Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

So this is Ladydi? Georgia said. She looked at me. Her blue eyes and my black eyes met. I knew she was thinking, So, this is the dark and ugly creature who has my beautiful princess’s name!

I wanted to say, I’m sorry, but I had never said I’m sorry to anyone.

I thought of all the Ladydi dolls I had at home. To this day, the Lady Diana dolls my father brought me back from the United States were still in my room in their original cardboard and plastic boxes so the jungle mold would not destroy them. I had a Lady Diana doll in her wedding dress, a Lady Diana doll in the gown she wore to meet President Clinton, and a Lady Diana doll in riding clothes. My father had even given me a plastic jewelry set of Lady Diana’s pearls. These I wore until they broke. The white plastic pearls were kept in a cup in the kitchen.

I felt like counterfeit money, fake designer clothing at the Acapulco market, like a Virgin of Guadalupe made in China. I looked at Georgia and turned into cheap plastic. My mother had given me the biggest fake name she could find. How could I begin to explain to this British woman that my name was an act of revenge and not an act of admiration? How could I explain that my name was payment for my father’s infidelities?

Close up, Georgia was so pale I could see the blue veins under her skin. Her face was covered in freckles, even on her lips and eyelids. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were colorless and so her eyes were unframed and looked like two sky-blue marbles resting on her cheeks.

I hear you want my phone, she said.

Yes. Please.

I’m not going to charge you this time because we’re both British, right? And, after all, you’re a princess.

Violeta and Luna laughed at this. Aurora didn’t seem to listen. She was still curled up like a white-yellow centipede beside me. I could smell the insecticide rise from her body in small gusts every time she took a breath.

Georgia reached under her sweatshirt. She took out a phone from under her clothing that was hidden in a seam. It was cloaked in a Cadbury’s chocolate bar wrapper. She gave me the phone and I could see her hands were also covered with freckles.

Good luck, Princess, she said.

And then she curtsied.

Georgia was liked because she was a foreigner and had money. But no one respected her stupid crime. Everyone in jail made fun of her and gave her shoes as presents on her birthday and at Christmas. There was always someone who would tease her and yell things like, Hey, Blondie, why don’t you bring some tacos or some guacamole to Mexico too?

Those of us who had killed were different. It was not exactly respect that we were given. It was like the respect for a rabid dog. People circled around us. Here no one wanted the killers to cook or handle food. The prisoners were superstitious about eating food touched by a killer’s hand.

Georgia and Violeta turned and walked away. Aurora stirred on the ground beside me.

I’m hungry and thirsty, Aurora said. Does anyone have any gum?

Aurora was just like Maria. Maria used to think that gum was a substitute for water and food. This unexpected memory of Maria made me want to cover my eyes with my hands and disappear from the prison into the dark skin of my palms. The last time I saw Maria, my half-sister, my sweet friend with her harelip curse, had been when they’d wheeled her into a cubicle in the emergency room at the Acapulco clinic with a bullet in her arm.

We’d better go back to our cell so you can make that call, Luna said. You don’t want to get caught, and they’ll catch you anywhere else.

We stood up and walked toward the building. Aurora stayed behind and continued to lie curled up on the cement ground.

Georgia teases everyone, Luna said. Don’t feel bad about that. She doesn’t give a shit about my arm. She’s always throwing things at me and yelling at me to catch. Sometimes she calls me Catch. That’s my nickname.

As we walked in the blue-and-beige chessboard world, my eyes longed for green plants, yellow-and-red parrots, blue ocean and sky. The colorless color of cement made me feel hot and cold at the same time. So, when I sat in my cell, which still smelled of insecticide, I didn’t only call my mother. I called the leaves, palm trees, red ants, jade-green lizards, yellow-and-black pineapples, pink azaleas, and lemon trees. I closed my eyes and prayed for a glass of water.

Luna sat beside me. She sat so close I felt her ribcage against me where she should have had an arm. Her face was full of anticipation and hope.

Oh, let’s pray someone answers, she said.

Luna pressed so close to me I felt she wanted to slip on my flip-flops, get in my worn jail uniform and into my skin. It was as if she were calling her own mother.

Of course my mother had been standing at the clearing all day and all night. She held her telephone up in the air until she felt the tired ache and burn of her muscles down from her fingers to her waist. I knew she’d been standing there pacing and pacing. No one was there. Everyone had left the mountain and she stood there alone and thought about how our world fell apart. Paula was stolen and then she and her mother left forever. Ruth was stolen. Augusta had died from AIDS and Estefani was living in Mexico City with her grandmother and siblings. I wondered where Maria and her mother were, but I knew they’d left our piece of land and sky. After everything Mike had done they must have looked for a place to hide. In the state of Guerrero no one wonders if someone is going to come and get you, you know they will get you, so you don’t stick around.

My mother was the last living soul on our mountain. She stood alone with the ants and scorpions and vultures.

The phone rang and she answered.

Thank God I have been a robber all of my life, Ladydi!

It was the first thing she said.

Thank God I have been a robber all of my life, Ladydi!

It was the second thing she said.

I’m going to sell everything. Thank God I’ve been a thief all my life now I can sell it all. Ladydi, listen to this. I have five gold chains, several pairs of earrings, and six silver teaspoons buried in a can of milk at the back of the house. No one would think of looking there! Isn’t that just perfect? Tell me where you are, sweet sugar baby. I’ll be there in two days. Goodbye.

My mother hung up her phone. She had not even waited for me to tell her where I was.

So, is she coming? Luna asked.

Yes. In two days.

My mother would never come for me, Luna said. She’s in Guatemala. She doesn’t even know I’m here. She doesn’t even know her little girl has lost an arm. Of course she won’t care.

She won’t care about your arm?

You don’t know her.

You’re her daughter.

When she sees me she’s going to ask me where I left my arm as if I’d left a sweater or a hat behind and need to go back and get it. She isn’t going to want me around with one arm. She’s going to say I can’t work in the field and that no man will ever want to look at me.

She has to understand.

My mother is going to say, What can you carry?

Oh, really?

I never buried my arm, Luna said. Does one bury parts of oneself?

I don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know where it is or what happened to my arm.

Why did you leave Guatemala?

Because I wanted to have dollars. I hated my life in Guatemala, Luna said.

It was bad?

My husband beat me every day. No. He did not beat me. He slapped me across the face. That’s what he did. Slap, slap, slap. All day long. My cheek became a part of his hand.

So you came alone?

Yes, Luna answered. I thought anything was better than that, but I was wrong.

Yes, you were wrong.

All kinds of people are trying to go north, she said. You cannot imagine the things people take across the border to the United States. I saw stacks of dried-out stingrays that looked like sheets of black leather. I saw boxes filled with orchids. The police X-ray the trucks and buses. The X-rays find the white skeletons of immigrants. They see the human bones twisted with rickets and they find pumas and eagles, they see the bird skeletons. One man had two baby toucans in his jacket pocket.