Beyond What Separates Us, page 2
It was slow-going, as I was intently listening for any sound or movement that would indicate I’d been caught, but the only sound was the wind in the trees and the occasional bird. Finally, I made it to the top of the hill and a street that ran parallel to the top of the valley. There were many side streets filled with buildings, the likes of which I’d never seen. There was the occasional tall structure here and there, but most were short houses, only one or two floors, all detached from each other, some caved in on themselves, with no uniformity of colour or design. Each had a little road beside it or in front. Some had these things made of metal on them. Then I remembered what they were even though I’d only heard stories. They were cars, used by previous generations to get from place to place.
I wanted to explore more, but I was getting more and more nervous the farther I went. Plus, it was really late and if I didn’t get back in time to catch the last tram, I would have to walk all the way across my zone to get home, increasing the chances of running into a Civic Guardian who would ask me what I was doing out at that time.
There was no curfew in the zone, but people were suspicious, and I was a terrible liar. Once in high school, I’d gone to a party and walked home really late. I was stopped by a Civic Guardian who asked if I was lost and why I wasn’t in bed. I told him I was heading to my place from a friend’s house. The whole time I was shaking and could barely get any words out. He asked me what quadrant and transect I lived in, and I started to cry. I was seventeen. The Civic Guardian was so freaked out that he’d simply said, “Kid, grow up and run home.” That was the first time I spoke to a Civic Guardian.
I was twenty-six when I snuck into the no-go zone. I didn’t know what I’d do if a Civic Guardian caught me there. I’m sure long sessions of psychoanalysis would be in the future of a grown man who peed his pants. I could only hope that if I got caught again, the more pathetic I seemed, the greater the likelihood they’d just let me go.
That night I crossed the river, I was about to turn and run back home, when I saw a light at the end of one of the side streets. It looked almost like a fire, but controlled. Civic Guardians wouldn’t make a fire. Still, I got so scared that I ran back to the river, barrel-rolling down the hill and almost falling into the water. I made it back to the other side, climbed up the hill to the lit paths and ran, as casually as I could, to the nearest tram station. I made it back home, my heart still racing, and stayed up half the night, expecting a knock at the door. When no knock came, I settled in with the biggest grin on my face.
Four
Paraiso, Colombia
No, don’t take her … I’ll kill you if you hurt her … Come back Alejandra, please. Where are you?
A face came out of the dark, smirking. It wasn’t a friendly or kind face, but an evil one. Other times, people with no faces were holding me while she was hurt, and I couldn’t do anything. Still, sometimes we were together and the sun was shining.
My dreams woke me up most nights.
One night, I had a very bad dream. I lay sweating and crying out for Alejandra, my sister. Senora Vasquez, the woman I lived with, quietly approached me, looking unsure of how to comfort me. We shared a small hut on the edge of a village called Paraiso, near a cool and clean stream. My room was small but private with a straw mat and wool blankets on a wood-plank floor. There was a three-drawer dresser in the corner.
I got up off the mat and grabbed Senora Vasquez for comfort. I was crying, pleading for the memories to stop. She led me to one of the two chairs in the common space between our rooms. The only other items we had were a table, a stove and some shelves with pots, dishes and glasses. Senora Vasquez put the kettle on the stove. “I’ll make you some tea to help you sleep. Miguel, would you like to tell me more? Sometimes it makes a person feel better to share a story.” Senora Vasquez sat in the other chair looking at me with her kind eyes. She had long, straight, grey hair, which she kept pulled back. She was a short woman with few wrinkles for someone her age.
That night, I told Senora Vasquez a happy story.
Alejandra and I were playing hide-and-seek with some other kids in the hills above the slum. I was at least seven; Alejandra a year older. We had chores to do but were having fun instead. Abuela would be mad when we got home.
I was climbing a rocky and steep portion of a cliff. Alejandra was hiding in a tree nearby. I wanted to get higher than Alejandra for a better view. She yelled for me to be careful. My hand slipped from one of the rocks and I fell from the cliff and cut my leg open. I was crying a lot, sitting on the ground, grasping the cut and rocking back and forth. It hurt so much. There was so much blood. Alejandra ran over, telling me it would be okay. She kneeled beside me, ripped a portion of her shirt off and tied it over my leg. She sat on the ground beside me, holding my bloody hand, pointing out across the city below. Alejandra told me to look at the mountains in the distance, the birds overhead, the fluffy white clouds. I started to calm down. Alejandra squeezed my hand tighter. “I did tell you to be careful,” she said. Then she picked me up, but she couldn’t carry me far. She got one of the older boys to come help, and he carried me back to our place. Alejandra cleaned my wound and bandaged it, telling our abuela not to worry. She kissed my forehead and hugged me. It was a happy memory.
“Thank you for sharing that story with me, Miguel,” Senora Vasquez said.
I finished my tea. “I’m going to go back to bed. Good night, Senora Vasquez.”
“Sweet dreams.”
The next morning there was a package on the table with my name on it. “What’s this?” I asked Senora Vasquez, who was preparing breakfast.
“A gift. You’ve been in Paraiso for four years now. Open it.”
Inside the cloth package were two ink pens and a brown leather book with mountains drawn in gold across the bottom. The pages in the brown leather book were empty.
“Your writing has improved so much. I thought you could use a nice new journal.”
I walked over to Senora Vasquez and hugged her. “Thank you.”
I took my gift to the garden and started writing.
It has been four years since I left Bogotá. My seventeenth birthday must have been sometime in the last few weeks. In Paraiso we pay attention to the seasons, not the days. My abuela used to throw me a birthday party every year sometime after the start of the new year. Senora Vasquez celebrated the anniversary of me coming to Paraiso instead.
For four years, she has been my teacher and friend. She taught me to read and write. When I first arrived in Paraiso I would help gather food and tend the crops. Then I helped building shelters and repairing things. Now I help with the water.
The village is on the edge of a mountain stream with a small dam for electricity. The dam also moves water to a few narrow channels the villagers have dug to water crops. One of the channels leads to a cement pool where villagers get water for cooking, cleaning and drinking.
Life before Paraiso was hard. We never had enough to eat in the slums. My body always felt empty and weak. And even as small children, we had to hunt through the scrap piles for anything of value. Metal, pieces of wood, anything that could be burned. Or we went to the fields to collect food, which others would get most of.
Alejandra and I lived in our abuela’s apartment on the top floor of a concrete block connected to a long row of other blocks. We had no windows, and the roof was made of tarps and sheet metal. We had no electricity or running water, only an outdoor firepit for cooking and rain barrels for water. Our toilet was a hole in the ground attached to a pipe that ran to a gutter at the back of the building.
The building we lived in seemed to cling to the steep cliffs. When the heavy rains hit, we never knew if our home would fall to the valley below. The roads were broken cement and dirt, and we used bicycles and mules to get around. The fields were higher up on the hills, where people grew what they could. My abuela washed, fixed and made clothes. The old men worked the fields or fixed buildings. Once the girls reached a certain age, they would go missing. The others would work the fields. Boys were runners, taking messages and supplies from place to place for the gangs. When boys got old enough, they became soldados in the gangs. Soon they would be carrying guns and doing jobs for the gang boss. Our dad was in the gangs and died when I was very young. Our mom did drugs. We rarely saw her. By the time I was eight, it had been a couple of years since we’d seen her.
Senora Vasquez let me lie in the garden writing all that day. I should have been helping the other villagers, but she told me it was a special day and I could relax. It still took me a while to see the words in my mind and put them on paper. It was late in the afternoon when Senora Vasquez returned to the hut.
“Miguel, come inside and help me with dinner.” I closed the journal and went to help. “I’m going to make you ajiaco. Can you get some water to cook the rice and make the broth? I’ll start cutting up the vegetables.” I grabbed one of our buckets and headed to the pool. Ajiaco was one of my favourites. In Bogotá, we could only have it with corn and potatoes. In Paraiso, the soup had corn, potatoes, rice, avocado, lemon and fresh herbs. I returned with the water. “Thank you, Miguel. Now, you sit. I’ll do the rest. This is your special day. Tell me a story.”
“I was thinking about the day Alejandra was taken.”
Senora Vasquez moved from the stove to the table to chop the rest of the vegetables. I sat holding my journal close, staring at the floor.
“I was nine … I think, when the soldados came for her. We were helping our abuela make dinner. Probably ajiaco…”
Senora Vasquez took the chopped vegetables and dropped them into a pot on the stove. “Go on, Miguel. I’m listening.”
“Four large and mean-looking soldados came up to the roof where we ate. Some of the old women from the building were with us. The soldados took the food off our plates and started eating it.”
Senora Vasquez was back at the table, preparing some nice-smelling herbs. She took a piece to taste.
“My abuela shouted at them, ‘What do you want?’ One of them pointed at Alejandra. Two others grabbed her and dragged her toward the stairs.”
Senora Vasquez stopped what she was doing and focused on me.
“Alejandra was screaming and calling for my abuela. I ran for her, but one of the soldados hit me across the face and I fell to the ground. My abuela came to me. They were all gone. The other old women were crying. My abuela picked me up and sat in a chair, rocking me in her lap and singing a song I can’t remember…” I closed my eyes, trying to hold back tears. The soothing smell of the soup was filling the room.
“What happened after that, Miguel? Take your time.” Senora Vasquez was stirring the ajiaco.
“The next day, I asked my abuela where they took Alejandra. She just said, ‘Beautiful girls all end up in the same place’ and kept sewing.”
Senora Vasquez brought me a glass of water, putting it on the table in front of me and placing her other hand on my shoulder. Then she went back to the stove.
“Gus, our neighbour, I asked him where beautiful girls go. He told me I don’t want to know and that I should forget Alejandra. I just stared at him, kicking the dirt. He asked me to help him fix the wheel on a cart. I held the wheel while he changed some screws. Gus told me girls like Alejandra became property of the gangs. I told him I didn’t understand. Gus said I was too young and to keep my head down and do my chores, and to listen to my abuela…” Senora Vasquez was still stirring the soup and the pot of rice.
“I screamed at Gus, saying I hated my abuela because she let them take Alejandra. He hit me on the top of my head, telling me to never say that again. He told me that he was friends with my abuelo…. My abuela never talked about her husband. Gus told me he died years before I was born. He fought against the gangs and was killed. Gus looked sad and told me to go help my abuela.”
Senora Vasquez brought me a bowl of the soup and a plate of rice. “Gus was right. All you could do was help your abuela. I’m sure she was just as heartbroken as you when Alejandra was taken.” Senora Vasquez sat at the table with her own meal. “Would you like to share any more?” I shook my head, taking my first spoonful of soup. “Do you like it?” Senora Vasquez asked.
I nodded. “It’s very good … thank you.”
Later that night, I opened my journal and began writing again.
A week after Alejandra was taken, I was made a runner. Each day I would bring clean water from the spring higher up in the hills to the compound of the gang boss in our slum. I couldn’t carry full buckets at first and it was far up and down steep hills between the compound and the spring. Each time I came back with half-filled buckets, the soldados at the gates would hit me and tell me to bring back full ones next time.
There was a huge wall all around the compound, with guard towers that had large guns poking out of them. Inside the walls, there were a few houses. I could only peek inside from the gates and wonder what the buildings were like inside. They were made of the same stuff without holes or tarps. They didn’t look like they could fall over with a strong rain or wind. There were even bigger guns on the roofs of some of the buildings. There were big black vehicles, too. Sometimes the soldados would drive them around the slum to scare everyone. I hated the people in that place.
I wasn’t alone on my water runs. There were a few other boys older than me that did it as well. Most of the time, we did our work in silence, but we were a team. Javier was the oldest and biggest. He would sometimes help me carry my buckets. After my first month, I managed to return most of my buckets almost full. The soldados hit me less at that point. Each day, we would go up and down with two buckets each. We had to make the run at least five times a day. No one was allowed to take water from the spring except runners from the compound. It was guarded day and night by soldados.
One day, I asked Javier why they made us do this. Why couldn’t they get water a different way?
Javier just said at least we were well fed.
About a year after Alejandra had been taken away, I was ten and very strong for my age. Javier was about to turn thirteen and was very sad. I didn’t understand why, but the other runners seemed to.
We were on our way down the hill one day, when gunfire broke out near the compound. Most nights we would hear gunfire, but it seemed to always be in a distant slum and never during the day. Javier yelled at us to get off the path and follow him. We crept down until we reached a ledge, where we could see the compound. The large guns in the guard towers were firing toward one of the other slums. A couple of vehicles were on fire in the road in front of the gate. The vehicle closest was all melted metal. The gates were black and bent, and there were bodies all around. Other vehicles were moving toward the compound, firing at the towers. Dozens of men were going in and out of buildings at the side of the road.
The soldados guarding the spring were running down the path to our right and didn’t see me and the other boys. More were running down the main road from our own slum, charging at the other men. Black smoke floated into the sky. All I could smell was burned rubber. I heard guns, screams and bullets hitting metal and cement. The largest vehicle from the compound forced its way out of the gate, running over the bodies in the way. Other smaller vehicles followed after with dozens more soldados. The attackers were shot down as they ran away.
When the shooting sounded far away, we left the bushes and went down the path with empty buckets. Some of the soldados left at the gate spotted us and told us to help them clean up the mess and bodies. Others went from building to building in the direction the attackers came from.
We cleared the area around the gatehouse and made two piles of bodies on the opposite side of the road, one with the attackers and one with soldados from our slum. Our soldados wore black shirts with two rifles crossed in red. The attackers wore red shirts with a pile of white skulls.
Later, the vehicles from the compound returned with soldados from our slum dragging prisoners in chains. The prisoners were lined up in the middle of the road. By now, old men and women taking a break from their chores stopped to see what had happened. Young women with very few clothes and lots of jewellery were standing around some of the nicer buildings just outside the compound. Children younger than us were also there. There were about forty prisoners. Most of them looked not much older than Javier.
The gang boss came out to address the crowd. I only caught sight of him once in the last year. He was a tall man. Shaved and muscular and he wore blue army clothes. The rest of his soldados wore their black shirts with green army pants. He was mad that the attackers tried to kill him. He called them weak vermin and cowards. All of the soldados from our slum booed. Then the gang boss said he couldn’t be killed so easily. And their territory was ours now and their people would be our slaves.
Two of his soldados dragged out a corpse with rich clothes. It was headless. Another soldado handed the gang boss a canvas bag.
The boss said the corpse would feed the pigs, but the head would be on his wall. Then he pulled the head out of the bag so everyone could see it. The soldados cheered and fired their guns into the air, but the crowd was quiet.
The boss shoved the head back into the bag and tossed it to one of his soldados. He asked what we should do with these surviving vermin. He said they can’t be trusted.
All the soldados started cheering and shouting, Death, death, death…
The gang boss nodded at the soldados guarding the prisoners. The prisoners were forced to their feet and dragged in front of a brick wall in plain view of everyone. The gang boss yelled, Fire! All the soldados fired at the same time. It was so loud. Then silence. The men lay in pools of blood, now with holes and red stains. The crowd lost interest and began to move off.
A soldado pointed at us and told us runners to get back to work.
As the gang boss was headed back into the compound, a woman walked out and grabbed his arm. She looked like an older version of Alejandra. I had a strange feeling it was my mother.
