In our countries, where imagination reigns supreme, popular curiosity is not satisfied with a mystery. Everything has to have an explanation, preferably supernatural. Mama Justa, a black woman from the region of Ica on the south coast known for the clairvoyance of its seers, soon furnished one. After having drunk a cup of worm-grass tea, which sharpens the vision, she fell asleep and had a dream in which she saw Yang Ting as a young man on his island, unrecognizable with a full head of hair and a perfect set of teeth. The life of shame he had led there was revealed to her, and when she awoke, the whole matter became crystal clear. She then told his story to anyone who cared to listen. The young Yang Ting had committed a crime against two women — a terrible, unspeakable crime, worse than a robbery or a murder, which has a motive and never fails to have extenuating circumstances; one of those crimes which nobody can forgive, not even the most generous-hearted. He thought he was safe in Peru, where he had been hiding for fifteen years, turning into an old bag of bones. But that was an illusion! You can run and hide wherever you like; the earth is not big enough, God’s justice has eyes like a hawk, you can never escape your sins.
One of the victims on whom he had wreaked so much harm had taken the shape of Amparo and got her revenge.
2
This voyage to South America that Thomas de Brabant had counted on to change his wife’s mood was not the success he had hoped for, since it was dramatically cut short by illness.
In order to satisfy a last-minute whim by Celanire, Thomas had to completely rearrange the order of things, and the journey had started with Peru instead of ending there. Given such short notice, he had quickly studied the country’s three major regions — northern, central, and southern Andes. In Lima they stayed at the Hotel Raimondi, one of the capital’s most luxurious establishments, famous for its azulejos as well as its carved, gilded ceilings. Very quickly it became obvious that Celanire’s interest in Peru was extremely limited. She seemed to forget all about Flora Tristan. She never as much as glanced at the travel accounts or historical narratives Thomas had obtained, nor even leafed through a magnificent work of art entitled The Andes: From Prehistoric Times to the Incas. Thomas endeavored in vain to arouse her interest in a minority of African descent in Peru that was as dynamic and fascinating as other such communities of the Americas in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Haiti. His life with Celanire had, in fact, completely transformed him, and he had become an ardent defender of black cultures. He had so much to tell her about Peru after reading the major work by Enrique León García called Las razas en Lima: Estudio demográfico with the abundant help of a dictionary. Alas! She paid no attention whatsoever to what he was saying.
So what in fact did she do?
She disappeared for days on end and even a good part of the night. It was as if she were looking for someone. She was seen scouring the working-class neighborhoods situated on the other side of the Puente de Piedra. She bought nothing during her endless rambles, and apparently had little liking for all those trivial knickknacks tourists are so fond of, such as altarpieces, miniature clay churches, poker-worked calabashes, and gold or silver filigree jewelry, for every evening she returned to the hotel empty-handed. Only once did she make a purchase, bringing back a dog-eared little book for which she said she had paid a small fortune—La bruja de Ica. It was the extraordinary tale of an eighty-year-old black witch, Jesús Valle, a slave belonging to the former marquis of Campocumeno, who had great trouble preventing the workers of a hacienda from transforming her into a living torch.
Forsaken and abandoned by his wife, Thomas came to detest Lima, and his mood turned morose. Compared to the blazing sun of Guadeloupe, the garúa became unbearable, and Thomas remained holed up all day long under the gilded ceiling of his room, reading grammar book after grammar book with the aim of improving his Spanish. A maniac for organization, he also began preparing the next step of the journey. So much for Bolivia! It was too far south! After Peru they would head north, traveling via Ecuador and Colombia. To get there they would take a horse-drawn carriage as far as Pucallpa. There they would embark on the Rio Ucayali, then the Rio Marañón, and finally the royal Amazon. He had been assured that throughout the journey the landscape would take their breath away, not only his but his entire family’s. As a result, he filled Ludivine’s head over the dinner table with a description of the dazzling sights they would soon be seeing. After passing a spectacular landscape of fields rising in terraced rows up the sides of the mountains in the manner of the Incas, their boat would sail between sheer walls of granite, masked here and there by the thick foliage of the tropical forest. Thomas could embellish these descriptions as much as he liked; Ludivine, who thought him a terrible bore, did not listen to a single word. She was bored by Lima — at her age they are bored by everything — and sulked in front of her ceviche de camarones, a speciality that the chef was particularly proud of. Deep down, Thomas wondered why Celanire had insisted on bringing her along. She completely neglected the teenager in Lima, and the girl was left to her own devices for days on end. Only once had she taken her to mass in the cathedral and had her admire its collection of gold-embroidered chasubles. To him such behavior seemed quite out of line.
The day before they were due to leave for Pucallpa, Thomas had Ludivine stay behind in the dining room and tried to get her interested in the Paracas and Nazca cultures. He was telling her how in the sixth century the whole of Peru had been the scene of a major upheaval when Celanire came and joined them. She was unrecognizable — almost frightening to look at. Her complexion had turned sallow. Her eyes, usually so sparkling, had glazed over, circled by octopus-colored rings as big as a hand. Her cheeks were sunken, her walk unsteady. It was as if she had just waged a battle that had completely drained her. She collapsed onto a chair and contorted her face into a smile for Ludivine. She seemed incapable of uttering a single word. Her hands were shaking, and the precious anthropomorphic clay jar that Thomas wanted her to admire slipped from her grasp. She sat staring stupidly at the pieces scattered over the floor. After a while, still without uttering a sound, she withdrew to her room. One of the most striking features of Thomas’s character, like that of so many men, was his obstinacy. A few minutes later, when he went up to his room to find Celanire collapsed on the bed, as if felled by an invisible hand, it did not occur to him to change their plans. Celanire spent a bad night. In her sleep he could hear her moan and cry out even, and had great trouble waking her up.
Around five in the morning the de Brabant family finally managed to leave the Hotel Raimondi and was seen off by a host of bellhops already up and about. Outside was total darkness. A sliver of a moon slumbered on its back above the rooftops, which were flattened like pancakes. The carriage quickly drove through the outskirts, left the city behind, and, turning its back to the sea, galloped toward the mountains in the shape of upturned funnels. A bitter wind frayed the blankets of fog unfurled against the black sky.
After they had journeyed for an hour in a subterranean darkness, the mountaintops began to turn pink, and gradually the tiny silhouettes of peasants appeared in the distance. Some of them scampered down the steep slopes as if in child’s play, bent double by their enormous loads. They were probably on their way to sell their corn and beans in the nearby markets. Others emerged as dots on the immense patchwork of fields, driving their oxen in front of them. Farther on miniature herds of sheep and cows gamboled, chased by dogs and children wielding sticks. Her left hand tucked into Thomas’s paw, Celanire seemed to be fighting to keep her eyes open and wore a mask of extreme drowsiness. Thomas carried blindly on as if he were oblivious to her condition, and in the glow of a lantern read to her a poem dedicated to Pachamama translated from Quechua: