Slash and Burn Read online

  Once, when the first hadn’t yet left, having saved up enough to speak to the second daughter directly or having gotten permission from their parents to call from their home phone, they’d come asking for her number. She’d explained that she couldn’t give it to them, her brother didn’t like her to: someone had called him collect several times and landed him with a hefty bill. She knew they weren’t the sort to do that, but she couldn’t change the kind of person her brother was. She was sorry she couldn’t help. That said, she could pass their message—to call them sometime—along to her daughter. She couldn’t promise anything, because at the moment the girl was awfully busy studying for a very demanding program. She hadn’t quite understood what it was all about because the girl had told her in English, unable to translate. It’s not that she was forgetting her Spanish, just that she couldn’t express in that language any of the things she’d learned in the other. Once, she told them it was the same with affections, that her daughter would never forget them, her dear friends, but that she might develop new affections in which they wouldn’t be able to join her. It had been the case with her, too: her daughter called her less and less. Her brother was the one sharing news of her. He always said that she was well, but that she seemed to be fashioning herself more and more in the North American way, in which kids left home early and led lives their parents knew nothing about. It was a little sad, sure, but that was the price you paid so your daughter could live a different life from the one the country they lived in had to offer. She didn’t want her putting herself in harm’s way, or dying. The neighbors’ daughter didn’t understand why she would put herself in harm’s way, or die. In this country, neither was a woman’s business. Nor did it happen to people from their neighborhood. If anything, a few boys might find themselves recruited into the army, for example if they’d been playing soccer or basketball at odd hours or in neighborhoods of a different class to theirs. And in any case, it wouldn’t be any trouble if they showed their credentials as members of a particular team or an exclusive club, which they generally got from some colonel friend of the family who could provide them with safe passage. Everyone, or almost everyone, had them. And if they didn’t, or if they didn’t have them on them at that moment, they just had to mention the colonel’s surname to be safe from any harm. Either they weren’t taken or their parents collected them from the nearest barracks, with no forms to fill out or broken bones or bruises anyplace on their body. At most, they might be given a military-style haircut and a decent scare that’d keep them away from soccer pitches and unsightly neighborhoods, which their parents appreciated. But women weren’t detained. Except, of course, if they were up to something. Was their friend up to something? No, no. No way. She was a girl and she wasn’t poor. Her parents ran their own business. They were their neighbors. The mother said she’d meant that in wartime things sometimes happened that shouldn’t. Mostly by mistake. Which is why they should always take care of themselves. And never let their guard down, not even in the nice neighborhood they lived in because, when you least expected it, spaces could suddenly be invaded. Best be on the alert and abide by everything their parents said. If they told them to be home by a certain time, they shouldn’t try and negotiate. If they said some person wasn’t good company to keep, they should always avoid them. And they ought to focus on their studies and their future. They’d have a bright one ahead of them, if they didn’t veer off-track or get involved in matters that didn’t concern them, such as the war, which wasn’t an affair for children even though there were many of them fighting in the mountains, knocking down utility poles, or blowing up phone booths across the city, as if it served any purpose other than to start a criminal record and bring their parents shame. Best they stay in their circle of respectable people, untouched by trouble. Best they didn’t call their neighbor’s eldest daughter on the phone either, because, though she may be their daughter, she, like the second girl, was no role model. They shouldn’t turn down any overseas calls, but they should keep them short. So as not to make her feel bad, they could say they didn’t want to incur any expenses, or they could turn the conversation to her sister, ask how she was doing, what interesting things she was up to where she lived. The eldest daughter, following her mother’s orders, fashions a fabulous life story that later won’t mesh with the version of her sister that returns from war. For the time being, though, it isn’t an issue because, deep down, the mother thinks her daughter won’t come back, even though the sister thinks the opposite. This is why she loves her granddaughter so, and why she looks after her as she does after herself and her daughter and the little girl all rolled into one, and why she agrees with her daughter when she decides to help her own girl instead of the daughter of her ex-compañera-in-arms.

  22

  She thought the best thing she could do for her former compañera was to take her daughter to the house of a friend who’d also joined up but had left the ranks of the guerrillas very early on, when the war hadn’t yet turned into the war which the both of them, and many others, had known. Back then, the army didn’t look for boot marks on the feet of young city women, but instead for muddied shoes, the smell of the hills in their hair, and fleas on their bodies.

  They’d never caught that friend because she followed every precaution to the letter and always rolled her socks up to her knees, even though she hated it. Also, she was so skinny that no one imagined she could be part of anything and, what’s more, her innocent little face got her past every checkpoint without question, and without the film she brought down from the mountain for the foreign press ever being found, or being forced to expose each roll before being taken or disappeared.

  They’d gone to the same private school. She was all but a legend there because once, when a group of girls had claimed a pencil case was missing and demanded their teacher, a nun, check the rucksacks of every student in the classroom, they’d found ammunition in hers. She was also carrying a gun, which she managed to get out of the way before her turn came to be inspected, with help from her compañeras in the student organization she was a member of: when they noticed the kids weren’t leaving the classroom at the usual time, they peeked through the window to check everything was all right and were passed a small gun inside a man’s bag that she carried with her. She asked them to please put it in the toilet cistern they called number three—whose water level they’d tampered with—in a way that meant it wouldn’t get wet. She’d collect it after she left the headmistress’s office.

  The ammunition was usually in the same bag, but she was in such a rush to get rid of the gun that the ammunition fell out of its usual place and was spotted by the nun who opened the girl’s cloth rucksack, which was too cheap and shoddy for the girls who taunted her daily during recess and bullied her for being from an area that bore no resemblance to theirs and for participating in activities that weren’t to their liking, and that certainly wouldn’t be to their parents’ liking either.

  That day, the girls had thought they’d find some propaganda tucked among her belongings, a book connecting her to an insurgent group; some reason to have her expelled at last, or to keep her out of the schoolyard for a few days. They thought she ought to go back to the state school where her mother taught and from which she’d transferred to this one. She agreed. She’d already told her mom she wasn’t comfortable there. She knew she was just trying to give her a better future, but she’d rather that future were elsewhere. Her compañeras from the clandestine organization thought so, too. When she’d told them her mother had gotten her a place there, they’d laughed. She’d be taught to talk like a rich girl, they said. Till then, she hadn’t met anyone from that social class, but had always, ever since she was a little girl, had a negative impression of it. She didn’t know why or what it meant to talk like a rich girl until she arrived at that school.

  To be fair, not everyone there was rich, though a lot of them were. Her mother had gotten her a place after taking her older sister, introducing her to the nuns as a girl of
enormous intelligence, and asking them to test her outside the normal schedule. She’d explained that her widowhood and the three shifts she was currently working made it difficult for her to save up money for tuition. She managed to convince the nuns to allow an exception—the classes hadn’t been filled that year—and even made them happy they’d done so when the girl scored highly on a series of tests they put her through.

  After the older daughter made every possible honor roll in a single year, the nuns decided to give her a scholarship. Then the mother told them she had three other daughters just like her. The nuns agreed to extend the same arrangement to the other girls, on the condition she allowed them to represent the school in competitions and attend the relevant training sessions.

  As soon as she signed the paperwork, the girls were made to keep their uniforms perfectly white, their socks rolled up to their knees, and their afternoons free. The girl informed her superior so that her shifts and missions could be adjusted accordingly. Though he didn’t enjoy taking instructions from her, he understood it was the only thing they could do if they wanted to keep her in their cell.

  They’d meet at six in the evening. She in her uniform. At her side, he—a strange man, far older than she was—looked like a pedophile. Some of the girls were excited by the prospect of someone from their school being in a relationship with an older man. Others thought it was inappropriate, and so, after a while, reported it to the headmistress, who dismissed their claim but felt obliged to summon the girl to her office after finding ammunition in her rucksack.

  She didn’t scold her. She asked the girl and her friends, who’d helped her hide the gun, what they were up to and whether they thought it was the best thing for their future. The girl who served as their leader at school defended their position to the best of her abilities and even accused the headmistress of being a reactionary. The headmistress asked if she knew what the word meant. The girl repeated what they’d been told in their meetings: reactionaries were those who opposed the revolution. The nun smiled: she wasn’t opposed. In fact, she was close to members of the church known to support the changes, allowed the groups to organize within their walls, and covered for them however she could. But right then, she had to fulfill her role as headmistress and youth counselor, so she shared some reflections on the current time and their age, all of which fell on deaf ears: every single one of the girls in her office ended up leaving for the mountains to fight.

  She was the first to go. She said that, unlike the others, she couldn’t wait until she finished school: their country’s circumstances called for immediate action. And she left. First to join groups acting in the city, then underground, and finally to the battlefront. There, she was a little like a rich schoolgirl who’d once taken a typing class. At school, she’d been a rebel, and to those other schoolgirls who joined the group operating there, she was a sort of symbol and idol. To the ex-compañera from the demobilization camp, she was a complete role model, and also a mentor. She said she’d always felt inspired and supported by her. She praised her spirit while extolling her energy and devotion to the cause.

  To the girl, however, she seemed like a very calm woman, and too soft for combat. She would never have suspected that she had been part of it. This woman wasn’t like her mother or her neighbors, or like her mother’s former compañera who was hosting her, or like the ex-combatants on TV, or those who now held government positions and appeared in the papers. Maybe it was because she’d left very early on, as the friend said. But she still had her conscience and solidarity. She assured her that only a few had them like she did.

  When the war ended, before going back to her own home, the ex-compañera called in to see this friend of hers to ask what she should do going forward. After asking a few questions, her friend gave her some guidance. She thought that she could now do the same for this girl. That’s why she was taking her there. She knew it would’ve been best if she’d gone of her own free will, but she also knew there could be no free will in ignorance. She thought they had nothing to lose by trying and that the woman wouldn’t turn down the chance to help a former compañera-in-combat, even if they’d never been on the same front or fought at the same time. Because, at the end of the day, she wouldn’t be helping the girl but her mother. And in any case, if it were a matter of helping the girl, she knew she wouldn’t say no. She’d seen her lend a hand to people who had nothing to do with the movement they had been part of. She even knew of cases in which she made men who refused to accept fatherhood and its responsibilities snap out of it and become proud dads and good friends to their kids. If she could have done, she’d have taken her own daughter to get guidance from her, but the girl always refused to do anything she suggested. The other girl, however, immediately accepted.

  In a modest bedroom on their own, she told the woman that she didn’t understand how her first year’s troubles could be happening again, even though she’d studied, tried hard, and done everything asked of her, at home and at university. She didn’t want to believe she was cursed or that it was a matter of fate, like people from her village kept insinuating to her sisters, or that it was as her mother’s friend’s daughter had said: that university wasn’t for everyone, that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for it, and that her best option was to start working at a bakery or somewhere like that. The girl had even suggested she ask for a job at her grandparents’ shop. They wouldn’t be able to pay her much, but she could keep on living with them. Maybe later she could find work as a companion for the elderly.

  Though she wasn’t averse to working or being a companion to people who were terribly nice to her, it wasn’t part of her life plan. The kind woman asked her a series of questions. She was so soft-spoken, the girl sometimes felt as if she were listening to the sea at low tide. And as if, at the end of her journey, she’d reached the shore. She had a destination. For the first time in a long while, she felt calm.

  When she left the room, her mother’s ex-compañera-in-arms felt it, too. She thanked her former compañera-in-school and in-struggle. She said what she’d said before: that she wished she’d never left combat. With her in their troop, they’d have done many great things. Though the friend disagreed, she was grateful for the thought. Now all she asked was that she continue to support the girl as best she could, while the girl made the decisions necessary to allow her to carry on doing what she wanted. The woman promised, and after they got home she spoke with the girl one-on-one, and realized she couldn’t keep her promise without breaking the promise she’d made her mother to look after the girl. The girl had decided not to take the class she’d failed at university a third time. At least, not for now. First, she’d get hold of the money she needed, and only then would she return to complete it.

  The plan didn’t sound all that bad—that is, until she said she was going to look for work overseas.

  News of the city she’d chosen wouldn’t please her mom one bit.

  23

  She had to be told it wasn’t a joke. She didn’t think she could be serious. Her plan of traveling to Paris seemed more harebrained than her plan of joining the police. It was ridiculous. And cruel. Why was she doing this to them?

  She’d asked the same of her brother once, when she was pregnant with her second child and had gone to her mother’s to give birth. After tracking her mom and siblings down to the city’s outskirts, she learned that the boy they’d left behind with her, a young man who now looked a lot like his father, was at the barracks. And not as a cleaner or kitchen assistant, but as a soldier. With the same haircut and posture. With the same uniform, manners, and eyes trained to inspect every corner of a room before entering. With a salary and set days of leave. She said she was ashamed of him, that she couldn’t believe that after all they’d done to their family, their house, and their father, he’d join their ranks.

  Her brothers wouldn’t believe it either. The day they’d set off, leaving him in charge of their mother and sisters, none of them had contemplated the possibility that he mi
ght ever work for the other side. They all thought him dutiful and committed, like them. And he was. He swore he was. He hadn’t gone to the barracks asking to join. No one had asked if he wanted to. They’d just taken him in the same way they took chickens from their coops, then put him in the back of a truck carrying other boys his age and size.

  Some weren’t even with them anymore. They’d fallen in the first skirmish, without anyone there much caring. They were cannon fodder, cheap casualties, practically just a distraction. No one expected them to survive. The army didn’t even teach them the sorts of important things they needed to know so that they could, like their own father had taught them. Had it not been for that, he would also have fallen long ago. He was certain the other side would not, before shooting him down in battle, have asked whether he was there out of conviction or against his will. Even she could have ended him in combat. He was the only one who could look after himself. And that’s what he was doing. He was surviving. Just like they were. Even if that meant joining the army and following their orders.

  Would she have preferred it if he’d been killed for refusing? How would their mother and sisters have gotten by then? What she got from laundering and ironing clothes wasn’t enough. But they could survive on what he earned at the barracks. She couldn’t pass judgment. The rest of them might be off fighting in the mountains, but they never sent any money down to help them with day-to-day expenses. They might be chasing some grand ideal, but, until that ideal arrived, there were bills to pay. He was doing what they’d asked him to do. And they mustn’t forget that they’d been at it for a long time. It was taking them too long to win the war. Hadn’t they said it’d be quick? Hadn’t their father assured them victory was on the horizon?