Lost Children Archive

by Valeria Luiselli

  I had to choose between walking toward the back of the train, across only a couple of gondolas, or walk around ten gondolas toward the front.

  Ma had a silly superstition, which was that when we rode trains or subways, she’d never sit on a seat that faced the back of the train. She thought that facing backward on a train was bad luck. I always told her I thought her superstition was ridiculous, and unscientific, but one day I started doing the same thing, just in case. Ma’s superstitions were like that, they were contagious. You and I, for example, collected pennies we found on the sidewalk and put them inside our shoes, like she did. We didn’t miss a single penny. Once I got into trouble at school because I was walking strangely, limping across the classroom all day, and the teacher made me take off my shoe, and she found like fifteen pennies in there. At pickup time, when she told Ma what had happened, Ma told her she would talk to me about it, but then, when we were far enough down the block, she congratulated me and said in all her life she’d never met a more serious and professional penny collector.

  I decided to head toward the front of the train and slowly started walking on the roof of the gondola where I’d slept. The train wasn’t moving that fast, but it was still difficult to walk there, it was true that it felt like walking on the spine of an enormous worm or a beast. I wasn’t too far from the edge of the first gondola, and when I reached it, I decided not to try to jump to the other gondola, like the lost children did sometimes, which may have been cowardly of me, but who would even know. I stood there, looking down at the gravel that was moving underneath the train like a fast-forwarded movie, and had to sit down for a moment on the edge to catch my breath, because my heart was beating hard inside my chest but also inside my throat and head, and maybe also my stomach. After a little while, I still felt my heart everywhere, but I took a last deep breath, and then inched on my butt toward the ladder in the right-hand corner of the gondola’s rooftop, put my feet on the second step, turned my whole body around until I felt the hot edge of the roof pressing against my chest, slid down a tiny bit more, holding on tight to the sides of the ladder, and finally started climbing down, slowly, toward the connecting platform. The whole beast rocked from side to side as it moved forward, and it rocked especially hard on the connecting platforms.

  The first few gondolas were very difficult. I walked across the roofs, taking slow steps and opening my legs apart for balance, like I was a walking compass. When the train jerked and I lost balance, I let myself fall to my knees and crawled the rest of the way. The sounds the train made were scary, like it was about to fall into pieces. When I reached the edge of a gondola and was either on my knees or on all fours and looked down to the connecting platform, I could see in my mind the face of the seventh boy, and I was afraid to see his body sweeping past underneath me, even though I knew he wasn’t going to be there. But at the same time, when I reached the edge of a gondola, I got hopeful, then I looked down to the connecting platform, and it was empty.

  I don’t know how many gondolas I crossed, I don’t know for how long, it was so hot and I was getting desperate, and especially I was dizzy, maybe trainsick, because everything looked blurry and tilted, and I felt like throwing up except there was nothing to throw up.

  I don’t know how to explain it to you, what I suddenly felt when I reached the end of one of the gondolas and was about to sit on the edge and repeat the same looking down, inching, turning, climb-downing, but then I saw something beneath me, on the connecting platform, first a heap of colors like rags bundled together, but then I focused and made out feet, legs, body, head, all curled up into a ball. I screamed so loud: Memphis! Memphis!

  You didn’t hear me, of course, because of the sound of the train. I realized then it was so loud, much louder than my voice, and also the wind was blowing in my face and snatched my words right out of my mouth, and they flew backward toward the caboose. But I had found you, Memphis. I was right, and my dream was right! You are so damn smart! More than smart, you are wise and ancient, like the Eagle Warriors.

  I had found you, and I was so out of my mind and felt so strong and fearless that I forgot all about the dizziness. I started climbing down the ladder to you too fast and almost slipped, but I didn’t. I made it all the way down and stepped on the last step, then put my two feet down on the connecting platform, and took a few steps to kneel down next to you. You were fast asleep like nothing had happened, like you always knew everything was gonna be all right. I wanted to shout in your ear and wake you up, saying something like Found! Like we’d been playing hide-and-seek all along. But I decided to wake you up gently, instead. I crawled around you and sat with my backpack resting against the metal wall of the gondola. Your head was touching my leg. Then I lifted your head slowly with my two hands and slipped my leg under it, and it felt like the world was coming back together.

  I realized that I was riding backward on the train now, and shadows, haystacks, fences, and bushes kept sweeping past me, shocking me a bit each time, but I decided not to care about it, ’cause I’d found you, so there was no way that riding backward could mean bad luck this time, right now. I scratched your head a bit, your wild curls all tangled, until you opened your eyes, and looked at me sideways. You didn’t smile but said, hello there, Swift Feather Ground Control. So I said, hello there, Major Tom Memphis.

  SPACE

  When you finally sat up, you asked me where I’d been. I lied and said I was just out getting food and water. Your eyes opened wider and you said you wanted some, too, so I had to say I hadn’t found any yet. Then you asked where we were, how many more hours or blocks to Echo Canyon, and I told you we were almost there. To distract you for a while, I suggested we could climb up to the roof of the gondola together and play the name game, said if you could spot any saguaros, I’d pay you a penny for each. But you said, no, I’m thirsty, my stomach is burning, and then flopped down again like a dog, your head on my leg. The train moved on, and we were quiet for a while, and I rubbed your belly, making circles with my hand, clockwise, the way Ma did when we had bellyaches.

  Finally, the train stopped. You sat up again and I tiptoed to the edge of the connecting platform. Holding on to the wall of the gondola, I leaned out to check if I could see anything, and I did. There was a bench, and behind it a small ice-cream stand, which was closed. But between the ice-cream stand and the bench was a sign, and it said Bowie. I looked back at you and said, this is it, Memphis, here is where we get off! You didn’t move, you just looked at me with your black eyes, and asked me how come I knew we had to get off at this place. I said, I just know, that’s the plan, trust me. But you shook your head. So then I said, remember, Memphis, Bowie is the author of our favorite song. You shook your head again. So then I told you the only thing I actually knew, which was that Bowie was the place where Geronimo and his band were forced to get on a train that deported them someplace far away, and Pa had told us about it. You didn’t shake your head this time, maybe because you also remembered that, but you didn’t get up or move either. So I had to make up the rest of the explanation, said Pa had told me that to get to Echo Canyon, we first had to jump off the train in Bowie.

  He said that? you asked. I nodded. You got up and walked to the edge of the connecting platform, dragging your backpack behind you. I jumped off and helped you down, and then helped you put on your backpack. The gravel was hard and hot under our feet, and though we weren’t moving anymore, it felt like we still were, like we were still on the train. We walked over to the bench and sat down, with our backpacks on our backs. Just a few seconds later, the train whistle sounded and slowly the train took off again. I wasn’t sure if we should be glad we’d got off in time or if we had messed up, and before I’d made up my mind, you asked again where Echo Canyon was. So I took my backpack off my back and took Ma’s big road map out, and you asked, what are you doing, and I said, shhh, wait, let me study the map for a moment.

  I con
centrated hard, looking for names I recognized. After a while, I found the name Bowie and the names Chiricahua Mountains and Dragoon Mountains all in the same fold in Ma’s enormous map, so I knew at least we had to be looking at that fold. From Bowie, I finger-walked a route down south, across the big dry valley, and then east to the Chiricahuas, but also I realized that the walk was longer that I’d imagined.

  I told you, okay, we have to get up and walk a little more now. You looked at me like I had punched you in the belly. First, your eyes got teary, a red line around the bottom edge. But you held in the tears and you looked at me with a kind of crazy look, full of angry thoughts. I knew it was coming, and it did. You had a meltdown. No, no, Swift Feather! you shouted, sitting up from the bench. Your voice was trembling, roaring. And then you said, Jesus Fucking Christ, and I almost laughed but I didn’t because I could tell you were being serious about this and using the expression like an adult, that you finally understood it, or maybe had understood it all along. You told me I was the most terrible guide, and a terrible brother, that you would not move until Ma and Pa came to find us there. You asked me why I had even gotten us here. I replied the way Ma and Pa used to, said something like, when you’re older, you’ll understand. That made you even more angry. You kept on screaming and kicking the gravel around. Until I stood up, too, and took you by the shoulders and told you that you had no choice, said I was all you had right now, so you could either accept that or stay on your own. You were probably right, I was a terrible brother, and even more terrible guide, not like Ma, Lucky Arrow, who could find anything and never get lost, and not like Papa Cochise, who always took us everywhere and kept us safe, but I didn’t say that part. I just looked you in the eyes, trying to look angry and at the same time kind, like they sometimes looked at us, until you finally wiped your face and said, fine, okay, fine, I trust you, though for a long time after that, you refused to look me in the eyes.

  LIGHT

  We walked along the train tracks for a while, and I had Ma’s big map under my arm and also now my compass on my palm. We passed a strange corral where men with shotguns dressed old-fashioned were either about to kill each other or acting out a scene. We didn’t stay to watch, but I thought I’d take a picture of them. When I reached into my backpack for the camera, I realized I had forgotten the little red book on the train. I thought I had put it back, but I hadn’t. At least I’d taken out my pictures from inside it; they were all in a mess in my backpack. I still took the picture, but this time I put it inside the folds of Ma’s map, then threw the map in the backpack and zipped it up.

  We walked a little farther and refilled our water bottles in a bathroom in an abandoned gas station, and also peed a few drops in a toilet with a broken seat, and then noticed that there was no roof above us. From there, we left the tracks and went south into the desert plain, following the compass. In the distance, we saw clouds.

  You gave me your hand, and I held it tight. We walked into the unreal desert, like the lost children’s desert, and under their blazing sun, you and me, over the tracks, and into the heart of light, like the lost children, walking alone together, but you and me holding hands, because I was never going to let go of your hand now.

  PART III

  Apacheria

  DUST VALLEYS

  During the hours after our children disappeared, my husband and I sped along back roads and across valleys: Animas, Sulphur Spring, San Simon. The light is blinding in those desert flats. Under the oppressive arch of their pristine skies, straights of land stretch long, their ground cracked and saline. And when the wind speeds across the dry lake beds, it wakes up the dust. Slender columns of sand spiral upward and move across the surface almost choreographically. Locals call them dust devils, but they look more like rags dancing.

  And as we drove past them, every dust rag looked like it could spiral the girl and boy back into existence. But no matter how hard we looked behind the whirling confusion of sand and dust, we found not our children but only more sand and dust.

  I had first realized they were not in their room in the morning, when I’d gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom and, as I often did in our old apartment, where we had separate rooms, I peeked into theirs to check on them. Their bed was empty, but I didn’t think much of it. I assumed they were outside the house we’d rented, were exploring the area, picking up stones and sticks, doing the things they usually do.

  I got back into bed, but I was unable to fall asleep again. I felt a kind of electric vacuum in my chest, and I should have listened to these early signals. But many mornings I had woken up with a similar feeling, and I interpreted those undercurrents of doubt and unease running through me as just a slight variation on an older, deeper anxiety. I read in bed for a while, as I’d taught myself to do from a young age whenever I felt unready to face the world, and I let the morning ripen, until the room was flooded with new light, and the air was thick with the steam of body vapors and the smell of warm sheets.

  In his bed next to mine, my husband shifted and rolled, his breathing becoming shallower until he finally awoke—with a startle, as he always does—wrenching himself out of bed with a sense of urgency and readiness that I’ve never understood or shared. He left the room, and then came back a few minutes later, asking where the children were. I said they were probably outside somewhere.

  But the children were not outside, not anywhere in the perimeter of the cottage.

  We explored the area around the cottage stupidly, clumsily, and still in a kind of disbelief, as if we were looking for a set of keys or a wallet. We looked under bushes, up in trees, under the car, opened the refrigerator more than once, turned the shower on, then off, and then went back outside, farther out into the valley and creek—what is our rescue distance now? I thought—calling out their names, our voices expanding in waves of horror, crashing, breaking, our screams more and more like the calls of apes, guttural, intestinal, visceral, desperate.

  What, where next?

  Next was all lumped together in an alternation of executive decisions and irrational turns. Shoes, keys, car, Twitter, phone calls, sister, Highway 10, breathe, think, Road 338, decide, follow the train tracks, don’t follow the train tracks, take back roads. The exact sequence of events is blurred in my memory. What did they know and what did we know? What did we think the boy would do in this circumstance? Where would he head to, once he realized he and his sister were lost? And the question most dreaded, which kept coming back, paralyzing my entire body:

  If they are lost in the desert, will they survive?

  After some hours of driving aimlessly, we headed to the Lordsburg police station, where a policeman took down our information and asked us for a description of the two children.

  Child one. Age: 5. Sex: Female. Eye color: Dark brown. Hair color: Brown.

  Child two. Age: 10. Sex: Male. Eye color: Hazel Brown. Hair color: Brown.

  We stayed in the waiting room of the police station until we were given directions to the nearest motel, where we could rest and wait and continue looking the day after. We took turns lying on the bed, though of course we did not sleep. Where would the boy decide to head once he knew they were lost?

  We spent the next morning and afternoon driving around the Lordsburg area, returning to the police station every few hours. But nothing seemed to be moving in any direction, so during the second night, taking turns lying down on the still-made motel bed, and perhaps sleeping in intervals of ten or twenty minutes, we decided that as soon as the sun rose the next day, while the police continued to search the area, we would drive farther west. We called the police station to tell them, and they took notes, gave us a few instructions.

  The children had been missing for almost forty hours when we climbed into the car again the next morning at sunrise. As a reflex, I opened the glove box to take out the map, but it wasn’t in its place, nor was my recorder. So I got out of the car again, opened
the trunk. I thought I’d look in my box for my map. Everything was out of place in the trunk, a mess. I called my husband over, and he came around to the back of the car to join me. My box was open. My map wasn’t there. Instead, at the top of the open box, there was a map, a map the boy had drawn by hand, and stuck on it was a Post-it note, saying: “Went out, will look for lost girls, meet you later at Echo Canyon.”

  We both stood next to the open trunk, looking down at the map and the note stuck on it, both holding on to the sheet of paper like it was a last bastion but also just trying to decipher what it meant. My husband said:

  Echo Canyon.

  What?

  They’re going to Echo Canyon.

  Why? How do you know?

  Because that’s what we’ve been telling them all this time, and that’s what the map shows, and that’s what the note says, that’s why.

  I was not convinced, despite the clarity with which the boy’s message spelled it out for us. I was not entirely reassured, despite my husband’s conviction. I was not relieved, though I should have been. There was, at least, somewhere we could drive toward, even if it may have been a mirage, even if we were following a map drawn by a ten-year-old boy. Immediately, we were back in the car, speeding in the direction of the Chiricahua Mountains.

  Why? Why did they leave? Why had I not seen the signs earlier? Why hadn’t I looked in the trunk sooner? Why were we here? And where were they?