Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

We—the other Americans and I—went to work on the wall, digging the pit, clearing the debris. It got to be almost noon. The woman was still in her house just down the road. Sometimes, when I would take a wheelbarrow of trash down to the dumping spot, I would see her in there, still clutching the corpse of her child and wailing—crying out in a way I could hardly stand to hear, a pure, steady, unending keen of grief. It just broke my heart.

At last, just as I was returning to the worksite after one trip, I saw Meredith. She was on her knees, using a small spade to work over the place where we were going to lay our new footer. Without saying a word to anyone—without even looking at anyone—she laid the spade aside and stood, brushing a strand of hair back off her forehead. She left the site. Walked down the dirt road to the grieving mother’s house. Wove silently through the clutch of women who had gathered worriedly outside the door and went inside.

Ten minutes passed—and then, all at once, the mother’s terrible wailing stopped.

Just like that—and for the first time that day—there was quiet in the village.

All of us building the wall stopped what we were doing. I don’t think we really realized how awful that noise had been until it ended. We looked toward the mother’s house. Another fifteen minutes went by. Then Meredith came out.

It’ll be a long time, if ever, before I forget the sight of her. Walking straight and tall as she always did, her chin lifted, her expression set, her eyes clear—and carrying the little bundle of the dead child gently, tenderly in her arms. The mother followed just behind her, her head hung, as she went on crying quietly. The crowd of women outside parted as Meredith passed through them, silent and stately. She walked down the road to the church with the mother right behind her and handed the child over to Father Juan for burial.

“What in the world did you say to her?” I asked Meredith that night as we finished our dinner around the fire.

But Meredith only shook her head—and there was something about her that made you stop asking questions when you knew she didn’t want to say more.

So I guess that’s everyone—everyone except for me, that is. And there’s not much I can tell you about myself because, frankly, I’m just not all that interesting. My name is Will— Will Peterson. I just graduated tenth grade this past spring. I just turned sixteen. I’ve lived in Spencer’s Grove, California, my whole life and I am pretty much your standard-issue run-of-the-mill male-version kid. I don’t love school but I like my friends. I like football but I’m too small to play, except an occasional game of touch in the park. I like video games—duh!—especially the first-person shooters—and especially the survival horror ones where you get to blow zombies away—and maybe most especially the ones that make my mom cringe because of all the blood. Bwa ha ha! I don’t really know what I want to do with my life. Something about computers probably. Maybe have my own business of some kind. Anyway, I still have a lot of time before I have to figure all that out.

The only thing I should add, I guess, is that I had my own special reasons for coming to Costa Verdes, for joining this little expedition to Santiago to build the school wall. I mean, sure, I wanted to come for the church and to do good in the world and all that Bible stuff. And yeah, I also needed the Public Service credits to graduate like everyone else.

But there was also this: my mom and dad had been fighting a lot recently. As in: a lot of a lot. They were fighting about everything, it seemed like. Work, the house, money. Me. And I have to tell you: I hated it. Hated, hated, hated—you can add as many “hateds” to that as you want and still be in the ballpark. And even more than I hated to hear them fighting—or to not hear them when they lowered their voices and went right on fighting in a low mutter and hiss—I hated what I just knew was going to happen next. The we-need-to-have-a-little-talk-Will. The Dad-is-moving-away-just-for-a-little-while.

The it’s-not-your-fault-Will. It’ll all be just the same as always except now you’ll have two houses to go to, won’t that be nice? Nice. Right. I mean, I would’ve rather they just shot me. All right, maybe that’s a small exaggeration. I’m just saying: I hated listening to them squabble and I hated waiting for the Big Day and the Little Talk to arrive. The way I figured it: if I could get a week away in Central America and do my little bit to save the world and not have to listen to my parents fight all at the same time—well, good deal, right?

Absolutely.

So that was my story. That was me.

And that was all of us—five of us. Pastor Ron, Nicki, Jim, Meredith, and the illustrious Will Peterson, aka myself.

We came to Costa Verdes to build a wall.

I just wish I could tell you that all of us made it home alive.

We finished our work on a Friday. There it was, the little cinder-block box, the school, fully rebuilt. Benches all back in place. Debris all cleared away. It was a good feeling to know the kids here would be able to learn stuff again and that I’d had a little bit to do with it.

The villagers were grateful. That night, in fact, they held a celebration for us in the plaza in front of the church. They hung strings of colored Christmas lights like they did on market days and they lit sparklers. The children gathered in a chorus, wearing their best white shirts, and sang a song for us. Then a band played music and the women danced, waving colored handkerchiefs around. Father Juan held a special service on the church steps. He said a blessing on the school and included us in his prayers.

Like I said, it was a good feeling. I was glad I’d come.

In the morning, we rolled up our sleeping bags, folded our tents, packed our backpacks, and hoisted them onto our backs. We tromped down from our campground on the side of the hill to the cantina-slash-hotel in the plaza. That’s where we had to wait for the van that would take us to the plane that would take us to the airport in the capital city of Santa Maria. From there, we would fly back to California.

We were all excited, all eager to get home. Even me. I guess I harbored some small hope that my folks would have worked things out while I was away. I know: fat chance. But I couldn’t help hoping. And, anyway, I missed them.

It was just after noon when we entered the cantina. The place was almost never crowded—only sometimes when buses brought tourists through town to see the church. But there were some people there today, families seated at some of the tables eating lunch, men standing at the bar drinking beer. The cantina not only had the only Internet access, but it also had the only television in the village—a really old one—I think it was powered by coal or steam or something! Anyway, it was up on the wall over the bar with a blurry, fuzzy soccer game playing on it, and the men were all watching that.

Our group sat at a large round table in the corner up front. Pastor Ron bought us all some Coke and chips.

“Well, here’s to the children of Santiago,” said Pastor Ron in his mild, quiet voice.

He lifted his glass of Coke and we all clinked our own glasses against it.

“I want to drink to going home!” Nicki said loudly. “And to taking a bath and going on Facebook and having a phone that works! And sheets. Clean sheets! I cannot wait!”