I told Lucia yes, but not without a lot of effort. Lucia knew how much she was asking of me. But she wouldn’t have left her cargo to work in Sinaloa if she had a choice.
That day Lucia began to tell me about the work I would have to do. Little by little, I accepted my new cargo. All the while I told myself that it was only for five months, and then it would be over. Looking back, those months were a blessing because they helped your father change into a man who could do women’s work. He had no choice but to take over more of my work. He learned to cook and collect water. Once he began to do women’s work, your father gained more respect for me and other women.
The news spread fast that Lucia was leaving. When Ricardo heard, he offered to give Carmela part of his corn and bean crop after harvest. The week before Lucia left, Ángel de Jesús announced at the base meeting that we would do a special prayer for Lucia so that her soul would follow her to Sinaloa. Lucia had taught him this prayer, the same one she prayed for us before we ran away to San Cristóbal.
That night I announced that four of the base representatives—myself, Ramona, Ángel de Jesús, and your father—would fast for three days in Lucia’s place. Normally, a person fasts before leaving to go to work far away. But Lucia was so thin that we feared if she were to fast she wouldn’t have the strength for the journey and the hard work on the farm after she arrived.
I paused to adjust some logs on the fire. My hair wasn’t in braids and covered much of my face as I bent over, so Verónica couldn’t see the dark cloud that passed over me when I continued.
“You have seen me fast, daughter. I have fasted many times in my life for myself and others. Afterwards I have felt cleansed, peaceful, and of course, weak. But the time I fasted before Lucia’s journey, something else happened, something terrifying.”
The last night of my fast, I went to bed without having eaten anything for three days. I remember feeling dizzy and taking a long time to fall asleep. When my sleep finally came, it was deep and it revealed something horrible.
In my dream I was standing in a field dressed in men’s clothes. My heart was beating fast and sweat was pouring off my body and making puddles on the ground. Maybe the puddles weren’t sweat. Maybe they were my own urine because I couldn’t control any part of my body. I couldn’t even shut my eyes. I just stood there unable to look away from the most terrible thing I could imagine.
A woman stood in the center of a circle of flames, her face twisted in agony. Fire was consuming her clothes and turning her hair bright orange. Her flesh was falling off her bones. The poor woman was screaming in agony! But it wasn’t just any woman. It was Lucia!
When I woke up from my nightmare, I was shaking from fear and hunger. I lifted myself from the bed with great difficulty. I wanted to tell your father about my dream, but he had been fasting too, and I thought it best to let him sleep.
So I went into the kitchen and drank a large gourd of water. I was so thirsty. Then I started to make tortillas, but my hands were shaking, and I couldn’t make a decent one. I wanted to stop thinking about my nightmare, but I had to wait to tell it to your father and be rid of it forever. Or so I thought. I devoured my badly formed tortillas out of hunger. I was also ashamed for anyone to see them.
It seemed like a long time that I sat by the fire eating those tortillas and trying to make good ones for the family. Finally your father came into the kitchen and sat down. I gave him his matz and then told him about my nightmare. He listened without saying anything.
When I finished, he said, “The fire stands for something bad that will happen to Lucia. Maybe an enemy of the Zapatistas prayed to the Earth Lord to kill Lucia. We need to ask Ángel to pray for her as soon as possible.”
I was still shaking when I said goodbye to Lucia that morning. Before she left, we gave each other a long embrace. After our bodies parted, she asked me why I was shaking, if I was sick. I didn’t tell her about the nightmare. I just told her that I was cold.
I watched Lucia walk from our house to the road, a backpack and blanket strapped to her back. She was dressed in old pants and a blue shirt that your father gave her that morning. As she walked down the path, I thought how strange it was to see her legs encased in separate tubes of cloth. Her braids were tucked inside an old cap that Ángel had given her. Before she reached the road, one of her braids snaked its way out of the cap. She quickly stuffed it back.
For once I wished that the truck wouldn’t be on time. But it was. Lucia climbed into the back and grabbed onto the overhead bar to steady herself. Seconds later she was gone. We didn’t even have time to wave goodbye.
WE LEARN THE TRUTH
IT TOOK A COUPLE MONTHS for Verónica to transcribe my words and write up Lucia’s story. She used three notebooks! She worked every day after making tortillas in the morning and after Victorio and I went to bed at night. The rest of the time she wove, did housework, helped me in our store, and went to meetings of the support base and the weaving co-op.
It was a Sunday night in early August when she was finally finished. She must have felt that she couldn’t go back to life as usual, because she made a celebration. Monday morning she went to the lum and bought a cake mix and a jar of strawberry jam. Maruch, one of the Chamula girls she met in Telling Our Stories, told her how to make a cake in a frying pan in the coals.
After Verónica finished making tortillas, she spread out the coals and made a little bed for the frying pan. Then she filled the pan with the cake batter and covered it with a piece of a broken comal, so that the cake would cook all the way through, not only on the bottom. Her cake burned a little on the bottom, but the top was fine. She covered it with jam, set it on the table, and waited to see what I would say when I came home from my meeting.
“What’s this?” I asked. I never thought I’d see a cake in our house because we don’t have birthday parties like mestizos. Verónica explained that she wanted to celebrate finishing Lucia’s story.
I gave a little sigh. So as not to disappoint Verónica, I offered to cut the cake. I cut it into four portions and put two aside. Verónica asked me why I cut the cake into forths instead of thirds, since there are only three of us in the house. Before I answered, Verónica realized that I had cut a piece for Lucia, as if I were putting out food for Lucia’s soul on sk’in ch’ulelal.
To show Verónica I appreciated her new tradition, I made coffee, which we rarely drink since we only save a little for ourselves before we sell the rest. Verónica felt sick by the time she finished eating her piece of cake. She wasn’t used to that much of a sweet thing! I ended up giving most of my piece to Victorio. Lucia’s piece sat on the table uneaten.
The next day was another big day for Verónica. She had to go to San Cristóbal to deliver her story to Telling Our Stories. Diana wasn’t in the office when she arrived, but she had left a note for Verónica and the other girls on the door. Verónica told me what it said.
“Dear compañeras,
I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to receive your stories in person, but I had to attend a meeting at the last minute. I’m very excited to read your stories and look forward to talking with you about them at our meeting next week. Please just put your stories in the mail slot in the door.
Congratulations to all!
Strong hugs,
Diana
Verónica was actually relieved that she could just leave her story in the door because I had asked her to buy a little outfit in the market for Sebastian’s new baby. I wanted to bring my grandson something pretty when I came to visit him for the first time. She picked out a little blue nightgown and cap and a fuzzy blue blanket with white satin ribbon on the border. A perfect present for my grandson.
When Verónica got back to Lokan that afternoon, Victorio and I were in the kitchen talking. As soon as she saw our faces, she asked what was wrong. We told her that a couple hours earlier a Chamula man had come looking for the family of Lucia Pérez López. Because our house is close to the road, he stopped here first.
We told
him that Lucia’s only family was her mother, and Victorio could take him to her house. When Victorio returned after leaving the man at Carmela’s, he regretted not staying to hear the man’s business. He said that the man didn’t talk much on the way to Carmela’s. He seemed to be on a mission and acted nervous. We were curious about who he was and why he wanted to talk to Carmela.
Victorio decided to see how Carmela was. Just as he started up the path he met the Chamula man coming back from Carmela’s house. The man said that he had given Carmela some bad news and that she might need someone to talk to. Victorio asked the man what he had told Carmela, but the man said that that was for Carmela to tell us. Then he left quickly and Victorio increased his pace up the path to Carmela’s house. Seconds later, I looked at Verónica and could see that we were thinking the same thing. We grabbed our shawls and hurried up the path until we caught up with Victorio.
As we neared Carmela’s house, a cold feeling grabbed my body and stayed with me as I followed Victorio inside. Carmela was seated by the fire where I usually find her when I come to visit, but this day she was completely still, as if waiting for something or someone. Her hands lay open in her lap. Her body was hunched over, and she seemed to be looking for some answer inside her hands. But what could she be looking for? What did the man tell her that upset her so?
“Aunt,” I said. “What happened? What message did the Chamula man bring? Was it from Lucia? Tell us so that we can know, so that you can unburden yourself.”
Carmela raised her head slowly and looked at me with eyes that were red and puffy from crying. She stayed hunched over in the chair looking up at me until I came to sit beside her. I held her hand and said, “Aunt, tell us what the man told you. Whatever has made you so sad, we can bear it together.”
Carmela put her hand on my knee. She seemed to want to speak, but nothing came out. I was patient, and tried not to press her. She finally spoke.
“The man brought me a great sadness, greater than I can bear. When Lucia’s father disappeared, I thought it was the greatest sadness a woman could feel, losing her husband when she has a young child to raise. But, with Lucia to take care of, I adapted to Pedro being gone and accepted that whatever happened to him was God’s will.
“When Lucia left, though, and never came back, it was harder to accept, perhaps because I was all alone. Maybe I also thought I’d find out someday what happened to her.
“Well, that day has come. And I wish it had never come. Now I know Lucia’s fate, and it was horrible. It’s too much . . . to find out how she died, how long she’s been dead, and not to know it all these years.
“She died five days after she left Lokan for Sinaloa! Ten years she’s been dead!”
Tears were filling my eyes and Verónica’s too. I knelt beside Carmela, took her hand, and said, “Aunt, God will accompany you through this sorrow. And your brothers and sisters will help you bear the pain. But please tell us what the man told you, how he knew that Lucia died.”
Carmela struggled to speak again. When she did, she told us everything that the man had told her. She spared us nothing. As much as I was shocked by the terrible story, I listened with my whole heart because I knew that Verónica would have to write it down and she might need my help. She would have to finish Lucia’s story, as sad as the ending would be.
Carmela told us that the Chamula man was called Mateo, and he was with Lucia on the bus to the farm in Sinaloa. They shared a seat for many hours and talked about their families and communities. Mateo had worked several years on the farm, so he told Lucia what to expect, about how they had to sleep on the floor and go to the bathroom in the fields. That must have worried Lucia because it’s hard for women to do it modestly.
The bus stopped just once for the workers to go the bathroom by the side of the road. Then a couple hours before daybreak when everyone was asleep, the bus came to an abrupt stop at a roadblock. Two masked men with guns climbed on the bus and demanded that everyone get off.
Mateo and Lucia were just waking up, but they soon realized that something was terribly wrong and quickly joined the other passengers huddled together on the side of the road. They were all whispering about what they thought was happening.
The masked men had partners. They were eight men in all. They shouted to each other in Spanish to divide the people up, nine in each group. Then they pushed the workers like cattle into the back of two vans. Mateo was separated from Lucia in the van, but he could see her. He got her attention so she knew he was there.
Then the driver took off fast down a bumpy road. For about an hour, no one inside the van knew what would happen next. Some of the men said that maybe their captors would demand a ransom to release them. Others said that maybe they would force them to move drugs across the border into the United States. When the van finally stopped, Lucia was praying softly in tsotsil, her head between her knees.
The masked men shouted at everyone to get out of the vans. Mateo and Lucia jumped down and when they landed on the ground their backs met the end of a rifle. They were herded along a path for a couple miles. Light was coming through the trees, and Mateo could see a wooden building ahead. Soon they were inside the building, which was one big room. All eighteen workers, seventeen men, and one woman.
Mateo was very frightened. Nothing had happened to him like this before. He was sitting on the floor beside Lucia afraid to move because the armed men had everyone in a tight circle and were watching every move they made.
Finally the man who seemed to be in charge spoke to the workers. Some of the workers had been right: the armed men belonged to a drug gang, and they had kidnapped the workers to force them to carry drugs across the border.
“You’ll make a lot more working for us than you will on the tomato farm,” the leader said. Mateo looked around and wondered what the other men were thinking. He knew that he wouldn’t work for these men and that Lucia wouldn’t either. He didn’t know about some of the other men.
The drug gang didn’t give the workers any time to decide what they would do. They demanded an answer right away. Either work for the drug gang, or take the consequences. Slowly seven men raised their hands. They agreed to move the drugs across the border. Two masked men led them outside and soon Mateo heard an engine start and a car speed off.
The remaining twelve people kept their hands and heads down. Many crossed themselves and whispered prayers. The masked men didn’t do anything with them right away. They left everyone inside the building while they went outside to talk. About fifteen minutes later, one of the men came inside and asked for a volunteer.
When no one volunteered, he grabbed Mateo and pushed him outside. Mateo was terrified when one of the men put a gun to his head. He thought he was going to be shot. But instead another man gave him a can of gasoline and ordered him to pour it all around the house. Then he gave him a match and ordered him to set the house on fire. Mateo couldn’t do it and yet he didn’t want to die! So he threw the match at the man and ran.
God must have been watching out for him, because Mateo managed to escape the bullets the men shot at him. He ran for a while until he found a hiding place in some bushes. There he watched with terror as the house and everyone inside burned. Mateo held his hands over his ears to stop the screams of the workers, which lasted an eternity, he said. He felt that God had abandoned them.
As soon as the house had burned to the ground, they got into their vans and left. Mateo was afraid they would look for him. But he was lucky. For some reason they didn’t.
Finally he got up and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction of where the men had gone. Although he was in shock and crying as he ran, he didn’t stop running until it was dark. He slept in a cornfield that night and many nights after.
He decided to go to El Norte because he was afraid to stay in Sinaloa. A few days later, he reached Altar, Sonora. There he set off across the border with a couple men he had met along the way. They walked in the desert for three days until they came to a p
lace called Tucson. From there Mateo found his way to Atlanta, a big city in Georgia.
For the next ten years he worked in Chinese restaurants all over Georgia. All he did those years was work, as many hours as he could. He sent most of his money to his parents and siblings. Each night when he went to bed, Mateo barely slept. When he managed to fall asleep, he heard the screams of the men and Lucia burning to death and woke up in terror, sweat pouring off his body. He would lie in bed, unable to go back to sleep, until it was time to get up.
Mateo tried lighting candles and praying to God and the father-mother-ancestor-protectors, to free him from his nightmares. But his prayers went unanswered.
Then one morning, he had an idea. He made a promise to God that when he returned to Chiapas, the first thing he would do would be to find all the families of the people who died that day and tell them what happened to their loved ones. The workers were all from Chiapas, and Mateo knew several of the Chamula men. While he was still in Georgia, he called his uncle who got word to the families of these men, and when they heard the news they called Mateo. It was very hard for him to tell them what had happened to their loved ones, but he made himself do it.
The others he started to look for as soon as he got off the bus in San Cristóbal. Carmela was the first person he looked for.
When Carmela finished, I looked at Victorio. We were both shocked that my nightmare had come true. It had predicted how Lucia would die! I knew that Lucia had had the capacity to foresee the future, but I didn’t know that I had a similar ability. But it wasn’t a gift I wanted.
We took Carmela home with us that afternoon. I didn’t want to leave her alone. When we got home, I tried to make her eat. But she only took a few bites of a fried egg and a couple spoons of beans. Before we went to bed, we gathered in front of our altar while Victorio led us in a prayer for Lucia’s soul.
Then before I went to the sleeping house, Verónica and I unrolled a couple petates for Carmela and for her and placed them on the ground close to the fire. I thought Carmela needed company that night. Verónica gladly slept beside her, but in the morning she told me that she didn’t think she was much company. Each of us felt alone that night. Our bodies may have rested a little, but our souls wandered. Verónica said that she felt as if her soul was running circles around her, searching for something. She didn’t know what.
When a Woman Rises Page 19