‘Mijo.’
‘Are you okay?’ Marisol asks.
It’s not a question mark. It’s a sickle. And beneath the sickle, in fresh black paint, the slanted letters warn: Vienen Los Jardineros. Perched on the curved blade is an owl. La Lechuza. And then something new, something Lydia has not seen before: a perfect, faceless rendering of Javier’s distinctive glasses. The exact shape as to provoke in her memory the man himself. Where the lenses would be, someone has scrawled, Aún te está buscando. He is still looking for you.
For me. He is looking for me, Madre de Dios. Lydia turns on her heel. ‘Luca, come.’
‘But, Mami—’
‘Come!’ she snaps, her voice like a whip.
Marisol jogs to catch up with her. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks again.
After seventeen days, sixteen hundred miles. Here, on the doorstep to el norte, los pinche Jardineros. How flawlessly the artist has rendered Javier’s glasses! As if he’s familiar with them. As if he’s seen them in person, here, in Nogales. Lydia will fall down on the street. Her knees will give way. The wind passes through her body as if she’s mostly holes, a ghost already. Marisol reaches out to steady her.
‘We cannot go that way,’ Lydia says, and she’s walking quickly now, but not too quickly, not quickly enough to draw the attention of those three boys leaning against the wall of the bodega. Her arms feel clattery in their sockets, her knees liquid with panic.
‘Okay, it’s okay.’ Marisol puts an arm around Lydia’s shoulder, and they fall in step together, Lydia’s stride matching the older woman’s accidentally. And here’s Luca, tucking beneath her other arm. And they’re already half a block away, the other direction, and now they turn a corner onto a shadier street, and Lydia doesn’t know if the direction they’re going is any safer than the one they’d been traveling before, and does Marisol know where they’re going? Is she leading them somewhere? Lydia shakes herself out from beneath the woman’s arm.
‘Thank you, I’m fine now,’ she says. ‘I’m fine, we’re fine.’ She grabs Luca by the hand. ‘I just remembered something we have to do,’ she says. ‘We’ll see you back at the apartment later.’
Marisol stops, confused. ‘Oh.’
‘We’ll be back soon,’ she says, and she drags Luca across another street, and they leave Marisol standing alone in the middle of the road.
They have to get off the street, out of sight. Away from anyone who might recognize them. Los Jardineros are here, in Nogales. Perhaps as an alliance. Perhaps as a test market, a turf war. Perhaps only to hunt her, to find her, to take her back to Javier so he can finish the job of eradicating Sebastián’s entire family in return for Marta’s death. Lydia can see it as if she’s there, in that dorm room in Barcelona: a creaking sound from above. Marta’s feet swinging slightly in their navy-blue tights, one chunky black shoe still clinging to her left foot, the right one fallen to the floor beneath. Lydia squeezes her mind closed against the image, and against the certainty that Javier would follow her here, will follow her indefinitely, across anyone’s territory, until he finds her. Only in el norte will his power be diminished. In el norte, where there’s no impunity for violent men. At least not for violent men like him, she thinks.
There are no sidewalks here; the garden gates and shopfronts sit directly at the edges of the streets. Cars have to swerve around the pedestrians. There’s no place to hide. They turn at the next corner and head back the way they came. Lydia’s not wearing her hat. Why didn’t she wear her hat? She hates that floppy, pink thing. She’d liked the idea of liberating herself from it long enough to buy groceries and pretend normalcy for an hour. Until the graffiti it had felt like a jaunt. Things had gone well yesterday at the bank. The apartment was comfortable. They were so close! She had let her guard down. Estúpida.
An old woman leans against her door jamb and calls out to them as they pass, ‘¿Fruta, pan, leche, huevos?’
It’s not the supermarket Lydia’d been in search of, but maybe it’s better: a woman selling the basics out of a makeshift shop in the dark front room of her house. They duck inside and Lydia keeps an eye on the street through the open door. They buy eggs, tortillas, onions, an avocado, and some fruit.
‘Do you have a hat?’ Lydia asks her.
‘A hat?’ The woman shakes her head.
‘Or a scarf? Anything for my hair?’
‘No. Lo siento.’
‘It’s okay. Thanks anyway.’
‘Wait.’ The woman snaps her fingers and totters into the kitchen. She returns with a thin blue dish towel adorned by a pattern of flowers and hummingbirds. She presents it to Lydia like a bottle of fine wine, and gestures that she could use it to cover her hair.
‘How much?’ Lydia asks.
‘Cien pesos.’
Lydia nods, and ties the cloth over her hair like a handkerchief.
‘What about for him?’ The old woman points at Luca with her chin, and Lydia turns to look at him, confused. ‘Are you crossing?’ she asks, this time using her chin to point north, toward la frontera.
Lydia hesitates for only a moment and then confesses. ‘Yes, we’re crossing.’
‘He needs a coat,’ the lady says. ‘It gets very cold.’
‘He has a sweatshirt and a warm jacket.’
‘Wait.’ The woman disappears into the kitchen again, and Lydia and Luca can hear her banging through cupboards or closets, shifting things around, dragging a box across the floor. Luca giggles in the leftover quiet, but Lydia’s too nervous to join him. She eyes both doorways, interior and exterior. When the lady returns, she’s carrying two lumps of knitted blue yarn, which she spreads out across the counter so Lydia can assess their shapes: a hat and scarf. Perhaps a little too big for Luca, but the yarn is thick and warm. Lydia touches the soft wool with her fingertips, and nods.
‘How much?’
The old woman waves at Luca. ‘Un regalito,’ she says. ‘Para la suerte.’
They move through the streets as quickly and carefully as they can. Each window and door they pass feels like a possible booby trap. She counts their steps to try and keep herself calm. Luca carries the eggs and tortillas. She carries the bag with the produce. She considers Marisol as they go, her apparent kindness and sorrow. Behind Lydia’s fear, she might find room to feel bad about the abrupt way she left Marisol standing in the street. The fact that she hadn’t followed them, hadn’t insisted or attempted to redirect them, that feels to Lydia like probable evidence that she’s no nefarious actor. She probably is who she claims to be: a deported mother, desperate to return to her daughters in California. When Lydia sees the house where their apartment is, she holds her breath. She looks behind her. Only one car on the street. It approaches slowly, and Lydia doesn’t exhale until it rolls past them, the elderly couple inside giving Luca a friendly wave as they go.
‘Thank you, God,’ she says out loud when they step through the door and close it behind them. She leans against it for a moment and allows herself to breathe before, together, she and Luca descend the steps back into the apartment. There are voices and laughter below, and it’s warmer inside than on the street – humid with people. Lydia walks in, and when she gets to the bottom step, she drops her grocery bag to the floor.
‘Surprise!’
Lorenzo is seated on the black leather couch.
Lydia cannot immediately respond. An avocado rolls out from the toppled bag. Her terror causes a speech delay. She pushes through it. ‘What are you doing here?’ She picks up the wobbling avocado.
‘Same as you, going to el norte.’
The avocado resting in her hand is like a still life. ‘But how did you find us?’
‘Puta, don’t flatter yourself,’ he says. ‘I didn’t find you. I found El Chacal. It just happened to be a nice surprise when I walked in and saw the hottie twins were here.’
Marisol is in the kitchen w
ith a glass of water, and the two men with the low hats are seated at the counter with a deck of cards. Lydia stands behind the couch across from Lorenzo, who’s sprawled back on the facing sofa.
‘Anyway, this guy is the best coyote in Nogales,’ Lorenzo says. ‘What’d you think, nobody else would know that?’
‘You’re not . . .’ She doesn’t know how to finish the question, so she doesn’t. It hangs, half-formed.
He has black shorts on now, and his skin has been darkened a shade or two by the sun, but everything else about him is the same: the diamond stud earrings, the flat-brimmed baseball cap, slightly sun-faded, but still clean. His socks are remarkably white for a migrant, but his expensive shoes are beginning to look worn. He sits up and swings his feet to the floor in front of him. ‘Look, I know I make you uncomfortable, and I don’t really give a shit. It’s not my problem,’ he says. ‘But I swear I didn’t follow you, I wasn’t looking for you. Just like I told you, I’m done with all that Jardinero shit. I’m out.’
Lydia studies him for a moment. Because there’s nothing she can do about any of it, about the graffiti announcing Javier’s presence, about the sickening proximity of Lorenzo, about feeling acutely distrustful of everyone she meets: Marisol, who emerges from the kitchen to retrieve and unpack the groceries, the men sitting at the counter playing cards, Lorenzo smirking on the couch. Any one of them could mean her harm. Any one of them could murder Luca in his sleep. They haven’t done it yet. So perhaps they won’t. Lydia rubs her thighs through her jeans. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, his being here. The graffiti.
‘Okay,’ she says.
‘Así que tranquila.’
She regards him for another moment. ‘But if it’s true,’ she says. ‘If you’re really out?’ She lets a beat pass so she can focus, measure her words. ‘Then there’s something you should know.’
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘Los Jardineros are here.’
A calculated disclosure. Sharing this information may benefit her in a number of ways.
‘In Nogales?’ he asks.
She nods. Perhaps he’ll feel indebted to her. In any case, there is this: the opportunity to observe his reaction. And he does react. He blanches. Gone is the smile, the arrogant posture. He sits up and clears his throat. His shoulders hunch automatically, so Lydia can see it’s authentic. Lorenzo is afraid.
‘How do you know?’ he asks.
‘I saw their graffiti.’ She sits down on the arm of the opposite couch. She’s aware of the two men at the counter, listening. Their cards remain in their hands.
‘Close by?’
‘A few blocks from here.’ She turns to Luca. ‘Why don’t you go check on the girls. See what Beto is up to.’ He scoots down the hall into the bedroom where they all slept last night. To Lorenzo she says, ‘You want an omelet?’
* * *
While the two women are cooking, Soledad escapes the apartment. What felt spacious for the five of them is cramped with nine, especially with the reappearance of that revolting naco Lorenzo.
They’re in the far west of the city, only steps from the border, and Soledad paces the street outside, up and down the hill, watching the emptiness on the other side. The border is unnatural here, a sharp and arbitrary line that slashes through the desert, restraining the surging city behind it to the south. There is almost nothing Soledad can see on the northern side of that line – perhaps there really isn’t anything over there, or perhaps whatever’s there is hidden by the buckles and folds of the landscape. On her third trip down the hill, she goes a little farther and finds a remarkable place where the landscape funnels into itself. There’s a bald patch of dirt beside the road, and a little berm built up there that looks like a ramp. Indeed, the berm is higher than the fence because of a significant dip where the border is lower than the road. Soledad stands on this ramp, and her heart soars across like a bird. She could almost run and launch herself across. She might manage to jump it from here. She scrambles the few feet down the gravelly embankment to where the rusty red fence digs into the earth, and she wraps her fingers around two of the thick red posts, and leans her forehead against the bars, and she can see very clearly then that the fence is only a psychological barrier, and that the real impediment to crossing here is the technology on the other side. There’s a dirt road over there that follows the jagged landscape wherever it leads. The road is worn smooth by the regular accommodation of the heavy tires of the United States Border Patrol. Soledad cannot see them, but she can sense them there, just out of sight. She sees the evidence of their proximity in the whirring electronics mounted on tall poles that dot the hillsides. She doesn’t know what those contraptions are – cameras or sensors or lights or speakers – but whatever they are, she can sense that they’re aware of her presence. She sticks her hand through the fence and wiggles her fingers on the other side. Her fingers are in el norte. She spits through the fence. Only to leave a piece of herself there on American dirt.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lydia borrows a machete from one of the men to cut the onions and avocado, because there isn’t even a knife in the kitchen. There are paper plates in one of the drawers, but no forks, so they scoop the eggs into tortillas and eat them wrapped up. Lorenzo seems preoccupied.
‘You have to eat more than that,’ Lydia tells him when he returns his plate to the counter still half-full. ‘You need lots of calories if you expect to walk through the desert.’
He stands with one hand hanging loose by his side, and regards her. He seems at a loss. She takes the plate and adds another spoonful of eggs, a wedge of avocado.
‘Here.’ She pushes it back to him. ‘Want a banana?’
He leans his elbows on the counter, picks at one corner of the tortilla, and eventually takes a bite. He talks with his mouth full. ‘Why you being so nice?’
She gathers up the empty paper plates the other men left behind, and selects a banana from the bunch for herself. She snaps the top and starts to peel it. ‘I know what it’s like to run from them,’ she says simply. ‘I know what it’s like to be afraid.’
After the food, the day passes in excruciating eagerness. Lydia tries to engage the men in conversation, but they’re sullen, and they stick to their card games for most of the day. When they do speak, infrequently, Lydia strains to discern their accents, but eventually she releases herself from the effort. Because again: Why? If they are violent men, if they know her or recognize her, and decide to trade her life for a small fortune, she will find out soon enough.
They all go to sleep early, stocking up on rest while they can. Lydia, the sisters, and the two boys share the same bedroom where they slept last night. Marisol joins them, and they all stack their packs against the closed door. They curl up in corners or stretch out with their jeans rolled into makeshift pillows. Rebeca throws one arm over Luca like a teddy bear, and the two of them snore softly together. Beto sleeps sprawled out on his back in the shape of an X with his mouth wide open. The two quiet men share the other bedroom, and Lorenzo takes the couch.
Luca dreams of a deep stone well. At the bottom of the well are the sixteen bullet-riddled bodies of his family. He knows this not because he looks into the well – in fact, he takes care to give the well a wide berth anytime he has to pass it during his day – but because he hears them talking down there. He hears the echoey sounds of their laughter and lively conversation. He hears Papi telling jokes to Yénifer and Tía Yemi. He hears Tío Alex playing monster-tag-wrestling with Adrián, hears his cousin squealing and laughing while his father tickles him. Luca even hears Abuela lightly scolding them all, not because she actually disapproves, Luca realizes, but because a casual reprimand is Abuela’s way of participating, and that is the thing, really, that makes Luca understand that the dream is real. Because this insight about Abuela is new, a thing Luca didn’t perceive about her when she was alive. So they are still there, Luca know
s. They are at the bottom of the well. And he wants to go to them. He wants to be with them. He knows that the holy water down there is life, that it’s essential, that it will satisfy his every need, that it has revived them all. So he goes, he goes to the well at last, without fear, without hesitation. But as he approaches, their voices and laughter cease. It’s only the plink and trickle of some unseen droplets that echo into the shadowy depths. So Luca pulls on the rope instead. He thinks to draw up the bucket, that maybe he can ride it to the bottom. They can all be reunited. But he knows by the smell that something’s wrong. Before the bucket is fully visible, he can tell. There’s a rottenness. He draws the bucket into the light, and it’s only a flash of gore. Fingers, eyeballs, teeth. Papi’s earlobe, a lock of Yénifer’s hair. All floating in the putrid bucket of blood.
Luca awakens from the nightmare with his heart pounding, but he’s not afraid. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that he’s no more afraid than he always is now. His prevailing emotion is irritation, because Beto is sleeping beside him, farting. He lets another one rip while Luca lies there, blinking in the stench. It was such a nice dream until the odor turned it. ‘Papi,’ Luca says out loud in the dark. He rolls over and covers his nose with his sleeve.
They’re all awakened at dawn to the sound of a key in the lock and a crush of heavy bootsteps on the wooden stairs. El Chacal has arrived with five more migrants – two brothers from Veracruz named Choncho and Slim, plus their two teenage sons, David and Ricardín. The brothers are big, strong men, and even their teenage sons are big, strong men, and it’s impossible to tell which son belongs to which father because they all look so much alike. They have big voices and thick forearms and solid necks. They all wear jeans and plaid button-up shirts and enormous work boots. They have to duck their heads when they reach the bottom step. The four of them fill the apartment beyond its capacity. But there is a fifth man as well, named Nicolás, who’s tiny in comparison with the others, average-size. Like Marisol, he’s a deportado, and he has amazing blunt eyebrows, which look like they’re drawn onto his face with a marker, Luca thinks. He wears an Arizona Wildcats T-shirt and thick-framed glasses. He’s a lapsed PhD student at the University of Arizona.
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