“Some friends of his, who were already the size of big men, brought him to my house. The poor baby was shaking with fear. Sit down on my bed, I told him. I don’t know why I was so familiar with him, as if we were old friends. Come here, I’m not going to eat you. I could feel his heart easing little by little. When I grow up I’ll thank you for this, he said. Who would have believed him? A boy’s words. But he kept his promise at the right time. And here I am, set up in business next to his house, the Cifuentes house. If it hadn’t been for him, where would I have gone? I’d have been one of those poor women without a louse to their names who attack the Indians on their way to market. Or a peddler, or one of the women with stalls in the marketplace. But instead. . . . The wife doesn’t look too kindly on me. She says I’m a go-between, here to hide her husband’s wickednesses. But I’d like to see her in my place. When it came time to return the favor, we’d see if she’d be such a prude.”

From time to time, people in the street walked by the door. Certain of the men greeted Doña Mercedes, furtively raising hand to hat, then looking around and sighing with relief that no one had noticed.

“You used to stay with me a little longer, my friend. Old hypocrite.”

Doña Mercedes said this without altering the tone of her voice, without bitterness or resentment, like a woman well acquainted with the fickleness of the world and the pettiness of men. Her two hands, long accustomed to idleness, rested in her lap.

The door in the back of the room opened and Marcela appeared. She came forward, wild-eyed. Her disheveled black hair made a piteous halo around her face. She covered her shoulders with her hands as if she were cold. Doña Mercedes looked at her without interest. “Ah, there you are. Wait. I’m going to pay you.”

Doña Mercedes took a packet from inside her blouse. She untied it, removed several coins, and thriftily counted them out. “That’s it. Twelve reales.”

Marcela clutched the money convulsively. Then with sudden resolution she hurled it at Doña Mercedes. She ran to where the pitchers lay in a heap and threw them against the counter, the shelves, the floor. The fragments flew through the air and scattered across the room in a commotion that drowned out the procuress’s cries of outrage. Doña Mercedes screamed down the street after the fleeing girl, “Filthy Indian! You won’t get away with your life if I catch you! Look at the damage you’ve done! Child of Satan! Whore!”