Lost Children Archive

by Valeria Luiselli

  § CLIPPING / PHOTOGRAPH

  Geronimo and fellow prisoners on their way to Florida, September 10, 1886

  § BOOK

  Le goût de l’archive, Arlette Farge

  § LOOSE NOTE

  Euphemisms hide, erase, coat.

  Euphemisms lead us to tolerate the unacceptable. And, eventually, to forget.

  Against a euphemism, remembrance. In order to not repeat.

  Remember terms and meanings. Their absurd disjointedness.

  Term: Our Peculiar Institution. Meaning: slavery. (Epitome of all euphemisms.)

  Term: Removal. Meaning: expulsion and dispossession of people from their lands.

  Term: Placing Out. Meaning: expulsion of abandoned children from the East Coast.

  Term: Relocation. Meaning: confining people in reservations.

  Term: Reservation. Meaning: a wasteland, a sentence to perpetual poverty.

  Term: Removal. Meaning: expulsion of people seeking refuge.

  Term: Undocumented. Meaning: people who will be removed.

  § LOOSE NOTE / QUOTE

  On Saturday, November 19, 2002, sixty people incarcerated in a camp for illegal immigrants sew their lips together. Sixty people with their lips sewn reel around the camp, gazing at the sky. Small muddy stray dogs scamper after them, yapping shrilly. The authorities keep postponing consideration of their applications for leave to remain.

  —FROM BELLADONNA, BY DAŠA DRNDIĆ

  § LOOSE NOTE

  Words, words, words, where do you put them?

  Exodus

  Diaspora

  Genocide

  Ethnic cleansing

  § BOOK

  Belladonna, by Daša Drndić

  § SCRAP / POEM

  CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

  HISTORIES

  Outside our window, the sky had got red and pink and orange the way the sky in the desert always gets before the sun comes out, before it suddenly turns blue, which is a natural phenomenon you wouldn’t understand now even if I explained it.

  I climbed out of bed and quietly packed all my useful stuff in my backpack. I had a lot of useful stuff I got because I had turned ten years old the day we started the trip. As a birthday present, you made me a card that said, Today I will always love you more than yesterday. Though only I could make out your terrible spelling, which was probably something like, Tday I wll owaz lov you mre than yustrday. I put that in my backpack. Pa gave me a Swiss Army knife, a pair of binoculars, a flashlight, and a small compass, and Ma gave me my camera. I put all those things in my backpack. Then I realized that Ma’s sound recorder, her big map, and the little red book were still lying on the bedside table, I’d forgotten to put them back in the car the night before. So I just put them in my backpack, too.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen and got two bottles of water and a lot of snacks. Also, at the last minute, I decided to take a small map that came with the house and that I’d found earlier in a basket next to the door. That map was called Map of Continental Divide Trail, and it included the walking trails in the Burro Mountains area, so it could come in handy. Finally, I emptied your backpack on the floor behind the bed, and put only The Book with No Pictures back in. I didn’t want to pack anything else in your backpack because I knew if it was too heavy, I’d end up carrying it for you.

  Out our window, I noticed that the sun was just coming up from behind the mountains, and so I hurried to wake you up. I woke you up nicely, Memphis. You hated being woken up loudly or too fast. You smiled, sleepy-eyed, then said you were thirsty. So I tiptoed quickly back to the kitchen, poured you a glass of milk, and fast-walked back to our room holding the glass a bit away from me and making sure not to spill. You sat up on the bed and gulped the milk down. When you handed the empty glass back to me, I told you, hurry, get up, we’re going on an adventure and I have a surprise for you. You got up, refused to get out of your nightgown and get properly dressed, but you at least put on a pair of jeans under your nightgown, and socks, and your good shoes, and we walked out of the room, very quiet, and then out to the porch.

  The morning felt warm and full of stories, like the ones Pa told us. We walked out onto the Continental Divide Trail, went down the steep hill from the house toward the dry creek. And when we reached the creek, you stopped to look up toward the house, and asked if Ma and Pa had given us permission to walk this far, all alone. I told you a lie I had already planned. I told you yes, Pa and Ma had given us permission to go explore on our own. I said they’d told me that you and I had to go and find more echoes, all the way in Echo Canyon. Really? you said. And for a moment I worried you weren’t going to believe this story. Yes, I told you, Ma and Pa said so. And they also said they’d catch up with us later in Echo Canyon.

  After thinking about it for a moment, you finally said, that’s so nice of Ma and Pa. And that’s the surprise you had for me, Swift Feather! Right? Yes, exactly, I said, and I felt relieved that you had gone along with it, but it also made me feel a little guilty that you believed anything I said.

  We walked in silence for a while, the way street dogs walk together like they’re on a mission, the way all dogs walk in packs like they’re on a mission. We weren’t a pack, it was just you and me, but it still felt like that, and I howled like a dog-wolf, and you howled back at me, and I knew we were going to have fun on our own. I thought then that even if we got lost forever and Ma and Pa never found us, we would at least still be together, which was better than being separated from each other.

  STORIES

  It wasn’t even noon when you said you were starving and hot, because the sun wasn’t even right on top of us. But I didn’t want you to get too tired too quick, so I said, time for a picnic. I chose a shady spot and we put our backpacks under a small tree. I realized I’d forgotten to bring a cloth to sit on. But I told you that Apache children needed no cloths or anything, they would sit right on the ground, and you agreed. We ate some of our snacks and drank a little water, three gulps each from our bottles.

  I studied my Continental Divide Trail map, like Ma studied her map, and I knew we were probably near a place called Mud Springs under the Sugarloaf Mountain and had to walk toward Spring Canyon and then Pine Canyon. I was in control of the situation and proud to be able to follow a map as well as Mama did. Then I asked you if you wanted me to read you a bit from the story of the lost children, not because I really wanted to read to you but because I wanted to know what came next in the story. But you said no thanks, very politely, maybe later.

  BEGINNINGS

  We started walking again, one behind the other like we formed part of a line, and we walked for so long, talking about how we’d find echoes. You kept on coming up with ideas about how to trap echoes and said, if only we still had that glass jar that was empty where we trapped the dragonfly back some days ago.

  I don’t know exactly when, but suddenly I thought, perhaps now we are actually lost, and I told you, Memphis, maybe we’re lost. And I felt excited but also a little worried. We turned around, but we couldn’t make out anything except the same rocky hills and desert woodland everywhere in front of and behind us. When I noticed that you looked worried, but not too worried, I said, this is all part of the plan, trust me. And you nodded, and asked for water, and we drank so much, we finished our two bottles.

  The cowpath rose and fell along the creek. We stopped to look back and look forward, trying to look at it like our parents would look at a path and know how much longer and how much farther. You kept on asking how much farther, how many more blocks, which is also what you would ask Ma and Pa in the car on the way here and it would make them giggle and would make me annoyed. This time, though, I understood why it was a little bit funny for a serious question, but I didn’t laugh or giggle,
and took you seriously and just said, one more uphill one more downhill and then we’ll get there, though really I had no idea, even though I’d studied the map so hard. I started to get really worried suddenly, and thought we should maybe turn back.

  NARRATIVE ARC

  Finally, when the sun was a little lower, we noticed the creek next to the path had a bit of water and we rushed down to wet our mouths and drank the water though it was green and slimy on our tongues. We took off our shoes also and walked on the watery stones, feeling the fresh and the slipperyness.

  We called for Ma and Pa now and then, but our voices got drowned in the air as soon as we cried out. Not an echo, not anything. That’s when we really realized, like inside our stomachs, that we’d got lost. We called Mama, Papa, louder and louder, and there were no echoes, and we tried other words like saguaro, Geronimo, but nothing came back.

  We were alone, alone completely, much more alone than we sometimes felt we were at night when the lights got turned off and the door got shut. I started to have thoughts of many bad things with each step we took. And later, I thought nothing but looked around us for wild beasts, thinking if the beasts found us, they would notice we were lost and attack us. Nothing around us looked familiar, and when you asked the name of that tree, that bird, that kind of cloud, I just said, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

  Once, when we were still all in the car together, we had said yes when Ma said if you ever get lost, can you promise me you will know how to find us again? I promised, yes, Mama, of course. But I never really thought after that question how I would keep that promise—not until now. And I kept on thinking as we walked maybe back to them, maybe farther away from them, how will I keep my promise and how will we find them again? But it was impossible to concentrate on this problem because our boots on the gravel along the dry cowpath beside the creek made a sound like teeth grinding cereal, which was distracting and also made me hungry. The sun was hitting us in the forehead now through the short trees, and the white wind blowing brought so many worldsounds, it made us scared. Sounds like a thousand toothpicks falling on the ground, sounds like old ladies scratching in their handbags for things they never find, sounds like someone hissing at us from under a bed. Black birds were making triangles and then lines and then again triangles above us in the sky and I thought maybe they were trying to make arrows and pointing us someplace, but no, who could ever trust birds? Only eagles were to be trusted. Next to a big rock, I decided we should stop and rest a little.

  ALLEGORY

  If I concentrated, I could picture all of it in my head, Echo Canyon, a large shimmering plain on a hill, and there, our parents waiting for us, probably angry but also happy to see us again. But all I could see in the very far distance were many hills and the up and the down of the path, and beyond it, the high mountains above the gray haze. Behind me always was the sound of your little steps grinding the gravel and also your moaning, your worrying, your thirst and hunger. When night began to fall and I was feeling worried, I remembered that story about the Siberian girl and her dog, which had kept her safe and then rescued her. I told you I wished we had a dog. And you said, yuck, no. And then after a little silence, you said, well, maybe yes.

  Once, still with Pa and Ma, we’d walked into a secondhand store, which is something Ma loves to do even if she never buys anything, and we’d seen an old dog dozing, looking like a cozy rug spread out on the floor. We’d gone to pet it while Papa looked at things and Ma talked to the shop owner, which she also loves to do in small shops. And I petted the dog and talked to it and you started asking the dog really funny questions, like, would you rather be taller, would you rather be orange, would you want to be a giraffe instead of a dog, would you love to eat leaves, would you rather live out in the wild like next to the river? And I could swear under oath that every time you asked a question like that, the dog nodded, saying yes, saying yes, yes to every question. So when we were in the river walking on those slippery green rocks, I thought of the dog and thought that if it was here with us, we might not be scared ever at all. Even when the night fell later, it would be okay because we’d have the dog to cuddle with, and you would curl up under its leg and I would spoon it on the other side only keeping my mouth shut to not get hairs on my tongue, which would make me gag. And if at night we heard other dogs barking in faraway ranches in the valley, or if we thought we heard wolves howl up in the mountains, or sidewinder snakes slithering on the ground toward us, we would not be frightened, would not have to crawl under fences or hold rocks in our hands while we slept.

  I took out my Continental Divide Trail map to study it once more and memorize the route. We had to reach a place called Jim Courten Ranch, then go past the Willow Tank, and the Still Tank, and then the Big Tank, and I knew we would find water in the tanks, so I wasn’t worried. After the last tank, it was not a long walk to the first real town, which was Lordsburg, and we’d have to pass the Davis Windmill and then the Myers Windmill, and as long as we passed those windmills, I’d know we hadn’t lost our way completely. Once we passed the last windmill, there would be a cemetery, and then finally Lordsburg. There we would find a train station and jump on a train, although this part I didn’t have so well planned out yet. I was trying to explain all this to you, and you just nodded and said okay, and then you asked if I could read a little bit to you while there was still some light and promised not to fall asleep and to keep me company. So I opened my backpack to get Ma’s red book, shook it inside the backpack so that the pictures would slide out, and then took it out to read this to you:

  (THE SEVENTH ELEGY)

  The mountain train came to a final halt in a large open yard surrounded by smoldering factory sites, half-abandoned, and empty storage bodegas. There was no one and nothing inside the buildings around the yard, except for a few owls and cats and families of rats scavenging for scraps of earlier days. The children were told to get off. They’d have to wait there for the next train to pass, the man in charge said. Two, maybe three nights, maybe four. He knew, but did not tell them, this was halfway, they had made it halfway already. Had they known, they would have felt some relief, perhaps. The only thing the man in charge did tell them was that what would follow was the desert, and that the next train would not stop, would only slow down a little to change tracks, so while they waited, they’d practice train-jumping, memorize instructions, learn to jump aboard a moving train, unless they wanted to be crushed under its wheels.

  During the days that they waited, whenever the man in charge was gone or was asleep, one of the boys took out a map he had been given earlier along the route. He’d unfold it, spread it out on the gravel, and another boy would light it, striking matches. The other children sat around it like it was a bonfire. They studied it, smiled at sonorous names, halted before names unlikely, repeated names strange or beautiful, and finally a foreign name, right on the other side of the thick red line. Pressing his index finger against the crumpled piece of paper, the boy drew a line from that name into the desert plains and valleys between two mountains, a line that ended in a town, another strange name. The boy said:

  Here. Here is where we walk to, and here is where we jump on the next train.

  And then? another boy asked.

  What next? asked a girl.

  Then we’ll see what happens next.

  The night sky above the train yard, quiet and black, could be overlaid with many thoughts: thoughts of before and especially thoughts of the future beyond. Looking up into the dark, one of the littler ones, the fourth boy, whispered this question into the eldest one’s ear:

  How do you imagine it, across the desert, after we cross it, the big city I’m going to?

  The older one thought for a second and told him there would be one long iron bridge hanging over blue waters that were still and smooth. He would not cross this river in floaters, not cross this bridge aboard train tops, but in a good car. All around
him would be beautiful cars, all of them new, each moving slowly and in an orderly way across this bridge. There would be great buildings made of glass rising up to meet him.

  When the older boy paused for breath, the little one asked:

  And then?

  And then he tried to imagine further, but he could not picture anything and could only think back to the putrid jungle, aboard the blue roof of the old gondola, his thoughts like an ocean receding, accumulating destruction and fear in a great wave. In his mind, the impeccable future, the summoned waters, smooth and still, flooded suddenly with the brown wave of earlier rivers, and is covered with the debris of creepers and vines crawling under dark tunnels, like the ones carved into the high mountains he saw from the roof of the brick-red gondola.

  He made an effort to retain the thought of glass buildings and gleaming cars but saw only ruins, imagined only the liquid sound of millions of hearts pumping blood into veins, pumping hearts of wild men and women, all throbbing at the same time under city ruins. He could almost hear them, a dozen million hearts pulsing, pumping, palpitating in that future city in some ways identical to the dark jungle they had left behind. He raised his hands to his head and placed his index and middle fingers on his temples, locating the beat of his heart thrusting blood there, feeling the waves of thoughts relentless, and the fears forming slowly there, crashing against some deeper unknown place.