Carlos Fuentes - The Crystal Frontier

fathered by the heights, descendant of the snow, the ice of the sky baptizes the river when it bursts forth in the San Juan mountains, breaks the virginal shield of the cordillera, abruptly becomes young, youthfully challenges the canyons and open cuts of land so that the stormy waters of May can pass on to sleepy June tides

it then loses altitude but gains the desert, wastes its maturity generously leaving liquid alms here and there amid the mesquite, parcels out its luxurious old age in fertile farmlands, and bequeaths its death to the sea

río grande, río bravo,

let me ask you:

did the thick aromatic cedars grow with you, since the dawn of creation, and then become the wood for your cradle? did the plants that roll across the desert merely announce your arrival, always defending you from the spines and bayonets of yucca and palo verde? were your loves always perfumed by the incense of the pine nut? did the white poplars always escort you, the spruces disguise you, the olive-colored waves of your immense pastures always rock you? was your death avoided by the nervous nursing of wild thistles, did the black fruits of the juniper announce it, the willows not weep your requiem? río grande, río bravo, did the creosote, the cactus, the sagebrush not forget you, thirsty for your passage, so obsessed by your next rebirth that they have already forgotten your death?

the river of shifting floors now travels back to its sources from the coastal plains, their fertile half-moon a cape of swamps; the valley drops anchor between the pine and the cypress until a flight of doves raises it again, carrying the river up to the steep tower from which the earth broke off the very first day, under the hand of God:

now God, every day, gives a hand to the rio grande, rio bravo, so it may rise to his balcony once more and roll along the carpets of his waiting room before opening the doors to the next chamber, the step that brings the waters, if they manage to scale the enormous ravines, back to the roofs of the world, where each plateau has its own faithful cloud that accompanies it and reproduces it like a mirror of air:

but now the earth is drying and the river can do nothing for it but plant the stakes that guide its course and that of its travelers, for everyone would get lost here if the Guadalupe mountains were not there to protect the river and drive it back to its womb, rio grande, rio bravo, back to the nourishing cave it never should have left for exile and death and the blinding hurricane that awaits it again to drown the river again and again …

Stopped for the night by the river’s edge, Benito Ayala was surrounded by men who looked like him, all between twenty and forty years old, all wearing straw hats, cheap cotton shirts and trousers, sturdy shoes for working in a cold climate, short jackets of various colors and designs.

They all raise their arms, spread them in a cross, clench their fists, silently offer their labor on the Mexican side of the river, hoping someone takes note of them, saves them, pays them heed. They prefer to risk being caught than not to advertise themselves, declare their presence: Here we are. We want work.

They all look alike, but Benito Ayala knows that each of them will cross the river with a different bagful of memories, an invisible knapsack in which only their own memories fit.

Benito Ayala closed his eyes to forget the night and to imagine the sky. Through his head passed a place. It was his village, in the mountains of Guanajuato. Not very different from many other Mexican mountain villages. A single street through which the highway passed. On both sides, houses, all one-story. And the shops, the hardware stores, the restaurant, the pharmacy. At the entrance to town, the school. At the end, the gas station with the best bathrooms in town, the best radio, the best chilled soft drinks. But to use the bathroom you’ve got to arrive by car. The staff knows the people from the vicinity. They order them to shit in the woods, they laugh at them.

Behind the houses, vegetable gardens, flower gardens, the creek. All the walls painted over with beer ads, propaganda for the PRI, announcements of the next or last elections. All things considered and despite everything, a good little town, a sweet village, a village with history and with what the past bequeaths its descendants to make a good life.

But the town didn’t live off any of that.

Benito Ayala’s village lived off the workers it sent to the United States and off the money they sent back.

The old and young, the few businesspeople, even the political powers became accustomed to living off that. The money was the principal, perhaps only income the village had. Why look elsewhere? The income represented hospital, social security, pension, maternity benefits all in one.

His eyes closed, his arms spread, and his fists clenched, Benito Ayala, stopped for the night on the Mexican side of the river, was remembering the generations of this village.

His great-grandfather, Fortunato Ayala, was the first to leave Mexico, fleeing the revolution.

“This war is never going to end,” he declared one day just before the battle of Celaya, fought there in Guanajuato. “The war is going to last longer than my life. When we all united against the tyrant Huerta, I stuck it out. But now that we’re going to be killing our own brothers, I think it’s better I leave.”

He went to California and tried to open a restaurant. The problem was that the gringos didn’t like our food. Putting chocolate into chicken nauseated them. The restaurant folded. He looked for a factory job because he said that if he was going to bend over to pick tomatoes he’d be better off in Guanajuato. But no matter where he went, the answer was always the same, as if they’d learned a catechism lesson.

“You people weren’t made for factory work. Look at you. You’re short. You’re close to the ground. Bend over, pick fruit and greens. That’s what God made you for.”

He rebelled. He made his way as best he could (mostly by hiding in freight cars and not paying) to Chicago, where he didn’t give a damn about the cold, the wind, the hostility. He found work in steel. Almost half the workers in the steel mill were Mexicans. He didn’t even have to learn English. He sent his first few dollars to Guanajuato. In those days, the mail service still worked and an envelope containing dollars reached its destination at the district capital of Purísima del Rincón, where his family went to pick it up. Twenty, thirty, forty dollars. A fortune in a country devastated by war, where every rebel faction printed its own money, the famous bilimbiques.

Before mailing his dollars, Fortunato Ayala would stare at them a long time, caressing them with his eyes, imagining them made of satin or silk instead of paper, so shiny and smooth. He held them up to a light and stared again, as if to assure himself of their authenticity and even of their green beauty, presided over by George Washington and the God’s eye of the Huicholes. What was the sacred symbol of Mexican Indians doing on the gringo dollars? In any case, the triangle of the divine eye meant protection and foresight, although fatality as well. George Washington looked like a protective grandma with his cottony little head and false teeth.

But no one protected Great-grandfather Fortunato when U.S. unemployment led to his and thousands of other Mexicans’ deportation in 1930. Fortunato departed in sorrow, too, because in Chicago he left behind a pregnant Mexican girl to whom he’d never offered anything but love. She knew Fortunato had a wife and children: all she wanted was his name, Ayala, and Fortunato, resigned to being generous, gave it to her, though somewhat fearfully.