Yuri Herrera: Signs Preceding the End of the World

The boy couldn’t, judging by the way his eyes were bulging.

You crossing over to find a gig? Makina asked.

The boy nodded emphatically.

Then you’ll need every finger you’ve got, won’t you? Cause you can’t cook or pick with your tootsies, now, can you?

The boy shook his head no less emphatically.

So, Makina continued. Listen up, I’m going to let you go and you’re going to curl up with your little friend back there, and I swear on all your pain that if you even so much as think about me again, the only thing that hand’s going to be good for is wiping ass.

The boy opened his mouth but now it was Makina who shook her head.

You believe me? she asked, and as she did so pressed his finger a little farther back. You don’t believe me. You believe me?

Something in the boy’s tears told Makina he believed her. She released him and watched as he staggered back to his seat. She heard him sniveling for a while and his friend going Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, over and over; in the meantime she let herself be lulled by the sight of the gray city fleeing past in the opposite direction.

It was nighttime when she awoke. The boy’s whimpering had stopped; all you could hear was the engine of the bus and the snoring of passengers. Makina could never be sure of what she’d dreamed, in the same way that she couldn’t be sure a place was where the map said it was until she’d gotten there, but she had the feeling she’d dreamed of lost cities: literally, lost cities inside other lost cities, all ambulating over an impenetrable surface.

She looked out at the country mushrooming on the other side of the glass. She knew what it contained, its colors, the penury and the opulence, hazy memories of a less cynical time, villages emptied of men. But on contemplating the tense stillness of the night, the darkness dotted here and there with sparks, on sensing that insidious silence, she wondered, vaguely, what the hell might be festering out there: what grows and what rots when you’re looking the other way. What’s going to appear? she whispered to herself, pretending that as soon as they passed that lamppost, or that one, or that one, she’d see what it was that had been going on in the shadows. Maybe a whole slew of new things, maybe even some good things; or maybe not. Not even in make-believe did she get her hopes up too high.

The youngsters kept their distance the remainder of the trip. When the bus stopped at gas stations they waited for Makina to get off first and then cautiously emerged, like fugitives, and returned to their seats before she did. They crossed the entire country without one comment on the view.

Finally the bus reached the end of the land, at almost midnight the following day. A string of hotels facing the river was doing well off the mass exodus. Makina cruised around wondering how she’d find Mr. Double-U’s contact, but couldn’t discern any glance of recognition so decided to go into one of the hotels. She asked for a bed, paid, and they pointed to a door on the first floor but gave her no key. On entering she saw why. It was a very sizeable room with fifteen or twenty bunks on which were piled people of many tongues: girls, families, old folks, and, more than anything else, lone men, some of them still just boys. She closed the door and looked for a space in another room, but found them all equally overcrowded.

She asked for the bathroom. There were just two per floor, one for women and one for men. She went into the women’s to take the shower she’d been needing the whole long road from the Big Chilango. She’d barely been able to take birdbaths at the gas stations. She’d scrubbed her armpits, neck, and face, taken off her pants to shake them out. Once she was almost left behind because she took so long drying herself at the hand dryer. Now she could finally wash all over, and didn’t mind that there was no hot water in the hotel shower; it was the same in her hometown. As she was soaping herself she heard someone else come into the bathroom, heard the same someone take two steps and stop, heard them deliberating and heard their hands dip into Makina’s rucksack and rootle through her things. She poked her head out. It was a woman in her second youth; she looked tired. She had Makina’s lipstick in one hand and started to apply it and didn’t stop despite the fact that Makina was watching her and the woman could see she was. She watched her gussy up. She did it slowly and confidently, slid the stick from one side to the other of each lip and then swooped it up as if she’d come to the edge of a cliff, smacked her lips together to even out the color, puckered them for an air kiss. When she was done, still staring into the mirror, the woman said Me? I tell you, I’m gonna start off on the right foot; don’t know if makeup will help but at least no one can say I showed up scruffy, you know? And only then did she turn to look at Makina. You look very pretty, Makina said. It’ll all go great, you’ll see. The woman smiled, said Thanks, hon, put the lipstick back and versed.

After her shower she went back to wandering the rooms where those in flight sweated out the night. Many were sleeplessly waiting for their contact to show and tell them it was time. She deciphered a letter for a very old man who couldn’t read, in which his son explained how to find him once he’d crossed. She taught a boy how to say Soap in anglo and explained to another that, as far as she’d been told, you weren’t allowed to cook on the sidewalk over there. There were traders, too, who’d just crossed back the other way and slept with their arms around bundles of clothes or toys they’d brought to sell.

She versed to the street. Small groups walked the length of the line, moving farther from the glimmer of the northern city till they found their point of departure. Among them she saw the two boys from the bus negotiating the price of crossing with a couple of men. The men retreated a moment to consult together, talking anglo so the others wouldn’t understand. Should we just take ’em? asked the first, and the other said Let ’em wait, too bad if they’re in a hurry, Plus, word is that security is tight, For real? For real, Damn, then we really should take ’em, or act like we are: got another little group’ll pay us more if we cross ’em right now, Let’s put these scrubs out as bait and get the others over, Just what I was thinking. That’s what they said, in anglo tongue, and Makina heard it as she sidled up and past them. She kept on going and when she got to where the boys were said Watch it, without turning toward them. The one who had touched her flinched, but the other seemed to realize that Makina was talking about something else, not about what a badass she was. Watch it, they’re out to screw you; I was you I’d find someone else, she said and kept on. The youngsters looked at the men, the men guessed Makina had said something, both parties swiftly saw the deal was off, and the men went to find new clients.

She walked up and down along the riverbank until the night waned; then she sat at the water’s edge to scan the horizon as she ate one last hunk of brittle, sweet and thick with peanut salt, and just as the sun began to rise she saw a light flicker meaningfully on the other side. Against the clear dawn glow she made out a man and saw that she was the one he was signaling to, so she raised an arm and waved it from side to side. The man switched off his light and went to get something from a truck parked a few feet away. He came back with an enormous inner tube, like from a tractor, tossed it into the water, climbed inside and began to cross the river, propelling himself forward with a tiny oar he’d brought along. As he made his way across, Makina could begin to distinguish the features of the silhouetted man: his skin had the dark polish of long hours spent in the sun, a short salt-and-pepper beard softened his face, in the center of which a large nose, slightly hooked, jutted out; he wore a white shirt darkened by the water scaling his torso, and he carried his own rucksack. Though he gave the impression of being short, as soon as he emerged from the river she saw that he was at least two hands taller than her. And wiry. Every muscle in his arms and neck seemed trained for something specific, something strenuous.