Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

I don’t have to make a collage in order to talk about my life, Georgia said. I know that fucking tomcat is in a pub with who knows who, probably a wife, listening to Adele, while I’m here. I know he’s eating a pork pie.

Violeta turned to Georgia and said, Just keep thinking about the Cobbler. Drive yourself crazy.

Maybe he even has kids by now. It’s been three years and he’s never answered one letter I’ve written to him, not one. What do you think of that, Princess? she asked me directly.

What can Ladydi know? Violeta said. Why on earth do you ask her?

He was my love. If I were to do a collage, I’d just glue all the letters to him that have been returned to me, Georgia said. The collage can be called Return to Sender .

Everyone was silent for a minute.

Violeta cupped her hand over Georgia’s hand.

Aurora stirred beside her and stretched out her arms.

Don’t be sad, Aurora said.

And this was when I saw the inside of her arm, lying across the table of scissors, glue, and magazines like a piece of pale, almost white, driftwood. Her skin was so wasted I could see the blue veins clearly as if they were sitting on her skin not in her skin.

There are symbols that don’t need words like the cross, or the swastika, or the letter Z, or the skull and crossbones, which are on the label of any bottle of rat poison.

The symbol on the inside of Aurora’s left arm was of a circle, with a dot in the middle, made with the burning tip of a cigarette: circle, polka dot, pink circle.

When I looked at that symbol I looked at Paula sitting under a tree, right on the ground, with insects crawling all over her body. Paula had unfolded her arm and laid it out before me to show the round cigarette burns on the inside skin.

Someone, a woman, someone, decided on this a long, long time ago and now we all do it, Paula had explained. If we’re found dead someplace everyone will know we were stolen. It is our mark. Cigarette burns on the inside of your left arm are a message.

I reached across the worktable, my hand moved through the pots of glue, paintbrushes, and small stacks of magazines, and took hold of Aurora’s arm. I grabbed her wrist and twisted it even more so that I could look at her branding more clearly. Her arm was a map.

Aurora raised her yellowed eyes and looked into mine. Her face was so sad that it occurred to me that she’d never smiled. The skin on her face had never been creased with joy.

In her asthmatic, breathless voice, damaged and hoarse from the fumigation fumes, she asked, Are you really Ladydi? Are you Paula’s friend?

She spoke the words carefully as if she didn’t want to break the words with her teeth.

It was this human centipede who told me the story of my life.

Everyone at the table listened as Aurora spoke in a wheezy voice like a breeze falling over us.

At the collage table, in the recreational room of a jail, Luna, Georgia, and Violeta learned about Paula, Estefani, and Maria. My life had suddenly turned into a wishbone. Aurora had brought both pieces together. She was the joint.

In that cement jail, Luna, Georgia, and Violeta saw my mountain and heard how my people gave birth to the most beautiful girl in Mexico. They learned about Maria’s harelip operation and Ruth’s hair salon and later disappearance. When Aurora told them that Ruth was a garbage baby this shocked a group of women criminals who could not be shocked.

My God! Luna exclaimed. Who would let their baby die all alone in a garbage heap?

Aurora told the story about how we used to blacken our faces and cut our hair so that we would not look attractive and how we would hide in holes if we heard drug traffickers approaching. Aurora described the day we came upon the poppy field and the downed army helicopter. Through gasps and gulps, she also told about the day that Paula was drenched with Paraquat and we had to wash her off with water scooped out of the toilet bowl. Aurora told them that Mike had a pet iguana tied with a string that followed him everywhere until his mother made iguana soup with it.

That was not nice, Georgia said.

Iguana soup is an aphrodisiac, Aurora said.

Who the fuck is Mike? Violeta asked.

Maria’s brother, Aurora explained.

If I had been your mother, Georgia said to me, I would have run off that mountain as soon as Ruth disappeared. What was your mother waiting for?

No, Violeta said, I would have left as soon as your father went to the United States and had another family over there. He threw dirt at you. He buried you. I’m sure you have a bunch of English-speaking brothers and sisters living in New York.

Aurora said, No. No. No. Ladydi’s mother would never leave that mountain because her dream and hope was that Ladydi’s father would come back. That was her hope and, if she left their home, he would never find them.

I looked at Aurora and thought I was looking into a mirror. She knew my life better than I did.

And, let me tell you one thing more, Aurora said. Maria is Ladydi’s half-sister.

Oh, please! Violeta said. Don’t tell me that! Violeta threw down her short plastic glue brush and jumped up from her stool. Her long yellow nails flashed in the air like hornets. Oh, no, no, no. No! You’re not going to tell me that your father fucked Maria’s mother!

Georgia slapped her magazine down on the worktable. What a fucker!

Your poor mother, Luna said. She should have killed him. I would have killed him.

Georgia patted Luna’s hand across the table. We know that, Luna, Georgia said. You don’t have to tell us. Killing is your solution to everything.

Ladydi’s mother never would have done that. That would have been like killing Frank Sinatra!

Paula had told our story to perfection.

Aurora gasped and wheezed. Talking this much had exhausted her. Holding her body up was an effort. She leaned down and rested her head on her arm. Her frail pulse quivered in her slender wrists and at her temples.

It was Violeta who stopped Aurora from talking. She said, That’s enough, Aurora. You can finish the story tomorrow.

Violeta placed the glue brush in a jar of water. She stood and wrapped her clawed hand around the fumigation canister’s strap and threw it over her shoulder. Then, holding her lit cigarette between her teeth, she picked up Aurora in her arms like a bride or a baby and carried her off. Violeta looked like a bird of prey with a rabbit in its claws. I wondered if those canisters, and Aurora herself for that matter, might be flammable so close to Violeta’s burning cigarette.

Do you know how Violeta killed her father, Princess? Georgia asked me.

I shook my head.

You haven’t told her, Catch? Georgia said.

She didn’t ask.

In jail if you don’t ask, Princess, no one tells.

Maybe she doesn’t want to know, Luna said. Not everyone wants to know.

Oh, please! Everyone wants to know about murder! She placed her magazine on the pile in the middle of the table. It’s time to call Scotland, she said and walked off down the same corridor Violeta, with Aurora in her arms, had taken moments before.

Georgia called her father in Edinburgh every evening. She was her father’s only child. Georgia hadn’t seen her mother since she was a little girl. Her mother abandoned the family and ran off with a lover. Georgia’s father had spent most of his money to help Georgia have everything she needed in jail. Her father had even mortgaged their small house to pay for Georgia’s lawyers who were trying to get her extradited to the UK. Georgia swore she didn’t know the shoes were filled with heroin but no one believed her.

What about that betrayal? Luna said.

Do you think it’s true? I asked.

Of course it’s true. Yes. I have a golden rule. I always believe a woman over a man.