Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

You took The Beast?

We tied ourselves to the train because you fall asleep, Luna explained. You can’t help it. Imagine falling asleep in that speed. I was tied outside to a handrail. I went to sleep and slipped and fell beside the track and the train tore off my arm and I lost my arm and I almost died.

She said all of this and did not take a breath.

Luna said she liked being in jail because she could urinate whenever she needed to.

You don’t want to get off to urinate when the train stops for a few minutes and the men get off because they’ll watch you, make fun of you as you squat by the tracks, or rape you. All the women, all of us hold it in. It hurts. You don’t want to drink and if you don’t drink, well, you know, you die.

Did you leave Guatemala by yourself?

The train tore off my arm and I almost died and they still wanted to deport me. The migration police didn’t believe me when I said I was Mexican. They told me to sing the Mexican national anthem if I was a Mexican.

Do you know it?

Luna shook her head.

This reminded me of the day I sat under a papaya tree with Paula and Maria going over the words of the national anthem. Paula and I learned it all so easily as if it was senseless sounds, but Maria took the actual words very seriously. What does that mean, exactly? she said. Why are we singing about Mexico going to war? Why does the inside of the world tremble?

I didn’t kill that girl. I could never do that. I was in the car, locked in a car.

Luna unrolled a piece of toilet paper and handed it to me so I could blow my nose.

I’m not crying, I said.

Yes, you are.

No, I’m not.

Luna explained that, even though my mother was supposed to be notified, as I gave the administrators who booked me in her number, they probably would not call her.

They’re slow, slow, slow about everything here if you don’t have money. Money is a car race. Money is speed.

I could feel Mrs. Domingo’s diamond on the inside of my palm, closed in my fist.

You must borrow a person’s telephone, Luna said. You have to call your mother or someone. Is there someone else?

No, there’s no one else.

Are you married? Luna looked at the gold band on my finger.

No.

Georgia will let you make a call. She’s the only one who might lend you her phone without making you pay.

Does everyone know that I’m here because they think I killed that girl?

Yes.

Someone is going to kill me, right?

Luna did not answer. She turned and left the cell.

I thought, If Mike’s alive, he’s dead.

In the small cell the bunk beds took up most of the room. Inside the cave-like space of Luna’s bed, she’d hammered nails into the wall. On these nails she’d hung at least ten sleeves that she’d cut off of sweaters, blouses, and long-sleeved T-shirts. They were all beige and looked like a wall covered in snakes.

After only a few minutes, Luna returned and stood beside me as I looked at the sleeves hooked on the wall.

I did not take my arm into consideration, she said. I didn’t give it a special place in my life. I am saving these sleeves because I am going to make an altar to my arm.

That’s a good idea.

Do you give your arms a special place in your life?

No. No, I have not.

Listen. Stick to me. Don’t go walking around alone.

Do you believe me, Luna?

Yes, maybe, maybe I believe you. Maybe.

There was a knock on the door. A woman was standing there dressed in navy-blue sweatpants. She had a canister on her back and was holding a long, thin metal hose in her hand.

No, no, Luna said. She stood up and held her one hand up in the air.

Do you want bedbugs and fleas? the woman asked in a whisper.

The old, dented tin fumigation canister was corroded at its seams and a dark yellow paste, like mucus, formed around the spout.

Shit, Luna said. Let’s get out of here. She’s going to fumigate. Do what you have to do, Aurora.

Aurora was as pale as one of those centipedes or worms one finds under rocks. They are pale because the creatures have never been in the sun. As a child I used to pry rocks out of the ground or kick them over in search of white or transparent insects. Aurora’s light brown hair was so thin her ears stuck out from her hair.

This is Ladydi, Luna said.

I know, Aurora said in her drafty voice. Get out or stay in. It’s up to you.

She pursed her lips tightly together so that the fumigation fumes would not get in her mouth. The tips of her ten fingers were deep yellow.

Do you have any aspirin? Aurora asked.

Luna didn’t answer and I followed her out of the room. Behind us we heard the whooshing sound of the spray as insecticide filled our cell.

The truth is who wants fleas and bedbugs? Luna said. You look pretty clean, but it’s for the best. We won’t be able to go in there for a while. That stink stays around and gives you a headache you can’t shake off for days. You must be hungry by now. Let’s get some food.

The rain had stopped but the sky was still cloudy.

I followed Luna down the labyrinth of corridors that all seemed the same. The men’s prison could be seen through the long open glassless windows in the concrete walls. The faces of men at the windows looked in our direction. Every now and then one of them cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed something or lifted up a white T-shirt and waved it madly at us. It was as if the women’s prison was a ship passing by and the men’s prison was a deserted island with hundreds of shipwrecked sailors. In one short morning, I learned that the men do this non-stop, all day long, and if a woman waves back, it’s love forever after.

And, unlike the male prison across the patio, this world overflowed with rubbish bins filled with bloodied cotton and rags. In this women’s world blood was exposed in the garbage, in the un-flushed toilet bowl, on sheets and blankets, and on the stained panties soaking in the corner of a sink. I wondered how much blood left this place in a day and coursed through the underground sewage system of Mexico City. I knew I was standing on a lake of blood.

Luna took me to a large room with long tables and benches. Prisoners sat around occupied with different activities. Some were eating, others were knitting, and some women breastfed their babies. Two boys, who were about four or five years old, played on the floor with a train set that was made of small cereal boxes attached with knitting wool. One long table was laid out with dozens of bottles of nail polish and nail polish remover. At least twenty inmates were sitting around painting their fingernails.

Painted on the back wall of the room was a mural framed by a banner that said The Mural of Hearts . The content of the work, which I later found out had been painted by the inmates over a span of several years, consisted of portraits of famous Mexican women. I looked at their faces and read the names: Sor Juana, Emma Godoy, Elena Garro, Frida Kahlo, and Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez.

As breakfast was no longer being served, Luna bought us each a sandwich from one of the prisoners. In jail everyone had a business and everything had a price, even toilet paper or Kotex.

Luna said she had no income but received help from a Guatemalan family in Mexico who were part of an evangelical organization that tried to convert prisoners.

They’re all trying to convert us, Luna said. Mormons, Evangelists, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics. Everyone. The missionaries come to the jail on Sunday, and sometimes they get in on other days, you’ll see. Every God is in this prison.

Luna suggested we go out and eat our sandwiches in the yard.

We can get some coffee there and watch the football and then see if we can talk to Georgia who has the telephone, she said.