Prayers for the Stolen

by Jennifer Clement

  As Mr. Roma showed me to a worktable and pulled out a stool for me, a few other women came in and sat at other worktables. They were all dressed in blue. Some shook the teacher’s hand and others kissed him on the cheek.

  Luna walked over to a cupboard where sheets of cardboard were stacked on shelves and took out her collage. She held the cardboard between her teeth and picked up a pair of scissors and glue. She sat beside me. She managed to get all her materials organized by using one hand and her front teeth.

  There was a sudden quiet in the class as one prisoner walked past toward the sunless patio. I had not seen her before, but I knew she was jailed here. Everyone in Mexico knew about her. She was a celebrity. Four or five prisoners surrounded her, guarding her. Her frizzy black hair was combed upward so it looked like a crown. She was tall and wore navy blue, but I could see it was navy-blue velvet; it shimmered like a furry spider. Her wrists were covered with gold bangles and there was a gold ring on every one of her fingers, even on each of her thumbs. The prisoner was Lourdes Rivas. Her nickname was “the nurse.” She was the wife of one of Mexico’s top politicians. She was caught stealing millions of dollars from the Red Cross, which she had run for over twenty years.

  Everyone in the class turned to look at her as she walked past.

  I remembered hearing about her on the news. Someone had calculated that, thanks to her theft, thousands of ambulances were not purchased and hundreds of health clinics were not built. Her house was in San Diego, California, and was filmed for a television documentary about corruption in Mexico. My mother and I had watched it. We had even seen her bathroom sinks that were made of gold.

  We watched her walk past with the small army of women prisoners that she paid to keep her safe. Everyone hated her. Everyone wanted to kill her. It seemed like every Mexican had a story about an ambulance that had never arrived.

  On the table Luna’s collage lay beside my empty piece of cardboard.

  From the pages of Vogue, People, National Geographic, and soap-opera magazines Luna had cut out dozens of pictures of arms and had glued this collection all over her cardboard. In the middle of this mosaic of limbs, there were two infants with big blue eyes in diapers that looked as if they had been cut out from an infant formula advertisement. In the dimpled chests of both little girls, Luna had pasted red pieces of paper, cut in the shape of drops, falling from the bodies to a pool of cutout drops. They were like cutout Valentine’s Day hearts.

  You killed those children? I asked. I wanted to cover my mouth and take the words back into me, but it was too late. The words were there, in the air between us, and Luna swallowed them.

  Yes. I killed them. It was snip, snip, snip. Children are so soft. The knife goes right in like cake.

  She answered as if she were giving me a recipe.

  Were they yours?

  Oh, yes, of course, Luna answered. All mine. My two little girls.

  Why?

  They were always hungry, Luna answered. They always wanted to go to the swings in the park and I didn’t have time for that. There are enough girls anyway. We really don’t need any more.

  Prisoners began to arrive for the classes. In other areas of the room knitting and computer classes were being held.

  Georgia and Violeta appeared and sat down on the empty stools beside me. Georgia was dressed in a clean and new blue sweater. She was also wearing new tennis shoes and thick, fluffy white socks that were folded over at the ankle and covered the top of her sneakers. She placed a large red box of chocolates on the table and opened it.

  Good morning, Princess, Georgia said. Have some English chocolate.

  The chocolates looked like brown marbles. I took one and let it dissolve in my mouth. The creamy milk chocolate coated my teeth and tongue.

  Georgia loved the collage workshop because of the fashion magazines. They reminded her of the catwalk world she used to belong to back in London before she and the Cobbler, as Violeta liked to call Georgia’s boyfriend, filled up dozens of wedgies and pumps with heroin.

  Violeta took the workshop very seriously. She lined up her glue and scissors with meticulous care. She had to move things around and organize her space with the pads of her thumbs because she did not want to break her long nails. Before she began, she lit up a cigarette and looked at her collage for the time it took to finish smoking the whole thing. By the end of the class she had smoked at least thirty cigarettes one after the other.

  In her raspy voice she told me about her work. She told me the story of her life.

  Here, she said, pointing to the far right of her collage, is the beginning of my life. See. Look. I was happy.

  In this area of the cardboard Violeta had glued photographs of roses and two yellow-and-white furred kittens playing with a ball of wool.

  Then my mother and my father began to fight, Violeta said and pointed at a cutout photograph of Brad Pitt, which she had used to be the image of her father.

  Don’t leave out how he used to beat her, Georgia said.

  He used to beat her badly, Violeta said and pointed to a photograph of an old lady from a cake-mix advertisement. The fighting went on for years and years.

  Now comes the sad part, Georgia said. Get out your Kleenex.

  Then I met a man, a bad man, Violet said. She pointed to the cutout image of the Marlboro man and his horse. He gave me drugs.

  In the space on the collage between the Marlboro man and a cutout fire, which looked like the image of a gas explosion, Violeta had glued images of syringes and pill bottles. Under these drug images she used letters to spell out the word prostitute.

  That’s what I was, she said.

  After the word she had cut out dozens of men’s faces from shaving cream and shampoo ads. Among these unknown men’s faces, I could make out the face of Pelé.

  If you follow the sequence of my collage, Violeta explained, you can see clearly that it was after the fire that I killed my father.

  Good for you! Georgia said without looking away from her Marie Claire magazine.

  Do you know that man there? I pointed to the face. That’s a photo of Pelé, the greatest football player of all time.

  Are you sure?

  Of course I’m sure.

  Georgia peered out of her magazine and looked down at the collage. Yes, that’s him, she agreed. That’s Pelé.

  Oh well, Luna added from where she sat working on the cardboard land of her lost arm and dead children.

  Just cover him up with another damn face. Who the fuck cares? Georgia said.

  At this moment Aurora arrived like a stray cat that creeps in and rubs up against your leg. She slid onto a stool next to Violeta and folded her arms on the table and rested her head down.

  Mr. Roma stood at our table with his hands in his pockets and looked at Violeta’s collage. It’s almost finished, right? he said.

  It’s just missing one part.

  Oh. What’s that?

  You know I’m honest, teacher. You know I’m a delinquent.

  Everyone paused and looked up when Violeta said she was a delinquent. Georgia put down her magazine. Luna looked up from her collage where she was applying some fresh glue. Aurora did not move but opened her eyes and looked straight at Violeta.

  You know I’m a delinquent, Violeta repeated. When I get out of here I only have one goal, one thing I am going to treat myself to. I want to eat you from head to foot. I want you in my bed, in my arms, smelling your rich, delicious essence, or, in other words, I want to have sex with you.

  We looked from Violeta to Mr. Roma to see what he would say.

  Yes, Violeta, he said.

  I’m serious. I’ll be ringing your doorbell.

  I know.

  I guessed he’d heard it hundreds of times.

  Mr. Roma, Violeta said, you smell like a man, a real man.

  Even though Luna had placed a blank piece of cardboard in front of me at the worktable, I could not work on a collage. I could not pick up one of those blunt scissors. Just
looking at them made me feel as if I were back in kindergarten.

  Instead, I looked through a National Geographic magazine. I opened the pages randomly and found an article on manatees. There were five images of manatees nursing their calves. The sea animals seemed to smile as they held their infants with their flippers.

  I don’t have to make a collage in order to talk about my life, Georgia said. I know that fucking tomcat is in a pub with who knows who, probably a wife, listening to Adele, while I’m here. I know he’s eating a pork pie.

  Violeta turned to Georgia and said, Just keep thinking about the Cobbler. Drive yourself crazy.

  Maybe he even has kids by now. It’s been three years and he’s never answered one letter I’ve written to him, not one. What do you think of that, Princess? she asked me directly.

  What can Ladydi know? Violeta said. Why on earth do you ask her?

  He was my love. If I were to do a collage, I’d just glue all the letters to him that have been returned to me, Georgia said. The collage can be called Return to Sender.

  Everyone was silent for a minute.

  Violeta cupped her hand over Georgia’s hand.

  Aurora stirred beside her and stretched out her arms.

  Don’t be sad, Aurora said.

  And this was when I saw the inside of her arm, lying across the table of scissors, glue, and magazines like a piece of pale, almost white, driftwood. Her skin was so wasted I could see the blue veins clearly as if they were sitting on her skin not in her skin.

  There are symbols that don’t need words like the cross, or the swastika, or the letter Z, or the skull and crossbones, which are on the label of any bottle of rat poison.

  The symbol on the inside of Aurora’s left arm was of a circle, with a dot in the middle, made with the burning tip of a cigarette: circle, polka dot, pink circle.

  When I looked at that symbol I looked at Paula sitting under a tree, right on the ground, with insects crawling all over her body. Paula had unfolded her arm and laid it out before me to show the round cigarette burns on the inside skin.

  Someone, a woman, someone, decided on this a long, long time ago and now we all do it, Paula had explained. If we’re found dead someplace everyone will know we were stolen. It is our mark. Cigarette burns on the inside of your left arm are a message.

  I reached across the worktable, my hand moved through the pots of glue, paintbrushes, and small stacks of magazines, and took hold of Aurora’s arm. I grabbed her wrist and twisted it even more so that I could look at her branding more clearly. Her arm was a map.

  Aurora raised her yellowed eyes and looked into mine. Her face was so sad that it occurred to me that she’d never smiled. The skin on her face had never been creased with joy.

  In her asthmatic, breathless voice, damaged and hoarse from the fumigation fumes, she asked, Are you really Ladydi? Are you Paula’s friend?

  She spoke the words carefully as if she didn’t want to break the words with her teeth.

  It was this human centipede who told me the story of my life.

  Everyone at the table listened as Aurora spoke in a wheezy voice like a breeze falling over us.

  At the collage table, in the recreational room of a jail, Luna, Georgia, and Violeta learned about Paula, Estefani, and Maria. My life had suddenly turned into a wishbone. Aurora had brought both pieces together. She was the joint.

  In that cement jail, Luna, Georgia, and Violeta saw my mountain and heard how my people gave birth to the most beautiful girl in Mexico. They learned about Maria’s harelip operation and Ruth’s hair salon and later disappearance. When Aurora told them that Ruth was a garbage baby this shocked a group of women criminals who could not be shocked.

  My God! Luna exclaimed. Who would let their baby die all alone in a garbage heap?

  Aurora told the story about how we used to blacken our faces and cut our hair so that we would not look attractive and how we would hide in holes if we heard drug traffickers approaching. Aurora described the day we came upon the poppy field and the downed army helicopter. Through gasps and gulps, she also told about the day that Paula was drenched with Paraquat and we had to wash her off with water scooped out of the toilet bowl. Aurora told them that Mike had a pet iguana tied with a string that followed him everywhere until his mother made iguana soup with it.

  That was not nice, Georgia said.

  Iguana soup is an aphrodisiac, Aurora said.

  Who the fuck is Mike? Violeta asked.

  Maria’s brother, Aurora explained.

  If I had been your mother, Georgia said to me, I would have run off that mountain as soon as Ruth disappeared. What was your mother waiting for?

  No, Violeta said, I would have left as soon as your father went to the United States and had another family over there. He threw dirt at you. He buried you. I’m sure you have a bunch of English-speaking brothers and sisters living in New York.

  Aurora said, No. No. No. Ladydi’s mother would never leave that mountain because her dream and hope was that Ladydi’s father would come back. That was her hope and, if she left their home, he would never find them.

  I looked at Aurora and thought I was looking into a mirror. She knew my life better than I did.

  And, let me tell you one thing more, Aurora said. Maria is Ladydi’s half-sister.

  Oh, please! Violeta said. Don’t tell me that! Violeta threw down her short plastic glue brush and jumped up from her stool. Her long yellow nails flashed in the air like hornets. Oh, no, no, no. No! You’re not going to tell me that your father fucked Maria’s mother!

  Georgia slapped her magazine down on the worktable. What a fucker!

  Your poor mother, Luna said. She should have killed him. I would have killed him.

  Georgia patted Luna’s hand across the table. We know that, Luna, Georgia said. You don’t have to tell us. Killing is your solution to everything.

  Ladydi’s mother never would have done that. That would have been like killing Frank Sinatra!

  Paula had told our story to perfection.

  Aurora gasped and wheezed. Talking this much had exhausted her. Holding her body up was an effort. She leaned down and rested her head on her arm. Her frail pulse quivered in her slender wrists and at her temples.

  It was Violeta who stopped Aurora from talking. She said, That’s enough, Aurora. You can finish the story tomorrow.

  Violeta placed the glue brush in a jar of water. She stood and wrapped her clawed hand around the fumigation canister’s strap and threw it over her shoulder. Then, holding her lit cigarette between her teeth, she picked up Aurora in her arms like a bride or a baby and carried her off. Violeta looked like a bird of prey with a rabbit in its claws. I wondered if those canisters, and Aurora herself for that matter, might be flammable so close to Violeta’s burning cigarette.

  Do you know how Violeta killed her father, Princess? Georgia asked me.

  I shook my head.

  You haven’t told her, Catch? Georgia said.

  She didn’t ask.

  In jail if you don’t ask, Princess, no one tells.

  Maybe she doesn’t want to know, Luna said. Not everyone wants to know.

  Oh, please! Everyone wants to know about murder! She placed her magazine on the pile in the middle of the table. It’s time to call Scotland, she said and walked off down the same corridor Violeta, with Aurora in her arms, had taken moments before.

  Georgia called her father in Edinburgh every evening. She was her father’s only child. Georgia hadn’t seen her mother since she was a little girl. Her mother abandoned the family and ran off with a lover. Georgia’s father had spent most of his money to help Georgia have everything she needed in jail. Her father had even mortgaged their small house to pay for Georgia’s lawyers who were trying to get her extradited to the UK. Georgia swore she didn’t know the shoes were filled with heroin but no one believed her.

  What about that betrayal? Luna said.

  Do you think it’s true? I asked.

  Of cou
rse it’s true. Yes. I have a golden rule. I always believe a woman over a man.

  Everyone in jail hated Georgia’s boyfriend.

  He better not show up at this jail, Luna said.

  The truth was that only one man was adored in the jail and this was Georgia’s father. He had become a legend. There was not a single daughter in that jail who was loved by their father, not one. Every prisoner was hoping that Georgia’s father would scramble the money together to come to Mexico and visit. The women wanted to meet him and the ongoing project was to start a “Bring Georgia’s Father to Mexico” fund. Violeta had his name tattooed on her arm. It was blue on her limb and it went downward, like the down column in a crossword puzzle, and read Tom.

  Georgia had new clothes, shoes, bedding, and bathroom articles because her father sent her packages and money every week. Her cell was filled with British sweets. Georgia shared her Cadbury bars and red boxes of Maltesers with everyone.

  As Georgia walked away to call her father, a chill filled the room, and we heard thunder. Cool air blew through the corridors and glassless windows.

  Mr. Roma placed his materials away in the short metal locker at the back of the room. Luna stood and laid her collage, along with the other cardboard sheets, on a table in the back. I stacked the magazines in a pile.

  The teacher said goodbye to Luna and, when he said goodbye to me, he kissed my cheek. Welcome to the workshop, he said. I hope you’ll come back.

  He smelled like beer.

  I didn’t rub his kiss away with my sleeve.

  As Luna and I walked slowly back to our cell, the wet male saliva dried on my cheek. I felt the place on my face for hours afterward as if his kiss had left a mark on me. To have a man kiss you in a women’s jail is a gift better than any birthday or Christmas present. It’s better than a bouquet of roses. It’s better than a warm shower. I could imagine living in this jail for years and living for every workshop day and that male kiss on my cheek. That kiss was rain, sunshine, and the sweet air of outside. Yes. I knew I’d even sit there and glue stupid things onto cardboard sheets just to get that kiss again.