Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

For the first time in jail I had a dream. I knew the poisonous fumes had given me the dream. It was about Julio. We were lying on the grass, side by side, in the garden of the marble house in Acapulco. We lay on our sides looking at each other. I could see inside of his body. Under his flesh I saw the stars and the moon and I knew he was born from space.

The sound of Aurora coughing in her sleep awoke me. The light in the room was dim and I realized I’d been dozing there for several hours. It was as if being with someone who knew Paula, who knew something about my life, had given me the comfort to be able to sleep. Aurora had carried me home.

As I opened my eyes, I saw the shape of a person in the bed across from Aurora. It was Violeta.

I sat up.

She was naked and her hair was wrapped in a towel. I could see a few drops of water trickle out from under the towel and behind her ear. On the floor there was a trail of water that led from the tiny shower stall to her bed.

On her bed, against the wall, she had many stuffed animals. In the pile I could make out a panda, a giraffe, and at least four teddy bears. It was a zoo.

Her body was covered in tattoos. Down the side of her upper arm that faced toward me I could see the word Tom. Around the wrist of that same arm she had tattooed bracelets that looked like barbed wire.

She was sitting cross-legged with another towel opened on the bed in front of her. On the towel she had a few ink jars. I could see red and green in the jars. She also had several syringes and long needles spread out on the cloth.

Violeta looked at me.

Good morning, she said.

Is it morning still?

Hey, don’t you want a tattoo? Everyone in here has a tattoo. I’ve got the works here. I can carve you up.

When Violeta spoke, Aurora stirred and awoke.

No. Not yet, but thanks. If I walk out of here with a tattoo my mother will kill me!

Violeta, let her be, Aurora said.

Did anyone tell you, Princess, that on the outside people cry over you for exactly three days and then they forget you exist? Violeta said.

She reached over and pinched the skin of my upper arm. She took my skin between her fingers and turned it as if it were a key in a lock.

Stop! That hurts!

Why? she asked and let go of my arm. Why do good people always think they’re right? Huh?

What did I say?

In here we are not people who turn the other cheek, she said.

Luna appeared at the doorstep. She was holding a thick beige-colored sweater in her hand. She held it out to me.

I got this for you. It’s yours. One of us got out today and said I could have it. Here, put it on. It will keep you warm, Luna said.

I didn’t even give it a thought. The jail was so cold I could feel my body turning into wet cement. I took the sweater, and pulled it over my head. It smelled like the body of another woman. It was like the smell of rice boiling on the stove.

Let me sleep, Aurora said. Please.

Violeta looked at Luna and then back to me. Here we sleep two in each bunk bed, head to foot, because it is better to sleep with someone’s foot in one’s mouth than their stinky face and bad jail breath.

Yes, Luna said. We know.

You two get to have your own bunks. That’s not fair!

Stop it, Aurora said. Since when did you go looking around for the world to be fair?

Let’s go. Come on, Luna said.

A tattoo will make you feel good, Violeta called out to me as we walked away. Think about it. I’m not expensive.

As I walked back to my cell with Luna at my side I thought this day was almost finished. My whole being was leaning toward Sunday Visitors’ Day. Only one more day and I would see my mother. I imagined that by now she was in a cheap hotel somewhere near the jail. I could feel it.

That Violeta! She’s such a glutton, Luna said. When she eats chicken she feels love. When she eats a steak she feels happiness. I’ve seen her eat a whole cake.

Why did she kill all those men? I asked.

It was just part of her gluttony, Luna said. I figured it out. Killing was like eating.

As we walked, I told Luna about my dream. I told her that the universe was inside of Julio.

You need to thank God for resolving your destiny in the dream and thank Him for His warning, Luna said. A long time ago I promised God that I would heed every single one of His messages.

What do you think it means? I asked.

It’s so obvious.

Well?

It means that you want to see the hands of the clock go backward. Back in time everyone is the same.

I don’t think so. That is not what it means.

What does it mean then?

I think I know. When I know I will tell you.

When I climbed up to my bed that night, there was a photograph of Princess Diana in a black ball gown and a tiara on her head that had been torn out of a magazine and stuck to my wall with Scotch tape. The real loveliness of the dead princess beside my body in jail dressed in worn beige sweatpants made me feel ugly and dirty. I tore the photo off the wall and rolled it into a ball in my hand. The black ink of her ball gown stained my fingers.

The next morning Luna and I went out to the outdoor patio and sat in a streak of sunshine. Almost everyone on the patio was looking for a ray of sunlight to warm their bodies. The long shadow cast by the men’s jail made most of the open yard sunless.

By eleven the patio was filled with women standing in groups talking while by the southern wall a football game had begun. I could see Georgia’s yellow hair running after the ball and Violeta on the sidelines watching the game. Luna bought a cup of coffee for both of us from a woman who sold coffee and sweet bread out of a basket.

Luna wanted to watch the football game and I did not. So I strolled over to a bench and sat down while she went to the other side of the patio to stand with Violeta.

I sipped on the lukewarm coffee and, after a few moments, I watched Aurora walk out of the prison building onto the patio. She squinted and flinched in the outdoor light as if it hurt her eyes.

I waved for her to come and sit with me. She moved slowly, on tiptoe, as if she were walking in slow motion or miming what it was to walk. The fumigation canister was on her back and she wore it as if it were a turtle shell.

She sat next to me and was barefoot. It was her feet hurting against the icy cement that had made her walk like that. She sat beside me and I gave her what was left of my coffee.

Here, you can finish it, I said.

Her pale, dry hand wrapped around the Styrofoam cup and exposed the pattern of cigarette burns on the inside of her arm. In the patio light the round scars looked like mother-of-pearl moons.

Where are your shoes?

Someone is always stealing my stuff. This morning they were gone.

Her feet looked stiff and blue. I was still wearing my plastic flip-flops. If I had shoes would I give them to her? I knew I probably wouldn’t. In only a few days the jail had modified me. I thought about what Violeta had said earlier, how people outside forgot you in only three days.

I took the canister off Aurora’s back and made her sit facing me on the bench. I placed her feet on my lap and covered them with my sweater.

Now we both need shoes, I said.

The truth was that, now when I looked at Aurora, after everything she’d told me about Paula, it was as if she were a road out of jail, through the streets of Mexico City, to the black highway and back to my home.

Aurora drained the last of the coffee, placed the empty cup on the floor, and then reached for my hand and held it. Even though Aurora was older than me, she was like a child. Her hand was small like a seven-year-old’s. I held on to it as if I were going to help her cross a street.