Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding the End of the World

He accepted without quibbling. He was going off with the most powerful army in the world and he thought that was enough of a guarantee that he’d make it back in one piece. He spent his last days before he shipped out at the family’s house. They made him learn by heart the answers he’d have to give when he reported, they taught him to copy the signature of the kid he was replacing, he memorized his social security number, they gave him pancakes and warm milk, he was treated well. All those nights he slept in the boy’s room and wondered why anyone would give up such a soft bed, but he answered his own question immediately: everyone had to do something for themselves.

The morning he turned up at the barracks he felt an unspeakable fear from the moment he opened his eyes and remembered that that was the day he was going off to war, but he was aware that there was no turning back and he announced himself and answered the questions they asked and signed with the signature he’d learned. The officers who received him looked doubtful at the discrepancy between his name and his face, between his fear and the fact that he’d volunteered, but they took him all the same. And off he went to war.

What was it like? Makina asked. The war.

Her brother tried to avoid the question with a shrug of his shoulders, but the gesture itself betrayed him: when his shoulders returned to their place it was as if they were dragging his whole body down and his expression hardened from the inside out.

Why do you want to know, he said. You wouldn’t understand.

So I can understand you.

He took a breath, suddenly raised a hand and tugged Makina’s hair; he lowered it again, rubbed it with his other hand and nodded.

It’s not like in the movies, he said. I know that here everything seems like in the movies, but it’s not like that there. You spend days and days shut in and it’s like nothing’s going on at all and then one day you go out but you don’t know who you’re fighting or where you’re going to find them. And suddenly you hear your homie died that morning and no one saw where the bullet came from, or you come across a bomb nobody saw get thrown, but there it was, waiting for you. So you gotta go look for them. But when you find them they’re not doing jack and you just gotta believe it was them, they were the ones, otherwise you go nuts.

Did you get hurt? Makina asked.

He shook his head and pooched out his lips, neither proud nor relieved.

Not a scratch, he said. So happened that whenever things kicked off I was taking guys out, not getting took … Some get a taste for it right away. Not me. Still, you know: if tears are gonna fall, better their house than mine …

After he finished his few months’ stint he returned to the family’s house. He didn’t ask them for anything, just went, knocked on the door and got let in. They stared at him with eyes like saucers, astonished to see him there, alive and decorated: alive. He saw it made them uneasy to have him back, as if he were a stranger who’d shown up to talk about something that bore no relation to their white dishes and their white sheets and their station wagon. The father congratulated him, offered him a beer, thanked him on behalf of his country and then began to stammer something about how hard it was to get the money together and how complicated it would be for Makina’s brother to use his son’s identity and about the possibility of him working for them instead and that way, if he wanted, he could stay in the country legally. But the mother didn’t let him finish. Said No. Said We’re going to keep our promise. But everyone here knows him, said the father, referring to his offspring. Then we’ll go someplace else, the mother replied. We’ll change our name, reinvent ourselves, the mother replied.

Since they’d assumed he wasn’t coming back, they didn’t have the money they’d promised; they gave him something, less than he was hoping for but much more than he could have earned bussing or waiting tables in that time. And they went away.

They bumped into a soldier who started talking to Makina’s brother.

Last night I will go to the bar they will tell us about, he said in anglo.

Oh, yeah? How was it, angloed her brother in return.

There will be many women, they will be so pretty, and they will all like the uniform.

Is that so? You speak to any?

Yes, I will speak, I will speak all night, she will give me her number, I will kiss her a little.

First base, huh? Good for you!

I will get very drunk after that. She will go but she will promise that we will see each other again.

Makina’s brother laughed and slapped the guy’s back, and he carried on his way to the barracks gate.

What was that about? asked Makina.

He’s homegrown, he said. Joined up just like me, but still doesn’t speak the lingo. Whereas me, I learned it, so every time we see each other he wants to practice. He speaks all one day in past tense, all one day in present, all one day in future, so he can learn his verbs. Today was the future.

And there he was. It was an incredible story, but there was her brother in his battle-worn uniform, alive and in one piece. All of a sudden he had money and a new name, but no clue what to do, where to go, what the path of the person with that name should be.

There wasn’t any land to claim. Course you already know that, he said. So I was left hanging.

He stopped and reflected for a minute.

I guess that’s what happens to everybody who comes, he continued. We forget what we came for, but there’s this reflex to act like we still have some secret plan.

Why not leave, then?

Not now. Too late. I already fought for these people. There must be something they fight so hard for. So I’m staying in the army while I figure out what it is.

But won’t they just send you back over there?

He held up his palms. Who knows, we’ll see.

They’d made their way back to the entrance to the barracks. They stood there, in silence, until he said I got to go.

Makina nodded. She didn’t know what else to say.

You have enough to get back? he asked, anxious. He pulled out his wallet, took out a few bills and handed them to her. Makina accepted them mechanically.

I got to go, he repeated.

He leaned in toward her, and as he gave her a hug said Give Cora a kiss from me. He said it the same way he gave her the hug, like it wasn’t his sister he was hugging, like it wasn’t his mother he was sending a kiss to, but just a polite platitude. Like he was ripping out her heart, like he was cleanly extracting it and placing it in a plastic bag and storing it in the fridge to eat later.

Sure, said Makina. I’ll tell her.

Her brother looked at her one last time, as if from a long way away, turned and walked into the barracks. Makina stood staring at the entrance for some time. Then she pulled out the envelope that Cora had given her, took out the sheet of paper it contained and read it.

Come on back now, it said in Cora’s crooked writing. Come on back now, we don’t expect anything from you.

She’d already left the barracks when she heard You too! Assume the position! You too! She turned and saw a horribly pasty policeman pointing at her. Are you deaf? Get in line.

In a vacant lot pooled with black water were half a dozen men on their knees, staring at the ground. They all were or looked homegrown. Makina took her place beside them.

You think you can just come here and put your feet up without earning it, said the cop. Well I got news for you: patriots like me are on the lookout and we’re going to teach you some manners. Lesson one: get used to falling in. You want to come here, fall in and ask permission, you want to go to the doctor, fall in and ask permission, you want to say a fucking word to me, fall in and ask permission. Fall in and ask permission. Civilized, that’s the way we do things around here! We don’t jump fences and we don’t dig tunnels.