Mario Alberto Zambrano - Loteria

I was sitting by the window with hot chocolate in front of me steaming out of a cup.

“I want to apologize,” she said. “We’re sorry, everyone is very sorry about your notebook. It was very inconsiderate of us and we should’ve asked your permission. We had no right, but I want you to know, Luz, we thought your notebook would help your father. But—”

Silencio .

She didn’t have the balls to explain how wrong she was.

“We’ll never take it again. I promise. It’s yours, and we’re deeply sorry.

“I want to speak to you like a grown-up because I think of you that way, Luz. The way you’ve coped has been more mature than some of the teenagers here. You’re a big girl, and we want you to be protected. Do you understand? It’s important for us to provide a good home for you.”

I know she wanted me to look at her or respond, but I didn’t. I looked down and cleaned the dirt from under my nails.

“Luz, your father has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault of a police officer. The D.A. decided there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with anything else. And that’s good news, Luz. He might, or rather, he could get out of prison in three years and live with you again. You can visit him whenever you want if you stay.”

Silencio .

“Because there is no legal guardian who can take custody of you, and you are an American citizen, we would like to transfer you to Casa de Esperanza . We know your Aunt Tencha has been trying to get her residence permit, but… we have to find you a home. You need someone who’s going to look after you and take care of you. Luz, you can’t live with your aunt here in the United States. She doesn’t have a resident permit, and we’ve been told by immigration that she’s never applied for one. She mentioned you might want to go back to Mexico. Is that true? Would you want to go back to Mexico? If you don’t want to live at Casa de Esperanza , we have decided, for your well-being, to give you the option to return to Mexico with your aunt. But only if you want to. I’m sure your grandfather would love to see you. And you could come back whenever you want and visit your father.”

Más silencio .

“Do you understand, Luz? If you want to go visit Casa de Esperanza , we can arrange that for you. We’re here to help. You know that, right? Do you understand? Do you have any questions?”

The hot chocolate steamed even after she was done talking. Not until it was cold did she get up and leave me alone.

Idreamt of Angelitos negros last night. The movie about the mom who has a black baby girl and hates her because she’s black. Not until the end of the movie does she find out her “real” mom is the black maid she’s had all her life. But in the movie the girl is not even black. They paint her skin with dark makeup and it’s obvious she’s white. There’s a moment in the movie the girl covers herself in flour, and they ask her, “What are you doing?” She says, “I want my mother to love me.” And she makes this pouty expression like Shirley Temple. In my dream I was the actress playing the girl, but I was late for work. I didn’t have time to put the makeup on, so only half of my face was dark and the other light. I didn’t want to get fired, so I ran to the set where we were filming and did the scene anyway. The director said something looked different. Something was off. “No, no, nothing’s off,” I said. “I think you forgot, you said we’d be shooting underwater today. So maybe that’s what it is.” He said, “Oh yeah, let’s move it!” We all packed our things, lights, costumes. Pedro Infante and I talked about where we were going for lunch, hoping this one taco vendor was going to be near the parking lot in his usual spot during break. Then, all of a sudden, we were all underwater and I couldn’t hear at first, let alone see, but we moved through the scene as if it were normal, like if we’d done it before. And down there, the makeup came off anyway, so it didn’t matter. I told the director, “This is so much better, it makes so much more sense,” with bubbles around my face. And he tried to tell me something too, so I leaned in closer to him, but I was talking and he was talking and there were bubbles everywhere. I felt his fingers on my lips like if he were trying to tell me to shut up and listen, but his fingers were thin. And slowly, the bubbles floated away and right in front of me was Mom. She was looking at me, holding my shoulders in place, keeping me still and staring at me like if I were in a fishbowl. There was a white light coming off of her and I started to feel happy, without saying anything at all, just feeling happy because she was giving me tips in a movie I was in, directing me here and there, saying don’t cry so much in this part, don’t move around so much when people say their lines. I nodded at everything she said because I understood, and I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her proud. As I looked at her, all quiet, all still, I saw the dark blue fingerprints around her neck, like two hands wrapped around her throat that had become stained on her skin. And when she saw me looking at them she grabbed my chin and lifted it, then pointed with two fingers to her eyes. Like if to say, “Look here, look up here.” And then we floated to the surface as she slowly disappeared.

Iwrote most of the cards at the center. Now I’m writing La Bandera from a different room. I have three cards left, and I don’t know how it’s helped, but somehow I want to finish. Maybe this was a way for You to listen, which is really like listening to myself. A way for me to go to communion. I have to believe that if I keep playing it will be for something.

After Julia talked to me two days ago, I went to my room and packed my things and went to the office and said, “Julia.”

She was at her desk with her head in her hands.

“Call my aunt,” I said. “I want to go home.”

I’d talked with Tencha and tried to convince her that it would only be for a little while, then we could come back once she got her papers. If we could go, then let’s go. What are we waiting for? She looked at me and swayed, yes, no, yes, no, then said we could go down and stay with Buelo Fermín if that’s what I wanted.

The day we left you’d never know I was there for three weeks. In and out the days went, with those runny eggs in the morning and the television shows, and the other kids screaming. I didn’t leave anything for them to remember me by.

Sometimes I wonder if they told Tencha what they read in my journal. I don’t think they did because I would’ve been able to see it on her face. Or maybe I wouldn’t.

She always said to me, “There’s nothing illegal about him. Es un buen padre .”

And I know he is, but what about me? Am I a good daughter?

Most of the time she was asking questions, “You writing? Did you write something like I told you to?” But she never asked what, not since they took it. Maybe if she’d read it she’d say, “No, No, No, that’s not true.” But that’s what we do, right? We tell our own stories. We have our own tablas .

We were out of the center and I didn’t look back, not even at my desk or that stupid chair. That stupid desk where I built houses of cards and blew them down.