Jennifer Clement - Prayers for the Stolen

Aurora continued to speak as if our conversation from the day before had not been interrupted by a sudden exhausted sleep. The poison sleep.

We could not believe that Paula would run away, Aurora said. He would find her. She knew that. He would find her eventually. She knew that.

I don’t think he’s found her, I answered. Paula and her mother disappeared. They left. They’re hiding somewhere. No one knows where.

Aurora took her hand out of my hand and hugged her stomach as if it hurt.

You don’t understand, she said.

What?

My stomach hurts. My head hurts.

Is there a doctor here?

Only on Mondays. I don’t want to see him. He might not let me fumigate and then how will I make money?

It’s making you sick.

It makes me dream and sleep. But you don’t understand, she said again. Ladydi, you don’t understand.

What?

Aurora rocked back and forth holding her stomach. Her eyes rolled back and I could see the whites of her eyes.

Listen, she whispered.

Listen, she whispered again. When you killed McClane why did you kill Paula’s little girl too? Why?

I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What?

When you killed McClane, when you killed Juan Rey Ramos, you know. What were you thinking? When you killed McClane why did you kill Paula’s little girl too? Why?

The words she spoke stood still in the air as if they were cooked with the poison she breathed in and out of her lungs. I felt as if I could reach out and catch the words suspended in the air and break them up in my hands like dry leaves. I could taste poison in my mouth.

When you killed McClane why did you kill Paula’s little girl too? Why?

I had seen the dresses drying on the maguey cactus. I had imagined the narrow, twig arms of a little girl coming out of the sleeves. They were almost dry and so they lifted and blew in the heat. On the ground beside the cactus there was a toy bucket and a toy broom.

When you killed McClane why did you kill Paula’s little girl too? Why?

Blood could smell like roses.

When you killed McClane why did you kill Paula’s little girl too? Why?

I closed my eyes and prayed to the radio. I prayed to the song on the radio, the song I had heard again and again in Acapulco. I heard it when I cleaned the house. I heard it on the beach. I heard it in the glass-bottom boat. I heard it. I heard it. I heard the narco ballad for Juan Rey Ramos:

Even dead he’s the most powerful man alive ,

Even dead he’s the most powerful man alive .

The pistol that killed him also killed his girl ,

And you’ll see their ghosts alive, pale as pearl .

Together, hand-in-hand, on the highway ,

Together, hand-in-hand, on the highway .

For God save your prayers, don’t speak a word ,

We sing for the man and the child butchered .

On Sunday morning most of the prisoners woke up early to get ready for Visitors’ Day. The women painted their fingernails, combed their hair into buns and braids or straightened it out with large curlers that they’d worn on their heads all night. Even prisoners who never had visitors would get fixed up just in case.

What everyone did know was that the queue of visitors waiting to get in outside the women’s jail was short. The queue for visitors to the men’s jail was long and went way down the road and covered a distance of at least ten blocks. It could take hours for visitors to finally get in and see the men.

It was Luna who had told me this.

There is nothing else one needs to know about anything, she said. No one visits the women. Everyone visits the men. What more do we need to know about the world?

The jail rules at the women’s prison were that the visitors were brought in to the patio first and, half an hour later, the prisoners were allowed out.

At eleven we lined up in the corridor that led out to the yard. I was pressed between Luna and Georgia in single file. Georgia had a huge wad of bubble gum in her mouth and I could hear it snap as she moved it around her mouth.

Do you have any more of that? I asked.

I had not brushed my teeth since I’d arrived.

Georgia pulled out a piece of pink gum from a pocket in her jeans and gave it to me.

Thank you.

Hold on to your prayers, she said, every religion known to man comes here on Sunday and wants to steal them.

Outside the patio was completely transformed. It was like a fairground. Everyone was dressed in reds and yellows. Visitors were not allowed to wear blue or beige so that they would not accidently get mistaken for a prisoner.

The space was filled with people carrying baskets of food and presents wrapped in bright-colored paper. To one side there were four nuns dressed in white habits waiting on a bench. There were many children running around. I expected to see a balloon man or a cotton-candy vendor appear at any moment.

Scanning over the drab prisoner colors and brightly colored visitors, I looked for my mother.

I didn’t see her.

She did not come.

And then I saw my father walking toward me.

I walked toward him through jungle leaves.

Iguanas scurried away as I moved under papaya trees and broke spiderwebs that grew across my path.

I could smell the orange blossoms in the trees around me.

It was not my father.

Maria opened her arms and, as they opened, I could see the ugly round scar on her upper arm and the huge chunk of missing flesh left from my mother’s gunshot. I could also see the faint scar on her upper lip left from the operation on her harelip.

I walked into her embrace. She kissed my cheek.

For the first time in my life I thought, Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for fucking around and giving me Maria.

I took Maria’s hand and walked her to one side of the patio, far from everyone. All the benches were taken and so we sat down on the cement ground with our backs resting against the wall that divided the area from the men’s prison.

I could see Luna sitting with the nuns. Georgia and Violeta were talking to a woman in a gray business suit. I didn’t see Aurora anywhere.

At least you’re safe here, Maria said.

Maria told me that her mother was dead. Maria had hid in the hole and listened to a group of men fire machine guns at her house and into the body of her mother.

I was saved by the hole. Imagine, Maria said. The hole saved someone.

It saved me once too.

The trees and grass were covered in her blood, Maria continued. I knew if I looked up, the sky would be covered in her blood. I know the moon is covered in her blood. It always will be.

I caressed Maria’s hair in long strokes from the top of her head down to her neck. Maria shivered.

I didn’t dare come out of the hole for days, she said. I would look up at the sky from the hole and see the vultures.

Yes.

I could hear the ants moving.

Yes.

After four days, I was so thirsty, I couldn’t cry.

Yes, I know.

I was so alone.

Yes.

I heard one man say, Be grateful we are killing you. It could be worse.

Yes.

My mother knew I was in the hole. Kill me, she said.

Yes, you can keep on telling me. Tell me more, I said.

I was in that hole for days. When I looked up, the sky was covered in blood.

And then what did you do?

I ran to your mother’s house. Where else could I go? Where else could I go? She took care of me and let me sleep in your bed.