Every time our ball went into the river, all of us kids gathered to figure out a way to rescue it. I never went in to retrieve a ball. It wasn’t the cold water that prevented me from entering the river, but the vivid image of Mamatoya throwing trash into it in the middle of the night, saying, nearly toothless, “Why do they want to save this river if it has always been and will always be filled with shit—shit that the fish eat, and shit that others consume after gutting them.”
I’ve never been able to forget that image. And her resentful words still resonate in my mind. That was exactly what prevented me from entering the river. Unfortunately, her words never stopped me from secretly visiting the garbage dump—I have the same rebellious blood that runs through her.
Speaking of Robbery
That morning I knew I was going to have to work twice as hard to earn my lunch money at school. There were only forty-five minutes left until recess. Mamatoya couldn’t afford to give us money, not even five lens, a nickel, for an ice cream. I’d always felt hungry ever since Mamá left for El Norte. When Mamá was home, we were treated with respect. No teacher ever dared to yell at us or hit us at school. Kids came to our house to play. But things changed when she left.
By second grade, I was already famous for the little jobs I did in order to buy snacks during recess or lunch. I was sometimes paid as much as one choca, twenty-five cents. In order to do these jobs, I would finish my classwork before everyone else. I copied chalkboards full of notes.
Two of my classmates, Laura and Luisa, were lazy and spoiled. They never finished their work on time. They knew they could get away with anything, not just because their parents were teachers at school, but also because they could always rely on their Sunday allowance to pay for my labor. Of course, they preferred the latter to feel important and powerful.
But I was like a fox; I had my wits and never allowed anyone to take advantage of me. I wrote contracts out for each one of them. My penmanship was impeccable, and I jotted down what felt like a thousand words per minute.
“I have an idea,” I said to them.
“What is it?” asked Luisa.
“I’ll copy your notes from the board before the recess bell rings,” I said.
“How much do you want?” asked Laura.
“Two chocas from each of you,” I said.
“Only fifty cents?” Luisa laughed.
“Yes, unless you want to pay me more!” I said sarcastically.
“No, it’s fine,” said Laura.
“And you promise that you’ll finish before the bell rings?” asked Luisa.
“Yes, you have my word. You’ll get to go out to recess,” I reassured them.
In those times, a choca was a fortune for a nine-year-old girl whose mom’s monthly US check was never enough to feed fifteen other mouths in the house. But for my wealthier classmates, a choca was joke. Their parents would give them five quetzales of allowance per week. They were spoiled millionaires, but I couldn’t complain because by the time recess arrived I had already earned one quetzal, and it would last me a whole week. I would run out to play at recess, triumphantly, with four chocas in hand and blisters on my fingers.
Some lucky days, I would even get invited to one of their houses to play. Luisa took pity on me and invited me over after school. I was dying to see her new toys from the US. She had a house full of them. Every summer she went on vacation to New York with her family and brought back boxes full of toys—you’d think she’d bought the whole store.
Her house was a child’s paradise. I had never seen anything like it. She had a dark blue mini-sofa where I fit perfectly; I was practically skin and bones. She sat on the edge of it, half of her butt in the air. Luisa loved showing off her toys and each of their functions to me. I was fascinated.
“What’s this?” I asked, picking up a plastic rectangular box.
“Put it down! It’s an Easy-Bake Oven. Papi bought it for me on his last trip to Los Angeles.”
“Aw, Los Angeles,” I repeated, not because I was impressed, but because that was where Mamá had been living for almost a year and a half. I missed Mamá.
I wanted to play at Luisa’s house every day and bake cakes in her mini-oven. Luisa was an only child and her parents treated her like a princess. She had terrible mood swings, but I always knew how to get on her good side. I simply agreed with whatever she said, and she shared everything with me. I always followed Mamá’s advice to the tee: you have to know how to lead a mare to water.
Luisa was also known to be greedy, and she always had candies hoarded everywhere. She was in a good mood that day because she shared some exotic candies with me.
“Want to try some sweet-and-sour candy?” she asked.
I nodded. She placed the powdered candy in my mouth. I was too intrigued to ask her what flavor it was. I wanted to take advantage of her charity before she changed her mind.
My stomach had never experienced these candies. They were clearly not from Guatemala. The small packages with sweet powder came in every flavor and color imaginable. Luisa had them all and in abundance. Those candies were like a drug to me. I got addicted, and a little no longer satisfied me.
I don’t know what came over me, but as soon as Luisa let her guard down, I hid a candy in my jeans’ pocket. We spent hours playing with her toys while I was suffering from withdrawal. I couldn’t take it any longer and with a desperate tone told her, “It’s getting late. I have to go home.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Not yet. Just wait!”
I didn’t want to get on her bad side, and I knew that if I didn’t obey her she would never invite me back to her house.
We left all the toys to one side and started to play the choo-choo train game.
“You’re the pilot,” she said. “Here, blow this whistle.”
I did as she said. She wanted me to be the pilot—I was her pilot. She wanted me to blow the plastic green whistle—I blew the whistle.
I got anxious and soon enough began to sweat. With an improvised tune, I pretended to be the locomotive.
“I’ll be the caboose,” she said as she grabbed onto my waist.
We chugged along for a few minutes around her room. I was too busy with the whistle in my mouth that I didn’t notice when Luisa slipped her hand in my back pocket. When I finally did feel it, I simply closed my eyes. Her deafening cry penetrated her bedroom’s thick walls.
“My candy—you filthy thief!” she yelled. Everything felt like it happened in slow motion. I was left with no other option but to flee. I ran all the way home, crying. My tears were hot and thick with shame. I had never been in the habit of stealing, and much less getting caught!
At Nightfall
I scrub my body to the bone.
—Anna Swir
Every night, she quietly
undresses
in the darkness of her bedroom. She
places her tired flowered dress in the family’s
armoire, built with one-hundred percent uncured
wood. As she hangs it up,
she contemplates:
every wrinkle, every tear
it gains each year.
In her hands, it becomes
thin like paper,
silky and soft
from so much wear.
The following day,
she selects a different layer;
she selects another
dress.
(the freshest one,
the lightest one)
The one
that will help her survive
the battles of this dream—
this life.
Mamá Returns
After three years of going back and forth from Mayuelas to Tactic and from Tactic to Mayuelas, Mamá came back to her homeland. She came back for us, just like she had promised.
Tía Soila always said, “Your mother has a backbone like no other woman.”
Mamá had returned for her three daughters, her
greatest treasures in life. I was already ten, skinny as an earthworm. My hair, light brown, was cut short above my ears—it made my freckles stand out like tiny brown fleas scattered on my Mayan nose. I was as pale as a grieving ghost.
Consuelo had already turned twelve. She was fair skinned, not too dark, not too pale. Her long, dark brown, shaggy bangs covered her bushy Frida eyebrows.
Sindy was eighteen. She was already a señorita, flaunting her jet-black, curly hair; her large curls gracefully accentuated her dark complexion.
Mamá looked different to me, shorter and thinner. She smelled different, too. A scent I did not recognize—a flowery perfume from Avon, perhaps. Her lavender smell had vanished. She wore shiny, three-inch heels with skinny jeans. Her hair was still short, dark brown. She didn’t wear much makeup, but her lips were plump and red like always. She barely smiled. She looked almost the same, except prettier and somewhat happier.
When I read Mamá’s letter stating that she was coming back to Guatemala, I imagined the day of her return to be the happiest day of my life. I pictured her waiting for me in the middle of Tía Soila’s corridor holding two suitcases. As soon as she saw me getting home from school, she would drop her bags on the floor, run up to me, hug me, and carry me like an infant bundled in her arms. It didn’t happen in that sequence.
For one, I saw Mamá at the airport and wanted to jump on top of her and kiss her face and smell her hair. I had missed her so much, but I had nothing to say. No sound came out of my mouth. I was surprised at my shyness toward her. I had developed a joker’s personality to cope with her absence.
Sindy and Consuelo were laughing and crying, thrilled to see her again. Mamá didn’t cry. I stood still, trying to hide my face in my neck. Since I didn’t find the courage to approach her, she walked up to me and hugged me tight. She buried my face in her soft yet firm belly and said, “There you are, my sompopito!”
She didn’t mention anything about how big I had grown in the past years. How my face was looking more like a teenager’s. She didn’t notice how my freckles were slowly fading from my face. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, grabbing her luggage. Mamá disliked being in airports and the capital. It made her nervous and anxious. She wanted to go back to the heat of Mayuelas. During our four-hour commute, Sindy and Consuelo kept asking Mamá questions about Los Angeles and Amado. I usually got carsick so I sat quietly in the back admiring Mamá’s beauty. She sounded different, more sophisticated. As soon as we arrived in Mayuelas, all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms, never letting go.
But Mamá didn’t allow me to climb her body like a mango tree like I used to when I was little. Mamá didn’t allow me to kiss or suck her cheeks like a tamarindo pit. She kept her distance, not just from me, but from everyone else, too. Mayuelas was always hot, but on that day, it felt like a cold winter afternoon. And I felt like a mango forcefully detached from its tree. Not ready, not ripe.
I got nervous realizing I couldn’t climb her like a tree or eat her kisses like a fruit. Confused, I ran to the outhouse holding my stomach. I hid in there for twenty minutes, holding my nose. Everyone else continued to gather around Mamá like she was a famous rock star. In the outhouse, I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t laugh, or scream. I sat on the toilet for a few minutes, pooping, thinking, wondering who she had become. I wondered how much I had changed in her eyes. How many times did she die in the fall and resuscitate in the spring? Three times. Three years to be exact.
Then it finally hit me—Mamá was back. I wanted to tell her how much I had missed her and loved her and needed her. I pulled up my underwear without thinking or wiping my behind and carelessly ran outside and rushed at her.
I jumped on her and wrapped my legs around her waist. We almost fell. I cried, she cried, we all cried, again. She held me tight for a few seconds, but suddenly I felt her body go limp.
As she let me go, she scolded me, “Go wash your hands, you smell like shit!”
Everyone’s cries turned into laughter. I ran to the washbasin crying, laughing, realizing Mamá was really finally back.
PART II
OUR JOURNEY TO EL NORTE
Tejiendo la niebla
Descalzo uno emigra
a tierras extrañas
hay quienes no olvidan;
hay quienes se ensartan
su patria en el alma.
—La tierra no tiene fronteras
murmuran los pies reventados
las huellas que implantan
trasmiten nostalgia;
hay tierras calientes
que a veces se enfrían;
hay campos dorados
que tejen la niebla;
hay volcanes que arrojan
sus piedras de pomo;
y uno aquí, escupiendo
cenizas en la lejanía.
—La tierra no tiene fronteras
suspira la arboleda.
El árbol exiliado no logra evitar
que su fruto florezca.
Es el viento que arrastra a
la almendra y la hace que
engendre en tierras ajenas.
Knitting the Fog
Barefoot, one immigrates
to foreign lands—
There are those who
do not forget;
Those who interweave their
motherland into their soul.
The soil knows no border,
murmur their splintered feet.
Their footprints, deep-rooted,
radiate with nostalgia.
There are warm soils that
at times become frozen;
Golden fields that
blur with fog;
There are volcanoes that
expel rocks of pumice.
And I’m over here, spitting
ash from afar.
The soil knows no border,
moans the green forest.
The exiled tree cannot prevent
its seed from flourishing.
It is the wind who drags
it to foreign lands where
it inevitably propagates.
Northbound Again
The day Mamá decided to bring my sisters and me illegally to the US, Tía Soila told us with a stern voice, “Your mother raised herself on the streets. The streets made her tough. She is who she is because she’s had a rough life. Be good to her.”
Those were her last words as we boarded the guagua that would take us to the capital, Guatemala City. I was ten, Consuelo was twelve, and Sindy was eighteen. Mamá had always been strict with all three of us. I knew she loved us, but she hardly showed her affection to us or to anybody else. Her silent love had always been enough for me, especially at nighttime when she caressed my hair until I fell asleep.
“Life made you hard, Victoria,” Tía Soila said to Mamá through the bus window.
Mamá simply nodded her head. We each felt a knot of pain stuck in our throats. We swallowed it in silence and cried all the way to la capital.
Mamá chose a chilly morning to begin a new chapter in our lives. For the second time, she boarded the same bus that had taken her away from us three years earlier. But this time, she was not alone; she had us, her three mujercitas.
After a year of residing in the US, Mamá had fallen in love with a man named Amado. She married Amado, whose name literally translates into beloved. Amado helped my mother settle down in the US. He helped her financially and emotionally. It was thanks to him that Mamá found the financial support to return to Guatemala for us.
Amado was twenty-five years old, and Mamá was thirty-three. Amado had no children of his own, and Mamá already had the three of us. My sisters and I were eager to meet him. Everyone said grand things about the famous Amado.
In her monthly letters, Mamá would describe Amado as a kind angel sent to her from heaven. He was gentle and hardworking; he had no addictions and loved Mamá unconditionally. They are still married to this day.
Mamá couldn’t bear him any children
because she’d tied her tubes after giving birth to me. This never bothered him. According to Mamá, Amado was eager to meet us and treat us like his new daughters.
I couldn’t wait to meet Amado. I had seen pictures of him. He was short and thin. I could tell he really cared for Mamá because in the photos she sent us, he was always holding her gently by the waist.
The funny thing is, Amado also happens to be from our town, Mayuelas, but Mamá and Amado never crossed paths there. They met for the first time in Los Angeles. The night before our trip, I kept hearing his name everywhere.
“Oh Amado, he’s such an angel!”
“Victoria is such a lucky woman to have found a man like him.”
“He’s going to be a great father to the girls.”
I couldn’t believe I was going to meet my stepdad in a few days. I was excited and a bit jealous. For some odd reason, I couldn’t picture Mamá with another man. I’d spent the last three years without a father figure. Tía Soila and Mamatoya had raised us in a matriarchal environment.
I hadn’t seen Papá since the day Mamá left for the US. He never bothered to check up on us or visit. He’d also immigrated to the US, chasing after her. He didn’t find her right away. And when he did, Mamá was already married to Amado. And now, I was going to meet this amazing Amado that everyone seemed to love and know so much about, except me.
The night before we left, Mamá had made special pockets in her underwear’s cotton panel. She folded large bills of quetzales and tucked them neatly inside of them. As I watched her, I fretted she would have an accident and get the money wet.
“Just in case we get robbed,” she said nonchalantly.
That morning on the bus, as I said goodbye to my relatives, I cried like I had never cried before. I cried because I was leaving my family. I cried because I was leaving the country of my birth. I cried because I did not know if we would ever come back. I cried because I didn’t know if we would reach our destination.
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