It was over quickly.
Skinny rolled off her. They were both panting in the sweltering dusk. Valentín began to laugh. Her mouth was cartoon gore, all missing teeth and strings of gum, her nose caved in.
‘I fucking knew it.’ He shook his head. ‘Once a pig.’
Valentín whispered something.
‘What?’
She repeated herself.
‘What are you saying?’ Skinny lowered his head to her mouth.
With the last of her strength, she grabbed him by the hair and stabbed him in the jugular with Morel’s knife. Skinny’s eyes bulged as he tried to pull the knife out, thrashing for the life spurting out of him. He fell on her, spasming. Then there was stillness.
Iwata opened his eyes. He crawled over to Valentín and dragged the body off her. ‘Valentín. You’re hurt. You need a hospital.’
‘I need a smoke. Help me.’
Iwata lit a cigarette for her and perched it between her ruined lips, holding it in place while she sucked feebly. ‘Is that a waterfall I can hear?’ he asked.
‘The most beautiful one you’ll ever see.’ She gurgled blood.
‘I’ll get you water.’
‘No, just stay.’
‘Okay.’ He took her hand.
‘Iwata, I know what you’re thinking,’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘You’re thinking, how could I work for them?’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking.’
Valentín’s breathing became wet and abraded. Her pain had been replaced by a soft dizziness. It was as though she were not lying in the wet mud but instead running – running flat out in someone else’s body, about to make a leap of uncertain distance.
‘Iwata … the knife. Please bring it to me.’
Iwata cleaned the blood off before placing it in Valentín’s hand. She smiled at the feel of it, the slight weight of it. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t. Not yet.
‘Iwata, listen to me. It won’t take them long to realize what I’ve done. They know who you are. The border roads are controlled. The US Consulate will be watched. There’s only one way out. You’ll have to try and cross with the migrants.’
‘Valentín.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Stay with me, don’t close your eyes.’
‘Let me be.’ She squeezed back weakly. ‘And it’s Astrid. My name is Astrid.’
With nothing else to say, Iwata closed his eyes. After a while there was the distant crack of thunder. Far above, the clouds lit up like foxfire.
When he spoke again Valentín didn’t reply. Though she was warm, Iwata felt no pulse. He folded her hands in her lap as though she were waiting patiently for a late train. For the second time, he carried her. He didn’t know why but it felt right to sit her up by the tree.
Iwata got into the car and took a last look at the jungle clearing, three dead bodies in its long grass. Then he started the engine and descended the mountain road. Out of the window he saw the pearl thunder of the waterfalls. The escarpments around it were like islands in a vertical sea, the water evaporating before hitting the rocks below, falling for ever.
Eight miles outside of Ciudad Cabral Iwata turned on to a dirt track for hunters and got out of the car. In the distance the city stacked up like some forgotten game of mahjong. The brittle grass scratched his shins and the yipping wind was cold, but Iwata was numb – nothing more than footsteps in the desert.
Finding an abandoned hunter’s cabin, he hunkered down under some old rags. He had no thoughts; he’d reached his limit.
At 1 a.m. Iwata emerged from the cabin wearing a poncho he had fashioned from an old blanket using a piece of glass. He used rainwater to clean the blood from his face. The cold enraged his injuries, now indistinguishable from one another, but he knew he couldn’t afford to stand out any more than he already did.
Shivering, he started walking.
The northern side of Ciudad Cabral was a city of trucks and depots, the final link in the supply chain to the United States. Millions of tons of product, declared or clandestine, passed through this place every year. Machinery, food, livestock, fuel, lubricants, heroin, marijuana, humans – nothing stayed for long.
Massive rigs rumbled in and out of compounds. The roads were too wide here, too well lit, too many people working in the night. Iwata stuck to shadows like a goldfish hopping from puddle to puddle.
At 4 a.m. he reached his hotel. Someone had celebrated their quinceañera during the night. Paper cups rolled through the empty plaza, sounding like impish laughter. Iwata imagined the celebrated girl asleep in her bed, her dreams whirling with the infinite possibilities of her future. She’d be warm and safe and loved.
But thoughts like these always led to Cleo. Always led to Nina. She’d be going on six now. Not that she would ever be going anywhere. Her ashes were contained beneath a stone monument on the other side of the planet. Cleo’s name was etched next to Nina’s. Iwata’s name was there too, his characters painted red. One day the paint would be washed away and they would be together again. Maybe one day soon.
Iwata slipped into the shadowy doorway just in time. The large black SUV was moving slowly through the barrio, creeping through the narrow streets, orange streetlight washing over it. Iwata didn’t move, he just watched. It looped around the boarding houses, a flashlight flicking on and cutting through the shadows. The engine sounded like a languid tiger.
When it finally drifted away Iwata headed over to his hotel. He entered through the back and climbed the stairs. The door to his room was wide open, the room ransacked. His things were gone. His passport too. Iwata lifted the loose floorboard and found that the money was still there. He snatched it up and hurried out of the hotel. As he crossed the street, he saw an A3 poster stuck to the streetlight. It was his own face blown up, copied from his passport. Beneath it there was a phone number and a single word:
BUSCADO
SOUGHT
The poster had been plastered on every other streetlight he passed. Head down, Iwata hurried through the empty blue-grey streets of Ciudad Cabral. He frequently hid in doorways, alleys and telephone booths.
The north-east of the city was the closest point to the border. The stalls here were all open, catering exclusively to migrant needs, their prices extortionate. Backpacks. T-shirts. Hats. Coats. All of them black or camouflage-print. There were also playing cards, sunblock, snakebite kits, condoms, writing paper, sanitary pads doubling as insoles for shoes. Contraceptive pills were advertised on a piece of cardboard:
ATTENTION FEMALE MIGRANTS – 80% OF YOU WILL BE RAPED DURING YOUR CROSSING. PROTECT YOURSELVES
Iwata bought a hat and some plastic sunglasses, then continued north, staying on the backstreets.
22. A Free Country
The Diódoro Latapí Refuge was a large breeze-block structure on a street of shabby homes, arenose ruins and lemon trees. It was not yet dawn but this place was teeming with bodies, hope and fear. A handful of exhausted-looking men sat outside, cross-legged, smoking roll-ups and sipping coffee.
Iwata arrived just as a truck creaked to a halt outside the shelter. Slinking back into the shadow, he watched at least thirty people spill out of it. Two men in orange polo shirts had white words emblazoned on their backs:
REPATRIACIÓN HUMANA
The deportees were mostly male, all of them carrying belongings in large plastic sacks. Their cheeks were reddened by the sun, their eyes dulled and accepting. Many of them wore knock-off sports merchandise in support of American teams. Others wore clothes with patriotic eagles and star-spangled banners, the word ‘USA’ all over them, as if trying to convince the beholder of their legitimacy.
One of the repatriation agents stepped forward. ‘Two lines, please! The sick or elderly on this side, the rest over there.’
The lines formed quickly and without comment. Pulling the blanket tighter around his body, Iwata joined them. Apart from his ethnicity, he didn’t particularly stand out.
Inside the shel
ter there was the wet, doggish smell of recent mopping. Daybreak sunlight glared on the wooden crucifix above the door. It took an hour to reach the front desk. Iwata gave his nationality as Taiwanese and the name Lia Xia was entered into the database – the first name he could think of – that of a young Chinese woman who was murdered years ago in Japan: his first case.
He was given a small bar of soap, a rough blanket and a breakfast ticket. Not wanting to risk being recognized, Iwata went straight to his bunk and closed his eyes. Evelyn Olivera had been through here. Her cousin Adelmo Contreras too. And now it was Iwata’s turn. He knew it would only be so long until La Familia Cabral came looking here.
Iwata closed his eyes and pictured Bebé Rivera. Valentín. The accidental confluence of their lives. The drug lord, the dying policewoman, the lost detective – an unintended ecosystem.
In the busy courtyard outside a quiet hubbub drew him out of his thoughts. A single coyote had arrived. A small man climbed the soapbox usually reserved for the priest. His hair was a thick clump of grey, a single gold chain around his neck.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t talk for long. I know most of you have come a very long way just to get here.’ He had the demeanour of a manager who did not enjoy giving his employees bad news but business was business. ‘They call me Cookie and I’m here to offer my services. I can help you cross the line into America and through the desert. The path will be long and hard. You will suffer. There is great risk. There must be no illusions. In return, I won’t discriminate. If you’re sick, if you’re old, I’ll still lead you. My price is $3,000 a head.’
‘Why should we trust you?’ someone called out from the back.
‘Who you trust is up to you. Those who want to go should be ready by midnight.’ Cookie hopped off the soapbox.
When he had left, the migrants began murmuring amongst themselves. Some were keen. Many simply didn’t have the money. Others wanted to see if there would be a price reduction later from the other coyotes. But most said nothing and just stared at the ground, exhausted from the disappointment and degradations.
Over the course of that day Iwata listened to the coyotes that came and went. Sooner or later, he would have to deal with one of them; his passport was gone and there was no going to the US Consulate, as Valentín had said.
The dorm filled up steadily, forty men in wooden cots stinking and snoring. Iwata was back in the orphanage again. There was a familiarity to dormitories, the unbefriended isolation, the pathetic intimacy. The boys back then had been used to ignoring sobs and covering their ears. Iwata had quickly become one of them. He realized now, thirty years later, he always would be.
The room dreamed in unison of wives and children. And in a few hours they would wake to the dolorous reality of not knowing when they would see them again.
At dusk, several white vans pulled up outside. Men and women in pale blue scrubs and high-vis volunteer bibs entered the courtyard and erected a medical tent. They set about handing out bottles of water, first-aid kits, protein bars.
When a large crowd had formed a female volunteer took to the soapbox. She explained that they had come to provide free medical examinations to every single person at the refuge but that those who wished to donate blood would be offered a discount towards their crossing the following evening. The hundred or so migrants were weighed, their blood was drawn for testing, their urine collected, their hearts were listened to, they were given wristbands according to blood type.
Iwata took advantage of the emptied dorm and slipped out to the canteen. He devoured three bread rolls and drank five cups of tamarind juice before returning to his bunk.
The refuge was like a station with no tracks, no trains, and the midnight service was provided by the man who called himself Cookie. Five men, one woman and a child stood in the courtyard wearing camouflage clothes and holding water containers painted black. Except for them, the courtyard was empty. They resembled a ragtag platoon that had deserted a long time ago. Iwata woke to their whispers.
Cookie came ambling up the road, dressed much the same. One by one, he took their money and counted it with expert fingers. When he reached the woman, he looked down at the little boy, no more than five years old. ‘The desert isn’t for him.’
‘He’s my son. What choice do I have?’
Cookie shrugged and took her money. He removed his cap as Father Lalo appeared now. He took to the soapbox and looked at the small group.
‘Most sacred heart of Jesus, on the eve of your great resurrection, we accept from your hands whatever death may please you to send us this night. With all its pains, penalties and sorrows, in reparation for all our sins, for the souls in Purgatory and your greater glory.
‘Yet, despite our willingness, Holy Father, we ask that you look over our immigrant brothers and sisters as they head into wilderness and uncertainty. Lead them not into danger and humiliation. If it please you, keep them on a righteous path. May your love warm them in the night when they become stricken with doubt and cold. May your love cool their hearts when the desert sun oppresses them. Amen.’
Father Lalo nodded at the goodness in it, then stepped off the soapbox. One by one, he touched his thumb to the forehead of each crosser in blessing. ‘Always remember. Come to Him and you shall be purified. For through Him, though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.’
Iwata bolted up in his bunk. He felt a swelling of unintelligible realization in his belly. It rumbled like a hunger he could not feed. Jumping out of his bunk, he rushed to the front desk and snatched up the Bible.
‘Ezra … Nehemiah … Esther … Job … the Psalms … Proverbs … Ecclesiastes … Song of Songs … There.’ Instincts churning, he stabbed his finger down on four words: The Book of Isaiah.
Iwata closed his eyes and saw Mara smiling in the laser light, her lips cartoonish in their beauty. He pictured the delicate cursive running along her collarbone. Yes, it has to be. He ran his finger down the pages of Isaiah and stopped at verse 1:18.
Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.
‘That’s what your tattoo is, isn’t it?’ Iwata whispered. ‘Isaiah 1:18.’
Yet even as he felt the rare swelling of a development, he realized it meant nothing. The tattoo proved nothing of value. This was mere trivia. Or maybe it meant something. Father Lalo’s church was San Isaías. The words from his confessional lived in the very skin of Mara Zambrano. Evelyn Olivera had been through there. She had come here too. Her ID card had been repurposed by Mara. And Mara was connected to his missing girls.
Iwata rushed out into the courtyard. Cookie and the group looked at him.
‘Where’s the priest?’
‘He just left. Are you coming?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have $3,000?’
Iwata counted out the money and handed it over. Cookie recounted the money, then nodded once. ‘Then follow me.’
Outside, an old Ford pickup was waiting for them. The bed had been customized to twice its original size with handrails soldered on to the frame and standing space for at least twenty people. One by one, the group clambered on to the back of the pickup. The engine started. Then they were away.
Holding on to the metal bar, Iwata watched Ciudad Cabral shrink into the dusty distance, the smell of diesel thick in his throat. It did not feel at all odd to be smuggled across the border with these strangers. His ability to process now boiled down simply to what hurt and what did not.
The road to the border was little more than a dirt track running north. The truck bounced hard through the desert terrain. Ramshackle restaurants sprouted up: Super Coyote and Viva México. Makeshift gas stations were being run out of small sheds, their prices eclipsing those in the more affluent neighbourhoods of Los Angeles.
After forty stomach-churning minutes the border fence came into view. Iw
ata had seen it only a few days ago, but now it seemed changed somehow, undulating across the horizon as though it had grown there. America beyond it looked no different, a grubby mirror.
The truck finally shuddered to a halt. Cookie got out, unlocked the safety bar and the group climbed off. Everyone was shivering. Iwata helped the woman off, then her little boy, who threw up as soon as his sneakers touched the earth. Cookie glanced at the mother but said nothing.
The pickup drove off and the group watched the red lights dwindle into the darkness. They were left alone by the border fence in the cold wind. Cookie led the group a hundred yards east. Hidden under sticks and leaves was a pile of old pushbikes.
‘Listen up. Tonight will be simple. Do as I say: watch your step and stay completely silent. The hard part begins when the sun rises. Whatever you do, do not take off your clothes. Everything must be covered. Believe me when I tell you the sun can kill you.’
The group nodded. Cookie checked his watch and hopped on to his bike. The group followed, single file. With their hefty backpacks, black clothes and cheap knick-knacks, they looked like a clan of destitute ninjas.
They followed Cookie east for thirty minutes. By now, the border fence had run out and had been replaced by thick metal anti-vehicle barriers, just a few feet high. After another half an hour it had petered out into a single strand of barbed wire. Beyond it, the empty land was cracked, a lunar expanse. It didn’t look like another country but another world.
‘Hold it!’ Cookie shouted.
He waited for a few seconds, then veered off the path into the bush. The group scurried for cover too. Iwata followed the woman and her boy under a crooked tree. They were both panting, the whites of their eyes pale blue in the dark.
‘Spaceship,’ the boy whispered. His little eyebrows were sparse, his spiky dark hair growing back from a buzz cut.
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