Chapter 16 Summary

Before they part, Arroyo tells Harriet why he has returned to the hacienda. He tells her of his childhood, of his thirty years on the hacienda, of sleeping on a mat in servants' quarters while his father slept in the house. Arroyo is naked before her as he discusses this. For the first time, she sees a man comfortable in his own sexuality. Part of her thinks that only simple men would be so comfortable, but prefers to think that Arroyo is more complicated than that. She has heard about men of households who sneak into the bedrooms of female servants and knows that the sexual drive is not exclusive to him.

Arroyo tells Harriet that he had felt locked into the life of a peasant on the hacienda and that the revolution allowed him to break free and move. Now he was...