📸 Photo

not exactly sure. Anyway he fled to Bolivia. He’s a very primitive person. I can’t stand him or his opinions. Only an idiot would discriminate against someone because of the colour of his skin or his religion. My uncle goes around cursing the Jews and making derogatory remarks about them. At first I thought I would ask you to pretend that you aren’t Jewish. You could say you were American instead of Israeli, like Kevin. Who needs to go looking for problems? That’s what I told Marcus that we should do, but I know you better by now. If my uncle makes some stupid anti-Semitic remark, you’re likely to blow your top.’

‘And provide you a shortcut to your inheritance,’ I joked to ease the tension. Still I was uncomfortable, not so much with the idea of Karl’s uncle having been a Nazi, but with Karl himself and the way his stories kept changing.

Don Pablo came up while Karl was talking. He was a pleasant fellow. We had already made his acquaintance when we first came to Asriamas. Karl put a lot of detailed questions to him, and he answered obligingly. He even showed Karl a few gold nuggets that he himself had found, though the large nugget had been sold to a dealer in Apolo. He got a hoe, a pickaxe, and batea (pan), gave us a pitcher of caña, and took us to the dig. Then he left us to go back to work.

On the side of the hill that sloped up from the riverbank, we saw a tunnel chipped away in the rock.