Furia

by Yamile Saied Méndez

  When I arrived home, the TV was on at top volume, my father, Héctor, and César eating a picada of cheeses, salami, and bread while my mom cooked in the kitchen.

  “Hola, Camila,” said César, ungluing himself from the TV long enough to smile and nod at me.

  “Hola to all,” I said so I wouldn’t have to kiss anyone. But nobody really paid me any attention.

  When I walked over to see what was so mesmerizing, I realized they were watching the Juventus game. I almost choked when Diego appeared on the screen.

  “There he is,” César said, stating the obvious.

  Héctor glanced at my dad nervously.

  My mom left the dishes in the sink and stood next to me, crossing her arms.

  Instead of showing the team’s warm-up, the camera panned over the Allianz Stadium. It was filled to capacity. The sky was already dark. The game had started at six in the evening in Turín, but in mid-November, it was almost winter there.

  My breath seized when I saw Diego jogging to the sideline to talk to one of the coaches. He zipped up his warm-up jacket. Someone from the crowd said something to him, and his eyes crinkled deliciously as he smiled.

  He was the same Diego as always, but on TV he looked like an alien on another world impossibly far away.

  Jay, Juve’s giraffe mascot, ran behind him, urging the crowd to cheer, but there was no need for that. A solid roar rose when Diego waved, and I got goose bumps. Central’s fans were passionate, but this was something more. There were so many people in the Juve stadium. They all cheered for el Titán.

  “Diego!” my mom whispered. It was a prayer that my brother would one day be where Diego was.

  After warm-ups, the team headed back to the locker room, and a reporter sprinted over to Diego.

  “Titán, unas palabras!” he begged in an unmistakable Buenos Aires accent.

  Diego stopped, but glanced at his teammates.

  “Juventus loves you, Titán,” the reporter said. “Do you still think you’d like to return to Rosario later on in your career, or do you want to remain a bianconero forever?”

  “Ooh!” my father exclaimed. “Now he’s done for.”

  It was such an unfair question. If he said nothing compared to playing in Italy (and how could it?), the Central Scoundrels would never forgive him, but he couldn’t snub his adoring tifosi.

  “I have a contract for three more years. I’m grateful for it, and I’m trying not to think beyond that. But I’ll never forget I’m from Rosario. I’m a Scoundrel until the day I die and beyond. I’m a Juventino until the day I die and beyond. Central gave me the chance to be here in this cathedral of fútbol. How can you make me choose?”

  My dad’s stone face softened. The reporter must have felt chastised, too, because he changed the subject. “Who’s watching you back home?”

  Diego looked straight into the camera like he was looking directly at me. When he licked his lips, my hands prickled.

  “My mamana, my friends from 7 de Septiembre. The kids from El Buen Pastor.”

  Like it was just the two of them exchanging confidences at home and not on TV for the world to see, the reporter said, “You know what I mean.” He laughed, but Diego looked at him, uncomprehending. “Okay. I’ll ask on behalf of all the girls who wish they were here with you—is there a special friend out there cheering you on?”

  Diego’s gaze strayed from the camera. He actually blushed and tried not to smile, biting his lip. “Yes, there is someone. My first goal today is for her.”

  “Someone,” Héctor said, turning to look at me.

  I pretended not to notice.

  “Give us a name,” the reporter insisted.

  But Diego looked over his shoulder. Someone was calling for him. He shrugged and ran off.

  I was fire turned into woman. If I moved, I’d combust into flames.

  My first goal today is for her.

  My mom announced that dinner was ready: milanesas, mashed potatoes, and fried eggs.

  “I’m happy for him,” César said.

  I went to the kitchen to make myself a plate.

  “My first goal!” My dad threw his hands up. “He’s an arrogant prick.”

  “Fast-forward,” Héctor added. “Let’s watch the goals.”

  I carried my plate back to the table. I wanted to watch the whole thing. Fútbol was more than goals, but it was best to stay quiet and avoid my father’s attention. I sat in silence as my dad fast-forwarded to Diego’s first goal and celebration. The stadium exploded in cheers, but Diego was the best part. He kissed a bracelet made of white tape and lifted his tight fist to the sky.

  I felt the hotness of his lips on my skin, searing through me.

  “He’s still the same old Diego,” César said, a smile on his face. “Look at him. That spark . . . you can’t manufacture that. He plays like he’s still in the vacant lot.”

  “And not like he has a stick up his ass, like Pablo,” my dad said.

  The three of them started arguing about the pros and cons of playing in Europe, the pressure of having a family, the pressure of being paid millions. My mom had disappeared into her room, and quietly, I went to mine to text my boyfriend and thank him for the gift.

  28

  Three days before the tournament, Roxana texted the team’s group thread.

  Eda, Marisa’s sister, is missing. At seven, the family and neighbors are marching to the police station to demand the police look for her. Who’s with me?

  I sat down hard on my bed.

  One by one, the girls of the team replied, echoing each other’s shock and support:

  Ay, Dios mío. Eda? Not her!

  I’ll be there.

  On my way.

  Count me in, Coach texted.

  Everyone knew a girl who had gone missing. Most times, they turned up dead.

  I’ll be there, I typed with shaking hands.

  Heavy-hearted, I turned the TV on. A grainy picture of Eda as the flag bearer at the math Olympics took up half the screen. She was twelve years old and hadn’t come home from school. Her seventh-grade graduation was the next day. There was no reason for her to run away.

  Not wanting to go to the march by myself, I knocked on my mom’s door. She’d been locked in for days, coming out only to make dinner for my father.

  She didn’t reply, so gingerly, I turned her doorknob and walked in.

  “Mami,” I called.

  She didn’t answer.

  Bright sunshine filtered through the cracks in her shutters, but it only made the rest of the room seem darker. The heat and stale air felt like a wall.

  I sat by her side on the bed and shook her gently. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and when she realized it was me, she bolted upright with a gasp of terror. “What happened? Is Pablo okay?”

  My first impulse was to reply that who cared about Pablo? He was obviously okay, loving playing house. But that would only have made my mom feel worse. Instead, I tried to summon the voice Sister Cruz used when Lautaro was having one of his tantrums.

  “Everything’s okay,” I whispered, thinking of Marisa’s little sister. My mind replaced her face with Karen’s, Paola’s, the faces of the other girls from El Buen Pastor. Even Roxana’s or my own. My mom’s.

  Mamá’s eyes softened and fluttered shut like butterfly wings; she was fast asleep again before I could tell her the truth. Everything was wrong. I wanted to lie next to her like when I was little and feel the warm safety of her arms. But she looked so fragile in the bed, I also wanted to protect her. On the bed, there was a gigantic set of mahogany rosary beads, but nothing else in the room showed that this was her private space. Careful not to disturb her, I fixed the covers and left. I wrote a note that I put on the table so she wouldn’t worry about me if she woke up alone.

  Right before I walked out the door, I t
exted Pablo.

  Mamá isn’t doing well. Come over. She won’t get up. You know how she is.

  The message showed as delivered, but he didn’t reply.

  Nico watched me. I thought about texting Diego and asking him to help me convince Pablo to come over, but it was ten at night in Turín, and Diego and I had already said our good nights. In any case, I needed to get to the march.

  On the way to Marisa’s house, I counted seven boys and one girl wearing Diego’s Juventus jersey. In el barrio, it used to be only Central and Newell’s jerseys with the occasional Barcelona one because of Leo Messi, but now everyone wore Juventus twenty-one. I wondered if someday I’d see kids wearing my colors, my number, my name. It seemed like a fantasy that would never actually happen. But I’d fantasized about kissing Diego and him telling me he loved me on TV . . .

  After the game, Diego had shown me that under the top layer of tape, there was another layer with my name on it.

  You’re why I do everything I do, Camila. Without you, all this effort would have no meaning.

  Part of me had melted like sugar over fire, and the other part had wondered what he expected in return for all the love.

  The bus approached Arroyito, and I got off and joined the crowds of people heading toward Avenida Génova. Although most of the team had promised they’d be there, when I arrived, I only saw Roxana. She must have felt my gaze on her, because she looked up, and her face crumpled when she saw me.

  The months of silence vanished like they’d never happened. I rushed toward her and hugged her tight, tight, tight while she cried.

  “They found her body.”

  The crying around me turned to hushed tones as the news of what had happened to Eda spread.

  “She didn’t tell anyone she was meeting this guy,” Roxana said between hiccups. “Her phone was unlocked—they found it at the bus stop—and the police went through her messages. It’s horrible. She was just a little girl.”

  The door of the house opened, and a woman walked out with a young girl hitched on her hip. It took me a second to recognize Marisa. The rest of the team started trickling in, including Coach Alicia, whose eyeliner was smeared. Even she had been crying.

  I don’t remember who gave me a candle, but Roxana, the rest of the team, and I joined the neighborhood in a silent march, demanding justice for Eda.

  Mothers clutched their daughters’ hands. Fathers carried posters with Eda’s picture. In one of them, she celebrated with Marisa, who was dressed in her Eva María uniform.

  People opened their doors, left their houses, and swelled the ranks of heartbroken and furious friends and families. A few of them carried signs with the same picture of a smiling Eda that had flashed on the news. Miriam Soto waved at me from her stoop, and I waved back.

  Roxana cried silently, her shoulders shaking. Inside me, a fury grew and spread until I couldn’t hold the words in anymore.

  “¡Queremos justicia!” I shouted.

  Justice.

  We wanted justice, but what would that mean for Eda and all the girls and women like her? In a perfect world, it would mean that every person involved in their suffering would pay. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. And then every girl would be safe.

  But even though I didn’t want to let the cynical voice in my mind win, it was hard to imagine that Eda would be the last one.

  Who would be next, and who would get to grow old?

  “Ni una menos,” I sang out. “Vivas nos queremos.”

  The chant spread like wildfire. Every voice, every heart demanded that the world let us live.

  After the march, the team gathered in Roxana’s elegant living room. In the kitchen, Mrs. Fong spread out boxes of pizza, but no one seemed hungry.

  I looked around at the faces of my teammates scattered on the sofa, the silk-upholstered chairs, the marble floor. None of the new girls had known Marisa or her sister, but everyone looked affected. Milagros and Carolina still had tears in their eyes, while Rufina’s jaw was set. She caught my eye and quickly looked away. I loved my team, but I realized I didn’t know much about their lives off the pitch, especially the new girls. What personal horrors were they revisiting as we reeled over Eda’s murder?

  Roxana held my hand tightly. I was her anchor to reality, and she was mine. I’d missed her so much.

  Finally, Coach stood up, and her gaze swept over the room. She looked like one of those ancient prophets, and we were the parched girls at the edge of a daunting desert.

  “Chicas,” she said, “Marisa just texted me. She asked me to thank you all for being there with her today. She also wished you good luck in the tournament.”

  “But Coach,” Roxana called out, surprising everyone, “we can’t play. We can’t go out there and have fun when girls are dying every day.”

  Coach Alicia took a big breath and said, “Daring to play in this tournament is a rebellion, chicas. Not too long ago, playing fútbol was forbidden to women by law. But we’ve always found a way around it. Those who came before us played in circuses, in summer fairs, dressed as men. How many of you had to quit when you were around twelve, the same age as Eda, just because you dared to grow up?”

  I raised my hand, and so did most of the other girls.

  “Here we are. Incorrigible, all of us,” Coach said, her eyes glinting. “Many people may think it’s just a game. But look at the family we’ve made.”

  Roxana leaned in and hugged me, and I hugged her back.

  “Things are changing, and you ladies will have opportunities women of my generation never dreamed of. Vivas nos queremos, and fútbol is how we Argentines play the game of life. Let’s honor Eda and all the other girls we’ve lost by doing what we love and doing it well.”

  Her words reignited the fire in me. I imagined the same thing was happening inside each of the girls, and even in Mrs. Fong, whose eyes blazed.

  “Chicas,” Mrs. Fong called. “There’s pizza. Come and eat.”

  Without being told twice, we all joined her in the kitchen. With three mates going around, we grieved together like sisters, but I also felt the prickle of the challenge Coach had set for us.

  One day, when a girl was born in Rosario, the earth would shake with anticipation for her future and not dread.

  29

  Yael drove me home in her father’s little car. We were quiet most of the way, but when we reached el barrio, she blurted out the question that must have been burning on her tongue since Roxana’s house. “How old do you think Coach is?”

  My mind raced with speculations. I’d never even thought about it. She was certainly older than my mom. “Fifty?”

  “So old? I think she’s just wrinkly. My mom’s forty-five, and she can’t run a block without coughing up a lung, and Coach? She can outrun me.”

  “Let’s look it up.”

  The car made an ominous sound, and Yael cringed and hurriedly switched gears. “Ay, I got used to Luciano’s automatic.”

  “Fancy!” I teased her.

  She gave me a side-eye. “Not as fancy as what you-know-who drives.”

  “Voldemort?”

  Now she laughed. “You’re such a great deflector. No, Diego, boluda.”

  I forced myself not to blush or smile and said, “You’re the one changing the subject.”

  Yael pulled into my monoblock’s driveway. The engine of her car grumbled, impossible to ignore. Doña Kitty and Franco seemed to be coming back from Ariel’s market, plastic bags in hand. They both looked curiously at us. I waved. Franco waved back, but his grandmother pretended not to see us.

  “Nosy neighbors, huh?” Yael asked.

  “You have no idea.” I leaned in to hug her.

  “You have no idea what the neighbors say about Luciano and me. They’re disgusting.”

  Just thinking about it, I shuddered. “But no one is asking i
f you need help, right?”

  We shook our heads in unison, and I said goodbye. Dashing past Doña Kitty, I ruffled Franco’s hair and climbed the stairs two at a time.

  Although the Southern Cross already shone in the sky, I was determined to get my mom out of bed. She hadn’t helped me become a futbolera when I was younger, but she’d helped me get to the tournament. I wouldn’t be here without her, and she needed me.

  “Hola, nena,” Pablo said when I opened the door. He sat in front of the TV, the volume muted for a commercial. Nico sat next to Pablo, his head on my brother’s lap.

  “Pali!” I said, running to him. I hugged him tightly, blinking quickly so I wouldn’t cry. “You came back!” He laughed and kissed my forehead, and I looked into his dark eyes. “I missed you, tarado.”

  He just smiled. That was Pablo. He hadn’t missed me, and he wouldn’t lie. I let go of him and asked, “Is Mamá still in bed?”

  The TV sound came on. It was a Ben 10 episode, and Pablo reached over to lower the volume again. “She’s in the shower,” he said. “We talked for a while, and then she said she wanted to get changed.” I could hear her singing.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “I came as soon as I got your message. I was in the area anyway. You never see me, but I’m always around.”

  He might have meant well, but his words sounded too much like something my father would say.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “I went to a march for the girl that died today.”

  “Another one?”

  I crossed my arms tightly to stop my shivers. “Her name was Eda. She was twelve.”

  Pablo’s jaw clenched.

  “Marisol’s having a girl. I mean, we’re having a girl.”

  A girl.