The Lucky Ones

by Julianne Pachico

  Are you sure? Her eyes flicker from the screen to you. Things will be getting much busier soon. She touches her belly lightly, the bump more of a bulge now in her saggy white nightdress.

  Yes, you say. God willing.

  The wife tucks a strand of hair behind her ears—brown like the daughter’s, no gray at the roots. Whatever you prefer. But remember that we need you here for the summer.

  That’s fine, you say. I’m not going anywhere.

  Her eyes are shifting back to the screen when you ask if it would be possible for you to have a copy of the photograph taken tonight. Of course, she says, still smiling, though her eyes are fixed resolutely on the screen now. I’ll have Roberto take them in by the end of the week.

  You nod, say good night. You take the beef out of the freezer and put it in the fridge so that it can defrost. Tomorrow’s dinner will be goulash; Wednesday’s dinner, soufflé—one of the most difficult dishes to prepare; you already know the daughter will refuse to eat it and you’ll have to make an extra side dish of soup or beans for her instead. Thursday, chicken curry—easy. Anything with chicken is easy. You wipe down the counters.

  Last of all is locking up the front door—it feels strangely satisfying, the act of turning the key in the lock, like you’re scratching an itch that you’ve had for a long time. As you pull the key out, you find yourself thinking about it—how a photograph is a good idea. The boy will be happy to receive it. A photograph can be kept in a frame, on a bedside table. A photograph can be taken with him wherever he goes. Something better than abrupt phone calls or brief visits on holiday weekends, better than glimpses of a life he shouldn’t know you have. With enough time, and a little bit of luck, it might just work out—sometimes it’s for the best if certain things never end up knocking on the door.

  You fold up the damp dish towels. Back in your room, you slip off your sandals and turn them upside down so no roaches will sleep in them. You hang your dress in the closet. Before crawling into bed, you pick up the battery-powered alarm clock and make sure the switch is set to the correct position. Tomorrow, the apron will have to be washed. Tuesday is ironing day, always.

  ANTIOQUIA

  Once again, she is not following instructions. Instead she’s lying on her back on the orange-dirt basketball court, rocking her legs from side to side like windshield wipers, hands clamped in a prayer-fist on her dark blue shirt. Her mud-smeared socks are pulled up to her knees.

  Eduardo stands nearby, biting his lip. It’s nine A.M. and everything else is going exactly as it should. The children are filing into the building in vaguely straight lines: girls in pleated skirts, boys in trousers with white stripes running up the sides, chatter fading as they follow their teachers down the hallway. He hears the clucking of chickens from a nearby compound, the anxious whimpering of a three-legged dog crouched by a gap in the wire fence. Another Tuesday afternoon and everything is as it should be, except for her sprawled body on the ground, knees dipping back and forth.

  Eduardo runs his hands through his hair. He has not worked here at the school that long. He is definitely still “one of the new ones,” his education degree at the university a work in progress. Floating from classroom to classroom, standing watch during recess, helping out as needed. He has only just mastered the basics: reciting Please keep your hands to yourself repeatedly without sounding robotic, turning his body sideways at the last minute when the youngest ones fling themselves at him for a hug, breaking up fights by the garbage bins without getting or causing injuries. Instead of the calm military precision possessed by those who have worked here for years, he comes off as alarmingly manic, with a nervous energy that makes him particularly popular with the ten-year-old boys on the football field: eyes bulging, Adam’s apple throbbing like a frog’s throat, dark hair tousled wildly like that of a mad scientist who’s just been electrocuted.

  Even now he can barely stay still: He’s drumming his fingers on his collarbones, tapping his foot, glancing anxiously at the director for support. But the director is stone-faced, standing watch as the last of the children enter. Before closing the scratched-up metal door behind him, the director sends him a glance that he is more than capable of reading by now, even with only two years of university and one semester of student teaching.

  “Deal with this,” the glance says. “Now.”

  Eduardo squats down.

  “Juliana-Melissa,” he says, using her full name. “It is very important that you listen and be respectful. If you don’t stand up and go inside for class, then you won’t be able to participate in recess today. Again.”

  Julisa closes her eyes. She shuffles her feet and begins to scoot along the ground sideways like a crab. He watches as she drags her torso along the dirt.

  “Don’t you want to go to class today? See all your friends? Learn interesting things?”

  The words sound hollow, even to him. No, he imagines her replying curtly, pointing her sharp chin at him like a sword. No, I fucking don’t. Can he really blame her? It’s not like he was ever that good of a student either. Fuck school! Good for Juliana-Melissa, taking a stand, showing some spirit! That’ll show them! Long live the rebellion against the Galactic Empire!

  He sighs and clamps his fingers behind his head. Julisa is still dragging herself around in a circle, like a clock completing a rotation.

  The playground is silent now, except for a teacher’s voice drifting from the open classroom windows. He looks back at the building, but the door is still closed. One of the windows on the far edge of the building is broken, the glass jagged like a tooth. The way he’s squatting, he feels like a bird about to lay an egg.

  Juliana-Melissa, he could say, imitating the director’s stern tone. Get inside now. If she were to ask why, he could resort to the inevitable, irrefutable answer: Because I said so. The director’s infamous, well-worn catchphrase, echoing in the hallways, the classrooms, the office.

  “Well,” he says instead. “I guess I’ll just have to leave you out here for the rest of the day, then.” He tries to make his voice sound as confident as possible, like a lead stormtrooper giving orders. “How boring. I sure hope it doesn’t rain.”

  Julisa doesn’t say anything. He turns his body sideways so that her knees don’t brush against him.

  She’s never aggressively rude. That’s the problem! It would be so much easier if she were, in a way. She’s not one of the swearers—not like Douglas, who threw a chair at his head last week while screaming, “You’re the worst staff ever,” or Ramón, who will return tomorrow from a weeklong suspension after twisting his teacher’s nipples, or even Frank, who is apparently unable to get through a lesson without flicking water at people. She hasn’t ever approached him the way Eva and Victoria have, giggling behind their hands as they ask, “So does your penis ever get hard? Do you have hair down there?” He hasn’t caught her smearing a shit-covered hand over the sign that says PLEASE REMEMBER TO FLUSH on the bathroom wall, or casting a sly glance across the room as her hand skitters forward, sneaking coins out of a classmate’s pocket.

  Nothing like that. Just this lying here. The scrunched, shut eyelids. A painful reminder of the daily question, thudding in his gut: How is he supposed to do it? To be kind and understanding in the face of the annoyingly defiant?

  “You,” he says suddenly, “are not having a very good day.”

  She’s come to a full stop now, letting her legs flop over to the side. She starts rolling her head back and forth on the dirt, like she’s massaging the back of her skull.

  He fiddles with the buttons on his shirt, runs his fingers through his hair so that it’s wilder than ever. They’re the only two people in the courtyard now, but eventually the candy vendors will arrive for the eleven A.M. rush, wooden trays hanging from their necks by thick leather straps, rows of lollipops and battered red packets of Marlboros and plastic packets of thick yellow chips so sharp-edged they’ll split open your gums. A cigarette, quite frankly, is suddenly seeming pretty good to him.
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  “If you come inside,” he says, trying to sound calm, scientist-style, like he’s giving directions in one of those apocalyptic American movies he loves to watch, or like a gangster boss icily issuing ultimatums to his mortal enemies, “that would be a very—very—big favor to me. It’ll make me look like a good teacher in front of the director. Like I actually know what I’m doing. Could you do that for me, Julisa? Would you?”

  No response. She’s still rolling her head back and forth, one ear touching the earth, then the other. If she starts puffing up her cheeks like a fish, that’s when he’ll know that he’s officially lost. Done for. Her rebellion complete; his negotiation process failed. It’s the one expression that’s one hundred percent effective at driving Julisa’s classroom teacher out of her mind, reducing her to a state of tight-lipped irritation that culminates with her arm jerking in the direction of the director’s office. Is that what he’ll have to end up doing? Heading back inside and staring at the floor of the office, sheepishly mumbling as the director coldly blinks at him: “Juliana-Melissa…she’s, um…she’s…”

  Wonderful, he thinks. Juliana-Melissa is wonderful.

  “You know what?” he says suddenly. “Maybe you can help me with something.”

  He glances at the door again. Then he scoots forward, leans toward her as close as he can without tumbling over, face-first, into the ground.

  “Tell me,” he says in the most dramatic whisper he can manage. “You’ve seen them too. Right?”

  Julisa doesn’t open her eyes. But she stops rocking her head.

  “Well, have you?” He makes his voice sound like it’s trembling. Even though she can’t see him, he darts his eyes around nervously, as though whatever it is he’s talking about, it’s everywhere. Surrounding them, inescapable, undeniable. He makes his arms tremble; he’s practically giving himself goosebumps. He wraps his arms around himself to keep from shivering.

  “You have to help me,” he whispers. “We’re going to have to find a way to escape.”

  She opens her eyes.

  “We can’t just abandon the others, though.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, as though he’s dripping with sweat. “Maybe we can take them with us.”

  Julisa blinks.

  “I think,” he says, fixing his face into a grim expression (Al Pacino confronting Fredo! Mad Max gazing at the desert horizon!), “that I need to ask you to stand guard for me. I’m going on a quest, and I need you to watch the playground while I’m gone. This school is in great and terrible danger.”

  “From what?” she says. That deep, raspy voice of hers never fails to take him slightly aback. The Pacific coast accent, the mumbling of vowels, her run-on sentences that smear into one another, so different from the musical lilts of his own cadence, Medellín-born and bred. Like most of the children, she’s not from here, a recent arrival to the city who tumbled into the classroom ragged and thin and gray like shredded plastic bags hanging from barbed wire. Different slang words, different songs, different football teams to root for. Bewildered expressions, dazed eyes.

  “Escape from what?” she says again, pushing herself up on her elbows. Her sudden attention feels like the thinnest of spider threads settling momentarily on him, capable of being blown away at any moment by any ill-chosen or misspoken word. The options flash across his mind in an urgent sequence: Ghosts! Demons! Devils! La patasola, hopping around on her single foot and drinking men’s blood! La llorona, wandering the streets and weeping copiously for her lost children! Scar-faced ghosts banging on doors, ready to sweep you away and make you disappear, never to be heard from again! What’s a scene from a film he can borrow? What’s a Hollywood moment worthy of her attention? He rubs his hands together frantically as though starting a fire.

  Before he can answer, though, she says, “Don’t worry.”

  She scrambles to sit on her bottom. She is hunched over, her fists still clenched in her lap. She speaks in a hushed whisper that nevertheless sounds dramatically loud: “I can protect us.”

  She’s opening her fist, fingers fluttering open. She’s extending her hand, she’s leaning forward, and without thinking Eduardo opens his palm and accepts what she drops into it.

  It’s a rock—a plain one. No sharp or jagged edges. No glimmering shards of color, no distinguishing features to speak of.

  “This,” she says, “is the Guardian. He’ll keep us safe.”

  He stares at it. He can hear the capital letter in her voice. Before he can ask the questions that are already forming on his lips (What do you mean? What is this for?) she’s dropping another object into his palm. This one’s a black elastic hair band, covered in faint silver speckles.

  “This,” she says, “is the Gatekeeper. She’ll keep us strong.”

  She’s sitting upright now. Straight and tall, terribly solemn, as serious as the director when he leads the singing of the national anthem. Eduardo suddenly feels like he could bow to her, lower his forehead to the ground to pay respects. It’s like watching Don Quixote defeat giants as opposed to windmills.

  “Last of all—” Julisa opens her clenched fist one more time.

  It’s a stick. More of a twig, really. Any of the ordinary kind you can pull off an old tree or find in a patch of dirt on the hillside. She holds it in her palms like she’s cradling it. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she was about to start rocking it, lullaby-style.

  “This one’s the most important,” she says. She hesitates for a second but still drops the stick into his hand. Even after barely a second of holding it, it’s already smudged dirt across his fingers.

  “Who’s this, then?” Eduardo says, holding it carefully alongside the other two objects.

  Julisa raises her chin. “She’s my favorite.”

  Eduardo wraps his fingers around it and holds it up like a wand, or maybe a sword—it could be anything, really, that you wanted it to be. “Yes,” he says reverently. “I can see why.”

  Julisa grins.

  Behind them, the school doors swing open. Both their heads turn: The director is strolling toward them, dark-faced and thin-lipped. “Juliana-Melissa,” the director is saying. “Get inside. Now.”

  Eduardo stands up as fast as he can, shoving his hands into his pockets: “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s under control—” But the director is yanking Julisa up by the elbow, pulling her roughly into the building. “You are not,” the director is saying, “following instructions right now!”

  She’s taken to class, where she’ll stay during recess and copy out psalms from the Bible. If she asks any questions, the director will answer, Because I said so. Eduardo is sent to help the third graders with their reading. He sits in on the fifth graders’ English conversation class, drills the second graders in subtraction, plays football with the boys, and turns the jump rope for the girls.

  It’s only hours later, back home at his kitchen table, flipping the pages of his economics textbook while his mother cooks rice on the stove, that he puts his hands inside his pockets and realizes what he’s kept.

  —

  Julisa doesn’t show up the next day, or the one after. This in itself is not a cause for concern. It is normal for children in this neighborhood to attend school regularly for weeks, months, even years, then suddenly never be seen again. Gangs move in with their extortion taxes, families move out with their cardboard boxes and flour sacks filled to the brim, and on and on it goes. New students arrive to replace the old, streaming in endlessly with their new accents: Northern Antioquia, Chocó, the Pacific coast. This is just the way things are. What happens outside its brick walls is not the school’s business.

  Eduardo knows this. And yet. He brings Julisa’s three items to work every day for a week. He scans the playground every morning for her small dark head, searches the hallways for a glimpse of her defiantly raised chin.

  Other things happen too. Through a friend of a friend he learns the dates of the next protests and writes them down in his calendar. He
joins a group that sends weekly letters to newspapers, letters that list members of army-endorsed death squads, first and last names. He impulsively writes an article for the university newspaper, something he’s never done before, an article that criticizes the State’s refusal to consider the ideological positions of the insurgents. (Every time he writes the phrase the State, he can’t help but think of the director’s inflexible, grimly set face, the sharpness with which he yanked Julisa to her feet.) He gives it to his editor friend Sergio: Publish this if you dare. Sergio raises his eyebrows but says nothing, as though phrases like Are you sure about this? or So is this a risk you want to take? are too painfully obvious to be said aloud.

  And then Eduardo manages to get someone from Julisa’s class to tell him where she lives: a girl who claims she went there once with her evangelical church. It’s not an exact address (it never is). More like general directions.

  “I didn’t like it,” the classmate says, blowing a bubble with her gum and immediately popping it. “It was weird there.”

  “Weird how?” he asks, but she gazes out over the dirt basketball court and doesn’t answer.

  He walks there by himself one Saturday afternoon, leaving more than enough time to get home before dark. It’s farther than he expected—up a steep hillside, past withered groves of banana trees, telephone poles scarred by graffiti, signs in faded letters that say DUMPING IS PROHIBITED.

  Julisa’s house ends up being over an hour from the school, the dirt road twisting away from the faded wooden fence post as if frightened. The house huddles atop a muddy slope, a dusty plastic tarp yanked over the roof. There’s trash scattered up and down the hillside, flattened pieces of cardboard and overturned buckets, the plastic kind you’d buy in supermarkets. It’s hard not to feel like an astronaut on a strange planet, or Mad Max entering hostile territory. On the front porch a broomstick leans at an awkward angle against a refrigerator full of holes.