by Bella Pollen
‘If you don’t, there will be people killed tonight.’ He winces as he claws the shirt over his shoulder.
‘Benjamín, what happened?’ And he starts talking.
He and Dolores had made it to the schoolroom. In spite of the Border Patrol, Duval had intended to take Dolores north then and there, disappear for a couple of days until he could figure out what had happened. But when Winfred came and Duval learned about Hogan’s men, he knew it was too dangerous. They’d decided to stay put and trust that the tortuous geography of the schoolroom would prevent them from being found. They waited and waited. Everything had been quiet until a radio flash had made Benjamín jump. Ten, twelve people coming through. The Migra had tracked them over the border but lost them as they’d slipped in and out of the tight ravines.
‘¡Por todos los santos!’ Benjamín mutters. ¿Por qué esta noche?’ He shakes his head despairingly.
‘I tell Duval we can do nothing to help, but then we hear gunshots.’ He shrugs. ‘So of course Duval went.’
It hadn’t been hard to find them. Torches were dancing all over the sky. There was fighting and yelling. The americanos had looked like monstrous insects in their night-vision goggles. In the confusion he’d heard someone shout his name. He’d ordered Dolores to wait in the schoolroom, but she must have followed him because when he turned he’d seen her struggling in one of the rancher’s arms. He’d run towards the man, and the next thing he felt was the punch of a knife in his shoulder. After that, a kick to the head catapulted him into oblivion.
‘Chavez will listen to you, Alice. He will send his men.’
‘Winfred said no. He said don’t call the patrol.’
‘Winfred is dead, Alice.’
I clamp a hand over my mouth.
‘He was trying to help us. His car went over the cliff.’
‘I saw the fire,’ I whisper. ‘Benjamín, I saw it out of the window.’ I cover my face with my hands and rock backwards and forwards.
‘I will go to Chavez with you,’ Benjamín says simply. ‘We will go together.’ He looks around the room, as if aware for the first time of his surroundings. ‘Where is M-E?’
‘Gone,’ I say, my eyes sliding from his. ‘Robert took them to the airport.’
He turns his head to one side. ‘Little M-E,’ he says brokenly. ‘My little M-E.’
‘You’ll see her again, Benjamín,’ I say feebly. ‘I promise.’ And he looks at me then as though we live in parallel worlds – mine is one where people are free to move across land and water and borders. A world where children go to school and do their homework and hop on planes any time they want to see their friend Benjamín. And his world? . . . Well, a door has opened into Benjamín’s world, a door I have now stepped through and I feel a shiver of fear at the possibility of it closing behind me.
We park the truck in the gas station on the US side of the border and walk over to the customs building where Chavez’s offices are located. It’s only when we approach the two officials, a short compact woman and her male colleague, that it occurs to me Chavez might not be there. It’s close to seven a.m. and what if his shift was over and he’d gone home? I briefly imagine him closing his curtains to the giant orb of the rising sun and climbing into bed, his heart heavy from another night sullied by the perfidy and greed of mankind.
‘Is he expecting you?’ the male official asks.
‘Yes.’
‘ID?’ His eyes flicker over Benjamín.
I hand them my passport, explaining in a haughty, brittle voice usually reserved for British Telecom customer service, that Benjamín is an American citizen, currently in my employ and—
‘Are you okay, hon?’ The female peers closely at me.
I give her a funny look as, by now, it must obvious that all is not entirely well with my world. She turns my blood-spotted sleeve towards her colleague.
Ah yes. I explain very calmly that Benjamín has been knifed and reiterate my desire to see Chavez.
‘¿Necesita un médico?’ the man asks Benjamín, his tone considerably softer.
Benjamín shakes his head at the ground. The agents look at us and then back at each other as though they’ve never before been confronted by such an odd couple, as though, even here on the very axis, the blood meridian of the great ethnic divide, it was impossible to understand how this white English woman and the brown Mexican could be together, despite the blood ties splashed across our clothing, apparent for one and all to see.
In the customs building we’re taken to the same room as before – and it’s the same scene. A family of Mexicans on the hard plastic chairs under the watchful eyes of Bush and Cheney. An agent with a notebook asking questions. ¿Nombre? ¿Domicilio? Another agent on the telephone: ‘. . . just a routine sweep . . . cleaning fluid . . . yeah real strong odour too . . . the truck showed signs of tampering.’ Then we’re in front of Chavez’s office with the door opening and there he is, looking up from behind his desk, his grave intelligent face filled with concern.
‘Alice,’ he says, and stretches out his hand.
*
I do all the talking.
I tell him about Hogan, Ranch Rights and their exaggerated fire power.
‘Alice, we have very little jurisdiction on private property. Not if they have permission from the owner.’
‘They don’t have my permission and they claim they’re doing this on your behalf.’
When I tell him about the Mexicans being detained at gunpoint he picks up the telephone and says something in Spanish. He listens quietly then replaces the receiver.
‘Yes, we had an earlier report of illegals in the area. A group of twelve. My agents lost them.’
‘Well, Hogan found them for you.’ I describe the fight in the dark, Benjamín being stabbed, and I look to Benjamín, expecting him to present his wound and corroborate the story, but his eyes are locked on his feet as though he is unwilling or unable to meet the eyes of authority.
‘The Border Patrol doesn’t condone anyone taking the law into their own hands. Alice, we don’t want their help any more than you do.’
‘Then send your agents back out there before some-body else gets killed.’
Chavez picks up a pencil and balances the point and rubber between his forefingers.
‘Alice, if Henry Duval is involved, it won’t make any difference if it’s one of my men or Hogan’s who finds him. The man’s wanted for murder. One way or the other it’s likely he’ll find himself looking down the barrel of somebody’s pistol.’
‘Not if you call off the “dead or alive” edict.’
He leans forward and puts his elbows on the desk.
‘What is it you’re not telling me?’ he probes gently.
So then I tell him mostly everything else. How we’d gone into Nogales for dinner, how we’d witnessed the patrol guard beating up on the kid and how Duval had tried to stop him but done nothing worse than bloodied the man’s nose. I tell him that the guard had been alive when we left.
‘Why didn’t you inform my men of this earlier?’ Chavez asks and for the first time I falter. ‘Your husband was here this morning, I believe?’ he adds almost conversationally.
‘Yes.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘He took the children home. To England.’
‘But you stayed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Alone?’ He sounds surprised.
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’ Chavez taps his pencil against his lower lip. He picks up the phone. ‘Alice, we know Duval has a safe house in the desert. If you show us where to find him, we’ll bring him in and talk to him. That’s as much as I can promise you.’
He waits for my nod, then taps in an extension number. ‘Come,’ he says into the receiver, ‘my office.’
Relieved, I lay my hand on Benjamín’s arm, but still his head remains bowed. At the knock on the door Chavez excuses himself.
‘Benjamín,’ I whisper. ‘Are you okay?’ Chavez is talki
ng to another agent at the door. I squeeze Benjamín’s arm and finally he raises his head. His eyes slide over me to the two men and then, as though an invisible fist has delivered a punch straight to his solar plexus, his face freezes.
‘Benjam—?’ I start, but his eyes flash back to me with such wild intensity that I clamp my mouth shut and twist in my chair. The agent talking to Chavez seems innocuous enough in his ill-fitting uniform. A middle-aged Mexican, nominally overweight, the soft mushroom of a belly pushing against a standard-issue black leather belt. He’s about the same height as Chavez and stands close to him, arms crossed, and chewing audibly. Later, and long after the possibility of doing anything has passed, I wonder why a number of clues don’t instantly broadcast him as a fake: the trousers, a good inch short of his ankle, the absolutely non-regulation gold chain around his neck. But what should have struck most forcibly was that someone on duty, taking instructions not just from a superior but from his head of sector, should be chewing with quite such gusto. It smacked of . . . well, gross overfamiliarity, I suppose; but in this moment I figure only that he is someone with whom Benjamín has had a run-in on a previous border excursion and I’m about to reassure him when the agent drops his hand. A sweet paper flutters casually to the floor and my brain, as if playing picture dominoes, links this image directly to another. The bowl of nougat squares in the cabin cupboard, the ones Chavez is always giving the children, The ones he keeps in his desk drawer. Stuck to the front of the bowl is one of Emmy’s Spanish ticker tapes printed with El dulce. Next to the bowl stands a can of beans, duly ticker-taped as Los frijoles.
So?
Unable to make the connection it seeks, my brain ricochets round the cabin highlighting one ticker-taped object after another – La mesa, the table, La silla the chair, until finally it’s Jack I’m looking at. Jack dancing around in front of the kitchen table, pressing the thin white strip to his forehead because it won’t adhere properly to skin. El hermano, it reads.
El hermano, the brother.
Now through the smoky haze of the Alubia I see Reuben’s fingertips on the edge of the $20 bill. ‘El Turrón has a brother,’ he is saying. His brother is a man with authority. A powerful man. If you find him, I guarantee you will find El Turrón.’
Back in an office in the US Customs building I look at my friend and protector, Chavez, a powerful man with both authority and contacts, and I think, El hermano? The brother? No. Impossible, absurd. A wild presumption based on what? I look from one to the other – a similar height and a preference for the same sweets? No. No. No. Still impossible.
‘Mrs Coleman will take you to Duval,’ Chavez is saying to the agent. He smiles at me and I smile back, determined to hold on to the idea of safety and help that Chavez has always represented, but the sharp claws of suspicion will not release their hold on my tired head. ‘People fare better on the border when they’re not all they seem,’ Duval had said. Above the noisy hum of breakfasting Mexicans, I hear Esteban’s warning: ‘Find him before he finds you.’ And as the hairs begin to rise on my arms, once again, on a dark side street in Nogales, a car rolls slowly out of sight and back into the shadows.
‘Alice? . . . Alice!’ Chavez says. Next to him El Turrón crosses his arms. I drag my eyes to his, determined to make contact, but I have to struggle to keep them there – such is the lazy contempt radiating from them. ‘My agent will accompany you,’ Chavez says. ‘Right now we’re between shifts, but radio position when you get there and the others won’t be far behind.’
I want to stay in the chair. I want to glue my hands to the seat and nail my feet to the floor. Benjamín’s head is down again. I will him to leap up or strike out, do something, anything to stop me feeling quite so helpless.
‘It’s okay, Alice,’ Chavez says gently. ‘Just take us to Duval and then you too can go home. You must go home,’ he says with meaning. He puts out his hand to raise me off the chair and I take it in a daze, hearing the knock on the door and only barely registering the presence of a third agent.
‘Sir.’ The man addresses Chavez. ‘The group of illegals you were enquiring about earlier?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve just had a report in. The situation is under control. A dozen individuals handcuffed in the area.’
‘Have them picked up,’ Chavez orders without missing a beat.
‘Sir, the guy who radioed in – says he wants to speak to you. Says it’s important.’
‘Not now.’ Chavez says sharply.
‘But it’s Jeff Hogan, sir. Says you asked to be informed if Duval was one of them.’
For a comical few seconds there’s a real honest to God Mexican stand-off. Everyone looks at each other. Nobody moves.
‘And is he?’ Chavez enquires evenly.
‘No, sir, he isn’t.’
I move then. And quickly. I yank Benjamín to his feet and start walking. I thank Chavez, smile at the other two men, thank them for their time. I mumble something about getting Benjamín to the medical centre but all the while I keep going, herding Benjamín in front of me until I m out of the office and halfway across the waiting room with the heady thought that we’re going to make it – and then I feel it – jabbing into my ribcage, and I know it’s too late. El Turrón’s hand closes round my elbow and I’m overcome by an immense loneliness as the door to Benjamín’s world slams shut somewhere far, far behind me.
I turn. Chavez stands watching us. ‘Good luck, Alice,’ he says. ‘Buena suerte.’
30
A gun in the back. I’ve seen it in every movie but I’ve never thought about how it feels. Well, it feels like this: like I’ve drunk a shot of distilled fear. Like I want to squeeze my eyes shut, put my fingers in my ears and block out this harsh new world until a safer one comes along. Down we go in the lift. Out of the building and into the butterscotch truck. Nobody speaks. Benjamín seems near catatonic as he climbs stiffly into the back. El Turrón pushes me into the driver’s seat. His breath is hot and too close as I step up onto the worn metal step.
I sit behind the wheel, hands in my lap.
Lounging against the window of the passenger seat, El Turrón keeps the gun on both of us. ‘Turn it on,’ he orders me and obediently I fire up the ignition.
‘Turn the truck around.’
‘No.’ In the rear-view mirror Benjamín’s head is finally raised. His eyes stare back at me; hard, steely. ‘It’s better the other way,’ he says and there’s something in the timbre of his voice that lights a small match-flame of hope.
‘Into Mexico?’ Turrón’s vowels are rounded with Americanese.
‘It is the quickest way.’
El Turrón’s brow furrows with suspicion. ‘She said go through the town.’
‘Es una mujer, una gringa,’ Benjamín says contemptuously, ‘Ni siquiera sabe llegar a su propia casa.’ She can’t even find the way back to her own house.
Still Turrón looks suspicious. He extends his arm until the barrel of the gun is an inch from my temple. ‘You said it was through Temerosa, right?’
Yes, right. Of course, right. Gringa or not, I know there is no road to Temerosa through Mexico. ‘It’s a nasty, near-impossible bit of desert,’ Duval had said.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m not really sure—’
‘Hey, go through the town if you want,’ Benjamín says and I hear the studied shrug in his voice. ‘But we will have to walk maybe two hours. Go from the Mexican side and we can drive. Yo no quiero desangrarme hasta la muerta porque la gringa se pierda.’ He speaks slowly enough for me to understand. I don’t want to bleed to death because the woman gets lost.
El Turrón looks from Benjamín to me and sneers, ‘So it’s like that, is it?’ He grazes the gun against my cheek-bone and sniggers when I flinch. ‘Hey, girl, don’t expect your house pet Mexican here to take a bullet for you!’ He waves his gun towards the checkpoint, ‘Go .. . go then,’ and winding down his window he holds out his badge as we drive through.
On the Noga
les main strip, it’s business as usual. A hard orange sun is already roasting the bare arms of tourists, the air is rich with the smell of frying meat, of jasmine and hot tar. I’m overcome with a sense of unreality. It’s barely four hours since the children left. They could be in the sky, or waiting to board the plane, perched on the plastic booths of the airport’s food emporium, gobbling down warm cinnamon rolls. My stomach turns hollowly. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday. A half-full water bottle is wedged in the truck’s centre divide but I am unwilling to draw attention to it. I’m not sure what Benjamín has in mind, but if the day promises to be as hot as it looks, it won’t help to have Turrón pouring what’s left of our supply down his own throat.
I drive. Left out of the port of entry and up into the hills of Nogales, left again, and along the road to Douglas. The atmosphere in the truck is jumpy but, far from noticing it, Turrón seems almost bored. He drums his fingers on the dashboard, he fiddles with the radio. He takes another square of nougat from his pocket and pushes it into his mouth, dropping the wrapper out of the window. Every so often I feel his eyes roaming over my body with a lazy insolence that makes my heart somersault and I’m tempted to say his name out loud if only to relieve the tension, but I stop myself, remembering that he has no idea of what we know. Certainly, he hasn’t recognized Benjamín and therefore right now we are only dealing with his desire to reach Duval, and the longer it stays that way, the safer we will surely be.
‘Turn left,’ Benjamín says eventually and I veer clumsily off the main road.
The truck judders over weeds and shrubs, bushwhacking on a barely visible track, kicking up dust alongside. I know where we are now and I know where we’re heading and once again I feel hope burn inside.
‘This is the way?’ Turrón leans his head out of the window. In the rear-view mirror Benjamín catches my eye and quickly draws his seatbelt over his lap. Equally quickly, I do the same. At the click Turrón pulls his head back in. ‘I said, you sure this is the right way?’
‘This track leads to the old mining road, and from there to the town,’ Benjamín says.
