The Babylon rite

17

TUMP Lab, Zana, north Peru

‘So, darling, tell me your theory.’

Dan Kossoy was sitting on his usual stool, in the centre of the main lab in Zana, virtually the only clean modern building in the town. His grey T-shirt expressed support for the Hamilton Mastiffs ice hockey team, his wise brown eyes expressed sincere interest in his anthropologist’s latest conception. But he’d used the word darling — and it was the first time he’d ever used it.

The lab was quiet except for the low buzz coming from the big fridges, which stored the Moche bones, cradled in soft yellow polystyrene foam — like holy babies in swaddling.

‘Jess? Your theory. Tell me! You have my unusually undivided attention!’

‘Why? Because we are sleeping together?’

He shook his head and looked genuinely hurt. Jessica immediately regretted her flippancy. Dan was a decent and kindly man; that was why she liked him. He didn’t deserve sarcasm, however frivolous.

‘Sorry, Dan. That was glib. I just…’ She took her seat, on a stool next to his; then she pushed the blonde hair back from her eyes and looked at him. ‘To be honest, the situation between us is kinda weird. I don’t normally do this sort of thing. Us, I mean. Sorry. I want to know that you are taking me seriously as an anthropologist, a scientist, not just because we are… going out. Does that make sense?’

He gazed at her; his warm hand rested on hers, briefly, then withdrew. ‘I understand. There are ethical questions. To be entirely honest,’ he sighed, ‘I have never got involved with anyone like this, before. I haven’t even had a girlfriend since my divorce, Jess. I was a monk in the desert! Then you walked in to the laboratory…’ He smiled, earnest and affectionate. ‘But please, do trust me, I can detach our relationship from the science. I promise. Now tell me your theory.’

Jess cleared her throat. ‘For what it’s worth, I now believe that, in opposition to our accepted understanding, virtually all the representation on Moche ceramics and in their murals are essentially depictions of real events. Not just the sacrifice ceremony. All of them.’

Dan stared at her. ‘And what makes you think this?’

‘The bone in the ankle at the Sorcerer.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You know it. El Brujo. The human bone, in the mural of the ankle?’

Dan nodded.

‘Ah. Yes. And so?’

‘I think it’s a clue. The Moche are telling us something. Think about it! You put a real human ankle bone in a representation of an ankle. What does that say?’

‘They ran out of paint?’

She didn’t smile. ‘It says this is all meant to be taken literally. When we show you something, we mean it.’

Her lover looked distinctly unconvinced. ‘OK. The bone. What else?’

‘Flesh beetles. We see beetles and flies on pottery, dancing around skeletons and prisoners who are waiting to be killed. Now we have a staked-out prisoner, fed to beetles.’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose… it’s just possible. But even if it was the case we can’t know whether he was fed to them alive or dead.’

Jess nodded, despite her frustration. She needed to stay lucid and plausible to persuade the world, beginning with the leader of TUMP. ‘But, Dan, he was definitely in agony, right? He died in some great pain, judging by the skull, right? Which is odd, and telling.’

‘Hmm.’

‘OK, OK maybe it’s a question of interpretation. But look at it this way: even if we discount that example, there are so many others. Such as the other prisoner. Skeleton 1d. The one at the side of Tomb 1? Now think of the context — the avian crania nearby.’

‘Vulture skulls. Yeeeeees…’

‘They were positioned around the head of that victim, who was staked out. As if they had been there, pecking at him, as he died. The eyes. Just like this. ’ She reached in her inside pocket, unfolded a printed photo of the pot from the Museo Casinelli, and held it out to him. Dan frowned and scrutinized the photo: of the bottle in the shape of a skeletal man, half-dead, half-flayed, and tied to a tree with his eye being pecked by a vulture.

‘You think he died like this?’

‘Of course.’

‘But this man is tied to a tree, Jess, not staked to the ground, and he could just as easily be a dream figure, symbolical, some mythological-’

Jess shifted on her stool, repressing her impatience. ‘But that’s just it. It’s our perceptions that are faulty, the evidence is actually pretty clear. Our fundamental approach is, I believe, just plain wrong, one hundred and eighty degrees wrong, Dan. Think about it. Whenever we find a new Moche symbol or picture and it shows something ghastly or deviant we conveniently presume, time after time, that it is part of their mysterious mythology, part of a folklore, nightmares of an underworld, who knows? But we can’t just keep this up. The paradigm is cracking: it can’t support the accumulating and contrary evidence. The evidence that they did most of this stuff!’

‘I see.’

‘How many times have we found human and animal remains that exactly match what the Moche show us on their pots? Think about it! How many pots show amputees? We now have endless skeletons with amputations. We also have hundreds of murals showing ritual dismemberment, arms and hands and feet — chopped away from the living, then scattered. And that’s what we are finding in the tombs, right? Dismembered bodies, people pulled apart as they struggled, literally chopped up alive.’ She was almost breathless now. ‘And what about the people thrown off the mountain, as a sacrifice?’

‘The sacrificed victims discovered at the bottom of the Huaca de La Luna? Yes, I suppose that’s true. There may be something here. But it’s very ambitious and somewhat unsupported, I think we still need Steve Venturi’s verdict before we can go anywhere. We — you — need empirical data: we need the truth about the amputations. If you get that, then we can talk some more.’ He gazed right back at her. ‘Of course, if your theory is in any way correct it means virtually all the erotic practices on the ceramicas, the ceramicas eroticas, must depict sexual acts the Moche actually performed. Rather incredible, no?’

‘Not incredible. That’s my perception. They did it.’

‘Sex with animals?’ Dan was half laughing, yet his expression was sickened. ‘Women masturbating dying men, men who had been half-flayed? Sex with skeletons, foreplay with mutilated corpses? Christ.’

‘Bestiality and necrophilia, in fervent variety. Yep. I reckon that’s what they did.’

‘It’s hard to take, Jess. Hard to believe any society could be that sick. Unless you get Venturi to back you up on the amputations I’m going to hang fire. And think some more.’ His gaze was troubled. ‘However, even if we eventually accept that the Moche did some of this stuff, we still need an explanation why. ’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well. I’m wondering if it occurred, perhaps it was a reaction, to terrible societal pressure, possibly an El Nino event?’ His eyes were alive now, as he calculated and theorized. ‘That makes sense, Jess. Doesn’t it? We know El Nino ruined cultures around here. A bad El Nino might have traumatized an ordinary civilization into performing… appalling acts. Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, darling! Get me Venturi to confirm you on the amputation, then we can talk some more.’

This time she ignored the darling. This time, in truth, she realized she quite liked it. Why not? They were going out, they were lovers. Maybe it was time to get over herself, and tell the world. This is me, and I’m with Dan. Jessica excused herself to go to the washroom. She felt a rising elation as she did. So long as Venturi came through she had a chance at proving her Big Theory. Once they understood the Moche rites, they would be close to understanding Moche beliefs.

And yet there was still so much more to be unravelled and explained. Was it really El Nino that had caused all this? It seemed hard to credit; the sacrifices and tortures had been going on for centuries. They had not sprung into being after just one drought or flood, however apocalyptic. And then there were the ulluchus, the blood of the unknown god. Why was the god bleeding?

Jess dried her hands, and walked quickly towards the door but the last washroom mirror caught her attention. She lingered, examining herself. Her pale European face. Her blonde hair. Her lips. Her face. What did that face say? Was she really OK?

Jess gazed over her hands. The fine tremor had gone. Hadn’t it? That sudden thought about her father was paranoia, surely. He had died of cancer. That’s what she knew. That’s what she had been told.

No. Yes. No.

She chastened herself for her hypochondria. Pushing the door to the washroom, she walked back down the long corridor to the main lab. Concentrating on science, not silly fears.

But a noise made her pause. Ten metres from the lab door.

Shouting.

What was this?

Someone was shouting in the lab. And it wasn’t Dan. The voice was harsh, Spanish, probably Peruvian — and the voice was angry, and brutally aggressive.

Where was Dan?

Jessica inched to the laboratory door, its tinted glass panel. If she got close, she could probably see through, without being seen herself.

There!

Stunned by what she had seen, Jessica flattened herself against the wall, her mind roiled by panic.

A strange dark tall man had Daniel Kossoy pinned by the window, next to the bone fridges. A gun was pressed so hard to Dan’s throat it had visibly whitened the skin of his neck.

The man was going to shoot. The finger on the trigger was squeezed with slow, delicious subtlety. About to kill her boss. About to kill her lover.