Tarnished Beauty

by Cecilia Samartin

  The barn door was ajar, and she slipped through with little difficulty. On the ground was a burlap sack that smelled of manure, but no matter, it was large enough to serve as a cover. Taking it with her to the darkest corner of the barn, she curled up like a cat, but before she had the opportunity to settle in beneath it, the barn door yawned open, and the silhouette of a small person, perhaps a child, was visible in the doorway. Also visible was a double-barreled rifle poised at the hip. After more careful inspection Jamilet saw that it was not a child, but a young woman, no more than twenty, and obviously in the last weeks of her pregnancy. She wore a dress several sizes too big for her frame, and workmen’s boots that reached up to her knees. Her reddish hair was loose around her face, and looked as though it hadn’t been brushed in days. But her most distinctive feature was an enormous bruise on her left cheek and eye, swollen enough to make her otherwise pretty face appear lopsided. Jamilet could clearly see it illuminated in the shaft of light that entered through the uneven slats of the barn wall.

  But the young woman’s injury didn’t impair her vision. She quickly spotted Jamilet crouching in the corner. Jamilet scrambled to her feet, and as she did, the young woman pointed the barrel of the shotgun directly at Jamilet’s head. “Get the hell off my property,” the young woman commanded. “I already called the border patrol when I saw you skulking around, and they move fast, so you better do the same if you know what’s good for you.”

  Jamilet reached for her bundle to do just that, and the woman said, “I’ll shoot you in the nuts if you try anything stupid.” She lowered the barrel until it pointed directly at Jamilet’s crotch this time. “Los huevos,” she said in Spanish, suspecting the stranger didn’t understand English. “Bang bang…los huevos.”

  Jamilet responded in English, “I don’t have huevos. I’m a girl just like you.”

  The young woman lowered the barrel slightly, and then raised it again with a start, peering into the darkest corners of the barn, as though expecting someone or something to jump out at her.

  “I’m alone,” Jamilet said softly. Even with a rifle pointed directly at her, she was unable to muster the strength to feel even a little bit afraid.

  The redheaded girl lowered the rifle a bit. “I never heard of a girl crossing on her own before. And I sure as hell never met a wetback that speaks English so good.” The woman appraised Jamilet with guarded fascination. “And why are you dressed like that?”

  “I thought it would be safer to travel as a boy,” Jamilet answered with a shrug, realizing that she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “We don’t need any more Mexicans here, boys or girls. I don’t understand why you don’t stay in your own country where you belong, why you keep sneaking over like thieves.”

  “I came to see a doctor,” Jamilet said.

  “They got doctors in Mexico.”

  “Not the kind of doctor I need.”

  A momentary glint of intrigue softened the woman’s expression, and Jamilet wasted no time. She pulled her shirt up and turned around so the worst part of the mark, where the skin was thickest and shiny red, was visible.

  “Holy shit!” the woman exclaimed. “It looks like you were skinned alive!” She was about to say something more, but was interrupted by the crunching sound of wheels rolling across the gravel driveway outside. Moments later, a car door could be heard to open and close, followed by steps up onto the wooden porch. A man’s voice called out, “Nancy. Hey, Nancy!”

  The woman became momentarily flustered, and seemed confused about what she should do next. She lowered her shotgun so that the barrel pointed at the floor, and stared blankly at Jamilet, watching her as she tucked her shirt back into her pants. “Wait here and don’t make a sound,” she said, and then she left, taking the extra time to close the barn door securely behind her.

  Peeking through the slats of the barn wall, Jamilet watched the woman who she assumed to be Nancy make her way across the yard and over to the porch to join the men waiting for her. She leaned casually on her shotgun, and crossed one boot over the other while conversing in an offhand manner with the two officers in dark green uniforms. A long bus of the same color with windows covered in wire mesh was parked in the drive. Four Mexican men were sitting in back, three sleeping and one watching the scene on the porch. Jamilet immediately recognized Juan, and when he lifted his hands to scratch his nose, she saw that he was handcuffed as well. In spite of everything, she felt bad for him. He had protected her as well as he could under the circumstances and she hoped that his detainment would be a short one.

  Nancy pointed out beyond the road, toward the woods that Jamilet had traversed, and then entered the house, returning moments later with a can of beer for each officer. They accepted her hospitality with a nod before stepping off the porch and climbing back into the bus. As it headed down the road in the direction that Nancy had indicated, a thick cloud of dirt rose up from beneath the tires, obscuring the vehicle from sight although it was possible to hear the rumble of the engine for some time afterward.

  When all was silent again, Nancy returned to the barn, without her shotgun this time, and instructed Jamilet to follow her into the kitchen. There, she prepared a meal of leftover fried chicken and corn mash. Jamilet tried to eat politely, but after a few dainty bites, she couldn’t help but shovel the food into her mouth like a wild animal. Nancy watched her from the sink as she filled the canteen with fresh water from the faucet. The last time Jamilet had seen water running from a faucet like that had been at the Miller house.

  “How’d it happen—that thing on your back?” she asked after Jamilet had almost finished her meal. “Did someone beat you bad?”

  Jamilet shook her head and swallowed the last of her corn mash. “I was born with it.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Jamilet shrugged, and took a closer look at the bruise on Nancy’s face, noticing that her front tooth was chipped as well. “Does that hurt?” she asked, pointing to her cheek.

  “Only when I smile,” Nancy answered, wiping her hands on the skirt of her dress and glancing out the window toward the clothesline. “I…I got an old foul-tempered horse in the barn. I should probably get rid of him.”

  “You probably should,” Jamilet agreed, certain she hadn’t seen a horse when she was in the barn. “Or put him out to pasture, and pray that somebody steals him.” Nancy laughed easily, ignoring the pain, and took Jamilet’s plate to the sink.

  Jamilet felt an immediate connection with Nancy and began to speak without thinking too much about what she was saying. As she began to tell Nancy her story, she realized she’d never felt so compelled. And her close encounter with death had given her newfound confidence. Instinctively she knew that it was rare to find such a kind and interested listener. She told Nancy of how she’d been born with the mark that the villagers believed to have come from the devil, and all that she had suffered because of it. She told her about her years at the Miller house, and her mother’s long illness and death, and her decision to leave home. She told her about how she’d traveled across the desert at night, and how she’d been tied up while she slept. She trembled when she described how it was to cross the river alone, and how it reminded her of the fear and repulsion she’d lived with all of her life. Surviving it had made her feel more capable than she’d ever felt before, and gave her hope that she’d find the cure she sought in the north. All the while, Nancy listened, enraptured, as her hands made lazy circles over her belly. When it seemed there was nothing more to say, Jamilet felt suddenly ashamed that she’d imposed in such a manner, and awkwardly thanked Nancy for her time and hospitality. Then, standing up, she asked her which way it was to Los Angeles.

  “Los Angeles is real far. You gotta take the bus, and it ain’t cheap.”

  Jamilet retrieved all the money she had out of her boot, and placed it on the table for Nancy’s inspection.

  “That won’t get you nothing here. It’s Mexican money,” Nancy said, and she disappeared wordlessl
y into the pantry, returning moments later with a small wad of bills folded in her palm. “There should be enough here for a one-way bus ticket to Los Angeles, and a little to spare. You’ll find a bus station in the next town, five or so miles down the road. Just stay close to the trees in case the border patrol comes back this way.”

  Jamilet was overwhelmed with emotion in the face of such generosity. “I…I can’t take your money.”

  “You’re not taking it—I’m giving it to you.” She grabbed Jamilet’s hand and pressed the bills into it. “You know what they say, when you got money and no purpose for it, it…it starts to stink so bad that even an old horse can sniff it out. It’s best I get rid of it.”

  That afternoon, Jamilet found herself seated on a Greyhound bus headed for Los Angeles, the place where her aunt Carmen lived, and where Lorena believed that miracles could be found. With the few dollars that remained, she bought a hamburger, potato chips, and a small Coke. It was the first hamburger she’d ever tasted, and she ate it reverently while gazing out the window and thinking about Nancy. It was getting dark, and in the window Jamilet was certain she saw the reflection of her mother’s face wavering beyond her own. And if she partially closed her eyes, the vision became more distinct and impossible to dismiss. And when her mother spoke, her voice was like the melody of a lilting flute, and more real than the droning rumble of the engine.

  “I’m very proud of you,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d get this far. You have more courage and strength than I thought you had.”

  Jamilet replied, “When I stepped into the river, I realized that fear and courage push each other along, like best friends.”

  “That’s true,” Lorena said, and then she instructed her daughter to be quiet, and put her head down so she could sleep. Jamilet obeyed and felt the gentle strokes of her mother’s fingers on her temple, and she heard the beautiful lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was very young.

  “Don’t stop singing until we get there, Mama. Please don’t stop.”

  The next day, as Jamilet stepped off the bus, she glowed with the warmth that had remained with her since her encounter with Nancy. Still, she felt the force of the wind that swept through the skyscraper canyons of downtown Los Angeles. It was no different from the wind that blew through the desert canyons she knew back home, except that here the lonely howl was replete with the feverish pitch of automobiles honking, and sirens wailing, and a buzzing urgency she’d felt only in times of trouble at home—when the river flooded, or a fire broke out in the fields. It seemed that people were rushing with purpose instead of alarm, and this intrigued Jamilet more than a little.

  It was truly a wondrous thing to walk among these people as if she were invisible. When she dared to stare straight into their faces, in most cases they never looked back or even noticed that she was there at all. Slinking around in her dirty disguise would have aroused alarm in her village, and certain confrontation. Within moments of her arrival, Jamilet decided that justice was alive in this place where everyone was dismissed with so much equanimity and that superstition couldn’t possibly thrive in the crevices of polished glass and concrete the way it flourished like a fungus at home.

  After showing her slip of paper with Carmen’s address to those strangers who appeared to have softer, somewhat less preoccupied eyes, Jamilet eventually made her way to the east side of the city where the multitude of colors and races she’d never seen before gave way to people mostly of the brown race that she belonged to. In this place everybody was Mexican and spoke Spanish, or English with a Spanish accent. On every corner was a Mexican-style market or restaurant. There was even a small circular plaza identical to what could be found in every village and town south of the border.

  The street where Carmen lived was so busy with traffic that Jamilet was certain she saw more cars drive down in five minutes than she’d ever seen pass through her village in her whole life. Overhead was a crisscrossing of wires strung between the houses like a canopy. In some places pigeons were perched in long lines along the wire, watching the frenetic world below with calm reserve. The house itself was a small Pepto-Bismol pink bungalow, but it was easy to see by the scabs of paint chipping off here and there that it had once been an even more disagreeable blue. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence that reached an inch or two above Jamilet’s head. The gate was closed, but the padlock had been left open. After checking the address three times to be sure, she let herself into the yard, and walked up the broken concrete path leading to the front door. She knocked, and waited, expecting at any moment to hear her aunt holler out a welcome, but all was silent, and the shades that were drawn in the window hadn’t moved. She concluded that her aunt was probably still at work, so she dropped her bundle and eased herself down on the front steps to wait, wincing at the stiffness in her legs. Even after working in the field for hours on end, she hadn’t feared that her bones were going to dislodge from their sockets, but she did now. The journey had taken its toll, and she felt like rolling up into a ball and sleeping for several days.

  But it wouldn’t do for her aunt to find her niece asleep for their reunion, so Jamilet forced herself to stay awake and found her gaze wandering with interest over the front yard. It was mostly dirt, with a few patches of dry grass clinging to the soil here and there. The trash that blew about had become trapped along the base of the fence, and she preoccupied herself with trying to see if she could recognize any of the American brands. As best as she could tell, her aunt had a definite preference for Cheetos and Oreo cookies.

  Straining forward, she looked up and down the length of the street, noting that most of the houses were more or less the same size and nondescript style. Some had blankets hanging in the windows, and thick overgrown gardens tangled in among a scattered collection of discarded furniture and mechanical parts rusting in the sun.

  Jamilet leaned back and stretched out her legs, grateful that the hot afternoon sun had shifted so she could rest in partial shade. She removed her hat and finger-combed her short hair before replacing it. Would she still recognize Tía Carmen after so many years, and would Tía Carmen recognize her? As she contemplated this, she noticed a young man across the street waiting on the porch in much the same manner she was, with legs outstretched while resting back on his elbows. He wore a white tank top and his dark hair was cropped short above the ears. Even from such a distance, it was easy to make out the clean line of his jaw, and the curved flange of muscle flaring at his shoulder. He had an athletic build, much like the young men who traveled around looking for work on the ranches back home. Women liked hiring hands like these, especially if their husbands were prone to long stays in town.

  She adjusted her hat so that she might continue to watch him without looking so obvious. Then he stood up and stepped off the porch, making his way to the edge of the property closest to her. He indicated with a flick of his head that she should do the same, and Jamilet jumped up on her feet, oblivious to the pain in her legs as she made her way to the fence.

  “She won’t be home for a while,” he called out over the noise of the traffic in a friendly voice. It was odd to hear a Mexican boy speak English so perfectly, with no trace of an accent. Jamilet’s English was good, but she knew her accent was as thick as fresh salsa. “That’s okay, I’ll wait,” she called back, forgetting to lower the timber of her voice, as she had done before, but she was nonetheless pleased with her selection of words and lack of grammatical errors. She’d heard Mary call out many such phrases over the years. No doubt she’d make use of the others she’d stored away in her memory bank.

  The boy’s eyes flew open in surprise when he heard her, and he braved the traffic, managing to get across the street in two or three long strides. Up close like this he was taller than he appeared from far away, and his brown eyes were bright with curiosity. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Say that again,” he challenged, and Jamilet was momentarily struck by how handsome he was, even handsomer than the ranch hands
back home who could saunter into a dance and have their way with any girl of their choosing.

  “Say what again?” Jamilet answered, nervously, as she readjusted her hat.

  The boy placed his hands low on his hips and shook his head. “You’re a chick. I can tell by your voice and…” He leaned in closer to get a better look. “Your face and stuff.”

  Jamilet felt her cheeks color.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” he asked boldly, like someone who was not easily fooled and was accustomed to getting answers.

  Jamilet shrugged, not sure if she should tell him the reason for her clever disguise. She’d heard many warnings about not letting on that she’d crossed the border illegally, and thought it wiser to stay quiet. The color in her cheeks intensified as he waited for an answer. She detected something in his eyes, more prominent than his curiosity—kindness, and it was this that prompted her to be honest. That and the fact that she didn’t know how else to explain her appearance, and it felt very important for some reason that she explain it adequately. “I crossed the border a couple of days ago. I dressed like this so…so I wouldn’t get caught.”

  “Ah…you’re a wetback,” the boy said, nodding wisely, but he’d stepped closer still, and took hold of the fence between them, looking at her through the wire as though she were an animal at the zoo.

  Jamilet realized her status hadn’t been elevated one bit, but she smoothed her collar with as much dignity as she could muster. “My name is Jamilet.”