Infinite Country(18)
Mauro appreciated that these stories offered explanations for his being, reminded him there was another land, a better one of divine logic wrapped inside this professed tierra de Colón, that he wasn’t pacing the earth blind as he often felt and Creation provided clues that made paths clearer, as simple as the blackbird song that announces oncoming rain and the whistles of the Andean sparrow that signal the clouds will soon part. And also because they were stories his mother had learned from her parents before leaving their ancestral home in Guachetá to find work in the city, and were the only inheritance she’d left Mauro before pushing him to the streets.
Talia once saw a movie about a dead grandmother who visited her family members from the afterlife. She came to them each night, stood by their beds, and gave instructions and advice for how they should go on in the world of the living without her. When Perla started forgetting, her breath already something she could only hold steady with the help of plastic tubes up her nose, Talia told herself she didn’t need to worry because her grandmother would still come see her after they buried her.
Mauro was living with them for a few years by then. Talia knew she would be safe with him. But she would miss Perla’s face, her voice, the way she talked about Elena and Talia as if they were almost the same person so Talia could feel connected to her mother even though she had no memory of her touch or embrace.
But after Perla died, she never came to see Talia, even as Talia kept vigil and whispered her grandmother’s name until she fell asleep. They celebrated a Mass for her in a church and Talia saved a space for Perla beside her in the pew. She set a plate for her at every meal and cleaned her room as if she might walk through the door at any moment. She recited Perla’s favorite psalms, sang the songs she’d taught her, and when her grandmother didn’t come, Talia sat before the large crucifix hanging in the foyer, staring up at the son of God—his glass eyes, that mane of real human hair—touching the five wounds the way Perla did every day before she left the house.
Mauro told Talia their Muisca ancestors believed the soul leaves the body at death and begins a long journey through gorges and valleys of golden and black soil, crossing wide rivers until it reaches the kingdom of the dead at the center of the earth, beginning a new immortal existence that’s not so different from this mortal life in the upper world.
Talia concluded that her grandmother was still in transit, among the hordes of the world’s newly dead, and if the traffic in the underworld was anything like rush hour in Bogotá, it would take her a long while to arrive. As soon as Perla sat down to rest, she would have time to visit her family.
Since there was no money for a cemetery plot with a proper tomb, Perla was cremated. Mauro sent the ashes to Elena in a package that was lost in the mail for three months before it arrived. During those months, Talia imagined her grandmother’s ashes traveling the world, flying over oceans and jungles and deserts, seeing things they’d only seen on television, the world outside the barrio she’d hardly ever left.
Talia had no idea what her mother did with those ashes. She’d wanted to reserve a scoop for herself, but Mauro said it wasn’t right to divide Perla’s remains, and she belonged more to Elena than to either of them. But Talia thought it was wrong to parcel her away from Colombia, a country she said she’d never leave, even if the gringos granted her a visa, even if her daughter and grandchildren made lives elsewhere. Now what was left of her was already in New Jersey and Talia was the last of her family line in the Andes.
There was a girl at the prison school who called herself an espi-ritista, claiming she could cast spells and speak to the dead, and if a girl gave her their portion of dinner, she would cook up an hechizo or call upon whichever ancestor they wanted. She was fat from getting everyone’s rice and potatoes, but most of the girls only wanted her to harm people they felt wronged by in life—relatives, rivals, the judges who sentenced them. One night Talia gave the girl her whole slab of pork, tough as plastic, but she would eat anything. Later, in their dormitory, Talia told the girl to bring Perla to talk to her. The girl closed her eyes, recited some nonsense words, and said Talia’s grandmother would appear to her that night in her dreams.
It didn’t happen. When Talia complained the next morning, the girl swore her grandmother had appeared to her, she just didn’t remember it. “The memory of her visit will come to you in the future,” the girl said. “Be patient.”
If they’d been in the outside world, Talia might have smacked the girl. But since they were already locked up, all she could do was wait.
* * *
In the bathroom at a roadside restaurant near Oiba, Talia pulled some cash from her underwear. When she came out, she went to the counter and bought two sodas and empanadas. She found Aguja in the parking lot polishing the handlebars of his moto and gave him one of each.
He sipped from the can. The liquid turned his top lip orange. “You said you would tell me why you’re in such a hurry once I got you out of Barichara.”
“I have a flight to catch.”
“Where to?”
“The United States.”
“Why?”
“My mother lives there with my brother and sister. They’re waiting for me.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Over there people walk into schools and buildings with weapons and kill everyone. They’re not even guerrilla or paramilitary. Just regular people. What are you going to do when you’re out shopping and some gringo points a machine gun at your forehead?”