Marcela ventured the figure without knowing exactly how much it was. She supposed it was a lot of money and that it would be refused. She waited for the buyer’s scandalized protests, expecting her price to be whittled down. But the Ladina did not protest. She only commented, “I certainly won’t make much on them. All right.”

Marcela knew she hadn’t asked for the right amount, that she was giving her work away. But it was impossible to take back what she had said. She made one last objection. “Will you take them all, patrona?”

“Don’t say patrona. My name is Mercedes. Mercedes Solórzano. You’ve heard of me?”

“No, patrona.”

A distant mumble of “Good, good,” then the decision. “Yes, I’ll take them all.”

With difficulty, Doña Mercedes pushed herself to her feet.

“Wait for me a minute.”

She opened the back door and disappeared.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes. Marcela felt a numbness gradually rising through her legs. She changed position and the tingling blood circulated once more.

Doña Mercedes had returned, noiselessly. “It’s fine. Leave the pitchers here and come with me. They’ll pay you in there.”

Doña Mercedes showed the way. She stopped in front of a door and knocked discreetly before opening it. Marcela stood at the threshold.

“This is the one,” said Doña Mercedes, gesturing toward her.

A man, ruddy and middle-aged, dressed in work clothes with high boots, was polishing the barrel of a pistol with a scrap of leather. He leaned back indolently in his revolving chair. When the women came in, he raised his head slowly. A keen, rapacious eye evaluated the native girl. There was an imperceptible wink of consent. Doña Mercedes grabbed Marcela. “Come in. They’re waiting for you.”

When Marcela did not obey quickly enough, the Ladina tugged at her unceremoniously. “I told you to come in.”

Marcela swayed and steadied herself on a piece of furniture. Doña Mercedes started to leave.

“Close the door,” the man’s voice advised.

Fuming, Doña Mercedes walked away. “That Leonardo . . . As if I didn’t know what to do!”

Doña Mercedes was a woman of communicative temperament, ill-reconciled to the prolonged solitudes circumstances had forced on her. In the end she had acquired the habit of talking by herself, imagining a vague listener.