Nicaraguan Gringa. John Keith

had not even stepped out of the car before Martín began upbraiding her parents as if they were children and he were their parent. “What do you mean coming home so late? I thought you had suffered an accident on the highway, and evil people had done terrible things to you as they did to your parents.”

      Sarah didn’t know what terrible things evil people had done to her grandparents, although she knew they had died in an automobile accident when her father was still in college; but she was too weary to ask what Don Martín had been talking about. She was too tired even to study her homework, a task she almost never neglected as a dedicated, conscientious student. Immediately after supper she dropped into bed and instantly fell asleep, but she dreamed about the poor people and shabby houses in Barrio Arbolito and then had a nightmare about evil people dragging her out of the car and beating her on the side of the Pan-American Highway.

      It was late on a Sunday afternoon three weeks after Easter when Sarah overheard her father speaking on the telephone. What drew her attention was the tone of his voice, not quite panicked or alarmed, but disturbed. She soon realized that he was talking with Don Armando. She wondered if Don Armando or Doña Beatriz were ill—she knew they hadn’t died or her father would have been more greatly distressed.

      As soon as he hung up the receiver, she asked, “What is it, Daddy? What’s the matter? Are Don Armando and Doña Beatriz all right?”

      “They’re fine, Susi. Luis Somoza died. A heart attack. It was very sudden.”

      “I thought we didn’t like the Somozas.”

      “You can’t paint everyone with the same brush, Susi. Luis was a good man. When he was President, he pushed through legislation to prevent him from succeeding himself and any member of his family from following him immediately. Only a dictator can end a dictatorship without bloodshed. He did many good things.”

      Mary Rutledge had entered the room during George’s lecture to Sarah. “So Luis is dead. We’ll miss him. He was an honest man, a good leaven for the country; but I wonder if he didn’t undo all his progressive efforts by supporting Tachito’s candidacy for President. He won’t even be there to see him inaugurated in a few weeks.”

      “And he won’t be there to rein him in over the weeks and months and years to come. If Luis hadn’t stopped him, Tachito would have leveled the Gran Hotel and killed everyone inside during the coup. God help us!” George scowled and bit his lower lip as he often did when he was upset.

      “Will we be all right, Daddy? Will Tachito hurt us?”

      “Of course not, Susi. None of this affects Quinta Louisa very much. No one pays much attention to us up here on the ridge. Our lives will go on as usual, but God help Nicaragua!”

      Mary Rutledge left abruptly for a trip to North Carolina. She usually made her plans weeks, even months in advance. She hadn’t been feeling quite herself, she told Sarah and George; and she wanted to have a medical check-up by the doctors at Duke University Hospital. When she returned, she looked gaunt and pale, but she told her daughter and husband that she was just a little anemic and had been given a tonic to build her up.

      Mary also brought a collie puppy from North Carolina for Sarah, who hadn’t mentioned wanting to have a dog or even thought of asking for a dog. Sarah suspected the puppy was another response to her mother’s concern about what she perceived to be Sarah’s loneliness and isolation. The puppy was cute and fun to play with for a few minutes; but Sarah never had much interest in pets. If she’d chosen any pet, it would have been a bird; but she actually preferred to watch the wild birds that flew into the garden or see them with Don Martín in the forest rather than to put one of the local macaws or green parrots into a cage as many Nicaraguan families did.

      Even though Guillermo was in the second year of study for his bachillerato (a diploma somewhat more advanced than a high school graduate’s in the United States), he took the bus from the city every afternoon to the village, ostensibly to help his parents, Martín and Flora, with their chores, but partly to care for the collie puppy, Laddie, and to play with him in the garden at Quinta Louisa.

      Pablo still attended the local village school supported by the Nicaraguan government for education only through primary years. Julio didn’t visit Quinta Louisa often. He wrote long, obsequious thank-you letters to George and Mary Rutledge expressing how grateful he was that they were paying for his education, but he seemed ashamed of being the son of servants and even ashamed of Martín and Flora themselves, although he meticulously observed filial duty toward his parents.

      Mary had effectively banned Pablo from the garden as an incorrigible child, but Guillermo enjoyed helping tend the flowers and fruit trees with his father, and after Laddie arrived Guillermo was present almost every afternoon.

      Sarah conversed with Guillermo more during the first weeks of Laddie’s residence than they’d ever talked before. She felt that she was obliged to spend some time with him, because he was caring for what was supposed to be her dog. Guillermo told her that he was fascinated by the dog with long silky hair and white and tan markings. Sarah could understand how exotic he might appear in comparison to the yellowish-brown, short-haired, bony, mangy curs that cowered on every street corner in Managua, just as the macaws and parrots fascinated their North American visitors and even Sarah herself compared to the drabber wild birds in the United States. As Laddie grew, he chased Guillermo around the garden. They wrestled in the grass as if Guillermo were a little boy Pablo’s age, and Sarah found herself talking to Guillermo more because she really enjoyed his company than out of obligatory appreciation for his care for her dog.

      “What are you going to do when you finish at the colegio (secondary school), Guillermo? Are you going to the university like Julio? I’m sure Daddy would still pay your fees.”

      “I am not smart like Julio. He wants to be a big businessman. I like to make things. I would rather live here in the village than in the city.”

      “Just like your parents, Don Martín and Doña Flora.”

      “I would like to go to the technical institute. Do you think Don Jorge would pay fees for me there?”

      “I think so. I will ask him. He would probably like it if you could keep the machines at the processing plant running. Those are the only times I have ever heard Daddy curse—when they break down.”

      “You know he sent Papá to Costa Rica to learn about machinery . . .”

      “. . . and he begged Daddy to let him come back and work in the garden because he couldn’t stand that dark place that smelled bad with all those loud noises that hurt his ears.”

      They both laughed.

      When Sarah asked her father about Guillermo’s plans, he said that he was sorry Guillermo didn’t want to attend the university if he was able to meet the qualifications.

      “A university education would give him many more opportunities in life. I’d like to do as much as I can to prepare him to help his people.”

      Mary arched her eyebrows. “He’s a typical middle child. Such a sweet boy. Not like his brothers, that snobbish Julio or that imp Pablo, the little terror. Let him find his own level, George. Besides he’d be such a help to you if he could manage the machinery in the plant.”

      Before Laddie was even a year old, he developed a taste for the neighbors’ chickens. George scolded him and beat him with a rolled-up newspaper and even whipped him with his leash until he made sounds that Guillermo couldn’t stand to hear and ran with his hands over his ears to the village. Don Martín tied a dead chicken around his neck for days until he pawed at his head and scraped against the wall and rolled on his back like a rabid creature, but none of their efforts discouraged him from chasing the neighbors’ chickens.

      “We must do something about that dog, Mary. We can’t put it off any longer.”

      “Those shiftless people ought to keep their chickens penned up. We’re responsible for keeping our dog off their property, but they’re responsible for keeping their chickens off the road in front of our house. When those chickens wander all over our yard and