Diane, sitting in front, turns around. “We’re heading for Huacachina, an old resort where rich Peruvians used to come in the 1920s and ’30s. It’s somewhat shabby now, they tell us, but still a really nice place to relax and swim. There’s a lagoon there, so we can do a little sunbathing, too.”
Ten minutes later the driver turns into the gates of a long winding drive, lined with ancient dusty trees. Kate wonders if they are olive trees, for the place, so much farther south now near the coast, has a tropical look, an air of indolence and heat. At the end of the drive, a white, two-story villa shimmers in the afternoon glare. An old man, perspiring heavily in a shiny black jacket, opens the door of the cab. He gathers the girls’ bags and takes the jacket Kate holds with a swift unobtrusive movement.
“We’re in a fairy tale,” Diane whispers in a stage voice. Kate follows, wondering whether it’s a dream or a nightmare. She feels like a grimy refugee trailing real ladies. They enter a cool, dim foyer with a slowly whirring ceiling fan. The parquet floors are covered here and there with Peruvian rugs, their reds and blues a bit faded. The foyer empties into a long drawing room that overlooks an interior courtyard. Through the open French doors Kate hears the splashing of a fountain, broken now and then by laughter and the clink of glasses.
The woman at the front desk is dark-haired and handsome in the severe Spanish style, her hair pulled back in a smooth bun. Looking past the girls to Kate in her wrinkled habit, she frowns. “Las señoritas made reservations for two, isn’t that correct?”
Diane steps forward to explain, but Sheila cut her off. “Yes, but now we are three. Will that be convenient?” She looks haughtily at the woman, whose eyes travel down Sheila’s jeans to her dusty tennis shoes.
“I suppose that will be all right. Will you need another bed? I can have a cot brought upstairs for you.”
“Yes, thank you.” Sheila’s voice has an edge of privilege, even in Spanish.
Kate notices a slight thaw in the señora’s manner. Sheila shows the woman her passport and then signs for all three of them in the large registration book.
“I am Mercedes Reyna, the manager of the Hotel Massone. If you need anything while you are here, I will be glad to be of service.” The woman walks around the desk and pulls from her belt a brass key ring with dozens of keys. “You are in number seven.” In a raised voice she calls to a boy sweeping the patio beyond the French doors. “Pepe, take the señoritas’ bags up to the room.”
Kate hears soft footsteps behind her, then turns to see a young man carrying the girls’ bags. Kate notices with a jolt the clean sculpted lines of his face, the ruddy cheeks, the broad chest typical of men from the sierra. He looks so much like the children of Santa Catalina that she is momentarily confused. Less than twenty-four hours away is a world straight out of the fifteenth century. She’s been living in that world nearly a year. It now seems more real to her than the nineteenth-century atmosphere of the Hotel Massone. This world is a fantasy.
She watches Pepe carry their few bags easily up the stairs, half running before them with a serious, purposeful air. He unlocks the door to their room and stands aside; as Kate passes by him she whispers, “Yuspagara, thank you,” and presses one of her remaining soles into his hand.
He looks up at her with a grin. “Yuspagara, madrecita,” he says as he shuts the door quickly behind him.
Diane is already at the window, pulling back the white cotton curtains. “Look! We can see the lagoon from here. It’s gorgeous.”
Kate joins her. Beyond the high stucco wall that surrounds the hotel, the lagoon stretches away, a vivid blue-green in the afternoon sun. Diane is already peeling off her blouse and untying her shoes. “I’m going in for a swim. How about you two?”
Sheila looks at Kate, and when their eyes meet, Kate knows she senses her awkwardness. It has been a long time since she has casually undressed in front of anyone. Startled, she remembers Peter, and how she’d undressed in his guest room and sat in his kitchen in his borrowed pajamas. What is happening to her?
Sheila comes to her rescue. “Sister—” she begins.
Kate interrupts. “Look, you might as well call me Kate. It seems a bit formal to keep saying ‘Sister’ to someone you’re sharing a room with.”
The girls nod, relieved, she can tell. Sheila continues, “Anyway, Kate, you must be dying to get out of those clothes. I have some extra things here you can probably wear. Go ahead and take a bath and get changed while we go for a swim. Take a nap. Remember, this is a vacation.”
After the two leave, carrying towels, straw hats, and magazines, Kate runs water for a bath in the high, claw-footed tub. She unpins her black veil, dusty and creased, and then, with great relief, peels off the headdress she’s worn for more than forty-eight hours. Her short hair is matted, sweaty; she runs her fingers through it, grateful for the freedom. Then she quickly steps out of her habit, her underwear, and throws all of it in a heap by the bed. She’ll wash her clothes after her bath.
The water smells like copper, and she sinks into its warmth, leans back with her head against the edge of the tub. Suddenly she ducks her
