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‘Ah, the British habit of understatement! Did you not know that the Indians regard it as magic? That its water is the bluest and the sweetest and the most unsullied in the world?’

I made no comment on the manifest Charaguayan habit of overstatement, and shook my head in polite ignorance.

‘That lake,
senorita
, is the exact colour of your eyes.’

I looked down at my hands. I ought to have wanted to laugh out loud. Part of me did. After all, I had been warned in what is known as the talk from Auntie Flo (the F.G.O. briefing given before a trip overseas) that Latin American men do not comport themselves with the reticence of their British brethren. Of course I didn’t believe he meant it for a moment. But there was some adventurous, romantic side of me, by necessity, and perhaps longing to come out, which responded to his extravagances.

‘Some time,’ Don Ramon went on, ‘perhaps you will allow me the privilege of showing you Lake Titicaca. And then you will have to confess I speak the truth.’

I laughed.

‘Did you know,
senorita
, that when you laugh there is a delightful dimple just between your mouth and chin?’

‘No, I didn’t.'

‘And has no one ever drawn your attention to that charming phenomenon?’

‘Never.’

‘Then obviously you do not laugh enough. Did you know that the Indians of Charaguay have a saying that to laugh is to give others to drink of the fountain of joy?’

I shook my head and smiled, ‘So I must mend my ways?’

‘You must indeed. You should let the dawn of joy burst forth, Senorita Madruga. You have spent too long in your stuffy London office.’

He was about to elaborate on this theme when we were interrupted. For some minutes past a most savoury smell had been emanating from the small galley. There was the clinking of glasses and plates and cutlery. And now, carrying a heavy tray, the second steward made his way purposefully towards us. Though our seats were half way down the aisle he ignored the other passengers.

Then, ignoring me, he bowed low, and clipped the tray in front of Don Ramón.

‘Nombre de dios!'
With an indignant hand, Don Ramón swept the tray aside. ‘The
senorita
first!'

There followed a volley of epithets in Spanish of a kind not taught in the languages school approved by the Foreign Office. Others followed in what sounded like a mixture of Charaguayan and Indian. ‘. . . that I should have to remind you of your manners!’

‘Please,’ I began, ‘I don’t mind . . . he’s a very good steward really.’

‘But
I
mind,
senorita.
A thousand apologies for my compatriot. And he is not a good steward, he is an ignorant boy.’ More remonstrances followed while the steward patiently knelt to clear up the mess.

Yet when he straightened the steward’s face remained unresentful. He continued to smile, eager to please.

‘Now fetch another tray. Two trays,’ Don Ramón ordered, and as if it were a privilege back went the steward to the galley and in the correct order this time set the trays of hot fragrant food in front of us.

‘You have a knack of getting your own way,’ I said drily.

‘Of course.’ I also thought, you would be capable of inspiring great likes and great dislikes, love and hate. But I simply sipped a clinking glass of some mixture of iced fruit juices and said nothing.

‘Though this,
senorita
, is a
special
case. That boy, that steward was once a shoeshine boy. You have heard of them in Charaguay, yes?’

A few sentences only had I heard. In my F.G.O. briefing two days ago. To the effect that there was in Quicha, the capital of Charaguay, a British V.S.O.

(Voluntary for Service Overseas) Morag Cameron working at the hostel for shoeshine boys.

‘Not much.’

‘But you have heard of Dick Whittington?'

‘Of course.'

‘And that he thought the streets of London were paved with gold?’

‘Yes.’

‘The shoeshine boys are all Dick Whittingtons. They are very young. They come from the Indian villages in the mountains to Quicha to make their fortunes. They have a wooden box, and enough pennies to buy a brush and some shoe polish. And that is their life. They don’t know that in the city it is not as in a village. They will have nowhere to live. Until the British hostel was started they slept on the pavements. Now volunteers come from all over the world. They teach the boys a little. And though they do not become Lord Mayors of London, some become better things than shoeshine boys. Our second steward, for instance, has made a little progress— though not enough.’

‘And do you help with them, Don Ramon?'

‘I help a little and I hinder much—or so your British helpers say. But then the British are very level-headed, are they not?’

Aware that the second steward was watching anxiously to see our reaction to the delicious-smelling savoury pastries, the shellfish salad and an extravagant concoction of chocolate and bananas, I admitted that we were, and began to eat. •

‘Though even the British change once they come to Charaguay.' He smiled knowingly.

‘How?' I asked.

‘They discover new heights and depths. They begin to be a little less serious.’

‘Do you know many of the British?'

‘A few.’

‘Do you know the Ambassador and Mrs. Mallenport?'

Don Ramon dabbed his lips with his napkin before answering, and when he did so his voice was neutral. ‘Not quite as well as I would like. But His Excellency and Mrs. Mallenport are very popular, so I do not think you have to fear.’

I wasn’t really fearing. I wouldn’t be meeting the Ambassador immediately as he was going to the Washington conference. But I was just slightly apprehensive about the job. I had never worked in an Embassy before, so I wondered how I’d fit in, whether I’d be able to do the work the way they liked it done. There’s a good deal of social life too, at an Embassy and, ridiculous though it may seem at twenty-five, I’m rather shy. Perhaps I had, as Don Ramon said, spent too long in my stuffy London office. Well, I was out of it now. I wondered what he’d say if he knew I’d come simply because I was the only one of the available personal secretaries who hadn’t either a holiday booked, or a dishy new boy-friend. My friendship with the Executive Officer in Registry had just ended. Because of my mother really. Not because she was possessive—she was quite the reverse. It was because I knew I could never marry anyone until I felt as lit up, as certain, as she so obviously was with my new Australian stepfather.

‘And now we are descending,
senorita
,’ Don Ramon said. ‘In a little while the air may get bumpy again,' as we go through the mountain range. Unlike your life up to now, Senorita Madruga, your life in Charaguay is never allowed to continue long on what you British call an even keel.'

To emphasise his warning, Don Ramón pointed through the porthole window. ‘See,
senorita
, turn your head a little, you will notice something far down below, beyond the wing tip. There—a great gash that runs down through the mountain range. Do you see it?’

‘Yes. Just like the cut of a knife.'

‘Exactly. That is the great earthquake fault. It runs from the Gulf of Panama down to the Cape. Some say it crosses the oceans of the world and comes back here again.'

I shuddered. ‘Have you ever been in an earthquake?'

‘Yes,
senorita
, I have been in many, some severe, some not so severe, some just little shivers at the earth's crust. But we learn to live with the country as it is.' He leaned forward, so that his cheek accidentally brushed my hair. ‘See too now those great gorges and waterfalls. How impassable they make the country. Till aircraft were used, the valleys were quite cut off. Many villages are still a thousand years behind the times. Now notice that slender thread shining across the gorge.'

‘Like a spider’s web.'

‘Exactly. That is an Inca rope bridge. The only way of getting to that village high up there.’ He smiled. ‘That is Charaguay,
senorita
, a land of contrasts. Modern aircraft and ancient Inca bridges. Terrible mountains and lush valleys. Paradise and hell on earth. Kindness and cruelty.'

‘What about its people?' I asked.

‘That you must decide for yourself.'

Surprisingly, for there seemed no break in the mountains below, the seat belt sign had come up. The little second steward was walking up and down the aisle conscientiously announcing in Indian and then in Spanish, ‘Please fasten your seat belt up.’ And to win favour with the imperious Don Ramón interspersing his halting Spanish with even more abrupt English, ‘Belt up! Belt up!’

Lest Don Ramón be moved to chide him again, I pointed outside. ‘It doesn’t seem possible that there is an airfield here at all, does it?’ Mountains rose on either side of us. I knew from my briefing that the city of Quicha itself is built nine thousand feet up in the very heart of an extinct volcano, but I could see no sign of it.

‘Have no fear.’ His hand lightly covered mine. ‘In no time you will be in Shangri-La. The Land at the top of the Beanstalk.’

Magically as he finished speaking, the mountains fell back a little. An unbelievably green valley opened up ahead.

‘Then, Senorita Madruga, you must be careful. You will be at high altitude. You must take things very slowly and easily.’

‘Yes, I was told that.’ But I was too entranced to give it a thought. I saw an amazing cluster of pink and white toy houses, silver spires, a terraced upon terraced corrugation of roofs all in the most exquisite shade of orangey pink, wide modern-looking highways and straight ahead two crossed strips of sticking plaster that were obviously the runways. I felt the steep pull of descent through the soles of my feet, and in my excitement I was hardly aware that Don Ramon still held my hand. Quite clearly now I saw cars moving along the highways, interspersed quaintly with carts pulled by oxen. Then there was a whisper of tyres and a little bump.

Don Ramón lifted my hand this time fully to his lips and kissed it. ‘Welcome to Charaguay, Senorita Madruga.’

Reluctantly he let it go as the aircraft came to a halt, and the passenger door was thrown back. The second steward saw to it that we were the first to alight.

I stood for a moment at the top of the steps. Never in my whole life had such a strange enchanted feeling ever overtaken me. It was almost as if I’d landed on another planet. Reality and fantasy seemed to mingle. Everything seemed new, important, momentous, as if I were indeed beginning a new life. The air was the sweetest I’d ever breathed. There was thick grass and a myriad wild flowers between the runways. Their fragrance was hauntingly sweet. Beyond the airfield were farmsteads, orange groves, pineapple plantations, haciendas, and then the terracotta-coloured city. While all round cutting us off from the rest of the world were the gigantic mountains, their white caps sparkling in the equatorial sun.

‘Did I do it more than justice,
senorita
?’

‘Less if anything,’ I murmured. The beauty of the place had left me literally breathless. I was aware that I was holding up the rest of the passengers. Guiltily I hurried down the aircraft steps with Don Ramon close behind me. I can actually remember setting foot on Charaguayan soil. But the second step was into Don Ramón's arms. For without any warning and for the first time in my life, I fainted.

I came to almost immediately. I was sitting on the bottom step of the aircraft stairs. Don Ramón was supporting me. The second steward, obviously delighted at the opportunity to demonstrate his efficiency, had just given me a whiff of oxygen from the portable cylinder.

I couldn’t have been out for long because I could see the crocodile of passengers disappearing towards the small terminal building. When I tried to struggle to my feet, Don Ramón pressed my shoulder and, seriousfaced, lifted my wrist and took my pulse.

‘Ah, you feel better now,
senorita
?’ He relinquished my wrist gently. ‘You are simply suffering from the effect of altitude.
Soroche
, we call it. Your office should have warned you. We Charaguayans become acclimatised. But the stranger is, as you say, bowled over. You have not,
senorita
, the lungs of a mountaineer.’

‘I was warned—but I’m always fit. I didn’t think it would affect me.’

‘No one ever does. I have seen strapping young engineers keel over like you, but far less gracefully.’

I stood up gingerly. Don Ramon offered me his arm. ‘You will allow me to escort you to the terminal building? Even if no young man,’ he smiled, ‘awaits you, the Embassy will send a car.’

‘I was told their Land-Rover would pick me up.’

‘How very British,’ he sighed, and lifting my right hand slid it through his arm. ‘In Charaguay, a lady must always be properly escorted, even if it is to the back of the British Land-Rover. Lean on me,
senorita
. It is my honour.'

I was surprisingly grateful for his support. Altitude made my legs boneless jelly. But at the same time I had a strange exalted feeling of floating without substance, as if I’d drunk a glass of very potent champagne.

‘If you do everything slowly soon your body will become used to the rarefied air.' He patted my hand which rested on his arm. ‘You must take our enchantment with caution. Especially coming from your down-to-earth Britain.’

Slowly we walked across the concrete.

On the observation platform a group of people waved down at our disembarking passengers. Ready for business, Indians had draped their multi-coloured ponchos and scarves over the rail. And leaning over the rail were six or seven little Indian boys, all carrying what looked like brightly painted orange-boxes.