The Jaguar's Children

by John Vaillant

  La Basílica de la Soledad is the only church I know where they keep the holy water in a tank—AGUA PARA USO SANTA. But that doesn’t mean you can drink it. The doors are big enough for a truck and always when we were inside Mamá would kneel down and walk like this all the way to the altar. La via dolorosa—the way of suffering—is long and my mother took her time. It was on this slow trip down the aisle, stopping to pray at each station of the cross, that I noticed the pulpit sagging lower and lower. The padre there is not such a fat man so maybe it’s from the words he says. I must confess I liked it when Mamá was on her knees because this made us the same height and I could pretend I was her husband, which is better than being a servant. I walked beside her straight as a soldier and when she crossed herself I made a salute to Soledad until one time a nun saw me do this and gave me such a stabbing with her finger and another with her eye that I never did that again. But Mamá never looked at me—only straight ahead—her eyes on the Virgin like she was hypnotized. I tried to look at the Virgin as my mother did, but all I could see is what you see when you look at a ghost or a clown—a white white face and white white hands. There is nothing else to her, you know, this particular virgin is only hands and a face. The rest of her was not revealed in the vision so they filled the space with a great pyramid of black velvet and gold, life-size. To some it looks like a Spanish gown, to others a Zapotec temple with a head and hands. In the pueblo Mamá had a shrine for her with candles and a gown she made herself. When we moved to el centro, she bought Soledad a new gown from the saints’ store on Independencia.

  This is also when she started collecting los niños—Baby Jesus in the manger, Baby Jesus in his glorious robes, Baby Jesus in a doctor coat with the stethoscope and many other scenes and costumes. There is even a Baby Jesus magazine and special stores for all His accessories near la Basílica de la Soledad. Mamá knows them all. She spends a lot of time with her niños, especially when she has a black eye. I was the same with my action figures and Transformers. Once, I was arguing about this with her, saying unkind things like, “Why do you have all those niños when they just sit there? Look at my Transformers. Look at all the things they can do.”

  When she was tired of listening to me, she said, “Hectorcito? How long have there been these Transformers?”

  And I said, “Always, Mamá. Since I was young.”

  And she said, “Yes, well, that is not so long. Our beloved Jesus has been a Transformer for two thousand years.”

  I wonder if she saw the black Mustang GT that is driving around Oaxaca now with Barricade’s Transformer promise painted on it—to punish and enslave . . . Two weeks ago, I saw it in Colonia Reforma near the hospital. If my abuelo was with me that day, he would have jabbed me with his elbow and said, “Look, the bishop is visiting.”

  Even last year, with the eye of death upon him, Abuelo said the church was only a tienda selling Spanish goods. Es una blasfemia, but he had his reasons. Many times he told me how long ago the padres came to our pueblo and made the people tear down our temple and use the stones to build their church. The people did this because they would be beaten or killed if they refused. During this time, he said, there was an indio spying for the padres. When the people found out, they killed that traitor right there—Abuelo’s ancestors did this, and for this the padres burned them alive on the plaza of our pueblo. But do you know what made Abuelo spit when he talked about it? That spy is a martyr now, a saint—with his own chapel. Verdad, you can see his bones in the cathedral in el centro with paintings of burning indios, and this is why Abuelo would never go in there. “What is the difference,” he said to me, “between that chilito in the cathedral and the ones who killed your cousin in the strike? If you ask me, it is only the weapon that is different. Inside, they are all putos.”

  The Spanish gods never spoke to my abuelo. Maybe because he would never speak to them. There are other gods, he said—his gods—living right inside our church. Back when his ancestors were first building it with the temple stones, they made a secret place inside the altar for them—the Serpent and the Jaguar, Cocijo the god of lightning and rain, Pitao Cozobi the god of the corn, Xipe Totec the Flayed One who the Aztecs stole from us and dressed in a human skin. For more than two hundred years they stayed in there until the same earthquake that destroyed el centro knocked down our church and broke the altar. When this happened, Abuelo saw them with his own eyes, and when his uncles helped to build the church again, all those gods went back inside the altar.

  Always it seems someone is coming down here with a new god to sell.

  I was on the Zócalo one time when two tall hallelujahs came over to me in their costume of white shirts, black pants, black neckties and plastic nametags. These ones were Testigos de Jehová—what Papá calls Testículos de Jehová. He says you can always tell them by their size and whiteness. Well, these two were trying to talk to me in Spanish and one of them says, “Good day, friend, do you know Jesus?”

  It is a common name here and I say to them en español, “Por supuesto, I know many. For which one are you looking?”

  This confuses them and the other one says, “What is your name?”

  They are so serious I cannot help myself so I say, “Jesús.”

  “¿Hey Zeus?” says the first one. “Moocho goosto. ¿Too air ace Catholeeko?”

  “No,” I say. “Zapoteco.”

  They look at each other and the second one says in English, “That’s a software company, isn’t it?”

  I am trying to hold my face still when Number One says to me, “¿Too tennis computa?” which is funny in Spanish, and I say, “No con puta, solamente con Jesús.”

  They squint their eyes and nod. “Muy bono,” they say together, and Number Two reaches into his bag and gives me that little newspaper.

  “Muchas gracias, Señores Enganchadores,” I say. “Es por un pescado, no?”

  They are not sure what I am saying so I try to help them: “¿U-sted-es es-tán pes-ca-dor-es, no?” Their heads are turning like curious dogs and I can see them thinking and thinking. “Como San Pedro,” I say. “The fishing man.”

  “¡Sí, sí, amigo!” they say. “Saint Peter! Yes, we are fishing for men!” They smile hard with their big American teeth and they shake my hand. “¡Vaya con Dios!” they say together and walk away.

  So who is the better bargainer—me who got a good laugh and a free newspaper for wrapping fish, or them who think they got a free soul?

  Fri Apr 6—12:46

  I am wearing only my chones and sitting on my shoes with my feet on my backpack and my arms around my knees. The wall is too hot to lean against and this is the time of day when I have to lie down next to César. I rolled him onto his side so I will have a bit more room, then I put my shoes back on and made a bed of my clothes and backpack. My water bottle has only the piss in it now. I put a sock over it and use it for a pillow. I am lying across the tank, between César and the back wall. In one hand is his phone and in the other is my abuelo’s jaguar head. César’s water is in the backpack and I can feel it by my hip. This is all that matters now, and I must keep them safe. César’s battery is going down faster than I thought—one half already. It is the heat, I think, so I will turn it off now.

  Fri Apr 6—16:51

  Hello. It is the afternoon. I tried to sleep.

  There is still only one bar. If it was a problem with the tower there was time to fix it by now. Where the fuck are the other bars?

  Fri Apr 6—17:11

  My god, I’m cold. I don’t know why. The tank is still warm, but my clothes aren’t enough so I must stay close to César, as close as I can. My body isn’t making sense anymore.

  I have been sucking my ten-peso coin to keep the saliva coming. I did not know money was so bitter. As long as he keeps me warm, I say, I will not drink his water.

  Fri Apr 6—17:23

  Can you hear that? I am recording it. The small plane comes again, closer this time, but it does not turn. I am sure it is la Migra patrolli
ng the border. Somehow, we are invisible.

  14

  Fri Apr 6—17:44

  The sun is gone now. I can feel it in the wall. Many times I checked for the signal, for a message from you, but there is nothing. How can no one see us? Where did the coyotes leave us? I did not say this to anyone, but I wonder if we are in some parking lot with many other trucks so no one notices. Migrantes have died this way before. But this cannot be—the road was so rough. I don’t think we are on any road.

  Maybe this is how it is en el infierno—burning and freezing en la soledad con los extraños. And all you want you cannot have.

  Fri Apr 6—17:52

  I think the old man is dead. Someone said this. I never knew his name. I don’t know what happened—if he gave up or suffocated or his kidneys failed him. Maybe others have died also—the baby-face man’s friend, but I don’t want to know. Only the water matters now. No one talks about the mechanic or la Migra anymore. There is only the breathing.

  Once, when I was young, I saw a traveling circus setting up by the highway. There were camels in a corral and an elephant with no tusks and its ears had long cuts in them like banana leaves. In a cage was a bear lying so still he looked like he was dead. Maybe he was. It was hot that day—too hot for a bear. But it is the tigers that will not leave my mind now. They were all together in one cage and so many it was hard to tell them apart—just fur and stripes blending one into the other, piled like pigs in their own excrement, and so close I could touch them if I dared. The smell was—how can I tell you—¡Guácala!—so loud and sour it made my eyes water, and in the sand under the cage were puddles of urine baking in the sun. The tigers made no sound but their breathing and it gave me a strange feeling—this knowing that the air going out of their lungs and into my lungs was the same air—like we were sending invisible messages to each other with no sound from anyone in all that heat but the breathing.

  There was one especially big tiger. So big it was hard to believe—his feet were the size of my head. He was walking this way and that, panting and pacing, and I don’t know how he kept from walking on the others. From end to end he went like this, stepping in the same places each time—with the same foot—a slow and terrible dance he did over and over, backward and forward through the others like a fish in a tank without stopping or seeing—like he was blind to them. Like they were not even there. I have seen crazy people do this in el centro, but I did not know that tigers can go crazy too. After this, I had no heart for the circus anymore.

  Fri Apr 6—18:13

  I wanted it so bad—more than anything because you don’t know how the thirst invades your mind. I am holding it now—his water—and Dios ayúdame, the only thing I want more is the door out of here. The weight of it in my hand as heavy as a heart, and in my throat just one capful—éxtasis, you cannot imagine. I couldn’t wait and I took more, filling my mouth with it. I knew I was stealing something from him—his chance to live—and I told myself that if I drank some I could help him, but it is a lie—even as I gave him some I felt this. Always the padre told us that the wine is the blood of Christ and it’s Him you’re drinking from the cup, His life on your lips. But the padre was wrong—blood is not life, water is.

  And mine and César’s are together in this bottle.

  Fri Apr 6—18:27

  All day I heard it and now I know what it means—that plant growing on the walls begins to taste like a good idea, like something delicious. It is on our clothes also, but no one cares about that now, only the thirst. No one imagined they would be sucking on their own pants or licking these walls for the water, feeling the rust crumble on their tongues—that sweet electric taste. These are things no sane person wants to imagine. At first I thought they were trying to get out. I could hear them scraping the walls with their fingernails and prayer cards, with the straps from their backpacks, but the water is bad and so is the plant and it makes them lose the liquid even faster. Everything is louder in here. More and more the tank is feeling and smelling like the intestine of some animal, slowly digesting us. When the old man died, it was a bad omen, una maldición.

  People will believe anything, you know. The trouble is that in here all of it is true.

  Fri Apr 6—18:38

  I am sitting here like a farmer waiting for rain.

  My ass is numb. My back also. There are only so many ways to move. My toes are buzzing and my fingers. It is harder to work the phone, not only because of the cold. But I found something in there, a file called SED–THIRST, with documents about the desert and first aid for dehydration. César was thinking ahead. It says you need salt and water and shade. All these things are in here and none of them are good. In there also is a document called Thirst Disease from an American magazine—a story about a Mexicano called Pablo Valencia. But I think it is about us too. This Pablo was a gold miner on the border with Sonora and Arizona and his compadre, Jesús, did to him the same as the coyotes did to us—abandoned him—no horse, no water, somewhere close to here. It is August so Pablo is in trouble and he goes searching for help—for water. For seven days he does this, walking and then crawling more than one hundred miles. Es un milagro macho. To stay alive, he drank his urine and ate cactus, spiders, scorpions—anything he can find with liquid in it. But he was dying anyway—day by day and drop by drop, just like us, and every time he stops to rest the vultures and coyotes come closer. In the end, he was found by some kind of scientist doing experiments out there—the one who wrote this. His words are too much for me, but I can copy this part and send it with the text. Maybe you can understand better what is happening to us in here. Because this is a true story also—

  Pablo was stark naked; his legs and arms were shrunken and scrawny; his ribs ridged out like those of a starveling horse; his abdomen was drawn in almost against his vertebral column; his lips had disappeared as if amputated, leaving low edges of blackened tissue; his teeth and gums projected like those of a skinned animal, but the flesh was black and dry as a hank of jerky; his nose was withered and shrunken to half its length; the nostril-lining showing black; his eyes were set in a winkless stare, with surrounding skin so contracted as to expose the conjunctiva, itself black as the gums; his face was dark as a negro, and his skin generally turned a ghastly purplish yet ashen gray, with great livid blotches and streaks; his lower legs and feet, with forearms and hands, were torn and scratched by contact with thorns and sharp rocks, yet even the freshest cuts were as so many scratches in dry leather, without trace of blood or serum; his joints and bones stood out like those of a wasted sickling, though the skin clung to them in a way suggesting shrunken rawhide used in repairing a broken wheel. From inspection and handling I estimated his weight at 115 to 120 pounds. We soon found him deaf to all but loud sounds, and so blind as to distinguish nothing save light and dark. The mucous membrane lining mouth and throat was shriveled, cracked, and blackened, and his tongue shrunken to a mere bunch of black integument. His respiration was slow, spasmodic, and accompanied by a deep guttural moaning or roaring—the sound that had awakened us a quarter of a mile away. His extremities were cold as the surrounding air; no pulsation could be detected at wrists, and there was apparently little if any circulation beyond the knees and elbows; the heartbeat was slow, irregular, fluttering, and almost ceasing in the longer intervals between the stertorous breathings.

  At the end, this man Pablo was living and dying all in the same moment, and still he kept going—

  As the sun rose he sought the shade of a shrub and there knelt in final prayer for the dying; then he laid himself down with feet and face to the eastward, made the sign of the cross with a pang over the absence of consecrated water, and composed himself for the end. There—and this was his clearest concept, unreal though it be—with the rising of the sun he died, and his body lay lifeless under the burning rays, though his innermost self hovered about, loth to leave the material husk about which the buzzards waited patiently. The sun swung across the shimmering vault, and darkness fell; in the chill
of evening some vague shadow external to his Ego stirred and then struggled aimlessly against chapparal and cactus along the most trying stretch of El Camino del Diablo. Sometimes he felt half alive and wrung by agony of severing spirit and flesh; oftener he felt that the naked body was pushed and dragged and belabored and tortured by something outside; he knew its voice, tried to cry out in protest or call for rescue, but did not feel the voice his own. So the night dragged on and on, until at early dawn the vague consciousness knew itself near the camp with the certainty of relief, and was dimly surprised at the bellowing break in a final call.

  They found him this way, on the seventh day, by the roaring sound of his breath—this man Pablo whose body was dying all around him, who kept going without knowing if he was alive or dead or dreaming in between. But in here, we have no trail to follow and no one is finding us. So how do we keep going? In the morning my mother makes the fire from nothing, only by blowing on the gray ash. You can’t see it from the outside, but the fire is in there waiting for someone to notice, waiting for some reason to burn again. Waiting—en español “to wait” is the same as “to hope”—esperar. Besides chingar, esperar is the other official verb of Mexico, and it is what I do for you all this time—all these hours and days and words. Te espero, AnniMac.