She skip- skip- skipped over black asphalt, silvery-gray patent leather shoes blinking bemusedly up at her. She nudged the toes of her shoes up against the seam of the vereda, where the asphalt was rouged with bright, rusty-red dirt.
Mamá was calling, calling from the house, m’ija, m’ija, come here, you know it’s not safe, not safe at all, come back inside. The words tugged against her throat, leashed her to the black of the asphalt; and she reluctantly moved back to the casa, back to Mamá, to safety.
Ratatata, ratatata, ratatata, the machine guns chittered happily in the afternoon air with their telltale calls, but she ignored them, picking up the worn white jump rope--itsy bitsy spider, itsy bitsy spider climbing up the stairs, itsy bitsy spider climbing up the stairs, she chanted the words to herself. Tijuana that sat, fussing like a anxious child, far below her little world. The crackling calls of violence carried on in the background, somewhere over the stucco wall and the neatly lined palm trees, echoing around the tightly chaotic streets of the city.
She could see Mamá in the window, face anxious and pinched as she stared out at the garden. Mamá, the little girl thought, did not understand the glory of summer air, of a clear blue sky, of a sly breeze kissing naked knees, of a world without walls. Mamá would spend all her time inside if she could, scared of her own shadow; she was content to knead dough for the tamales and work the pestle until her knuckles bled.
Cooking was her labor of love for her family; for the girl-child, so unlike her Mamá, for her husband, loyal and ethical to a fault, for everyone she loved. Nothing calmed her so much as working the pestle and meditating on the faint sounds of war echoing across the valley where they lived.
The girl-child stepped into the cool of the hacienda and Mamá looked down at her.
“M’ija, you must stay closer to the house. It is dangerous now, the narcos are looking for little girls like you.”
Narcos again, like bogeymen hiding in the dim alleyways of the slums of the city. “I don’t want to stay in the house all day.” A slight whine touched her throat, and Mamá looked stern.
“That’s enough,” Mamá pointed to the living room. “Be a good girl and read a book. I never have any problems with your older sister.”
“Please, Mamá, let me go to the park, just one time. One time, please!”
“No. Go sit down.”
“Mamá!”
“M’ija, I said no. Read your book.”
“I don’t like to read books, Mamá. I want to go outside! I want to go to the park.”
“It’s too dangerous. Sit down, be a good girl.”
The girl knew it was useless to argue further; Mamá had that look about her, all cold and hard around the edges. The girl did not know that that look was fear. Mamá was never afraid, she thought-- the same bright-eyed belief all children bring with them to the world. The invincibility of Mamá was ironclad in the little girl’s head.
Her head drooped as she turned; she dragged the dingy white rope behind her. The dust from the drought had stained it pink where it had repeatedly slapped against the ground. The little girl threw herself into an uncomfortable chair. She sat improperly, knowing her mother would turn and see her soon, and tell her to sit up. Her shiny silver-gray shoes were streaked with dust. Mamá would notice for certain.
She murmured the skipping song to herself. “Itsy bitsy spider, climbing up the stairs another time. Boom! It fell down! Itsy bitsy spider climbed the stairs again; boom! It fell down, fell down.” She scowled at the clean, textured white of the stuccoed wall.
“Sit properly, m’ija, don’t slouch. What would your father say if he were here?” Mamá looked at her through careworn eyes, pushing dark, chocolate-colored hair out of her face and wiping her hands on her apron.
“He is not here,” the girl muttered quietly. “He is never here.”
But a mother’s ears are tuned to hear the beginnings of mutinous thoughts.
“What did you say, m’ija?” Mamá’s eyes were dark and piercing.
“Father is never here.” The girl’s mother winced; not Papá, but Father. The girl-child was growing up alone. Growing up without the father that loved her and sacrificed everything to keep her safe from harm.
“Your father is an important man. He keeps everyone safe,” Mamá turned back to the counter, to the pestle. “Do not be upset with him. It is not his fault you cannot go to the park. It is too dangerous, m’ija.”
“Mamá, please. Listen to me!”
“I am listening, but the answer is still no, child.”
“Please, Mamá,” the girl implored, all big eyes and pathetic demeanor. “Just the park, it’s so close, there are no narcos here.”
It had been nearly three months since any of them had left gated walls of the hacienda, and it was taking its toll. Even the servants stayed inside the high walls of the hacienda, allowed out only on their days off. The care that was taken to ensure the security of the family was stifling, but necessary. The girl’s father fought the narcos with everything he had; he was a good man and a good father, but Mamá sometimes wondered if his choice to have a family was not a selfish one. Especially as she sat looking at the morose child thrashing restlessly about the hacienda, pacing the walls, begging for freedom.
Mamá looked at the little girl, really looked. She had been to the zoo once in her childhood, in a far-away city that seemed to her to be completely alien. There she had seen animals in cages; watched them pace around tiny enclosures and yowl in frustration and tear at their fur, watched the slow descent into madness, into bitterness and anger. Children and animals were not so different, she decided; incapable of understanding the reality of imprisonment, even if imprisonment is the best-- the only-- solution. The little girl was so tiny, with scuffed shoes and disheveled clothing, but there was a desperate kind of energy emanating in waves from her very core, so tangible it was making her little frame tremble.
“Only the park,” Mamá told the girl, watching the tension drain from her body. “One hour, m’ija.” One hour.
The girl leaped to her feet, swinging her sheet of dark hair down her back. “Thank you, Mamá, thank you so much.”
Mamá walked back to the kitchen, filled with trepidation. The masa felt rough under her fingers as she rolled the dough.
The little girl tripped through the sunshine and disappeared out the gate, heavy hair and battered jump rope trailing her. Mamá could hear her chanting as she trotted away.
“The itsy bitsy spider fell down, and along came a big fat toad who ate it up,” she trilled in her elation. There was the clatter of wood against asphalt, and the jump rope lay forgotten, limp against the hot black of the vereda. Mamá sank into a well-worn chair, head in hands, resigned to worry for the duration of the hour.
The girl-child walked along the dusty road that wove down the high hill where the hacienda sat overlooking the valley. At one time, it had been a wealthy area, full of well-to-do families that could afford the best homes and the best schooling for their children. But then the war had started, although no one wanted to call it a war; it was narcos, it was drugs and drug violence and the associated terror; it was not a war, they said.
Not a war.
But then the beheadings started, and Mamá thought the girl-child didn’t know. But the girl knew; she had heard from her classmates before she had stopped going to school. She remembered the look on Mamá’s face the day she told her that she could not go to school anymore; it was the cold-hard look her Mamá had had today. She had heard it from the hushed whispers that her parents shared in the hallways and around corners. The girl-child could be quiet when she wanted, quiet like a mouse; she knew how to hide. She knew where to hide. If the narcos came they would never find her, she knew. Mamá did not know how to hide like she did. She remembered their conversation.
“We cannot take her out of school, this is her future. Please, love.” Her mother was pleading, angry.
“Seventeen bodies found today, all decapitated. No heads.” Her father was grim. She could only see half his face, his mouth set and jaw clenched. “I do not want to sacrifice her education. But I do not want to bury my child.”
Her mother’s shoulders had slumped briefly, but she had lashed out.
“This is your fault! You took this job, you put her in this danger! You never should have done this.”
“And if I hadn’t, Tijuana would be worse off than it is now. You know this. You cannot have expected me to let corrupt officers take over--”
“At what cost, Fernando? At what cost did you take this job?”
He had merely looked at her mother, sighing slightly, rubbing a hand through his dark hair.
“At all costs, love. This is bigger than all of us. This is a war, and we are losing.” And he had turned and left her Mamá standing in the hallway.
She scuffed her silver-gray shoes along the dusty, dirty street. If this was a war, it was a quiet war, she thought. Maybe they were overreacting after all.
She did not see the shiny black car.
Back at the hacienda, Mamá found the drive to return to her cooking, hoping to take her mind off the fear and anger gripping it.
“She will be fine,” Mamá murmured to herself, trying to soothe her racing heart. She stood again, moving back to the kitchen. She had just returned to kneading the dough when she heard the sound.
The ratatata ratatata cackled again, suddenly and loudly, and a girl-child’s scream split the Tijuana air.
