Mask of the Andes

The motor barked into life at once. On full throttle McKenna bounced the skiff over the uneven water; he had no more than fifty yards to travel but it seemed ten times that distance. Mamani had disappeared beneath the surface, but his head and flailing arms suddenly broke into view again as McKenna skidded the skiff to a halt among the dead fish that had floated up from the sunken boat. McKenna cut the motor, jumped to the front of the skiff and reached out to the hand that clutched desperately at his. As he felt the frenzied fingers tear at his hand, McKenna also felt the cold that was already killing the man: the hand that clutched his was like a jagged piece of ice. Mamani’s eyes were wild and white in a face that was now almost black; his mouth was wide open, but there was no air left in him for any sound. Frantically McKenna pulled the man towards him; the skiff tilted and for one awful moment he thought he was going to join the Indian in the freezing water. He flung himself backwards, still hauling on Mamani’s arm; he could feel his chest heave and tighten as both the thin air and fear caught at him. Oh God, help me! His eyes seemed to be bursting from their sockets as he struggled to pull Mamani from the water; then through his fractured stare he saw the Indian’s other hand take hold of the side of the skiff. McKenna lay back praying for strength that he knew wouldn’t be his own, that he would have to borrow from faith. He reached behind him, wrapped his arm round the cross-seat, gave one last agonizing tug that seemed to burst his chest, and fell back into the bottom of the skiff as the cold, sodden bundle of Mamani tumbled in on him.

McKenna lay gasping, every breath like a gulped mouthful of powdered glass. He could feel something warm on his upper lip and knew his nose was bleeding, something that hadn’t happened to him for a long time, not since he had become accustomed to the 13,000 feet altitude here on the altiplano. His head was splitting apart and his eyes were almost blind. But, though only half-conscious, he still knew whose was the desperate plight. Somehow or other he managed to roll out from under the unconscious Mamani. He struggled up on to his knees, feeling the iron vice that wrapped his chest, and crawled to the back of the skiff. Still unable to see properly, he fumbled for the starter of the motor. He made three grabs at it before he found it; beyond praying, cursing now, he jerked it savagely, half-expecting the motor just to cough and die on him. The motor did cough, then it sent the skiff shooting towards the shore.

It went past the two Indians in their totora boats, its wash rocking them dangerously. They stared at McKenna, but he did not look at them. He drove the skiff straight on into the shore, cutting the motor a fraction too late so that they hit the rocky beach with a thump hard enough to send him sprawling forward on to the still inert Mamani.

He picked himself up, dimly aware that he had scraped his knees and knuckles. He was still having difficulty getting his breath and his head felt as if it had been cleft by an axe, but he had got back some of his strength and he could once more see clearly. He stumbled over the side of the skiff, feeling the icy water bite at his ankles as he stepped into it, and hitched the rope round the mooring post. As he turned back, wondering if he would have the strength to lift Mamani out of the boat, a voice said in English, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

He looked up at the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere. He had an impression of a tall thin man in a checked tweed cap and a bright red quilted jacket, but there was no time to take further stock of the newcomer. McKenna clambered back into the skiff, grabbed at Mamani’s wet clothes that felt as if they were already turning to ice under the now constant wind, and heaved the Indian into a sitting position. As he pushed Mamani towards the outstretched arms of the stranger he said, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘I’ll bet you are. Where do we take him? If he’s worth taking anywhere—’

‘What d’you mean by that?’ McKenna straightened up.

‘Don’t waste time.’ The stranger spoke as if he were used to authority, to not having people argue with him. ‘I mean if he’s still alive. The poor bugger should be dead.’

They carried Mamani up the slope to the mission. McKenna was a stocky man of medium height, and the stranger, bony rather than thin, as McKenna had first thought, was three or four inches over six feet; they made a poor team as they struggled up the slope with the unconscious Indian between them. They stopped once for McKenna to wipe his nose, but the bleeding had already begun to dry up. As they came to the still motionless Agostino, McKenna gasped at him to run up and put buckets of water on the fire. The boy stared at the limp heap that was his father, and McKenna, wheezing for words to curse at him, thought he wasn’t going to move. Then abruptly Agostino spun round and went running up the slope.

By the time McKenna and the stranger, with their burden, had reached the mission, a dozen or more Indians had materialized out of the bare rocky landscape. They stood in a silent expressionless group at the gate as McKenna and the stranger carried Mamani in through the rough rock wall of the compound and into the larger of the two adobe huts that made up the mission. Passing them, McKenna thought, was like walking past a jury.

Mamani, his face a dark blue death mask with a dribble of water running from a corner of the almost black lips, was laid on the single bed in the small inner room of the hut. McKenna was about to strip the Indian of his clothing, but the stranger gently pushed him aside. ‘Let me do it. You’ve done enough.’

McKenna moved back, all at once glad to have someone else take over. It was not just that he wanted to be relieved of any further physical effort, though God knew he welcomed that: he was on the point of collapse and he knew he was going to be sick if his headache did not ease soon. But more than anything else he suddenly wanted to be relieved of responsibility; or at least have someone share it with him. None of the Indians was going to do that. He sank down on to a chair and looked at the faces, still as stone, that filled the doorway. The Indians, including the two fishermen from the lake, had crowded into the outer room and stood staring in at the stranger as he quickly peeled off Mamani’s clothing, covered the seemingly dead man with a blanket, then bent down and began to give the kiss-of-life. A small child, only its eyes showing among the undergrowth of legs in the doorway, giggled, but was abruptly cuffed into silence. The tall man had taken off his cap, showing a mop of thick dark red hair. He was working his mouth against Mamani’s, occasionally pulling his head back to look at the Indian. After a few minutes he glanced across at McKenna.

‘He’s still with us. Get that kid in here with the hot water. And get that cheering crowd of spectators out of here before I murder the bloody lot of them!’

He glowered at the Indians, then went back to working on Mamani. McKenna, already feeling better, as if the stranger were breathing new life into him, stood up and ushered the campesinos ahead of him out into the yard. Then he went back inside and helped Agostino carry the old tin tub and several buckets of hot water into the bedroom. Mamani, covered by all four of McKenna’s blankets but still shivering, was conscious now, gazing unblinking at the roof but with the mask of his face scarred by a deep frown. He was alive, but it was difficult to tell whether he was puzzled, pleased or angry. Even he thinks we did the wrong thing, McKenna thought.

Mamani protested, shaking his head vigorously, as the stranger pulled the blankets from him and jerked a thumb at the steaming water in the tub. But the stranger was taking no argument. He grabbed Mamani by the shoulder and raised a large bony fist.

‘Get in there, you dirty bugger! This isn’t just to get you clean – we want the blood moving in you again. Get in!’

He had spoken in English, but Mamani, one eye on the fist close to his face, got the message. Abruptly he slid out of bed, still shivering, both hands cupped modestly over his genitals, and stepped into the water, flinching at the heat of it. The stranger put both hands on Mamani’s shoulders and pushed him down into it. The Indian let out a cry, struggled a moment, then suddenly relaxed. He lay back in the tub, his hands still in the September Morn position. McKenna held back his smile, knowing the extremes of modesty and immodesty, according to their moods, that the Indians could go to. Now was no time to offend Mamani.

‘I wonder when he last had a bath.’ The stranger, McKenna now realized, was English. His voice was flatter and more matter-of-fact than those of the few Englishmen, mostly junior diplomats, whom McKenna had met here in Bolivia. ‘One whiff of him is enough.’

‘Some of them never have a bath from the day they are born,’ McKenna said. The hot water had begun to open up Mamani’s pores and a slightly sickening odour came out of him. ‘Smell the coca weed coming out of him.’

‘I could taste it when I was working on him,’ said the stranger, and looked around for a place to spit as he curled his lips. He went outside, then came back and looked down at Mamani. ‘He’s going to live.’

Mamani lay in the water and looked up at his son, the priest and the stranger. ‘I am alive again,’ he said in Quechua.

McKenna leaned forward, desperate to know. ‘Does that please you, Jesu?’

Mamani stared up at him. God, McKenna thought, who would know that once, as kids, we had shared secrets? But now Mamani was as secretive as the rest of them, locked in against the world. The Indian said nothing for almost a minute, then at last he nodded. ‘Yes, padre.’

‘So it bloody well should,’ said the stranger in English; then in rough Quechua he added, ‘Gods are not always right.’

Mamani stiffened in the tub, glanced quickly at McKenna. The latter stood up, aware that the stranger was eyeing him expectantly. I’m in no mood for argument this morning, he thought. ‘It depends who judges them.’

The stranger grinned with good humour. ‘A good ecclesiastical answer.’ Then he looked back at Mamani and said in Quechua, ‘Rub, man, rub. The water will not hurt you.’

Mamani still lay stiffly in the tub. He flicked a glance at Agostino, but his gaze was concentrated on the tall man standing over him. I’m watching a man make an enemy, McKenna thought; and decided it was time to break up the scene. He moved towards the door, motioning the stranger to follow him. ‘Let’s have some coffee. You can get rid of the coca weed taste.’

The tall man hesitated, then picked up his cap from the bed and followed McKenna into the larger room. He sat down at the table in the middle of the room and looked about him while the priest went outside. He saw a dirt-floored room that appeared to be used partly for living, partly for worship, partly for schooling. A small wooden altar stood against one adobe wall; it could have been mistaken for an ordinary sideboard but for the small tabernacle and brass crucifix that rested on its top; a rough home-made prie-dieu stood in front of it. The centre of the room was taken up by the table and half a dozen uncomfortable wooden chairs. In one corner was a small upright piano, its castors resting in rusted cans full of water to keep it free from termites. On top of it were piled sheets of religious music and a stack of popular music: Bach and ‘Get Me To The Church On Time’ lay side by side; all the popular music looked old and tattered. In another corner was a blackboard with some simple Spanish words chalked on it; beside it stood a table on which were stacked some dog-eared exercise books. The stranger looked about him once more, shook his head, then sat back as McKenna came in with a pot of coffee and two tin mugs.

‘The kitchen’s next door. Some day I’m going to knock a hole in the wall, save myself going out in the wind and the rain.’

‘The whole place will crumble to pieces if you do.’

‘I know. That’s why I keep putting it off. Everything’s likely to crumble,’ he said, and looked across at the altar as if that, too, might turn to dust. Then he looked back at the stranger and put out his hand. ‘My name’s McKenna. Terence McKenna.’

‘Harry Taber. I’m from FAO.’

‘The Food and Agriculture Organization? You here to stay?’ McKenna pushed a cup of coffee across the table. He was trying to make up his mind about the newcomer. He welcomed anyone who spoke his own language; he doubted if he would ever be fluent enough in Spanish or Quechua to catch the nuances of conversation in those languages. Yet Taber had already suggested that he had nuances of his own, that he might be a hard man to know.

‘Depends.’ Taber sipped his coffee, scratched his red head with a large hand on which McKenna could see small sun cancers; this man had spent a good many years away from the gentle sun of his native England. He was not a handsome man, his face was too bony and his hooked nose too large for that, but he suggested a strength that might prove comforting to a lot of women; and maybe to a lot of men, too, McKenna thought. He did not move gracefully, but he had a sort of angular ease that conserved his energy. He was a man in his mid-thirties and the total impression of him was of someone who knew his own competence and had confidence in it. ‘I’m here to see if the locals really want some assistance or are just after another hand-out from the World Bank.’

‘They could do with some help. Real help, I mean.’

‘Who? The campesinos or the criollos?’

This man knows the situation, McKenna thought. It was the campesinos, the Indians, who needed the help, but they could only ask for it through the criollos, the Spanish-bloods. ‘How long have you been in Bolivia?’

‘Two weeks. I’ve just come down from La Paz. But I’ve had six years in South America. Brazil, Paraguay, Peru. I know the score.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Whose side are you on? The campesinos’ or the criollos’?’

McKenna had never been asked that before, but he had had the answer for months. ‘The campesinos’.’

‘The Church is on the other side.’

‘Not entirely.’ His headache was gradually going, but it would come back if this argument kept on. ‘Whose side is FAO on?’

Taber smiled, raising his mug in acknowledgement. ‘A good question. Are you a Jesuit?’

It was McKenna’s turn to smile. ‘Do you think a Jesuit would live like this?’ He gestured at his surroundings.

‘Tell you the truth, I’m still trying to make up my mind whose side FAO is on.’

McKenna knew the Food and Agriculture Organization had a lot of dedicated men working for it and it did a tremendous amount of good; but like all divisions of the United Nations it suffered from the demands and prejudices of the member governments of the world body. Here in South America, where most of the governments were made up of criollos, the FAO, like the Church, had its problems.

‘What do you do here?’ Taber asked.

‘I’m trying to get a school started. About eighty per cent, maybe more, of the Indians up here on the altiplano are illiterate.’

‘How are you making out?’

McKenna shook his head. ‘It’s tough. I’m a foreign gringo – they naturally think I’m here to exploit them. These Indians have long memories – I think they still remember, as if they were alive then, what Pizarro did to them.’

Then Jesu Mamani and Agostino came into the room. Mamani had wrung out his wet clothes and put them back on. He was slightly taller than the average campesino and held himself very erect, as if determined not to be towered over by the two white men. Though his face was not expressive, there was a look of intelligence in his eyes that hinted that his mind had not become dulled by coca weed and misery.