Of Pisco and Peru: Iquitos
Pt. 3
The caretaker kneels, casually picking strands of puce-colored mold off the bone-white tomb with his bare hands. He flicks the clumps behind him, without looking, forming a tangled, oozing pile of slime mold.
I’m fascinated by this impromptu housecleaning. Is this all for show?
He stands up and points his jade-stained finger at the inscription:
“Carlos F. Fiscarrald, fallecido 9–7–97.”
Looks legit. He’ll get his well-negotiated tip.
“Chuh-eese!”
CLICK.
I wipe the sweat from my brow right as Auntie M snaps another unsolicited pic. She must have been a paparazza in a previous life. “Do you have to take pictures of everything?”
Auntie M grits her teeth, lining up another shot. “Sí. It es for memories. Pictures es good for that. The viewer never eh-sees your effort for the best, uh, eh-shot, just the pose.” Her lips purse as she commands, “Now eh-smile” like a prison guard. Jumping into a jungle steam bath filled with dachsund-sized insects constantly stinging and biting is not her idea of vacation fun. I try out casual poses in between wiping the sweat pouring down my forehead.
Searching for beauty in the Amazon’s relentless biomass of collective fornication and murder isn’t for everybody. I get that. After all, why choose to live in an unyielding hothouse when, credit card in hand, you can lounge at a day spa sipping a chilled mojito and get a mani-pedi?
With a big gasp she lets her camera drape around her neck, searching my expression. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, scrutinizing the scene. Fiscarrald’s gravestone is as run-down as the rest of the tombs and columbariums in Iquitos General Cemetery. With good reason. The real-life rubber baron hardly resembled the quirky character from Werner Herzog’s movie. The choice he gave the indigenous people was savagely simple: work under cruel conditions or die.
The movie legacy is alive and thriving in Iquitos, however. Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’ flavored museums, restaurants, and hotels overflow all over in the capital of the Peruvian Amazon. It’s a strangely satisfying case of life-reflecting-art-imitating life.
“Dougito?”
With a shake of my head, I’m sucked back into reality, staring at the dead and forgotten, buried forever in a lifeless cemetary. “It just isn’t what I’d thought it would be.” I toe the dirt like a disobedient child told to do chores. “I guess nothing is.”