“No,” the parent said. “Nothing. Pigs don’t like soldiers either.”
Some jokes carried the sad and cruel irony of truth and crowded too close to my memories.
“What does a soldier do when he goes to confession?” one mother asked. She answered with “Nothing, he just sits there alone because he’s already killed the priest.”
After the bad-soldier jokes, Manuel found out with playful questions how much each child already knew. Most couldn’t read or write, and so we started by learning the alphabet. “A, B, C, D, E,” we recited. Manuel used an old plank and some charcoal from the fire to make letters. It became a game for each child to learn how to spell and recognize their own name and the names of others.
To encourage more children to attend the school, I announced, “Starting today, only those children who attend school can play with the leather ball.”
When the school first started, I’d been in camp nearly a year and a half. Many changes had occurred, but the most important change for me was the sound of the shouts and laughter of children that had begun to fill the air. I continued to push many things from my mind, but one by one the children around me began to make their way inside my heart. There was little Isabel, who had escaped her cantón with only her uncle, Jose. And there was Felipe, who played constant tricks on everybody he met. I came to love Miguel, and Luci, and Oscar, and many more. Each of them had their own unique and tragic stories. Each of them came with their problems, but they also brought their potential.
Alicia sat quietly at school each day. She was nearly six, and some days she held Milagro on her lap like a big sister. She still refused to speak, but I had begun to accept her silence. In camp we had found other tarps, so each of us had our own shelter with ropes and sawn boards to hold up the fronts. Alicia and I slept together.
Each day the children learned more in school, and I spent more hours helping Mario to teach them. When the aid workers heard about our little school, they made sure we received paper and pencils. I felt a certain satisfaction working with the students. I had promised my parents to someday teach others what I had learned. At least I was honoring one of my promises.
I was feeling stronger with each passing week, until Mario came to me one cloudy and windy afternoon three months after school had begun. The children had finished their lessons for the day and were kicking the ball in the rain. Already small cooking fires flickered around the dirty camp, hissing and sparking with the rain. I was crouched beside our fire, making tortillas, when Mario’s soft voice surprised me from behind.
“Gabriela, I’m leaving the camp,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mario’s words struck me like a fist, and he saw the shock in my eyes. “I’m returning to Guatemala to fight with the guerrillas and the resistance,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I stuttered, struggling to comprehend his words. “What about the children?”
“You can teach them,” he said. “Fighting with the guerrillas against the soldiers is the best way I can help my country. The soldiers have become an evil force, more evil than anybody ever imagined.”
“When did you decide this?” I asked.
“When does a cup become full?” Mario said. “This cup has been filling for a long time. More and more Indios have joined the resistance, and I now believe that is our only hope.”
“And when are you leaving?” I asked.
“Now,” he said quietly.
I broke down in tears and hugged Mario. “Can I go with you?” I pleaded.
He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead gently. “Your place is here with the children. Be the best teacher you can. You’re a very special person. Maybe someday I will see you again.”
And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, Mario turned and walked away, throwing my world into complete confusion. Mario had no right to leave. Teaching the children was a dream that he and I had shared. It wasn’t my dream alone. I didn’t want the school to be my responsibility. And what if Mario was hurt or killed?
Without thinking, I called Alicia to my side. “We’re leaving also,” I said, not knowing where we would go. I hadn’t admitted it, but Mario had been my only reason for staying in the San Miguel refugee camp. Now that he was leaving, I suddenly wanted to leave also. Without Mario, I didn’t want to teach the children. Somewhere I would find a different home. I felt a sudden emptiness inside of me. I craved to live again as I once had as a child in the cantón. I missed my old life, and I missed my family. I wanted to return to happier times before the soldiers and before the massacres.
Alicia watched me with big, curious eyes as I rushed around taking down our tarp and folding up my old blanket. As I worked, I justified leaving in my mind. This camp had nearly destroyed my pride and dignity. Our cantón had been clean, not dirty with human waste and apathy. Our homes in Guatemala had lush green forests and mountain streams and colorful birds, with roosters crowing before daybreak. I dearly missed the planting season, when everyone, even the children, helped to carefully place seeds into the womb of our mother earth. Those were the memories of my heart.
But even as I wrapped tortillas into my shawl, I knew my memories were only simple and familiar things that I craved to relive. They were like stories that old men tell to help recall their youth. They were no longer real.
I was glad that María, Carmen, and Milagro weren’t in camp. They would have made it much harder to leave. I did write them a note that said simply, “I’ve left to find a home.”
Thoughts kept boiling in my mind as I finished preparing. Only one thing was real in my life: this moment. I was a refugee in another country, with no rights, no future, and little respect. But I didn’t plan on going to the United States of America.
My world back in the cantón had been the earth and sky and those things that nature provided. The sun was my father. My mother was the moon and the earth. All that I needed, the sky and the earth provided.
The gringos didn’t know this same mother or father. They knew only a world of cars and computers and televisions, the things that they had created. The land they lived on didn’t hold the sacred ashes of their ancestors or the sacred fluids of their children. I knew that I would never understand the path I followed into the future if I failed to understand the path of the ancients. It seemed very sad to me to think that some would so quickly trade the rich traditions of our Mayan past for the modern conveniences of a future in America.
With everything I owned wrapped inside a shawl on my back, I took Alicia’s hand and walked quickly from the camp. My restlessness was that of a lost person who searches for a home that no longer exists. I was confused and torn between memories and dreams, between hope and fear. Anger and dissatisfaction demanded that I leave the camp, but I didn’t know where leaving would take me.
Leaving frightened me greatly, but not as much as staying. I had no money, and Alicia and I would have to travel however we could, walking or begging rides in the backs of trucks. Still, I was determined to do anything I had to.
The tortillas I’d made would last me for a few days, and after that, life promised little. Mexico was a very large country, and all that I owned I carried with me. My only connection to the past was a mute six-year-old sister who depended on me for everything. It frightened me that once again everything familiar was being torn away and separated from my life. María, Carmen, little Milagro, all the children I’d helped, and yes, those who had helped me, all would soon fade to memories in my mind.
I knew María and Carmen would be hurt by my sudden leaving, but I wasn’t their daughter. What about their dreams? Their futures? Did they want a refugee camp to be their home forever? In any case, they would survive without me. As for the schoolchildren, they weren’t mine. Nor was Milagro, even though I had helped to care for her. I would miss little Milagro, but María would care for her. Alicia was my only real family, and I was willing to sacrifice everything to find a place we could truly call home.
&nb
sp; To reach the highway, I needed to walk through the middle of camp. I walked rapidly among the tarps, the slatted wood lean-tos, and the plastic tents that now made up the San Miguel refugee camp. Much had changed from that day when I first arrived nearly two years earlier. Life was still hard, but children now laughed and shouted. People waited patiently in lines for supplies that were brought to their section of camp. The dead-body trucks no longer drove through camp each morning. They even had a small clinic set up in a trailer. The line to see the nurses sometimes stretched far across the camp.
“Hello, Gabriela,” people called as we walked from the camp.
“Gabriela, come play with us,” the children called.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I called back.
Today, it seemed that everybody recognized me. They waved and called out as I walked faster to escape.
“Come here, Gabriela,” one woman called to me. “Look at this.”
Because I had passed very near to the woman, Vera, I reluctantly stopped to watch her son writing with a pencil on a piece of paper. In big block letters he had spelled out THOMAS. He looked up at me and smiled through missing front teeth. “Thomas,” he said to me. “I can write my own name.”
“Very good,” I said. “You’ve worked so hard.”
“No,” said his mother. “It’s you who has worked hard. It’s you who started the school and brought the teacher and the children together. Because of you we have a school. That’s why Thomas can write his name. Thank you.”
“Tomorrow I want to learn my last name,” Thomas said. “Will you teach me?”
I fought back the emotions churning up inside of me. This was a refugee camp full of dreamers who lived on false hope. I was leaving this place and following real hope. There was nothing wrong with wanting to find someplace that could be a real home for Alicia and me. But even as I struggled with my emotions, I still didn’t know where or what home was.
I nodded to Thomas, but I lied. I was leaving.
When I reached the edge of camp, it was almost dark and I didn’t know where to spend the night. It would be dangerous to travel the road at this time. Without giving my decision much thought, I walked with Alicia out away from camp toward a large machichi tree on a nearby hill. After dark, we would sleep under that tree, then rise early before dawn and begin our journey to another place.
When Alicia and I arrived at the machichi tree, I opened my shawl and spread the worn blanket on the ground beneath the broad-reaching branches. Angry thoughts smoldered inside of me. Leaving the camp had been so much harder than I imagined, but I kept telling myself that leaving was the right thing to do, especially since Mario had left.
I lowered myself onto the blanket. “Come lie down beside me,” I told Alicia, my voice demanding.
Alicia disobeyed my words. She walked to the tree and sat on the hard ground apart from me, looking up through the branches of the machichi tree into the gathering darkness. Already a few stars tried to peek down at us.
“Come sleep with me,” I told Alicia once again, speaking more sharply. “Tomorrow we begin a long and dangerous journey. We need to get sleep.”
Still Alicia ignored me, sitting alone and staring up.
I stood angrily to bring Alicia to my side, but then stopped myself. Tonight Alicia had isolated herself from the world with more than silence, and her distance left me feeling even more alone myself. I didn’t want to admit that I needed companionship. Back in camp I would have been surrounded by those I knew, but I wanted more than a refugee camp for a home. I wanted more for my future than sleeping under a tarp, searching and scrounging each day for handouts. Alicia feared life, but I was not afraid to try and find us a better one.
I removed the brush from under my huipil and sat quietly behind Alicia. Gently I began stroking her long black hair. “Let’s have a talk,” I said quietly.
Alicia’s silence left plenty of space for my words.
“I know you’re scared,” I said. “But you can’t run from what’s happened by not speaking. If you don’t speak, you’ll trap all of those bad memories inside of you forever.”
Alicia looked down at her lap and started picking at her fingernails.
“You can’t hide from what I’m saying by pretending not to listen,” I added, finding it difficult to speak, as if I, too, were hiding from something. I kept brushing her long hair. “Can’t you see?” I pleaded. “If you don’t speak, you’ll never heal. Some people run with their feet when they’re scared, but if you don’t speak, your silence will keep you running forever.” My voice trembled as I spoke. Suddenly, my own words made me feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Alicia looked back up at the branches. Slowly she stood, pulling her hair away from my stroking brush. She reached out deliberately and touched the tree. Without looking back, she stepped up on an exposed root and reached her little arms toward a branch above her head.
“Don’t climb the tree,” I said, my voice sounding sharply again. “It’s dangerous.” But even as I spoke, I was ashamed of my words. I sounded like a worried grandmother.
Alicia turned to me in the dim light of dusk, her accusing eyes asking me why she shouldn’t climb the machichi tree.
My mind struggled with unexplainable emotions as I studied her. I looked away toward the last shade of light on the horizon. I didn’t want Alicia to see the tears filling my eyes. I, too, was afraid, more afraid then I had yet admitted. I had asked Alicia not to run from her fear, but this very evening I also ran from myself.
We were both trying to escape the past.
Slowly I stood and looked back at the camp. Darkness was settling fast, and already dim flames flickered in the distance. Yes, I, too, had been running, not by refusing to speak but by occupying every waking moment and never letting my mind be still. I also ran by trying to avoid getting too close to others and by always blaming myself for what happened. But I ran the most by refusing to ever again be a Tree Girl. That was my greatest betrayal.
Hesitantly I stepped to where Alicia stood looking up at the branch. My fear almost stopped me. What I thought of doing tested my courage more than facing any soldier’s gun. I kneeled beside Alicia and pulled her to my chest and hugged her. “Do you want to be a Tree Girl?” I asked.
Alicia pushed away from me, her eyes showing her puzzlement.
“Here,” I said, lifting her in my arms. “Do you want to sit in the tree?”
She nodded.
Carefully I lifted Alicia so that she could sit on the lowest branch. “My little Tree Girl,” I said, holding her with my arms as I remained firmly on the ground. I spoke quietly to my little sister. “When you climb a tree, it takes you closer to …” I stopped myself from finishing the sentence.
Alicia’s small hand pulled up on mine, and my breath caught in my throat. My heart beat faster. If I resisted, how could I ever again face Alicia or forgive myself? No one but I would appreciate the consequence of my simply not moving. No one else would know my betrayal.
Again Alicia pulled up on my hand. I think that simple act made all the difference. Imperceptibly at first, I reached up, my heart pounding, my body trembling as if from fever. Then I gripped the branch. Deliberately I lifted my feet off the ground and pulled myself up beside Alicia. Emotions flooded through me, and I saw with tearful clearness Mamí and Papí and everyone I had ever loved and lost. I wept for my past, the past of the ancients and that of my ancestors, and for one brief moment I glimpsed the future, a future that held hope depending on what path I chose for myself that night.
Alicia looked over at my tears with haunting, innocent eyes.
“Tree Girls,” I whispered to Alicia, “are very special. They’re not cowards. They don’t blame themselves for things they can’t control. Tree Girls know that when they climb they might fall. But they know also that climbing lets them visit the birds. They’re strong enough to face the bad in life in order to know the good. They’re strong enough to face pain so that they can also know hope. They’re willi
ng to risk the ugliness of life in return for the beauty they find. Tree Girls find beauty when nobody else dares.”
Alicia sat quietly on the branch, listening to me.
“Yes,” I continued. “A Tree Girl is very special. But you can’t be a Tree Girl if you run from what scares you. You’re a Tree Girl only if you face the things that frighten you, and you must start by letting yourself speak.”
Alicia stared at me, as if asking with her eyes, if I was also a Tree Girl. I ignored her gaze and kept speaking. I spoke words I had never spoken before. And even as I spoke, I knew I would be returning to the San Miguel refugee camp that night. I had survived the massacre not because I was a coward but because I was strong, and so that I could help others survive.
I once promised my parents that the education they had worked so hard to provide for me would be shared. I promised them that someday I would return and share my knowledge with other Quiché.
I needed to return to camp in order to keep that promise. Yes, before we slept that night I would return to the camp, and someday I would return to Guatemala to find the beauty that a young girl had left behind. The beauty I found would be a reflection of the beauty that already existed inside of me. Someday I would return to Guatemala and search for a special teacher named Mario. I would return to tell of the massacres, and I would return to find the songs of my people, songs left by the ancients, songs heard late at night when my soul was quiet and dared listen to the wind.
“A Tree Girl is someone who’s willing to go home,” I whispered to Alicia. “Not to someplace far away with running water and machines that keep food cold, but home to where we’re needed and loved. You and I can be Tree Girls,” I whispered to Alicia. “There are still ways for us to help others back in camp. Always there will be ways to help our people.
“Please help me, Alicia,” I pleaded. “Antonio didn’t sacrifice his life so that you could remain silent all of yours. Manuel didn’t die so that I could leave my people and go to someplace where life is easy.”