In the meantime, I ask the clerk to place a collect call to my father’s house in Honolulu. It takes a while to get a line out, but once we do, my father manages to accept the charges despite the language barrier.
Straight away, he asks if I’m okay, where I am, how the quake felt. I didn’t expect him even to know about it. Apparently, El Salvador has become international news. This makes me even more fearful for Ben, but my father has other concerns.
“Is the aqueduct okay?” he asks. “Have you heard anything?”
“It’s ruined.” I exhale so hard that my breath sounds through the earpiece. “Crushed by landslides and boulders.”
“Oh my,” he says. “At least it happened while nobody was working up there, right?”
“True.” That was a stroke of luck. Had the quake hit a few short weeks ago, workers would’ve died. I might’ve been among them.
“I’m so glad you’re all right, Malia. That’s all that matters. The aqueduct is manini. You’ll fix it, by and by.”
“Honestly, Dad, what worries me now is Ben. I haven’t heard if he’s okay or not.”
“Ben?”
“You remember. You met him. My boyfriend.” An adolescent note rings in the final word. My father and I have never really figured out how to talk about my love life.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “The redhead.”
“Right. He lives in a little mud hut.” As I describe it, my mind’s eye pictures those blurry house-size clouds from a few hours earlier.
My father goes silent.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Dad. I should free up this line.”
“Okay, Malia. Thanks for calling. And don’t worry about the aqueduct. Take care of yourself.”
I spend the next few minutes on the steps of the telephone office, waiting to hear from Ben, fearing the worst, all our good times replaying through my mind like a highlight reel. In those hours, it becomes clear that I’m witnessing the end of what might be the best year of my life: working on this aqueduct, surfing with Ben in La Libertad. It’s been a golden age of sorts. I wait to hear just how over it is.
A sheet of corrugated-metal roofing rings out against the street. I turn to see the house it came from, a few doors down the hill. Next comes a shriek so high-pitched that I wonder if it’s human, not the cry of some giant bird or jungle cat. More shrieks. Two men pry a crying woman up off the ground, but she slips their grip. Standing on my toes, I watch her throw herself atop somebody else, a body. The two men get a better grip and finally force her out to the curb.
As I watch that woman sit there sobbing, her face buried in her hands, one thing becomes abundantly clear: I can’t just sit here by the phone and wait for news.
Back inside the ANTEL office, I ask the clerk to dial the pager service. He passes me to the operator; I give her the message I need sent to Ben: “Don’t move. I’m coming to find you.”
4
Outside, I stand on the street and stick out my thumb. A pickup stops within seconds. In the back, a man with a bandaged face lies upon an old mattress.
Another man shouts, “Niña Malia! Going to El Centro? ¡Vamos!”
It’s Don Antonio, the khaki-clad municipal health promoter whom I once worked with to gather data on water usage. He kneels inside the pickup bed, tending to the injured man.
I nod and climb in the back with both of them. The driver guns it toward the city.
The patient is wrapped up like a Halloween mummy; blood and facial hair poke out between the bandages. He’s conscious, breathing hard, and steeling himself against pain. After several minutes, Don Antonio leans away from him and whispers into my ear, “And the aqueduct?”
I shake my head.
He seems to understand.
At the turnoff for Panchimalco, more injured gather, hoping for rides. Our truck doesn’t stop. I wonder about the old cathedral in their town, the one that’s weathered so many tremors and other disasters. Has it survived this quake as well?
Once we approach Los Planes, Don Antonio points toward the Puerto del Diablo, as if spotting some damage to the iconic rock face. It looks the same to me. We zoom past Nora’s school. Beyond the gate, its roof has sunken inward; it sags below the walls like a saddle. The wealthy houses in Los Planes proper appear intact, but armed guards stand in all the entrances, shotguns and tin badges at the ready.
Nothing prepares me for the situation in El Centro, San Salvador’s downtown. The street signs and traffic signals are ignored. Pedestrians, buses, taxis, and private cars all crowd against one another helter-skelter. The traffic spills out of the roads and onto the sidewalks. In the market district, a gigantic lot—normally filled by a labyrinth of vendor stalls—has been taken over by slow-moving vehicles. Right-of-way seems determined only by the size of the car and the recklessness of the driver.
We inch our way through the automotive mosh pit, driving up curbs and over poles and tarps that have been abandoned by the vendors. Mangoes and bananas squash beneath our wheels.
Along the hillsides above the city, the ravines run brown with mud and the detritus of humble squats. I strain my eyes to make out a few antlike figures clinging to shrubs and rock.
We start toward a faster-moving avenue in the distance, then the truck brakes hard. Two men jog past the front: tattooed Salvatrucha gangsters, arms full of electronics and fake designer clothes. One wags an index finger at us and offers a sinister grin. They keep running and then disappear between the cars.
The bandaged man groans at each start and stop. Don Antonio takes a syringe from his bag but can’t seem to fill it, what with all the bumping and braking. We make progress toward our avenue but are bottlenecked by a bus heading in the same direction. Inside it, the passengers all point and stare at something on the other side. Don Antonio and I turn to look.
A knobby-kneed elephant and two underfed giraffes—ribs and pelvic bones poking out of their hides—come around the bus and gallop past the back of our truck. They continue on through the traffic, the giraffes’ long necks still visible above the smoggy din. I slap myself on the face, sure I’m dreaming or hallucinating. Don Antonio puts a hand on my shoulder.
“The zoo.” He points back to a damaged wall in the direction from which we’ve come.
I nod, hoping that the lions and tigers went a different way.
* * *
We follow in the bus’s wake and finally make it to the avenida. The driver gets the truck up to a dangerous speed, and that somehow seems to soothe the bandaged man.
In another few miles, we obey our first stoplight and pull up next to an empty flatbed truck, wooden slats along its sides. It’s covered in black soot, as are the two workers standing in the back. The whole rig still reeks from the syrupy char of sugarcane.
I whistle at them and ask, “Santa Ana?” It’s a good guess. Most of the cane comes from the west, near Ben.
“Sí.” One worker nods. “Vamos.”
I hop from the pickup bed onto the wooden side of the cane truck. “Good-bye,” I shout to Don Antonio.
“May you go with God,” he says. Most likely, he thinks that I’m heading off to some sort of water-related emergency, and not just hoping to find out if my lover is alive or dead.
The light changes and we speed off, with me still clinging to the outside of the cane truck. I manage to scale the wooden slats and drop onto the bouncing floor of the flatbed. The two workers and I all spread our stances and try to maintain balance—one hand on the side—surfing our way over the bumps and turns.
Soon, we pass a still-standing hospital in the process of evacuation. Nurses carry out the sick by the corners of their bedsheets, then line them up along the sidewalk. Doctors kneel over bodies, taking pulses and hoisting bags of fluid. The building must have been judged structurally unsound. I wonder where they plan to put everybody. Is this the final destination of Don Antonio and my first ride? Will the bandaged man get any attention at all?
Somewhere near Santa Tecla, one of the workers
points to the north. A giant white colonia—a subdivision of identical attached houses—is painted down the middle by a mile-wide stripe of muddy brown. The men in the truck curse, then cross themselves. It’s the biggest landslide I’ve ever seen—in real life or in pictures. A huge section of the hillside has collapsed into the houses. Dozens of homes are invisible beneath the mud. So many people buried alive. I think again about Ben and his adobe shack. Is the epicenter even closer to him than I’d anticipated?
The engineer in me can see what a bad idea that colonia was—built in such a place, without retaining walls along the hillside. But who am I to judge, after what happened to my water system? Though I’m not at all religious, and have never been to Mass, I find myself making the sign of the cross along with these workers.
Once on the Pan-American, we make time. The traffic’s all going the opposite way—more pickups with mattresses and injured people hoping to find a working hospital in the capital. On either side of the road are endless fields of sugarcane, the stalks invisible behind the thick green foliage. It was in fields like these that my grandparents first met.
Our truck must be up to eighty miles per hour. The two workers giggle and point up ahead. I climb the first rung of the wooden slats to see. At the spot where the road meets the horizon, a bank of dense black smoke rises into the air.
“Get ready.” One of the workers laughs out loud. “It’s about to get hot.”
I have another look. The fields on both sides of the road have been set on fire. I know they do this before harvest, to get rid of the leaves. But I’ve never seen it up close.
As we approach, the Pan-American fades into a tunnel of fire. A bus blasts out of it, coming in the other direction. I expect our driver to pull off or slow down, but instead he seems to be gunning the throttle and gaining as much speed as he can.
“Mamasita.” The other worker puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Down!”
I do as I’m told. The three of us crouch with our backs to the cab. The men hoot and holler. The sun and the sky disappear. I’m instantly coughing and covered in sweat. My eyes burn, but I can’t help but look around at the fiery landscape: black lines of cane stalk surrounded by orange flames, and farther on surrounded by blacker smoke. It so resembles the cartoon versions of hell that I half-expect to see a cloven-hooved red devil standing around, pitchfork in hand.
We emerge from the fire just as abruptly as we entered. Even the humid, exhaust-drenched highway air feels fresh and cool by comparison. The two workers curse and cheer. I find myself smiling along with them for half a second, as if this whole day has been some sort of scary carnival ride. But it doesn’t take long to recall that pile of pipes in the jungle, the bodies under blankets, and, most of all, Ben. My stomach sags inside me. Soon, the three of us wipe at tears, and I’m not sure if they’re due to guilt over that fleeting celebratory moment, or simply from all the smoke and fire.
We reach the outskirts of Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second city. I see the same unfair pattern of fallen houses as I had in my own town, the same bamboo-and-earth construction exposed. This city has several old colonial buildings in its center—a municipal palace, a theater, and a tall Gothic cathedral. I wonder if they’ve survived intact. Mercifully, this truck has no business downtown.
At a stoplight, the driver hollers back to ask where I’m heading. I shout the name of Ben’s nearest town, and the driver seems to understand. Minutes later, they drop me off at a crossroads. I thank the driver, say good-bye to the workers, and wait by the road.
A pickup truck with a rebar cage welded to its sides finally shows up, a dozen people standing up in the back. For a few coins, I’m allowed to climb aboard with the others. We head down the dirt road toward El Porvenir, knees bending with every bump in the dirt road.
I still have no idea where the epicenter is, whether I’m getting closer to or farther away from the heart of the destruction. I try to apply some makeshift science to it—after all, I’ve traveled nearly halfway across this country today—but nothing adds up. The levels of damage seem to have more to do with the style of architecture than with anything else.
The pueblo of El Porvenir, at any rate, does little to raise my hopes. I’ve been here only a couple of times before, but I always considered it a charming town, full of friendly pupuserías and pastel-colored stores. Now, the very hue of the place has dulled. So many buildings are down, it’s hard to tell where the blocks begin and end. Even the police station and the mayor’s office have suffered damage; black tarps are set up in their courtyards as they try to mitigate the disaster.
The pickup comes to a short stop and we all climb out. Ben’s tiny village, El Cedro, is up a steep hill, and I know there’s little chance of getting a ride the rest of the way. I set off on my own, the sun now low in the western sky, this long day finally drawing to a close.
No one passes me on the rutted path, and no houses line the way up. A pair of indifferent cows stands by themselves in a field. They stop chewing and stare at me, against a pink-and-blue background of fading light.
The first house I come to in El Cedro is simply a pile of brown adobe and red tile, with a door and door frame still proudly erect in the center. A mother and four small children sit in a circle off to one side. She prepares a meal for them on a clay comal placed atop a small open fire. Chickens pace around the remains of the house, pecking out a supper of bugs and worms. The children turn to see me, but we don’t exchange words.
The next two houses are much bigger, but they have also fallen to the ground. I make a conscious effort not to study them too closely, and quicken my pace. My nerves come unraveled. Through the heart of El Cedro, I hold my hands up against the sides of my face, making literal blinders against the ruin. I have yet to see one house still standing here. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of the tiny wooden store where Ben bought beer and snacks. Yellow-and-red Diana brand packages are strewn about the ground. The shack itself seems to be held up only by the refrigerator within.
Once the road ends, I head up the path toward Ben’s. It’s nearly night once I finally catch a glimpse of his house. It’s just as leveled as any other home in El Cedro, a pile of broken adobe blocks, some splintered beams, and the red crumbs of a roof. Not even the door frame stands.
I take two more steps, then stop and collapse there upon the path. Tears fall hard from my eyes. Sobs buck and kick their way out of my chest. On my hands and knees, I know that I can’t go any farther. I can’t be the one to find it, to unearth my boyfriend’s body from the ruins. I’m simply not that strong, and won’t pretend to be even for one second longer. How has it come to this? How did we let it happen?
You only get to be in love so many times—if ever. Why didn’t we take better care of it? Why didn’t we stay together, in a little hotel room in La Libertad or someplace similar, for as long as we could or until the Peace Corps kicked us out? Why was I always saying good-bye to him? So I could go play engineer on some stupid water system that’s now worthless anyway? None of it makes any sense. But I’m sure I did it all wrong.
Night has now fallen, and brought along a cold wind. I lie in a fetal position upon the packed dirt of the path. Can I sleep here tonight, I wonder, then find somebody who might help me deal with Ben’s body in the morning? Can I simply run away at first light, pretend I never went farther than San Salvador, and then act surprised once the embassy releases the news about Ben? Anything but this: to face him now, here, all alone.
“Malia? Is that you?” It’s the first English I’ve heard since the phone call with my father.
“Ben?”
“I’m over here. My leg’s hurt and I can’t move too well. Are you okay?”
“I’m just fine.” I stand up. The very last bit of daylight fades along the horizon.
“Over here.”
I follow the voice.
On the other side of his downed house, Ben has himself propped up on a couple of rocks, one foot elevated.
&n
bsp; “Sorry.” An emotional crackle sounds in his voice. “It’s hard to get up.” He begins to shift his weight to his arms and raise himself.
“No,” I say. “Stay there.”
I fall to the ground and we embrace so tightly, it’s as if we’re protecting each other from falling debris. He rubs a hand all over my back and neck, checking my spine to see that it’s fully intact.
Into the whiskers of his cheek, I whisper, “I was so scared.”
“I was scared, too. Thank God you had the wherewithal to send me that page. I couldn’t do much but wait anyways.”
I sit down on the dirt beside him; we lock hands. I’d never noticed it before, but at this angle there’s a view down to the lights of Santa Ana. We sit and watch the lit-up city. From this distance, it might be any night at all.
“Did something fall on your leg?” I ask.
“No.” Ben sighs. “I was working in a steep cornfield and turned my ankle. It’s an old injury. A couple of guys helped me limp my way home just in time to watch my house collapse.” He takes a big breath. “If the quake had hit two minutes later, I’d be at the bottom of all that.” He gestures to the pile of adobe blocks behind him, but I don’t turn my head.
“Jesus,” I say. “Did a lot of people die up here?”
Ben shrugs. “I’ve heard of only two so far. Both older folks. It was such a hot morning; most of us were outdoors. Had it happened at night, everybody in El Cedro would be dead.”
It’s the first time that I’ve even considered how things might’ve been worse.
“How’s your neck of the woods?” Ben asks.
“Cara Sucia fared better than here. Supposedly, the bedrock slab that blocks the groundwater kept it stable. Our pueblo is bad, though, and the capital is the worst.”
Ben squeezes my hand a little harder. “You must’ve seen some shit today.”
I do my best to paraphrase it for him: the vanquished shantytowns, the freed zoo animals, the looting gangsters, and the awful Santa Tecla colonia swallowed up by the earth. Finally, once all those more tragic facts have been related, I manage to say, “The water project is totaled.”
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