Maria returned to the garden ticking off things on her fingers and murmuring to herself. “What a mountain of things we need, Señora!” she announced. “No hay, no hay in the kitchen.” No hay—there is not—is one of the most frequently encountered phrases in Latin America. Tying the twenty soles note in a corner of her handkerchief, she went off with a huge basket on her head and a big bag under her arm.
On her return she came to me in the living room with a few cents change, a brown paper bag, and a stub of pencil. “Now,” she said, “that you understand I do not deceive you or rob you, write down as I tell you what I have bought.” She went through a long list of her purchases and seemed to remember to the penny what everything had cost. When I had them all down, she said, “Now suma bien”—do your accounts well. When I had added up the column, I found that she was right to the last centavito, the last little cent. I marveled at her mathematics and her memory, for she had made no list to take with her.
That morning I had fever, and I dozed. Malaria is an illness that can drain one of every ounce of energy, and at times I found it difficult to summon enough strength even to walk across a room. I wakened to find Victoria bringing to the living room a tray which she put on the coffee table. On it was a tall glass of golden yellow papaya juice which looked inviting. The first sip of the lukewarm stuff was a sad disappointment. “Have we no ice?” I asked. Victoria shook her head. “The ice man comes very early, before I arrive.”
“Then you do not sleep in?”
“No. I must go home to my two little sisters; they have no one to stay with them.”
“Then I must ask Maria if she can sleep here. Will you please send her in?”
“But she’s not here,” returned Victoria.
“What do you mean?”
“She said she had to go home for a time. She’ll be back at two.”
When Maria came back promptly at two, as promised, I questioned her as to why she went home.
“Why, to feed my chickens and turkeys and my doves,” she replied, as though I should have known that all the time.
“After this you can feed them in the morning before you come,” I told her.
Maria, with an air of patiently explaining something to a child, sat down on the edge of the sofa. “Señora,” she said, “the chickens and the turkeys always sleep in the trees. They do not dawn as early as I do. I go to market before it is yet light. Then how, Señora, can I feed them? Would you have me throw the corn up into the trees?”
I had to admit that such a procedure would be difficult. Maria threw back her head and laughed—a young, irresistible laugh that gurgled in her throat. I was to hear it many times before I left Lyn’s house.
“But,” I then asked, “can you leave your chickens at night and sleep here—just until I get a maid who can sleep in?”
She glanced swiftly at me; her dark Indian eyes were shrewd but kindly. “Si, Señora, I will arrange to stay at night until you can find someone.” She padded back to the kitchen on her bare, splayed feet. As I again dozed that afternoon, my half-dreaming, half-waking state seemed to be shot through with low, bubbling laughter.
It was about dusk that I aroused myself sufficiently to make a telephone call or two, and then discovered Lyn’s address book with a separate page for tradespeople. That would help a great deal in getting the house running smoothly, I thought. I showed Victoria the book and said she’d find the grocery stores, the bakery, and all the best shops listed; all she’d have to do was to telephone for what was needed, as the Señora had accounts at all of them. Even the ice man had a telephone, and I looked forward to having cold drinks the next day.
The doorbell rang; Victoria ushered in Pat and Jean Johnston, the British vice-consul and his wife, two of the most charming people in Lima.
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