by Mark Oshiro
“I’ve been wandering for so long.”
I couldn’t do it.
“Later,” I said, the word draining out of my mouth as if it were the bitterness and refuse of a story being given back to You. “Ask me later.”
Eliazar smiled.
A hand over the eyes.
Over the chest.
“I am so glad you are here,” he said. “Solís must have wanted you to help me.”
I was so very far from home, and yet … I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape the role that had been forced upon me. I thought I was safe. They were not from Empalme. They were not my responsibility.
But You knew, didn’t You? You knew I was trying to escape from what had been forced upon me.
I vowed right then to make it to Simone at any cost.
The heat weighed heavily on my face and on the bare skin of my arms, and there was a precision to it, as if You were shining on me and only me.
But I resisted.
Maybe Eliazar and the others saw me as nothing more than a cuentista, as a means to their end.
But I was choosing to end this.
This was my decision.
And I had never been so alive in my life.
I breathed in that freedom, and I was overflowing with purpose. It was not the one that had been assigned to me, that had dictated my life. It was my own.
No hay paredes
para detenerme
There are no walls
to stop me
I kept an eye on Eliazar as I walked; he had begun to slow down, and I worried that the heat was getting to him. I spoke to Rosalinda for a little bit when she saw me massaging another cramp in my lower stomach and fell back to match my pace. She told me that if we found la garra del diablo, she would brew me a tea that helped with monthly pain. The roots of the plant made for a bitter taste, she explained, but it would be worth it.
I did not tell her the other reason for my pain.
As we talked, I sipped at my water, which had remained cool despite the heat. I did not want the tightness in my head to come back. I reminded Emilia of the same. This was, after all, the reason she asked me to come, to help her survive this trek.
She said nothing about whether we were heading in the right direction. Perhaps You are still guiding her, I thought. I wasn’t sure I actually believed that anymore.
Rosalinda told me more about her life, how they made tortillas out of a white flour where she was born, and Felipe often interrupted to add in his own bits to her stories. He made reference to an escape; Rosalinda shushed him, and they did not speak further of it. No matter; the talking passed the time and kept our minds off the heat, off the persistent fire in our muscles, off the fear that we would be walking forever.
Maybe this was our punishment. Nuestra pesadilla. To walk and walk and walk and never know if it was going to end.
There was a rustling overhead, and when I looked up, a brilliant flock of palomas flew by. They spun and twirled together, and the others gasped at the sight of them. Eliazar said this was a good omen, a sign that we were still on the right path.
Perhaps. And perhaps You were teasing us, reminding us that we did not have the gift of flight, that we were forever bound to the earth, that we would live and die down here.
We pressed on.
And I kept these thoughts to myself.
Why did You punish all of us, Solís? If You despised what humanity had done to Your world long ago, why punish all those who came after? Why not wipe the slate clean, start over, and fix the mistakes from the first time around? Or do You not believe that You made any mistakes, that all of this was our fault?
If Your creation was perfect, then why do we do such imperfect things?
I was told so many stories, and the farther I walked from Empalme, the less real they became.
I was born to a body meant to help others. But I am so selfish, Solís. I give and I give and I give myself: to You, to mi gente, but why did You put me in a body with such unending desire? That wants so much that it cannot have?
Raúl was impatient.
Mamá had a temper.
Papá could disappear into himself and forget that anyone else was in his life.
Then there was Manolito, who had so many secrets. Or Rogelio, who drank himself into a stupor to dampen how much he hated himself. Or Marisol or Lani or Soledad or Emilia or Omar, who all lived imperfectly in an imperfect world. Or los pálidos, who had stolen an entire aldea from those who had built it up.
I now knew the secrets You purged from my body every time I completed the ritual. Maybe that was the point of it: I forgot because if I remembered, I would know the truth about this whole rotten system.
They had broken the rules of Your world, and I was there to fix them, to repair them so that our nightmares would not become flesh, would not destroy us. I existed so that You wouldn’t burn us up again.
But there was so much more, wasn’t there? Obregán was full of people who appeared not to believe in You, at least not as I did.
Yet they stood.
They sold Your power.
They were unpunished.
How was this fair? Just?
Were we isolated by design? Did You stick us so far apart because if we met one another, if we compared all these stories, we would figure out the truth?
It feels strange to say this to You, but I have to.
Your world is imperfect, Solís. It is designed to make us feel misery, designed to make us doubt ourselves, designed to force us to choose between one terrible thing and another. What are we supposed to do? How do I make You happy when it is so very impossible to be happy for myself?
It is hard to tell You this next part. But I have to. I have to tell You the whole story.
I hope You are still listening.
You were sitting tall above us when Eliazar first fell.
He had been walking nearest to Rosalinda, who was talking to me about Hermosillo. Felipe was pestering Emilia with a million questions about Solado. They both seemed to be enjoying it despite the terrible heat.
The land was flat, and las montañas were finally closer to us. It would not be long before we started our ascent for the day. Eliazar was quietly listening to our responses when he stepped wrong, his foot grazing a large rock he had not seen, and he pitched forward. Rosalinda was quick, and she caught him before he hit the ground. He slowly lowered himself to one knee, panting. I stuck out a hand to steady him, and my fingers lightly brushed against his neck.
He was cool. Sweaty. Soaked with sweat.
It was bad for the body to suffer a drop in temperature like this. “Drink some agua, Eliazar,” I insisted. “Catch your breath.”
Rosalinda crouched down next to him and handed over her canteen. “Have some of mine,” she said. “It’s still cold, and I don’t need as much as you do.”
He thanked her with a nod of his head, then brought the canteen up to his mouth. Some of the water trickled out and down his chin, running along his neck and beard and then soaking into his already drenched camisa.
“Más,” Rosalinda ordered.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Please, señor.”
Emilia and Felipe had backtracked to us. Both of them looked tired, too.
“¿Qué pasó?” Emilia asked. “We’re still making excellent time, so we can stop here.”
Eliazar held a hand up, and Rosalinda and I helped him rise. He swayed in place, then gave us a goofy smile. Such a warm expression on his face, but when it faded, there was a sadness there, a soft edge to his brief joy. He looked to me, and his mouth curled up. “Could I have a moment alone with you? Before we continue?”
No, I thought. No, I know what this is! I can’t do this!
Emilia must have seen the panic on my face. “Eliazar, are you sure this is the time for that? We’re all very tired, and I’m sure Xochitl can’t … can’t deal with the ritual right now.”
/> Relief filled me. She had given me an out.
“Lo siento, Xochitl,” he said, and his eyes were deep wells of sadness now, so dark that I thought I could pitch myself into them and never come out. “I would not ask you if it wasn’t important.”
Emilia gazed in my direction. What was that look on her face? Concern? Fear?
“You don’t have to do this, Xochitl,” she said.
“Please, cuentista,” Eliazar begged.
Emilia left his side, came to me, and pulled me from him, far enough so that no one could hear us. My heart raced a terrible rhythm.
“I get it now,” she said.
“Get what?”
“Why you’re doing this. Why you want to go to Simone.”
My eyesight blurred. And it was such a silly thought, but I couldn’t help it: Don’t cry, Xochitl. You need every drop of water to survive.
I wasn’t sure I wanted her to see my face, to see how much her empathy affected me. “Why now?” I asked.
“They all want something from you. This is how it’s been, hasn’t it?”
“All the time,” I choked out.
“And you have to lie to everyone just to get through the day.”
I did.
“Especially to yourself.”
I breathed in the hot air of the desert. I breathed in that truth.
“If you don’t want to do this, I’ll support you, Xochitl.”
I faced her.
“Whatever your decision,” she said, and her lips turned up in a smile, “I’ll support you.”
I breathed that in, too.
I had taken so many stories. In a couple of days, this power would be taken from me. It would be over, sooner than I could possibly dream of.
Something was wrong with Eliazar, and I could help him.
This is it, I told myself. The last story I will take.
“I think I have to do this,” I said. “Just this once.”
“Estás segura?”
“Sí,” I said without hesitation. “Keep the others busy, can you?”
She nodded, then walked off. She spoke briefly to Rosalinda, and the two of them looked at me. Emilia guided them from me, and I was left with el viejo.
I walked toward him.
He cast a tender gaze upon me. “Cuentista,” he said, “may I?” Eliazar dropped to the ground, his knees scraping against the earth. He held both his hands out in front of him, his palms facing down, waiting for me.
A pain stabbed me in the gut again, but it was not a cramp from anything usual. It was the surge of fear: Lito’s. Marisol’s. Mine. I saw them in my mind: Lito reading the letter to Julio, Marisol holding her breath as los sabuesos hunted in Solado.
What did he have to tell me?
“Everything is as it should be,” he said, still holding his hands out, still gazing at me with hope and longing.
A part of me resisted. Told me to deny him again. Told me to preserve my energy, to think about myself first, to remember all the stories within me that I still had not given back. They woke again and fought for space, and I clutched my stomach. I breathed through the pain and … and …
It was instinct. I knelt down beside him, then crossed my legs under me. I raised my hands, palms up, and I slid them underneath Eliazar’s, and I smiled back to him.
“Breathe, señor,” I told him, and he did so, and I pushed those stories down, forced them deeper into me.
The spark hit me, and his sadness rushed down my arms, straight to my heart, surrounding it and squeezing it, and all I managed to get out in time was a choked request:
“Tell me your story, Eliazar.”
Let me tell You a story, Solís.
Eliazar never wanted children. He never desired anything more than Gracia, his love. They had met many years before, back when Eliazar’s aldea was tiny, insignificant. They lived far, far to the east of Obregán, out where the deserts gradually gave way to las dunas, then to the endless expanse of El Mar. Eliazar was so much younger then, his hands not yet haunted by the ghosts of pain and tension that gripped his joints, that slowed his legs. He made a living as a pescador, and his life was simple and focused before he met Gracia. He used to make the daylong trip to and from the shoreline of El Mar, where he used his handmade nets of intricately tied twine to catch seafood to sell en las aldeas he passed on his trek home. Then, with just enough pescado for himself and his aldea still in his cart, he would guide his horse and his catch back home.
Gracia and Eliazar met for the first time on the road to El Mar. She was walking toward him, a woven basket balanced on her head. When he passed her, she gave him only a glance. He would later swear to Solís—to anyone who would listen to him, really—that he had never seen a woman so beautiful in his whole life. He stopped his horse, jumped down from his cart, and called after her.
Her hair, which cascaded down to her ankles, swung back and forth behind her when she spun to look at him strangely. He had believed he was being charitable and kind when he offered to take her the rest of the way, but she refused, simply and quickly. “No gracias,” she said, then turned back and kept on walking.
“But how can I get to know you?” he yelled.
Without hesitation, she said, “Walk with me, then.”
He left his horse in the shade of a patch of boojums, whose brushlike trunks stretched up to the sky, and then he walked alongside her as she went home. He asked her questions the entire time—her name, where she was from, what she did with her days, what she looked forward to in life—and she gave short, terse answers. But she kept giving them, along with quiet smiles every time he made a silly comment to her about what she had said.
When they arrived en la aldea an hour later, she thanked him for the company. “You made my walk enjoyable today, Eliazar. The time passed much quicker than usual. If you would like, I leave again in two days. You are welcome to join me.”
“I would like nothing more,” he told her.
And so, for the next month, Eliazar’s routine changed: He would meet Gracia on his journey to El Mar. Sometimes, he would walk her to the next aldea—where she sold las camisas and serapes she made with her father. Sometimes, he would walk her back home. This decision extended his trip to El Mar, but it was worth it. Gracia was always worth it.
The day she agreed to ride in Eliazar’s cart was the day he knew that she finally felt the same affection for him as he did for her.
He was so happy with her, Solís. They moved together to a tiny aldea that hugged the coast, where Your heat waned and the land was not so impossible. Here, the homes were distant, scattered along the coastline haphazardly. Together, Eliazar and Gracia created. They hunted. They thrived. Eliazar brought Gracia’s parents to El Mar to live a better life. When Gracia’s mamá bothered the couple about the promise of grandchildren, they gave the same answer: They didn’t need anyone else. They had each other.
It happened so suddenly, so inexplicably, as these things often did. Years passed, and Gracia’s parents had long since returned to You. She had grieved, but with her love beside her, she carried on. Their small home next to El Mar may have been weathered and worn, but it was theirs. Eliazar, whose joints had begun to cry out whenever he moved too fast, finally stopped visiting the shore to spread his nets into the unpredictable and violent waters. He did not have the strength to pull them back in. He instead took it upon himself to deliver la ropa that Gracia still made by hand. The pains had not visited her in her old age.
It became a new routine. Eliazar would load up his cart with la ropa, would bid her goodbye, and then would travel west. He would be back by nightfall, so he could curl up next to the one he loved, beneath the starlight that twinkled overhead, that cast such a haunting glow over El Mar.
One morning, he awoke, and Gracia was not by his side. She was not at la mesa where she did her work, either.
He knew something was wrong.
She sat by the ocean on her favorite rock, a dark slab on the white sand, and she dipp
ed her toes in the surf as it came upon the shore.
“Gracia?” He approached gingerly, terrified of the future that was unfolding.
Her skin was pale, waxy, and she wiped at her nose.
There was red on her hands.
“It’s time,” she said calmly, plainly, as if she were stating the weather. “I’ve known this was coming.”
He reached out to touch her.
She recoiled. “Don’t,” she warned. “I don’t want this happening to you, too.”
“Gracia, please,” he said. “What is happening?”
“We all have our time upon this earth, Eliazar. Mine has come to an end. Maybe a day or two from now.” She smiled, dug her toes deep into the wet sand. “I want to die looking at El Mar.” Gracia’s eyes bored into Eliazar’s. “Will you allow me that, mi amor?”
He didn’t respond.
He quickly pushed himself to his feet, his joints protesting, and he headed straight for his horse, an old mare he’d grown close to over the years. Once atop her, he climbed the rise that ascended from the coast. At the crest of the hill, he looked behind him, down toward the home that lay at the bottom, one of only a few built tight against the stone cliff.
She sat upon the rock, which meant there was still time to save her.
Eliazar made the journey with what haste he could on a horse that was probably as old as he was. He pushed the mare as fast as she could go, meaning she sometimes slowed to a trot, and together they weaved through the grove of boojums, then over and down ridges and rises.
Eliazar was determined to save Gracia.
He made it to the next aldea a few hours after he had left El Mar. He didn’t even tie up his mount; he was sure that she was so exhausted she wouldn’t go anywhere. He left her next to a large trough of water, and he ran. And ran. And ran. Dodged around those of the aldea who knew him both as el pescador viejo and as the man who delivered Gracia’s colorful creations. He had none of these goods with him today, and his body ached terribly as he ran, ran straight to the cuentista, whom he had not spoken to in many years. There was never a need; he had been honest and happy with Gracia.