“It’s no problem,” Omar said.

“I can bring you meat,” For God’s Sake said. “Every trip I will bring you whatever we can spare. I will make sure, over.”

FrannyB shrugged and looked me in the eye. “Well, come on, then. I’ll give you the nickel tour, and you can have the beast, if you can carry it home.”

An old-fashioned sewing machine, the kind attached to a desk and operated by a foot pedal, sat just inside their door. Rag in hand, FrannyB squeezed herself between the desk and chair. She wiped off the greenish coat of dust and mold, revealing the shining black metal, then spent the next ten minutes proudly demonstrating the basics of the 1908 Singer machine; how to load the thread and bobbin, where and how often to oil it, its quirks and foibles. I fell in love with the thing right away.

Tucked next to a shortwave radio was a tiny alcove housing a set of spindly bookshelves. A little library. Piles of books, mostly atlases, dictionaries, and Bibles, but also rows of National Geographics, hundreds of them dating back to the ’70s, all in clear plastic bags. Even so, they were termite-eaten, the color drained right out of them. Still, I wanted to pore over each of them. I did my best to act casual.

“I’ve got some novels, too, if you’re bored,” she said with a little smile, pushing herself free of the sewing machine table and sorting through the stacks. “The classics, mostly.”

I nearly grabbed the books out of her hands—my attempt at indifference a failure. Actual novels! Who cared which ones? I was dying for any sort of distraction from Ayachero, if only for a few hours. She handed me Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

“A’s a big fan of that Victorian stuff. A bunch of twaddle, if you ask me,” FrannyB said, not meeting my eye. “But she’s a bit of a romantic, so . . .” She thoughtfully turned the books over, smoothing them in their plastic wrappers as she skimmed the back cover copy. “Guess it breaks up translating the Old Testament into Tatinga.”

“Would she mind if I borrowed them? I’m a fast reader, I’ll return them—”

She waved me away. “You kidding? She’s got ’em memorized. Guess we all need our vices.”

“Have you read them?”

“Sure. Just to see where her head’s at. The woman barely speaks, I’m sure you’ve noticed that much.” She gathered the books in a little stack, a quizzical look on her face as she handed them over. “So, you’re pretty good at languages? Pick them up pretty fast?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“What about Portuguese?”

I shook my head.

“Quechua? Tatinga? Anything?”

“Just Spanish. English. That’s it.”

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

I swallowed hard, wondering if my answer would cost me the sewing machine, maybe the books and magazines, too. I clutched the little pile on my lap, my palms sticking to the plastic as I stole a glance through the open window. FrannyA knelt at the periphery of the campsite. She seemed to be working something free from a trap—I couldn’t see much more than that. With an earsplitting squawk, the parrot hopped onto Jesus’s shoulder, lifted its scarlet-and-turquoise fanned tail, and let loose a white stream down his back.