They’re being kids.
We walk to a desk at the front and stand there but we’re ignored. We observe them for a while. They’re dwarfed by the machines. They chatter and laugh and sing, barely audible, over the noise of the tumble driers.
‘How are we going to find out where our clothes are?’
Kim grows bored. ‘Hey, hey, hey.’
They pay us no attention.
‘Hello,’ Kim roars, ‘Hello,’ and one or two kids stop and look. ‘Here, aquí, ahora. I want to talk to you.’
They eye her and each other and return to what they were doing.
We stand there for another two minutes or so.
‘What do we do?’ I ask.
‘These little shits are ignoring us. HELLO,’ Kim shouts again. Then she stomps over to the nearest kid and says, ‘I want to speak to a manager.’
The kid gives a face like she doesn’t understand.
Kim tries again, politely.
The kid is blank.
Kim loses her patience and bends down. ‘Su jefe, AHORA.’
The kid cries and toddles over to an older kid. The older kid hits a different older kid, and the struck kid is the one who comes over to us.
‘Que?’ he says, hand on hip.
‘Su jefe, ahora,’ Kim says and copies the hand on hip.
The kid sighs and pushes her back behind the desk. He picks up a phone and calls someone.
‘Espera!’
He swivels on his heel and goes to his buddies.
‘They’re not getting much work done,’ Kim says. ‘Do you reckon our stuff’s been washed.’
‘Kim, they’re children.’
We wait around. Kim’s about to go into the factory floor again when a slim, well-dressed man comes in and claps. The kids spot him and tell each other quickly. All of them stop their messing and pretend to be busy.
The man goes behind the desk. ‘I am very sorry,’ he says and tugs the receipt from Kim’s fingers.
He inspects it and flicks a switch which turns off all the machines. He wanders around the floor, smiling at us.
Then he proceeds to scream at the children, first in Spanish, then half-facing us, in English.
‘You are disrespectful. You are stupid. You behave. You do your work. Very disrespectful. You work hard. You respect the tourists. They put food on our tables. You work hard. You respect.’
Kim tilts her head from side to side.
He flips the switch on again and returns to the desk holding three neatly pressed clear plastic bags. The kids are silent and give us looks as in, you stupid bitches. You’re going to get us punished.
The manager says, ‘Many apologies, señoras. I have your clothes here. They have no respect for me,’ he says and wipes spittle off his chin. ‘Idiotas.’
He checks the receipt again. ‘Fifty soles.’
Kim says, ‘I’m not sure about this service. It’s disturbing and we’ve been inconvenienced.’
‘Forty?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Thirty?’
‘Okay.’ She fishes out the notes.
I hold the bags close to my chest.
Before we leave, I take another look; the kids fold clothes and handle the machines solemnly.
In the cool corridor, I ask, ‘Should we ring the cops? Or do something?’
‘What could we do?’ Kim says. The noise fades behind us.
Back at the hostel, Kim is still rude towards Ronan and I try to buffer it.
I tell him the story of what we’ve seen.
‘Yeah, though children’s rights are improving in Peru, still around thirty-four per cent of them are in the workforce.’
Kim says, ‘Oh god, I need air. My skin is crawling since that warehouse.’
She leaves. Me and Ronan drink some coca tea.
‘What are you doing next?’ I ask.
‘I’m going north to a coffee plantation.’
‘To teach English?’
‘Yes, and other things. I’ll probably also farm. They may not want their employees getting too much information.’
‘Are the plantations corrupt?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Why don’t the workers revolt?’
‘Well, like an oppressed group, they keep each other down. They’re pitted against each other. Divide and conquer. Individual power over the collective.’
‘I’m going to go out and maybe have a walk around, see if Kim’s okay. I’m worried about her. She’s acting erratically all the time.’
‘Break-ups are hard.’
‘They sure are. Will you walk with me? It’s been such an odd few days.’
‘Yeah,’ he says and goes to his room to get his baseball cap and jacket.
We roam the streets and he explains different things about Peru. He also tells me about landing in a village in the middle of nowhere on a bus and, at the station, this man was waiting for him.
‘He was acting like my friend. I didn’t get a sex energy off him, he wasn’t a pervert. He invited me back to his house for dinner. I was hungry. I went. There he introduced me to his wife and children, his neighbours. He showed me around his garden. I ate, and afterwards, he came in with a big photo album and a white glove. He put the glove on to turn the pages and showed me pictures of him with other white people. The penny dropped. He asked if I’d do the honour of being in a photo with him. I said okay.’
‘That’s kind of sweet,’ I say.
‘Kind of.’
Kim is on a bench in the main square chatting with a man. She waves us over.
‘This is Heraldo, he’s a musician.’
Heraldo tosses his long hair behind his back. It reminds me of a horse’s silken mane. ‘Mucho gusto,’ he says and shakes our hands.
Ronan leaves us to it, says he wants to get some food.
‘Heraldo is going to find us wachuma in the market tomorrow,’ Kim says. ‘I’ve told him everything.’
Heraldo has exceptionally long fingernails and wears his guitar case on his back. ‘No problem, I will be your guide.’
‘We’ll go to Sacsaywaman, do it there.’
The mosquitoes are out. A golden statue of an Incan king dominates the centre of the square, brandishing a weapon in one hand, outstretching the other.
A beggar woman with a baby on her back tries to sell us painting prints, keyrings and imitation alpaca wool scarves.
‘I play tonight, in that bar.’ Heraldo gesticulates to somewhere across the square. ‘Come listen, Kim, bring your friends.’
Kim nods. ‘Heraldo, we’ll meet you at the market in the morning.’
He kisses both her cheeks.
‘I don’t want to be in a bar,’ Kim says, when we’re out of earshot. ‘Plus we have to purge now, in preparation.’
I sleep fitfully, struggling with images of little children’s hands reaching for me in the dark, touching me.
In the morning, Kim says she had a rough night too.
We walk to the market smelling of newly washed clothes. Kim finds Heraldo at a juice bar.
‘Hey chicas,’ he says.
Kim immediately flirts with him, dipping her head to the side and putting on a girly voice.
‘I can get you some good stuff. You need a guide though, someone who’s not high. I am from the Amazon. I can show you the way.’
‘Cool.’
He selects the powder. The manner in which he’s testing it is showmannish and my gut has an unpleasant tingling sensation. We pay for it, five dollars.
I’m not sure about Heraldo.
He says he has a gig near Aguas after, so how about we join him. ‘Muy tranquilo,’ he says. We’ll be in the Andes, it’ll be very spiritual, and he can play for us.
Kim smiles. She turns to me. ‘Will we go? Would be an adventure.’
‘Can we talk about this for a minute, ourselves?’ I say and drag her outside to the hot street. ‘Kim, he seems like an okay guy but this is how people get killed. Who’s going to be with him?’
She mutters, ‘Dunno.’