Читать книгу Prayer for the Living - Ben Okri - Страница 11

An Inca Elegy

I had taken a group up into the mountains to where the last of the Incas lived. The Inca women up there in the forest are the most beautiful you are ever going to see. I had just come out of the army then. The army was good for me. But for a while it made me a brute.

As I was taking this group of Americans through the village I came upon an adobe house. It was the only one I had permission to take the tourists through. I knocked and went in. They speak Quechua up there. I had learned Quechua in the army. I showed the tourists how the last of the Incas live. It was a room just like this one here in Machu Picchu. In one corner they have their vegetables, in another their traditional stove. High up they have their dried fruits and their hay. Even their rooms are terraced. I was amazed at how much they could fit into those small rooms. They had everything they needed in there.

As I was showing the tourists around I noticed this Inca woman in a corner. The adobe house belonged to her. She stood there, peeling a dried fruit. There was a terrible sadness on her face. For some reason it pierced deep into my heart. Like I said, I speak Quechua.

“Does our presence upset you?” I said to her.

“No.”

But she still had the sadness.

“If we have offended in any way, I wish to apologize now. We have no desire to offend you at all.”

“You have not offended me.”

“Have any of these tourists offended you?”

“No.”

“Because if they have, I will speak to them immediately and they will apologize.”

“They have not offended me.”

“Maybe our being here in your private space is an offense, for which I sincerely apologize.”

“It is not an offense and there is no need to apologize.”

The immeasurable sadness was still in her eyes. I could feel it and it cut me to my soul. I could not continue the tour. She stood there in a corner and the sadness was like the weight of centuries. I kept puzzling in my mind what might have caused it. The thought would not let me rest.

“What is it that troubles you? Are you sick? If you are sick, tell me. I have all kinds of medicines with me. You can have them all.”

“I am not sick.”

“Is it money you need? I don’t have much, but you can have all that is with me.”

“It is not money.”

“Maybe it is family. Anything I can do to help, just ask me.”

“Thank you. It is not family.”

I was still racking my brains. I began to pace the room. Then she looked at me and all the poignancy of her sadness shot from her eyes into the foundations of my being. It rocked my heart, I don’t know why.

She hadn’t said a word. Then, as if overcoming a great struggle, she said: “The reason I am so sad is that I will never have children.”

“Why not?” I said. “Of course you can. Look at you, you are beautiful and young.”

She weighed me down with her eyes. “Have you noticed anything about the village?”

I came out with many things I noticed, but she kept shaking her head.

“There are no men,” she said.

I hadn’t considered it but I had noticed it. It was true. There were no men in the village.

“Where are they?”

“They go to the cities for work. They never come back.”

I had heard about this. I did not know why this prevented her having children.

“Don’t worry. I am a man,” I said passionately. “I can marry you. I will marry you now. We can have children.”

She gave me a long look. It was disquieting. As she looked at me I felt myself fading till I was almost a shadow. I don’t know how that happened. Before, being in the army, I had a strong sense of myself and my presence. I knew who I was. But under her gaze I immediately felt my identity dissolve. I have no idea why.

“What is your name?” she asked.

I told her my three names. She repeated my last in an undertone, with a little smile.

“From your last name I can tell you have Spanish blood.”

It was true. I have a small amount of Spanish blood, from my great-grandfather.

I couldn’t see the bearing it had on our discussion.

“I can’t marry you,” she said, lifting up her eyes as if she saw through the roof of her adobe house to something bright and iconic in the mountains.

“Why not? I am a man.”

“You are not of my blood. You are not pure. I can only marry a man with pure Inca blood.”

“But why?”

“That is how it is. That is how it has been for a thousand years.”

“But all your men are gone. They’re in the cities. You said yourself that when they go to the cities they don’t come back.”

“I know.”

“I am a man. Marry me and have children and your sadness will vanish.”

She smiled for the first time. But the smile was somehow sadder than her sadness.

“I can’t. That is how it is. For a thousand years that is how it is.”

“But what will you do? Would you rather have no children or children with someone like me? Can you not change a little?”

“I can’t,” she said.

Then with a slight movement of her shoulder, the conversation was over. She was very beautiful. I stood there speechless for a while. Then I felt a veil descend between us. It was like the coming of night in the mountains. It comes suddenly as you are walking the trail. The next moment, if you are not careful, you walk right off the edge of the mountain. That’s how it came between us. I could not see her anymore through the veil she brought between us.

Somewhat broken, I concluded our tour. As we left I said goodbye to her. She stood still in the corner and did not move. She did not respond to my farewell.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know. But this room here on Machu Picchu is just like the room we were in. It reminds me of her. It brings back to me all the force of her sadness. I can feel it now.

Please excuse me. We shall resume our tour. I’ll be back shortly.