Broken Ground

by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

  I look back to see Thomas standing at the water’s edge, watching me. He smiles and waves. Even at this distance, I can see the dimples creasing his tanned cheeks. Wise man, winsome boy. He seems both. I churn back through the water to him.

  “I love it here.”

  “I thought you would.”

  Shielding my eyes with my hand, I look out at the ocean. “It reminds me of something. The prairie! That’s it! Rolling and endless.”

  Thomas regards me for a long moment. “You see that, too, then.”

  “I see it, too.”

  We make our way slowly along the beach for a bit, then sit on the sand and watch the sun sink toward the horizon. When the ocean swallows it, the beach goes dim and cool. It’s quiet now but for the waves’ whispering, with all the sunbathers trudging off to the rest of their lives. I could stay here all night. I could sleep with Thomas in the sand or, if a storm comes—which it might, he says, nodding at the clouds rolling in—we could sleep under the shelter of the wood pilings just over there. I say this to Thomas. “Only joking,” I say. He smiles, and his smile seems almost sad. “Are you?” Still, very still, I hold myself. Until a breeze stirs, cooling my skin—I’m sunburned again, I realize—and I shiver. Then Thomas puts his arms around me, and I bury my face in his chest. He is warm. He warms my heart. I thank him for this, and though I’ve done nothing, he thanks me, too.

  “You’ll catch a chill. Let’s go home,” he says then.

  Home. I smile into the soft cotton of his shirt. Under his shirt, him. I smile into him. “Yes. Let’s.”

  I drive us back to camp, and this time he holds my hand. He clasps it so carefully, so tenderly, that it seems he thinks my hand might be hurting, as his is. It takes my breath away for a moment, our hands together like this. But then I’m breathing again, steady and calm. We are safe, together. We won’t hurt each other. We know there’s too much hurt already all around. I believe this. In silence, we drive the rest of the way to Kirk Camp, hands clasped. I feel the soft throb of his pulse in his wrist. We are alive together, and I thank God. Charlie would understand. I believe this, too. I would wish the same for him, if things had been different, the other way around and me gone. Creature comfort—that’s what this is right now with Thomas. And so much, so very much more.

  At the camp’s entrance, as our headlights cut across the fence, Thomas asks me to hold up for a moment. Then he releases my hand and climbs out of the truck.

  I see it, too, the flier nailed to the gate. Thomas returns with it. Together, we read:

  Labor Day Holiday This Coming Monday!

  The fields will be at rest

  As we take the day to honor

  Those who have labored.

  Picnic and Dance begins at 6:00 sharp, Monday night.

  Come one and all.

  Food, drink, and music provided.

  Work resumes as always

  First thing Tuesday.

  Beneath this there’s a professional portrait of a fine-looking man—the kind of confident man who probably has the wherewithal to become a politician. Thomas tells me this is Mr. Ronald Kirk, the son of Mr. Reginald Kirk, who originally established this farm and recruited laborers from Mexico to work it. “Ronald is a very different man than his father,” Thomas says soberly. “Just look at this. Usually, when farm bosses post fliers—about a rare holiday or a health clinic or a camp inspection—they make sure it’s also translated into Spanish.”

  We drive into camp, and as we approach Luis and Silvia’s place, we see, down this street and that, police officers nailing the same flier to shop doors, fence posts, and tree trunks. I remember what I saw outside the doctor’s office then, and I describe the scene to Thomas—the officers, the men in suits, all of them as white as Thomas or me—and the fliers, now being passed along.

  “We have to get to the bonfire,” Thomas says abruptly, his voice gone grim. “We have to tell the others.”

  There is no teaching this night. Instead, children stay close to their parents, and we talk about what the fliers may mean.

  THE NEXT DAY, one of the older women in camp stays with Silvia. Thomas, Luis, Daniel, and I walk to the southern border of Kirk Camp, near where I washed clothes with Silvia and the other women, so long ago, it seems now. We’re bound for the little church recently established there. It was agreed last night at the bonfire that we needed to meet with people from the other farm camps in this area. The place to most easily convene would be at church. One group is going to the Catholic church in Puebla, where most people attend. We are going to the small Protestant church, held in a cantina, which was a filling station before that, Thomas tells me.

  The outside of the cantina is drab and dusty, but inside, it’s a burst of color. The walls are painted blue, the tables red, and the chairs green, yellow, purple, and orange. We help a few members of the congregation push the tables to the wall and set the chairs in a circle. By the time the service is due to begin, there are about fifteen men, women, and children sitting in the circle with us. The pastor, whose name is Raphael, leads us in prayer—“Padre nuestro,” he begins, and then I make out the words como en el cielo, asi también en la tierra. The Lord’s Prayer. I join in under my breath, quietly matching my pacing to theirs, chiming in on the Spanish words I know. “Amen,” we all say. They sing hymns in Spanish, and I listen, trying to translate the words. Then Raphael reads from Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. As much as I’m able, I translate this, too. It helps that I’ve heard the parable read so many times, I almost know it by heart: . . . some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up; some fell upon stony places . . . and when the sun was up, they were scorched . . . some fell among thorns . . . but others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit . . .

  From what I’m able to understand, Raphael suggests in his sermon that although this is usually called the parable of the sower, it might be more appropriately called the parable of the four soils. God the Father, Raphael says, will do His part in our lives no matter what, changing us, sowing hope and opportunities for transformation. But we must prepare the ground of our own lives, our souls. What does it take to do that? We must be caring and, at the same time, fierce. We must scare away the birds—distractions, these may be, that take us away from what’s necessary and good. We must cast aside heavy stones, such as grief or despair. We must weed out anger and judgment, and shield ourselves from the scorching sun of doubt that burns faith from our lives. We must suffer ourselves to be broken ground, carefully tilled and tended, knowing that only then can we be fertile and fruitful. “When we are most broken,” Raphael concludes, “only then can we grow in God.”

  These last long months, this last hard season of my life—this is what I’ve been unable to understand, let alone believe. I understand and believe it now.

  We close the service in prayer. Then Raphael nods at Thomas, who stands. In Spanish, he tells the small gathering what I saw in Puebla. He tells them about the gringos posting the fliers in Kirk. Members of the congregation murmur; those fliers were posted in other camps, too, though no one saw who put them up.

  “I’m afraid we may be encouraged to come together for a celebration,” Thomas says in Spanish, “only to suffer a raid and deportation.”

  La redada. El regreso.

  For some moments, no one speaks. There’s a clock on the wall; the sound of its ticking fills the room.

  Finally, Luis clears his throat. “Y entonces todo se perdera,” he says, his voice shaking. Thomas nods as I piece together the puzzle of Luis’s words: And then all will be lost.

  There’s a long moment of silence before the others start to talk. From what I can gather, most want to leave the area. Today or tomorrow before six o’clock, when the Labor Day festivities are supposed to start, they want to be gone. By the end of the meeting the general consensus seems to be that they will be exactly that—somewhere else entirely, having fled. The gathering disperses quickly then, and our little group heads ba
ck to Kirk Camp.

  PEOPLE ARE ALREADY packing. For many of them, this is a familiar routine; they work swiftly. Others struggle with decisions. Some of the struggles spill out of homes and into streets in the form of arguments, tears, breathless exchanges, stunned silence. This language I can easily interpret—the language of fear, panic, and conflict. I talk this way to myself as I stuff my belongings into my suitcase, then take many things out again and try to fit the new school supplies inside instead. The quilt takes up so much room, but I can’t leave it behind. So when the supplies overflow onto the floor, I grab two orange crates and pack them full, too. Daniel and I help Luis collect their things while Silvia watches numbly from the bed. By nightfall, everything inside the shack that is small enough is stuffed inside something that makes it easier to carry. The rest of the things, the table and chairs, the mattress, cot, and bedding, we’ll have to maneuver as best we can. Silvia is dozing again, and Daniel is curled up beside her, so I whisper to Luis that I’m going to find Thomas. “He’ll have found someone to give us a ride,” I say, desperately hoping that this is the case.

  I am halfway to the cabin where Thomas lives when a pickup truck pulls up beside me.

  “I bought it just an hour ago,” he says as I jump into the cab beside him. “From a man who wanted to purchase bus tickets to Nebraska for his family of five. In places farther from the border the chances of deportation are slimmer, the man heard. It still happens. It’s happened as far away as Detroit and New York. But it costs more to transport people those extra miles. So I guess it’s not so worth it. Not yet.”

  We return to Luis and Silvia’s, and together we decide to leave at dawn the next morning. We want to get a good night’s rest. Thomas, Luis, Daniel, and I decide to stow our goods in the back of the truck now. It is nearly ten o’clock at night when we finish doing so. Our belongings piled on each other rise a few feet above the cab. Luis scrambles up on top, and with Thomas throwing ropes from either side, he helps position them so that when the things are cinched and secured, they are less likely to fall. Whoever isn’t driving will ride in the back of the truck with Daniel. That person will be me most of the time, I imagine. Daniel and I will nestle down like Edna Faye and her siblings once did while Silvia stays as comfortable as she can in the cab.

  There’s not room for every single thing, but Luis and Silvia say that’s all right. Like Thomas and me, like the other residents of Kirk Camp, they are hoping that this total evacuation—for this is what it has become—is a false alarm. We’re hoping to return soon, when we’re sure there will be no trouble and the farm bosses are begging for help in the fields. Who knows? Maybe the hourly wage will go up, so great will be the farmers’ needs. “That would be the silver lining,” Thomas says. “That would be a miracle,” I agree. In my mind’s eye, I see snowflakes glittering on blue and red mittens. Charlie’s and my mittens, lifted up to the snowy sky on the night Charlie and I fell in love. I don’t believe that will be my one and only miracle any more, I realize. This year has held an abundance of miracles. Helen, Daniel, Silvia and Luis, and Thomas—the love I feel for each and every one of them. And my deepening love for Miss Berger, Mother, and Daddy. The black fog lifting, at least for now. God’s voice saying, Go. Once I start tallying the miracles, they proliferate from one and only to innumerable. And if I allow them—I believe this now—more will come my way.

  We’ve all agreed to travel north for the fall harvest. Luis has heard there are farms up that way that are still interested in hiring Mexican migrant workers. Their labor costs less than that of their white counterparts, after all. And north is farther from the Mexican border. If the evacuation does prove necessary, we’re all hoping and praying that north will prove a safer, less volatile place to be.

  Thomas has returned to his place and Daniel is already sound asleep on his pallet beside Silvia and Luis when I lie down on my cot for what may be the last time. The curtain is drawn, but I can hear them murmuring in their bed. They haven’t said how worried they are about what effect tomorrow’s ride on rugged roads will have on their baby, whose birth may be in a matter of days. But I can see it in their faces. I imagine this is what they’re discussing now. Silvia gives a little cry of pain, and then I hear her muffled weeping. I saw the back of her skirt tonight, lightly streaked with blood. If Luis could ferry her in an ambulance to the nearest hospital, I imagine he would do so immediately. I know I would. But they’ve heard the stories, as I have. There’s a good chance he wouldn’t be allowed through the door. And the trip would put them at risk of permanent separation. So they stay right where they are.

  In what seems a matter of minutes, screams awaken me. I leap from the cot and part the curtains. It’s Silvia screaming. Though the place is still dark, I can see her at the open door, clinging to Luis, who’s being dragged out into the night. The two men who are doing the dragging—two white men in overalls—are cursing at his efforts to resist. Outside, the bright beam of a flashlight wildly ricochets, illuminating a police officer, the gun in his hand, and another man who holds a clipboard, and now Luis’s stricken face, as a man pushes Silvia back toward their bed. She stumbles, gasping, and then all in a rush, water spills down her thighs. Her thin nightgown clings to her now, accentuating her legs. She drops down on the mattress and curls into herself, hiding herself from the men who hold Luis, and from the other white men who are waiting outside. Daniel bolts to Silvia’s side. He is crying, but he stands between her and the men; he tries to shield her from their stares. Slight and small, he tries to protect her like a man.

  But the men are gone now. Luis is gone.

  “Go!” Silvia cries.

  I run from the cabin to see Thomas trying to push his way through the crowd gathering in the road. There’s a cacophonous din of shouting. Two police officers grab hold of Thomas; he struggles, but they’re big, burly men, and with his crutches, he’s no match for them. Thomas casts a frantic look my way. “Luis!” he shouts. “Help him! Help anyone you can!”

  I see Luis then, already a block away, hustled by his captors to a paddy wagon. The two men are unable to shove Luis inside, but when more join them—ultimately, five against one—Luis is unable to fight them off. In the wagon now, he crouches in the huddle of other men from Kirk Camp, men I recognize as the fathers, brothers, uncles, and grandfathers of the children I teach.

  Standing beside the wagon, watching as people are rounded up and forced inside, is a white man I recognize. For a moment I can’t think where I know him from, but then I remember. It’s the man whose photograph was on the flier advertising the Labor Day picnic—the owner of the farm worked by people I now call friends. It’s Mr. Ronald Kirk. He wears a pale summer suit, the fabric of which shimmers like changeable water in the swinging, shining beams of the flashlights and kerosene lamps.

  Without thinking, I run over to him and grab the lapels of his jacket. “What’s going on!” I don’t ask this. I shout it: an order to which Mr. Ronald Kirk must respond.

  He stares coldly at me. “I believe this would be called a government-sponsored action.”

  “I call this criminal!” I give him a hard shake, very much as Mother used to discipline me as a child. “Some of these people are U.S. citizens! Others have legal work papers!”

  Is it possible that he is sneering? It is.

  “And some of them aren’t and don’t. Still others are known dissenters who’ve caused a lot of trouble for people like me—their employers, who pay their wages and provide them with homes.” He jerks his head toward the inside of the paddy wagon. “Like those men. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. We don’t have another mile to spare. Time they go back to where they belong.”

  A police officer stands beside me now. His hand comes down hard on my shoulder. “You need help here, Mr. Kirk?”

  Again the sneer, the corners of his mouth turning down at the edges as his anger creeps closer to the surface. “What’ll it be? Unhand me, young lady? Or would you like help?”

 
; The police officer wrenches me away, then hustles me back to Luis and Silvia’s cabin. He shoves me at the open doorway, where Daniel waits, still protecting Silvia. She is sitting on the bed now, and she is shaking. I sit down beside her, wrap my arms tightly around her, draw her close. And then another hand settles on my shoulder, a gentle hand. It’s Thomas.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “I have nothing to worry about. It’s everyone else.”

  He nods.

  Silvia pulls away from me and stands. Blood seeps pinkly into the wet fabric of her nightgown. She takes a jacket, draped over a chair—Luis’s worn jacket with its frayed cuffs—and puts it on. She goes to Daniel, takes his hand, and before either Thomas or I can stop them, they run outside.

  We go after them, Thomas and I. We beg Silvia to wait.

  “They’re not taking Luis away without us,” she says wildly. “We won’t let them.”

  She and Daniel run to the paddy wagon. Silvia, who leaves a faint trail of blood in her wake, is going with Luis to jail. And Daniel, just a little boy.

  “Stop!” I shout.