The second of those girls is the one who looks most like her. Her body and hair are like hers at that age, and they share several mannerisms. They also have a similar character. If her second daughter had been older when she took her trip, she would’ve happily left her in charge of her sisters. The eldest, on the other hand, is the spitting image of her father, except without his courage, or hers. She’s a good, strong girl who doesn’t shirk work, but freezes at any sign of danger. It was more for her sake than any of the other girls’ that she decided to hire a señora to keep them company while she was gone. Even though her daughter had told her there was no need and insisted she spend that money in Paris instead, her mother knew she wouldn’t be able to deal with a man hounding her wherever she went, claiming first he’d make her his wife and then the mother of his children. She needed somebody to walk her to school and to their milpa, where they grew corn and beans. The señora she’d hired was perfect. As the daughter of the woman who had been the man’s schoolteacher, she inspired in him a certain respect.
The third daughter had her mother’s face, but her body came from her father’s side of the family. Though she hadn’t fully developed yet, it was clear she’d be the tallest. She was quick to smile but also beat the kids at school with a stick whenever they bugged her about being an ex-combatant’s daughter. She’d made it her mission to protect her baby sister, though there was no need: the girl knew how to get smoothly in or out of any situation with the other kids, and no one ever picked a fight with her. She was so friendly that the villagers even invited her into their homes whenever she was out and about in that area on her own. They served her coffee and fed her whatever they had lying around, just to hear her chat about things that were ordinary but became funny when she talked about them. She would sing and dance for them if asked, and even used to put on shows when there was no one around. She didn’t need an audience.
She couldn’t even picture the daughter in that other country, the one her neighbors had never met. Every time she’d spoken to her over the phone, it had been through an interpreter who—she suspected—changed what her daughter said. Now and then he went quiet and then said he didn’t know how to translate the words her daughter had just spoken. The girl’s tone seemed distant and a little bitter. The interpreter said that compared to her youngest daughter, anyone’s tone would seem distant and bitter. He said it was also down to the language, that the people from the country where she lived sounded like that, especially over the phone, so she shouldn’t feel confused or jump to any conclusions. She would try not to and would then find herself unexpectedly wondering if her daughter in France was like her other daughters, who, after a certain age, couldn’t even go out to buy bread without painted nails and perfect hair.
If so, she must have taken after her—even in wartime, tucked away in the mountains, she always had her hair done up nicely. At one of the villages they’d visited, she managed to get hold of a bunch of colorful hair ties that stood out against her uniform. The people who’d taken care of them in return for their help had asked what she needed, what she wanted. So she’d told them.
Whenever the supply sergeant asked if she needed anything, she always requested pastel-colored panties, like the ones she was given by a foreigner who’d come to see them at the camp. But they always gave her the simplest of black pairs and scolded her for being vain at a time when the country needed full commitment from each and every one of them. They said this commitment meant making appropriate use of the funds their compañeros in the political sector had gotten hold of, and not spending them on trifles. She countered that her being in the mountains at all was better proof of her commitment than the panties she wanted, and that she needed a really good pair if she was going to stay. She also said she needed bras. Before then, at home, she’d looked down her nose at those contraptions, unable to see the point. But with time and the way her body had developed, she came to need them, especially for running. Being men, they wouldn’t understand, but they could go ahead and ask any woman in her situation.
They must have done just that, because a few days later they gave her two good-quality black bras with a little ornament on them that she played with whenever she had time on her hands. Her greatest treasure, which she kept in her rucksack, was a small mirror given to her by her aunt, who knew her well and understood her needs. She’d sent it via her husband, who’d taken a while to get it to her because they kept missing each other in the camps and mission areas.
This and, later, her fondness for skin creams gave her a reputation in the camps for being a flirt. The men teased her, while the women got her whatever they could to spoil her. She was everyone’s girl.
Her father was the only one who didn’t give in to her whims. She always got fewer things and shabbier clothing when he was in charge of supplies. Her father loved her, but he couldn’t risk being accused of playing favorites. He’d never be forgiven for it. She understood and didn’t once complain. Instead, she picked flowers to make herself look prettier, for which he scolded her. He said it could expose her, ruining the effect of the camo uniforms, which had been so hard to get hold of, especially in her size.
That had upset her. She said she was tired of living that way and wanted to go home, to her mom and her old life. She also told him she didn’t see the point of what they were doing in the mountains. Her father called her a coward, saying, I wish I were your age… I’d fight so hard for us all to be equal.
She felt ashamed of how he saw her. From then on, she only clipped flowers to wear on the days she stayed in the camp.
They couldn’t shake her concern with her looks, not through lectures or through reduced rations. Even when she was forced to get a boyish haircut as punishment, she found a way to wear it more stylishly than anyone else. And when the moment came to sign the peace agreement and come down from the mountains, she used the stipend they gave her to buy skin creams and makeup in the village market.
She only stopped trying to buy or get hold of these things when her daughters started wanting and needing them. Since they didn’t have enough money to cover it all, she gave up her share so they could look after their skin and their hair, so they could do their nails and smell of their favorite flowers.
She was sure that if her daughter in that other country was anything like them, she would appreciate a scented present. They’d told her there were excellent perfumes where her daughter lived so she shouldn’t bother taking one. But she insisted on getting her daughter one from here, with flowers that only grew in this part of the world. A small bottle, which the woman at airport security emptied right in front of her because, ever since a man in another country had been found with an explosive substance in a water bottle, liquids weren’t allowed on flights.
The interpreter thought it was for the best. Considering the pain it had caused her, he thought losing her gift to a stranger in uniform was better than having to watch her daughter reject it to her face. Of course, he didn’t mention this to her. He tried to explain that anti-terrorism laws had affected flight regulations, that it wasn’t about her or her past, and that it wasn’t fate either. The universe wasn’t trying to tell her anything. He asked her to relax and assured her they’d find something over there to give her daughter. Maybe flowers. He knew there were very lovely ones at that time of year, on her daughter’s side of the world. Not as lovely or fresh as the ones she’d worn in the camps, since these other flowers were grown in greenhouses, but really pretty ones, good enough for her reunion with her daughter. They could also tell her daughter that they’d tried to bring her something. He said he was sure she’d be as grateful as if she’d actually gotten it.
6
They’ve told her that her faraway daughter is often depressed, and—to soothe any feelings of guilt—that she’s been like this since before she discovered she had a different mother from the one who raised her. That this other mother had been searching for her for years. That she had found her with the help of an organization founded
by a priest. And that after hearing the girl couldn’t travel to the country where she and her sisters lived, she was on her way to see her. She’s never heard of anyone on her side suffering from depression. She doesn’t even know what it is. They explain that it’s sort of like an illness, strong bursts of sadness that make people cry and cry or leave them paralyzed for days, weeks, months, or years. This is something she can’t understand. It doesn’t strike her as the kind of condition someone conceived in the hills should have. She has trouble imagining what might have happened if one of her compañeros in the camp had gotten this illness. That person wouldn’t have survived the war. They wouldn’t have made it through one battle. Had they found the wrong daughter? Her father wasn’t like that, or her mother, or any of her siblings. The girl’s father, despite everything she had against him, couldn’t have been described that way either.
The evidence didn’t lie. The girl—already grown up—was her daughter, even if the girl didn’t like the idea one bit. The proof was categorical. The lab that had analyzed the mouth swab she had submitted, reluctantly and after a lot of pleading and visits from the priest’s local investigators, showed a ninety-nine percent match with her mother’s.
Other lost children would have been gladdened by the news or the mere possibility of it. But not her. She burst into tears. She didn’t have room for a third mother. She had more than she could manage with the French woman who’d raised her and the biological mother who’d died in battle in a country she had no memory of, as they’d told her when she asked why she didn’t look like the French woman or her husband if she was their daughter and had lived in their house for as long as she could remember. This newfound, dusky woman couldn’t hope to take the place of her dead mother or compete with her living, light-skinned one. Nor was she happy about the idea of being taken from the country where she lived to one she wasn’t sure she’d like and whose language she didn’t speak or have any interest in learning.
They assured her that no one was trying to take her away from the country that had become her home. She was of age. It was her choice whether to stay where she’d grown up or move to where she’d been born. It was also her choice whether to keep going by the name she’d been given at adoption or reclaim the one her mother had given her at birth. Nobody was forcing her to do anything. They just wanted to bring families together, to allow those who’d been forcibly separated to see each other, and to bring peace of mind to a woman who’d had no respite since the day they took her girl from her arms. She couldn’t possibly deny her that. Once they had met, she could get on with her life, if she wanted to. Whether she occasionally called or wrote was up to her. Whether she visited or allowed her to come see her again was also her decision. All they asked was that she give them a chance, and that she show some mercy to another human being.
The word mercy meant little to her. She hadn’t been raised Catholic, or had any other religious upbringing. She wasn’t curious either. When she finally agreed it was at the request of her French mother, who thought they should do it to shed some light on matters. She wanted to show the woman that she’d meant no harm. She’d bought the girl because she’d always wanted a daughter. The nuns who sold her and then took her to the city had known as much. They also knew the woman was good for the money: she’d already bought two other children—three and seven years old—with cash, to complete the family she hadn’t been able to give birth to.
It was a good house, too. With their teachers’ salary, they’d given those little kids the best home they could, with holidays and an education they wouldn’t have had in their places of birth. The kids were aware of this and grateful for it. They didn’t want to break her heart, but they did a little when they asked the investigators who came for their sister if their fathers and mothers might not be looking for them, too. If they’d been sold by the same nuns, their own families might be in the same situation as the family of the girl they’d always known as a sister.
They were sorry to say it wasn’t so. After examining their files, they confirmed that their families really had died during the war. They weren’t guerrillas, like their sister’s parents. They also weren’t from the same region. The eldest brother was from the north. The second one was from the central zone. Had it not been for the woman who’d adopted them and reared them together, they would never have met, nor would they have met the girl who is now their sister. She was from the east. If she’d stayed where she was meant to be, she’d have grown up in a village whose main street led to a hill.
They asked them to at least look for their uncles, aunts, and cousins. There must be some relative who was still alive and wondering whether they were, too, or what had become of them. The investigators promised to look into it, to keep trying. They’d let them know if they came across any leads. They’d put them on a waiting list, which—and they weren’t lying—was too long for what little personnel they had and their almost nonexistent budget. They asked the kids to pitch in with their sister, who didn’t consider herself quite as fortunate as they did. They would have liked to at least know their other names. She, on the other hand, didn’t like her given name. It was too Catholic for her taste, too guerrilla. In French, it lacked charm and sounded flat. Had she kept it, she would’ve been the butt of every joke at school. Her biological mother, in turn, thought it the most beautiful name in the world. It was the sum total of all her beliefs. Of course, she didn’t call her by that name, but by the name chosen by her new family, even though she didn’t like it. It sounded strange to her ear. It evoked nothing. She couldn’t even pronounce it properly. The interpreter had tried teaching her over and over. It was as if her mouth refused to accept it.
Daughter, she called her. The girl didn’t like it. She’d rather she called her by her name, even if she pronounced it wrong. She chose to refer to her other mother as Madame. It was more distant, and always polite. They couldn’t accuse her of being impolite.
None of them did, though they all thought it. They thought, too, that she could’ve been warmer, even though, as she’d explained, she considered her mother a stranger. She thought she was doing her best. Or indeed that she was doing more than Madame deserved, since no matter what she said and what stories she told, the fact was she’d abandoned her. No one could get that notion out of her head. She wondered what must’ve happened to her, or what she might’ve done that drove her to it. The investigators said it had been because of the war. Her brothers told her she should focus on the fact that the woman had, after all, traveled through time to make amends, and that it might be worth hearing her out before coming to conclusions. The investigators wouldn’t give her any more information. They said that some of the things she wanted to know should come straight from her mother’s mouth. They could only help by translating, nothing more. The eldest of the brothers said he’d go with her and help her figure out if the investigators were deceiving her or altering the story. He didn’t speak Spanish anymore, but he could still understand it pretty well. Of course, certain words might go over his head, but he could get the gist of it and then work out what he’d missed, especially seeing as the investigators had told them her mother was a simple woman. At school, she’d only gotten as far as first grade.
The adoptive parents are scared. The mother is worried they’ll take the girl from her, separate them, move her far away. The father thinks the biological mother will want money from them or from the girl, who can barely manage with her own expenses. She gets so depressed that she never lasts long in any of the underpaid jobs she’s hired to do. She could find a better job if she got some qualifications, as they’ve said she should, but she hasn’t paid them any mind. She didn’t want to keep studying like her brothers did. She hadn’t gotten into university. She hadn’t even tried. She said learning wasn’t for her, though it could have been if she’d tried harder, or could be if she changed her outlook and went now, and if she weren’t being hospitalized all the time on account of her depressive episodes. The woman hadn’t imagined, wh
en she brought the girl home, that she would cry more as an adult than as a baby. She’d been a very quiet child. A big sleeper with a big appetite, is what they were told when they got the call to say the girl had arrived at the orphanage run by the convent; she was available and the nuns thought they’d give her a good home. The nuns knew they were good people and would pay what they asked for the child. Now she wonders whether the biological mother might know this, too, and ask them for money.
Had things been different, they would have given her what she asked for. Their current circumstances didn’t allow it. Nor could they afford a lawsuit, should the biological mother decide to take that route. What would they say about their actions? They didn’t think a jury would be convinced by the simple answers they’d given their adoptive children when they asked, Why from the same country? So you’d have something in common. So you’d look alike, even if you didn’t look like you were ours. Why that country? Because it was the fastest and most straightforward. No paperwork, no complications. You paid and got a baby. They even let some people choose. They’d never asked about their return policy but had assumed an exchange would have been possible if things hadn’t worked out or if it seemed like the best option for everyone involved. Why them? Luck. Or chance. Whatever they wanted to call it. They’d never even seen pictures of them. They’d never gone to that war-torn country because it had been at war and because they hadn’t had money enough to travel as well as pay for the children’s adoption and provide them with the quality of life they’d enjoyed. They knew they weren’t rich. They did their best to make ends meet. They’d set a lot aside so they could have them.
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