Open Pit

by Marguerite Pigeon

  “So? So we have a responsibility to fight the — ah, you know what, Aida? Forget it. I’m not going to get into it. The other reason I called is I want to respond to his bullshit. I’m going to put the names of the hostages up on the PJA website.”

  Aida grimaces. The government has made it clear they won’t publicly release any names until all the families have been notified. Apparently, the parents of one hostage are out of the country and unreachable. But Neela, who runs the NGO that puts these delegations together every year, is in a position to override time-tested official policy out of pure spite. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “So I’ll piss off the government. So what? What’re they doing for us? I’m going to embed the names into an opinion piece. Just demolish Wall, point by point. The press’ll pick it up, guaranteed. But I wanted to see how you felt about it first.” Neela pauses. “Now I know.”

  Aida doesn’t have the energy for a fight over publishing the names. She’s exhausted, already. Since the news of her mother’s disappearance, her feelings have become uncomfortably intermingled, like a ball of elastic bands she doesn’t dare touch for fear one will snap. She only knows that she’s lonely. And the people who could fix it are long dead, so far away she can barely make out their faces when she closes her eyes. She can see her grandmother’s smile. The shape of her grandfather’s head. “Do what you want,” she says.

  Neela clicks her tongue sympathetically. “I know that what’s happened to your mother is beyond hard for you. It is for me too. . . .”

  She breaks off and Aida almost feels sorry for her. Neither Neela nor Danielle ever married. In a way they’ve become each other’s next of kin — closer than Aida, for sure.

  “She’s going to be alright, you know,” says Neela, recovering. But there’s an air of cheerleading about it that Aida long ago learned to despise.

  “She always is.”

  “I hate to hear you sound so angry. Danielle left you her letters so you could understand better. She can’t change the past. It’s been years. . . .”

  “I’ll see you tonight, Neela.”

  “Okay, Sweetie. Sure.”

  Aida hangs up loudly.

  Back on the couch, the mining rep is finishing a live rendition of Mitch Wall’s statement from the newspaper. “. . . amounts to trespassing and would result in multiple negative consequences, including a major disruption to our operations, a blow to employee morale, and possible endangerment of the safety of our own families. Obviously, these consequences are unacceptable to NorthOre.”

  Barraza nods gravely, and now it’s the turn of Antonio de la Riva Hernández, head of El Salvador’s anti-kidnapping unit. Below a brush of black hair, he has big eyes that hang low in their sockets, moving slowly from side to side, taking in the room. Aida catches a phrase of his slow, wheezy voice before the translator overlays it. “I am limited in what I can say, of course. But I feel I must clarify that it is the responsibility of my agency and no other, internal or external to El Salvador, to carry out this investigation. This is a crucial moment in our country. The criminal elements would like the upper hand. We will not let them have it.”

  Hernández has the mannerisms of a cowboy, which Aida finds comforting. She can see a man like him standing over the dead kidnapper, dual pistols still smoking. But Barraza doesn’t speak of any such concrete plans. Just a few more vagaries about readiness and swift action before the camera switches to the anchor’s desk in Toronto. Coverage of the press conference is over. Aida’s window onto El Salvador slams shut.

  She presses the off button over and over until the screen goes blank, then rests the remote on Danielle’s coffee table. She and André sit side by side in a silence broken only by the refrigerator clattering in the kitchen.

  “My mother fell in love there,” Aida says. “Last time.”

  André turns towards her. Despite everything, under his square jaw, the olive skin on his neck looks inviting. The eyes, though, are wary. “Her letters?”

  “Yes. I could read you one.” Aida has half decided not to. André will probably find them corny.

  “If you think it’s important,” he says.

  Aida does. So much so that she ignores the tension in his voice. She begins.

  April 16, 1980

  Neela, You know romance has been the last thing on my mind, right?

  I know you know that. Well, I met someone anyway. Here! In the middle of nowhere. I was out with my Belgian priest friend, Sosa. We were a day’s walk from here, getting more quotes for that profile I’ve decided to do on him. We met up with some people and he was going to give Mass for them when a more senior-looking guerrilla showed up with some young recruits. The guerrilla and I made eye contact. It was intense.

  Tonight, at supper Adrian — that’s his name — sat with me and Sosa. The two of them told stories for hours. Stuff I couldn’t believe about the violence happening in this country. One time they both had to hold their breath underwater in a river while soldiers fired bullets across the surface!!! I just sat there in awe. Adrian walked me back to where I’m supposed to be sleeping (thank god for this flashlight) and wished me good night. Tomorrow, he’s coming back to camp with us. That’s lots of hours. I’ll let you know how it goes with my very own Che (ha).

  DB

  Aida closes the letter.

  “My Che?” says André.

  “It was a joke. She was young. My age.”

  “Nothing like you.”

  “Anyway,” says Aida, widening her eyes at him in annoyance. “I’ve never known any of this stuff about her.”

  “Maybe it was better.”

  “What? Barely having any idea what my own mother was like?”

  “You have not expressed much interest in your mother’s past, that’s all,” says André, bristling.

  “I didn’t think there was anything to know. Danielle went to a war zone, met someone, got pregnant, and later he died. That was it.”

  “And she left you. Now you know she was ‘in love.’ So.”

  “There’s more.”

  André looks away and back. “If you want to read them, then read,” he says, making it sound like it’s a duty.

  Aida knows he’s being protective. He can tell the letters have rocked her, and he probably wishes she’d just put them away, stick to the problem at hand. But Aida can’t. Because the problem didn’t start with Danielle going missing. It started in those letters, the year before Aida was born.

  2:45 PM. 45 KM north of the town of Los Pampanos, Morazán

  The hostages are handed two bars of cheap-smelling soap — one for the men, one for the women — and marched to a creek. Probably, like the cigarettes, this is intended to manipulate them into feeling a little better, especially after the incident with Pierre. As soon as she touches the water, Danielle succumbs. She cups as much as she can onto her body and lets it trickle down. She wants to splash around like a child, throw herself into the pathetic, depleted creek and come out in her bathtub at home. Already she senses the mind-numbing boredom of being a hostage, and this is her first respite — manipulations be damned.

  It won’t last. Delmi, sulking on the bank above her, lifts the strap of her gun every so often, repositioning, while staring impatiently at Danielle and Tina. Stumpy, cross-eyed Delmi. Not very chatty. But her manner suggests a grating, self-satisfied enjoyment of the situation. Danielle has always been very private about her body, and she loathes this woman’s shameless staring. Standing barefoot on the muddy edge, Tina also seems embarrassed, though her body looks perfect. Danielle remembers having a body like that. Maybe not so sculpted, but nice enough that she never gave it a thought. Age has altered things. Now she should pay attention, but she has never got a feel for working with her older self’s appearance — to Aida’s ongoing mortification. Danielle can’t imagine getting involved in the kinds of maintenance most women undertake. Dyeing her hair? Pilates? Certainly not to please Aida. But then, who else? Danielle accepted some time ago that she
will never settle down. She dates online when she wants sex. Otherwise, she prefers bouts of loneliness to the steady work of a man.

  “Here,” she says, keeping herself slightly turned away, passing Tina the bright pink bar.

  Tina pulls it down one of her lean arms, her eyes averted.

  Danielle wishes she’d had more time to get to know this girl. At breakfast at the hostel in San Salvador, while they were waiting for Martin, Danielle suggested that the others say something about their reasons for joining a human rights delegation. Tina was the only one who sounded a little jaded, and Danielle liked her for it. “The reserve where my mom’s family’s from has a program. You can go on trips like this, political stuff, and they’ll pay. You have to give a talk to young people from the community afterwards. I’ll go up there when I get back.” Then she shrugged and stretched in her sensual way. Danielle felt a twinge of envy, but Tina’s body language was not calculated. “I’ve been to Australia and Thailand through them,” she went on. “It has to be somewhere that there’s native people — which I didn’t even know there were any in El Salvador, but Partners for Justice says there are. Called ‘Lenca’?” Tina sounded like she only cared the minimum about the concerns of this obscure indigenous people, like a young woman who wanted to travel and had figured out a way to do it. She then flirted a bit with Pierre, who was sitting beside her. She seemed, in short, many things Danielle wished she’d been in her mid-twenties: charming, independent, politically weary, and childless.

  Danielle recalls Tina’s words to her family during the videotaping. Something about her and her sibling being in the same boat — prison, probably. Checking over her shoulder and seeing that Delmi is distracted, she whispers: “Tina. I’m sorry about your brother. John.”

  Tina too has just her bra on, a pale thing that hugs her above the prominent rib cage. She’s washing her hair. She nods under its shiny bulk.

  “What’s he in for — drugs?”

  Tina pulls her hair back suddenly and checks Danielle’s face, narrowing her eyes. “Not that it’s your business, but he’s an entrepreneur?”

  Danielle’s noticed that Tina is part of the generation of young people who end sentences on a high note, like a question.

  “He made a few mistakes.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply —” Danielle starts, but realizes what she has implied. “I just thought you looked sad about him. Yesterday.” “We shouldn’t talk,” says Tina, her eyes flicking towards Delmi and back. “They just get angry. Like with Pierre.”

  Danielle pictures Pierre as he must be at this very moment, somewhere not far off with the other men, surely freed of his restraints so he can wash. Since his outburst, Pepe has kept him bound at the hands and mouth. They didn’t even remove the gag on last night’s trek, which was as long and arduous as their first. Pierre was forced to gasp and salivate through the night. The message to the rest of them was clear: keep your mouths shut, or else. Still, Danielle feels compelled to try to explain herself to Tina. She isn’t in the habit of making racist assumptions. “I just thought —”

  A voice interrupts her. “Have these two been chatting like hens the whole time?” It’s Rita. She has appeared beside Delmi. “Such sucias shouldn’t even bother trying to get clean.”

  Tina, who hasn’t understood the Spanish, still instinctively shakes her head no.

  Delmi giggles nervously, something she does often, her jaw shaking under her mask. She moves back several steps, ceding power to Rita.

  “No?” says Rita to Tina. “But I heard the old one yapping. She knows this is not allowed. Qué lástima. I’m going to have to cut things short. Get your clothes on.”

  Tina stands there confused, covered in suds, until Delmi swings her gun in the direction of the creek bank several times. For Danielle, the order is too outrageous.

  “You too, vieja,” says Rita, coming to stand over her. “And for talking, you’ll put your same clothes on.”

  “But they’re filthy!”

  Rita picks up the soiled clothes, which are caked in dust, and thrusts them at Danielle so hard she has to step back into the water, soaking her left boot, to keep from falling. “I said do it.” Rita’s mouth is painted in thick, orange-red lipstick today, which, in combination with the balaclava, makes her look like a Mexican wrestler. Something flashes across her big brown eyes. “Did you learn Spanish when you were here before, vieja?”

  Danielle takes the bundle of clothes. “I grew up in Central America,” she answers flatly. She wants very badly to go and stand with Tina and Delmi.

  “En centroamérica? That’s mierda. You’re a rich blanca with too much free time, travelling to poor countries, getting your passport stamped.”

  “I was born in Costa Rica.” Should she explain that her father was an agronomist? Danielle doesn’t want to. They have her documents. Hasn’t Pepe let the rest see?

  “Perra, you are a desgraciada puta liar,” says Rita, shaking her head, but Danielle can’t tell if she really thinks it was a lie. Rita seems to enjoy hearing herself swear. “In Canada, it’s colder than in Miami all year, or just part of the year?” she asks, hauling on Danielle’s arm to go up the bank, Danielle’s boot going squish-squish.

  Why does Rita care how cold it is in Canada? Unless that’s where she’s planning to end up — with a doctored version of Danielle’s passport, maybe? Danielle runs through possible scenarios, including one in which Pepe is taking them north to the Honduran border where they will be shot, their bodies left to blister in the sun, their identities and clothes spirited north. But then why send Ramón off to the capital with that paper?

  Rita spins on her heels and slaps Danielle in the face. “Contés-tame!” she says, a casual look on her face, still expecting an answer to her question about the weather.

  Danielle’s paranoid notions depart, replaced by intense anger. “Only in the winter,” she says, a tear wetting her lip. “It’s cold in the winter.” She can hear Tina crying further up the bank.

  Rita assesses, then seems to accept as true, this description of the northern climate, and has gone back to holding Danielle’s upper arm too tightly, pulling her upwards, when Pepe appears on the other side of the creek. “Go to your post,” he says to Rita. “Take them with you.”

  Rita has no choice but to retreat, Delmi and Tina trailing behind, but she shoots Pepe a parting look that Danielle reads as hateful. A flutter of hope moves through her at the thought of a rift among her captors. But then Pepe takes several fast steps to cross the creek, the soles of his boots making a sucking sound where the ground is muddiest. Oh God, Danielle thinks. Her punishment is coming. For having been in El Salvador before. For having once been so foolish.

  “You were an internacionalista. A journalist. You know these mountains.”

  Danielle hasn’t heard the word internacionalista in more than twenty years and it’s like a jack-in-the-box popping open in her face. “No,” she says, frantically shaking her head. “I was young. I didn’t know anything. I’m not a journalist — not now.”

  “Yet you’ve come back. Strange to know so little and care so much. Who are you writing for?”

  “No — I’m not. Not here to write.”

  “Why did you come here, then? If you aren’t going to write anything.”

  Danielle recalls the bundle of letters on her dining room table. Her own rash decision to take Neela’s place on this trip after her friend surprised her with their old correspondence, calling it an intervention — the first startling pop-up from Danielle’s past.

  “Did you kill a lot of military in 1980?” Pepe continues. “Or do you own shares in the mine?”

  “The gold mine? In Los Pampanos?” she says, surprised to hear mention of the object of the delegation’s visit.

  Something in Pepe’s neck twitches. “Who did you know in the war?”

  Danielle wants to answer, but she’s busy going over everything Neela told her about local opposition to that mine.

  “Who?�
�� Pepe repeats, stepping in closer, his posture more aggressive.

  “A lot of people — unimportant people. I knew some other foreigners. A priest. One commando. . .”

  “Special Forces?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you yourself train as a Special Forces commando?” Pepe isn’t laughing at this absurd suggestion. He displays very little emotion altogether, like he’s fishing for what should worry him. It strikes Danielle that he might know something about interrogation.

  “Of course not. How would I have done that?”

  Pepe shouts: “I ask the questions!” He pauses, then adds more calmly, “I don’t assume. That’s how I survive.”

  Danielle suspects more than ever that Pepe was once in the Salvadoran military. She remembers all the stories of torture and disappearance that she ever heard in 1980, the mutilated bodies of civilians that she saw with her own eyes. Is this who she’s dealing with? But what would somebody like that care about a gold mine?

  Pepe reaches slowly into a pocket from which he pulls paper and a pen. “Write down the names of all the people you knew and what their role was.”

  “They were all assumed names.”

  “Do it.”

  Danielle looks down. She’s still in her underwear. “I need to dress,” she says, dying of shame. Pepe gives her a look like she’s stripped off her clothes on purpose to cause a delay. “Allá,” he says, pointing to a tree.

  Danielle picks up her fresh clothes — Rita can rot — and goes to change. Behind the tree she tugs on her pants and t-shirt quickly as mosquitoes bite her everywhere. She has mostly dried off, save that left foot, which is warm and wet, back in the boot, but now she starts to sweat all over again from the intense heat of the day. She tries to decide if there’s anyone she should leave off the list. But why risk angering Pepe? It was all so long ago. He’s unlikely to recognize anyone, even if he does have knowledge of the Northeast guerrilla faction, with whom Danielle was placed. Most of the people she knew really were unimportant.