At last night fell and it began to grow cooler. By now Evelyn was exhausted. She no longer cared about snakes, bats, armed guards, or nightmarish monsters; all she felt was the overpowering need to drink water and rest. Curled up on the ground, she gave in to despair and solitude, wishing only to die soon, in her sleep and never have to wake again.
EVELYN DID NOT DIE ON THAT SECOND NIGHT on US territory as she had feared. Awaking at dawn in the same position, she was unable to remember anything about what had happened since she left the camp at Nuevo Laredo. She was dehydrated and it took her several attempts to stretch her legs, get to her feet, put her sore arm in the sling, and totter a few steps like an old woman. Every fiber of her body ached, but what most dominated her was thirst. She had to find water. She could not focus her eyes or think properly, but she had always lived in the midst of nature, and experience taught her water must be nearby: she was surrounded by reeds and undergrowth, which she knew grew on damp soil. Driven on by thirst and anxiety, she set off aimlessly, leaning on the same stick that had previously served as a sundial.
She had only zigzagged some fifty yards when she was halted by the sound of an engine very close by. Instinctively, she threw herself down and lay flat among the tall grasses. As the vehicle passed by she could hear a man’s voice speaking English, and another answering voice, crackling as if it came from a radio or telephone. She stayed without moving for a long while after the sound of the engine had died away, but finally thirst forced her to crawl on through the bushes in search of the river. Thorns scratched her face and neck. A branch tore her T-shirt and jagged stones cut her hands and knees. She stood up but kept low, feeling her way as she did not dare raise her head to find out exactly where she was. It was early morning, but the glare from the sky was already blinding.
Suddenly she heard the rushing of the river as clearly as if it were another hallucination. This encouraged her to speed up and abandon all precaution. First she felt the mud under her feet and then, pushing apart the reeds, she found herself on the bank of the Rio Grande. She cried out and waded into the water up to her waist, drinking desperately from her cupped hands. The cold water trickled inside her like a blessing. She drank mouthful after mouthful, oblivious to the dirt and the dead animals floating in these waters. Where she stood the river was shallow, and so she could bend down and completely submerge her body, feeling an infinite pleasure as the water flowed around her cracked skin, bad arm, and scratched face. Her long black hair floated out around her like seaweed.
She had just clambered out of the river and was slowly recovering on the bank when the patrolmen found her.
AFTER BEING DETAINED, Evelyn was interviewed by a female immigration officer in a small cubicle. The woman found herself confronted by a timid, trembling young girl who refused to look up and had not touched the fruit juice or crackers she had put on the table to win her trust. She tried to reassure her by briefly stroking her head, but this only frightened the girl further. She had been told that the detainee had mental problems and so she had asked for extra time to conduct the interview. Many of the minors who passed through there were traumatized, but without an official order it was impossible to carry out a psychological evaluation. She had to trust her intuition and experience.
Faced with the girl’s stubborn refusal to speak, the official at first thought perhaps she spoke only Mayan and wasted several precious minutes until she realized Evelyn understood without a problem but had a speech impediment. She gave her paper and a pencil to write down her replies, praying she knew how to write; most of the children who arrived at the detention center had never been to school.
“What is your name? Where do you come from? Do you have any family here?”
In clear handwriting, Evelyn wrote her name, those of her village and country, her mother’s name, and a telephone number. The officer gave a sigh of relief.
“This makes things much easier. We’ll call your mother so that she can come and get you. You’ll be allowed to go with her temporarily until a judge decides on your case.”
Evelyn spent three days in the detention center, without speaking to anyone, despite being surrounded by women and children from Mexico and Central America, including many from Guatemala. They were given two meals a day, milk and diapers for the youngest children, camp beds, and military blankets. These were essential because the air-conditioning kept the building at a frigid temperature that led to a constant epidemic of coughs and colds. It was a transit facility: no one stayed there very long and the detainees were transferred as quickly as possible to other facilities. Those minors who had relatives in the United States were handed over without any serious investigation, as there was not enough time or staff to examine every case.
It was not Miriam who came to look for Evelyn but a man called Galileo Leon, who said he was her stepfather. She had never heard of him and resolutely refused to go with him, because she knew about pimps and traffickers who lay in wait for juveniles like her. Sometimes children were claimed by perfect strangers, who took them away after simply signing a form. An official had to call Miriam on the phone to clarify the situation, and this was how Evelyn learned that her mother had a husband. She was soon to discover that as well as a stepfather she had two half brothers, aged four and three.
“Why didn’t the girl’s mother come to fetch her?” the duty officer asked Galileo Leon.
“Because she would lose her job. And don’t think this is easy for me either. I’m losing four days of earnings thanks to this kid. I’m a painter and my clients won’t wait,” the man replied, in a humble tone that contrasted with his words.
“We’re going to hand over the girl to you under presumption of credible fear. Do you understand what that means?”
“More or less.”
“The judge will have to decide if the reasons why the girl left her country are valid. Evelyn will need to prove a specific, concrete danger, for example that she was attacked or had been threatened. You can take her with you on parole.”
“Does that mean I have to pay?” the man asked in alarm.
“No. It’s a nominal amount that gets written in the book but that the migrant is not charged. She will be told by mail at her mother’s house when she has to appear in front of an immigration court. Before the hearing Evelyn will have a meeting with an asylum counselor.”
“A lawyer? We don’t have the money for one . . . ,” said Leon.
“The system is rather slow because there are so many children seeking asylum. The reality is that not even half of them get to see a counselor, but if they do, it is free.”
“Outside I was told they could find me one for three thousand dollars.”
“Don’t believe them, they’re traffickers and swindlers. All you need to do for now is wait for the notification from the court,” said the duty officer, considering the matter closed.
He took a copy of Galileo Leon’s driver’s license to add to Evelyn’s file, even though this was next to useless because the center did not have the capacity to follow the trail of every child. Then he said a rapid goodbye to Evelyn; he had several more cases to deal with that day.
GALILEO LEON HAD BEEN BORN in Nicaragua. At eighteen he had immigrated illegally to the United States, but had obtained residency thanks to the 1997 amnesty law. He was a small man of few words and rough manners. At first glance he did not inspire confidence or affection.
Their first stop was at a Walmart to buy Evelyn clothes and toiletries. She thought she was dreaming when she saw the size of the store and the infinite variety of goods on offer, each in different colors and sizes, a labyrinth of aisles crammed full to overflowing. Fearing she might get lost forever, she clung to her stepfather’s arm. He found his way around like an experienced explorer and led her directly to each section, telling her to choose underwear, T-shirts, three blouses, two pairs of jeans, a skirt, a dress, and proper shoes. Even though she was not far from her
sixteenth birthday, her size corresponded to that of a ten- or twelve-year-old American girl. Bewildered, Evelyn always wanted to choose the cheapest item, but since she was unfamiliar with the currency she took far too long.
“Don’t look at the prices. Everything here is cheap, and your mom gave me money for clothes,” explained Galileo.
From there he took her to a McDonald’s to eat hamburgers with French fries and a huge sundae topped with a cherry. In Guatemala it would have been enough for an entire family.
“Did no one ever teach you to say thank you?” asked her stepfather, more out of curiosity than as a reproach.
Without daring to look at him, Evelyn nodded, licking the last spoonful of ice cream.
“Are you scared of me or something? I’m no ogre.”
“Than . . . thank . . . I’m . . . ,” she stuttered.
“Are you stupid or do you have a stammer?”
“Stam . . . stamm—”
“Okay, I see. Sorry,” Galileo interrupted her. “If you can’t even talk Spanish properly, I don’t know how you’ll manage in English. What a mess! What are we going to do with you?”
They spent the night in a motel for truckers next to the highway. The room was filthy but had a hot shower. Galileo told her to get washed, say her prayers, and go to sleep in the bed on the left. He always slept nearest to the door; it was one of his little obsessions. “I’m going out for a smoke, and by the time I get back I want to see you asleep,” he said. Evelyn obeyed as quickly as she could. She showered rapidly, then crept into bed fully dressed and wearing her sneakers. She pulled the bedcover up to her nose, pretending to be asleep and planning to escape the moment he touched her. She felt very tired, her shoulder ached, and her chest was tight with fear, but she prayed to her grandmother and that gave her strength. She knew her grandma would have gone to the church to light candles for her.
After more than an hour, Galileo returned. He took off his shoes, went into the bathroom, and closed the door. Evelyn heard the toilet flush, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him come back into the room in his shorts, undershirt, and socks. She got ready to leap out of bed. Her stepfather draped his trousers over the only free chair, bolted the door, and switched off the light. The blue reflection of a neon sign with the motel’s name shone in through the net curtains, and in the semidarkness Evelyn saw him go down on his knees next to the bed he had chosen. Galileo Leon murmured prayers for a long while. By the time he eventually climbed into bed, Evelyn was sound asleep.
Lucia, Richard, Evelyn
Upstate New York
Richard
Brazil, 1987–1990
They left the motel at nine with only a coffee inside them. They were all hungry, so Lucia demanded they have breakfast somewhere: she needed hot food on a normal plate, not in a carton with chopsticks. They ended up at a Denny’s, the women tucking into a banquet of pancakes while Richard stirred a bowl of insipid oatmeal. Leaving Brooklyn the day before, they had agreed to stay apart in public, but as the hours went by, they forgot their caution. They felt so comfortable with one another that even Kathryn Brown had been incorporated into the group without a fuss.
The road looked in better shape than on the previous day. During the night there had been only a light dusting of snow, and although the temperature was still several degrees below freezing, the wind had dropped and the snow had been cleared from the highways. They could travel more quickly; if they kept up the same speed, Richard calculated they would reach the cabin around midday and would have plenty of daylight in which to dispose of the Lexus. However, an hour and a half later, as he was driving around a bend, he found himself a hundred yards from the flashing blue and red lights of several police patrol cars blocking the route. There was no detour, and if he did a U-turn he would only attract their attention.
The contents of his breakfast rose into his mouth, filling it with bile. Nausea and a phantom return of his diarrhea panicked him. He felt in the top pocket of his jacket, where he normally kept his pink pills, but could not find them. In his rearview mirror he saw Lucia crossing her fingers for luck. In front of him were halted vehicles, an ambulance, and a fire engine. A highway trooper motioned for him to join the line. Removing his balaclava, Richard opened the window and asked him in the calmest voice he could muster what was wrong.
“A multiple pileup.”
“Any fatality, officer?”
“I am not authorized to give that information,” the trooper replied, and walked off.
Richard collapsed with his head on the steering wheel, waiting with the other drivers and counting the seconds. His stomach and esophagus were on fire. He could not recall having had such a ferocious acid attack as this before. He was afraid his ulcer might have burst and he was bleeding internally. It was just his rotten luck that he would run into a traffic pileup right at that moment, when he had a dead body in the car trunk and desperately needed a toilet. What if it was appendicitis? The oatmeal had been a mistake; he had forgotten it loosened the bowels. “If these damned cops don’t clear the road I’m going to crap myself right here. That’s all I need. What’s Lucia going to think: that I’m a wreck, an idiot with chronic diarrhea,” he said aloud.
On the dashboard clock the minutes went by at a snail’s pace. All of a sudden his cell phone rang.
“Are you okay? You looked as if you passed out,” Lucia said, her voice reaching him from another planet.
“I don’t know,” he replied, raising his head from the wheel.
“It’s psychosomatic, Richard. You’re nervous. Take your pills.”
“They’re in my bag in your car.”
“I’ll bring them to you.”
“No!”
He saw Lucia climb out of one door of the Subaru and Evelyn out of the other, Marcelo in her arms. Lucia approached the Lexus with a completely natural air and rapped on the window. He lowered it, intending to shout at her, but as she handed him the pills one of the patrolmen came striding over.
“Miss! Stay in your vehicle!” he ordered her.
“I’m sorry, officer. Do you have a match?” she asked him, making the universal gesture of raising a cigarette to her lips.
“Get into your vehicle! You too!” the man shouted at Evelyn.
They had to wait thirty-five minutes before the accident was cleared, the Subaru with its engine on to keep the heating going, the Lexus an icebox. Once the ambulances and the fire engine had departed, the police allowed the cars lined up in both directions to get going. As they passed the accident they saw an upturned van with its four wheels in the air, an unrecognizable car with a completely crumpled hood that had rammed into it from behind, and a third car piled up on the second. It was a clear day, the storm had passed, and perhaps none of the three drivers involved had considered the possibility of black ice.
Richard had taken four antacid tablets. The taste of bile remained in his mouth and his stomach was still burning. He drove hunched over the wheel, bathed in a cold sweat, his sight clouded with pain, increasingly convinced he had internal bleeding. He warned Lucia on his cell phone that he could not go on and pulled up at the first stop he found. She came to a halt behind him just as he was opening the door and vomiting spectacularly onto the road.
“We have to get help. There must be a hospital somewhere near here,” said Lucia, handing him a tissue and a bottle of water.
“No hospital. It’ll pass, but I need a toilet . . .”
Before Richard could contradict her, Lucia told Evelyn to drive the Subaru and she got in behind the wheel of the Lexus. “Drive slowly, Lucia. You saw what can happen if the car skids,” said Richard, before collapsing onto the backseat in a fetal position. It occurred to him that in exactly the same posture, separated from him only by the back of the seat and a plastic partition, lay the body of Kathryn Brown. Half dazed by pain and weakness, he found himself sharing with her some of
his worst memories and wondering if her spirit had already sensed much of what had happened to him in the past.
IN THE DAYS WHEN RICHARD LIVED in Rio de Janeiro people drank as a matter of course. It was a social obligation, part of the culture, a necessity at every meeting, even business ones, a comfort on a rainy evening or at a hot noon, a stimulus for political discussion, and a cure for a cold, sadness, frustrated love, or a disappointment in soccer. Richard had not been back to Rio for years, and yet he guessed it must still be the same: certain customs take generations to die out. At the time he drank as much alcohol as his friends and acquaintances, not considering it anything out of the ordinary. Very occasionally he drank himself into a stupor, but that was always unpleasant. He preferred to float, to see the world with no jagged edges, a friendly, warm place. He had not given his drinking much importance until Anita declared it was a problem and began obsessively counting how many glasses he downed, discreetly at first but later humiliating him in public with her comments. He had a good head for liquor: he could drink four beers and three caipirinhas without any drastic consequences—on the contrary, he lost his shyness and thought he was wonderful. Yet from then on he restrained his drinking to assuage his wife and his ulcer, which had the habit of springing unpleasant surprises. Although he wrote frequently to his father, he never mentioned his drinking, because Joseph was abstemious and would not have understood.
After giving birth to their daughter, Bibi, Anita became pregnant three more times, but on each occasion suffered a miscarriage. She dreamed of having a large family like her own; she was one of the younger daughters among eleven children and also had countless cousins, nephews, and nieces. Every new loss deepened her despair, and got it into her head that it was a sign from the gods or a punishment for some unknown fault. Gradually she began to lose her strength and joyousness.