From the airplane window, when the clouds cleared, I saw how red and blue fireworks exploded throughout the city. They opened like glittering umbrellas over the dark. People were celebrating the death of Pablo Escobar.
Beneath the clouds, far below was our deserted house, with the ghost imprints of furniture on the carpet and the television left on.
Beneath the clouds, far below in the garden of our house, was the Drunken Tree shivering in the wind.
Beneath the clouds, far below, the Oligarch was lighting her fireplace.
Beneath the clouds, far below, Abuela María was in bed, her white hair loose upon her pillow.
Beneath the clouds, far below, Petrona’s body weighed down like a stone in an empty lot in Suba, mud on her clothes, her panties over her jeans.
Beneath the clouds, far below was San Juan de Rioseco.
Beneath the clouds, far below, were Papá’s two fingers traveling in the mail, proof of his capture by the guerrillas. Papá’s fingers would be left at our doorstep in a cardboard box, waiting, nobody there to receive their homecoming.
31.
The Tribe Whose Power Was Forgetfulness
We were a number: Case 52,534. We were a paper in a file in a metal cabinet in an office. We were the same story, told over and over again, in tents, in quiet rooms, before recorders in front of officers from Venezuela, the United Nations, in front of immigration officers to the United States. In the beginning they were called Credible Fear Interviews, then they were Prescreening Interviews, Eligibility Interviews, Security Clearance Interviews. It did not matter what they called it: everything we had to say always came down to that crackly voice coming from Mamá’s little recording device with the little cassette tape; it came down to the whirr of the rewinding, the way the cassette kicked into motion when she pressed PLAY, the same spot of the tape growing thin each time Mamá played it for a new audience, the voice becoming more tinny and inhuman: We’ve got that hijo de puta, we’ll send you his balls in the post. We know where you are at all times, we’ll get your girls too. In the camp, we were afraid of other Colombians. We didn’t know who had ties to what and so we didn’t get close. We slept in our tent. We gave the interviews.
We were hungry at the refugee camp, but we did not mind because Papá was being held and it was somehow decided, without discussion, that none of us would enjoy anything from now on. I kept salt packets, which we stole from fast food restaurants, open in my pocket so I could wet my finger when I felt hungry and suck the salt.
With Emilio’s money we bought a telephone card to call Abuela María. We stood all three of us under the shelter of a public telephone. Mamá held the phone out so we all could listen. Amidst the rush of cars, the city murmur of people walking and talking, and distant music, we heard the dim sound of the phone ring. I imagined Abuela’s house—the living room with the yellow couch, the bathroom with the barrel of water, the breezy hall that led to the kitchen. It was so long since I had thought of that house. I wondered how Mamá would explain what happened to us. “Aló?” The sound of Abuela’s voice brought tears to my eyes. Mamá said, “Mamá.” Abuela was surprised. “Alma? Dios mío, where are you? I’ve been calling you—”
“Antonio’s been kidnapped, Mamá.” Mamá told Abuela about how we had sold everything, how Papá was being held, how we were in Venezuela. Mamá didn’t tell Abuela about Petrona, and she did not tell Abuela we were in a refugee camp either. I guessed it was because she did not want her mother to worry. They were both sobbing, and I closed my eyes because it was one way to go away. Abuela said, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
Mamá said, “I didn’t know who was listening.”
The telephone began to beep and an elegant woman’s voice told us we only had a minute remaining. I asked Abuela for blessings, but Abuela was already praying into the telephone, asking God to protect us. She prayed until her voice was cut out.
* * *
When we received our first mail, we knew what it was as soon as we laid eyes on it. It was the Styrofoam box Papá’s company had said would arrive. It was small and white with the word BIOHAZARD printed on its sides in blue. Seals and signatures and acronyms had been hurriedly scrawled and stamped on all different sides of the box, but nothing betrayed the fact that inside lay Papá’s two fingers. There wasn’t a skull and bones for example, no frowny faces, no outline of a casket, no outline of a cross.
For days the package with Papá’s two fingers had waited at our door in Bogotá. La Soltera called the police because of the smell and then Papá’s company undertook the challenge of acquiring the fingers from the police and sending them to us.
We were quiet as Mamá picked up the box from the main refugee camp office, a little trailer with a small antenna hooked on top. We brought the box into our tent. Mamá didn’t like to make terrible things linger, so she ripped it open immediately. We crowded around the box, not knowing how the fingers would look—I imagined they would be on a bed of ice—but as the shock subsided, I saw that among several clear pillows of air, there was a small clear bag filled with gray ash.
“It’s better that they burned it,” Mamá began to say. Cassandra ran away in tears.
I wanted to be alone but I couldn’t, so instead in that place crowded by need I kept my eyes down. I wondered if there had arrived to our abandoned house Petrona’s fingers too, a sign that she was being held somewhere. Maybe in the unmarked box lay her ring finger and the long, thin pinkie, the one with the always too-long nail.
It seemed unforgivable that the sun still rose in Venezuela, that others in the refugee camp could laugh together. I thought we heard the distant sound of waves, but maybe it was just the nearby freeway. Cassandra fought with Mamá, asking her how come we didn’t just go to Abuela’s, and Mamá said she had never imagined we would be sleeping in a tent, but now we were here and had to wait it out. Every day Papá’s coat that Mamá had saved was still there in the suitcase, even though I believed that it would disappear just like Papá. Mamá kept the little bag of ash that were Papá’s two fingers stuffed in her pillow and slept, soundly, on it.
* * *
When we were told our application to go to the United States had been accepted, we cried all night, holding our knees, our hair, each other. I only knew a few things about the United States. I knew that sometimes it was called America, even though America was also the name of our continent. I knew everything would be clean. Everything would be organized. But how could we start a life without Papá? I did not want to go further from Papá, but I did not want to stay either.
We went to the airport in Caracas early, afraid that this, too, could be taken away from us. Everything seemed like a miracle—the ticket agent giving us our tickets, the official at emigration stamping our papers, the flight not being canceled, the plane not crashing, our arrival in Miami, the drug-sniffing dog not barking at us, the American immigration not sending us back, and even as we crossed into the regular part of the airport, nobody trailed us, nobody questioned us, nobody blocked our way. I should have wanted to be sent back, because it would mean being home for Papá when he was released. Instead every fiber of my being wanted to escape—to escape and to survive—and I realized I was a coward not only when it came to Petrona, but also when it came to Papá. There were Americans everywhere: standing in lines, asking the time, trailing small suitcases, checking the arrivals and departures. The airport was one big murmur of American English, that garbled metallic noise.
It was up to Cassandra and me to find the baggage claim at the Miami airport. The flight attendant who came with us from Colombia told us there would be a sign hanging from the ceiling and all we had to do was follow the sign. She drew the sign on a napkin so we could be sure. In black ink she traced a circle and inside she drew a briefcase. We couldn’t find the sign anywhere, and Mamá didn’t want us to ask anyone in case we drew the wrong kind of attention to ourselves.
Cassandra walked up and down the hall of the airport, holding the napkin in the air with her trembling fingers, comparing the flight attendant’s drawing to every sign she saw. Finally we found our way. It was my job to remember the words U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and USCRI because that’s who was meeting us. I repeated the phrase under my breath, and even as we walked up to the baggage claim and the man from the Committee walked up to us holding a paper with our last name on it—because we alone were the obvious refugees, pale, and tired, and terrified—even as he introduced himself, over his own voice I was asking, “U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants? USCRI?”
The man was Colombian, like us, and his name was Luis Alberto. His wife had been kidnapped by guerrillas too, and so we clung to this man who wore an echo of our face, who talked in an echo of our voice. We hung on to his arms as he delivered us to our hotel room. Luis Alberto rented a movie for us, put our suitcases up on a stand, and set our alarm for the next day. But we could not bring ourselves to enjoy anything. How odd it was to be in a place with walls. I had forgotten how quiet it could get. There were no crying children, no arguments overheard, no deafening sound of wind making the tent flap. Luis Alberto told us to rest, he would come back early in the morning to drive us to the airport. Mamá turned the air-conditioning off. I had water without ice. None of us changed into our pajamas. I slept without a pillow.
Luis Alberto knocked on our door at four in the morning, five hours before our flight—Mamá wanted to be sure we would have enough time to board. She was afraid—but we all felt it, the notion that everything could at any moment evaporate. Luis Alberto stayed with us as we collected our tickets and walked us to the gate and explained to Cassandra where we were boarding and when we said goodbye he looked deeply into our eyes, and pressed our hands in his for long seconds.
When our plane arrived in L.A., an African woman was waiting for us. Her name was Dayo and she was kind and old. She grinned with half-lowered lids and talked slowly in an English Cassandra and I could understand. She helped us find our suitcases and then drove us to our apartment, rented and paid on loan to us by the United States government. Dayo ambled about the two-bedroom place explaining the appliances, turning the lights on and off, opening the fridge, igniting the stovetop, operating the air conditioner—like we had lived in a cave. There were things we had never seen before though: the dishwasher, the fire extinguisher, the fire alarm blinking a red eye at us from the ceiling.
Cassandra and I translated for Mamá even though we were exhausted.
“Ella dice que hay comida en la nevera para estos días,” I said.
“Para toda la semana,” Cassandra corrected.
When Dayo left, Mamá sank down against a wall. Cassandra lay down on the couch. I walked to the kitchen sink and opened the spout. The water was a perfect cylinder, silver-edged and transparent. I rested my chin on the counter. I stared at the endless stream of water like it was a holy thing.
None of us unpacked, but after some hours Mamá brought out Papá’s coat and brushed it, saying this is how it would be ready for when he returned. She hung it in the tiny closet by the door.
Dayo had given Mamá a little key to recover our mail. Mamá didn’t want to check it, but I liked to open the little door to see what was inside. There were advertisements for credit cards and catalogs, addressed to no one, but all bearing the name of our street—Vía Corona. Way of the Crown.
We still hadn’t unpacked when a crowd of people came to our door. Dayo and her family were there, but also a Cuban family and a couple from Chile. They held heavy trays of food and told us the community was having a potluck, did we want to go?
We had never heard of a potluck before, but we went anyway. We crowded into Dayo’s small living room, people and trays and dishes covering every surface, and there, we were told of the rules of the tribe: every person shared their story one time, then you were forbidden to talk about it again.
In that room that steamed with the mingling scent of jollof rice and apple empanadas, cassava and pupusas, Mamá told our story. The Cuban father translated for her. In Spanish and in English it was a story I barely recognized—Papá’s dismissal from the Colombian oil company, his hiring by the American oil company, his slow rise in position, his kidnapping, and our fall into destitution. Nowhere in Mamá’s story was there a mention of Petrona, though that’s where the story would begin and end for me. All the same Mamá cried. Dayo rubbed Mamá’s back and raised a glass, and we toasted to new beginnings.
We pulled together some of the money we had received from the U.S. government on loan and bought a little space at a cemetery, a grave meant for babies. We commissioned a stone to be carved with the words, Sus dos dedos. His two fingers. We put the bag of ashes that was Papá in a little box and we buried it.
* * *
On Vía Corona, we all lived together—the Cubans, the Salvadoreños, the Chileans, the Colombians, all packed inside the buildings with paper-thin walls. The landlady knew who we were, she knew that we were refugees escaping some awful reality but she never asked us for personal stories like most people.
Cassandra thought being friends with other refugees was painful. She said she had tragedy enough, and she didn’t need to add to it with other people’s problems. But I couldn’t speak, and I was happy in that tribe where my silence finally had a function. I could listen. I was a vessel for all pain, all stories. I burrowed into the safety of Vía Corona, that corner of the world where we had started anew, that tribe whose only power was that of forgetfulness.
* * *
Mamá had only a month to find a job but she didn’t have any trouble. She walked into a South American market and in a few days she was stocking vegetables. In a few days more, she was doing nails at a beauty salon. Mamá’s boss at the beauty salon was a fierce woman everyone called Señora Martina. Señora Martina was short even in heels, and I towered over her in my tennis shoes. I could stare into her hair, dyed red, and see little speckles of white hiding here and there between the dark strands. When I went to see Mamá, Señora Martina told me Mamá had a specific talent—clients would arrive to get their nails done, but Mamá had such a tongue of gold, clients stayed longer, getting their hair done, their haircuts, getting facials. Mamá could talk about anything, for any length of time, with anyone—wasn’t it amazing? When I didn’t answer, Señora Martina furrowed her brows, “Alma, what happened to this daughter of yours? She’s a mute.”
I thought again about Pablo Escobar cutting off people’s tongues. It made sense to stop speaking, to say only what was necessary and nothing beyond. It was a way to survive. I sat in corners at home saying nothing until I realized it alarmed Mamá—then I sat in corners with almanacs, flyers, discarded books. I sat staring at the pages without reading, listening to the swish swish swish sound of Mamá brushing Papá’s coat.
Because the coat was kept in the little closet by the front door, we hung nothing else there. I brought pretty stones and shells from outside and Cassandra made paper confetti and plastic flowers. We lit candles. We knelt before Papá’s coat. We didn’t even know where he was being held. I couldn’t even picture his face. I repeated Our father who art in heaven. I prayed for Petrona too. Kneeling before the shadow of Papá’s coat, I tried to imagine her safe, but it was no good—I couldn’t picture her face either.
Petrona
I was a woman without a name, lying still, in an empty lot.
The night was clear.
I was lying perfectly still, quiet as a mouse.
I was a woman without a body.
Maybe my body was cold.
I didn’t know because it did not shiver.
Fireflies flashed about the field.
I could see through the swollen slits of my eyes—the night was blurry.
Someone, an abuela, checked if the body was breathing.
I didn’t think it was breathing,
but the abuela must have decided it was, because she began to drag the body on the grass.
I was a woman without a name, dragged earlier too. Two men abandoned the body on a patch of grass where it would be hidden from view, at least for some days.
Now there was the abuela, dragging.
The body came to a rest in a dim hut, where I was still a woman without a name, but sometimes I awoke, sitting on a bed, drinking a foul-smelling soup, I was throwing up, no name for this woman who was ill, whose breasts were tender, whose belly would soon start to grow, whose feet were cut, who wore abrasions on her thighs and arms and back, whose insides burned like a live gash.
32.
The List
Mamá enrolled us in public school and told us we were to become the best students of our class. This is how we were going to honor Papá—with above-average report cards. Cassandra listened to Mamá, and she threw herself into catching up, learning the new system, getting good grades. She was energetic and upbeat. I couldn’t participate. Every time something was asked of me, in the blur of that grid of seats, I couldn’t find my voice. I felt my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree Page 27