Huayna Picchu por Xánath Caraza

Huayna Picchu

por Xánath Caraza

Esa mañana, hace ya diez años, tenía planeado llegar hasta Machu Picchu y así lo hice. Salí de Cusco, la bella, como yo le puse, aunque en realidad significa el ombligo del mundo en quechua.  De Cusco recuerdo claramente el color de la tierra. Un rojo ocre que cuando llovía parecía que se convertía en sangre. Pues, salí de Cusco en tren rumbo a Aguas Calientes. Para mi sorpresa, en lugar de seguir subiendo íbamos en descenso hacia la zona montañosa donde se encontraba Machu Picchu. Aguas Calientes era simplemente un pueblo de paso. Como muchos de los pueblos de paso que se forman por necesidad. Busqué el albergue de mochileros en el que tenía una reservación y, al otro día, muy temprano por la mañana salí con un grupo de extranjeros rumbo a Machu Picchu.

Quería comérmelo entero. Era literalmente como estar en una postal de viaje. Buscaba con entusiasmo el punto clásico donde la mayor parte de las fotografías son tomadas y que, al fondo de éstas, se ve una montaña. Por fin lo encontré y tomé una de mis fotografías favoritas de todos mis viajes, abajo la ciudad de Machu Picchu resguardada por el Huayna Picchu y yo delante.  Luego la puerta de entrada a tan mágica ciudad. Mi cuerpo empezó a temblar cuando mis manos se posaron por primera vez sobre las piedras perfectamente cortadas que formaban paredes que aún se mantienen en pie después de más de cinco siglos.

Pasé horas recorriendo Machu Picchu. Era como estar en un sueño, recorrer semejante monumento incaico. Caminé tan lentamente como pude en ese exquisito lugar. Quería grabar en mi mente cada uno de los espacios de esa ciudad Inca en medio de las montañas. Me senté al lado de la piedra sagrada, intihuatana, tratando de ser lo más respetuosa que pude. Traté de imaginar la vida cotidiana, el ir y venir de la gente, sus palabras, su ropa, sus plegarias.

El corazón me palpitaba con grande emoción. Estaba en una de esas ciudades perdidas, casi mitológicas de una cultura indígena americana. No me cabía el corazón de alegría, sonreía para mis adentros mi logro. La vista frente a mí era inmensa, montaña tras montaña, verde sobre verde, infinitas nubes y, a lo lejos, el fragor del río Urubamba. Con ingenuidad deseaba que un cóndor apareciera de la nada y volara frente a mí. No sucedió pero la pura evocación de la imagen de esa ave majestuosa me hacía soñar aún más.

Ya avanzado el día, decidí que subiría el Huayna Picchu. Fue un plan de última hora que no tenía contemplado.  La ascensión fue relativamente fácil, un camino ancestral perfectamente delineado para otros viajeros como yo. El premio fue la cima y su superficie de rocas que en algún momento, en algún siglo, fueron lava volcánica. Un mar de nubes me rodeaba y la temperatura del viento cortaba la piel. Era como estar en un sueño más profundo con el rugir de las aguas turbulentas del Urubamba. Me aventuré hasta donde pude y disfruté de la vista del vacío. Belleza en blanco y negro, en roca y en nube, en fría niebla. 

Regresé a Machu Picchu renovada y con un doble respeto. Qué manos tan fuertes y estrategas, tan precisas pudieron diseñar tan importante ciudad en medio de una falla volcánica que nunca ha causado reparos en ésta. Perfectamente diseñada, perfectamente cortadas y acomodadas cada una de sus piedras. Sueño en rocas, sueño en verde, sueño de nubes, susurro de agua.

Estuve hasta que cerraron el lugar. Regresé caminando a Aguas Calientes, camino en zig-zag de bajada. Ya por la noche fui a las aguas termales, me relajé en ellas, y una tras otra de las imágenes del día me asaltaron la memoria como una proyección cinematográfica. Sin darme cuenta me quedé dormida y desperté porque ya entrada la noche sentí frío en los brazos. Como pude regresé a mi cuarto en el albergue de mochileros. Dormí hasta muy entrada la mañana. 

Un día después regresé a Machu Picchu con más calma, volví a recorrer toda la ciudad y regresé a la intihuatana. Con respeto me acomodé a un lado y saqué mi cuaderno de notas. Empecé a escribir lo que pude, nada me distraía, era mi tributo a ese lugar, mi palabra sagrada. Solo el aletear de un ave, que no quise voltear a ver, me detuvo en seco, no quise alzar la vista para no espantarlo. Sabía que era el aleteo de un cóndor, nunca había experimentado un aleteo y sombra tan extraordinaria. No me moví, solo dejé de escribir para que su vuelo se hiciera uno conmigo. El ave voló en círculos sobre mí, sentía su aleteo y veía su sombra, por un momento pensé que me pudiera atacar. No lo hizo. Se alejó sin darme cuenta, simplemente ya no estaba. Retomé la última línea con renovada fuerza y seguí escribiendo mi canto sagrado. La vista de las montañas frente a mí era interminable, verde sobre inmenso verde, nube sobre inagotable nube, montaña tras infinita montaña, furiosa agua del Urubamba.

Huayna Picchu

By Xánath Caraza

Translated by Sandra Kingery

That morning, ten years ago now, I was planning on reaching Machu Picchu, and I did just that. I left Cuzco, the beautiful, as I call it, even though it actually means the belly-button of the world in Quechua. What I remember clearly about Cuzco is the color of the earth. A red ochre that seemed to turn to blood when it rained. So, I left Cuzco on a train headed for the village of Aguas Calientes. To my surprise, instead of going further up, we descended toward the mountainous zone where Machu Picchu was found. Aguas Calientes was simply a crossroads, similar to other crossroads that spring up out of necessity. I looked for the backpackers’ hostel where I had my reservation, and very early the next morning, I set out with a group of foreigners headed for Machu Picchu.

I wanted to devour it in its entirety. It was literally like being in a postcard. I searched excitedly for the classic spot where most of the photos are taken, photos where you can see a mountain in the background. I finally found it and took a photo that’s one of my favorites from any of my travels: down below, the city of Machu Picchu sheltered by Huayna Picchu, and me in front. Then the entrance to that magical city. My body began to tremble when my hands first rested on the perfectly cut rocks that formed walls which are still standing after more than five centuries.

I spent hours exploring Machu Picchu. It was like being in a dream, crisscrossing that amazing Incan monument. I walked as slowly as I could in that exquisite place. I wanted to engrave in my mind every corner of that Incan city surrounded by mountains. I sat next to the sacred stone, the Intihuatana, trying to be as respectful as possible. I tried to imagine daily life, the comings and goings of the people, their words, their clothing, their prayers.

My heart was beating with great excitement. I was in one of those lost, almost mythological cities from an indigenous American culture. My heart was bursting with joy, fulfilling that goal made me smile inside. The view in front of me was immense, mountain after mountain, green on top of green, infinite clouds and, in the distance, the roar of the Urubamba River. Naively, I wished that a condor would appear out of nowhere and fly in front of me. It didn’t happen, but merely evoking the image of that majestic bird made me dream even more.

When I decided to climb Huayna Picchu, it was already late in the day. It was a last-minute plan which I hadn’t thought about earlier. The ascent was relatively easy, an ancestral path that was perfectly designed for other travelers like me. The payoff was the peak and its surface of rocks that at some point, in some century, were volcanic lava. A sea of clouds encircled me, and the temperature of the wind bit my skin. It felt like a deeper dream with the roar of the Urubamba’s turbulent waters. I ventured as far out as I could and enjoyed the view of the void. Beauty in black and white, in rock and cloud, in cold fog.

I returned to Machu Picchu renewed, my respect multiplied. Such strong, strategic hands, such precision, to design such an important city within volcanic fault lines that have never caused it any damage. Perfectly designed, each one of its rocks perfectly cut and placed. A dream in rocks, dream in green, dream of clouds, whisper of water.

I was there until they closed. I walked back to Aguas Calientes, the path zig-zagging down. After nightfall, I went and relaxed in the hot springs, and the images from the day stormed my memory one after another like the projection of a movie. I fell asleep without meaning to and woke up halfway through the night because my arms had gotten cold. I returned as best I could to my room in the backpackers’ hostel. I slept until very late in the morning.

I returned to Machu Picchu with more time a day later. I explored the entire city again and went back to the Intihuatana. I settled down to one side of it with respect and pulled out my notebook. I began to write whatever I could, nothing distracted me, it was my tribute to that place, my sacred word. The flapping of the wings of a bird, which I didn’t turn to see, was the only thing that stopped me; I didn’t want to look up and startle it. I knew it was the sound of a condor, I had never experienced such an extraordinary shadow or wingbeat. I didn’t move, I simply stopped writing to allow its flight to merge with me. The bird flew in circles above me, I could feel its flapping and see its shadow, it crossed my mind that it might attack me. It didn’t. It flew away before I realized, it simply wasn’t there any longer. I returned to my last line with renewed strength and continued writing my sacred song. The view of the mountains before me was endless, green over immense green, cloud over boundless cloud, mountain upon infinite mountain, furious water of the Urubamba.

“Huayna Picchu” is included in Metztli (Editorial Capítulo Siete, 2018)

'Metztli' Edición bilingüe

Metztli Edición bilingüe by Xánath Caraza (Capitulo Siete; Coacalco de Berriozábal, Estado de México, 2018)

Translation by Sandra Kingery and Kaitlyn Hipple

Review by Donna Snyder

In Aztec mythology, “Metztli” is a god or goddess of the moon. Gender is fluid. In some traditions, Metztli fears the Sun’s fire, in others, they wed. Today the Nahuatl word is primarily used as a feminine name. Make a crazy leap from Nahuatl, a living language originating with the pre-Columbian Mexica people of Central America, to the Urban Dictionary. Here, Metztli is identified as a moon goddess, but also as an energetic and artistic girl who is romantic and sensuous, yet innocent. Curiously, I did not research the meaning of the word until after I had already read Metztli, Xánath Caraza’s recent bilingual collection of stories. Knowing makes all the difference in seeing.

Caraza wrote Metztli in Spanish then worked with Sandra Kingery and Kaitlyn Hipple to translate each story into English with the support of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and funding from the Lycoming College Student-Faculty Research Program. Kingery has collaborated with Caraza before, and she and Hipple appear to have developed a clear understanding of how Caraza’s poetic mind works. 

As noted in my previous review of Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings, an earlier fiction collection, Caraza often appears in her own narratives, as a character with a fictional name or as an unnamed author referenced in stories. In Metztli, one of Caraza’s narrators falls in love with a character in a book being written within the same story. The writer enters the book and interacts with the other characters while the story shifts to the story within the story. As described by a narrator in one of the pieces in Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings, Caraza’s characters possess the power to “dissolve from this dimension to reappear on the printed page.”

In “Thursday,” midway through Metztli, the main character, a writer, could be describing Caraza’s book.

My book is laden with sorrow.

I tried to convince the publishers that it was a book about traveling, a book of metafiction. But I knew it was actually laden with sorrow, with losses I collected over the years, sometimes as their protagonist, others as mere spectator, all of it persisting through time. Sorrow that I safeguarded within the lines, that remained in the design of the letters, that I exorcized as I wrote each of them on paper.

In my review of Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings, I noted that Caraza’s stories are imbued with Federico García Lorca’s aesthetics of duende, “a fascination with both death and great erotic desire…precipitating a momentary experience of the sublime.” García Lorca tells us that the duende is found when “Through the empty archway a wind of the spirit enters, blowing insistently over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents….” As an immigrant and a traveler, Caraza has internalized a multiplicity of identities as well as the constant pulse of loss and departure. 

In “Citizenship,” two brothers left behind their widowed mother to attend university, not seeing her for several years until they unexpectedly appear to witness her swearing in as a United States citizen after working as a dishwasher for most of 20 years. The story reveals a kaleidoscope of memories and emotions: the complexity of grief following the death of an abusive husband, the longing for her sons, the struggle with learning a new language and culture, the decision to become a naturalized citizen. The repeated ruptures in connection mirror the lives of real immigrant workers and asylum seekers, already sorrowful to be forced to leave home, only to have their families ripped apart at the U.S. border. Here in the borderlands of Mexico and the U.S.A., these separations are real, wrenching, and daily. 

Metztli’s characters parallel the author’s migrations. They leave their homelands only to feel years later an anguished longing for the details of daily life. Originally from Xalapa in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, she has lived many years in the U.S.A., while frequently travelling throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In “Lemongrass,” a woman receives a box of gifts from what could be Caraza’s own homeland: 

[A] dress with colorful flowers embroidered on the chest, canned mangoes in syrup, epazote for frijoles, acuyo leaves to wrap tamales rancheros, dried beans, and a peasant blouse with embroidery on the cuff. [She finds that her] departure from Mexico has helped her remember. She’s spent her first year far from the smell of fresh tortillas….

The mammoth sense of loss felt when a lover leaves is broached several times in the collection. In “Prelude,” college students revel in an unconsummated desire born of a mutual devotion to Bach, Scarlatti, and Nietzsche. Their world is filled with near magical sensory details such as a room inexplicably filled with green lightning bugs. The girl is devastated when the boy disappears, only to be spied with another girl weeks later. In another story, “Thursday,” the narrator reveals the extent of her pain after being left.

I cried in the car. In the office. At home. Before walking into a meeting. Between classes. I cried while showering, while cooking. I cried until the table where I was writing these lines flooded, and the sound of my tears mingled with the sound of the rain…The night is neon-blue cold. Metallic rain continues to fall….

The growing friendship between women who are grieving the loss of their lovers is beautifully described in “Gentle Breeze.” “Without realizing it, without making an effort, little by little, they stopped saying those names.”  Caraza’s format reminds us that time is an artificial construct. Perhaps we experience loss in this reality, yet physicists tell us that we may continue to exist in another universe. In the other universe, we may not suffer that grief. 

The fire of first love is always unique but can hint of banality when viewed from outside. Consequently, the last story in the book, “Voices in the Sea,” was a small disappointment in an otherwise stimulating and pleasurable collection. Taken as a whole, however, Metztli dazzles the reader with the interconnectivity of its stories and intrigues us when the fiction is juxtaposed with its writer’s own life. In the title story, the narrator is a Mexican who has lived abroad many years.

She had traveled in Morocco for five years, dancing in different cities. . . . Before dancing, she would prepare her iridescent feathers, seashells, jade necklaces, and turquoise rings. She made sure that the pre-Hispanic instruments she used in her show, like the huehuetl drum, were ready to vibrate like a living heart. She carefully inspected the clay pots that she filled with varying amounts of water to turn them into percussion instruments, and she confirmed the depth of sound of the teponaztli drum. As time went by, while she danced, she began to feel Morocco flow through her veins. Two rhythms began to beat within her, perhaps three now, indigenous, Moroccan, and Spanish.

In addition to writing poetry and fiction, Caraza teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and writes for various scholarly publications related to Latinos/Latinas and their shared, yet disparate, cultures. Caraza has won honors in Central America, Europe, and the U.S.A, such as receiving the 2014 Beca Nebrija para Creadores, from the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in Spain. She has been translated into English, Italian, and Greek; and partially translated into Nahuatl, Portuguese, Hindi, Turkish, and Romanian. 

Caraza was a finalist in the Multicultural Fiction category of the 2013 International Book Awards. Also in 2013, her book Conjuro won multiple international awards. Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings won several international awards. Her book of poetry, Sílabas de viento/Syllables of Wind, received the 2015 International Book Award for Poetry, as well as other prizes. In the 2018 International Latino Book Awards, Caraza’s Lagrima roja won First Place for Best Book of Poetry in Spanish by One Author and First Place for Sin preámbulos/Without Preamble for Best Book of Bilingual Poetry by One Author. The book at hand, Metztli, won second place in the 2019 International Latino Book Awards for Best Short Story Collection.

While the names of characters change, the stories in Metztli are interwoven, with repeated motifs such as winged insects, birds of portent, and references to the keen pleasure of drinking a cup of tea and reading. Most importantly, each main character presents another face of the same moon.

“I usually think in colors, feel colors, smell colors, see images. . .” says the narrator in “Thursday.”  Both Metztli and Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings describe this anomaly known as synesthesia, the triggering of one sort of sense impression when a different sense is stimulated. Both books are saturated with color and sensuality. In Metztli, Caraza’s subject is sorrow, yet she catches readers in a storm of eroticism, emphasizing that the sadness of life can be redeemed by art and the pleasures of the physical world. The senses counterbalance life’s inherent sorrow, and only through embracing the duende is there hope to encounter the sublime.

 

Donna Snyder

Donna Snyder founded the Tumblewords Project in 1995 and continues to organize its free weekly workshop series and other events in the borderlands of El Paso, Texas. Her poetry collections include Poemas ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal from Chimbarazu Press, I Am South from Virgogray Press, and The Tongue Has its Secrets from NeoPoiesis Press. She previously practiced law representing indigenous people, people with disabilities, and immigrant workers.