche erotic ceramics, by and large couples in positions I can only describe as anatomically challenging. Some of these ceramics had depicted one member of the twosome as a death skull and skeleton. The guard on the room had told me this meant the Moche thought too much sex would kill you. The current status of my love life being what it was, I had decided this was not something I needed to spend much time worrying about.
As entertaining as my museum tour might have been, the point was that if I were asked the question, Can you tell late Moche from Lambayeque? the answer quite clearly was no.
The question Neal posed took me completely by surprise.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about running a business,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “Paying bills, wages, dealing with government authorities, that sort of thing? The point is, I’m an archaeologist, not a businessman, and all the organizational stuff I have to do is getting me down. I’ve got some really good lab people, good workers on the site, but no one to keep the whole show running smoothly.”
Did I know something about running a business? Of course I did. I’d been running my antiques and design business for about fifteen years, with only one interruption. I needed to approach this with a certain amount of caution, of course. I’d decided that the only way to survive as Rebecca MacCrimmon was to keep her background as close as possible to my own. That way, I would be less likely to get caught out in a contradiction. Rebecca was from Kansas; her driver’s license said so, and I had only passed through Kansas once. That one I would have to be very careful about. But running a business? Who was to say Rebecca MacCrimmon didn’t have business experience?
“I have a fair amount of business experience,” I replied carefully in my best Spanish. “I had my own business for a number of years. Retail. I sold furniture. I didn’t have a lot of staff, but I had some, and they always got paid. The bills did too. I am also accustomed to dealing with customs officials and agents, bankers, tax people, accountants, and shippers. I can honestly say that I never missed a shipping deadline through a fault of my own.” I paused. “Although I’ll admit it was close a few times.” I laughed.
“You’re hired,” he said.
“I am?” I replied in surprise.
“Sure,” he said. “Your Spanish is good, Lucas says you can be trusted—trusted absolutely, actually— and you can take the work I hate off my hands. That’s good enough for me.” He laughed. “Lucas says in his letter he is asking me for a favor. Don’t tell him, but I think he may have been doing me one!
“You know the terms—transportation to the site, room and board once you get to the site. I know it’s not much. Will you do it? Do we have a deal?” he said, extending his hand across the table. I took it.
“We have a deal. When do I start?”
He spread a map out on the table. “We’re working at a site here,” he said, pointing to what appeared to be a blank spot on the map, “between Trujillo and Chiclayo. Early to middle Moche site. Showing a lot of promise. The closest town is Campina Vieja.”
Good old Lucas, I thought: right to Campina Vieja. I must have started, though, because Neal hesitated for a few seconds before continuing. “You can fly to Trujillo, and then you’ll have to find the Vulkano bus station and take the Trujillo/Chiclayo bus. The buses run almost hourly, and they’ll stop at Campina Vieja if you ask them.
“I’m flying back to Trujillo tonight, so why don’t you fly out tomorrow sometime and have a look around Trujillo—there’s some interesting Moche and Chimu sites to see there—then take the bus the following morning. I’ll be in town for much of the day and I’ll keep an eye on the bus stop. Just sit yourself down on the bench if I’m not there when you arrive: I’ll be along and drive you out to the site. We’ve taken over an old hacienda and set up operations there. You can meet the rest of the team, including the boss, Hilda, when you get there.
“Now let’s go and see about getting you an airline ticket,” he grinned, “before you change your mind. What do you prefer to be called, by the way?”
I almost made a mistake, I felt so relaxed in his presence, but I caught myself in time. As I hesitated he said, “Do you prefer Rebecca or something like Becky?”
“Rebecca,” I said. “Definitely Rebecca.” After Neal and I had parted company, as the sun began its rapid descent into darkness, as it does this close to the equator, I paid a final visit to the place where, according to Rob Luczka, the man I had called Lizard, Ramon Cervantes, had lived. It had not been all that difficult tracking the place down, there being only one Ramon Cervantes listed in Callao. As I had on two previous occasions, I hailed a colectivo, that particularly Peruvian mode of public transit, a private minibus or van that plies a regular route, a sign in its front and side windows indicating its destination. In addition to the driver, there is an assistant who opens the sliding door and signals the number of empty seats with his fingers. The van barely stops to pick you up and drop you off, but it’s cheap, and it gets you there, weaving its way through Lima’s appalling traffic, pollution, and noise.