American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [60]
We passed from flowers into fields of ripe sugarcane, each thick stalk raising a white-plumed banner of welcome. On the side of the road, where the blacktop sliced into the dirt, big-skirted cholas trudged with their children, trailing puffs of yellow dust from their heels and turning to peer at us from fossil-hard faces. A high-walled ancient fortaleza, once home to the Chimu, whirred past us on the left and then we saw the large white board with the crisp green lettering: HACIENDA PARAMONGA.
It was different—very different—from Cartavio. In Cartavio, Grace had built an elaborate town, with a central plaza that held a mayoral mansion; a local government office; a looming, colonial church; a police headquarters; and the señorita’s school. The workers’ cinder-block housing had been built around that square, like spokes off a giant wheel. To one side of the plaza had been the market, where farmers could sell their meat and produce. The chief engineers’ houses, where we lived, had been a paradise well apart from the hubbub, behind a high wall. In Cartavio, the roads had been improvised, the cane cut away, the dust tamped down, and surfaces slicked with molasses, so that a raw sweetness filled the air.
In Paramonga, there was no huge plaza. The streets were paved. Down the sinuous, concrete road that led from the highway, we passed the homes of the skilled workers—long cement structures, daubed over with many colors, punctuated by multiple doors. The factories dominated the hacienda, sitting squarely in the middle of it, as if here in Paramonga, Grace was past all pretense of civic-mindedness. This was industry—massive and frontal—positioned in the heart of a community where someone in a less evolved age might imagine a plaza should be. There was a busy market to one side; from its brightly painted stands, jaundiced chickens dangled from hooks, plucked clean, eyes buzzing with flies. A guest house for visiting gringos sat on the other side: It was a tall, Swiss-style chalet with brown wood fretwork and a pointed Tyrolean roof. Behind that was the engineering office, an imposing two-floor tropical command post perched on stilts, wrapped in windows, hung with lattices, and set off by a long staircase that scrolled out importantly, as if it were the approach to a sacred site. There was a melon-colored movie house, a tiny park with six benches, Wong’s corner dry-goods store, and then a hillside of thatch-roof shacks. Behind all of that, in a compound that opened onto the sea, were the chief engineers’ houses: a boulevard of stucco structures, each more opulent than the last. The one on the corner, the one that faced the palm-ringed Club de Bowling, the one with a white arch leaping over the door—the best one—was ours.
WITHIN A DAY, Cito had commandeered all the furniture into place and was spread-eagled on a club chair poolside, throwing back pisco sours. I could see his pale forehead and lanky figure from my bedroom window. It was the lookout on Cito that gave me an indication of how different a vantage Paramonga would offer me. This was no inward-looking house like the one I had come from; no tall walls shielded us from the boulevard. There was a stern-looking fence between us and the outside world, that was all. I surveyed our dominion from my new post and then turned back to my room. All my belongings were in their place, put away, save one. I took out the black pebble Antonio had given me the morning before, polished it with the hem of my skirt, and placed it carefully on my dresser.
The following day, George and I took stock of our