Kate watches the gray swirling sea as it crashes into the coast. For miles she sees no one, just the restless movement of the waves. Later the sun disappears, and a gray mist covers the road and the surrounding dunes. The bus hurtles on through the fog, while the people sigh and sleep or speak in muffled tones, conversations that Kate cannot make out. She feels heavy, oppressed, and realizes that she misses the cold clarity of the high plains. There the air was clear, the mountains sharply defined making her feel buoyant, as if at any moment she could rise up off the ground and float away.
The traffic picks up as they reach the outskirts of Lima. Trucks pass them, loaded with bags of grain and corn, the workers piled on top. Sleek American cars, long and heavy, cruise by the bus, their dark windows faceless, menacing.
Through the bus’s misted windows, she can make out huts in clumps along the road. Soon whole stretches of flimsy straw and mud hovels appear off to the right, clinging to the sandy hills like huge beehives. Smoke rises from the makeshift villages, and the stench of fire and rot fill the bus. Now they are passing men on bicycles, farmers driving their herds of sheep and a few scraggly, lean cows. She catches a glimpse of two women in the full skirts and brown derby hats of the sierra. She turns around in her seat, but she cannot see their faces as the bus leaves them behind.
She thinks now of Pilar, Rosario, Mercedes, the women in her afternoon group. Who had told them that the class would be canceled? How disappointed in her they must have been, after the long walk they’d had to get there. She can picture Josepha, trying to cover Kate’s work, too, left all alone in the house until Jeanne Marie’s return from Coroico. She cannot stand to think about the children, their eyes shining expectantly, waiting for her. She has been utterly selfish in her flight, wrapped in a cocoon of her troubles.
Now it is darker, and she looks up to see that the bus is winding through clogged streets, with tall buildings blocking out the light. Lima is gray and dirty in the late afternoon. Faded posters, half ripped from the walls, are everywhere. She sees APRA in red and black letters scrawled on buildings and buses. She isn’t very clear on what APRA stands for; she knows that it is the party of the workers. Its opponents call it communist, but Tom told her it is simply the party of the disaffected, those with no power.
Now they are in the center of Lima, heading toward the Plaza de Armas. Well-dressed women stride by in high heels and short skirts, sometimes arm in arm. She sees students and businessmen in dark suits, and everywhere, quiet and small, there are the highland people, looking forlorn in the capital.
Before the bus comes to a stop, people stir, gather their packages and stand to stretch after the long ride. For the first time on her journey, she feels fear, heavy and real. A vague plan is forming in her mind, but she dreads the explanations she will have to give if she goes there. Somehow she has to get to the convent in Balconcillo. There is a Maryknoll parish there, and it is staffed by the Precious Blood Sisters from O’Fallon, Missouri, a small town not far from the Dominican Motherhouse in Chesterfield. Sister Josepha and Kate had stayed with the sisters from St. Louis for a few weeks when Kate arrived from the States. Has it only been six months ago? It seems a lifetime away now. Kate had liked the superior, Sister Domitia, a short, plump little nun. She was relaxed and kind, and her laughter rang out all over the house, most often at herself. If Kate showed up on her doorstep, Sister would not turn her away.
The trouble is that she has no idea how to get to the parish. She’s pretty sure that they had taken two buses from the convent to go downtown to see about her visa, and Kate vaguely remembers that when they went back in the late afternoon, they had traveled east, away from the setting sun. Well, she would ask. Someone would help her.
Clutching the jacket to her, Kate gets off the bus, joining the throng of people jostling on the sidewalk. As she steps down, people shove past her, trying to get on. The driver is shouting, “Despacio, slow down; take it easy.”
The noise of the city confuses her. Buses and taxis blares their horns routinely, and cars screech around corners. Many cars don’t have mufflers, and Kate flinches as an old Plymouth belches smoke in her face. She walks blindly, hoping to see a street sign or someone she can ask for help. No one looks at her; she is invisible.
The sidewalk is lined with ambulantes, vendors selling everything from apples and shoelaces to cheap watches and polyester shirts. Many of the vendors are from the sierra. Amid all the noise, the laughing, animated Limeños, they are impassive and stoic. Women with babies in their laps gaze at the passing throngs. The gray mist of Lima casts a pall.
Kate crosses a bridge over red and gray stone cliffs. A trickle of water seeps through the dried up river bed. On the other side she stops to read the stone marker: Puente de Piedra. She walks on, knowing that she is lost, not thinking anymore, just moving. The neighborhood is rough. Men stand around
