by David Bergen
SHE did not speak to her mother about the offer of money. She had told Elena no, but Elena had said that the money would still be available should Íso change her mind. It will not run away, Elena said.
And so the idea of the money sat inside her like the seed from a poisonous plant. And she decided that there would be only one reason to take it, and having decided this, she returned to Elena and said that she was ready. For several months the money rested in her account in the small bank that bordered the central square near the market. She had never had so much, and she knew that her mother had never had so much. She was restless. She could not sleep. She was impatient with her life and with her mother and with the people who came into the tienda to buy butter or cheese or rolled oats. Why eat butter when there is a baby out there without a mother? The seed inside her grew and one day she told her mother that she could no longer wait for her permission papers to be processed. She said that she would be leaving the following week. Her plans were set.
Her mother touched Íso’s head and said that she was surprised Íso had not gone sooner. If you must go, she said, then you will go with my blessing.
6.
IN HER BACKPACK SHE HAD EXTRA UNDERWEAR AND SOCKS and a sweater, and she had a flashlight, her toothbrush and toothpaste, a New Testament from her mother, maps of Mexico and the United States, and she had a bottle of water and two oranges and tortillas and beans to eat on the road. She had five thousand US dollars in an envelope, which was for the man, and she had one thousand dollars wrapped in cellophane and taped to her waist. She had left the remainder with her mother. She wore around her neck the carving that Santiago had given her. She had no identification, and everything that was true about her—anything that could be known—was inside her own head. She wore dark runners and dark jeans and a dark T-shirt because this is what was advised. The T-shirt was too large but she preferred this because she didn’t want to reveal so easily that she was a woman. She wore a Giants cap, and she tucked her hair up beneath the cap so that from a distance she might appear to be a boy.
They were eight, and this included the guide, who called himself Marcos. He was a big man with a head like a hammer, very flat, and when he spoke it was so softly that you had to lean in to understand what he wanted to say. There was a tattoo of Jesus on his left forearm, and the words “Es mi guia,” and in the days to come he would reveal that he had spent ten years in prison and during that time he had found the Lord and now it was his duty to help those who were lost. He wore a chain with a wooden cross. He was not the man who took the money. This was a man who sat in the passenger seat of the van and said nothing, except when he hopped out at the edge of the city, his pockets full, and called out, Good luck and pray that you do not see me again. And he was gone, the man with no name.
Most of them were young, sixteen to twenty, though there was one boy, a mere child, who sat in the back seat beside Íso.
He said his name and he said that his mother was in Houston. He said it as if it was a memorized word, a word that meant nothing to him, some distant dot in a great country, whispered in his ear by a brother or a mother or a father. He took her hand. She allowed this and then thought better of it and pulled it away. He reached for it again, searching, and found her and held on tightly.
My name’s Gabriel, he said. And you?
She didn’t answer.
Will you be my friend? the boy asked. The others in the van were ignoring him.
No, she said. Find someone else. But in speaking to him she realized that she had opened the door into which he would stick his head. Short hair, big ears, small teeth. She pulled her hand away and turned towards the window.
The boy sighed and hiccupped and eventually fell asleep against her shoulder. His head was tiny and very light. His wrists were thin. He carried nothing. When he woke, the morning had almost arrived. The edges of the mountains were black against the sky, and then the sun appeared, and she saw the others in the van. She was the only girl.
They stopped at a roadside restaurant and Marcos said that they weren’t to talk to anyone. Use the bathroom and come back to the van. If you buy food, get it at the cantina. Maria will serve you.
She went to the women’s washroom and Gabriel followed her.
Go piss like a boy, she said, and pushed him towards the men’s bathroom. When she came out he was still standing there.
Did you go? she asked.
He shook his head. She motioned to the bathroom door, and after he entered she closed the door and stood guard. He came out grinning. On their way back to the van he manoeuvred through the tables and held out his palm for money or food, and when he climbed into the van he had a little of both. They shared her tortillas and beans and drank her water, and they ate the sweet bun he was given. One of the young men had purchased potato tamales and he ate these from a Styrofoam container and the smell filled the van and made her hungry. She chewed slowly at her tortilla.
Gabriel nudged her and lifted his T-shirt and showed her a piece of paper pinned to the underside.
She shook her head.
He worked for a long time at the safety pin and finally released the paper and pushed it at her.
She shook her head again.
He opened the paper and held it up for her to read.
She took it. It was a note, written in English, introducing the boy, who was seven and whose mother, Beatrice, lived in Houston. An address was given. The final line said, Much thank you to take my son, Gabriel. God bless.
She read it twice and then pushed it back at him.
He put it in his pants pocket.
Do you have money? she asked.
He shook his head.
Nothing?
He shook his head.
Who wrote the note? she asked.
My father.
Your father, she said.
Yes.
Your father’s crazy.
His eyes were dark and empty. He nodded, willing to accept whatever she said.
SHE had said goodbye to Illya during her last week at home. They walked arm in arm through the streets and Íso told Illya that she was leaving to find her baby.
To the States?
Yes.
Alone?
Yes.
His wife will fight you. You know that.
Yes.
Do you have a plan?
I will go to their city, and I will find them, and I will take the baby.
That’s not a plan.
It’s all I have.
If you’re caught, you’ll be deported. Without the baby.
I won’t be caught.
Oh, Íso. Do you have enough money?
The money I was paid for the baby. It is enough.
Does your mother know?
Yes, she agrees.
There are other ways. Legal ways. You could find a lawyer.
Íso shook her head. No, she said.
They stood in the street, facing each other. Illya hugged Íso. Every day I’ll think of you, she whispered. Be careful. It will be dangerous.
I’m smart, Íso said. I’m strong.
Illya hugged her again.
Her mother, in order to prepare Íso, had laid out maps of Mexico and the United States on the small table in the cocina in the evenings and showed her the route that she might take. Her mother paid particular attention to the map of the United States. She circled cities such as San Antonio and Houston and San Francisco. She said that she had names of people in San Francisco, though it had been years and she didn’t know if her old friends still lived there, or if they were still alive. But they must be, she said. I’m still alive. She drew a line from the Mexican border up to the city of Saint Falls, where Doctor Mann lived. It was a long distance, and as she pushed her yellow marker along the interstates and roads that climbed up to that distant city, she shook her head and said, It is far. You’ll take the bus, she said. She told Íso that if she was stopped by the border patrol, or if she was caught, she should say that sh
e had a baby in the country. And a husband.
Íso set her mother up with a messaging account so that they could communicate. She took her to a Tigo shop and they sat beside each other and Íso taught her mother how to find her account and how to send messages. One evening they sat in the dim light of the shop and they sent messages back and forth to each other, laughing together, her mother awkward with the technology, but finally understanding.
After, they walked home arm in arm, past the women cutting fruit, and past the tortilla stands, and past a barbershop where through a single door they saw men and boys waiting solemnly in plastic chairs, and on through the main square, where, on the basketball court, a game was taking place. They stood and watched for a while. One of the teams had a very tall white man who was quite slow and couldn’t keep up, but he scored easily. Íso said that Doctor Mann had played basketball here sometimes. She had watched him. He was very quick, she said. Her mother was quiet. They sat on a low wall of stone behind one of the baskets, their arms entwined. The crowd watching the game did not cheer or make any noise, and so the only sounds were those of sneakers on the concrete, and the ball bouncing, and the occasional shout from one of the players, and the referee’s whistle.
They stood finally and walked on, down the road towards the tienda.
That night Íso coloured her mother’s hair. She put on rubber gloves and mixed the solution and, using the long end of the comb, pulled her mother’s hair back in layers and carefully brushed in the solution. Always when she did this, she was aware of how vulnerable her mother was. Her mother’s scalp. Her mother’s eyebrows. The lines on her mother’s forehead. Her closed eyes.
There, she said when she was finished. Until next time.
Her last night at home, she had heard her mother crying. Very softly. She wanted to speak to her mother then, or to hold her, but she did not let her mother know that she was awake. If her mother had wanted to let Íso know that she was sad, she would have cried during the day. After, when her mother had finished crying and appeared to be sleeping again, Íso put her hand on her mother’s back and held it there until she too fell asleep.
AT the Mexican border they crossed the Suchiate by raft into Talisman. A flat wooden vessel that held nine of them. A cable extended from one bank to the other. The pilot was a young man named Moises and he said that he was happy to offer them a ride on his zip line. He grinned. I’m your driver, he said, and here is your private boat. He told them to sit or stand, it was their choice, but not to fall into the water because there were alligators, and when he said this he looked at Gabriel and he winked. Mexican police stood with rifles on the bridge above them, but they simply watched, and at one point Moises saluted the police and called out a good day. They nodded solemnly, as if this undertaking on the river below was part of a larger scheme over which they had no control. Or over which they had ultimate control. Or perhaps they were paid. Marcos too seemed indifferent to the presence of the police. On the other side, they clambered up the bank, and Marcos led them through small streets and past a market where all manner of goods were sold, melons and tomatoes and butchered chickens and shoes and plastic balls of all colours, one of which the boy wanted.
When we arrive, she said.
Watermelon, he said, and she took his hand and pulled him along. A child, not more than six, walked parallel to their group, carrying a bag of T-shirts and sweaters, naming the prices for such fine ware. He also claimed to have candles, hats, cigarettes, small candies, peanuts. All this was available. And then he disappeared.
Marcos took them deep into the city, finally stopping at a building painted the colour of a ripe papaya. He entered a dark doorway. They leaned against the wall out of the sun and waited. On the street a dog walked along the shaded side and as it approached it gave them a wide berth and moved sideways, its rear end twisted and hollowed. A wedding party passed, the bride and groom standing in the back of a pickup, an old man next to them playing trumpet. When the din and excitement was gone, a single balloon lay in the street. The boy ran and picked it up and played in the shade of the building, talking to himself.
Two hours later a van pulled up, the same one they had left before crossing the Suchiate. A woman climbed out and entered the dark doorway and a while later Marcos reappeared and gestured at the van. Your private beast, he said. Climb aboard. And he laughed.
They drove for three days, stopping whenever Marcos grew tired, through Chiapas and Oaxaca and Mexico City and San Luis Potosí, up into Nuevo León. In the smaller towns they stopped in the central square and filled their water bottles using the spigots where women washed laundry. Women dressed in the cloth of their tribe, speaking languages she had never heard. She learned the boys’ names. They learned hers. She did not speak out of turn, and when it was required, she spoke softly and with few words. She was aware that these boys were farmers’ sons, and that they were sons of coffee pickers, and that they were very poor. She was aware of her own status—the fact that she knew English, and that she had some sense of where they were headed, and that her experience with the American students at her school in Panajachel could only benefit her. These were the facts, and she kept these facts in her head.
One of the boys, Benito, was interested in her and he kept his eye on her, and after one of the gas station stops, during which she bought tamales for herself and Gabriel, Benito climbed into the back of the van beside her. She placed the boy between herself and Benito, and she turned towards the window. She fell asleep and woke to discover Benito’s hand between her legs. She exhaled with a hiss and pushed him away. Bastard, she said.
He grinned, his teeth shining in the darkness. He said he was horny and she too must be horny, so young and so beautiful, and if she wanted help, he would do so. Understand? he asked.
She carried, in the front pocket of her jeans, a knife that her tío had given her. She reached for it now and held it up for Benito to see and she said, If you touch me or the boy, I’ll kill you.
The boy was sleeping and the others were sleeping and Marcos was singing along to a religious song on the radio, and so no one heard. She could smell Benito. She did not know if he believed her and so she said again, I’ll kill you. The knife was in her fist and her fist lay on her thigh and her body shook, but not her voice. Go, she said, and he shrugged and climbed back to his spot in the middle of the van.
She sat without sleeping and when she found that her head was falling into her chest she rubbed her eyes and looked out into the darkness and tried to sing along with the voices on the radio and then she slept and woke, aware that she had slept, and she was dismayed.
At night, from then on, she held the knife in her fist as she slept. And during the day she avoided Benito. He still watched her and he watched the boy, as if jealous of the boy’s position. She and the boy had taken to eating together, drinking together, sleeping together, and when the van stopped and she climbed down to go to the bathroom in the bush, he followed her and they pissed together. Don’t look, she said, squatting, and he turned away and then turned back to watch her. Holding his little beak. She made a shooing motion with her hand and he grinned. She knew that she was in less danger because of Gabriel. It was much easier to attack a girl who was alone than a girl with a seven-year-old child. And so she slept with Gabriel in her arms, his small head pressed against her stomach.
THEY crossed the Rio Grande at night just north of Piedras Negras. Marcos did not go with them. He pointed across the river and said, Por ahí. On the other side there were lights and vehicles and men, and all around them in the water there were other people, and the most amazing part was the silence, for no one spoke. Just the splashing and the breathing and the occasional gasp, and then more silence, save for the hum of truck engines on the other side. Gabriel held her pack and clung to her as she lay across a rubber tube and kicked with her feet. His little arms around her neck. Their group formed a V in the water, with Benito at the head of the V. A body floated past her, face down, long dark hair spr
ead out. She pushed the body away and kept kicking. She took water into her mouth. Swallowed it. Gasped and sputtered. Gabriel said her name. She told him to be quiet. And then beneath her bare feet she felt mud and the bank and she was clambering up from the water to the land. She took Gabriel’s hand and plucked him upwards, trailing Benito’s broad back. He was bent over and following the bank of river. And then a light came on and the world was brightly lit and a voice called out.
They ran. There were shouts and lights and people running and she took Gabriel into her arms and she ran towards the darkness but the darkness moved farther away and so she ran back and then forwards and back again until finally she was once again in the darkness and she ran in that darkness like the fastest runner and when she had finished running she was still holding Gabriel and it was still dark. Far behind her she saw the lights and she saw men and she saw the men corralling other men and boys and girls, and then she turned and ran with the darkness.
IN the cold of the morning she saw the pink light in the sky and she saw the cacti take shape and she saw the wide sky and a bird circling high above. She had covered Gabriel with a sweater from her pack and she had put on his runners and she had cleaned her own feet of thorns and scrapes and put on her own shoes, and so she sat, watching the sunrise, waiting for the boy to wake.
She stood and turned a full circle, looking out into that space where the land and the sky met. She walked one hundred steps in one direction and then returned. One hundred steps in the opposite direction and returned. The river was gone. The people were gone. She looked for footprints that might indicate where they had come from. Nothing. The land was hard and dry. They had two small bottles of water. No food. One hat. An extra sweater. Shoes. When the boy woke she let him drink. He drank and drank and in drinking so much he spilled water onto the ground. She took the bottle and screwed on the lid and said, Enough.