by Laura Resau
Mercurio started unhooking the chains from his neck, which looked hard with the IV tube taped to his hand. “I’m sorry, man. Here.” He held out the chains, dangling from his long fingers. “Take them back. The money’s gone, but here.”
Ángel shook his head. “Keep them,” he said. “And remember.”
Remember that it is possible to let your heart fill with light.
Later that morning, Mr. Lorenzo bounced in, looking cheery until we told him about Mercurio and the accident. For a long moment, Mr. Lorenzo studied Mercurio’s wounded face, his eyes still swollen from crying. “You are very lucky, son,” he said finally.
Mercurio hung his head, stared at a crack in the wall. “I know, señor.”
Soon Mercurio’s family arrived. His mother was a short, pudgy woman in a flowered dress who talked nonstop. First she smothered him with a hug, and then she started scolding him. “You see, hijo, I always told you these friends would lead to trouble. Didn’t I always tell you?”
“Yes, Mamá.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Yes, Mamá.”
When she found out that Raúl had died, she cried, “Oh, little Raúl!” and turned to me and Ángel and Mr. Lorenzo. “Raúl always called my son his big brother. His real big brother was shot five years ago.” She turned back to Mercurio. “Remember? Remember how he always called you his big brother, hijo?”
Mercurio nodded, pressing his lips together.
His mother went on and on, and the more she talked about her son, the more tenderness crept up on me. It’s hard not to feel tenderness toward someone seen through his mother’s eyes. Mercurio had spent his early childhood in a Mayan village near Ángel’s grandmother’s village. Violence came there, too: Three of Mercurio’s uncles were killed by soldiers. His family moved to San Juan, where it was safer. When he was thirteen, the gang recruited him. His mother lamented that her son hadn’t wanted to be in a gang, but they’d said he was either with them or against them. He joined to survive.
More of Mercurio’s family trickled in throughout the day. It was breaking hospital rules to squeeze twelve people into one room, but the nurses were too exhausted to care. We ate chicken tacos that an uncle had brought, while Mercurio’s little nephew rolled a tiny yellow truck around people’s feet. Mercurio’s father and mother and aunt stayed at his bedside, fussing over him. Mr. Lorenzo talked to the uncle about politics while I played hand games with Mercurio’s little sister. She looked about the same age as Pablo, and even had dimples like him, but she wasn’t nearly as cute. I taught her Miss Mary Mac-Mac-Mac, and clap-clap-clapped my hands against hers. Every time we finished, she squealed, “¡Otra vez!” Again! Propped on his pillows, Ángel watched everything with an unreadable expression.
By afternoon, the rain had stopped, and the room was filled with smells of greasy chicken and fried plantains and fresh coffee. A radio blasted staticky salsa tunes. Mercurio’s grandmother had built a little fire by the tree outside the window. She boiled a big blackened pot of water and sprinkled in ground coffee, just picked from their fields and roasted. She stirred in sugar with a long wooden spoon, and then, once the grounds had sunk to the bottom, she dipped out gourdfuls of coffee and handed them through the open window. We passed around the steaming, chipped ceramic cups and sipped and talked.
Mercurio was recovering fast. After a nurse removed the IV drip, he got out of bed and limped over to Ángel. You could tell he was trying to strut his lanky legs and swing his arms coolly, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.
He wore his black baseball cap, the bill pulled low over his eyes. A pair of tennis shoes dangled from his hand, the bright white pair the nurse had taken off his feet. They weren’t the shoes stolen from Ángel; another guy had been wearing those, and now he was dead, and who knew where the shoes had gone. But these shoes looked similar to Ángel’s big clomping Nikes with silver trim.
“Here, man.” In a quick, awkward gesture, Mercurio handed Ángel the shoes. “See if these fit.”
Ángel slipped on the shoes, wiggled his feet inside. He nodded.
Tentatively, Mercurio asked, “You got gangs where you live?”
“Yeah. I don’t mess with them.”
“They don’t recruit?”
“They do, but you can say no.”
And I thought, suddenly, how easy it would have been for Ángel to join a gang. A gang was like a family, and all he had was his dad. Violence had touched his life too, and taken his mother from him. That must have injected a giant dose of anger into his heart.
“I don’t go out much,” Ángel said. “After school I just work. That’s how I saved the seventy-three hundred dollars.”
Mercurio looked at the tile floor. “I’m sorry, man.”
Mercurio’s mother waddled over with a plate of plantains. She was such a chipper, chatty woman, it was hard not to like her, in small doses at least. She had rosy cheeks and plump arms and fried, permed hair. Fake gold earrings with chips of red glass hung from her ears. The red glass and the bad hair made me think about Dika. Mr. Lorenzo had called and assured her everything was fine, but I could imagine her shrill voice commanding us to return the moment Ángel recovered. She would have been proud of how I handled Mercurio. If she were here now, she’d be passing around plates of fruitcake to celebrate.
Mercurio’s mother smoothed his hair. “Son, after you’re well enough to leave the hospital,” she said, “we’ll take you to Doña Remedios. She’ll give you herbs to make these scars fade.”
Ángel’s head snapped up. He stopped chewing his plantain. “Doña Remedios? The healer from the village of Magdalena?”
The woman nodded. “You know her, then. She’s an incredible healer, isn’t she? She still lives in her village, even though most everyone else moved after the houses were burned. She rebuilt her house better than before.”
Ángel turned to me. “Doña Remedios is the healer who helped at my birth. Remember I told you about her?”
I smiled. “Of course.” The midwife who said he’d travel far and do great things.
“I went to her village my second day here,” Ángel said. “To dig up the jewels and look for my mother. The place felt deserted, creepy, just a few old people around, and they only spoke dialecto. I asked them about Doña Remedios, but they shook their heads. I figured she’d died or moved or something, so I just got the jewels and left.”
Mercurio’s mother said, “Oh, but she was probably out gathering herbs or firewood. You should visit her. She is wise. Before the violencia, she had dreams of blood and machetes raining down. So when she heard the army was coming, she hid in the forest and didn’t come out until the army trucks left with the bodies. Go visit her. She lives in the blue house with all the flowers.”
“I’ll go with you, Ángel,” I said.
“But—”
“Don’t tell me it’s too dangerous.”
“Okay, lime-girl.” Ángel’s face softened. “Know what?”
“What?”
“I think tomorrow’s the day. The day I find out the truth.”
Late in the afternoon, Mercurio and his family moved into the room next door. Nurse Reina let them borrow her boom box and mix tape. They played it three times in a row, singing with thick accents. Their voices floated through the wall. “Wel-comb to da Otel Cah-lee-forrr-nia…”
The doctor rolled her eyes at the music. She was a thin woman with chapped lips and hair glossed back in a tight, painful-looking ponytail. She examined Ángel and announced he was healing well and could leave the next day if he took it easy. She probably wouldn’t consider a hike in the mountains taking it easy, but we didn’t mention that. The swelling in Ángel’s face had gone down, and now only a few bruises and pink scars lingered. He still had to walk carefully, like an old man, but the doctor said he should be back to normal soon.
Mr. Lorenzo insisted we go together to the village and then, as soon as possible, return to Mexico. He missed Dika desperately, talked about her constantly:
the delicious beef balls she made, the little pastries she bought at Albertsons and served with thick, muddy-bottomed coffee, the toast and apricot jam she ate every day for breakfast.
At the bus stop, we piled our bags on the roof of the yellow bus. The village was a few hours away, in the mountains. I felt like an old pro at taking these ancient school buses now. I didn’t even blink when a man sat next to me with a baby goat baaahing in his lap. The bus rattled around curves of a dirt road, barreling through spots of drizzle and sunshine and fog. In the distance, mist shrouded the tips of volcanoes.
Ángel had made this trip to his mother’s village many times as a boy. When his mother was twelve, she’d moved from her village to the town of San Juan, where she worked as a maid and learned to speak Spanish. Six years later, she married Mr. Lorenzo. She loved her village and insisted that her son be born there, and often took him to visit her family on weekends.
As the bus crawled higher up the mountains, it grew so cool I put on my sweater. The bus swerved around people with bundles of firewood on their backs, strapped to their foreheads. Chickens and dogs skittered out of the way at the last second. Burros trudged along the roadside, loaded with stuffed burlap sacks. We passed cornfields and tall pines and other trees I didn’t recognize. Mr. Lorenzo pointed out the steep slopes of coffee plantations, which looked like forests but supposedly hid shiny green bushes with red coffee berries. He turned to Ángel. “We harvested coffee there, hijo.”
Ángel nodded. “That’s where my mother found me when I fell.” He paused. “I have to know for sure if she’s alive or not. Either way, I have to know.”
We got off the bus in what looked like the middle of nowhere, a place thick with trees and sunshine reflecting off a hundred different shades of green. In the valley below us, mist gathered in pools.
Somehow, Mr. Lorenzo located a trail that we had to follow through the woods. It was just wide enough for the three of us to walk shoulder to shoulder. Beneath our feet, mossy rocks and gnarled tree roots jutted up. On either side of us, layers of green stretched as far as I could see. Every once in a while, Ángel pointed to a big tree, or a lichen-coated boulder, and said, “I think I remember that.”
Light poured through the leaves, dancing and flashing over the mud. Through the branches, flowers dangled like bright bells. I veered off the path to have a closer look at an orange flower, its stamens and pistils spraying out like a fountain.
A hand clamped over my arm and pulled me back onto the path. It was Mr. Lorenzo, his eyes wide. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Mire, Sophie, you cannot leave the path.”
“Why not?”
He rubbed his hand over his face.
I looked at Ángel and back at Mr. Lorenzo. Ángel stared at his feet.
“Sophie,” Mr. Lorenzo said hesitantly. “I don’t mean to worry you, but—”
“But what?”
“There could be land mines buried beneath those flowers.”
“Land mines?”
“Left over from la violencia. Many people, many children, over the years have stepped on them. Lost arms or legs in the explosion. Some have died.”
I continued walking, tiptoeing now, down the center of the path, as though balancing on a tightrope. As we walked, a strange thing happened: white flowers fell, tiny white blossoms dropping from trees.
After a while, my heartbeat calmed and my shaking stopped. “Ángel,” I said. “When was the last time you saw your mother? In the flesh.”
“These are heavy things, Sophie,” he said after a pause. “Cosas pesadas.”
“I know.”
Mr. Lorenzo studied Ángel’s face. “I thought you didn’t remember that day. You were so little—only four or five.”
“I remember,” Ángel said. “It’s jumbled in my head, but I remember. Me and my mother went to my grandmother’s village to help harvest corn.”
Mr. Lorenzo shook his head. “I never should have let you two go alone. Not with the rumors about what the army was doing to villages in the mountains.” His face looked raw, exposed. “I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”
Ángel stared straight ahead. “So that night, we’re in her house, and word comes that the army is on their way. My grandmother wants us to go back to San Juan, but the last bus already left. She says we should walk back, but my mother’s afraid we’ll run into soldiers. Next thing I remember, we’re in the woods, next to a giant tree with a secret hollow that I like to play in. My mother’s burying a little bag of money my grandmother’s been saving. For a new washbasin. It’s all she has. By now it’s almost dark and I can barely see my mother digging.
“She’s about to shovel the dirt back on top, and I ask her, ‘What about your jewels? Are you going to bury them, too?’ She ruffles my hair and laughs. Her laugh sounds like a stream over rocks. The last time I heard her laugh. She takes the jewels from her neck and tucks them into the money bag, and drops it into the hole.
“Next thing I remember, we’re back at the house, in bed. I’m snuggled against my mother. I feel her awake, and she’s so warm and sturdy I know she’ll protect me from anything. Suddenly I hear machine-gun fire. And smell smoke. And hear the soldiers yelling and people screaming. My mother wraps me in a blanket, hugs my grandmother, and runs into the forest with me, to the tree hollow. She tucks me inside, and tries to crawl in after me, but she’s too big. ‘Don’t look outside,’ she says. ‘Don’t make noise. I’ll be hiding nearby.’
“She kisses me and I hang on to her braid. She unclenches my fingers and pulls away. Then she covers up the hole with branches. I put my hands over my ears and through my hands I hear screams. For a long time. I try not to make noise while I cry. I smell smoke, terrible smoke that makes me gag. Then there’s the roar of trucks, loud at first, then fading. I wait for my mother to come. And wait and wait. All night I wait. I wait for the roosters to crow like they do every morning. But the light comes and they never crow.
“I remember wandering around the forest, calling for my mother. Then I see it: what’s left of our village. At first, I can’t make sense of it. Nothing is where it used to be. My grandmother’s house is burned to the ground. So are the neighbors’ houses and the animal pens. Just ashes and charred wood and stone. Dead chickens and goats and dogs. Things start spinning. All the broken pieces of the world. Someone picks me up. Doña Remedios. She presses my face into her shoulder. I close my eyes and see my mother.
“For the next year, until we leave for America, I see my mother everywhere. I see her through the window of a bus. I see her carrying a bundle of firewood at the roadside. I see her in a crowd at the market. She’s always there, in the corner of my eye, and always, she slips away.”
At the edge of the forest, we saw a cluster of houses pieced together with wood and mud and topped with thatched roofs, each house linked to the others by a maze of paths. Beneath a blue sky, chickens pecked at weeds sprouting from crumbling house foundations; nearby, a fat pig rested in the shade of a tree. The place had an empty, abandoned feel. There was something in the air, an odor of sadness. No hint of breeze. The air held impossibly still, like a dream.
We walked toward a violet-blue house at the end of the clearing. The house was strangely cheerful; bright red flowers in old tin cans cluttered the patio, and a spray of bougainvillea climbed the wall. In the shadows of a tree, an old woman was picking bananas and dropping them into a basket at her side. She wore a colorful blouse, loose and thick, embroidered with elaborate zigzags and flowers, and tucked into a long wraparound skirt that made me think of festive things, like rainbow sprinkles and jelly beans. Her hair was braided in two thin silvery ropes and pinned to her head. The moment we spotted her, she tilted her head and turned to us. Then she waved and motioned for us to come.
When we came closer, her face broke into a smile. “Don Lorenzo! Husband of Flor Blanca! Is that you?” She looked at Ángel. “And you, all grown up. Mi querido Ángel!” Before he could say a word, she hugged him and then exam
ined the wounds on his face. “Looks like you got a bit beat up, but you’re healing fine.” She patted his face with her rough hands. “Ángel. The child who would do great things, go far in life. And you have. And you will do even more.” She spoke Spanish slowly, in the same choppy tones as the Mayan woman I’d met on the bus.
Mr. Lorenzo shook her hand lightly. “Here to serve you.”
“You see?” she said. “I may be old, but I never forget my friends.”
She looked at me. “And you, señorita?”
“I’m Sophie.”
“Oh, how good you came all the way here for your novio.”
I blushed at the word boyfriend.
She held my hand in hers for a moment, then turned to Ángel. “Now, Ángel, you are here for your mother?”
He nodded.
“I will bring you to her.”
My heart leaped. Ángel stared at her, speechless. Mr. Lorenzo stood frozen beside him. Afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell, we followed the old woman down a narrow path through the forest.
Your Heart in My Heart
We wove in between tree trunks and birdsongs and cricket chirps. Mr. Lorenzo and Ángel walked in a daze, one foot plunked in front of the other. Doña Remedios’s steps were slow and sure, as though she knew every bump in the trail. Thick calluses protected her bare feet, and she stepped on twigs and stones without flinching. Once in a while, she pointed out a plant and told us what it was good for. She paused beside a bush with tiny leaves and rubbed them between her fingers. “Now, my daughter, smell this. This is what I use to cure people of susto.”
“¿Susto?” Fright didn’t seem like the kind of thing you could take medicine for.
“Sí, susto,” she said. “When the army came, we saw the soldiers do terrible things. The fear stayed with us. The fear made us sick.”