American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [44]
The gringos at Grace had another advantage they had not even bargained for: my mother’s little empire at home. If the Peruvian adage is true—that all politics is decided in the kitchen—it was being proven under our own roof in Cartavio. All the intelligence W. R. Grace needed to maintain a grip on its factories was coming from our mayordomo, Flavio. It was Flavio who revealed to my mother how much of a hold the APRA had on the people of Cartavio, and it was she who passed that information up the company ranks.
Flavio was a formal man, straight-backed, in his late thirties, a flinty indígena who prided himself on knowing how to run a house, serve a meal, please the most discriminating guest. But one morning, when Papi was away in Lima, Mother found him crouched behind the radio in the comedor, trembling in the corner, sweat drenching his face and hair.
“Flavio! Qué te pasa?”
“I had to come tell you, señora.” His voice was high and mewling, like a child’s.
“What?” and she swung open the kitchen door, looking for Claudia. “Claudia? Antonio? Where is everyone?”
“No one is here, señora. Just me. Claudia is in Chancay with my mother. I told my nephew to stay away as well. The others are in the village.” He whispered the words, knitting his fingers in front of his mouth. She drew close to listen.
“Why are you there on the floor, Flavio? Why are you so afraid? What’s happened to you?”
“I don’t want them to see me through the windows, señora. If they find out I’m here …”
“What are you talking about, hijito? Who are they?”
“The obreros, señora.” The workers. “And the union people.”
Flavio spun out the story for my mother, describing the men who had come from Trujillo to meet with the workers while the people in the big houses slept. The hacienda’s obreros were not being paid enough, they’d been told. The norteamericanos were sucking them dry. Rich Peruvians like my father were helping them do it. There was much grumbling—mucha queja—in the air. And danger. Soon there would be a strike.
“They’ve forbidden you to come to our houses?” my mother said. “Why?”
“Because the organizers are strong, señora,” Flavio rasped. “They call this a revolution. They say that those who are not one hundred percent on their side are the enemy. I am not one hundred percent, señora. I care about you and the señor. I didn’t want you to wake up this morning to an empty house without an explanation. Especially with the Ingeniero in Lima. But the truth is that they could kill me for this.”
“Go, Flavio,” Mother said. “You’ve done enough. Don’t put yourself in any more danger. The children and I will be fine.”
He went, scooting out the back door on all fours, pushing himself through a hole in the garden wall and then running head-down into the cane field behind. But he came back that night and every night after that to feed Mother new information.
When Papi returned from Lima, Mother told him everything. He knew just what to do.
“Fiesta,” he said. “Pan y circo.” The people would be made an offering.
He organized a pachamanca in Cartavio’s main square and invited the entire hacienda—every worker, every vendor, every loco, every wife and child. He ordered up valses criollos, música serrana, selva drums: every kind of dancing from Andean to Amazon. He brought in a feast: goats and ducks and potfuls of savory dishes. And Cartavio rum. Lots of it. As much as a town could guzzle.
Late one Sunday afternoon, the tables were set up on the square by the central market, the band struck its first chord, and the aroma of roasted flesh began to wind through