by Harold Coyle
The driver opened his door, jumped out, and ran to open Guajardo's.
When Jan looked back at the colonel, he smiled a sly smile, one that reminded Jan of a cat eyeing a bird. "At the Palacio Nacional you asked what motivated us to do what we did, Ms. Fields. Come with me, and I will show you." Without waiting, Guajardo turned away and exited the sedan.
The stench hit Jan before she even left the car. A dizzying combination of decaying garbage and human waste assaulted her nose, irritating its lining like pepper and causing her to gag. Pausing, Jan instinctively brought her hand up to her mouth and nose. Guajardo, waiting for her several feet from the sedan, watched in amusement. For a moment, he felt like calling out a snide comment, but decided to wait. There would be ample time to rub her nose into the reality of Modern Mexico.
Regaining her composure, Jan swung her legs out of the sedan, planting her feet into the discolored goo of the unpaved and rutted street.
Again, a momentary expression of disgust registered on her face, causing the smirk on Guajardo's face to broaden.
Jan, looking up at Guajardo, realized that she was not only making a spectacle of herself, but was reacting in a way that Guajardo, no doubt, had anticipated, perhaps even had counted on. This, and her own inability to control her reactions, suddenly angered her. Determined to show that she was made of sterner stuff, she sucked in a deep breath, distasteful as this was, and forced herself to stare back at Guajardo with a face that was as determined as it was defiant.
The change in Jan's demeanor wiped the grin off of Guajardo's face.
Realizing that she had managed to rally to his first challenge, he decided it was time to press on. Time was valuable and he was already falling behind. In a tone that was, for the circumstances, artificially polite and sweet, Guajardo invited Jan and her crew to follow his driver, Corporal Fares.
As if on cue, Ted and Joe Bob came up, equipment at the ready, on either side of her. Placing a free hand on her left shoulder, Joe Bob leaned over and whispered in Jan's ear, "You okay, Miss Fields?"
Reaching across her chest with her right hand and lightly grasping the hand Joe Bob had on her shoulder, Jan nodded. "I'm fine. Now let's go see what the good colonel wants to show us." With that, she let go of Joe Bob's hand and stepped off.
The strange procession caused the people in the streets of the slum to stop what they were doing and watch as it went by. Corporal Fares, wearing a nervous look on .his face, led the group. Every so often he looked to the side, nervously nodding his head at a neighbor who recognized him. Behind him came Guajardo, walking tall, erect, and seemingly unconcerned with the squalor of his surroundings. Several feet behind the colonel were Jan, Ted, and Joe Bob, all traveling in a tight little knot with Ted and Joe Bob holding their equipment at the ready.
Only the soldier who had driven the van for the camera crew remained behind, occasionally shooing away dirty children dressed in rags when they came too close to the sedan and van.
The tumbledown shanties, shacks, and hovels that lined the filth-strewn dirt street were constructed of every imaginable material. Some were made with cinder blocks, either loosely piled up one upon the other or cemented together with uneven layers of mortar used by the amateur builders who laid the blocks. Scattered between the hovels made of cinder blocks were other homes built with irregular scraps of plywood or wooden boards. These, like the cinder-block homes, varied depending upon the skill of the builder. All were no more than six or seven feet high, had a single door, often without a frame, and few if any windows. Their roofs, flat and barely visible to Jan, were either boards covered with a thin layer of tarpaper or loosely connected strips of corrugated metal.
As they trudged along, Jan began to take note of the people. They parted as Corporal Fares and Colonel Guajardo approached, slipping away into their homes or into the dark, narrow spaces between them. Jan looked at them as she passed. In the spaces between the homes, amid heaps of rubbish and discarded building material, small children and women watched as she went by. In one alley, Jan was shocked to see a woman, her back to the street, squatting over an open hole, relieving herself. That, no doubt, Jan thought, accounted for part of the stench. For a moment, Jan wondered why she was doing that in the open. Then, looking back at the size of the houses, she realized that they were far too small and crude to hold a bathroom inside. For the next few feet, Jan looked between the homes, searching for any signs of an outhouse, but saw none. Satisfied, and disgusted at the same time, she stopped looking.
Other details began to jump out at her. Above the houses, a wild patchwork of electric wires and extension cords running from telephone poles crisscrossed, running into access holes in the houses. On the ground, running between the houses, garden hoses of every color and size snaked in and out of other holes chipped or cut through the walls. It took no great genius to figure that this was how those fortunate enough to afford the material provided their homes with water and electricity.
In their wanderings, Jan could not find any street markings or numbers on the houses. She began to wonder if there were any. While she was working on this problem, Corporal Fares stopped in front of a cinderblock house, no different than many of those they had already passed.
Sheepishly, he looked up at Colonel Guajardo. The colonel, without changing expression, simply nodded, giving permission to, or ordering, Fares to enter.
Turning to Jan and her crew, Guajardo finally spoke. "Before, Ms.
Fields, you asked me what made me decide to raise my hand against the government to which I had pledged undying loyalty. I tried to think of the words that could describe this to you." He paused, stretching out his arms, palms up, and rotating his torso as he looked away from Jan and at the crowded slum in which they stood. Dropping his arms, he turned back to Jan. "But I could not. How, I thought, could I describe this in words that a well-bred, cared-for, and educated yanqui woman such as yourself could understand. Better, I thought, that I allow you to see, for yourself, what it meant to be a Mexican under the callous rule of the PRI. So I have brought you to the home of my driver, Corporal Fares. Perhaps, when you have seen this, you can better understand what is causing not only me, but millions of others like me, to take desperate steps. You may, if you like, film this. Perhaps you can think of the words that have escaped me."
Suddenly, the confrontation with his driver, the nervous silence in the sedan, and Corporal Fares's uneasiness as they had walked down the street, made sense. The corporal, obviously ashamed of his home, was being forced to expose it to strangers. That, and the fact that Jan realized that the colonel was making a crude effort to use them for propaganda, angered her. Her dark expression, displaying the anger and contempt she felt for Guajardo, was returned by the colonel, who, for his part, felt hatred for a person who sought only the truth that fit her own clean perception of how the world should be.
Jan turned toward Joe Bob and barked out her instructions in a tone that betrayed her disgust with Guajardo. "All right, let's get on with this.
Give me a hand mike."
Pulling out his earphones and sliding them over his head, Joe Bob turned on the recorder, listened for a moment, then reached into a side pocket and pulled out a mike for Jan. While he was doing so, Ted hoisted the camera onto his shoulder and waited for Jan's cue to start shooting.
Without any of the normal preliminaries, except for a quick check of her long reddish-brown hair, Jan gave the cue to start shooting. When she saw the red record light and Joe Bob give her a thumbs-up, indicating the mike was hot, Jan began without really knowing what she was going to say. "Jan Fields from Mexico City. About an hour ago, while interviewing Colonel Alfredo Guajardo, a member of the council of colonels responsible for today's dramatic coup here in Mexico, I asked the colonel why he decided to turn against the popularly elected government of Mexico. His response was to take me, and my camera crew, to this slum in the suburbs of Mexico City. The home we are standing in front of, barely better than a shack, supposedly bel
ongs to his driver, a corporal in the Mexican Army. While it is not unusual for rebels to claim that they represent the will of the people or justify their actions by publicly displaying the plight of the people, thought it would be appropriate to allow the colonel an opportunity to state his case. So here we are, at the home of Corporal Fares, Mexican Army."
Giving Ted the signal to keep rolling, Jan turned to enter the cinderblock house. For a moment, she felt good. The brief piece before the camera, her little introduction, had had a calming effect on her. For a second, she felt she was back in control, running the show. All she had to do now was maintain the edge and keep Guajardo from dominating the interview. Like a fighter entering the ring, she was ready.
The scene that greeted her, however, shook her. With the trained eye of an observer, in a single sweep of the one-room house, she took everything and everyone in, and was appalled. A single light bulb, precariously dangling from a cord in the center of the room, provided the only source of light. Guajardo, standing just inside the door to the right, was silently watching Corporal Fares as he hugged a girl of six or seven. She was thin, bordering on scrawny, with jet black hair pulled together in a braid. Her big eyes, wide with fright, were turned up to her father as she held his leg with a viselike grip.
Across from Fares, on the wall to the left of Jan, was a small portable two-burner stove, the only kitchen appliance in evidence. Next to it stood several wooden boxes, neatly stacked and attached by boards on either side, creating a shelving unit in which pots and pans occupied the lower section, or box, while other cooking utensils and boxes filled the top two.
In the corner, next to the stove, was an old kitchen table with a broken leg, surrounded by four chairs, none of which matched. Against the far wall was a mattress sitting on the floor. Though Corporal Fares partially blocked Jan from seeing the entire mattress, she could see that someone was on it. Curious, and anxious to see what was so important about this particular home, Jan moved around the corporal.
As she made this move, Jan's head struck the bulb, causing it to swing haphazardly from its long wire. Distracted, she moved farther into the room, almost up to the edge of the mattress, before looking down to see who was on it. When she did, she gasped in horror.
The child lying there was little more than a skeleton. It was hard to judge her age because her face was distorted by bulging eyes sunk deep into their sockets and surrounded by black circles and hollow cheeks.
Still, based on her length, the girl had to be ten, maybe eleven. Her arms and legs showed no sign of muscle; the joints, both kneecaps and elbows, were clearly visible. The only indication that she was alive was a shallow, raspy breathing that caused her chest to rise and fall ever so slightly.
Once she was over the initial shock, Jan began to notice that, for all the misery that wracked the girl, she appeared to be well cared-for. Her hair, long and black like her sister's, was neatly combed and arranged to either side of her head. Her nightgown, and the single sheet that covered the mattress, though frayed and threadbare in spots, were spotless.
"Her name is Angela. She is ten years old." Jan, startled by Guajardo's statement, turned away from the girl and looked at the colonel. To his right, in the doorway, stood the rest of her crew, Ted taping and Joe Bob listening to the quality of the sound recording and adjusting it as necessary.
Looking back at Angela, Jan asked what was wrong with her.
Guajardo grunted. "Mexico City, Ms. Fields, Mexico City and poverty."
Jan
looked up again, first at Corporal Fares and his other daughter, both of whom were watching her intently, then at Guajardo. For the first time since entering the room, she noticed it was terribly hot and she was sweating. Except for the door, there was no other opening in the room.
The sun, on the exposed tarpaper on the roof, was turning the room into an oven. Guajardo was using her.
Though she knew in her heart that what was happening had not been a setup, Jan felt anger. She didn't quite know why she was angry, let alone who she should be angry at. Was she angry because she was unable to handle the sights of poverty, sights that were part of the real world that was so much a part of her profession? Was she angry at the arrogant Mexican Army colonel for rubbing her nose in that poverty? Was she angry because she wasn't in control of the situation? Was she angry that she was being manipulated so skillfully by the colonel? She didn't know.
At that moment, surrounded by the grim reality of real life in Mexico, all she knew was that she was angry and had no one to lash out at. Determined to regain her mental balance and establish some degree of moral ascendency over the colonel, her retort was sharp, almost bitter.
"Cities do not kill children. Nor do governments. This poor creature has an illness that, I am sure, can be cured if properly cared for."
Guajardo, in a very controlled and even voice, slowly responded, carefully picking his words for effect. "How naive you are, Ms. Fields.
Naive and arrogant. You come south, into Mexico, from your rich middle-class world in the north where everyone has an education and there is always an answer, always a solution to the problems of the poor.
Yet for all your sophistication and knowledge, you know so little. Or is it that you choose not to know the truth? Cities do kill people, Ms. Fields.
Just look about you, out there in the street, if you care to call it that. It is an open sewer, a dung heap. People and animals who live here leave their waste out there, day in and day out. In the heat of the day, human waste, uncovered, dries and flakes. Tiny microscopic flakes of feces are picked up by the wind, mixed with exhaust fumes from hundreds of thousands of cars, trucks, and buses that run on leaded gas and poor exhaust systems, and are carried about the city. These people, living in these slums, breathe this mix in, every day of their lives. Some, like Angela, aren't strong enough to survive."
Guajardo paused, looking away from Jan and at the frail figure on the mattress. "Perhaps she is the lucky one. Her lungs, corrupted beyond repair, will kill her before she becomes a woman. Death will save her from living in a hole like this, scratching out a living and raising a family where the children have no hope, no fantasies, no dreams. Angela will not have to watch her son stand on a corner and breathe fire to make a few dollars a day, killing himself as he does it. Angela will not have to watch her daughters become old and haggard before their time, scrubbing floors or doing laundry in the homes of the rich. And Angela will not have to be told that her husband, or son, was gunned down in the streets by the thugs of a rival drug lord."
Turning, he began to walk away, but then stopped and looked back at Jan. As he spoke, Guajardo breathed in deeply, struggling to control his anger and tears. Between breaths, his choppy words hammered Jan like blows. "No, Ms. Fields, if you have tears to shed, shed them for Angela's sister. She is a girl with no future. A child who cannot go to school because she must care for Angela while her mother earns two dollars a day scrubbing floors and her father serves in the military. It is the sister, not Angela, that I can save. And if I fail, if the old system is allowed to return, she will be condemned to live and die in a hole like this."
Finished, Guajardo took another deep breath, held it for a moment as he looked back at Jan, then left the room, brushing aside Ted and Joe Bob as he did so. Seeing the colonel leave, Corporal Fares quickly bent down, told his daughter something, gave her quick hug, then followed Guajardo out the door.
For a moment, Jan stood at the foot of the mattress, at a loss. Her anger began to swell up in her again. Needing to do something to dissipate this anger, to give it a name and a target, Jan ran out the door after Guajardo, practically running him down.
"And what about you, Colonel? What makes you any different? You knew about that girl. You are a man who is obviously well off, who has the power to help that girl. Why have you done nothing to save Angela?"
To Jan's surprise, Guajardo's response was neither hurried nor angered.
On the contrary, at first, he
smiled and merely shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "I see. Your solution is to save one child. If I do that, I suppose, I can rest in peace, just like you yanquis do."
Jan, her anger still unchecked by Guajardo's calm demeanor, asked him why that was such a bad thing.
"I remember, Ms. Fields, when I attended a course in Kansas, I was taken to a restaurant in town that had a small container shaped like a loaf of bread next to the cash register. The sign behind that loaf of bread claimed that a fifty-cent donation could feed a hungry child in a poor country for two days. I looked at that sign and became quite angry at my host and his countrymen. I could not understand a people who could so easily dispose of the poor and hungry of the world and, for such a small amount, create the impression that they had done a good, meaningful deed. For just fifty cents, they could feel good for a whole week, maybe a month, and go back to their homes with their fat children who wanted for nothing and would never know the agony of hunger."
Stopping for a moment, Guajardo looked about him before he continued.
Jan did likewise. "No, Ms. Fields, we are playing for much bigger stakes, as you would say up north. I will not rest until not only all of this is gone, but the system that created this is gone as well."
As he looked at Jan, Guajardo's face suddenly became cold, his eyes narrowing into there slits. "Yes, you are right! I could save Angela. I could go back there, right now, and take that girl away from here and save her. But who would save the others like her? You, Ms. Fields, with a fifty-cent donation? No, because the screams of hunger or Angela's pain do not reach far enough north for you to hear. We are fighting for the very soul and existence of Mexico. We want nothing less than you want; freedom, security, and a life worth living. That, Ms. Fields, is well worth fighting for and, if necessary, dying for."