Page:Plunder (Perlman).djvu/44

38 LIGHTS OUT

INDIO

The Incas were dragged off their farms and pushed into mines, just like everyone else. Irrigation systems that had taken centuries to build were abandoned, entire forests were burned and once fertile land is now a desert. Bridges and public works collapsed in time if they were not destroyed outright. And today, after all the Europeans had to offer, the people who live in that region have even less than we. Now the region is called Peru and Bolivia, and the Europeans say it's over-populated and the people are lazy--but fewer people live there now than ever in the time of the Incas. A few big landowners own all of Peru, and the one time Incas chew leaves to forget their hunger and tell themselves there's something wrong with them and therefore it was right for the Europeans to destroy them.

MOKSA Much of what you say is true, Indio. Ah, you are so young. You have learned much, but learning has not been a pleasure for you. It has been a necessity, like bread, or an instrument, like a plow--perhaps a gun. Yet you have vitality--a vitality that is altogether strange to me. Do you think you can solve the riddle? What would you have the Incas do?

INDIO They should drive their landlords into the sea! I'm sick of seeing people chew on dry leaves and tell themselves the Sun caused it all, while allowing their conquerors to rape their daughters and then thanking their daughters for dumping unwanted children on top of unbearable loads.

MOKSA Do not always come back to the same thing, Indio.