Prayers for the Stolen

by Jennifer Clement

  Where are you, Mike?

  I thought, I am going to pray for you, Mike. I’m going to pray you remember me. I’m that deep line, from pinkie to thumb, in the palm of your right hand, Mike. The lifeline that gets full of dirt when you forget to wash.

  In my mind I was talking to Mike, but in my eyes I was watching two dozen women playing football. One had Chicharito tattooed on her arm. Another woman had the full body image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the outside of her right thigh.

  They play football every day, Luna said. Even if it’s raining they have tournaments. The three teams are Rainbow, Liberty, and Barcelona.

  The women ran and called out to each other. From here I could see Violeta who played with a lit cigarette in her mouth. She ran back and forth and never stopped puffing. The smoking butt sat in her mouth as she moved. When she approached a scuffle for the ball, she would throw her head backward, in a gesture that reminded me of a bird drinking water. She did this so that she would not burn anyone with the fiery tip of her cigarette. Her extremely long fingernails that were painted yellow yesterday now were green. From where I sat, only a few feet away, her fingernails looked like long parrot feathers coming out of the tips of her fingers.

  Violeta is the captain, Luna said.

  As we watched the game Aurora, who had finished fumigating our room, slunk toward us. She was still carrying the canister on her back. She sat down beside us.

  You can go to your room now, Aurora said.

  I squirmed a little from her odor. I had noticed her yellow fingertips but, outside in the daylight, I realized her skin and the whites of her eyes were also jaundiced.

  No, we’re not going in for a while, Luna said.

  Do you have any aspirin? Aurora asked.

  Don’t tell me you’ve finished all yours again? You’ll get a hole in your stomach!

  My head hurts.

  Aurora lay down. She curled up on her side on the ground on the cold and damp cement. It seemed like the coldest piece of the planet on that cloudy morning. I wanted to touch her and caress her head as if she were a stray dog in the street. But, as with a stray dog, I was afraid to touch her because she might give me a disease. As she lay beside me, I even thought I could see mange on the side of her head, under her stringy hair.

  If my mother were there she would have said, She deserves to be run over by a car!

  The football game ended and Luna called out to Georgia to come over. Georgia walked slowly while Violeta followed behind, still puffing on a cigarette. When they reached us Violeta squatted down on her heels in front of me so that we were eye-to-eye. She rested her hands on her knees so that her nails were stretched out before her. Close up her nails no longer made me think of feathers. Instead, they were like the talons of hawks and vultures that swarmed above my house back in the jungle. Violeta’s nails looked like they could pick up a rabbit or a mouse and carry it off. The nails could tear at flesh. They could scratch someone’s face to pieces.

  So this is Ladydi? Georgia said. She looked at me. Her blue eyes and my black eyes met. I knew she was thinking, So, this is the dark and ugly creature who has my beautiful princess’s name!

  I wanted to say, I’m sorry, but I had never said I’m sorry to anyone.

  I thought of all the Ladydi dolls I had at home. To this day, the Lady Diana dolls my father brought me back from the United States were still in my room in their original cardboard and plastic boxes so the jungle mold would not destroy them. I had a Lady Diana doll in her wedding dress, a Lady Diana doll in the gown she wore to meet President Clinton, and a Lady Diana doll in riding clothes. My father had even given me a plastic jewelry set of Lady Diana’s pearls. These I wore until they broke. The white plastic pearls were kept in a cup in the kitchen.

  I felt like counterfeit money, fake designer clothing at the Acapulco market, like a Virgin of Guadalupe made in China. I looked at Georgia and turned into cheap plastic. My mother had given me the biggest fake name she could find. How could I begin to explain to this British woman that my name was an act of revenge and not an act of admiration? How could I explain that my name was payment for my father’s infidelities?

  Close up, Georgia was so pale I could see the blue veins under her skin. Her face was covered in freckles, even on her lips and eyelids. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were colorless and so her eyes were unframed and looked like two sky-blue marbles resting on her cheeks.

  I hear you want my phone, she said.

  Yes. Please.

  I’m not going to charge you this time because we’re both British, right? And, after all, you’re a princess.

  Violeta and Luna laughed at this. Aurora didn’t seem to listen. She was still curled up like a white-yellow centipede beside me. I could smell the insecticide rise from her body in small gusts every time she took a breath.

  Georgia reached under her sweatshirt. She took out a phone from under her clothing that was hidden in a seam. It was cloaked in a Cadbury’s chocolate bar wrapper. She gave me the phone and I could see her hands were also covered with freckles.

  Good luck, Princess, she said.

  And then she curtsied.

  Georgia was liked because she was a foreigner and had money. But no one respected her stupid crime. Everyone in jail made fun of her and gave her shoes as presents on her birthday and at Christmas. There was always someone who would tease her and yell things like, Hey, Blondie, why don’t you bring some tacos or some guacamole to Mexico too?

  Those of us who had killed were different. It was not exactly respect that we were given. It was like the respect for a rabid dog. People circled around us. Here no one wanted the killers to cook or handle food. The prisoners were superstitious about eating food touched by a killer’s hand.

  Georgia and Violeta turned and walked away. Aurora stirred on the ground beside me.

  I’m hungry and thirsty, Aurora said. Does anyone have any gum?

  Aurora was just like Maria. Maria used to think that gum was a substitute for water and food. This unexpected memory of Maria made me want to cover my eyes with my hands and disappear from the prison into the dark skin of my palms. The last time I saw Maria, my half-sister, my sweet friend with her harelip curse, had been when they’d wheeled her into a cubicle in the emergency room at the Acapulco clinic with a bullet in her arm.

  We’d better go back to our cell so you can make that call, Luna said. You don’t want to get caught, and they’ll catch you anywhere else.

  We stood up and walked toward the building. Aurora stayed behind and continued to lie curled up on the cement ground.

  Georgia teases everyone, Luna said. Don’t feel bad about that. She doesn’t give a shit about my arm. She’s always throwing things at me and yelling at me to catch. Sometimes she calls me Catch. That’s my nickname.

  As we walked in the blue-and-beige chessboard world, my eyes longed for green plants, yellow-and-red parrots, blue ocean and sky. The colorless color of cement made me feel hot and cold at the same time. So, when I sat in my cell, which still smelled of insecticide, I didn’t only call my mother. I called the leaves, palm trees, red ants, jade-green lizards, yellow-and-black pineapples, pink azaleas, and lemon trees. I closed my eyes and prayed for a glass of water.

  Luna sat beside me. She sat so close I felt her ribcage against me where she should have had an arm. Her face was full of anticipation and hope.

  Oh, let’s pray someone answers, she said.

  Luna pressed so close to me I felt she wanted to slip on my flip-flops, get in my worn jail uniform and into my skin. It was as if she were calling her own mother.

  Of course my mother had been standing at the clearing all day and all night. She held her telephone up in the air until she felt the tired ache and burn of her muscles down from her fingers to her waist. I knew she’d been standing there pacing and pacing. No one was there. Everyone had left the mountain and she stood there alone and thought about how our world fell apart. Paula was stolen and then she and her mother left forever
. Ruth was stolen. Augusta had died from AIDS and Estefani was living in Mexico City with her grandmother and siblings. I wondered where Maria and her mother were, but I knew they’d left our piece of land and sky. After everything Mike had done they must have looked for a place to hide. In the state of Guerrero no one wonders if someone is going to come and get you, you know they will get you, so you don’t stick around.

  My mother was the last living soul on our mountain. She stood alone with the ants and scorpions and vultures.

  The phone rang and she answered.

  Thank God I have been a robber all of my life, Ladydi!

  It was the first thing she said.

  Thank God I have been a robber all of my life, Ladydi!

  It was the second thing she said.

  I’m going to sell everything. Thank God I’ve been a thief all my life now I can sell it all. Ladydi, listen to this. I have five gold chains, several pairs of earrings, and six silver teaspoons buried in a can of milk at the back of the house. No one would think of looking there! Isn’t that just perfect? Tell me where you are, sweet sugar baby. I’ll be there in two days. Goodbye.

  My mother hung up her phone. She had not even waited for me to tell her where I was.

  So, is she coming? Luna asked.

  Yes. In two days.

  My mother would never come for me, Luna said. She’s in Guatemala. She doesn’t even know I’m here. She doesn’t even know her little girl has lost an arm. Of course she won’t care.

  She won’t care about your arm?

  You don’t know her.

  You’re her daughter.

  When she sees me she’s going to ask me where I left my arm as if I’d left a sweater or a hat behind and need to go back and get it. She isn’t going to want me around with one arm. She’s going to say I can’t work in the field and that no man will ever want to look at me.

  She has to understand.

  My mother is going to say, What can you carry?

  Oh, really?

  I never buried my arm, Luna said. Does one bury parts of oneself?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know. I don’t know where it is or what happened to my arm.

  Why did you leave Guatemala?

  Because I wanted to have dollars. I hated my life in Guatemala, Luna said.

  It was bad?

  My husband beat me every day. No. He did not beat me. He slapped me across the face. That’s what he did. Slap, slap, slap. All day long. My cheek became a part of his hand.

  So you came alone?

  Yes, Luna answered. I thought anything was better than that, but I was wrong.

  Yes, you were wrong.

  All kinds of people are trying to go north, she said. You cannot imagine the things people take across the border to the United States. I saw stacks of dried-out stingrays that looked like sheets of black leather. I saw boxes filled with orchids. The police X-ray the trucks and buses. The X-rays find the white skeletons of immigrants. They see the human bones twisted with rickets and they find pumas and eagles, they see the bird skeletons. One man had two baby toucans in his jacket pocket.

  Yes, I said. In Acapulco people steal turtle eggs.

  Luna said we had to hurry and give Georgia back her phone. She’ll never lend it again if we don’t quickly give it back. She’s counting the minutes.

  We left our cell and went back to the large room where the inmates gathered together. It was late afternoon and some of the prisoners were taking workshops. Classes were offered in collage, painting, computers, reading and writing.

  In the room every other inmate was having her hair done. Two women were sitting in front of a small mirror gluing false eyelashes onto their upper eyelids.

  Georgia was sitting at a table with Violeta. I handed her the phone hidden in the chocolate-bar wrapping and thanked her.

  No problem, Princess, she said. You’re my princess so you can have it anytime.

  Yes, thank you.

  She’s getting her birth certificate here, right? Georgia asked Luna. You told her?

  Yes, Luna said.

  How old are you?

  I’m sixteen.

  You know you don’t have to be here, right? The law says you’re still a child, Princess.

  My mother will be bringing my birth certificate. She knows.

  You have to get out before you’re eighteen or you’ll never get out. Isn’t this true?

  Violeta nodded her head. That’s what happened to me. I came in at seventeen, but I was sentenced to thirty years when I was eighteen!

  Make sure you get out before you’re eighteen! When’s your birthday?

  Not until November.

  So you have plenty time, Georgia said. But hurry up. Hurry! I’m telling you this because you’re my princess.

  Violeta coughed. Her hands were on her hips and her long fingernails curled toward her stomach.

  If you stay here you have to imagine that there is nothing else but this. Nothing else exists but this jail and the women in it. If you think that there is anything else, you won’t survive, Violeta said in a hoarse smoker’s voice.

  Damn, you don’t need to tell her that! What are you trying to do, break her heart? Georgia said.

  Yes. Yes. She needs a broken heart, Violeta said.

  That night there was nothing to do in the cell but lie in bed and talk to Luna. Some women had radios in their rooms, but Luna had nothing. There was no light, as she didn’t have money to buy a light bulb for the fixture in the ceiling. She bought toilet paper by the square.

  I lay in my bunk bed in the dark above Luna on my cement bed, which had no mattress. The room still smelled acrid from the fumigation. Luna’s sweet voice came to me from the bunk below.

  When I look at Georgia I remember my mother once told me that rain falling while the sun is shining causes freckles, she said.

  That’s what makes a rainbow.

  Yes, but also freckles.

  Why is Violeta in here?

  She’s killed many men but she’s in here because she killed her father. She does not regret it. She will tell you this over and over again. She has no regrets. She’s happy to be here. Her father killed her mother. Violeta did it for her mother and everyone agrees she did the right thing.

  Has she been in here a long time?

  Yes. Her father never hugged her but when she killed him, as he died, he held on to her. She says she had to kill him for him to hug her.

  She doesn’t seem to like me.

  She loves Georgia. She even made a collage for her as a present.

  Luna explained that some of the inmates liked to take the collage workshop. It was given by a man, an artist, who had been teaching at the jail for years.

  We cut out things from magazines, glue them on cardboard, and tell the stories of our lives. Will you come too? she asked.

  Yes. Of course.

  When you make a collage, you can really admire yourself.

  I could hear Luna swallow and turn in the bunk beneath mine.

  And what about Aurora? I asked. Why is she here?

  Aurora. Aurora. Aurora. Luna said her name like a sigh.

  Why is she here?

  Aurora put the rat poison in the coffee.

  The next morning when I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was the word Tarzan carved into the wall. It was as if the wall was tattooed to remind me where I was not. There were no birds, or plants, or the scent of overripe fruit.

  Luna was already up and I heard her moving around. She sounded like a squirrel beneath me. I could hear her rummaging through plastic bags or dumping them out and scratching through them.

  Damn, someone stole it, she said. Damn. Damn.

  I didn’t have the energy to ask what she was missing. I lay in silence. I heard a baby crying down the hall and I thought of the list on the blackboard in the administration office. There were seventy-seven children in this jail and in the morning they made a lot of noise.

  Yesterday, when we had walked around
the jail, Luna had taken me past two small rooms that were the children’s school. Children could be in jail with their mothers until the age of six. The women got pregnant during their conjugal visits, which the jail allowed. Some of them also got pregnant because they were hired out as prostitutes by the guards at the criminal courts and tribunals. These encounters took place in the bathrooms.

  Inside of the jail’s makeshift school a poster of a tree was pinned to the wall. If you are born and have grown up in jail, you have never seen a tree. There were also flashcards taped to a board that showed images of a bus, a flower, and a street. There was a flashcard of the moon.

  Damn, Luna said again beneath me. Did you steal my lipstick?

  I said, Jesus, Luna, who could want your jailbird lipstick with your jailbird saliva all over it?

  The rustling below me stopped.

  She did not know that it was my mother who had just spoken out of my mouth.

  I climbed down from my bunk, sat on the edge of Luna’s bed, and watched her make up her face.

  When she’d finished, she placed her rouge and mascara in a plastic sandwich bag and pushed it under the bed. Then she turned and held my chin with her hand and looked at me.

  You will see your mother soon and begin to get out of here. Get through these days, Ladydi. Don’t fall down and scrape your knees yet, she said.

  Why are you here? You have not told me. Will you get out soon?

  Come to the collage workshop. It’s fun. We all go.

  Who?

  Well, Aurora, Georgia, and Violeta and a few others of course. Ladydi, let’s go.

  I slipped on my flip-flops and followed her down the corridor.

  On the plastic worktables were stacks of magazines, pieces of cardboard, kindergarten scissors, and tubs of glue.

  The teacher introduced himself and told me to look through the magazines and cut out images that would then make up a story I wanted to tell. His name was Mr. Roma. He had been giving these workshops at the jail for years. The reason many of the prisoners liked to take his class was that they made collages about their own lives but also because they were fascinated by Mr. Roma. He was a painter. His hands were speckled with white oil paint. He had long, light brown curly hair that he tied into a ponytail. He was about fifty years old.