“That fits right in with what the padre and I were discussing. We might kill two birds with one stone, as you North Americans say. Don’t you think so, Padre?”
Father Sims nodded in agreement.
“You know Halloween is coming up. I realize it’s not a Nicaraguan custom; but I remember how thrilling it was for me when I first went away to boarding school in the States. I’d never experienced anything like it. Do you think we could have a costume party for the children here at Quinta Louisa? Would you be willing to help Mary organize something like that?”
Beatriz clapped her hands and shook her head so violently in her excitement that her bracelets and earrings jangled together in a tinkling chorus. “Of course! ¡Ciertamente! (Certainly!) It will be great fun!”
“Perhaps you could help get some costumes for Martín and Flora’s boys and some of the other children from the village and some of the costeño children from the church.”
“¡Dios mío! (My God!) George, that’s just what I was trying to explain to Reverendo Sims. That just won’t work. You can’t treat your workers as equals. Even Mary knows people of different classes can’t socialize together. You should know better. You’ve lived here all your life. Sometimes I think Mary knows more about handling servants than you do. Bless her heart! I love her better than ripe sugarcane with that North Carolina drawl.” Beatriz’s voice had once again risen in pitch to a little girl timbre.
The logistics proved too difficult for transporting the costeño children who attended St. Francis from the central city to Quinta Louisa, but George Rutledge insisted that Martín and Flora’s boys and the children from the village should come to the Halloween party. Beatriz Chulteco would have nothing to do with their costumes. Mary Rutledge had to find something for Flora’s boys to wear and searched for scraps of cloth for costumes that Martín could take to the village for the coffee workers’ children, but Beatriz provided all the decorations and many of the refreshments for the party.
The Chultecos came for an early supper before the party at Quinta Louisa. Some of Sarah’s classmates came at dusk, but it was dark when the workers’ children arrived in masks carrying torches. As the villagers entered the garden in their frightening costumes with painted faces and masked eyes, she clung to her father and was not in the least delighted with the pleasant feeling of squeamish awe that he had told her he had enjoyed as a boy during his first experience of Halloween.
One of the boys from Sarah’s class came over to comfort her. His name was Carlos Vargas Allen. His mother was a North American friend of her mother, although his father was Nicaraguan. Carlos was shy and smaller than the other boys in her class, and she’d rarely paid any attention to him. He patted her on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Sarah. I’ll take care of you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” For the first time Sarah noticed his soft, gentle voice; and even through her tears she saw his beautiful black eyes sparkling in the darkness.
After everyone left that night, Sarah came whimpering and sobbing to her father’s bed; and he clasped her and held her tightly in his arms for almost an hour despite Mary’s protests in the twin bed beside them. He told her that she was safe and secure and that no phantoms of the night would ever be able to hurt her.
The weekend before Sarah’s fourteenth birthday her mother asked her how she would like to celebrate. Sarah was aware that her father still blamed himself for the Halloween fiasco and that her mother continued to be preoccupied about her lack of social ties and friendships with her peers; and Sarah intended to take full advantage of their guilt.
“I’d like to go down to the Eskimo on Saturday night.”
“Saturday is impossible, as you know very well. I’ll talk with your father about Sunday evening when there are fewer rowdy people on the streets.” Since George Rutledge’s parents were killed in an automobile accident on the steep mountain road coming back from Managua, he’d resisted driving into the city at night, especially on the weekend, unless it was an emergency.
When Sarah and Mary allied in a united front to persuade George, he protested as usual. “You know we don’t go into the city at night. Besides with the elections coming up, a political rally is scheduled in the central plaza.”
As his wife and daughter persisted and his feelings of guilt about the Halloween fiasco were recalled, he relented. “I’ll call someone at the American Embassy and see if they think there’s any problem because of the rally.” George’s friend at the American Embassy told him that no inflammatory demonstrations were anticipated and that in fact a large dinner party with many American guests was planned that night at the Gran Hotel. George had forgotten that he and Mary had been invited and had declined to accept the invitation to the dinner party, but he did agree finally to honor Sarah’s birthday request.
A few years earlier the Eskimo ice cream parlor had been built within sight of the National Cathedral but away from the Central Plaza where the Conservative Party was scheduled to hold a rally opposing Anastasio Somoza Debayle’s candidacy for President of the republic. The plate glass windows and plastic covered seats and chrome-plated metal strips around the counter and stools and table edges seemed even grander and more elegant than the pictures of such places in the United States that Sarah had seen in magazines. The North American and British teenagers, who were several years older than Sarah, came here for a soda or sundae after their dates at the movies. Chic Nicaraguan boys, especially those who attended the American School, also brought their dates to the Eskimo.
Sarah didn’t have a boyfriend, and no boy had ever tried to sit beside her even when a large group went together to a movie on a Saturday afternoon. She hoped that some teenagers might be at the Eskimo on that Sunday night, January 22, 1967, although they would have been more likely to be encountered on a Saturday night. At least she could fantasize about someday having a date and being accepted by the “cool kids” and luxuriate in her imagination at the only place in Nicaragua that felt like a part of the youth culture of the United States. (Even though her father often told her, when she babbled rhapsodically about the Eskimo, that the American Embassy and the ambassador’s residence were actual properties of the United States, they certainly felt to Sarah more like any other big Nicaraguan office building and mansion.)
George Rutledge finally found a parking space on the street and hired an urchin to guard the car with a payment made more for extortion than for security. They began walking toward the Eskimo when they heard the noise. Firecrackers and backfires from old buses and trucks could be heard in the night several times every hour in Managua, but careful practice had taught George to distinguish their sounds from gunfire.
Sarah felt her father grasp her upper arm so tightly that it hurt and saw him reach his other hand toward her mother. “Back to the car, as fast as you can walk!”
George might have chosen any of a dozen routes out of the city; but habit took him on his customary route to the South Highway through narrow lanes with high curbs and extraordinarily high sidewalks, hardly wide enough for a single person to balance against the tiny wooden structures. The houses in the old neighborhoods were constructed from wood rather than from the concrete and stucco used for houses built later in the city. The walls and shutters were unpainted; but from the bright green or yellow or blue or red doors, now all open, soft light splashed into the street.
There were no street lamps, and the middle of the road was dark; but people crowded onto the narrow sidewalks and spilled off into the edge of the street, laughing, singing, drinking, and shouting. Women and girls in tight dresses and high heels stood alone or in pairs, never more than three together. Occasionally one of the bright doors would bang shut with a squeal and a high-pitched laugh. It was a prostitutes’ district. Even young teenagers like Sarah felt a giddy amusement and delight knowing that it was the putas’ (prostitutes’) neighborhood without their parents’ awareness of their comprehension of such things. Riding down the middle of the street, she imagined being involved in the bawdy joy and lascivious pleasure, as if she were standing on the sidewalk with the revelers.
“I’m