American Dirt : A Novel (2020)

by Cummins, Jeanine

  ‘Everybody good?’ Carlos asks in English, turning in his seat to look each of the girls in the face.

  They giggle their replies. Lydia nods, dropping her hand back to her lap. It feels like a very long time before the boy completes his interview at the window of the third van. He waves when he passes again to rejoin his compatriot at the front of the queue. Both boys let go of their guns long enough to sling them onto their backs so they can lug the large log of their makeshift gate off the roadway. They open just enough space to allow the cavalcade of missionary vans to pass through.

  A half hour later as they cross over el puente Mezcala Solidaridad above el río Balsas, the girls gasp and point their cameras out the windows and into the lush green canyons below. When Luca climbs out from his nest to snuggle in beneath her arm, Lydia finally begins to breathe.

  Chapter Ten

  They’ve survived long enough to see the sun-clogged streets and throttling colors of Mexico City. That is no small thing. They are now four days and 236 miles removed from their doom. But it’s more than that, Lydia knows. Because the anonymity of the capital represents the fragile passage to their future. From here, she can feel a measure of hope; it may be possible to disappear. Lydia has determined that the least harrowing of their options is to fly. Something like superstition caused her to delay selecting a destination, but she did research all the northern border cities and compile a short list of the leading possibilities. From west to east: Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo. Any one of those airports will do, like a back-porch screen door, hidden and intimate. From any one of those cities you can smell the fresh-baked pies on the windowsills of el norte.

  When Carlos rolls open the back door of that church passenger van and the braided girls and their crammed backpacks spill out onto the bright tarmac, Luca and Lydia follow.

  Beside the open back door of the van, Carlos grips Lydia’s hands and whispers intensely into her ear. ‘He’s still with you,’ he says. ‘I can feel it. He’ll watch over you and your son. You will be okay.’

  Lydia envies his certainty. They embrace without tears while the braided girls and their adolescent male counterparts from the other vans avert their scandalized faces. Meredith stands beside Luca, awkwardly trying to adjust his backpack for him while he subtly dodges her efforts. When Carlos lets go of Lydia, Meredith steps forward to hug her, too, but whatever warmth once existed between the two women, mostly because of their husbands’ bond, has been extinguished. Still, Lydia’s gratitude is authentic. She looks Meredith in the eye.

  ‘I know how problematic this was for you,’ she says. ‘To undertake this risk for us.’ Meredith shakes her head, but as a gesture of repudiation it’s feeble. ‘I’m very grateful, Meredith. You probably saved our lives. Thank you.’

  ‘God be with you,’ Meredith says, and then the swell of noisy jabber from the gathered teenagers comparing roadblock stories consumes all other conversation, and both women are relieved to part ways. The automatic terminal doors yawn open with a rumble as the first few teenage missionaries amble through. While Carlos and Meredith say their goodbyes to the Indiana pastor-and-wife team, Lydia and Luca duck beneath the shade of an awning and make their way toward the tram that will deliver them to the terminal for domestic flights.

  Luca has never been on a tram before. He tries not to feel interested in it, but it’s amazing the way the slick, glassy thing arrives soundlessly and disgorges its people onto the platform. Luca grips his mother’s hand, and steps out of the way while the people and their luggage jostle past them. He watches his feet as he and his mother navigate the tiny gap between fixed and moveable. Mami pulls him onto the tram without resistance, and they’re in the front car, so how can Luca help but press his hands and forehead against the angled glass? Any kid would feel a little thrill in his tummy, watching the increasing speed of the track slip beneath his feet and vanish. It’s like a roller coaster, gliding silently above the crisscrossing cars and buses, the taxis and lampposts, the aprons of runway dotted with waiting aircrafts, and trucks with crazy staircases on their backs. A plane swoops down in front of them, huge in the window, and Luca springs back from the glass with a gasp.

  ‘Mami!’ he says.

  It’s the first word he’s spoken in three days, and he immediately regrets the sound of it, the plain, disloyal happiness of it. Mami smiles at him, but it’s not her regular smile, and there’s no mistaking the endeavor of it for actual joy. So why isn’t he broken like that? What’s wrong with him, that he can behave so normally? Mami runs her fingers across the top of his head and he pushes his face back toward the glass. He watches the tram swallow the track beneath them.

  Inside the terminal, the mechanical hum of air-conditioning is like a sheen behind all the other noises: a little girl holds her mother’s hand and rolls her dog-shaped suitcase behind her by the leash, a man shouts into his cell phone in a throaty, unfamiliar language, a woman clacks hurriedly along on her angry heels. There is the smell of lemon and freon. Luca follows Mami to a little kiosk with a screen on it, and he watches while she clicks around on there for a few minutes. Then he thinks he shouldn’t be watching her, but he should be watching other people, to make sure nobody’s noticing them, so he turns and looks, and no one is watching them except that little girl with the dog-shaped suitcase. She’s standing in line with her mother, or rather sitting on the back of her suitcase. When her mother moves forward, she pushes with her feet to keep up. Luca would like a suitcase like that.

  ‘We can’t book from here.’ Mami interrupts his thoughts. ‘It won’t let you buy a same-day ticket. We have to get in line.’ Mami picks up her backpack, which she’d set down on top of her feet, and Luca follows her over to get in line. He’s happy to have a closer look at the dog suitcase, which, he can now see, also has a furry tail and ears.

  The girl sees him admiring it and she smiles. She’s about the same age as Luca, maybe a year younger. ‘You can pet him if you want to,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t bite.’

  Luca takes a step back and hides his face behind Mami. But then a moment later, he reaches out and brushes the tip of the dog’s tail with his fingers. The girl laughs and then her mother says, ‘Let’s go, Naya,’ and the girl waves, pushing with her sneakers, all the way up to the ticket counter.

  Luca and Mami are next, and soon they’re standing in front of a lady wearing a blue suit and a red silk scarf. Her round face is repeated in miniature on the plastic name tag hanging from her neck. She smiles at Luca.

  ‘Hello, little jet-setter!’ she says to him. ‘First time flying?’

  He looks up at Mami, and she nods, so he nods, too. Flying! He can’t believe they’re going to fly. He’s not sure he wants to fly, but it’s possible he really wants to fly. It’s hard to tell.

  ‘We’re taking a little spontaneous vacation,’ Mami says to the ticket agent.

  The woman’s hands are poised over her keyboard. ‘Okay. Where to?’

  ‘I was thinking of Nuevo Laredo?’

  The woman clacks around on her keyboard at a comical speed. She can’t really be typing that fast, Luca thinks. She’s pretending. She frowns.

  ‘No flights until Friday. Are you hoping to leave today?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mami leans her elbows up on the ticket counter. ‘What about Ciudad Juárez?’

  Clack clack clack.‘Yes, that would work, there’s a three o’clock flight, stopping over in Guadalajara. Arrives in Juárez at 7:04 p.m.’

  Mami bites her lip. ‘Nothing direct?’

  Clack clack. ‘There’s a nonstop at 11:10 tomorrow morning.’

  Mami shakes her head. ‘Okay, let’s try Tijuana.’

  This time the woman covers up the sound of her typing with chatter. She doesn’t even look at the screen or at her hands. They move in front of her as if they’re two animals, independent of her body. She turns her round face toward Mami.

&
nbsp; ‘Fun town. Ever been there?’

  Mami shakes her head.

  ‘I used to fly. I was a flight attendant before I had the babies. Did the Tijuana route, so once in a while we got to stay overnight.’ She winks at Luca. ‘Hope you like to party!’

  Luca digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop himself from thinking about parties, and the woman returns her round face and her round eyes to the screen in front of her.

  ‘There’s a direct flight to Tijuana at 3:27 p.m. Gets in at 5:13 p.m. They’re two hours behind us.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Mami says. ‘Two seats?’

  ‘Sure. And when do you want to return?’

  Mami looks down at her gold sneakers against the terrazzo floor. Luca doesn’t understand her hesitation, that she’s attempting to perform an algorithm of calamity in her mind. Lydia knows they have exactly 226,243 pesos left because she counted it on the floor in Carlos’s bathroom in Chilpancingo. They’ve already spent more than 8,000 pesos on the hotel and supplies and bus tickets. She also has her mother’s purse, with a bank card she’s afraid to use. Abuela had a savings account, and however much there is, they’re going to need it. They’ll have to pay a coyote when they get to the border, and if they’re lucky, there will be a small sum left over to sustain them until she figures out what’s next. They can scarcely afford to throw money away on a return airplane ticket they’re not going to use. But neither can they afford to tell this friendly woman, this stranger, this potential halcón, that they’re traveling only one way. Luca squeezes Mami’s hand. ‘Returning next week, same day,’ she says.

  ‘Very good,’ the woman says brightly, but Luca worries that her smile has turned a little stale. ‘We can get you on a return flight, let’s see, how about 12:55 p.m. Gets in here at 6:28 p.m., nonstop.’

  Mami nods. ‘Good, yes, good. What’s the price?’

  The woman adjusts her red scarf as she scrolls down. Her fingernails are square and they’re painted the color of concrete. They click when she taps on the screen. ‘Three thousand six hundred ten pesos each.’

  Mami nods again, and swings her backpack around to balance it on her knee. She takes out her wallet from the side pocket while the woman continues clacking on the keyboard.

  ‘I can pay in cash?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the woman says. ‘I just need photo ID.’

  Mami has separated their money into various places, keeping around 10,000 pesos in the wallet. Luca watches while she counts out the bills for the tickets, seven pink, two orange, one blue. She stacks the notes on the counter, and the woman picks them up to begin counting. Mami digs into the sleeve of the wallet then and retrieves her voter ID card, which makes a little snap when she places it on the counter. The ticket agent sets the money across her keyboard and picks up Mami’s ID. She holds it in one hand and types with the other.

  ‘Thank you.’ She hands the card back to Mami and looks at Luca.

  ‘And what about you?’ She smiles. ‘Did you bring your voter registration card?’

  Luca wags his head. He obviously can’t vote.

  She returns her attention to Mami. ‘So I just need a birth certificate or some documentation to verify legal custody.’

  ‘Of my son?’ Mami asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  Mami shakes her head, and the skin around her eyes flushes pink. Luca thinks she might cry. ‘I don’t have,’ she says. ‘I don’t have that.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman clasps her hands together and leans back from her keyboard. ‘I’m afraid he can’t fly without it.’

  ‘Surely you can make an exception? He’s obviously my son.’

  Luca nods.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the ticket agent says. ‘It’s not our policy – it’s the law. Every airline is the same.’ She’s neatening the colorful money back into its stack. She’s handing the stack back to Mami, but Mami won’t take it, so she sets it on the counter between them.

  ‘Please,’ Mami says, dropping her voice low and leaning in. ‘Please, we are desperate. We have to get out of the city. This is the only way, please.’

  ‘Señora, I’m sorry. I wish I could help you. You’ll have to visit the Oficina Central del Registro Civil and request a copy of the birth certificate or you won’t be able to fly. There’s nothing I can do. Even if I could give you a ticket, you wouldn’t make it past security.’

  Mami snatches the money and jams it into the back pocket of her jeans along with her ID. Her face is still changing colors, and now it looks whitened, washed-out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman says again, but Mami has already turned to go. Luca follows and he doesn’t ask where they’re going, and soon they’re on the metro. When they emerge at Isabel la Católica station, Luca’s conflicted feelings only intensify, because being in Mexico City is a bona fide adventure. Everything is different here from Acapulco, and Luca struggles to take in all the color: the whipping flags, the fruit vendors, the baroque colonial buildings sitting shoulder to shoulder with their blocky modern neighbors. Music spills from wrought iron balconies, vendors hawk rows of luminous refrescos, and everywhere there is art, art, art. Murals, paintings, sculptures, graffiti. On one street corner, a colorful statue of tall Jesus – that’s how Luca thinks of it because it’s small for a statue but very tall for an adult human – stands with one fold of his bright green robe slung jauntily over his arm. Beneath this genuine onslaught of sensory stimulation, Luca manages to temporarily bury his guilt. His mouth hangs slightly open as he walks beside Mami, gulping in the scenery.

  At a stall, Mami buys tamales and a bag of cut cucumbers. It’s almost two o’clock, and Luca’s hungry, so they sit beneath an umbrella to eat. He considers how strange it is that certain things haven’t changed. The salted cucumbers taste just as they did before everyone died. His knuckles haven’t changed. His fingernails. The width of Mami’s shoulders. He chews without speaking. When their lunch is finished, Mami takes him to a square, concrete building with a statue of naked dancers in front, where the man behind the counter tells them that in order to get a copy of Luca’s birth certificate, they have to go to the registration office in the state where he was born.

  ‘Was he born in Mexico City?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In the state of Mexico?’

  ‘No, Guerrero.’

  ‘Can’t help you,’ he says. There’s a sandwich sitting on his side of the counter, and he seems eager to get back to it.

  On the sidewalk outside, Luca and Mami take a little break from moving so she can think. They squat down together in the shade of that square building. They lean against the wall, and after a few moments, Mami stands up. ‘Okay,’ she says, and her face has returned to its normal hue, and her hands are firm at her sides. She holds them in fists. ‘Okay.’ She says it again.

  Next they walk a few blocks to a huge brick building with once-white stonework that’s been discolored by time and weather and pollution. It has a gargantuan, arched wooden door, studded with massive golden buttons. Luca stares up and feels almost frightened by the scale of it, ten times taller than he is. But Mami is holding his hand, and together they pass beneath the bright purple flowers of the jacaranda trees. They walk through a smaller door cut into the gigantic door and enter the cool hush of the interior.

  It’s the Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, and even though this library specializes in economics, it’s so absurdly beautiful that it was Lydia’s favorite place to study when she was a literature and English student in college. It’s also the place where she and Sebastián first met, mistaking each other for economics majors. As their romance evolved, they developed a mutual joke that they’d both been in the market for a more economically reliable mate than the one they accidentally ended up with.

  With the exception of the new computers on the tables along the back wall, the library’s sala principal looks exactly as Lydia r
emembers it. The ceilings are cathedral high, the cavernous space is saturated with natural light from above, and the walls are completely wrapped by the color-drenched murals of Vlady. Sebastián had once warned Lydia that she’d fail her exams if she persisted in doing her studying here; she squandered most of her time staring at those walls. She’s long dreamed of bringing Luca to see this astonishing place, but she never imagined it would happen like this. She always thought she’d tell him the stories, but now that they’re here, with the brutal weight of their departure from real life, she finds herself unable to call forth the memories onto her lips: Sebastián sneaking her contraband snacks while she studied for her finals. Sebastián once making her laugh so hard the librarian asked them to leave. Sebastián slumped in that study carrel right over there, struggling through El laberinto de la soledad only because he knew it was her father’s favorite, and he wanted to know some of the same things her father knew, to get to know him.

  How monumental Lydia’s grief had been when her father died! It terrifies her now, to think of it, how deeply formative that single loss was in her earlier life. Now there are sixteen more. When she thinks of this, she feels as tatty as a scrap of lace, defined not so much by what she’s made of, but more by the shapes of what’s missing. She can’t even imagine how this loss will shape the person Luca becomes. They need to do a funeral ceremony as soon as they’re safe. Luca will need a ritual, a method of fashioning his grief into a thing he can exert some small control over. The sweep of it bows over her, but she returns to her mantra, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. She watches her son assess the magnitude of this place, the way his head tips back and his eyes swoop over every surface, the way he tries to chase the accidental smile from his face.