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Everyone climbed on board, off toward the ancient lost city of the Incas.
The days they spent there were unforgettable—rarely did someone actually manage to reach that place, only those who were God’s children, the free of spirit ready to face the unknown without fear.
They slept in abandoned houses without roofs, gazing at the stars; they made love; they ate the food they’d brought. Each day they bathed completely nude in the river that ran below the mountain, and discussed the possibility that the gods had actually been astronauts and landed on Earth in that region of the world. They had all read the same book by a Swiss author who often interpreted the Incan drawings as trying to depict celestial travelers; just as they’d read Lobsang Rampa, the Tibetan monk who spoke of opening one’s third eye—until one day an Englishman told everyone sitting there on the central square in Machu Picchu that the so-called monk was named Cyril Henry Hoskin and was a plumber from the English countryside whose identity had recently been discovered and whose credentials had already been refuted by the Dalai Lama.
The entire group was filled with disappointment, above all because, like Paulo, they were convinced that there truly did exist something between their eyes, called a pineal gland, though its usefulness had not yet been discovered by scientists. And so, the third eye did exist—though not in the way Lobsang Cyril Rampa Hoskin had described it.
On the third morning, Paulo’s girlfriend decided to return home, and she also decided—without leaving any room for doubt—that Paulo ought to accompany her. Without saying goodbye to anyone or looking back, they left before sunrise and spent two days descending the eastern face of the mountain range in a bus full of people, domestic animals, food, and folk crafts. Paulo took the opportunity to buy a colorful bag, which he was able to fold and stash inside his backpack. He also decided that he would never again embark on a bus trip that lasted longer than a day.
From Lima they hitchhiked to Santiago de Chile—the world was a safe place, cars stopped, though the drivers were a bit fearful of the couple on account of their clothing. In Santiago, after a good night’s sleep, they asked somebody to draw a map showing them how to go back across the Andes through a tunnel that connected the country to Argentina. They continued on toward Brazil—again hitching a ride because Paulo’s girlfriend kept repeating that the money they still had might be necessary in case of some medical emergency—she was always prudent, always the elder, always a product of a practical Communist upbringing that never allowed her to relax entirely.
In Brazil, having reached a part of the country where the majority of those with passports were blond and blue-eyed, they decided to stop again, at his girlfriend’s suggestion.
“Let’s go see Vila Velha. They say the place is incredible.”
They didn’t foresee the nightmare.
They had no sense of the hell to come.
They weren’t prepared for what awaited them.
They had been to several incredible, unique places with something about them that suggested that in the future they would be destroyed by hordes of tourists who thought only of acquiring and amassing amenities for their own homes. But the way Paulo’s girlfriend spoke left no room for doubt, there was no question mark at the end of her sentence, she was merely notifying him of what they would do.
Yes, of course, let’s go to Vila Velha. An incredible place. A geological site with remarkable natural sculptures shaped by the wind—which the nearest city tried to promote at all costs, spending a fortune in the process. Everyone knew of Vila Velha’s existence, but the less informed would drive on past to a beach in a state bordering Rio de Janeiro. Others were curious but thought it too much work to make the journey.
Paulo and his girlfriend were the only visitors there, and they marveled at the way nature manages to create floral calyxes, turtles, camels—or rather, the way we manage to give names to everything, even if the camel in question really looked like a pomegranate to the woman and an orange to him. At any rate, unlike everything they’d seen at Tiahuanaco, these sandstone sculptures were open to all sorts of interpretations.
From there, they grabbed a ride to the closest city. Paulo’s girlfriend, knowing it wouldn’t be long before they arrived home, decided—it was she, in fact, who decided everything—that they would, that night, for the first time in many weeks, sleep in a nice hotel and have meat for dinner! Meat, one of the things they did best in that region of Brazil, something they hadn’t tasted since they’d left La Paz—the price always seemed exorbitant.
They registered at a genuine hotel, took a bath, made love, and walked down to the lobby, thinking they would ask for a recommendation of a rodizio restaurant, where they could eat as much as they wanted, buffet-style.
While they waited for the concierge to appear, two men approached and, dispensing with pleasantries, ordered Paulo and his girlfriend to follow them outside. Both had their hands in their pockets, as though they held guns, and wished to make this quite clear.
“Don’t be crazy,” Paulo’s girlfriend said, convinced they were being held up. “I have a diamond ring up in the room.”
But the two men had already taken them by the arm and pushed them outside—immediately separating them from one another. On the deserted street were two cars without any sort of identification, and two other men—one of them pointing a gun at the couple.
“Don’t move, and don’t do anything suspicious. We’re going to search you.”
The brutes began to pat them down. Paulo’s girlfriend still tried to protest, but he had already entered a sort of trance, completely dazed. The only thing he managed to do was look around to see if some witness would end up calling the police.
“Shut your mouth, you stupid slut,” one of the men said. They took the couple’s belts containing their passports and money, and each of the two was forced into the backseat of one of the parked cars. Paulo didn’t so much as have time to see what was happening to his girlfriend—nor did she know what was happening to him.
Inside the car was another man.
“Put this on,” he said, handing Paulo a hood. “And lie down on the floor.”
Paulo did exactly as he was told. His brain was no longer processing anything. The car sped away. He would have liked to tell these men that his family had money, that he would pay any ransom, but the words would not leave his mouth.
The train’s pace began to slow, a likely sign they were approaching the Dutch border.
“Is everything all right with you, dude?” the Argentinean asked.
Paulo nodded, searching for something to talk about, to exorcise his negative thoughts. It had been over a year since the incident at Vila Velha, and most of the time he managed to control the demons inside his head. But whenever the word POLICE entered his line of sight, even if it were just a customs official, his terror returned. Only this time when the terror returned so did the entire story, which he’d already told a few friends, though always maintaining a certain distance, as though observing himself from afar. However, this time—and for the very first time—he was repeating the story to himself alone.
“If they bar us at the border, no problem. We can go to Belgium and cross somewhere else,” the Argentinean suggested.
Paulo wasn’t in much of a mood to talk to this character—his paranoia had returned. What if the man really was trafficking hard drugs? What if they decided Paulo was an accomplice and threw him in prison until he could prove his innocence?
