by Sam Hawken
‘May I come in?’
‘I’m not working right now.’
‘May I come in anyway?’
‘Let me see your identification.’
Gonzalo showed her and only then did she step back and hold the door wider for him to enter. He stepped into the gloom.
It was a tiny room without so much as a bathroom or a kitchen, though it had a small sink. A yellowing scroll of paper taped in place shaded a single, undersized window. The largest single thing in the room was the bed, and even that was small. There was the strong smell of cigarettes and sweat. A bucket beside the bed held a layer of butts.
Iris closed the door. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she said.
‘I’m not here to arrest you, if that’s what you think,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Why don’t you sit?’
The girl looked at him sourly, and then lowered herself to the bed. Her hair was mussed. It was noontime, but she looked as though she had only been asleep a few hours. That was probably true.
‘Yesterday your father came to see me,’ Gonzalo said.
‘Mierda.’
‘He’s very worried about you. Your mother and your sister and brother, too. He asked me to come speak to you.’
‘Why?’
‘I think you know why,’ Gonzalo said.
‘I’m not going home.’
Gonzalo looked at her. She seemed younger than twenty. ‘Is it so bad there?’
‘It’s worse. No money, no food. Slaving away all day with my mother and my sister to keep a house with nothing. And there is no work for anyone.’
‘Your father works.’
‘For now. But if the drought goes on, the farm will lay off all of its hands and we will have no chance. I’m doing them a favor by coming here.’
‘There is other work in the city. The maquiladoras—’
‘Are all full of other country girls who came to city for work. This isn’t Juárez, where there’s always something. I found what I can do and I make good money.’
It was true that in Ciudad Juárez there were jobs despite the danger. It was bigger there, busier there. Nuevo Laredo would not ever be such, though it strained toward something greater. Gonzalo feared it would be a forever passing through, where the progress of cross-border commerce would serve to keep the city alive, but never thriving.
Gonzalo scanned the shabby room. The walls were water-stained and peeling and had last seen paint so long ago that it might have been before Iris was born. ‘What is good money for you?’ he asked.
‘Six hundred pesos.’
‘Per man?’
‘Of course.’
‘How many men do you see in a night?’
‘I don’t count,’ Iris said, and she glanced away.
Gonzalo pressed. ‘How many?’
‘I don’t know. Ten. Fifteen.’
‘In this hole,’ Gonzalo said. ‘How much are you paying to rent this crib for the night? Three thousand pesos? Four thousand pesos? Which leaves you how much?’
‘You can get out!’ Iris exclaimed. ‘I don’t need to explain myself to you!’
‘Has someone come to “watch out” for you yet?’ Gonzalo asked. ‘Because it’s only a matter of time. No girl works here on her own for very long. Some man comes calling and says he’ll look out for the bad customers if you just cut him in for fifty percent. And if you say no, then it will be more, plus he’ll beat you. Are you looking forward to that?’
She did not look at him at all now and Gonzalo knew the answer without being told. ‘It’s none of your business,’ she said without fire.
‘So it’s happened already,’ Gonzalo said. ‘And it won’t stop. Every night it will be the same until you’re no longer young enough, no longer healthy enough… whatever it means to get you out of here and sent back to where you came from. Broke, addicted or whatever else happens along the way.’
‘Please go away,’ Iris said.
‘I’ll go away when you’ve packed your things and we can leave this place together.’
‘This isn’t illegal!’
‘No, it’s not. That doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.’
Iris raised damp eyes. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Are you going to go save all the other girls now?’
‘No.’
‘Would you?’
‘No. I am here because you have a family that loves you. And because it’s not too late to put things right. There are too many things that can never be put right.’
They stared at each other. A tear tracked down Iris’s cheek, followed by more, until she could hold Gonzalo’s gaze no longer and she dissolved into violent sobs. Gonzalo bit his lip for silence.
When she was finished crying, she said, ‘I don’t have much to bring.’
‘Whatever you have is enough. I’m sure your father won’t mind.’
‘Will you wait for me outside?’ Iris asked.
‘Of course,’ Gonzalo said, and he left the stinking room by the stairs without looking back.
TEN
ON SATURDAY MORNING JACK DID NOT get dressed right away and made coffee in the kitchen in his sleeping shorts and a T-shirt. He drank alone in his recliner looking at some celebrity magazine Lidia liked to read. He recognized none of the faces and fewer of the names, but there was a human-interest story about a family who saved their home from foreclosure by taking up a neighborhood collection and that held his interest for a while.
This house wasn’t paid for, but the mortgage was reasonable and he kept up with the payments. When something needed fixing, he did it himself. Sometimes he got the girls’ help. Someday they’d need to take care of a problem and he didn’t want them to have to rely on anyone else to get it done. His girls would handle themselves.
Once he heard them stirring he went to the kitchen and started breakfast. On Saturdays he allowed himself all the indulgences and there were pancakes and scrambled eggs and bacon to go with milk and orange juice. Lidia and Marina came to the table in their pajamas like little children.
‘Uncle Bernardo today,’ Jack told them.
‘Is that today?’ Marina asked. ‘I thought I was taking Lidia to the pool.’
‘Nope, it’s today, so get yourselves all cleaned up and we’ll leave here in an hour. Look good for your cousins, okay?’
Jack put on his best pair of jeans and a work shirt without any holes in it. He wore his good boots and not the battered old steel-toed pair he wore on jobs. When the girls came out of their rooms they were clean and brushed and in bright colors. They didn’t dress up like it was Easter Sunday anymore, but in the back of his mind Jack could still see them that way: in dresses with bows and buckled shoes.
‘Okay, let’s hit the road.’
The morning was already turning into a hot day and Jack put on the air conditioning in the truck. It used to be that both girls sat in the back seat as if they were being chauffeured, but now Marina sat up front beside him. Reflected light flashed off her wraparound sunglasses as they drove, dancing at the edge of Jack’s vision.
They went downtown to Laredo International Bridge and joined the thin line of traffic headed south across the border. On the other side, where Mexicans passed into the United States, it was four solid lanes as far as the eye could see, but there were not many who made the trip this way anymore.
Nuevo Laredo had been the destination for generations looking for deals or distractions or a little fun. Jack remembered carnivals and music played in open plazas. The first time he ever sat on a horse was at a Cinco de Mayo fiesta. For a few centavos an old man let him sit in the saddle of a swaybacked animal and led the horse in a wide circle inside a rough corral. Jack thought he was a cowboy and the nag a stallion.
Things were different now. Once on a Saturday like this the pedestrian crossing was bustling with tourists, but today there were only a few and they did not look happy to be going. The license plates on the cars ahead of Jack in
line were almost all from Mexico and the state of Tamaulipas. That was the way it always was.
Vehicles were stopped first on the US side. Uniformed men and women circulated among the cars and trucks, checking papers, walking trained dogs between the lanes, stopping to talk with drivers. A dark-skinned Latino man waved Jack forward and then signaled for him to pull up. Jack put down the window. Warm air rushed in.
‘Good morning, sir,’ the officer said. His nametag read GALLEGO. ‘Going into Mexico?’
‘I am.’
‘What kind of business do you have there?’
‘We’re visiting relatives.’
‘Who are these people with you?’
‘My stepdaughters.’
‘Does everyone have passport or other form of ID?’
‘Yes, we all have passports.’
‘May I see them, please?’
Jack handed them over. In the side mirror he saw a woman officer leading a German shepherd up to the tailgate of the truck and then along the bed. The dog sniffed, but did not hit.
The officer named Gallego examined the passports and then passed them back to Jack. ‘Are you carrying anything in your vehicle that we need to know about? Guns, illegal drugs?’
‘Nope.’
‘Do you have more than ten thousand dollars cash with you?’
‘No, sir.’
Jack looked the officer in the face. The lenses of the man’s sunglasses were impenetrably black and Jack saw himself reflected darkly. The officer nodded. ‘Okay, then. You have a nice day now.’
He raised the window and drove on. A gap had formed ahead of them and they cruised out over the river until they passed a broad yellow line painted on the bridge that marked the border. On the far side were the Mexican customs officials in their little booths. They collected the toll of three dollars. Jack would pay again on the way back.
Just beyond the booths, where the bridge widened out into a broad intersection, Jack saw a black Humvee waiting with one wheel up on the sidewalk. A soldier with a machine gun stood up in an open turret in the back while two others watched the incoming bridge traffic from behind the flat windshield.
The Mexican asked the same questions and Jack gave the same answers. He paid the toll. They waved him on. He thought he saw the soldiers in the Humvee tracking him as he pulled away from the booths, but he did not want to stare.
Anyone who expected a sudden change across the bridge would be disappointed. The streets looked the same, though the storefronts were festooned with Spanish signs and there were no white faces among the brown. Jack piloted carefully along these blocks, careful not to speed because the police were everywhere and where there were not cops there were more soldiers.
He was not afraid. The soldiers were there for a reason and a person would have to be deaf and blind not to know why. When he watched the news, Jack saw the reports of fresh killings, of shootouts in the streets, but he had never seen them with his own eyes. To him Nuevo Laredo looked the same, felt the same, though he knew it was different. The people he met were friendly and the stores happy to have his business. Maybe he was just lucky, or maybe it was not as bad as they said.
ELEVEN
THEY DROVE INTO THE HEART OF THE city and then turned toward the neighborhoods where the buildings did not crowd so close and the streets weren’t so narrow. Houses appeared, some with courtyards and others with lawns. The truck navigated ruts in the asphalt and deep holes that threatened to swallow up the wheels. Jack saw a car that had no wheels, propped up on bricks in front of a house whose tiny front yard was festooned with hanging laundry.
The house of Bernardo Sigala did not have a stretch of grass in front of it, but was fronted by a six-foot wall along the edge of the street. An iron gate allowed access to a little car park where a blue Toyota squatted. Part of the gate could be opened separately for people and two locks secured this entrance.
Jack parked on the side of the road and got out under the sun. Lidia went to the gate and jangled a string of bells. The noise was like a collision of cows.
Bernardo came out of the house and into the shade of the car park. He wore a bright yellow shirt with a collar and pants with a sharp crease. They dressed up for these occasions, too. ‘¡Hola a todos! ¡Bienvenidos!’
He unlocked the gate with two separate keys and held it open for Lidia and Marina to enter. Jack came last. They shook hands. ‘Bernardo,’ Jack said. ‘Are we late?’
‘Late? No, not at all! I was just watching some fútbol. Reina is in the kitchen. The kids are around. Come in.’
Bernardo brought them inside where it was cooler. A ceiling fan stirred the air and all the windows were open. The house smelled of cooking. In the front room there was Bernardo’s television and a battered couch. Little Bernardo sat there wearing a Bravos team shirt. The Bravos de Nuevo Laredo was a Second Division team without much in the way of prospects, but the boy was a fan. Jack checked the TV. He could not tell who was playing.
‘Marina, Lidia,’ Bernardo said, ‘you’ll find the girls in their rooms, I think. You look very pretty today, Lidia.’
‘Thank you, Tío.’
‘Jack, do you want a beer? Sit down and be comfortable. Bernardino, make some room for Jack. Sit over there.’
Little Bernardo left the couch reluctantly and took a seat in a straight-backed chair near the wall. He was not a talker and mostly he looked at Jack with wary eyes. The boy was a baby when Jack first saw him. Now he was seven. They would never be close.
Bernardo vanished into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Corona and a wedge of lime. ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘Come on, sit. You look like you have the nerves today, Jack.’
‘It’s been an interesting week,’ Jack said. He took over the spot Little Bernardo left behind.
‘Whatever happened, I bet I can top it,’ Bernardo said.
‘You probably can. How’s it been?’
Bernardo took the far end of the couch. He was a round-faced man with a mustache that made him look jolly, but he frowned now. ‘Lots of shootings this week. Very bad. One happened two blocks from here.’
‘Everybody all right?’
‘Sure, we are all fine. It’s narcos killing narcos mostly, but sometimes someone gets caught in the middle and…’ Bernardo made a gun gesture with his thumb and forefinger.
‘But you’re careful,’ Jack said.
‘Always.’
The beer was clean and crisp, the lime tangy. Jack looked at the TV again and saw the score was two to one. He still couldn’t tell who was playing. ‘Seemed quiet when we came in.’
‘They say there will be more soldiers soon,’ Bernardo said.
‘How many are here already?’
‘I don’t know. A thousand? It seems like they are everywhere already. But Los Zetas and the Golfos, they still manage to get around.’
Jack thought. Bernardo and Reina had three children. Little Bernardo was the middle child and Patricia was nineteen now. Leandra was only four. Both parents worked and after school the little ones came home on their own, where Patricia watched over them. They made do.
Bernardo clapped Jack on the knee and put a note of joviality into his voice. ‘I’m glad you came today. It’s always good to see you and the girls.’
‘We’re glad to come. I just wish things were going better for you.’
‘We are all alive and healthy. We have family. It’s good. Tell me more about you.’
‘Well, there’s not much to say. I’m working steady, the girls are growing up. It’s kind of hard for me to believe Marina’s almost a grown woman. By this time next year she’s going to be looking for her own place.’
Bernardo nodded. ‘Maybe she won’t be so quick to leave. You’re her father now, just as much as Arturo ever was. Those kinds of ties are hard to break.’
‘Maybe you’re right. Patricia still talking about moving out?’
‘Every week it’s something new. She has a job now, but she’s not saving any of it. I wou
ld be putting it away for tomorrow, you know, but she spends it as soon as she earns it. Her mother hates it, her staying out late, but she’s an adult. She has to have her space. I can’t ground her like I used to.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ Jack said.
‘Don’t be. It’s a phase every young one has to go through. Remember when we were that age? No one could tell us any different.’
‘I just want to make sure she’s on the right path.’
‘She is, my friend. You show her the way by how you raise her. I can tell.’
Jack swilled the last of the Corona and stuck the remains of the lime wedge into the bottle’s neck. ‘As long as you’re convinced.’
‘You have nothing to worry about. Now sit, watch some television. I’m going to see if Reina needs anything. We have a big meal for today. You’re going to eat until you burst!’
Bernardo slipped out of the room and Jack caught the sound of spoken Spanish drifting from the kitchen. He turned around in his seat. Little Bernardo was still in the chair, watching the TV intently. They looked at each other without words.
‘You want to sit up here with me?’ Jack asked.
Little Bernardo nodded.
‘Then come on up. Maybe you can tell me who’s playing.’
TWELVE
THE LUNCH WAS A WHIRLWIND OF FOOD —beans, rice, enchiladas, tortillas, salad and more—served around the long harvest table in the oversized kitchen. Bernardo sat at one end while Jack sat at the other. Reina fluttered around them, making sure every plate was full and stayed full and that every glass had something in it. She barely sat until Jack insisted she take a chair and eat with them.
Bernardo was Vilma’s brother and though he did not look much like his sister, Jack saw the family resemblance in his children. Patricia was alike enough to Vilma that she and Marina could have been sisters. Lidia and Little Bernardo had the same eyes. Leandra was round cheeked and babyish. She was shy and looked away whenever Jack tried to catch her eye.
They ate until they could eat no more and still Reina forced more food on them. Finally Marina begged for mercy and offered to help clear away the meal. Lidia and Leandra retreated to Leandra’s room and Little Bernardo gravitated toward the television once more. The sun had moved and the courtyard out front was mostly in shadow. Bernardo collected more beer and took Jack to sit.
