I went across to her and set my empty basket down.
‘That’s right,’ she said, speaking slowly, as she knew my language skills were poor. ‘Stay there a minute. I have something I need to tell you.’
She disappeared into the house and returned with a small plate, on which was what looked like longanizas, a kind of sausage.
‘You have probably noticed,’ she said, gesturing that I should sit down with her on her doorstep, ‘that lots of men come to your house, to see the women.’
I nodded. This was true. ‘Yes, I have,’ I answered.
‘Well, let me tell you something,’ she said. ‘Before very long, you might find one of those men wanting to see you.’
This had never occurred to me. No one wanted to see me. I was invisible to the women, except for when work needed doing or when they wanted to scrub me clean. To the men, I was invisible always.
‘Why would they do that?’ I asked.
‘Because they are checking,’ she answered. ‘They are checking to see if you’re made of the right meat.’
I was confused. I had no idea what she meant. And she could obviously sense that, because now she looked down into her lap at the plate of sausage she’d brought out but hadn’t as yet suggested I might eat. Besides, it was raw, which seemed odd. Humans didn’t eat them raw, did they? And then she squeezed it. Now I was more confused than ever.
‘Like you are a piece of raw meat,’ she said again, saying the words slowly and squeezing the sausage again. ‘Like this. And you don’t want to be that. That’s what the girls are up at Ana-Karmen’s house. You understand? They are raw meat. For the men.’
It sounded horrible. ‘To eat?’ I asked, wide-eyed, imagining the sausage was made of human girls. It couldn’t be, could it? I recoiled.
The lady thought again. ‘Sort of,’ she said. She put a hand on my arm. ‘That’s not important. All you need to know is that if they come in or try to take you from Ana-Karmen, that is what you will become. A piece of meat.’
I looked at the sausage on her plate, which looked like a chubby baby’s arm. How would I become that? I didn’t know. But I could see from her expression that it was probably something bad. ‘Don’t let her do that to you,’ she warned. ‘Don’t let any of the men touch you. Ana-Karmen is training you to be the right sort of meat for these bad men. Don’t trust her — don’t trust them. You need to leave there. Run away. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
I nodded glumly. I didn’t understand all the words, but I understood that this was a warning. The trouble was that I was still much too frightened of the city. If I ran away, where would I go, and how would I survive?
‘You understand?’ she said again.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I understand’, which seemed to satisfy her, because she told me I could get on my way.
I didn’t sleep at all that night for trying to understand about becoming sausages. Or meat. The kind of meat that was liked by bad men. But one thing I did understand was a new feeling — fear. A fear different from that I’d experienced when I came here, and different from the simple fear of getting a beating for some silly thing or other I’d done wrong.
This was a different fear. A fear that went into the very core of me, and I couldn’t sleep for days. I became fearful of all the men in the village — particularly one old man who’d always be dozing outside the shop, mumbling as he slept and making strange movements with his hands. Looking back I realise he was probably mentally ill or disabled, but all I could think at the time was that perhaps he was one of the men — the bad men who turned girls into sausages.
Though I struggled to understand the details, I believed what the lady told me, because, of all the people I’d met, she was the one I most trusted. Men, on the other hand, had now become like devils. I went into protection mode. I must really be on my guard now.
*
Up to now, I had no understanding of Christmas. No memories of it from before I was abandoned in the jungle and no idea what all the fuss was about now. Not that there was a great deal of fuss in Loma de Bolívar, as the people were so poor that extravagances were few, and the most Christmassy memory I have of that period was of seeing trees decorated with cottonwool ‘snow’. There were certainly no festivities in the house of Ana-Karmen — no special food, no sense of celebration, no singing. My strongest recollection is just one of seeing other children with new toys and feeling that same gnawing sense of abandonment.
But there was one event that happened two days after Christmas that will stay with me always. I remember it started with a commotion — a huge commotion outside the house. There was the sound of a blaring car horn, amid lots of shrieks and giggles. I rushed out into the street to see what all the noise was about, and what I saw almost took my breath away. I had seen lots of cars and trucks by now — they were just another part of the landscape. But parked outside Ana-Karmen’s was the most beautiful machine ever. A convertible motor car the colour of creamy milk. I had never seen anything so pretty, or that looked so expensive. I had developed an idea of what money was for now, and what it could and couldn’t buy, and I knew this was something way outside my experience.
The car dazzled me as I approached it, the light dancing off it and making diamonds in the air. The sun caressed it, too, bouncing joyfully off the car’s dazzling chrome curves and making its creamy panels glisten as if liquid. It was finished with a paint trim of olive-green detailing and was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
It belonged to a man from Venezuela, who had come with two friends to see some of our girls for the day. I could see it was his from the confident way he ‘owned’ it. The way he twirled the keys around, demonstrated how the fabric cover was raised and lowered, and the way he stroked it — as if it were one of Ana-Karmen’s women. The men were from something which I think might have been called ‘the mafia’. It had nothing to do with Italy, I’ve found out since, but I’m fairly sure that was how they were referred to locally. In any event, they were potentially dangerous, powerful, criminal ‘guerrilla’ men.
They were probably bad men. I knew nothing about their activities, obviously, but my instincts were strong, and they just had the aura that if you crossed them you would put yourself in danger. But whatever they did or didn’t do, it was clear that they were wealthy. Be it good or bad, what they did bought them beautiful things. There was so much about the world still to understand.
That the girls approved of the young men was not in any doubt, though. By the time I had come outside, there were several clustered around the car, all laughing, tossing their hair back and jutting out their bosoms, all trying to win the attention of the young Venezuelan man. And he was lapping it up.
For the first time in my life I felt a stab of jealousy. I wanted nothing more than to be one of those girls now, just so I could go for a ride in the man’s car. And luckily for me, it seemed I might get a chance.
Soon the gaggle of adoring females followed the men into Ana-Karmen’s to conduct the business necessary to free up the girls for the ride. For me, this provided an irresistible opportunity. I was tiny — I still am — and was used to squeezing into small spaces. It was the work of moments to clamber into the car over the hot, slippery boot and quickly wedge myself into the rear footwell, covering myself with the blanket that had been tossed over the back seat.
I felt sure I would be discovered very quickly, but I didn’t care. There was always a chance I wouldn’t, and that was enough for me. As it was, I heard the crowd returning, and within moments two of the girls had swung their legs over the back, their sandalled feet planted on the rear bench seat, inches above me. I risked a peek and could just see enough to work out that they were going to ride sitting with their bottoms on the boot, so they could parade down the street for all to see. The engine roared then, startlingly loud from my position under the blanket, and with a judder we roared away.
Not being able to see anything that was happening was frustrating, but I was so
energised and excited by what I’d done that I didn’t care and was happy enough with the senses that I could use. I could smell alcohol — an odour I knew well from living at Ana-Karmen’s — and I also knew enough to realise that at least one of the men was drunk. Probably all of them, I reasoned, listening to their loud voices, though one in particular was slurring his words a lot. The girls, too, were very noisy, even more excited than I was. And as the car thundered up and down roads I couldn’t see, I felt the heat of the sun on the blanket, the whistle of the air rushing past us, and experienced a surge of pure joy at this sudden freedom. If this was the life these girls lived, would it be so bad a thing? They seemed almost delirious with joy to me.
After a time, I decided I could risk another peek. What were the chances, after all, that the girls would be looking downwards? Their eyes, surely, would be on the road and the view. I slid the blanket from my eyes and looked straight up to the sky. It was a deep blue, completely cloudless, dazzling. More dazzling still to my eyes, though, was what was rushing past beside us. It was a rock face so tall that it exceeded my sight line — so we must be travelling upwards, along a high mountain pass, perhaps along the very one that had first brought me to Cúcuta. I instinctively craned my neck to try to see more.
‘Aeey!!’ I heard Elise shout. ‘Look, Lolita! It’s Gloria! Aeey, Gloria,’ she commanded drunkenly. ‘What are you doing here?’
Unmasked now, I pulled the blanket off my whole face and grinned up at her. ‘Elise,’ I asked her nicely, ‘can I sit up there with you?’
‘No, you idiot!’ she snapped at me. ‘Get down or they’ll see you!’
But I kept popping up again — I was too excited to stay down now. And Elise flipped. ‘Right, that’s it! You will have to get out! Marco, stop the car, please!’
I pulled myself up to sit on the seat itself, next to Lolita’s coppery shins. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Let me stay. I want to come with you!’
Marco turned, which alarmed me, since he was doing the driving. ‘Oh, ho!’ he laughed. ‘Boys, it seems we got ourselves a special offer! Three for the price of two!’ They all burst out laughing.
Elise’s face, however, showed that she didn’t share their happiness. ‘Gloria, you idiot!’ she hissed at me. ‘Get back down in that footwell. You shouldn’t have come, you idiot! You stupid girl!’
I slunk back down to the footwell, though this time I stayed sitting rather than lying. Her tone had been harsh, and I huffed, feeling very told off, but I could see she was concerned as much for me as for having their fun spoiled. Was she thinking about how much Ana-Karmen would beat me? And what did they mean when they said three for the price of two?
We travelled on for some minutes, the atmosphere now subdued by my presence, though I felt not the slightest pang of regret that I might have spoilt Elise’s day. I was just so thrilled to be out with them. It was such an adventure! I’d never done anything like this in my life before.
The landscape had changed. We were now travelling on a much wider mountain road. We were high up still, but the road followed the route of a plateau and after another few moments, the car came to a stop. But this was not a stop for a picnic or to pick mountain flowers. Straight away the car leapt back into tyre-skidding life as the men began to play with their very expensive toy, driving as fast as they could and then slamming the brakes on, and sometimes yanking up the handbrake so the car slewed round wildly. I had no idea why they’d want to do that, and I was petrified.
But it seemed I was the only one, because the girls seemed to love it, whooping and cheering and commanding that Marco drive faster, even as they had to shimmy down onto the back seat. If they didn’t, it was clear that they’d both be thrown off. I shut my eyes and curled into a tight ball again in the footwell. The air was now full of dust and it caught in my throat. This was madness, and I wanted it to stop.
And stop it soon would. I began to hear a noise in the distance. A noise that grew and became identifiable as the wail of a police siren. I risked a look and saw flashing lights heading straight towards us. I felt relieved. The police obviously wanted Marco to stop his crazy games as well. But knowing this seemed to send his drunken mind into madness. Far from stopping, he actually stood up as he spun the car around again, waving his arm even, as if mocking a rival team.
But the car now had its own idea of where it wanted to go. Gouts of dry dust engulfed us, so it was difficult to see, but, craning upwards, I could just about make out where we were headed. I froze in fear. We were skidding straight to the edge of the plateau, which was now mere yards away and getting closer by the second.
Marco, at least, seemed to sober up slightly and jumped back down into his seat to try to control the spinning car. I heard the girls scream and felt the ground disappear from beneath us. Could this really have happened? Was the car really in space now? Were we really going to plummet to our deaths?
I heard the sound of the siren fading, heard the girls’ screams snatched from their lips, heard the rush of air moving as the car knifed silently down through the air, to ground that was who knew how many miles beneath. I had no idea how far we would fall — from where I was I couldn’t see well enough. But in that instant I remember my mind being quite calm. It was going to happen: my life was going to end. All our lives, probably. This was back at a time before seatbelts and safety — what were the chances of any of us surviving this?
But my half-second’s worth of philosophising was brought to an abrupt halt as we suddenly smashed into something unseen and I hit my head so hard I thought it would explode. And now I saw a sight that would stay with me for ever: four of the other passengers, two of the men and both the women, being launched from their seats as if flung from an unseen giant hand — flying as far and fast as the pods would from the towering Brazil trees and just as surely destined to crack when they hit the ground.
I clung desperately to the seat mechanism, wedged in my footwell, listening to the screams of Elise and Lolita, which travelled with them. And then, finally, finally, the screaming faded. Silence. I strained my ears, but I didn’t hear them land.
All I could hear now was the creaking and squeaking of the car. I didn’t know what had stopped us or whether the car would fall now, too, but I was also aware of rustling and could see a mesh of branches. I tried to move to see better but without moving too much. We were wedged in the boughs of a sturdy-looking tree that had grown huge despite its crazily steep and inhospitable home.
I didn’t move far. Trapped in the car, the tree’s swaying was a terrifying feeling, but to climb out and trust my body to lead me to safety was impossible. I was clearly hurt — the smallest movement caused excruciating pain in my neck. But I could see enough anyway. I could see Marco, the driver. He was smashed against the windscreen, the car’s bonnet hanging vertically beneath him. I stared at him, appalled and yet fascinated by what had happened. He was completely broken and very obviously dead.
But I wasn’t. I remember making a mental inventory before passing out. I was trapped. I was in agony. My body hurt all over. I was still alive, I remember marvelling. But for how long?
20
It might have been hours or it might have been days. All I knew was that at some point I must have lost and then recovered consciousness, because one minute I was trapped in the car, staring at the body of a dead man, trying to clear my clouding vision, and the next there was the sense of pain crackling and sparking through my body, and a voice in my ear saying, ‘Hello?’
I tried to move, but the pain was like electricity inside me. Some deep instinctive sense told me to stop trying to do that. And where was I? In the car still? I tried to gather my thoughts and make sense of what had happened. Make sense of what was happening right now. But I couldn’t. I opened my eyes, but the vista was white and blurry. I blinked away a bright light and it began to clear a little. But the light was still above me. Was that the sun? And who was that speaking to me? A ghost?
‘Hello,’ the voice said agai
n. It sounded high-pitched. A female. ‘Hello, young lady. Are you awake now? You know, you’re very lucky. Very lucky to be alive.’
I tried to focus. It was a female. Dressed in white. Wearing something on her head. Was she an angel? I’d heard about angels. They lived in heaven and they were good. Was I in heaven now? I was confused. She was saying I was alive, wasn’t she? Which meant I hadn’t gone to heaven. So where was I?
She seemed to know the answer even though I hadn’t yet asked the question. She moved closer. ‘You’re in hospital,’ she told me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I hurt,’ I said. ‘Everything hurts. Where are the others? Did they die?’
Her expression changed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘You’re the sole survivor. Like I said, you really are very lucky to be alive. Lucky to be awake, too. You hurt your head quite badly.’
I looked at her. Was I in hospital? If I was in a hospital then she must be a doctor. I had heard that doctors worked in hospitals and they made people better. I knew nothing of nurses. All I knew was that she had a kind voice. Perhaps she was an angel on the earth.
I tried to move again and found it hurt just as much as last time. ‘Will I die as well?’ I asked. Judging by the pain I felt, it definitely seemed as if I might.
She shook her head immediately. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to die.’ Her tone was clear. ‘You are going to be OK. You have lots of cuts and bruises, but they have done something called an X-ray and nothing’s broken. You just need time for your body to heal.’
She pulled a board from the end of my bed and then came around to the side of it. My face was close to a cabinet made of shiny metal. I could see my face in it. It didn’t look like mine any more. It was too big. Like a balloon. And all red and blotchy, with bandages wrapped around it. There were also bandages, I realised, on my arms and bottom.
The Girl With No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys Page 15