The Lost Origin (17 page)

At last I got to the part of the essay that had what I was looking for, and, just by reading the
subheading of the section, I knew why my brother, a linguistic anthropologist, had become so interested in Incan textiles and designs. Really, at that point, it shouldn’t have been so difficult for me to figure it out, given the general direction of the information, but to a landlubber all seas look the same because of the simple fact of never having sailed them. The subheading read “Writing through Q
uipus
and Textiles,” and from that alone I already should have felt like a raving idiot, not just because of my blindness, but also because of something that now seemed crystal clear: the professor knew the subject of
tocapus
just as well as she knew that of
quipus
, because she must, with good reason, know what I knew by then—or more—she’d had her hands on the Miccinelli documents, and the author of that essay I was reading was her friend and associate.

So, okay, according to what Dr. Torrent’s friend said, the Miccinelli documents claimed that both the knotted
quipus
and textiles with
tocapus
were like our books, and, although she put much more emphasis on
quipus
, in one phrase she mentioned the need to carefully study the illustrations of
The New Chronicle and Good Government
by Guamán Poma-Blas Valera, because, “on their most secret level,” they contained texts written with the
tocapus
drawn as decorations on the clothing which, making use of the necessary human and technical means, could be deciphered.

Pensive, I returned to the Guamán book (if that was truly the name of its author) and thoughtfully went back over the images that had so impressed me. I looked at those bands of
tocapus
on the clothing with new eyes as if I were looking at a wall full of Egyptian hieroglyphs that, even though I couldn’t read them, were still a written language made of words and replete with ideas. I only had one more question, and the truth was I didn’t feel capable of resolving it that night: What language could
tocapus
be written in? There was no longer any doubt that the knots were used to write in Quechua, the language of the Inca and their subjects, but I got the impression that the same was true of the
tocapus
. Two writing systems, equally mysterious, for the same language? So, where in the world did Aymara enter into the story?

“Email to Jabba,” I declared listlessly, without moving. The monitors went white and the black cursor blinked at the beginning of a screen for messages written through the voice recognition system. “Good morning to both of you,” I began to dictate; the words appearing mechanically on the screens. “Look at what time it is when I’m sending this email and guess the night I’ve had. I need you to keep researching more things about the Aymara language. In particular any relationship between Aymara with something called
tocapus
.” The machine stopped after “called.” “Spell: ‘T’ as in Toledo, ‘O’ as in Ourense, ‘C’ as in Caceres, ‘A’ as in Alicante, ‘P’ as in Palencia, ‘U’ as in Urgell, and ‘S’ as in Seville.” The word appeared immediately, correctly spelled. “Memorize:
tocapu
. Meaning: Incan textile design. Plural:
tocapus
. Continue dictating email to Jabba. I’m only interested in Quechua if it appears in relation to
tocapus
and Aymara, otherwise no. I’ll get up at noon, and in the afternoon I’ll be in the hospital with Daniel if you want to find me. In another message I’ll send you part of the material that I haven’t managed to decipher in case you can also lend me a hand with that. Happy Sunday. Thanks again, Root. End of message for Jabba. Normal encryption. Normal priority. Send.”

I took the photocopies of the map with the compass roses and of the little bearded man with no body (Humpty Dumpty) out of the leather briefcase, and ran them through my most powerful scanner to give them as highest resolution possible. The resulting files were huge, but so much the better because that way Jabba and Proxi wouldn’t have any added problems from loss of definition.

“Select images one and two,” I concluded, sprawling in the chair and resting my face on my left fist. “Email to Jabba. Attach selected files. End of email to Jabba. Normal encryption. Normal priority. Send.”

The monitors turned off, and I, still in front of
The New Chronicle
, kept mechanically turning pages until I found another paragraph highlighted in yellow; but at that moment the monitors lit up again, with a system message reminding me that it was seven in the morning; then, masterfully fading out, they showed one of my favorite paintings: Harmatan, by Ramón Enrich. As if that reminder had made some internal alarm go off, I automatically felt an infinite exhaustion and the numbing of all the muscles in my body. How long had I been sitting there, navigating between notes and books? I no longer remembered what time I had started. While I yawned noisily and stretched out to my full length in the chair, straight as a rod, I thought of the innumerable sleepless nights I had spent sitting in front of the computer, hacking systems. Those had been impassioning challenges that, once achieved, had left me with my ego in the clouds, my vanity in hyperspace, and with a self-satisfaction that couldn’t be compared with anything else in the world. So, that night, despite the tiredness (or maybe because of it), I felt just as omnipotent, and in a final delirium before falling into bed overcome by sleep, I decided that from that moment on, I would change my tag to some acronym of Arnau Capac Inca, or Powerful King Arnau.

It sounded truly good. As good as the soft and somewhat sad piano piece by Erik Satie that lulled me to sleep, Gymnopédie No. 1. Satie always said that Gymnopedie meant “dance of nude Spartan women,” but almost everyone was sure that he had made that up. More than naked women, it reminded me, really, of the thousands—or millions—of people who died in the Americas fighting against the tyranny and oppression of the Spanish crown and the Spanish church.

When I awoke at noon, I heard strange noises in the house. At first I supposed it must be my grandmother who had gotten up early, but my grandmother was a very considerate woman and would never have caused such a racket while someone was sleeping. Of course, it could be my mother, who never bothered with such considerations, but my mother and Clifford must have been in the hospital since the first light of morning; so, of the list of possible culprits, the only that remained were Magdalena and Sergi, the gardener, who were automatically excluded because it was Sunday. I went through that step by step Sherlock-style reflection more asleep than awake, but there’s nothing like good logical reasoning accompanied by a background of explosions to succeed in waking up the most exhausted of minds.

I jumped out of bed, and, with my eyes closed, I groped down the hall, stumbling toward the origin of the racket. Good thing, I thought, that my grandmother slept like a log. Medical science says that people of advanced age need fewer hours of sleep than young people, but, with her more than eighty years, doña Eulàlia Monturiol i Toldrà, all intelligence, like one of those bright quartz crystals full of edges, slept her ten or eleven hours every day, and nothing, not even spending the night looking after one of her grandchildren in the hospital, would alter that healthy habit. She claimed that her great grandmother, who had lived to one hundred and ten, had slept even more, and that she expected to easily surpass that age. My mother, horrified by such a waste of life, harshly reprimanded her and advised her to reduce her time sleeping to the seven hours recommended by specialists; but my grandmother, stubborn like no other, said that modern doctors had no idea what quality of life was, and that, from spending so much time struggling with illnesses, they had forgotten the basic standard for good health, namely, to live like a king.

I squinted with an effort when I got to the spot where the noise was coming from and discovered Jabba and Proxi lying on the floor of my study, surrounded by cords, towers of computers—which I identified as having come from the “100”—and diverse bits of hardware. I had forgotten that they also had free access to my house.

“Oh, hi, Root!” Jabba greeted me, pushing red locks out of his face with his forearm.

I said a very rude word and cursed them repeatedly as I went into the study and jabbed the sole of my right foot on a sharp little USB port multiplier which made me keep spitting curses.

“Stop that right now!” was the first coherent thing I said. “My grandmother is sleeping!”

Proxi, who hadn’t paid the least bit of attention to me during my explosion of profanity, raised her head from whatever she was doing, and looked at me, frightened, stopping everything.

“Stop, Jabba!” she cried, standing. “We didn’t know, Root, really. We had no idea.”

“Come with me to the kitchen, and while I have breakfast you can tell me what the hell you were doing!”

They followed me docilely through the hall and entered the kitchen ahead of me, looking contrite. I closed the door quietly so we could talk without bothering anyone.

“All right, go on,” I said acridly, moving toward the shelf where I kept the glass jars and spices. “I want an explanation.”

“We came to help you…,” Proxi started to say, but Jabba interrupted her.

“We know where your big-headed little man came from.”

With the jar of tea in my hand, I pivoted like a pinwheel to look at them. They had sat down on opposite sides of the kitchen table. I didn’t have to ask them: The expression on my face was a giant question mark.

“We know almost everything.” My supposed friend was showing off, with an air of smugness.

“Yes, it’s true,” Proxi corroborated, adopting the same attitude. “But we’re not going to tell you, because you haven’t offered us anything, not even a little of that coffee you’re going to make for yourself.”

I sighed.

“It’s tea, Proxi,” I announced, as I put the exact quantity of water in the small glass pitcher. The taste for tea had been imposed on me by my mother, who had imposed the habit on all of us since she went to live in England. At first, I hated it, but with time, I ended up getting used to it.

“Oh, then I don’t want it!”

I waited for the little bubbles to settle, so I could be sure the amount of water was correct, and, when I saw there was not quite enough, poured a thin thread that bounced from the mouth of the bottle of mineral water.

“I’ll make you a coffee,” Jabba told her, standing and heading toward the Italian espresso maker that he saw on one of the shelves. “It sounds good to me too. Right after we finished eating,” he told me, “we came right over here.”

“Help yourself,” I muttered, while I put the pitcher in the microwave and programmed the time on the digital screen. Jabba filled the bottom reservoir of the espresso maker with water from the tap. He was a compulsive coffee drinker, but even in this he completely lacked a discerning palate. “Who’s going to tell me everything?” I insisted.

“I’ll tell you, relax,” Proxi replied.

“Where’s the coffee?”

“The coffee’s in the glass jar that’s next to the empty spot left by the jar of tea. Do you see it?”

“Your egghead, Root,” continued the security mercenary, “it’s one of the tiny pictures on the map you sent us last night.”

“More like this morning,” I objected, oblivious to the information I had just received.

“Fine, this morning, then,” she conceded, while the man in her life heaped Jamaican coffee into the espresso maker’s little filter cup, and compressed it for all he was worth before screwing on the top part. I pressed my lips together and told myself it would be better to look away if I didn’t want to end up fighting with that savage.

And so, I paid attention to what Proxi had said.

“The little bearded man was on the map with the Arabic lettering?” I blurted, absolutely perplexed.

“He’s just above the ridge of the Andes!” Jabba specified, laughing. “With his little feet on the peaks where Tiwanaku should be!”

“Of course, he’s very small; you can barely make him out. You have to look very hard.”

“Or look with a very large magnifying glass, like we did.”

“That’s why Daniel made a digital enlargement.”

I remained speechless for several seconds, but then, despite the beeping of the microwave, I left the kitchen in a flash and went back to the studio, looking for the folder where I had stored the damn map after scanning it. I jumped over the loose objects that were scattered on the floor and retrieved it anxiously, unfolding it. Yes, that spot was indeed the big-headed little man. But I couldn’t make him out very well.

“Light, more light!” I exclaimed like Goethe on his deathbed, and the system immediately strengthened the intensity of the light in the study. There he was. There was the cursed Humpty Dumpty, with his black beard, his Colla hat, and his frog legs! He was so small that he was barely visible, so I took out Daniel’s enlargement and examined it as if it were the first time I was seeing it. It was ‘my egghead,’ indeed! It had been right in front of my nose the whole time.

“Grab the map and come to the kitchen,” Proxi demanded from the door.

Jabba remained standing in front of the stovetop, contemplating the espresso pot as if the fire necessary to heat the water came from his eyes.

“Have you already seen it?” he rushed to ask when we had closed the door again.

“This is incredible!” I exclaimed, shaking the sheet of paper like a fan.

“Isn’t it?” Proxi agreed, going toward the microwave. She wore some very tight-fitting flowered leggings, with a thick flannel shirt on top, unbuttoned and showing a white tank top underneath against which glittered the beads of several necklaces. “Go on, sit down. I’ll finish preparing this sickening tea.”

I was truly grateful. Even though she thought it was disgusting, Proxi always made very good tea.

“Right,” Jabba declared, “now, clean out your ears and listen closely to what we’re going to tell you. If the Aymara thing was intense, this is unbelievable.”

“Which is exactly why we’ve decided to help you.”