Pulga stares at her and then looks away.
Something about the way she talks makes me feel close to her. She stares at me suddenly, studying my face closely. “So, what’s your name?” she asks.
I know she knows, so I don’t lie. “Pequeña.”
“Pequeña.” She shakes her head. “That’s not good. It will keep you small. What’s your real name?”
My real name. Already I feel like I don’t have one. Already I feel like the person who walked the streets of my neighborhood, who lived in that house and slept in that bed, already I feel like that person doesn’t exist. And I don’t know if she was left behind, or if she’s disappeared, like water evaporating, over buses and fields and trains.
Who had I been when my mother looked at my face the day I was born? “Flor,” I tell Soledad.
Her shiny face breaks into a smile. “Ah, Flor,” she repeats. “Now, that’s much better.”
I smile but it fades when I suddenly remember the boy I refused to name. Who’s a part of me, but whose name, if Mami gave him one, I do not know.
Soledad rises from the chair and unplugs the shaving shears. Wipes them with alcohol and puts them away in a drawer. She reaches into a cabinet, retrieves an old ragged towel and hands it to me. “Go on, shower and wash your hair with that shampoo, Flor.”
I watch as she walks away, only now noticing the way she walks with the slightest limp, favoring her right side.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“Five years,” she says, taking a deep breath. She turns and stares at me again and I can’t help but wonder if she’s looking for someone in my face. But what she says is “You must always remember your name. Say it to yourself. You cannot forget who you are. La Bestia, the wind, a lot of people on the other side, they will try to make you forget. They will try to erase you. But you must always remember. Eres Flor.”
I nod. That’s who I was. That’s who I can be again, even if I’m no longer Pequeña.
I walk to the bathroom, lock the door behind me. I check to see how much I’m bleeding—hardly at all.
Maybe my body is magic.
Maybe my body knows what it needs to do now.
Maybe I’m not who I was.
I look at the warped image in the plastic mirror in the bathroom, my shaved head. I look nothing like Pequeña anymore. I reach into my pocket, gather the bits of my teeth that rolled around my mouth like sharp gritty dirt, and I wash them down the sink.
Here I leave more of my hair.
Here I leave bits of my teeth.
Here I leave more of who I used to be.
And there, somewhere in the face reflected in the mirror, is who I’ll become once I cross the border.
Somewhere inside me, Flor waits to be born.
* * *
~~~
Each night we are there, Soledad sits on a couch by the window. That’s where she sleeps, like some kind of lookout for those who might come stumbling in the middle of the night.
For seven days, we watch her nurse Chico back to health, making him special meals. Shearing his hair carefully and washing his scalp in the sink. For seven days, he sleeps and sleeps, and Soledad tells us it’s the best way for his brain to rest. A train comes, and goes. Then another, the whistle shrieking as it passes us.
“We have to get back on it soon,” Pulga says anxiously as we sit outside. As we watch those on top of the train heading north and we stay in place. “We can’t stay here forever. We have to go.”
“I know,” I tell him, anxious to leave, too.
When the man who delivers food to the shelter tells Soledad the train headed to Matias Romero is supposed to leave the following day, Pulga and I tell her we’ll be leaving.
“But why?” Chico says. The color has returned to his cheeks. His eyes have lost that vacant stare and he leans into Soledad as he looks at us. She smiles and puts her arm around him. “We can stay a few more days, can’t we?”
Pulga shakes his head. “We have to go, Chico. Or we’ll never get there.”
Chico shrugs. “So . . . ? I’ll just stay here, with Soledad,” he says, looking over at Soledad, her shiny cheeks smiling. A look crosses Pulga’s face and I know this is exactly why he wants to leave.
Soledad looks at Chico. “You can stay here. But . . . this is my life. Just this, day in and day out. There’s no future here.”
“Besides,” Pulga says suddenly. “You’re not from here. You don’t have papers. Mexico doesn’t want us any more than the United States does. You’d be an immigrant here, Chico. If you try to work here, live here, whatever, Mexico will deport you right back, too. To Rey.”
The sound of his name again, tossed around so casually, reminds me of the reach of him. Would he guess what we’ve done? Would he send someone to find me? Would he come himself?
“We have to go,” I tell Chico.
His face falls. “I know . . . I just . . . ” he says.
There is a silence in the room, broken only as Soledad takes a deep breath and says, “You know what? I’m going to make you all a feast before you go, okay? How does that sound?” She looks at Chico and he smiles back at her.
And right then and there, she hurries to the kitchen and starts cooking.
She boils chicken and somehow from very little makes a hundred flautas.
She uses the broth to make fideos.
She makes a red salsa, and the smell of jalapeños and tomatoes fills the air.
She makes a green salsa; the tang of the tomatillos and cilantro is on my tongue before I even taste it.
She makes beans, adding extra cheese.
She whips fresh cream.
I watch her the whole time and I swear, I see a glow. Like she is outlined by light. And I begin to wonder if we are dead and Soledad is a ghost. I begin to wonder if she’s my bruja incarnate. Or if I’m dreaming. If any of this is real, as we eat food too good to be made by human hands. As we sleep a sleep so deep, it seems like a spell.
But the next day crashes in, and in the early morning we are heading back to the tracks where we’ll wait. Soledad walks us to the edge of the shelter.
“I’d walk you there, but I have to stay here in case anyone arrives,” she says to us.
She won’t leave this place, not for a moment.
So we say our goodbyes right there. And it takes all I have not to sob as she holds my face so gently, like a mother would her child, and says, “Cuídate, m’ija. And when you make it, send me word. I’ll be here. But I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Don’t let me down. You hear me?”
I nod, and when we hold each other in a tight embrace, just for a moment, I let myself pretend we are mother and daughter. And just for a moment, we are.
She hugs Pulga.
And Chico.
La Bestia calls to us.
And we turn to leave in answer.
Pulga
The train doesn’t come until almost night—almost twelve hours after we left Soledad. It slows as it approaches, slows some more as it enters the yard, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop, so we have to hurry.
People appear, running toward it and taking their place by the tracks as the train comes into view.
“Look for the bars on the side!” a man yells to those with him. “That’s where you can pull yourself up!” His voice is barely audible over the train’s long, blaring whistle.
The first car goes by with a clattering that makes my ears ring.
Then the second, third, fourth . . .
I’m running, staying with Chico as he runs along beside me, slower than usual. I’m watching the guy who I think is a pollero, one who guides a group, as he points to one of the train cars and the three people he is with attempt to board that one. They do, and he gets on behind them.
I hear voices, calling, yel
ling, telling one another to grab on! grab on! hold on tight!
We run, that train sucking at our feet, the sound of its wheels like that of knives being sharpened. The same terror as before grips me, but I ignore it. We keep running, reaching, hoping, lunging for a bar to hold on to.
I’m afraid of being pushed onto the track by someone else who wants to get on just as badly as I do. Or that I’ll trip and die. Or be left here, far from home, limbless. In pieces.
I ignore the pain in my legs, the burning sensation in my thighs, the fear in my heart.
And then Pequeña is grabbing the bar, pulling herself up, looking down at us from the top of the train, telling us to run, run.
When I look up, it’s as if the world slows down. Her mouth open, her face desperate, her voice silent, the dusky blue sky around her.
I look down again and the world is a blur and a cacophony of sound.
“Faster!” I yell at Chico, as another car passes us by and Pequeña gets farther away. The distance between us grows and I see her looking back at us desperately.
She looks at the passing landscape and I think she’s considering jumping back off if we don’t get on soon.
But I won’t get on until Chico does.
“Get on!” I tell him. “Come on, get on!”
I glance back for a moment, and there are only a few cars left. Soon, the train will pass us.
It’s only a moment, but I hear a scream from behind. And I see him, a man, being sliced by the train’s wheels.
My insides drop and instinctively, I shut my eyes for a millisecond as my brain screams, Keep going! Keep going!
Chico turns and I yell, “Don’t look back!” Because if he does, he will see that man’s legs, how they were cut away from his body, how his arms were still moving around wildly as half of him was spat away from the train.
Chico runs faster, and I pump my legs.
The last car passes us, and we see the back of the train.
Chico reaches for the back bars of the train, grabs them. I hurry next to him and grab them, too. And we pull ourselves up, the train sucking at our feet like a hole in the earth.
My arms and legs are trembling and I tighten my grip, afraid my body will give out on me.
“Climb up to the top!” I yell to Chico. The train has a kind of ladder on the back that leads to the top of the train. Chico listens and we scramble up like spiders.
On top of the car, I search the passing landscape for Pequeña, making sure she didn’t jump off.
I look up ahead at the other cars and see the outline of a person who I think is her, waving a hat. I wave back, relieved, before sitting back down, next to Chico.
“You okay?” I ask him as we settle in. He nods. I look back and can still see the crowd gathered around the man spat out by the train.
Even now, I can see him clearly, his denim shirt, his dark face, his arms flailing wildly as he was sliced in half.
My heart slides up my throat, lodges itself there.
I look at those around us, who were already on the train as we ran to get on. Either they didn’t see or realize what happened, or they did, but it barely registered. Another horrid image, on top of a train that covers your eyelashes in dust, that burns your body until you feel nothing. The train that turns you into a zombie, unfeeling, unaffected. Half-dead.
Maybe we have to become zombies to survive any of this. Maybe part of us has to die to endure this.
“Did you hear that scream? Did you see what happened?” Chico asks.
I shake my head, and lie.
He shakes his head. “I think . . . Pulga, I think that guy . . .” His voice gets choked up.
“No,” I tell him. “Nothing happened back there. Don’t think it. Don’t let yourself feel anything,” I tell him.
Chico nods, but I see how his face contorts, trying to hold back tears, trying not to think about it.
We ride into the black night. My heart wants to cry out, but I put my hand over it, apply pressure, keep it quiet. Even as the truth plays over and over in my head.
* * *
~~~
We ride for hours, the incessant clack of the track drilling into our minds.
We jump off this train, and onto another.
Then another.
Each switch weakens my body but strengthens my determination. We are doing it. We are getting closer, and closer, with each train. And even when the trains and sunrises and nights blend into one another, I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going. Each time Chico and Pequeña want to stop, find a shelter, I remind them, one more train, one more leg of the trip. Just one more. I know we can keep going, if we just push through. We have to get closer. We have to get closer and closer.
“We should stop and rest,” Pequeña tells me, after we’ve jumped on the third . . . no, fourth train since we left Soledad’s. “I don’t think we can keep going like this, Pulga.”
“We have to make up time,” I tell her. “We have to keep going.”
When we ride, I try to look only at the line where sky and earth meet, because when I look to the side, the world blurs by so fast I feel like my head is going to burst. It feels funny, and my eyes can’t focus and then I get such a headache, it’s like a dull machete has been embedded in my scalp.
One day, we ride along tracks that run past the back of some run-down houses, and as we ride, I see women hanging laundry. One of them waves, then holds her fist up in the air like she is urging us on, giving us strength. The small child next to her starts running with the train. He looks at us in wonder, and the mother stares at him as he slows down, his path obstructed by trees.
I wonder what we must look like to him—I wonder what his little-kid mind imagines about us. I know his mother must have had to explain to him who the people on the train are who go past his house. And I know he must see the train full of people over and over and over again, leaving.
And I know, even at that age, that he’s already thinking about leaving, too. That he’s already imagining himself on that train.
And I wonder if he’ll ever be on it. In search of someone who left long ago.
Or if he will be killed when he’s four by bullets meant for someone else.
Or at eight because an older brother refuses to join a gang.
Or at twelve because he refuses to join a gang himself.
Or under the wheels of this train, because he ran for his life.
Before he’s completely out of view, I wave at him. I don’t know why. Like my hand has a mind of its own. Like it’s gone soft—like my heart. And I look away, but not before I see him wave back.
I feel some stirring in my heart and some tears spring to my eyes before I can stop them.
Feeling too much will kill me, I tell my heart.
Not feeling anything will, too, it says.
I look in the direction we are traveling, letting the wind dry unshed tears and letting the clack, clack, clack of the train lull me back to numbness. Hours and hours of numbness. Miles and miles of numbness.
An eternity of numbness.
I look over at Chico and he looks like hell.
Why are we doing this?
I stare at his dusty, cracked face. His lips are chapped and bleeding. He licks them, and they dry out again, and crack more. I feel my own face, the leathery feel of my cheeks chapped by the wind.
Why?
I remind myself of Rey. My mind rushes red with Don Felicio’s blood.
I try to ignore the hunger in my stomach, but it won’t go away. It’s so empty in there. So hollow. My gut is its own enemy—turning on itself, over and over again. I press on my belly, trying to squelch the tiny beast that keeps groaning and punching and wrestling inside—reminding me of hunger.
Relentless hunger.
I can’t think of anything else except food.
It’s almost enough to distract me from the pain in my back, my legs. My hands are permanently cramped; they are clenched in a pain that makes them stick, that makes it impossible to unclench, and I have to concentrate to straighten them out again. I try to move each part of me, just a little bit, to prevent my joints from getting stuck, but even that hurts.
The tiny beast in my stomach erupts and erupts and erupts. I try to let the saliva in my mouth gather, so I can pretend it’s a gulp of water and swallow it. But I don’t even have enough saliva.
My eyes close. Open, I tell them. Open. They listen only for a moment before they start closing again.
There are so many hours. So many miles. Through Medias Aguas. And Tierra Blanca.
Danger behind us.
Danger ahead of us.
Danger all around us.
It’s hard to make sense of it all. And when I think too hard, my mind gets fuzzy again. Or gelatinous. And then it quivers as my head pounds.
The mountains look fake. I feel like I’m not real and this is not real and the mountains are not real.
Like this life is not real.
And that’s when I panic—slap myself and shake my head. Because that feeling is dangerous.
That feeling of unrealness makes you think you can do all sorts of things. Like lie down. Like sleep. Like close your eyes and not worry.
It makes you forget you have a body that can fall and break and be crushed.
Pequeña
The girl sits between her mother and father. She can’t be more than seven years old. Even on this trip where we are forced to the barest, most primal state of who we are—rotting teeth, sweating, smelling bodies—her mother has fixed her hair in two long braids on either side of her head, each tied at the end with a small, dirty red ribbon.
The mother is staring at me and when I look at her, I know she’s figured out I am a girl. Because she doesn’t give me a dirty look. She doesn’t shield me from staring at her daughter, who reminds me of me, of who I was a long time ago—a small girl loved by a mother and father.
We Are Not from Here Page 19
