“Get out of here, you morons!” to the three closest gawkers. They were not in the way, but the command helped Eva warm to her task. To another, “You? You want to make yourself useful? Get an ambulance. We’re going to the Med Center, stat.” Harvard Medical Center was nearby.
She pointed to a third student, a tall onlooker who had made the mistake of stopping to take in the excitement. “Give me your shirt,” she said.
“What?”
“Take off that ugly crimson shirt, you idiot.” Crimson was Harvard’s school color. “This woman needs something under her head. Give me your shirt or I’ll take it off you. Now!” The prospective donor started to laugh until he caught Eva’s glare. Then he stood, slack-jawed, a rodent in thrall to Eva’s unblinking python gaze. Without a word, he stripped and handed his shirt to Eva. The shirt was brand new, its bright white letters unsoiled. A single word, broken into three syllables, “Ve- Ri- Tas”, proclaimed the college’s commitment to truth. Eva tucked the shirt under Marta’s head.
Eva felt the presence of the half-naked donor and looked back up at him. His face twitched. An overpowering impulse welled up from the deep recesses of primal instinct and flooded him with one half of the fight-or-flight impulse. He ran.
The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later. The EMTs were calm and concerned. “Ma’am? Can you tell me what’s wrong,” one asked Marta. Marta didn’t respond. She was in thrall to the powerful contractions. This would be a fast labor.
Eva stepped forward and barked orders in a machine gun cadence that would please a drill sergeant. She kicked at one of the EMTs when he ignored her, concentrating instead on Marta. Her foot missed him but her message did not. She had the attendant’s full attention. She grabbed his elbow and pointed to the ground.
“Look. Blood in the amniotic fluid,” Eva said. She pointed to a dark spot where Marta’s water broke. “There. Now look at her. She’s starting contractions. This is going to be a precipitous delivery. She needs to get to the hospital. Stat. I’m going to ask you nicely, so we don’t upset the mother or the baby.”
Eva lowered her voice. The EMT leaned in to hear her whisper, “Get your ass in gear.” She stepped back and mustered up a sweet, schoolgirl-voice. “Please?”
The harried responders placed Marta on a stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance. Eva climbed in too. “You can’t ride in here,” one EMT said. “You can meet us at the hospital.”
The python returned.
“Sit over there and stay out of the way,” he relented.
Jim looked on helplessly. “I’ll meet you at the med center,” he said to the closed doors of the ambulance.
Inside the vehicle, Eva took charge. “Put her on her side.” Eva read the EMT’s ID glowpatch. “Barton Cornell? ID 5877? Listen. She’s having late-stage contractions. She needs to be on her side to avoid tearing.”
“Miss, would you let us do our jobs? I think we’ve handled more precipitous deliveries than you have.”
Marta spoke. “Eva? Can you help me? I need something from my plant kit.” Eva loosened a knot at the top of the leather pouch Marta wore around her neck. “Find a three-petaled flower. It was white when I picked it but it will be dried now and look more yellow.”
Eva moved with care. She held up a plant. Marta nodded and reached for the white trillium flower and began to chew it.
“Hey! You can’t give her anything. You’re not a doctor,” said Barton.
“And you’re not going to be a man if you get in my way. Just do your job and you get to keep all of your dangly bits intact.”
“Eva, you’re too much,” Marta chuckled, “but take it easy on these guys. They’re doing just fine...and so are you.” Then she bit down hard as she was wracked by another contraction. As she chewed the dried flowers, her face softened. “Does Jim know where to go? Eva can you link to Jim? I hope this baby waits for his father.”
Eva touched the small commdisc on her right cheekbone. Eva could be heard when she raised her voice, unusual for her, but she was excited by Marta’s birth in a way that no one would have predicted. The child would have an ally and mentor.
Eva’s voice punctuated the siren’s wail. Snippets of her side of the conversation could be heard in the ambulance. “...you bet your ass” “...no, she’s going to be fine!” “...Harvard Med Center...” “... don’t care how...” “...your child.” She fired her words more than she spoke them.
“He’s on his way. It’ll take him fifteen minutes to get to the hospital,” Eva reported.
Marta and Eva reached the hospital and Jim joined them a few minutes later. Eva commandeered a gurney for Marta and pulled her past registration, pausing long enough to transmit Marta’s data to an admissions pillar. The two EMTs looked at each other and shrugged. Six minutes later, Marta was gowned and heading into a birthing suite. Two hours later, the baby crowned. Eighteen minutes more, and Dana Rafael Ecco wailed his way into the breathing world.
“You’ve got a boy, Ms. Cruz. He sure was in a hurry,” said the obstetrician.
The lusty strength of his first cry impressed the physician—“a very healthy baby”, he pronounced, and it gladdened his mother as she sobbed with relief.
The baby’s sheer volume impressed Eva. “Now that’s a set of pipes,” she said.
The new father was still working through the day’s events and could only manage, “Why is he so...slimy?”
Marta held 8 pounds, 2 ounces of red and wrinkled life, 21 inches of fragile humanity—proof of love between a man learning to temper his anger and a woman learning to thrive despite her disabilities, proof of the cycle of life, proof of all of the hopes for the future.
11
___________________________________________
RAFAEL
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
MCALLEN, TEXAS
REYNOSA. TAMAULIPAS. MEXICO
AUGUST. 2030
Thirty-six hours after Marta Cruz served her father dessert, the Mexican Federal Police arrested Rafael at the border crossing in Reynosa.
Marta’s signature dessert was lemon curd with rosemary and it crowned Rafael’s last homemade meal. She kept a row of herbs by a south-facing kitchen window and used the savory plant in her cooking and as a compress for her rheumatism. She knew better than to try to grow lemons in New England, even in a window box, and used bottled lemon juice in the recipe. Marta fretted that she had no fresh lemons, but Rafael approved.
His arrival in Cambridge was unannounced. “Dad!” was the only word she could manage when she opened the door to her father. The two clung to each other without speaking for two long minutes. Tears polished their faces. Jim attempted to take Rafael’s single small bag, but his father-in-law kept it. “No te preocupes. No es pesado.” Don’t worry, it’s not heavy.
“We’re happy to see you, sir,” Jim temporized while Marta regained her composure. “You look like you’ve been hard on the road. What can I get you?”
“Cerveza, por favor, si tienes.” Beer, if you have.
Jim opened two bottles of Red Stripe and a club soda for Marta. Rafael frowned briefly at the Jamaican ale, declined a glass, then smiled and clapped his son-in-law on the shoulder. “Gracias, muchacho.” If Jim took offense at the diminutive, he gave no indication.
“Dónde está Dana?” Rafael demanded jovially, then switched to English for Jim’s benefit, “I want to meet my grandchild. I have yet to bounce this child on my knee.”
“Dad, I wish you’d linked ahead. The most beautiful baby ever created is sleeping now. Come with me, but your bouncing knee will have to wait. Next time, link ahead,” she chided and kissed his cheek.
They spent several minutes watching the slow rise and fall of Dana’s chest. Rafael leaned over the child, the overnight bag still in hand, and inhaled the baby’s fragrance.
“So what brings you north?” asked Jim.
Rafael turned serious. “I have been back and forth to Saltillo to find justice for my mother and for Elena. I will no
t rest until the maquiladoras are stopped.”
“Maquiladoras, sir?” asked Jim.
“Factories. Assembly plants,” said Rafael. A short wave of his hand dismissed Jim from the conversation.
“But Mom never spent much time in Saltillo. How could the factories affect her?”
“Her DNA, of course.” Marta looked puzzled. “Hija, do you know that Saltillo was once called the ‘Athens of Mexico’? That our textiles and ceramics were the best in the world?”
“Dad, you’ve told me only fifty times.”
“Then I’ll tell you again.”
“I don’t get the connection between the malquiladoras and mom.”
“The government cannot see Saltillo’s beauty. The politicians counts pesos when adobe is replaced by steel. Mexico now depends on auto parts manufacturers and many of those are in Saltillo. The industrial wastes kill our citizens,” he said, momentarily conflating his native and adopted countries. “How else do the people become sick?”
“You’ve travelled to complain, how many times is it now? Five? Six?” asked Marta.
“And I will continue until they stop poisoning the water and the air.”
“I read that the manufacturers are replacing their old plants with clean installations. They even turn the discharge into drinkable water.”
“So they say. Evidently it is not convenient to publish the information that shows the damage that is already done. But it is convenient for U.S. manufacturers to dump their poisons in Mexico where this goes unreported. They must be stopped.”
“Promise me you won’t get into any more trouble. Please?”
“It will be worth it if I can stop the poison. It is killing the land and the people.”
“What happened after your other visits?” asked Jim.
“At first the officials pretended to listen to me. They dismissed me with kind words, then with threats. They called my warnings incoherent accusations. Incoherent! Do I look like a lunatic spouting nonsesnse? I tried to talk to the experts at the universities and was arrested for trespassing. The Universidad Autonóma de Coahuila has three campuses and 41 schools but not one professor would take this seriously.”
“You were arrested? You never told me that,” said Marta.
“Hija, it was nothing. The judge gave me a piece of paper and sent me away.”
“What did the paper say?”
“Here, read it for yourself. I carry this with me for extra motivation.” Rafael handed his daughter a document on official stationary. Marta’s eyes widened as she read.
“This is an injunction! You can’t go back. It says, ‘Further actions by Rafael Cruz may be regarded as acts of terrorism.’ Dad, this is serious. You can’t go.”
“No. I cannot go to the universities. But I can still seek justice. I even have an appointment with a government official. This time will be different. This time I will be heard.”
“How can you make them listen now? What’s going to be different?”
Rafael was breathing hard and said nothing at first. Then his tone softened and he touched Marta’s cheek with one cupped palm. “When your mother died, I was lost. I could do no more than to weep and to wander through life. But I have found something that will give meaning to her death.”
Marta turned away.
Jim asked, “Where are you coming from now, sir?”
“From home. Where else would I have been, muchacho?”
“Did you come here all the way from Los Angeles just to say hello?” asked Marta. “You could have taken Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego and crossed into Tijuana.”
Rafael leaned over Dana’s sleeping form and kissed the child.
“I wanted to see you and this marvelous child.”
Marta looked puzzled. “That’s quite a trip. Three thousand miles from Los Angeles to Boston and then half the way back again to the Texas border.” Rafael continued to nuzzle Dana’s sleeping form.
Jim said, “Well, sir, we’re glad you’re here. What’s new in your life?” he added, probing cautiously and watching his father-in-law’s expression and body language.
“What could be new except a grandchild!” Be careful with this one, Rafael thought, he looks soft but he sees deep. I trust Marta, but I will keep my own counsel.
Before the long bus ride east, Rafael decided to arm himself, convinced that agents of the maquiladoras were watching him, waiting for an opportunity to stop him. A search of his neighborhood produced a choice of three handguns: a Ruger .357, a Glock .32, and a .45 caliber Colt handgun. He chose the largest—the Colt pistol—a selection that would prove disastrous.
Marta broke the tension by announcing dinner. The family sat down to an impromptu meal of rice and beans with chunks of pork, and Marta’s lemon curd. Rafael kept his small bag clutched between his feet under the table. After dinner and coffee, Rafael prepared to leave.
“Hija, I am so happy to see you work so hard and to be so productive. And, you, muchacho, thank you for taking such good care of my daughter and my Dana.”
“Dad, are you leaving already?”
“Hija, I have to be in Saltillo in two days. The bus to McAllen will take most of that time. Then from Reynosa to Monterrey to Saltillo, more time still. I will visit again when I return and we will spend many days together.” Marta stifled a sob.
“And you, muchacho, you should keep authentic Mexican beer.” Rafael smiled without humor.
Then tears, embraces, and promises, and Rafael walked out of his daughter’s life.
He was tired and stiff when he reached his destination, McAllen, Texas, but he didn’t stop to stretch. He was eager to be rid of his unwanted companion, the annoying chatterbox that followed him off the bus and through the border crossing.
Rafael’s journey into the Mexican penal system started in an unreserved seat on a bus departing from South Station, Boston. He slept on and off, one arm looped through the handle of his travel bag. The bus was crowded by the time he reached Houston, less than six hours from McAllen and jail. He draped an arm protectively over the empty seat next to him. Passengers boarding in Houston looked inquisitively at the seat and then at Rafael. One glance at his hostile demeanor and the travellers moved farther back. Just as the bus inched away from the terminal, a tipsy California resident plopped down next to Rafael.
“Howdy, pardner! Name’s Bobby Jim Amendola, but everyone calls me B.J.”
Rafael grunted noncommittally.
Rafael would never be certain if bad luck or circumstance prompted his new companion to strike up a conversation. He wondered if capricious gods prompted the man, a salesman, to engage in the idle blarney of his trade. “How ya’ doing?” “Where ya’ headed?” “Come down here often? Me, I’m from California but I was in Houston for business.” The man pronounced it, bidness. “Figured I’d take the bus, see the sights. So, what’s your line of work?”
Rafael turned away. B.J. took no notice. A salesman, he was habituated to being rebuffed, and kept at his patter. At about the time Rafael was going to tell Señor Amendola to mind his own bidness, they arrived at the Anzalduas International Bridge in McAllen.
Customs officials paid scant attention to travellers into Mexico. There were no questions, no papers to produce and no inspections. Rafael was a strong man and the weight of the bag he’d carried from Los Angeles cost him no effort. It held a toothbrush and a sweatshirt wrapped around a box of ammunition and the ill-chosen Colt pistol.
The two men blended into a sea of travellers on the pedestrian bridge into the Mexican town of Reynosa. A group of Policía Federal idled near the border crossing. At that moment, B.J. again asked Rafael what he did for a living. Without waiting for a reply, B.J. told Rafael, the last man on earth with whom he should have shared this confidence, that he was an auto parts salesman. “My first time south of the border, amigo. I’m heading for a trade show in Saltillo. I hear there’s good Mexican food there. Got any recommendations?”
Auto parts manufacture in Saltillo?
Finally B.J. had Rafael’s full attention. He turned on the stunned salesman and shouted. All of his frustrations poured out in an incoherent bill of particulars that included his wife, his mother, cancer, water pollution, air pollution, black vines, Jamaican ale, selfish restaurant owners and houses on stilts.
The police overpowered Rafael and detained B.J. for good measure. They discovered the gun and ammunition in Rafael’s bag. He was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, picked up, and thrown down again. They dismissed the terrified salesman who, forsaking the conversational arts upon which his profession is built, returned home and took to his garden where he silently raised prize-winning bonsai trees until an untimely death six years later when struck by lightning in an elfin forest near San Luis Obispo, California.
The disposition of Rafael’s case hinged on Mexico’s revised gun laws. In 1998, the Mexican House of Representatives reduced the penalties to as little as a fine for an illegal handgun less than .380 caliber in size. But punishment was severe for larger weapons. Rafael’s Colt was a .45 caliber pistol, a fraction of an inch larger than the .380 caliber limit.
His day in court arrived after seven months’ pre-trial incarceration. “Your honor, the facts are incontrovertible!” the prosecutor boomed. “This man sneaked a weapon into our sovereign nation with the sole purpose of disrupting economic life through murder. Why else would he bring such a large gun?” The prosecutor laced his charge with the term, “economic terrorism” and swept aside any consideration of leniency. “And given the defendant’s long criminal history”—one arrest for trespassing—“I must beg this court to protect the people of Mexico and impose the maximum sentence.”
The magistrate complied and awarded the prosecutor a thirty-year sentence. Rafael’s new home was Penal del Altiplan. His new social circle included drug lords, corrupt officials, murderers, and political assassins. Three-foot reinforced walls, armored personnel carriers, and air patrols ringed the maximum-security facility.
Little Deadly Things Page 13