Plunder of the Sun Read online

  “Does he have heirs?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Did he leave a will?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “In the absence of a will or heirs, his property will revert to the state. His body will be given Christian burial. That is all, señores. You are free to go.”

  I told the cops—as well as anybody else who happened to be listening—that I could be reached at the Hotel Bolívar in Lima, and took the package off the Talca the way it was, still stuck to my ribs. I had no trouble getting it through customs. If they searched Ana Luz this time or gave Jeff any trouble with his silver pot, I didn’t know about it. I didn’t wait around to watch. I was in too much of a hurry to find out just what kind of dynamite I was carrying with me.

  A streetcar took me and the dynamite up to Lima from the port. At the Bolívar, I rented a room and locked the door before I peeled off my shirt.

  I didn’t try to save the seals on the package. My bargain had been with Berrien, not with his heirs if he had any or the Republic of Peru if he didn’t. I ripped the paper off and unfolded a wad of crackly pergamino, parchment, covered with faint brownish-gray writing. There were three pieces of pergamino in the wad, doubled once across the middle, badly cured stuff that had cracked where it was folded. It had been doubled over and compressed for so long that it cracked worse when I tried to straighten it. Inside the fold was what looked like a hank of colored yarn.

  I shook it out. It was a kind of short rope, about two feet long. Attached to it here and there were twisted cords of different colors. The cords were knotted all over, at different lengths and with different spacings. Shorter knotted pieces had been attached to some of the main ones. I couldn’t make anything out of a mess of knotted string, so I took the parchment over to the window to try my luck in a good light.

  Part of it was in Spanish. I could pick out words here and there. They were archaic and badly spelled—x’s for j’s, b’s and v’s interchanged, z’s for s’s and vice versa, silent h’s tacked on or left off the beginning of words, as if the writer had learned his castellano by ear and was putting it down the way he heard it. The pigment of the lettering had faded badly where it hadn’t flaked off altogether, and about two-thirds of the readable words weren’t Spanish at all. I didn’t know what they were, maybe Igorot. Some of the Igorot looked like proper names, Ccosco and Huetín and Zaran and Saxsahuamán. Ccosco, allowing for this and that, could mean Cuzco, the old Inca capital up in the sierra where Julie had gone to look at ruins. I didn’t know anything else useful even after I had studied the parchment for half an hour, except that it was old and that the message, if it was a message, started in the middle of a sentence on the first page and ran out in the middle of another sentence on the last page.

  Berrien hadn’t lied when he told me that it was an antique. Before I did anything else, I had to find out what else there was about it that interested so many people. I took a taxi to the National Museum of Archaeology, a cement copy of an Inca palace near the Plaza Dos de Mayo, and asked to see the curator.

  He wasn’t in. An assistant took time out from undressing mummies to talk to me. He looked like a mummy himself—old, wrinkled and friendly. He had worked with the Carnegie Institute in the States, years before, and spoke English.

  I showed him the hank of knotted cords.

  “Would you mind telling me what that is?” I said.

  “A quipu. A very beautiful one.” He ran it through his hands. “Where did you get it?”

  “A friend gave it to me. What is a quipu?”

  “An Inca message-cord. The Incas had no written alphabet, so they used these arrangements of knots and colors to transmit ideas and record statistics. We have a number of them here in the museum, but I don’t think I have ever seen such an elaborate one.” He spread the cords apart and peered at the knots. “Very interesting. Very interesting. Where did your friend get it?”

  “He didn’t say. Does it have any value?”

  “Archaeologically, it is very interesting. If…”

  “I mean in terms of money.”

  “I was going to say that if you wish to sell it, you could probably get a thousand soles for it from a private collector. The museum, which already has an excellent exhibit, would pay less.”

  A thousand soles was seventy dollars, more or less. I said, “I’m not anxious to sell. I’d like to know what it says.”

  He shook his head.

  “Nobody living can tell you what it says. The art died four hundred years ago. You see, the quipus do not really contain connected messages, like a letter. They are more properly mnemonics, memory aids, to help a messenger or a recorder remember something which has been told him orally. All we know is that they could be used to convey a number of concrete ideas and a few simple abstractions. This white cord, for example, could mean either ‘silver’ or ‘peace.’ This yellow cord might stand for ‘gold,’ ‘sun,’ or ‘royalty’—because the Inca was the son of the sun and gold was the sun’s teardrops. The red one could mean ‘war’ or ‘blood.’ The knots were to jog the reader’s memory in regard to what he had to say about silver, peace, gold, sun, Inca, war or blood, as the case might be.”

  “There isn’t anyone who could tell me more about it?”

  “No one. Not since the last Inca died.”

  He ran his fingers along the cords, studying them.

  I thought about the three sheets of pergamino in my pocket, wondering if I ought to let him see them. If the quipu was worth no more than seventy dollars to a man who knew as much about it as he did, the real value of Berrien’s package must lie in the pergamino. But they had to be connected, some way.

  I said, “What language did the Incas speak?”

  “Quechua.”

  “But they had no way of writing it?”

  “No.”

  “Could a man who wrote Spanish write Quechua?”

  “He could write the sounds he heard, phonetically. We have several old documents here in the museum, dating from the time of the Conquest, which are written in a mixture of Spanish and Quechua.”

  “Can I see one of them?”

  “Certainly.”

  He brought out a couple of tattered scraps of pergamino, in worse shape even than mine. They had been bound between sheets of glass to preserve them. I don’t know what they were, because I didn’t bother to struggle with the spelling and faded print. One look was enough. They were written in the same garbled jumble of bad Spanish and Igorot that I had been poring over in my hotel room.

  I said, “Can you read this?”

  “No. My specialty is textiles. Ancient Quechua requires a great deal of study. There is no way to learn the language as it was spoken at the time of the Conquest except through the study of documents written by Spaniards or christianized Indians of that period, who were frequently only semi-literate. Since the Quechuas themselves had no alphabet, there is no such thing as a proper spelling guide or a grammar. And many of the old words have been dropped from the vocabulary which the Indians use today.”

  “Were the Quechuas Incas, or the Incas Quechuas, or what? I’m pretty green on Peruvian history.”

  “The Incas were of Quechua stock, yes. ‘Inca’ means simply ‘king’ or ‘ruler.’ The Incas were a small group of ruling Quechuas who dominated the West Coast of the continent from about the twelfth century until the Conquest. If you would like to know more about them, I recommend The Conquest of Peru by your own countryman, William Prescott. It is one of the best books in print on the subject.”

  “I’ll get it. Right now I’d like to know the name of somebody who can read Quechua.”

  “You have a document of some kind?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “From the same friend.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said hopefully, “May I see it?”

  “I don’t have it with me.”

  “I’d be only too glad to accompany you…” />
  “I’m sorry. I’m not a free agent, and until I find out more about the document I’ll have to keep it to myself. Maybe later I’ll donate it to the museum.”

  He sighed with frustrated curiosity as he picked up a pen.

  “There is only one man in Lima who can do a proper translation. I’ll give you a note to him.”

  He wrote the note, folded it, and put it in an envelope. On the face of the envelope he scratched “Señor don Alfredo Berrien” and began to write an address. I stopped him.

  “Alfredo Berrien is dead.”

  He looked up.

  “What?”

  “Alfredo Berrien died last night aboard a ship that brought him back from Chile. I was aboard.”

  “So.” He put the pen down. “His heart?”

  “Yes. Did you know him well?”

  “Mainly by reputation. He was a collector.”

  The old boy got up and began to walk nervously around the room. Something was eating him, more than just curiosity now. He prowled around for a while, looked out of the window, twiddled his fingers behind his back, walked some more, and came to a sudden stop in front of my chair.

  “Tell me one thing. Is this document something in which Alfredo Berrien was interested?”

  “He may have been.”

  “Is it Peruvian?”

  “I won’t know until it’s translated.”

  “If it is Peruvian, and old, I strongly advise you to turn it over to the museum, Mr. Colby. The government lays first claim to all native antiques, but they will pay you a fair discovery value. Otherwise, if you attempt to—exploit it in any way, they can confiscate it.”

  “I’m not planning to exploit it just now. I want to know what it says. There isn’t anybody else in Lima who reads Quechua?”

  “No one I would recommend. If you will leave the document with me…”

  “Is there anyone else in Peru who can do it?”

  He said reluctantly, “There is a man named Ubaldo Naharro in Arequipa, a collector of antiques, who has translated old writings. I will be glad to send the document…”

  “Thanks. I’ll take it to him personally.”

  The old man wasn’t quite biting his nails when I left, but almost. He wanted to get his hands on that manuscript more than he wanted to live through the day. Alfredo Berrien’s name certainly seemed to mean something in the old-string-and-paper business.

  4

  I caught up on my lost sleep during the rest of the morning. The telephone rang while I was getting dressed. When I answered it, a woman’s voice said, “Señor Colby?”

  “Hablando.”

  “This is Ana Luz Benavides. May I speak to you for a moment?”

  I wasn’t surprised. I said, “Where are you?”

  “In the hotel lobby.”

  “I’ll be down in five minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was sitting in one of the big leather chairs when I got there, her ankles together and her skirt covering her knees. She wore a dark tailored suit and a hat with a feather in it. I don’t think I realized what a lady really looked like until that minute. If it hadn’t been for the two little cuts under my eyebrows, I wouldn’t have believed that she could hurt a fly. Or double-cross one.

  We went into the salon and had coffee. When the waiter left us, she said, “The package is safe?”

  “Which package?”

  “Please, do not play with me. I have come to pay you what don Alfredo promised you. If you will give me the package…”

  She let it hang.

  “Why should I give it to you?”

  “Because I am his daughter.”

  I blinked. She looked at me expectantly.

  I said, “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “It is the truth.”

  “Show me something that says so in writing.”

  “I have nothing. I was brought up by people I thought to be my parents until don Alfredo told me of our relationship and asked me to be his companion. He was old and lonely and afraid of death, or he would not have told me even then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am illegitimate. My mother committed suicide after I was born. He did not want me to know.”

  “You did not tell the police this.”

  “It would have served no purpose except to blacken his name and mine. I want nothing of his except the package to which I am entitled. Give it to me.”

  “You know what is in the package?”

  “Certainly. He did not conceal anything from me.”

  “He tried to make it appear so.”

  “That was so I would not be involved if he got into difficulties.” She made an impatient gesture. “Please do not keep me here explaining things which are not your affair. You were hired to bring the package here and deliver it. I am his only heir. The package is mine.”

  I said, “Well…” and then, “Well…” weakening. “Have you the two thousand dollars?”

  She bit.

  “Not in dollars. But I will give you a check for thirty thousand soles and go with you to the bank to cash it, if you wish.”

  I smiled at her.

  “The payment was to be made in dollars, señorita, not soles. And the amount agreed upon was one thousand dollars, not two. If you did not know that, your employer told you nothing. Your whole story is a lie.”

  I thought she was going to try the stiff fingers on me again. I got ready to catch her wrist. She glared at me for ten seconds.

  “Very well. It is a lie. How much do you want for the package?”

  “It is not mine. It belongs to Berrien’s heirs.”

  “He has none.”

  “Then it belongs to the state.”

  “The state! You gringo fool!”

  She bit her lip.

  “I’m sorry. I am upset. I must have the package, Señor Colby. It is more important to me than I can say. Is there no way I can persuade you to give it to me—sell it to me?”

  She had changed, in an instant, from a cat to a soft little kitten. We were sitting side by side on a bench behind the coffee table. She put her hand on my arm and tilted her head back so that her eyelashes came down over her eyes. They were nice eyelashes, long and sweeping. Her lips barely moved as she said, “Please.”

  “You are wasting your time if you expect me to change my mind only because you say ‘please’ so nicely. I have already said no to thirty thousand soles. If you have any real right to the package, tell me.”

  She smiled quickly. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile, and it lit up her whole face. She took her hand from my arm.

  “One uses whatever weapons are available,” she said. “Even the truth, in the end. I need the package to buy my freedom.”

  “From what?”

  “Slavery.”

  She used the word ‘esclavitud.’ It had only one meaning for me. But she shook her head at my expression.

  “Not as you think. Here in Peru, if you do not know our country, there are many poor people, so poor that they have neither shoes for their feet nor roofs for their heads—nor food with which to feed their families. Children starve and die, unless their parents can find another home for them. My mother was a chola, a woman of the sierra. Two of her children died because she could not feed them. She gave me, the third, as a criatura, to be a servant in a household where I would be fed and, with good fortune, beaten only occasionally. I had better fortune than most such criaturas. I was not beaten. I was fed, educated, and brought up to be what you see. In the eyes of the law, I became free when I was twenty-one. In the eyes of my patrón, I am still his criatura, as his own daughter would be, to do as he wishes. I can buy my freedom only by paying the debt I owe him. The package you have is the price.”

  She said it quite simply, without emotion. I had heard of the still legal institution of criaturismo in Peru, and knew that there were such bond-children. But she had not yet told me anything to make me change my mind about the package.
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br />   “Does it make you so unhappy, then, to have your patrón look on you as a daughter?”

  “Have you ever owed a debt which accumulated for twenty years, señor, or known what it is like not to be your own master, not even to be able to select the person whom you will marry?”

  “All daughters owe the same debt. Many marry men selected by their parents.”

  “They are truly daughters. It is not a debt that they can ever discharge. It comes with their blood. But I am only a criatura, a property of my patrón. Can you not understand my feeling? With the—what you have, I can become my own mistress for the first time in my life. I beg you to give it to me.”

  “Why do you not simply leave your patrón? You say you are legally free.”

  “It is not a legal debt that I have to pay. Please, let me have the package. I will give you anything you ask in exchange.”

  It was hard to refuse her—not because of her argument, which didn’t impress me, but because she was a woman pleading for something important to her. And she was on the level with me, for the first time since I had known her. I was sure of that. No actress living could have faked the feeling in her voice.

  I said, “If Berrien was your patrón, it seems to me…”

  “He was not my patrón.”

  “Is it Raul?”

  “No.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “Does he have any right to the package?”

  “As much right as anyone.”

  “But no more?”

  She hesitated. I said, “Don’t lie to me now.”

  “As much right as don Alfredo had, or you have.”

  “What is the package?”

  “I cannot tell you that.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you want me to turn it over to you without even knowing what it is, or who has the real right to it, or anything about it.”

  “I beg you to.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  “I cannot! I cannot!” There were tears in her eyes. “Don’t you think I would if I could? It’s impossible!”