Ralph clears his throat loudly. “Bad drivers,” he says, shaking his head at traffic.
Aida agrees. She’s already seen two motorcycles riding on the sidewalk, one with an entire family arranged on it. And there are endless run-down buses spewing black clouds of diesel fumes, grinding their gears. Every so often she also spots a luxury vehicle, and even one candy yellow Hummer rolling calmly forward in a far lane, which, to Aida, is even more jarring.
“They need some truck inspectors around here,” Ralph adds.
Aida has overheard him say that this is what he does for a living — truck driving. Ralph wears large, dark sunglasses and a shirt with a soft collar. He smells strongly of cologne. He seems as uncomfortable to be here as Aida is, like he would prefer to be alone, or at least to be the one driving. The man currently behind the wheel is named Pedro. Marta Ramos said he’s trustworthy. She claims he was once a guerrilla commando and can respond to any problem, traffic-induced or otherwise. Seems far-fetched. Pedro is slight, dressed in a faded denim jacket, jeans and a baseball cap. His teeth aren’t good. Not the picture of a fierce guerrilla — although Aida admits to herself that she’s not the expert on what Salvadoran guerrillas looked like, on people like that man her mother fell for, Adrian.
“There’s a lack of respect for life,” says Sylvie, looking at Aida, but responding to Ralph’s comment about truck safety. “In poor countries, that’s the way it is. You were so brave to come, Aida.” Sylvie pats Aida’s knee. “Foreign Affairs, they don’t want us here, you know. Espèces de bureaucrates.” She says this like a bureaucrat is the worst thing a person can be.
“They don’t want us here,” says Benoît, repeating his wife’s view exactly, as he has already done more than once. He twists in his seat, wide-eyed. “They know we’re going to cause trouble. Put pressure. We’re going to fight until they shut that maudite mine down for an excavation.”
“Exhumation, chérie,” says Sylvie, trying to smile.
“People need to be buried properly,” says Ralph, without turning from his window. He and Antoine’s parents rarely communicate directly. Aida wonders if this has to do with Ralph being Native. She has no experience with Native men — not much with Quebeckers either. She’s curious about what the other families make of her.
“Isn’t it ironique,” says Sylvie, casting the word like a stone, “that someone who says he wants to find his family would threaten other people’s families?” She is truly stuck on this irony and has closed a well-manicured hand over her mouth as if to keep from crying over the contradiction. Aida gently points out to her that she has lost one of her earrings, but Sylvie just shakes her head. Up front, Benoît gives his wife a sympathetic look, then returns to staring at a composite photo of the hostages, made up of stills from the kidnappers’ video. It’s been printed on the front page of a local newspaper that’s folded on his lap. He turns to Pedro. “He’s our only son,” he says in French-sounding Spanish.
Aida looks away. She doesn’t like Benoît’s pleading or the stills. Her mother looks so awful in those shots, so haggard. By now, everyone in Toronto will have seen the video. And those who also know Aida’s background, how little Danielle participated in her upbringing, have probably found reason to further pity her. Aida wishes she could avoid all this press.
Which would be very difficult right now, with Benoît thumping the newspaper, trying to force a reaction from Pedro, who finally concedes with a friendly sniff. Benoît still doesn’t seem satisfied, which Aida finds sad. She can see how helpless he feels. They’re all helpless. But Aida knows she’s even more so, because she can’t say for sure that a reunion with Danielle will make her or her mother happy. Aida is here on a meagre hope. To meet a different Danielle, to be a different kind of daughter, to talk in person about the letters and move past them. Excavating their authentic selves and all that. It’s a long shot.
She stares out the window. Heaps of garbage appear every so often by the side of the road. When the car is stopped by a haphazard-looking roadwork crew digging a huge, muddy hole in the middle of the street, Aida glances up an embankment and sees a group of five children in school uniforms but no shoes leaning out the doorway of a tin and wood shack. Further on, a tree glitters, bits of debris hooked among its sparse branches.
Though she has no sense yet of the geography of the city, Aida guesses they must be nearing its centre when the road suddenly curls around and is squeezed into a single lane between the walls of buildings blackened with soot. Every inch of the sidewalks they pass is suddenly covered with goods for sale. Pirated DVDs, Mayan-themed plastic and wooden jewelry, massive stacks of newspapers (her mother’s face on many of them, she marvels), sweets, hair products, TV antennae, religious icons. People cross in front of the car frequently. Each time, Sylvie says, “Dieu Seigneur!” Ralph shakes his head and Pedro brakes. They turn another corner and Aida’s eyes go wider. The view has opened up. Across a large, busy plaza that includes a garden and an equestrian statue is a white building with two narrow bell towers. The cathedral.
Pedro moves the car gently to the side, careful not to kill anyone, which Aida can see is a challenge. They stop. Sylvie immediately grabs the door handle, but Pedro says quite firmly in decent English, “Please. Wait.” Sylvie throws Aida a look that says she’s not pleased to be told what to do by this man, but they all remain seated until another man, who looks a little like Pedro, short and unremarkably dressed, appears at the driver’s side door. Pedro gets out, keeping a hand up to indicate that his passengers should hold on a moment longer. He looks around for whatever or whoever could be a threat, Aida supposes, and the other man takes his place behind the wheel.
“Okay,” Pedro says, and waves them all out. Aida has her first inkling that she might have underestimated him.
When Ralph, beside her, opens his door, the acrid smell of the city and the noise of buses and people yelling out prices for their wares floods over Aida. It must be thirty degrees. The strangeness of everything is suddenly palpable — this place, this event. Marta Ramos is the one who proposed that Aida come. She said it might cheer her up. Aida, who wasn’t keen on being left alone at a stranger’s house, didn’t feel she had much choice. Marta has only made brief appearances so far, picking Aida up at the airport, dropping her off at home and telling her to make herself comfortable before Pedro escorted her off again to some meeting Marta claimed she couldn’t get out of. This morning was the same. Aida and Marta shared a hasty breakfast during which Marta received call after call on her cell. From what Aida can tell, she’s always busy, always thinking of ten different things, informal in her manner, laughing easily and boldly. Aida already feels swept into her world.
The others, confident that their own participation here is mandatory, seem unfazed by the heat or foreignness of the scene. They’re hurrying onto the opposite sidewalk ahead of Pedro so as not to be hit by any red, coughing city buses. Aida follows, but as soon as she steps up, she’s accosted by two men walking backwards ahead of her, each holding a velvet-covered oblong with a series of watches strapped to it. “Relojes? Relojes?” they ask, rapid-fire, in unison.
Aida momentarily forgets her Spanish. “No thanks.”
One of the men considers this response then says, without inflection, “I want to eat your pussy.”
Aida nearly stops walking, but Pedro, suddenly behind her, puts a hand lightly to her elbow and keeps her going. She feels relieved, like she might’ve run back to the car and begged to return to the airport otherwise. She turns briefly to look towards the safety of the vehicle, but it’s gone. Pedro’s associate has already driven it away.
They enter the plaza, which is surrounded on all sides by large buildings with elaborately framed windows and immense wooden doors. Aida recalls her single trip to Cuba with André last year, the colonial architecture of Old Havana, which she found equal parts romantic and tragic. She generally prefers new design, or at least older buildings that have been properly restored. Here, like in Cuba,
each structure sags more than the last under faded stucco. And yet, together, the buildings are oddly lovely, forming an appropriate backdrop for this sun, these big flocks of cooing pigeons, the old men they pass, who sit together on chipped benches, smoking.
Pedro leads them along a pebbled pathway that cuts through the garden where all the trees are painted white on the bottoms (to fight off some tropical infestation, Aida thinks, concerned). They emerge just across the street from the cathedral. On its steps, a small group of about fifteen is milling about, holding placards. Among them, Aida spots Marta Ramos.
“Aida!” Marta yells, seeing her. She hurries over and hugs Aida forcefully and fast, same as at the airport and again after breakfast. Aida can see why Marta and Neela are friends. Both gleefully ignore personal boundaries.
“No problems getting here?” Marta asks. She’s wearing sneakers, khakis and a short-sleeved blouse that accentuates her flabby arms. She smells strongly of baby powder — like her bathroom at home.
“No, gracias. Todo bien,” Aida says. “Muy bien,” she tries again, looking for the right sound in her “-ien.” She’s still finding her feet with the language she knows so well from the classroom but that, in truth, she’s rarely used in a real-life setting besides her grandparents’ home and on that one trip to Cuba. The language limitation is going to drive her crazy, she knows. Aida prides herself on speaking correctly.
She begins to ask Marta if there’s been any more news about the exhumation. Worrying rumours have been circulating that the forensic specialist Alejandro Reverte is too committed to a long-term project with a Mayan group in Guatemala to come to El Salvador, a prospect Aida needs ruled out by someone in the know. But Marta has already moved on and is introducing herself to Sylvie, Benoît and Ralph. The abrupt shift in her attention confirms Aida’s growing sense that Marta juggles too much, that her focus on any particular person is mediocre, a problem Aida has noticed in many people too into their “cause.”
“Ahora,” Marta says, clapping her hands sharply. “Who wants to speak at the demonstration?”
Aida stumbles as she translates for the others. No one has said anything about speaking.
“Isn’t that illegal?” asks Benoît.
Marta laughs. “You Canadians! Very law-abiding.”
Aida finds the comment patronizing, but Marta doesn’t even pause.
“You think they are going to come and pull you out in police cars? No. Bad for publicity.” Marta has small eyes, and they nearly disappear as her cheeks stretch into a wide smile.
“I’ll go up,” says Ralph.
Aida turns to him in surprise.
“I don’t mind,” he adds. “But I can only do it in English.”
“Qué bien,” says Marta, and she immediately drags Ralph towards one of the other organizers, slotting him into the schedule.
“And Aida can translate,” she says, dashing back.
Aida glares at her. “My Spanish is —”
“Imperfecto,” Marta says, and everyone laughs a little. “It’s okay. Listen to my English. Horible! And I lived in your country. You will be great. Good for your mother.”
For the next half hour Aida sits on the steps of the cathedral trying to make the reality of her situation more tangible: she’s at a rally in a foreign country for her kidnapped mother, whom she’s never gotten along with, about to do live English-to-Spanish interpreting in front of activists she’s never met, which could get her arrested (no matter what anyone says) by police that she’s been told used to kill Salvadorans for attending things like this. And she’s paid for all of these wonderful experiences with earnings from her (now jeopardized) MBA work placement. Money she was saving for her life in France, with André.
But as the minutes pass and people start to gather, the mood becomes noticeably more upbeat. The event feels nothing like Neela’s small, forced vigil in Toronto. There are some relaxed-looking priests and nuns, a group wearing workers’ overalls, and several students dressed like the kinds of bandana-wearing anti-globalization types that used to occasionally get in Aida’s way at the university. Marta hugs practically every one of these people. What a contrast between this big personality and the cramped house where Marta lives.
Aida was so disheartened walking into that house behind Pedro yesterday. Everything in sight was hideous. Old, random furniture, dark blankets over the couch and recliner, a TV on an empty, overturned box, glaring fluorescent lights pouring over it all. It looked like a poor person’s house, which confused Aida, because Marta doesn’t seem poor. In the evening, while Marta was out at her meeting, Aida spent time looking at the dusty photographs covering one of the living room walls. Many were of Marta’s adult children — no husband that Aida could see. Some showed Marta in other countries with dignitaries, farmers, women’s groups. Lots of photos of her holding up signs opposing the Mil Sueños mine. Definitely Neela’s kind of lady. Which explains why Neela practically forced Aida to stay with her.
Now Marta goes up the steps to fiddle with a portable microphone and amp. “Compañeros y compañeras, les pide su atención, por favor. My name is Marta Ramos and I am co-founder of the Committee for the Environment, based in the municipality of Los Pampanos, where we’re fighting for the rights of campesinos to clean air, water and land. We began this series of demonstrations yesterday and we will continue until we see action on the part of NorthOre. As someone who’s been directly affected by violence, I do not support the forced detention of the Canadian hostages. I don’t support violence at all. However, I also know that the Mil Sueños mine has carried out great violence already. When we have sought peaceful, legal means to resolve these problems through our justice system, we’ve been met with nothing but obstacles, lies and closed doors. Here, they call this The Law. But it is violence. The threats I have received this week, telling me not to speak so loudly, these too are violence. Do we accept these forms of violence?”
The crowd yells back, “No!” So does Benoît, sitting beside Aida on the church steps, clapping.
“And do we forgive when justice has not been done, and when impunity is granted to the American and Salvadoran masterminds who supported the killing of thousands of innocent civilians during twelve years of war?”
“No!”
Marta keeps at it until everyone else besides Aida is calling out the answers she demands. Even Sylvie and Ralph, to whom Aida tries to provide a running translation, seem to brighten. Aida claps so that she won’t look out of place, but she doesn’t think it’s right to equate NorthOre with the kidnappers. They don’t belong in the same breath.
Before long Marta mentions that some of the families of the kidnapped foreigners have made the long trip to El Salvador in a show of solidarity. And then she’s introducing Ralph Joseph and Aida Byrd, and Aida realizes that’s her, that she’s supposed to get up. Ralph goes first, striding confidently along one of the steps towards Marta on his big legs. Prodded by Sylvie and Benoît, Aida follows. Several news crews, which Aida didn’t notice before, come in closer. She resents their intrusiveness.
“Ho-la,” says Ralph, and many of those assembled smile. “My name’s Ralph Joseph. I’m a counsellor with the Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation. I belong to the Ojibway Nation first and foremost. So when the Canadian government tells me I shouldn’t be here, I don’t listen too much.”
Ralph turns to Aida, and she knows she’s supposed to say this in Spanish, but she’s stuck. This is too much weirdness. She fears an out-of-body experience. Slowly, she reaches for the mic. It’s warm from Marta’s hand, then Ralph’s. Aida holds it away from herself. All the brown faces assembled look at her expectantly. She tries to find someone in particular to focus on, which she once learned from a debating coach is the best way to communicate to a crowd. At the very back she finds him: good-looking, late forties or maybe fifty. Zeroing in on his face, Aida begins, stumbling several times. But everyone seems to understand. She gets a lot of nods.
Ralph goes on to talk about his niece
, Tina, and what she means to him, how exemplary of her people she is, and Aida keeps up, looking at the man in the crowd all the while. He’s the only person she can see who’s wearing a full business suit. There’s something familiar about him, too. And he’s staring back. Almost to the point where Aida thinks she should be uncomfortable. Does she know this person? From the airplane, maybe?
By the time they’re finished, Ralph is in tears, his shoulders heaving with emotion. Aida walks back across the step with him and they sit. She looks through the crowd again for the man in the suit, but he’s gone. It’s strangely dispiriting, as is Ralph’s powerful connection to Tina, so unlike hers with Danielle. What would Aida say if she were the one speaking? Her decision to come here has been impetuous. It’s the exception in a life of wanting to get as far away from her mother as possible. Applause would be thin.
Marta has returned to the mic to wrap up. She pleads with everyone to return tomorrow and every day until NorthOre agrees to shut down, permit the exhumation and deliver the remains of the kidnapper’s family to the authorities. People disperse. The car has reappeared and the families all ride together back out of the old city centre. Pedro drops the others at their whitewashed guesthouse before making his way to Marta’s.
“That went well,” Marta says, stepping inside and tossing her purse onto her exhausted-looking recliner. “Tomorrow, we’ll have some unions. A full bus from Los Pampanos. It will work out well,” she says, like that’s the obvious outcome. Then she’s gone, hastening to the kitchen to put up coffee.
At first Aida half agrees, but as she walks into her tiny bedroom it occurs to her that no amount of cheering and rallying tomorrow, the next day, or the day after that is going to change NorthOre’s stance. Mitch Wall will need to be convinced some other way — by someone from his world, not Marta’s. Otherwise one hostage will be dead by Monday. That could be the real outcome.
Aida returns to the living room, where she follows instructions Marta has taped to the phone for dialing the international operator. In an act of sainthood, André has agreed to stay on at Danielle’s, just in case, and Aida is hugely relieved when he answers on the first ring. She launches into a detailed description of her strange first day in El Salvador, keeping her voice down so that Marta won’t hear. The house is so puny. Only an archway of chipped drywall divides the living room from the kitchen.
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