El Desvio

MICHAEL PHILLEY EL DESVIO

Gabriela…Gabriela! Hurry, the sun is rising! My mother’s voice can pierce mud walls. She stops calling and I can hear the murmur of the river. It is Sunday, the procession about to begin. I rise from my straw mat, step into a tattered dress, slip on sandals that once belonged to an older sister. Soon my mother and I are descending a steep path, together with people of our village, to a sandy riverbank. We stand there wrapped with blankets in the chill of daybreak. Across the river, early sunlight glints against sandstone cliffs. Minutes pass before a deep notch in the sandstone—the very one we have been watching – catches the light. Will this be the time? Will she appear? I hear prayers being whispered. My mother drops to her knees and clasps her hands. I keep my eyes fixed on the notch, my heart beating in unison with other hearts, each heart full of longing for the holy.

My mother left this earth blessed not to know what would become of me. Mercifully, she would not worry while I was fleeing – pregnant and unmarried – with Emilio to the North. I rejoice in her innocence of not knowing the hardships we faced, our ungodly thirst as we crossed the parched land in the shadow of the mountains. We would walk all night, hearing the howls of coyotes and fearing that we would step on scorpions or rattlesnakes. The faith that my mother instilled in me began to vanish like vapor rising from the lakes of salt. But I wanted desperately for my child to be born in

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America, and for that reason, we survived.

It is a blessing that my mother cannot see how afraid I am. I worry that Emilio – already six years in prison – will never be released. I dread the day when it will be discovered that I am – how do you say it – undocumented. I have heard stories of mothers and fathers separated from their children, sent back to wherever they have come from, without a second thought by the authorities. This terrifies me. I could not live without Isabel, my precious daughter who carries my mother’s name.

“Isabel, let me show you a beautiful book.” She is not yet eight, but already Isabel is a good reader, one of the best students at her school. Each evening she reads aloud to me from one of the storybooks that I bring home from the thrift store. Tonight I place in her hands a large book with a shiny cover. It cost more than I wanted to pay, but how could I resist buying it? Inside the book are many wonderful drawings and photographs of the tiny birds that my people in Mexico call chupaflor, the flower sippers.

The evening is unbearably hot in our cramped trailer. We place a foam mattress outside on the gravel and sprawl on our bellies under the light. Moths flutter back and forth and cast flickering shadows, and some pop and sizzle against the heat of the naked bulb.

“Look, Mama,” says Isabel, “they can fly backwards.” For a moment, I fail to understand until I realize Isabel is looking at a photograph in the book. She reads to me, page after page. There are maps showing the long journeys called migrations, each tiny bird flying alone for hundreds, even thousands of miles across mountains

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and seas. Sometimes a violent storm will sweep the almost weightless body to an unknown destination never before reached by its species. My head cannot hold all that I learn.

Gabriela…Gabriela. Look, there, on the cliff! My mother’s voice, distant like an echo. We wait by the river, watching the dark sandstone for the sign of a miracle. I roll over in bed and reach out to touch Isabel who is sleeping soundly.

I dream that Emilio and I have grown wings and feathers. We are flying to the north, over tall mountains and across barren deserts, to the United States of America. We are very tired, so starved and thin that our bones stick out from our bodies. But we go on. In America we will make our nest, and our little bird will be born where there are broad fields of flowers, all teeming with nectar.

Then in slow motion, Emilio, his arms and legs no longer feathered, walking into the 7-ll with Ramirez and Manuel. They have been drinking heavily at midday, out of work for months. Emilio doesn’t realize what is about to happen. Ramirez pulls a gun from his pocket, points it at the woman behind the counter while Manuel empties the cash drawer into a cloth bag. A man enters from the back room, carrying a shotgun. Ramirez shouts, puta madre, shoots wildly, one bullet destroys the man’s face. The woman screams. Emilio turns and runs.

Isabel cries from her crib.

I have confessed my fears to Señora Maggie. She lived as a child in Mexico with her missionary parents, and she remembers how she helped the concinar to mash the

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corn that would be made into flour for tortillas. She is over 80-years-old, yet her eyes still sparkle like agates. She takes delight in speaking my native tongue as I bend over to wipe spilled food from the front of her blouse. Muchas gracias, she says, and her smile follows me as I gather plates and glasses from her table. There are many old people in Spring Creek Senior Living, where I work. I feel sad that they are here, living apart from their sons and daughters and their grandchildren. Señora Maggie has outlived her husband and two sons, and she says I am the daughter she always wanted. Every Sunday afternoon I wheel her to the Bingo game she loves to play. She wins often, and she is known by everyone here as the Bingo Queen. Once I saw her slam her hand on the Bingo cards and mumble the words that Ramirez shouts in my dream.

I have yet to visit Emilio in all the time he has been in prison. In the few letters I have received, he warns me that it is too dangerous – the security guards will ask me for documentation, and it will be discovered that I am here illegally. Emilio himself came with me to this country without papers, and I do not understand why the authorities have refused to deport him to Mexico. I think perhaps it is because they will not take the risk that he would be set free.

There have been no letters for many months. I no longer have the patience to listen to Emilio’s warnings. Señora Maggie knows my heart is heavy, and she has come up with an idea. Her plan is a little crazy, but Señora Maggie says to not try is to live a life of regret.

140 Señora Maggie’s eyes flash with anger. “Of course

that’s me in the photo! Can’t you read? Margaret Branna O’Leary! Why should it matter that my driver’s license has expired? Can’t you see I’m confined to a wheelchair?”

The security officer asks more questions. Outside in the visitor’s parking lot the driver of the Spring Creek Senior Living van paces and smokes a cigarette. Inside the van several of Señora Maggie’s elderly companions look in astonishment at the prison walls and guard tower.

Señora Maggie convinces the security officer that I am her attendant; I am needed to push the wheelchair and serve as a translator. We are here to see Emilio Francesco Garrido who, Señora Maggie explains, once was her gardener.

At last we are allowed to see Emilio. He sits in dim light behind a glass panel. He is too thin – the orange prison suit looks many sizes too big for him. Someone standing behind the panel switches on an overhead light. For several seconds I am unable to breathe. A strangling sound swells from the back of my throat. Señora Maggie grips my hand.

The purple-red scar runs from Emilio’s missing left eye and crosses the bridge of his nose. But it does not stop there. It travels down his cheek and along his jaw until it disappears above his neck. His right eye looks straight ahead at me. It does not waiver or blink. I hear Emilio’s voice, barely a whisper, “You should not have come.”

It is Sunday and Isabel is excited to be where I work. Everyone makes a fuss over her and tells me she is beautiful. At the Bingo game, Isabel stands beside Señora

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Maggie and watches intently as the old woman stamps the black numbers on her Bingo cards, one after one, with a purple marker. Señora Maggie’s eyes suddenly narrow, and she leans from her wheelchair to pull Isabel closer to her. Que suertudo, I hear her say. “What good luck, one more number.” I pray it will appear.

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