And also how much fun we had. I remember that, too. We were still children, after all, and when we weren’t busy scavenging or stealing we’d play hide-and-seek, chase, sometimes ball games (if we’d found one) and ‘chicken’, a game children from all parts of the world know. In our case, it involved running in front of cars on the teeming city streets. It’s amazing I never saw anyone get hit.
*
I lived on the streets of Cúcuta for around two or three years. I struggle to remember the time in terms of years, first because I didn’t really know my age to start with and second because when you lived in the way we did, the concept of time – work days and rest days, term times and holidays – had no meaning at all for me. It never had done, as there were no ‘weeks’ or ‘months’ in the jungle.
It’s only now, having watched my own daughters growing up, that I can recognise, through noticing their stages of development, how old I might have been at each stage in my own life. I now believe I must have been around twelve or thirteen when something happened to me that would make me want to turn my back on the life I was living.
As lives went, looking back on it, it was really pretty bleak. Almost every night, our sleep would be interrupted. People would urinate on us, throw rocks at us and kick us for no reason. Drunken men would stroke the girls’ legs, while laughing dirtily. The only safe places to sleep would naturally also be the filthiest places, where the air smelt of sewage. We couldn’t ask for a glass of water if we were thirsty, because everyone despised us – and no wonder, for we stole from them daily, to survive. Passers-by would taunt us by holding out a hand to us, a hand that might hold a burger, and then, when we tentatively reached out to take it, they’d snatch it away again, laughing. People looked at us in disgust, because to them we were disgusting.
Although there were highlights to my day – like my meals from posh restaurants – life on the streets, despite the odd thrill and success, was difficult, scary and uncomfortable. We never really knew where our next meal was coming from, or if today would be the day when we would get caught by the law. Our gang grew, but it also, from time to time, shrank again, as children would get arrested, never to return to us. Daggo, in particular, I remember disappearing one day. He used to attack drunk men and steal their wallets – that was his speciality. He was my friend, but he had a dark, violent edge. I wonder where he is now. I wonder if he’s still alive. I wonder where they all are, what became of them.
We were always on our toes, keeping alert at all times in case we fell victim to a mugging, a rape or an arrest. And although we were all in the same boat and had an intense, loyal friendship, none of us could care for one another in the way that a parent could. Inside I was still searching for a mother’s love. It was what I thought about often as I tried to go to sleep.
At night, it was hard to find a safe and comfortable place to sleep. Older and wiser, I didn’t risk the trees in the park any more. The best place I knew was the secret children’s place. If you ever visit Cúcuta, or maybe other similar cities of the world, you will see secret places under bridges that kids can wriggle into. I don’t know what they’re called, but they hang beneath the main structure. Perhaps they are some integral part of the engineering, to support the metalwork and roadway above them. In any event, they felt hard to reach and so secure. So that’s where the street kids like to sleep.
Back then they were the safest place, because the police didn’t really know of them, and even if they did – and I’m sure this is true the world over – the gaps were child-sized, and no policeman could fit through. It was, however, horribly smelly. Inside would be a small contained area, with no through draught, and the kids would urinate, drink alcohol, eat and take drugs there. The odour of unwashed bodies – mine included – seemed to permeate everything. It was an acrid stench that seemed to singe your nostrils; it was a stench you could never get used to.
Yet you adapted to being filthy and living in gutters. On some nights when I was too tired to get to a bridge support, I’d simply curl up in whatever smelly drain I could find. Unsanitary living was my norm. I would rummage around in dustbins, drink water from drain pipes, and washing myself didn’t even cross my mind any more. I would only do the minimum required to carry out my little scams, and my minimum standards were dropping by the day.
And there was another dark side: what street life did to your psyche. There were so many damaged, abandoned children. So much pain and so much anger. When people don’t respect you, it makes you want to lash out, and bit by bit you then lose all respect for yourself as well. Eventually, you start to wonder why you were ever born. Gradually, I was turning into a different sort of person, my mind focused more and more on my criminal plots and schemes, and the bad part of me, the part that exists in every human being, was taking over from the good.
The reason for this was probably anger. Of all the emotions I have described during my time on the streets, anger was by far the strongest one. And it wasn’t just me – it was felt by every child in that situation. Of course it was – we had so much to be angry about. No child asks to be born to a life of such hardship. No child deserves to be treated as scum by complete strangers – strangers who probably had the luxury of being brought up by people who loved and cared for them. We could turn to no one. Of course we were angry.
But then one day I bumped into a street kid I knew. Except she wasn’t a street kid any more. She wore nice clothes and looked clean, and she’d lost that hunted, tense look. So much so that it was she who recognised me. I wouldn’t have even known it was the same girl.
‘Pony Malta!’ she called to me. It was towards the middle of the day. The sun was high and I was sweating and on my way to a restaurant, hoping to steal something filling for lunch. She was out on an errand, shopping. She carried a bag, though not a paper one. She must have been fourteen or so, not much older than I was. But in every other sense, light years away.
‘Millie?’ I said, shocked. ‘Where have you been? Where have you gone?’
‘I have a job,’ she said, smiling. ‘And a home. And I get fed.’ She explained that, fed up, she had just gone knocking on doors one day, asking if she could work for food and shelter.
‘And they let you?’ I was shocked. People had actually accepted her? I was such a long way from those early days when I had been treated similarly by a lovely waitress that the idea now seemed unthinkable.
She nodded happily. ‘Yes! Oh and, Pony Malta, you should see it. Their home is so lovely, and I have a lovely comfy bed. And it’s not just me. Several kids like us have done it.’
This was news to me, but then perhaps I’d been so blinded I couldn’t see it. I lived and breathed my gang to the exclusion of everything. There were people out there who would give work to hardened street kids?
‘It’s not permanent,’ Millie said. ‘They just use you and then you have to move on. Before this family I would work and get fed and maybe have one night or two. And you have to be prepared to do whatever they ask you. But it’s so much better. You should try it.’
My mind was whirring now. Could I do as she had? And have a bed and be given food again? But I was a different person now. A criminal. Who would trust me? ‘Wouldn’t they just slam their doors in my face?’ I asked her.
‘Some will,’ she said. ‘But if you’re lucky, some won’t. But, Pony Malta, you have to go alone. No one will even speak to you if you knock on doors with your gang. It has to be just you, or they’ll just be scared you’ll rob them.’
I felt a wave of disloyalty as I pondered what she’d said to me, especially towards weak Bayena and little Mimi, who’d have to fend for themselves. But not so much that it stopped me from wanting to try it. I had nothing to lose, after all.
24
It took a while for what at first seemed like a workable idea to transform into an actual plan of action. For all my bravado on the streets and my courage as a burglar, I was actually nervous about knocking on doors to ask for work. And perhaps I was r
ight to be. After all, stealing is a private act, really. You do it alone, you do it for you, you seek no one’s approval. Speaking to strangers when you wanted something legitimate from them was asking them to judge you, and perhaps I wasn’t ready to make myself vulnerable like that.
But eventually my desire to find a better life wrestled my fear into submission, and once I was as clean and presentable as I could make myself, I set out on my mission.
I chose the El Callejón district of the city, as, from what Millie had said, it seemed the most likely option. It was the place where the people with money lived. I suggested to my gang that they might want to come with me, and at first we went together and tried lots of likely-looking houses. But, as Millie had warned me, it soon became obvious that, as a gang, we looked intimidating. People naturally distrusted groups of scraggy street kids, and we decided we might do better knocking separately. So that’s what we did – just saying a quick farewell in the street. No big deal. I didn’t know I’d never see any of them again.
It was a soul-destroying, miserable, thankless, lonely mission. I walked up and down street after street, footsore and thirsty from trudging in the heat. And everyone, without exception, still told me to go away. Disheartened, I decided I would simply give up – it seemed so pointless – but then a memory surfaced that took me by surprise. I remembered the first time I’d watched a monkey get a nut from its casing – how long it had taken and how hard he had worked. How he’d searched for the right rock, with a hollow to place the nut in – a job that in itself took a long time – and how he’d then found another rock and toiled away for so long, repeatedly hitting it till he was rewarded with that first small encouraging crack. Even then it took a lot more effort to break it open. The tastiest nuts didn’t give up their treasures lightly. You had to earn them. Just as I would have to earn this.
So I continued. I stuck at it day after day. There were many streets and many houses, and often no one was home anyway. It would be a good while before I exhausted the possibilities, and I vowed I wouldn’t abandon my mission till then.
And just as the monkey who makes the effort is rewarded with a richer diet, so my persistence, it seemed, was about to reward me. I was at the end of a street I had tried several times now, knocking on a door I had tried at least once already. And this time, when it did open, it revealed a kindly face.
In front of me stood Consuela, the girl I used to see in San Antonio Park. One of the few ordinary people who ever smiled and said hello to me. She said hello now.
‘Well, I never. Pony Malta!’
I said a prayer of thanks that I had never thought to steal from her as she sat on the park bench, sewing clothes.
I smiled my best smile, which wasn’t difficult because I was so happy it was her. ‘Consuela,’ I said. ‘Hi!’
‘What are you doing round these parts?’ Consuela wanted to know. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Well, I was hoping that maybe you could help me.’
She looked a little less pleased to see me than a second earlier. ‘OK …’ she said slowly. ‘As long as you’re not here to ask for money.’
‘Oh, no, Consuela. I’m here because I want to help you. As a servant. As a housemaid. But for free.’
She looked surprised. ‘Why would you want to do that? You must surely want something …’
‘All I want,’ I said, ‘is not to be a street kid any more. Not to live on the streets any more. If you let me work for you and live in your house, that’s all I want.’
I didn’t know what else to say. But she could see I was sincere. ‘I promise I won’t get in the way,’ I added. ‘And I am a very hard worker.’
Consuela smiled. ‘I’m sure you are,’ she said, ‘but this is my parents’ house, Pony. I would have to ask them …’ She hovered for a moment, as if thinking about whether she ought to, and for a minute I thought she would send me away. Perhaps I would have to come back tomorrow. But then she seemed to decide. ‘Wait there,’ she said firmly, then shut the door.
I stood on the front step for a few minutes. It was a very grand house with a heavy, old-fashioned-looking door. It looked big, solid and substantial – not at all like Ana-Karmen’s shabby brothel. These people were clearly very respectable.
The door opened again, and a middle-aged man and woman were standing in the entrance. The man looked very grand – tall and elegant, like his house. He was well-groomed, with neat black-grey hair and a moustache, and a face that would have once been very handsome. The woman was less daunting, being short and a little plump. She had a face that reminded me of a hamster more than anything, and a plum dress. She wore lots and lots of jewellery.
‘These are my parents,’ Consuela explained.
‘Euwww, she looks dirty,’ the older woman said. They both looked me over, inspecting me as if I were a piece of fruit or a new car.
‘I could make her a dress,’ Consuela suggested. ‘And I have known her for a long time. She is called Pony Malta. She’s very nimble, and I know she’d work hard. And she’s not really that dirty. Not when you consider how she is forced to live.’
I could have hugged Consuela that day. She made such a strong case for me. She continued to have answers for all their objections, convincing them that I would be the perfect cleaner for their family and, best of all, they wouldn’t even have to pay me.
‘All right,’ the man said, in the end. ‘But only for a trial.’ He fixed his dark eyes on me, and the eyebrows above them gathered themselves together. ‘Just don’t steal anything. Promise?’
‘I promise,’ I said happily. ‘I promise not to steal. Oh, thank you, thank you.’
So, I thought, as Consuela led me inside, there are some good people in this city after all. And now I had a job and a home. I couldn’t have been happier.
‘What’s your name again?’ said the woman.
‘Pony Malta,’ I answered.
‘I told you,’ said Consuela. ‘Because she’s so small!’ She proudly placed her hand on my head, as if I were her new pet, to indicate just how small I was.
‘That’s not a name,’ the man said. He looked me over once again. ‘Hmm. I think we’ll call you Rosalba. Consuela, take Rosalba to the bathroom to get washed.’ His nose wrinkled. ‘I could smell her from the other room!’
*
Another name, another life change. By the end of that day, I had a freshly cleaned body and had settled into what I thought of as a higher way of living. Which it was, for at last I had clean clothes and a bed, and no longer had to steal in order to eat. I was also the new cleaner for a family called Santos, who had done me a great service by allowing me a place in their grand home.
It was a big home, housing a big family. As well as Mr and Mrs Santos, there were their five children: Juan, the oldest, who was around forty-five and very frightening; Alfonso, who was in his thirties, and Pedro, a little younger than the two girls; Estella, just a little older than Pedro, and finally, my saviour, Consuela, who I think must have been around thirty to thirty-two.
I was set to work straight away, and my first job was dusting. I was told to brush the steps and dust the big square brick patio out the back. It was a pretty place, full of potted plants and home to a couple of tame birds, but, open to the elements, it got very dusty. Cúcuta is a very dusty city, so it was a constant problem for those who lived there, but Consuela gave me tips for how to deal with the surplus. Before sweeping the floor I had to splash it with a little water, to prevent the dust escaping up into the air. It was such a good idea that I adopted it from that day on and still do it now in my own home.
For a shovel, she showed me how to use a newspaper, again wetting the edge so that it stuck to the floor, making it easier to collect every single particle.
My other duties were exactly the ones you’d imagine. I washed up, I cooked for them, and I cleaned and collected rubbish, just as had been agreed at the outset. In return, I had a bed – well, a mat under the porch table by the back entrance where the
dogs slept. I had no pillow, bar the pile of newspapers I would collect, but I did have the company of the dogs, which was good, and I was fed as well as they were.
Yet, once again, within weeks, I was miserable. For all the advantages I had gained, I had lost something so important: the friendship and company of my street gang. I had become a ghost again – no one spoke to me, no one acknowledged me, no one seemed to want to have anything to do with me. They fed me and housed me, but I was every bit as invisible as I’d been when I was living at Ana-Karmen’s.
I was also, once again, a virtual prisoner. The door to the street was always locked and also barred. There was a heavy pole, set on two hooks, that rested horizontally against it, which, small as I was, I couldn’t have moved in a million years. So there was no way of getting out, except via one little glassless window up a short flight of stairs that led out, if you were small and sure-footed like I was, onto a branch of a large Mamoncillo tree.
The Mamoncillo tree produces fruit that look like limes on the outside and lychees on the inside, and has a sturdy spreading habit and glossy spear-shaped leaves. The one in the Santos garden was huge, and it soon became my favourite place of refuge. I would climb out there whenever I could and sit hidden in the boughs, enjoying the company of the many birds and insects. Being with nature was still the only place I felt I belonged and would always turn my thoughts back to my lovely monkey family: how they would sit and groom me and tease me – sometimes to distraction, so much so that I’d get cross with them and chase them away. How I longed for them now that my life was the very opposite and I lived among humans who didn’t even want to know me.
But, for all that, my resolve was still strong. I was grateful to them for giving me a chance to start again, and perhaps when they saw my dedication to being a good servant, maybe, bit by bit, things would change. Maybe one day soon they would ask me to come and sit with them at mealtimes, or greet me in the mornings.
The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys Page 19