Yamile Saied Méndez
For my daughters, Magalí and Areli,
For my sister, María Belén Saied,
For the little girl I once was,
For all las Incorregibles and las Furias of the world.
But a mermaid has no tears, and
therefore she suffers so much more.
—Hans Christian Andersen,
“The Little Mermaid”
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
1
Lies have short legs. I learned this proverb before I could speak. I never knew exactly where it came from. Maybe the saying followed my family across the Atlantic, all the way to Rosario, the second-largest city in Argentina, at the end of the world.
My Russian great-grandmother, Isabel, embroidered it on a pillow after her first love broke her heart and married her sister. My Palestinian grandfather, Ahmed, whispered it to me every time my mom found his hidden stash of wine bottles. My Andalusian grandmother, Elena, repeated it like a mantra until her memories and regrets called her to the next life. Maybe it came from Matilde, the woman who chased freedom to Las Pampas all the way from Brazil, but of her, this Black woman whose blood roared in my veins, we hardly ever spoke. Her last name got lost, but my grandma’s grandma still showed up so many generations later in the way my brown hair curled, the shape of my nose, and my stubbornness—ay, Dios mío, my stubbornness. Like her, if family folklore was to be trusted, I had never learned to shut up or do as I was told.
But perhaps the words sprouted from this land that the conquistadores thought was encrusted with silver, the only inheritance I’d ever receive from the indigenous branch of my family tree. In any case, when my mom said them to me as I was getting ready to leave the house that afternoon, I brushed her off.
“I’m not lying,” I insisted, fighting with the tangled laces of my sneakers—real Nikes that Pablo, my brother, had given me for Christmas after he got his first footballer paycheck. “I told you, I’ll be at Roxana’s.”
My mom put down her sewing—a sequined skirt for a quinceañera—and stared at me. “Be back by seven. The whole family will be over to celebrate the season opener.”
The whole family.
As if.
For all their talk of family unity, my parents weren’t on speaking terms with any of their siblings or cousins. But my dad’s friends and Pablo’s girlfriend would be here eating and gossiping and laughing until who knew when.
“You know Pablo, Ma. I’m sure he has plans with the team.”
“He specifically asked me to make pizzas,” she said with a smirk. “Now,you be on time, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Stupid like what?” My words came out too harsh, but I had stellar grades. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t sleep around. Hell, I was seventeen andnot pregnant, unlike every other woman in my family. You would’ve thought she’d give me some credit, be on my side, but no. Nothing I did was enough.I was not enough. “It’s not like I can go to El Gigante. I don’t have money for a ticket.”
She flung the fabric aside. “Mirá, Camila, how many times have I told you that a fútbol stadium’s no place for a decent señorita? That girl who turned up in a ditch? If she hadn’t been hanging out with the wrong crowd, she’d still be alive.”
There was a little bit of truth in what she said. But just a little.That girl, Gimena Márquez, had gone missing after a game last year, but she had been killed by her boyfriend, el Paco. He and Pope Francisco shared a name, but el Paco was no saint.
Everyone knew that, just as everyone knew he used every woman in his life as a punching bag, starting with his mother. If I pointed this out, though, my mom would start ranting about the Ni Una Menos movement, how it was all feminist propaganda, and I’d miss my bus. My championship game, the one my mom couldn’t know about, was at four, the same time as Central’s league opener. At least they were at opposite ends of the city.
“Vieja,” I said, instantly regretting calling her old. She wasn’t even forty yet. “We live in the twenty-first century in a free-ish country. If I wanted to go to the stadium, I could. You could, too, Mami. Pablo would want to see you there. You know that, right?”
Her face hardened. The last time she’d been to the stadium, Central had lost, and my dad had joked that she’d been la yeta, bad luck. My mom was a never-forgive, never-forget kind of person and would remember his words until her last breath. Because what if he was right? What if she had been the reason Pablo’s team had lost?
Throwing my last card, I let just enough of the truth spill out (I was going to Roxana’s after my game) to quench her fears. “At Roxana’s I can hear what happens in the stadium, Mama. Just give me this, please. What am I supposed to do here all day?”
She tugged at a stubborn thread. “It’s Mamá, Camila—don’t talk like a country girl. If my sister Graciela heard you speak like this . . .” Her eyes swept over me, up and down. “And why are you wearing those baggy pants, hija? If you’d let me make you a few dresses . . .”
I almost laughed. If she was picking on how I talked and how I dressed, I’d won this battle. But then she said, “You’re hiding something, and it worries me.”
My heart softened.
I’d been hiding that something for an entire year, since Coach Alicia had discovered Roxana and me playing in a night league and recruited us to her team.
Pobre Mamá.
I wished I could share my secret with her. But in spite of what my parents believed, I had learned my lessons. When I was twelve, my dad found me playing fútbol in the neighborhood potrero with a bunch of boys. I’d been having the time of my life . . . until he started bellowing at me in front of the whole barrio that he wasn’t raising a marimacho, that fútbol was for men. I took it all in silence, ready to cry at my mom’s feet, but she sided with him. I hadn’t talked to her about fútbol since.
“Chau, Ma.” I pecked her cheek and dashed for the door and freedom. “I’ll tell Mrs. Fong you said hi.”
“Answer your phone when I call you!”
My cheap phone was inside my backpack, safely out of credit. But she didn’t know that. “Chau, te quiero!” I threw her a kiss and ran out before she could stop me.
I paused for half a second by the closed metal door of our apartment, but she didn’t say te quiero back.
The neighbor’s music, “Mi Gente,” set a reggaeton rhythm for my pounding feet. I took every shortcut between the cinder block buildings and shacks in 7 de Septiembre, our barrio. By the time I made it to the bus stop, I couldn’t hear the music anymore, but the pam-pam beat still resonated inside me.
The 142 bus turned the corner jus
t after I checked my watch. Two forty.
“You’re on time!” I gave the driver a grateful smile as I scanned my student card on the reader, and when it beeped, I thanked la Virgencita. I couldn’t really afford to spend money on the fare, but the game field in Parque Yrigoyen was too far away to walk.
“Well, you’re lucky,” the driver said. “This is the emergency services bus for Central’s opener. Most Scoundrels are already at El Gigante, but I’m supporting from here.” He smiled, showing me the blue-and-yellow jersey peeking out from under his worn blue button-up. “You heading there?”
I didn’t want to give him an excuse to get too friendly, so I shrugged and found a seat. The shiny black leather was cracked with yellowish stuffing peeking out, but it was far enough from both the middle-aged couple making out in the back and the man leering at me on the right.
The bus gathered speed and left el barrio. The drone of the engine and the warmth of the heater lulled me as I gazed out the window at the still-naked August trees and the flocks of birds who hadn’t made the flight north for warmer weather.
After a brief stop on Circunvalación, I felt something touch my leg—a card with a picture of La Difunta Correa, the patron saint of impossible things. The paper was yellowing, and a corner was bent. I looked up to see the flash of a young boy’s crooked smile as he walked the length of the bus giving out estampitas, saint cards, hoping for small donations.
In spite of attending a Catholic school since third grade, I’d never been particularly religious, but I recognized La Difunta. The image of a dead mother still breastfeeding her baby in a beam of divine sunshine had always mesmerized me. Sometime during the chaotic postcolonial years in the mid-1800s, the army had taken La Difunta’s husband to fatten up its ranks. Heartbroken, she’d carried their infant son and followed her husband through the sierras and the desert until she died of thirst. When two drovers found her body, her child was still alive, suckling from her breast. Ever since, miracles have been attributed to her. She isn’t officially a saint, but shrines to La Difunta dot Argentina’s roads, encircled by bottles of water, the offering and payment for her favors.
My conscience reminded me of all my lies, of the miracle my team would need to win the championship today. The sadness in the boy’s hunched shoulders pricked my heart. I rummaged in my pocket for some money. There wasn’t much he could get with fifty pesos, but it was all I had.
“Gracias,” he said, “May La Difunta bless you.”
I held up the estampita and asked, “Will this really work?”
He shrugged, but when he smiled, a dimple pocked his cheek. “What can you lose, eh?” He couldn’t have been more than ten, but he was already old.
No one else took an estampita or gave him money, and he sent me another smile before he stepped off the bus.
The engine’s roar couldn’t drown out the frantic muttering in my head: today might be the last day I played with my team. No legs would be fast enough to give us victory. We needed a miracle.
I glanced down at the estampita and sent La Difunta a silent prayer for a future in which I could play fútbol and be free. What could I lose, eh?
2
The bus arrived in Barrio General José de San Martín just as my watch pointed at three fifteen. I was late. I ran the rest of the way to Parque Yrigoyen field. Central Córdoba’s stadium loomed right behind it, but our girls’ league had no access there.
When I arrived, a referee in antiquated black—a guy—was checking my team’s shin guards.
Roxana, our goalie and my best friend, sent me a killer glare as I peeled out of my sweatpants and sweater to reveal the blue and silver of my uniform. I took the last place in line and knocked on my shins to prove I was protected.
The rest of the girls dispersed, and I laced my boots, Pablo’s hand-me-downs, which were falling apart and smelled like an animal had died and decomposed in them.
“You’re late, Hassan,” Coach said. A lifetime of squinting and playing tough in a man’s world had left a map of lines on her face, which said I’d better apologize or I wouldn’t like my destination.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t promise it wouldn’t happen again. I could lie to my mom, but to Coach Alicia? Absolutely not.
On the opposite side of the field, the Royals in purple and gold warmed up, doing jumping jacks and stretches.
“Today is a big day,” Coach Alicia muttered like she was talking to herself, but I recognized the hope blazing in her words. If we won, we’d go to the Sudamericano women’s tournament in December, and that would bring us all kinds of things that were impossible right now. Exposure. Opportunities. Respect.
I was a dreamer, but Coach Alicia was one of the most ambitious people I knew. She wanted so much for us.
“If we win, a pro team might finally notice you . . . I had hoped Gabi would be here today, but in December? By then there’ll be no hiding your talents, Hassan.”
Coach’s sister, Gabi, worked with a super successful team somewhere up north. The rebellious futboleras like us couldn’t go pro in Argentina. In the States, though, it was a different story. Every time Coach talked about some of us girls going pro, I wanted to believe her. But to hide my ridiculous dreams, I laughed dismissively.
Coach Alicia pierced me with her falcon eyes. “Don’t laugh. You might not be playing at El Gigante yet, but you have more talent than your brother. You’ll go further than he will. Mark my words.”
Pablo would be richer for sure. I only wanted the chance to play, but even that was like wishing for the moon.
Coach Alicia half smiled. “You have something Pablo doesn’t.”
“What?”
“Freedom from society’s expectations.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“Now, don’t give me that look.” She placed an arm over my shoulder in an almost-hug. “Pablo’s a professional now. If he doesn’t perform, the press slays him. You don’t have that pressure, except from me. I want nothing but the best from you today. ¿Está claro?”
“Like water,” I replied, still wounded.
She winked at me and handed me a captain band. She walked away before I could explain that she was asking too much, that I was just a girl with strong legs and a stubborn streak.
There was no time for drama, though. I wrapped the band around my arm and did a quick warm-up on my own. Too soon, Coach called us in for a huddle.
Sandwiched between Roxana and Cintia, I gazed at my teammates’ faces as Coach Alicia urged us to leave everything we had on the pitch.
Cintia was the oldest player at nineteen. Lucrecia, la Flaca, was the youngest at fifteen, and her confidence had bloomed in the last few months. Sofía and Yesica had never played before trying out for Coach Alicia, and now they were the best two defenders in our league. Mabel and Evelin were unstoppable in the middle. Mía had played in the United States as a kid before her family came back to Argentina, and what she lacked in skill she made up for in determination. Abril, Yael, and Gisela joined us after their barrio’s futsal team disbanded. Absent from the huddle was Marisa, our best striker. Marisa’s two-year-old daughter, Micaela, was our unofficial team mascot. I’d miss her tiny voice cheering for us today.
“We’ve all made sacrifices to be here,” Coach Alicia said. “Remember that your families support you. Fight for your compañeras, especially the ones who aren’t here today, and treat the ball with the respect it deserves.”
Without Marisa, there was only one sub, but after Coach’s words, there was no room for fear.
We cheered, “Eva María!”
It sounded like an invocation.
The ref blew the whistle for the captains to join him in the middle of the field. Roxana clapped her gloved hands and trotted to my side. Even with a thick headband on, Roxana’s hair was too fine to stay put. Tiny wisps stuck out from the black braid dangling down her back.
“Hard time getting out today?” she asked. “I was afraid you wouldn’t make it. With Marisa gone . . .” She shuddered. The possibility of having two missing players was too horrific to consider.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Tell your mom my mom says hi.”
Roxana laughed. “Tell her yourself. She’s over there with the whole family.”
Her large extended family occupied the sidelines; the Fongs never missed a game. Some had been born in China, some in Argentina, and all of them were fútbol obsessed. My friend was rich in ways that went beyond the supermarkets and clothing stores her father owned.
“They look so excited to be here,” I said, laughing to hide my jealousy.
“Hurry up, señoritas,” the ref called.
When he finished going over the fair play blah-blah-blah, I curtsied like a señorita.
“Watch it, number seven,” he warned me. “You don’t want to provoke me.”
Apparently encouraged by his attitude, the other team’s captains laughed. I looked them up and down: a chemical-blond girl and a chubby one with pretty green eyes.
“We’re going to kick your ass,” the blonde said.
The chubby girl giggled. Her eyes didn’t look pretty anymore. “We’ll stomp that smirk off your face, Hassan.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a familiar fizzing sensation made my vision go sharp and blurry at the same time. I took a step in the girl’s direction.
Roxana pulled me back by the shirt.
“Save it for later,” she hissed in my ear. She was right. I couldn’t lose my temper and our chance to win with it.
The ref blew the whistle, signaling the start of the game. Already high on adrenaline, I unleashed the part of me that came alive only on the pitch.
I ran back to my position in the midfield just in time to land Cintia’s cross.
“Adelante, Camila!” Mrs. Fong’s faith in me propelled my feet forward as I weaved through the line of defenders blocking my way to victory. The Royals’ number three tackled me right before the box. I tasted dirt, but the ref didn’t call a foul.
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