Infinite Country(16)
Some nights the story of Talia’s family in North America crackled and faded as if she’d worn out the reel. On came memories of Perla; the years when the soapy scent of the lavandería filled her lungs, washing her mind and memories away with the rinse.
Talia first noticed her grandmother started calling her Elena. I’m Talia, Abuela, she would remind her gently, because Perla was a prideful woman. Perla also began to call Mauro the name of her absent husband, Joaquín, who was rumored to have been murdered in Cúcuta on his way back to Bogotá a few years after he left for Venezuela, but Perla never forgave him enough for it to feel true. She was only in her fifties when her joints swelled—aging, it appeared to Talia, at warp speed. Elena had wanted to bring Talia to live with her many times over the years. When she was the age to start kindergarten, and each summer thereafter, to begin the new school year. But Talia begged to be left with her grandmother, whose own visa applications were repeatedly denied. Young as she was, Talia understood Perla would not survive without her. Being alone in her country with her family abroad would kill her quicker than the lavandería miasma or the thin mountain air.
Those were years when Mauro was lost to drinking. Years when Talia saw her father only through the doorway because he was too drunk to be let inside. Years when, unwashed and disheveled, he cried at the sight of his baby girl and only turned away after Perla told him it wasn’t right for his daughter to see him in that state. When Perla became ill, Mauro returned for good. He announced he was a new man. He’d seen God or the gods, had conversations with angels and the ancestors. He’d been liberated of his vices and had cast away all his torments. Talia was only eight, but she remembered the vows he offered Elena over the phone as if in ceremony, to care for both her mother and their youngest girl.
She heard the Frenchman’s sudden movements. Felt his footsteps approaching the way she felt the nun’s steps down the hall before she opened the dormitory door and Talia snared her with the pillowcase. Now he was sitting on the mattress beside her. He asked if it was okay if he touched her hair.
There were girls at the prison school who’d slept with many boys and even grown men. They knew how to do all the things they liked: maneuvers they said made men lose their capacity for reason, bragging about it when out of the nuns’ earshot.
She heard him say she was beautiful, though not in the usual way; she had something, an attractive quality, he said, and the jeans he bought looked good on her. He eased the elastic from her hair so it spread over the pillow, thumbing a loose strand from her cheek to her lips.
She thought of the girls on the mountain. People assumed her tough because she’d ended up among them. There were girls who were much stronger. They could have hurt her if they’d wanted. Her only defense was to behave as their equal, unafraid. What would one of those girls do in her place right now? She tried to summon their voices, but the best she could find was her own, faint but firm. “That’s enough.” Her eyes had yet to open, but her tone made him retract his hand, rise from the bed, and return to the sofa.
At some point in the night he came back to the bed as she slept. She woke to his bare groin next to her. Her clothing was unprobed and nothing hurt, so she was fairly certain he hadn’t touched her. She pulled herself from the blanket and tried to step gently over the wooden floorboards so he wouldn’t stir. She picked up the wallet he’d left on the table, examining its contents. A few plastic cards and some cash. His phone required a pass code. She wanted to call her father but had seen too many detective programs where police traced a number in seconds.
In the facility, the therapist pushed the girls to consider past decisions, how a single choice could have irreparable consequences. Talia understood this, but when she thought of the day in the alley by El Campín, she couldn’t remember the moment when she decided she’d go to the kitchen and reach for a bowl of hot oil. The act took hold of her, as unconscious as breathing. Here in the Frenchman’s apartment, however, she experienced at least a few seconds of deliberation before putting on her sneakers, grabbing his wallet and phone, edging out the door and down to the street.
NINE
Talia’s first ride on a motorcycle. Its owner smelled of cigarettes with a touch of cheap cologne. He had smooth arms and a long scar above his beltline that disappeared beneath his shirt. Her thighs spread around his. Her arms circled his waist, and she knew he must have felt her breasts against his back. A peculiar closeness despite the noise of the motor, the heat of exhaust under her feet, wind burning her eyes so she had no choice but to shield her face with his shoulder.
She’d found him by the side of a narrow street back in Barichara after she left the French guy’s apartment. The streets were quiet. She didn’t want to take a chance waiting for a bus, especially when he might come looking for her after waking and realizing he’d been robbed. This guy was straddled over his bike, putting on his helmet, when Talia ran up to him and offered the Frenchman’s phone and everything in his wallet if he could get her out of town.
He inspected the phone and counted all the cards in the wallet slits as if he received such propositions daily. She’d already removed the cash and stuffed it into the crotch of her underwear. He pointed to a government ID. “Can I have this too?”
“Everything.”
“You shouldn’t pick tourists’ pockets. It will give the town a bad name. We depend on their money around here.”