Red Glass (17 page)

I considered whether I should trust them. But in the end, I didn’t have a choice. “I’d like to cross the border,” I said in the most confident voice I could muster. I offered my passport to the older man and prayed he wouldn’t ask me for anything else.

“You’re all alone?” His eyes moved from the passport photo to my face.

“Well, uh, someone’s meeting me, just on the other side,” I lied.

“You are very brave, you know,” the younger one said. He smoothed a finger over his wispy black mustache, a couple dozen sparse hairs, not enough to shave.

“Why are you coming to Guatemala?” the older man asked.

I bit my lip. “To visit my boyfriend. He’s Guatemalan.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows and stared at me. Then he shook his head. “Be careful,
señorita.
That’s ten
quetzales.
”

“Are dollars okay?” I flashed a hopeful smile at him.

“Of course. One dollar fifty cents.”

I dug some change out from my backpack and dropped it into his hand.

He stamped the passport and handed it to me. “Fortino, escort this
señorita
to the other side. Stay with her until her boyfriend arrives.”

Fortino smiled. “With great pleasure,” he said, and adjusted his machine gun. He didn’t look old enough to be out of high school, much less wielding weapons. He made a movement to carry my backpack but I snatched it up first. “Thanks, I’ve got it.”

He walked slowly, trying to stretch out the five-hundred-foot walk. Juan had told me not to trust anyone in a uniform. I wished Juan were here now, his snake tattoos rippling. He could make instant friends with anyone. By now, he’d be joking around with the guards like old buddies.

“Want to touch my gun?” the guard asked. His voice cracked. He hadn’t even finished puberty yet.

I shook my head and tried to pick up the pace, but he dragged his feet.

“I could take you out sometime,
señorita
, show you around this area. There’s a lake you’d like.”

I tried to estimate how many more footsteps to the other side. We were utterly alone now, the building back in the distance and the parking lot on the other side, deserted. That was when I noticed someone standing beneath the streetlamp on the other side. Rodrigo. “Oh, see, that’s my boyfriend now. Thanks.” I jogged to the other side, my bag bouncing against my thigh.

Rodrigo looked nervous. “You all right?” he asked.

I nodded, breathing hard. I held Ñola’s necklace in my hand, rubbing the leather between my fingers. And then, out of the blue, a voice inside me spoke. An old lady’s voice, maybe what Ñola’s would sound like if she could speak Spanish.
Sophie
la Fuerte, the voice said. Sophie the Strong.

I turned to Rodrigo. “Listen. Can you just tell me where I can find a taxi or a bus, please?”

“Your boyfriend’s not picking you up?”

“No. He’s—he’s in the hospital.”

“But there won’t be any buses or taxis until tomorrow. The transportation companies don’t let their drivers work here at night. Too many robberies on the road. The thieves make roadblocks so you have to stop and then they take your car and sometimes kill you.”

Oddly enough, I didn’t feel like crying. Things couldn’t get any worse. There was a certain relief in this.

That was when a group of five guys came out of the shadows and swaggered toward us.

They wore baggy jeans and bright white tennis shoes, gold chains, and baseball caps. The same kind of clothes as Ángel’s, only on Ángel they made me smile, because underneath was something very tender and good. These guys made the hairs on my arms stand up.

“¡A la chingada!”
Rodrigo said under his breath. “Get ready to run.”

They came close enough that I could see their zits and moles and scars. We were surrounded. “Good evening,
gringuita.
What’s in your backpack?” “Hey man, what you got in your pockets?” They were moving in, closer and closer. “Show us what you got.” “Why don’t you walk over here with us and show us everything? Everything.”

I tilted my head back, looked at the sky. The moon was a sliver of white. I closed my eyes and let the moment sink in.

It’s strange, what you think about in the pinpoint of a moment when you might die. And I mean really die, not imagining poisonous gas seeping into the basement or toxins in your food or smallpox germs coating your alarm clock. I saw Mom’s smooth face over me, felt her hair brushing against my cheeks. I heard Juan humming softly, the way he always did when he made green chile tamales. I felt the warmth of Pablo’s body against mine while we slept with the chickens. And I thought, Even if I die now, I will know I’ve lived a good life.

I opened my eyes just in time to see a guy with a crooked nose reach his hand out for my upper arm. I took a deep breath and got ready. To scream, to run, to kick, anything.

But now he was looking over my shoulder toward the bridge.

Fortino, the guard, was heading toward us, his machine gun raised. He called out in his squeaky adolescent voice: “They bothering you,
señorita
?”

I tried to say yes, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

Fortino yelled, “Okay,
cabrones
, hands up.”

The guys cursed under their breath and held up their hands. “It’s cool, it’s cool, man. Just trying to help the
señorita.
It’s cool.”

“I’m going to count to ten. If you
cabrones
aren’t gone by then I’ll blow your heads off.”

The guys backed up slowly toward the tree shadows at the edge of the parking lot.

I waved to Fortino. “Thanks.”

“No problem,
señorita.
And don’t forget about the lake offer.”

“Okay,” I called out as he walked away.

Just then, a seventies sedan with tinted windows zoomed into the parking lot and screeched to a stop, rubber burning, smoke pouring from the tailpipe, hip-hop salsa beats vibrating the car. Rodrigo grabbed my arm. “Get in,” he said, pulling me toward the car.

I strained to see inside the windows but they were too dark. Rodrigo opened the back door. “Get in the car,” he said.

I hesitated. “But—”

He motioned to the edge of the parking lot, where the figures of five guys still hovered, watching us, waiting. “Sophie.” He wasn’t messing around with the
señorita
crap anymore. “Get in.”

Following the Moon

I clutched my backpack on my lap while Rodrigo locked my door, slammed it shut, and hopped into the front seat. In the driver’s seat sat what looked like an aging prostitute from a movie. She wore a sequined halter top that barely contained her massive breasts and stomach rolls. Her fingers, draped casually over the hot pink fur of the steering wheel, were bedecked in gold rings and two-inch-long sparkly fingernails. She eyed me in the rearview and raised one eyebrow, a hairless black sliver of eyeliner. Then she slammed her foot down on the gas and sped down the deserted street.

“So, Rodrigo,” she bellowed. “Tell me, who is this? Your girlfriend?”

Rodrigo glanced back at me and grinned. “She’s from the North. Her name’s Sophie.”

“Welcome to Guatemala, Sophie!” She made a screeching hairpin turn around a corner. “I’m Marta, this crazy kid’s aunt.”

“Nice to meet you.” I wondered where we were going, where I would sleep. We passed some small motels and I considered asking Marta to drop me off, but changed my mind once I noticed the gangs of guys slouched on the street corners and the women in tight leggings and four-inch heels leaning against the concrete walls.

Being inside this car with two almost-strangers seemed safer than being on the street. A pair of baby shoes and a cascade of gold crosses swung from the mirror. In their midst dangled an orange flower deodorizer, which made the air smell like a gas station bathroom. Barbie-doll pink fur carpeted everything—the dashboard and front seats and steering wheel.

Marta shouted over the pounding music and broken muffler: “You will stay with us tonight, Sophie! Here you have your house. It is humble and not what you’re used to in your rich country, but all that we have to offer is yours.”

“Thank you,” I called back. Maybe she wasn’t a prostitute after all. She seemed too motherly.

The brakes screamed again and more rubber burned and we lurched forward. And then stopped. “Here we are!” Marta announced.

Rodrigo hopped out and ran to open the tall metal gates. He unlocked a thick chain, clanked open the doors, and after the car was inside, locked them quickly behind us. Two dogs bounded up to me, growling and foaming at the mouth, until Rodrigo kicked them away. There would be no sneaking out of this house once I was inside, that was clear.

We walked through a weedy lot piled with concrete blocks and metal pipes, into a kitchen that felt like an unfinished basement. A single bare bulb lit the raw cement walls and floor. Marta whirled around the kitchen, fixing us tortillas with beans and cheese. When I asked for limes, she was very apologetic that she had none. I devoured the food anyway.

She asked me a million questions about my country, as though she’d been waiting a long time for an expert like me. “Now tell me something,” every question began. “Now tell me something, why are there so many bald men there in the North? What will happen to your blond hair when you get old? What color will it turn? Is your hair really this color or do you dye it? Really, you don’t dye it? Well, how did your eyes get this color? You didn’t dye them either? Really? Do things look the same to you or is everything blue?”

After every answer I offered, her eyes widened for a moment, as if she was deeply impressed. Then she made a joke and slapped the table. Even though I didn’t get half her jokes, I laughed anyway, because it was the middle of the night and it felt a little like a slumber party and I was giddy at the idea of still being alive. Her loud, bawdy sense of humor reminded me so much of Dika, I felt as though I already knew her.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo had given up on trying to get my attention and turned to the small black-and-white TV in the corner. First there was a rerun of
Los Seeeempsons
, with “Marrrrge” ’s voice extra-raspy and “Barrrt” ’s voice extra-high-pitched. Next, a talk show about cheating husbands, where wives and lovers onstage were screaming and punching the men.

An hour passed, and another, and I started wondering when Marta would get tired. Earlier, I’d asked her what she did for a living and she’d said, “You know, a little of everything. I sew. Made this shirt. Took me forever to sew on these tiny sequins.” Then she changed the subject to her good-for-nothing boyfriend, who stayed out with a different woman every night and staggered home drunk in the afternoons for naps. Until she got the dogs, that is. After that, he only sometimes stumbled to the gate, begging and pleading and swearing he’d give up his evil ways. Once in a while, if she was in the mood, she held back the snarling dogs and let him in.

Every time I blinked, my eyes wanted to stay shut, but I didn’t have the heart to interrupt her. Eventually, she started yawning. “Oh, look at the time, Sophie. Wait here while I get your bed ready.”

On the talk show, a large woman was bashing a skinny man on the head with her purse and the security guards were making a halfhearted attempt to hold her back. It looked staged, but still made me chuckle sleepily. Rodrigo stared at me. “My aunt was right. Your eyes are amazing. Your dad must be a thief.”

“What?”

“Is your father a thief?”

That was what I thought he’d said. Why was he asking me that? Juan would never steal anything. Then I wondered if he meant my real father, who could be a thief for all I knew. A thief wasn’t too far from a drug dealer and child abandoner. But I decided he wasn’t my real father anyway. Juan was.

“No,” I said finally.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Then who stole the stars out of the sky and put them in your eyes?”

I wished I knew how to say
cheese-ball
in Spanish. I fake-laughed. “Ha ha ha.” I remembered Ángel’s hand on the blue tablecloth that night in the restaurant.
I know exactly what color your eyes are, Sophie.

“If you get cold tonight,” Rodrigo whispered, “my room is right across from yours.”

“Don’t count on it,
amigo.
”

“Here’s your room, Sophie,” Marta said, fluffing a limp pillow. She’d put fresh sheets on my bed, and a fuzzy brown blanket with a picture of a tiger on it. I doubted I’d need it. The air, even at this time of night, was like a sauna.

She showed me how to unknot the mosquito net that hung from a hook on the ceiling, and placed a glass of water beside me. “Good night. Dream with angels.”

I got under the covers and even though there didn’t seem to be any mosquitoes, I let the net fall around me. The fabric was wispy thin, like fairy wings or spiderwebs. I remembered Ángel’s dream about me.

Even though I was tired, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ángel. In the corner of the room, an altar glowed with three candles flickering in red glasses. Light reflected off the framed saints and Virgins. I got up to go to the bathroom and nearly stepped on Marta, who was lying on a palm mat on the kitchen floor.

I’d taken her bed, I realized guiltily. She opened her eyes as I passed. She looked homely without her makeup—completely eyebrow-less, but nice. “Everything all right, Sophie? You warm enough?”

“Why don’t you sleep with me, Marta? There’s room in the bed.”

We argued back and forth a bit, but I insisted, and finally she got into bed. Once the mosquito net had settled around us, she giggled. “Who’s going to believe I slept with a
gringa
?”

I focused on the tiny woven squares of netting, rubbed the gauze between my fingers. “You know, Marta,” I whispered. “Rodrigo isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Of course he’s not. I was just kidding. Of course you must already have a boyfriend.”

“His name is Ángel. But he’s not exactly my boyfriend. I want him to be, though.”

She patted my hand. “Well, I’m sure he will be. Now dream with angels, Sophie. With your Ángel.” Her laugh was soft and kind and soon turned into light snoring.

I watched red light flutter on the pearly rosary beads, on the Virgin standing on the sliver of moon, wrapped safely in her sequined halo. The same iridescent sequins as Marta’s halter top. I pictured Marta with her eyebrow lines furrowed, holding a needle and thread, sewing the sequins one by one onto the shirt, and one by one onto the Virgin’s halo. Then I slept. I dreamed I was floating inside a golden oval that dangled from thousands of threads held by angels. And all of us were heading to Ángel.

The next morning, I woke up with the song “Following the Moon” in my head, and then I realized it was on the radio, blaring from the kitchen. I changed into my white dress and coconut jewelry, and wondered what Ángel was doing at this precise moment.

Marta was in the kitchen, making breakfast and dancing around in a patch of sunlight. She’d already painted on chile red lipstick and thick lavender eye shadow. Her eyebrows had turned back into distinct black lines. Her feet were squeezed into spiky high heels with straps wrapped far up the ankles, digging into fleshy calves. A few blue veins webbed her thighs below her skirt’s hem. They made me think of Pablo sitting on Dika’s lap, tracing his finger over her comfortable map of veins.

“
Buenos días
, Sophie!” She set a chipped mug of chamomile tea in front of me. And then a plate of steaming scrambled eggs and beans and a pile of tortillas. “Eat, Sophie, eat!” She presented me with a small plate of quartered limes. “I got up early and bought them for you at the market on the corner.” She looked so pleased.

I drenched the food in lime juice. Then I slipped the moonstone ring off my finger. “For you,” I told her, “to thank you.”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. You are our guest.”

Before I left, I sneaked into the bedroom while she wasn’t looking and set the ring on the altar between the still-flickering candles. I hoped it would at least fit onto her pinkie finger.

“Stay with us more time, Sophie,” she cajoled when we stood in the doorway saying goodbye. “You haven’t met my sisters yet. They won’t believe me unless they see you.”

It was tempting to stay here, this place that already felt like home after one night. “Thanks, Marta, but I have to find Ángel.”

“
Bueno
, Sophie, but remember, here you have your house. Always.” She gave me a final hug, so tight my bones crunched together, so saturated in perfume I sneezed all the way down the block to the bus station—a big dirt lot filled with old school buses painted crazy colors. Rodrigo instructed me where to change buses at the next big town.

“Too bad you have a boyfriend,” he said.

“Yup.”

“A kiss?” he asked me, tilting his head and puckering his lips.

I kissed his cheek quickly and got on the bus.

Nearly everyone held bundles or children or babies in their laps. A few held chickens. People squeezed inside the bus, four and five people to seats that were made to hold two or three schoolchildren. This bus was not as luxurious as the one I’d taken here, not by a long shot. This one had torn plastic green seats, ragged curtains, no AC, and no action movies. The bags were strapped onto the top of the bus. I hadn’t wanted to part with my backpack, but there wasn’t enough room inside. It was still early morning and I was already sweating. I ate one of the bananas Marta had packed for me. Outside, mist rose off trees and green hills, like steam over a cup of tea.

After a half hour, I got off at the town where I’d have to transfer buses. It wasn’t much of a town as far as I could tell—just a mosaic of mud and dust and colored tarps strung over wooden market stands heaped with fruit and vegetables. Vendors fanned flies away from raw meat and wet cheeses and bowls of bubbling soups. Through air thick with odors of overripe fruit, people called out to one another, kids screeched and laughed,
cumbia
music pulsed. Sweat poured down my cheeks and plastered my clothes to my skin.

I realized, suddenly, I’d forgotten to get my bag off the bus. But now I couldn’t remember which bus was mine—there were seven or eight buses parked in a stretch of dirt, all old and painted crazy colors and packed with bags on top. What did I have in my backpack anyway? I mentally rummaged through the bag. There were clothes, but at least not my white dress—I was wearing that. Soap and shampoo and moisturizer and sunscreen, which I could replace, although it wouldn’t be hypoallergenic.
The Little Prince
book—dog-eared and underlined and worn—a little piece of Pablo I’d brought with me. Still, I could buy a new one back home. What was in the outside pocket? My passport! My stomach jumped. How would I get back into Mexico? And Mr. Lorenzo’s and Ángel’s papers. How would they get back?