Her mother, a very tall woman with critical eyes. She had eyes like Lillian's, a vivid electric blue. Lillian looked into them for everything. They were her mirror. She thought she could read them clearly, and what she saw made her uneasy. There were never any words. Only her eyes. Was this dissatisfaction due to other causes? She used her eyes to stop Lillian when Lillian wanted to draw physically close to her. It was a kind of signal. Her mother had told her only much later that she did think her an awkward and ardent child, chaotic, impulsive, did think how emotional she was, how she could not civilize her. Those were her mother's words.

Lillian had never seen herself with her own eyes. Children do not possess eyes of their own. You retained as upon a delicate retina, your mother's image of you, as the first and the only authentic one, her judgment of your acts.

They had reached a place of shade by the river. They had to wait for the barge to take them across. They got out of the car and sat on the grass. A woman was hanging her laundry on the branches of a low tree, and the blues, oranges, pinks looked like giant flowers wilted by tropical rains.

Another woman approached them with a basket on her head. She took it down with calm, deliberate gestures and put before them a neatly arranged pile of small fried fish.

"Do you have any beer?" asked Doctor Palas.

The houses by the river did not have any walls. They were palm leaves on four palm trunks. A woman was pushing a small hammock monotonously to keep a baby asleep. Children were playing naked in the dust and by the edge of the river.

It was Doctor Palas' friends who noticed that the radiator was leaking profusely. They would never reach Golconda. They would be lucky if they reached San Luis, on the other side of the river.

Lillian was thinking that at this time Diana, Christmas, and her other friends were starting on a colorful safari to the beach.

The barge drifted in slowly, languidly. The men who had pushed it wiped the perspiration from their shoulders. In their dark red-brown eyes, fawn eyes, there were always specks of gold. From the sun, or from some deep Indian irony. Catastrophe always made them laugh. Was it a religion unknown to Lillian? A dog half drowned once, at the beach, made them laugh. The leaking radiator, the stranded tourists. And this was New Year's Eve. They would not reach Golconda for the fireworks and street dances.