El Andar Award for Literary Excellence

A través de los años

by Martha Bean

They had met so long ago in Peru, a place that had long held sway in her fantasy life. When it came time for her to venture forth again and see the world, the name "Machu Picchu" mesmerized her and beckoned to her across the continents. She hardly knew why but was not disappointed when first she glimpsed the heights of the terraced steps that led to those majestic ruins. Ruins. Hardly. Perched on top of the high Andes outside of the city of Cuzco, Machu Picchu was the fabulous refuge of the last Inca sun worshippers, cloaking themselves in obscurity in the face of the Spanish conquerors-hiding, as it were, on top of a geographic bookcase. Somehow they knew that no one would find them there and kept the secret of their whereabouts for centuries-their empty houses posting sentinel over the hordes of tourists who later came to see their cloud-wreathed hideaway.

And then she'd gone to Cuzco and had her first sip of pisco, her first taste of soroche, and experienced the frigid nights and blazing days of the Andean winter firsthand-chasquis and qipus and the lilt of Quechua among bronze-skinned indigenos who put lime on their tongues to release the power of their coca-steeped tea. It helped that she thought she'd been an Inca colla in a past life, and hadn't a psychic already said so? It helped that he came from Cuzco, too. So you see? It was a set up all along, an imaginary backdrop that meant that something had to be. Naturally, when she'd first glimpsed his dark eyes and bronzed skin in the small hotel of her first days in Lima, she'd felt it was an omen, confirmed by the fact that he came from Cuzco. Cuzco, of all the places in Peru.

For his part, he was awed by this strange, 30-something gringa-all legs and white skin and alone. And what on earth was she doing there? It piqued his curiosity and made him worry about what his novia would think if she found out about this unlikely development in his life. He loved his novia, and he liked the fact that she came from such a good family. Que buena suerte! She hadn't minded his bronzed skin or the fact that his high cheekbones spoke perhaps too much of his Inca ancestry rather than his Spanish heritage. (So many of the Mirafloreños were snobby in that way). But he'd successfully infiltrated their ranks and savored his conquest, the daughter of "un profesor." His novia was sweet and she loved him completely, trusting him with the naive hope Peruvian women so often have that their men will remain faithful and true. It wasn't that he'd been looking for distractions, but was it his imagination-or didn't the gringa seem to be seeking him out! He could hardly believe his luck. True, he'd had more than his share of opportunity with the local girls-something about his verbal skill that was puro peruano. He liked to put himself down in a joking manner that never failed to appeal to the nurturing side of the neighborhood belles-toditas madonnas.

On the other hand, hard to know what to expect from the extranjera. But she took charge of the situation soon enough, and he found himself responding in spite of himself. Soon sessions of halting, bilingual conversation led to trysts in out-of-the-way hotels in the back streets of Lima. The gringa was passionate, warm, and hungry-not only for his body but for his soul, and it scared him a little. Things were less loca with the novia, as they had to be in that day and age. And fortunately for him, Lima was large enough to accommodate this split in his loyalty, this breach in his affections. He would stay with the novia, he knew. After all, she was home and she was his and he was in control. But with the gringa who knew?

And here it was that fantasy took over again-this time from his side. He imagined the gringa from a fine Anglo family with pots of money. Would they look askance at a cholito from Cuzco? (as if they had any inkling of what it meant to be a cholito from Cuzco-in fact, they did not). The gringa's phantasmic father loomed larger than life in his dreams while he himself, Dios mio, hardly spoke a word of the gringos' language. Might such an unlikely union take him to los Estados? He'd thought little of it earlier, but dared to wonder as he watched the gringa tilt her head while he reached for her one more time. But in the end it didn't work out at all. The gringa would not be confined to the back streets of Lima-wanted to see where he lived and kept asking him about it. People would talk. Surely if he took her home, the gringa would call him her enamorado and his novia would leave him and his life would be in ruins. He simply couldn't chance it. In time the gringa left for her own country, full of the tall palefaces with blond hair and blue eyes that so often graced the center of Lima. Soon she would marry one of them and have two palefaced boys. He was sure of it. He wrote the gringa a card or two after she left, unable to leave his fantasy completely untended, but she never did reply. Time passed and he married his novia and had a girl and a boy with skin lighter than he ever thought possible for a cholito from Cuzco.

Later, much later, he and his familia found themselves in los Estados-in California. His brother had come years earlier and his wife had relatives there, too. Their kids did fine, but he'd had trouble with the language, more so than his wife, and somehow they'd grown apart. No longer did she regard him as el rey de la familia, and worse yet, she'd discovered other, unexpressed parts of herself-talents she never knew she had. (Difficult for women in Peru, but easier once they left.) Such a mixed blessing. Here she was, making good money but changing fast before his very eyes, and it was hard for him to take. He'd needed something to hang on to and found it in one of the local señoras, una mexicana named Yolanda who was all too happy to receive his attentions. She'd understood the challenges of life in el norte and taught him the comidas and accentos of Guadalajara in the evenings when his wife was learning English-holding him tight and making him laugh after wiping bits of platanos maduros from his mouth and clearing the table of bottles of Dos Xes. Scurrying off, he'd congratulate himself on making it home before his wife finished class. But the beer made him careless and the lipstick fixed it for good. As it turned out, his wife had suspected all along and already taken steps. Here the women had remedios, tantos remedios. And so it was that they separated.

Felizmente, the children were older, Susana graduating from one fine university and Guillermo Jr. starting at another. Still, it seemed an ignominious end to the hopeful marriage of Guillermo and Herlinda so long ago, but hadn't he needed to survive? His Inca psyche had taken a beating from way too much gringo-ismo. And although the computer consulting job he'd gotten was a good one, the companies he contracted with seemed to revel in his lack of language proficiency and use it as an excuse to pay him half of what he was really worth. But what could he do with so little time to stop and learn the language properly? The truth was that it had pleased him more than he'd dared to admit that someone as sweet as Yolanda could care for him so much and ask so little in return.

Against all odds, a contract one spring sent him to Ohio to work out a systems problem. Hard for him to believe that he still had the address of the gringa from so long ago. How many years had it been?-25 por lo menos! Ay, he was getting old, but then so was she. Her children were probably older than his, and he wondered if her husband's hair was gray and his stomach paunchy. Tantas posibilidades! Would she remember him at all? Out of curiosidad, he'd found her old home and realized she hadn't been rich after all-an ordinary house in a smallish town in northern Ohio. So this is where the gringa had set out from so long ago to roust him from his lair in Lima! How far she had travelled, and solita at that. Una tonta. He left a note on the porch and, knowing she hadn't lived there in ages, hoped against hope that she would somehow get it. A message in a bottle.

Weeks later the phone rings in Los Angeles. "Es la flaca tramposa," she says, "aquí en San Franciso." My god, he thinks. I'm sixty now, with white hair. And what of her? But the voice is the same, and he sees her now as he saw her then, sparkling eyes, long legs, and pale white skin--not exactly beautiful, but engaging and totally focused on him. It had haunted him for half a lifetime, and he wanted to disappear right that second into the back streets of Lima all over again. She sounded the same and he wondered if he did, too. (Perhaps it's the voice that's the last to go when people get older.) Yes, she was happy to hear him, very, and no, she'd never married, never had children, la gran solteróna-and yes, she had a cat and a godson, both of whom she adored, no, not as good as a daughter and a son, but they would have to do.

They exchanged calls and emails for about a week and then she went away-to Ohio, back to her roots. When at last she returned, she called again. Bells tinkled in the background as she spoke, just as they had the first time. And again he felt as he had in Lima years before. On the one hand, he wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her off somewhere, all to himself. But where to? And what did he have to offer her? On the other hand, there was Yolanda-comfortable, sustaining. History repeating itself. He hesitated before contacting the gringa again, but she was as impatient and inquisitive as ever. Some things, it seemed, never changed. He was surprised and sorry when the gringa said that she missed him too much already and would no longer wait for his calls. An embarrassment of riches. Odd that he'd lost her and found her and then lost her again after so many years. Que historia! He doubted that either of them would live another 25 years and idly wondered if they'd ever meet again. Maybe in heaven. But if not in heaven, then on the peaks of Machu Picchu, not too far from Cuzco. He was sure of it. And perhaps not strangely at all, so was she.