Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

It wasn’t a zoo. Every day the lion and tiger excrement was picked up and wrapped into drug shipments bound for the United States. This practice kept the drug-sniffing border dogs away from the shipments.

Paula’s job on the ranch was to sleep with McClane every now and again and to help pack the lion and tiger excrement around the drugs or rub a small film of the excrement on the outside of plastic packages.

Someone told me they were fed human meat, Paula said.

The sky began to darken as we sat on the log holding hands. In the dusk, small clouds of mosquitoes began to surround us, but since Paula continued to talk I sat there and let them bite. She didn’t seem to notice the feeling of insects crawling or biting her skin.

I don’t need to tell you that along the way I was a plastic water bottle, right? Paula said. I was something you pick up and take a swig of.

I shook my head. No, no.

Those guys who stole me were from Matameros. They took me north to that party. It was McClane’s daughter’s birthday party. She was fifteen.

A whole circus had been rented for the party. Several large tents had been set up in a field to one side of the ranch house. A man walked around giving away clouds of pink cotton candy on long wood sticks. There was a band and a large dance floor.

Paula was taken to one of the tents that had been placed very far away from the party. She could hardly hear the band play. Inside this tent there were a few men and over thirty women. Rows of plastic chairs were set up at one side of the tent. In the middle of the open space there was a table with Cokes, beers, plastic glasses, and paper plates piled high with peanuts covered in red chili powder. The women in the tent had been stolen. The drug traffickers, who’d killed Paula’s mother’s dogs and had stolen her wrapped naked in a white towel, were now going to sell her.

McClane was in the tent. He looked at the women and asked them to smile. He wanted to see their teeth. But he didn’t look into Paula’s mouth.

McClane picked Paula. He picked the most beautiful girl in Mexico. She should have been a legend. Her face should have covered magazines. Love songs should have been written to her.

On the log beside me, Paula continued to look straight ahead as she spoke. When she seemed to grow tired she continued to tell her story only as a mix of impressions.

You don’t need to know about the sun rising and setting, she said. You don’t need to know what I ate or where I slept. You need to know that McClane had over two hundred pairs of boots. They were made from every kind of animal and reptile that was in Noah’s Ark. He had a pair made from donkey penises. One pair he liked to wear on Sundays. These were a pale yellow and everyone said were made of human flesh.

Paula’s impressions tumbled out of her as if they were a list she’d penciled down on a paper. She said that McClane’s daughter had over two hundred Barbie dolls. One doll had been dipped in gold and had real green emeralds for eyes. McClane had a box filled with feathers from the cocks he raised for cock fights. McClane had a scar across his belly as if he’d almost been cut in half by a magician. The sons all had their own toy cars. These were real cars, but miniatures, that even ran on gasoline. The ranch had a miniature gas station and a miniature OXXO store beside it.

The women that Paula met in the tent, and saw at other times at parties, were Gloria, Aurora, Isabel, Esperanza, Lupe, Lola, Claudia, and Mercedes.

Who are those women? I asked.

Oh, girls like me, she said. And the daughter had a small house to play in with toilets that flushed.

How much did you cost?

Oh, I was a present.

Why do you have those cigarette burns on your arm?

Oh, but we all have them, Ladydi. She looked down at the inside of her arm, stretching it out before her as if she were showing me the page of a book.

If you’ve been stolen, you burn the inside of your left arm with cigarettes.

Why? I don’t understand.

Are you crazy? she asked. Are you stupid?

I’m sorry.

A woman decided it a long, long time ago and now we all do it, she said. If we’re found dead someplace everyone will know we were stolen. It is our mark. My cigarette burns are a message.

I looked at the pattern of circles on her arm as she continued to hold her limb, stretched out like an oar into the jungle air.

You do want people to know it’s you. Otherwise how will our mothers find us?

It was almost dark.

We have to go now, I said. Come with me. I’ll take you.

Her mother was standing at the front door waiting. She held a baby bottle filled with milk in one hand.

It’s time for my baby to go to bed, Concha said. What on earth were you doing out in the jungle?

Paula didn’t answer and went straight into the house.

Her mother walked me out to the edge of their property.

Did she say anything to you? Concha asked. Don’t say anything to anyone, Concha said in a panic. How did they know she was here? Who watched and knew a beautiful girl lived up here? They came for her. They knew what they were coming for. If they know she’s back, if they find out, they’ll come back and get her. We have to leave. There’s no time. In a day or so. I’ve been planning. Ladydi, we’re escaping. What did she tell you?

She told me about the cigarette burns.

Did she tell you that she did it to herself? Did she tell you that all the women who have been robbed do this to themselves?

I nodded.

Do you believe her? Concha asked. I don’t believe it at all. I can’t even imagine burning myself. That’s impossible.

Yes. I believe it.

At that moment Paula appeared behind her mother. She was like a white vaporous creature. She held a baby bottle in one hand. She was naked. In the dark, under a river of moonlight, I could see the nipples of her breasts, the black hair between her legs, and the constellation of cigarette burns all over her body. I could see the cigarette-burn stars that made up Orion and Taurus. Even her feet were covered in the round burns. Paula had walked through the Milky Way and every star had burned her body.

Concha turned and picked up Paula in her arms as if she were a four-year-old girl and carried her into their house. That was the last time I ever saw Concha and Paula.

We knew they were gone when Concha’s three dogs appeared near our house rummaging for food. They were stray dogs Concha had picked up after her other dogs had been slaughtered the day Paula was stolen.

Why didn’t she kill those damn dogs before she left? my mother said. We’re not taking care of them. Don’t give them anything to eat Ladydi, do you hear?

We went over to Paula’s house to see if they’d left or not.

As we reached the small two-room house everything looked as if Paula and her mother were about to return.

Yes, my mother said. This is how you disappear: as if you’re going to appear.

There was a fresh and full carton of milk on the small kitchen table and the television was turned on. The sound of the news from Acapulco filled the room: there’d been a shootout at a bar. Two new morgues were being built. A severed head had been found on the beach.

My mother started to poke around that house and it was that kind of poking around that I knew too well. She picked up a half-full bottle of tequila, an electric coffee maker, and a large bag of potato chips.

You go and look in Paula’s room and see what she’s left behind. Maybe there’re some jeans or T-shirts you can use, she said.