Some of us, though, were lucky to find someone who would let us work inside, who let us enter her home after she’d taken her kids to school, to clean the laundry, the dishes, the floors and the toilets and the windows, which in the middle of summer was a blessing, since we didn’t have to work in the heat. Some of them didn’t want someone to clean so much as they wanted someone to talk to, and as we listened to the stories they told us, about what kind of furniture they wanted to buy instead of the furniture they had, or about the way they wanted the dishes organized on the shelves instead of the way we had them, or about the renovations they wanted to do for the new baby that was coming—“Pink!” a woman said because she knew it was going to be a girl—we couldn’t help but imagine having a house of our own with our own furniture and our own rooms to renovate so that it would be ready for you when you arrived. But if they caught us moving too slowly, they could see we were thinking these things and they were afraid we had our own imaginations, so they put us to work even more, until eventually, if we didn’t stop daydreaming about you and where you were and how you were doing at school, they would tell us to leave. Some of us worked under the table, which is what they liked to call it. We cleaned plates and spoons all day from breakfast until dinner at diners that were so grimy we would’ve preferred to clean the cabinets and floors, but the manager pointed at us and then to the sink full of dirty dishes and so that’s what we did.
If we didn’t find jobs in the field or in a house or in a diner, we had to find other ways to make money. Being women, we knew what was left for us to do. At first, the fear of selling ourselves was greater than how afraid we were when we came over, but because on the way over we were raped anyway, some of us didn’t see any difference now that we’d been spoiled. Some of us learned how to sell ourselves and pray at the same time so that when it was happening, we were protected by our imaginations. We told ourselves that it was worth it, that God was protecting us, and this way we could get the money we needed to get you back. But some of us didn’t get to choose. Some of us were taken without being paid. Some of us were taken even though we were carrying children. Some of us, after being taken by more than ten men, were left in the back of a building where it was dark, and it wasn’t until the next day when the sunlight struck the spot we were lying in that someone found us. Some of us never woke up to remember, until we got here where we could see you more clearly.
Some of us didn’t make it as far as the end or even the middle. When some of us couldn’t walk anymore because of the slits under our feet from the stones and branches and all the miles of running from the officers, or the bandits, or the gang members, we let the group we were a part of go on without us. When there wasn’t anything to drink or eat, the heat devoured us instead until all turned black and our breath slowly disappeared. Some of us, resting under a tree where we thought we could gain strength, were awoken when a group of boys found us and pulled our limbs apart. The faith we tried to wrap ourselves in could only protect us for so long, until it was torn and tattered and couldn’t cover us anymore.
Some of us fought back. Some of us fought back because we wanted to hold on to our breath and to that glimmer of home we could see past the mountain. We wouldn’t die in vain, we wouldn’t die without you, and we wouldn’t die knowing that hope was as pointless as trying to have God on our side. We weren’t afraid of weapons, guns, knives, or broken glass, or even of acid that some men kept in plastic bottles. And when we did have a weapon, even a screw or a piece of metal or a wooden stick, we used it. We struck at the heads of men who wanted to take us, we struck at the heads of other women who wanted to steal from us, and we struck at the heads of anyone who came near us thinking they could get the better of us. Sometimes we got away, sometimes we won, but most of the time the world turned upside down and the blood made it difficult to see, and the swelling was so tender, and the bruises were so sensitive; we couldn’t do anything but give in, then the blackness came soon before the breath was gone. Some of us grabbed shards of glass and cut our necks because we wanted to take our own lives, even if it meant leaving you forever. Or because we couldn’t face another day of fear. Some of us cut the word SIDA across our breasts so that no one would dare break us down by taking what wasn’t theirs. Some of us were fast, we could run faster than a hundred men, but without water we could only get so far until we collapsed.
But if we did get far enough to a room or street corner where there was a telephone, some of us called. “Are you still going to school?” It was always our second question because we wanted to be proud of you. We were proud of you already, but we wanted more for you. We called and told you stories about the lawns behind the houses, and about the trees you could build houses in, and about your bedrooms we were getting ready for you. All pink. Or all blue. Or all Spider-Man or Wonder Woman or whatever it is you wanted. And about the laboratory of sciences and the library of literature where you would study, because you would still have to study, because someone once told us that an education is a possession to be proud of. We told you how much we loved you, and how soon we would send for you, but that it would take time. It would take time to find the right person to bring you at the right price, because, “Cariño mio,” we said. “Happiness comes at a price.”
All of us wanted to stay longer than we did. All of us repent and regret some of the things we did but wouldn’t change how much we tried making things better for you, because you, cariño mios, were and will always be the reason we were alive to begin with. All of us have wished so many wishes that our wishes are the oceans that embrace you, and even still, we keep wishing. Some of us have asked if wishes and prayers are the same? “Then why are we here?” one of us asks. “It must be because we’re in the spot where wishes and prayers come together.”
None of us could make it as far as our imaginations, not as far as that house with the SUV in the driveway and with you in your bedrooms. None of us can call or write as much as we would like to. None of us can touch you save for those mornings when the mist covers the fields, or when the fog rests on the mountain; or when the wind passes out of nowhere and you see nothing move, nothing, not even a feather on the ground; or when you’re in the middle of a crowd and everyone is screaming to get on the train or pleading for mercy, and in all the cacophony, you hear a silence from somewhere you can’t point to but that you can feel; or when you get an idea, a sensation that seems to come from somewhere else, like two rockets crashing and exploding inside you, one of them from your heart and the other from the ground beneath your feet that rushes up through the snake of your spine and sparks a carnival of light in the sky of your mind. Then maybe, just maybe, we made it after all. Maybe we aren’t as far from you as we think.
But you will have to listen, you will have to listen hard. Some of you will have to listen harder than others because some of you are thick-headed, while others will hear us even before we utter a single word.
All of you, no matter where you are, either at the beginning or somewhere in the middle, will have to keep a lookout, not only for the men and women who look for your breath and money, not only for the train that passes only once in the middle of the night, but for us too. Because even if you can’t see us it doesn’t mean we’re not there. Some of you won’t have the strength to follow our wishes. You’ll have the strength to follow your own. Some of you will be little rebels. Some of you will be as fierce as black birds with red mohawks while some of you will be as indistinguishable as the things that go passing in the night. Some of you will have dreams all your own with your own imagination, with maps that draw the path toward wherever it is you want to go, and no one, not the wind nor the heat nor the men and all of the weapons, not even us, will be strong enough to keep you from it.
