Erased Faces (9 page)

“For now, rest and get used to your new base. Tell me what you need, and I'll see that you get it. I'll show you what we do tomorrow.”

Adriana gazed at Juana. She again felt a strong pull toward her, compounded now by a sense that something dangerous was about to unleash itself on the camp. She hesitated, not knowing if she had the right to ask, fearing that her question might sound like prying. After a few moments of wavering, she spoke up.

“Juana, what's happening?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I felt that something was wrong from the first moments with the group. The
compañeros
appear apprehensive.”

Juana, with her usual directions, did not delay her answer. She looked at Adriana, head tilted to one side, allowing her face to show her thoughts. “Two policemen were killed. It was a brutal murder. They were mutilated and cut into pieces. Now the
catxul
blame our people; thirteen men from the canyons have been arrested. We have no doubt that they will be tortured and killed.”

Juana's terse words had a deep effect on Adriana. She understood that the violence she had feared was already staring at her with unblinking eyes. Despite the little knowledge she had of the insurgents and her lack of awareness of their plans, she knew that they were at a crossroad.

“The Bishop has called for a rally. It's to take place up there, in the canyons,” said Juana, jutting her jaw, pointing in an upward direction.

Then Juana tapped Adriana's shoulder to let her know that she had nothing more to say. She turned and walked away, heading for the center of the compound.

Adriana stood looking at her until she disappeared into a hut. She wondered if Juana was experiencing a similar inner turmoil. In her mind, Adriana examined every detail, every gesture of Juana's, trying to discover a hint of what the woman thought of her, felt for her, but only the sensation of Juana's arms around her as she fell asleep prevailed.

Intense heat and humidity had now taken hold of the jungle. Adriana felt sweat seeping through her clothes and socks. She tried to put aside her discomfort as she rummaged through her backpack looking for her note pad. When she found it, she went to the small table and began to record her thoughts, observations and feelings.

She noted the impact Juana was having on her and the confusion that was gripping her, as well as the unaccountable joy she was experiencing. With equal detail, she noted her fears and her admiration for the fierce determination she had detected in the insurgents. When she finished, Adriana reread her notes and absentmindedly mouthed a faint
yes
.

She sat at the rickety table for a while, allowing her thoughts to focus on the insurgents. Like vivid photographs, each face was etched in her mind, and she again felt apprehensive, understanding the magnitude of their mission. Again, Adriana wondered if she had the courage to be a part of it.

With that weighing heavily on her mind, she moved to the cot, bent over and untied the laces of her boots. Putting one foot on her knee, she grunted and struggled to pull off her drenched socks and heavy shoes. Adriana sighed with relief as she wiggled her toes in the air.

She got to her feet and began peeling off clothing: canvas vest, khaki shirt and pants, bra, panties. She stood naked for minutes, letting the sweat evaporate off her body. Then she reached into the backpack and pulled out a long shirt, put it on and went out, making her way up the stream to the waterfall. There she took off her shirt, slid
down the grassy bank and waded in toward a small pool of clear, swirling water. Heavy mist covered her, drenching her hair and skin, relieving her of the extreme heat her body had been experiencing.

Adriana dove down to discover that the bottom was several feet below. Resurfacing, she surrendered to the swirling emerald-colored water, face uplifted, arms and legs outstretched as she floated listlessly, allowing the current to swivel her in repeated circles. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, enjoying the pleasure of weightlessness, feeling the watery caress on her breasts and thighs. She looked up at the mahogany and
ceiba
trees, their branches and leaves meshed into a plush, green-black canopy above her. She narrowed her eyes taking in the colors: deep green, amber, black, emerald, yellow, orange. She was dazzled by the jungle that teemed with butterflies, birds and flowers. Everywhere she looked there was dampness, richness, beauty. She closed her eyes and listened to the roar of the cascade and the incessant cacophony of the forest. Her body and soul floated. Adriana remained there for a long while as her mind filled with Juana's image, her own struggle with feelings of abandonment, and her new life among the insurgents.

Juana's body was limp as it surrendered to the curve of the hammock where she had lain awake during the long hours of night. The storm had passed; only the echo of thunder rumbled as it crashed against the distant mountains. The camp was silent except for the repeated whistles of sentries, signaling that the compound was secure.

She felt a breeze whip under the hammock, lifting moisture sucked from the dampened jungle floor. There were gaps in the
palapa's
thatched roof, and through them, Juana's eyes gazed high above at the blackened canopy of entangled
ceiba
and mahogany trees. Her vision was riveted on the treetops, but her mind was concentrated on the impending crisis facing the insurgents. She closed her eyes, trying to capture some moments of rest, but from deep behind her lids Adriana's face emerged.

Juana shivered, making her think that rain had dripped onto her through the thatching, wetting her shoulders, or perhaps her hips. She ran her hands up and down her body, examining, touching, but found that she was dry. She sighed, realizing that it had been Adriana's image that had made her shudder.

Easing herself back into the hammock, Juana wrapped her arms around her head. With her eyes closed, she contemplated the sentiment she had never before experienced. She turned on her side, curling in on herself, unable as yet to understand what she was feeling, yet clinging and yielding to its allure because it brought her solace and serenity.

Juana sighed deeply and closed her eyes; she forced herself to think back on her life, hoping to discover in her past a similar sentiment, one that would explain what she was now feeling. Memories quickly wrapped themselves around her thoughts, transporting her back to her childhood.

Juana Galván labored under the burden of woven shawls,
huipiles
and sashes piled high on her back. The bundle was secured by a band strapped around her forehead, and except for her bare feet, her diminutive figure was nearly obscured by the huge pile. Dawn had just broken. Streaks of sunlight were cutting their way through the narrow stone passages of San Cristóbal de las Casas, past colonial façades, wrapping church spires and bell towers in a golden shroud.

She had just turned fourteen, but Juana had been doing this work since before she could remember. Every Wednesday, she and her mother made their way from the outskirts of the city towards the open market, where they would set their wares on blankets stretched out on cobblestones. There they would spend most of the day, selling what the women of the tribe had fabricated.

The city and the surrounding valleys had been lashed by a storm the night before, transforming the streets and plazas into muddy streams. The heat, churned up by the tropical rain, was already rising, and Juana felt sweat sliding its way down her back, dripping to her ankles. The temperature intensified as the women trudged past the Zócalo, a vast square dominated by the cathedral. As she walked, Juana turned to the left to catch a glimpse of the distant sierra, almost always shrouded in thick clouds. She then turned to the right, trying to see the top of the huge crucifix planted in the center of the square, but the weight on her back kept her from raising her head and eyes. It was easier for her to trace its shadow, which covered nearly all of the plaza. She felt a slight shudder because, just as everyone else did, she knew it to be the place where people had been flogged by the
patrones
up to just a few years before.

She followed her mother as she made her way around corners and past alleyways. After a while, she stopped to catch her breath. When she looked up, Juana saw that her mother had also stopped and was leaning against her goods. The girl didn't have to wait to be told to put down her load. Together mother and daughter rested on top of their colorful mounds, each breathing deeply, knowing that they still had a way to go before reaching the stalls of the
mercado
.

After a few minutes of rest, a smile spread across Juana's face. She felt a sudden surge of playfulness overcome her when she saw that the fringe of her mother's rebozo, which encircled her waist, dangled behind her almost dragging to the ground. Juana giggled softly to herself, remembering the many times her mother had scolded her in disapproval of the pranks she often played on her sisters and the other village girls.

In spite of the threat of a reprimand, Juana found that she could not resist giving into temptation, so she crept over behind her mother's back and softly, silently, took the fringe of the shawl and wrapped it tightly around the cord that bound the bundle on which her mother sat. Then, even more stealthily, while struggling to smother her laughter, Juana moved back to her own things and waited.

Soon enough her mother tried to get to her feet, only to be yanked back onto her haunches. She struggled again only to have a repeated force pull her back down. She jerked and squirmed, jiggling her legs, until she finally understood. She smiled to herself and relaxed, but not before snapping her head in Juana's direction, shattering the girl's self-control as she burst out in a fit of laughter that doubled her over in cramps. Juana's laughter was so filled with girlish mischief and mirth that it infected her mother, who joined her, laughing first softly with a closed mouth, then in a loud, wide-open belly laugh.

Mother and daughter laughed without restraint, so much that other people stopped whatever they were doing, and they, too, chuckled without knowing exactly why they were laughing. All this was happening in front of the Church of Santo Domingo, where people were rushing up the steps to make it in time for early mass. Even those men and women stopped in their tracks and joined in the fun.

As Juana wiped tears from her cheeks, she gazed silently at her mother, wishing that they could be that happy always. But when she saw her face return to its usual sad expression, Juana realized that it had been only a brief moment that would soon disappear. Trying to dispel that thought, Juana looked upward at the imposing façade. She could not remember the number of times she had stood in that place, looking up in that way, always feeling the same astonishment. Each time she was drawn by the ornate stonework, the niches, the statues of saints. She looked at it not because she found it beautiful, but because of intense curiosity and because it helped her forget her mother's unhappy face.

She wondered how it was that an artisan could carve a piece of stone until it looked like a
patrón
, the owners and bosses of the haciendas. Even the winged figures looked like the women of the haciendas and city mansions. How could it be, she asked, that a stone nose could be chiseled to look like one of a mestizo? The same happened with eyes, chins, mouths, hands. As always, she wondered what those statues and stone robes concealed. Was the body of a man or a woman under that rock? Since Juana had never seen the body of a white person, woman or man, she could not know how they might look; so she wondered.

Suddenly, the bells of the church began to ring, calling people to mass. The metallic clanging was so loud that Juana felt its vibrations tug at her hair and pound on her chest. She looked over to her mother, who had freed her rebozo, and saw that she was already on her way to the stalls lined up behind the church. She got to her feet and struggled with her load until she balanced it on her back. In a few moments she caught up to her mother, shuffling briskly as she watched her point repeatedly toward the church.

Our people built that church with the sweat of their bodies
.

Juana silently mouthed what she knew her mother was saying as she pointed at the church with a short, skinny finger. The thought of women toting stones instead of shawls made Juana grateful that priests no longer ordered such places to be constructed. The image of stooped women abruptly halted her, and she envisioned the people
who had been forced to build that church. Without thinking, Juana let the bundle slip off her shoulders as she recalled a story her mother often told.