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“What do you want to know?”
“How much time do you have?” Sam countered.
“Unlimited quantities.”
“Then tell us everything.”
“You’re going to be disappointed. He was an interesting man and he worked hard to help the locals, but he was just one of thousands of missionaries that came here over the last half millennium. He opened a Bible school, helped at local hospitals, and spent a lot of time in rural villages trying to save souls.”
“Have you ever heard of the Orizaga Codex?” Sam asked.
Marcott narrowed his eyes. “No, but, based on the name, I somehow think I should have. Am I about to be terribly embarrassed?”
“I don’t see why,” Remi said. She gave Marcott the short version of the codex’s history, leaving out the specifics about its content or origin.
Marcott smiled. “Fascinating. Did this codex ingratiate him with the Church or was it the opposite?”
“The opposite.”
“Then it was sympathetic to the Aztecs. I wish I had known all this about him. I might have devoted a whole chapter to him. There was one interesting story, but it didn’t really fit into the book so I left it out. He died in 1556, twenty-eight years after arriving here—or, at least, that’s when he was last seen.”
“I don’t understand,” Remi asked.
“The story goes that in November of that year, Orizaga announced to his followers and colleagues that he believed he’d discovered a sacred place in the jungle—he didn’t say where exactly—and that he was going to find the . . . What was it?” Marcott paused, tapping his index finger on his lower lip. “Oh, yes. He called it the seven caves or world of the seven caves. Something along those lines. He walked into the jungle and never came back. From what I understand, Orizaga was considered a bit of a nut.”
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Sam said. “So he walked into the jungle and just vanished?”
Marcott nodded. “Never seen again. I realize it sounds very dramatic, but even today disappearances aren’t uncommon. Five hundred years ago it was probably a daily event. The jungles here are unforgiving, even for someone as well traveled as Orizaga.” Marcott paused and smiled ruefully. “Talking about the man, I find myself really wishing I’d devoted at least a few pages in the book to his story. Oh, well.”
“I don’t suppose you still have your primary source material on him, do you?” asked Remi.
“No, I’m afraid not. But I can do better than that. I can take you to my source—providing he’s still alive, that is.”
THEY FOLLOWED MARCOTT in his twenty-year-old BMW to another residential area in Palembang’s Plaju district. Here the roads were dirt, the houses no larger than six hundred square feet, with corrugated tin roofs, unpainted plank-wood exteriors, and mosquito-netting windows. Beside almost every structure was a tiny vegetable garden and pens containing either chickens or goats.
Marcott pulled to a stop before one of the houses. Sam and Remi did the same and got out. Marcott said, “He doesn’t speak English and he’s in his nineties, so be prepared.”
“Who are we meeting?”
“Apologies. Dumadi Orizaga. Before he die
d, Javier had ten children with a local woman. Dumadi is a direct descendent of Orizaga.”
“I thought he was a Jesuit,” said Remi.
“He was, but at some point he renounced his vows—including celibacy, obviously.”
“Maybe because of his ordeal with the Church,” Sam offered.
They followed Marcott up the path to a screen door made of two-by-fours and threadbare mosquito netting. After Marcott’s fourth fist rap on the jamb, an old man in a white tank top shuffled into view. He was barely over five feet tall, and his face bore mostly Indonesian features with touches of Spanish thrown in.
Marcott said something to Dumadi in Indonesian or one of its dialects. The old man smiled and nodded and pushed open the door. The three of them stepped inside. The interior of the home was divided into thirds: a twenty-by-twenty-foot sitting area with four plastic lawn chairs and a cardboard-box coffee table, and two side rooms, one a bedroom/bathroom, the other a kitchen. Dumadi gestured for everyone to sit.
Translating as he went, Marcott introduced Sam and Remi, then explained that they’d come to Palembang to learn more about Orizaga. Dumadi said something.
“He wants to know why you’re interested in him,” Marcott replied. “They’re very guarded about their family here, even after five hundred years. Ancestral veneration is a deeply ingrained tradition for Indonesians.”
Sam and Remi looked at each other. Never imagining they would find descendants of Orizaga, they hadn’t discussed how to explain their mission.