We went in. I gawked at the delicious pastries, unsure what he’d pick. Instead, when our turn came, Ezequiel looked at me and asked:
“What’re you into?”
Anything with chocolate and dulce de leche, I thought, and tried not to laugh.
I picked out heaps of pastries, especially the ones with icing sugar that made your mouth look like a clown’s. I was sure all that food would last me at least three days.
At the register, Ezequiel paid an elderly, serious-looking man who handed him a bag with a picture of bread loaves on it.
Outside, Ezequiel passed me the bag. I was dying to open it. In the car, he told me to put it in the back. For later. I set it down carefully. I wasn’t thinking of the earth anymore but about the pastries, like a boozy night out. About fifteen minutes later, we pulled up in front of María’s house.
I didn’t know her name. To me she was just María’s mother, Ezequiel’s aunt. She said she hadn’t slept a wink and I understood her. I never slept the same again once I started eating earth for other people. The night before, I’d taken two beers from the fridge and left one, half-empty, by the sofa. As I drank, I had tried to focus on the music coming from the PlayStation. I wanted the beer to clear my mind. To not think of María tied up, María penned up. Nor of her mamá. And at some point, I had drifted off.
And there she was, María’s mom, inching closer. I could tell she wanted to share something, but I wasn’t interested. I was saving myself, fully, for the earth. Even so, she sat facing me and reached for my hands.
“Hija,” she started, speaking more with her eyes than her mouth. “Daughter . . .”
I shook my head no. She stopped. But her eyes went on.
“No, that’s not how it works,” I said, trying not to look at her, trying not to revisit that barren time and those waifish years that chafed like sandpaper on skin and had made it so I could never again hear the word “daughter” from the mouth of another woman. “I’ve come to eat your daughter’s earth,” I said, and got up to go outside, alone, in search of a life.
I stroked the earth, which lent me fresh eyes and visions only I could see. I knew how much the crying of stolen bodies ached.
I stroked the earth, closed my fist, and with my hand lifted the key to the door through which María and so many other girls had passed, beloved daughters carved from the flesh of other women. I lifted the earth and swallowed it, then swallowed more, swallowed plenty, giving birth to fresh eyes that allowed me to see.
It was her. María’s bruised eye was fire and fury in my heart, a mark that had not existed yesterday on her face of pure sadness. Drunk on earth, I kept eating. I needed to see. There she was, María. She grew agitated, as if sensing me. I tried to calm her. She jerked her two useless arms. María, tied to a bed that was pure filth to a body born goodness knew how many years ago—a handful, maybe seventeen. The bed rattled against the walls and María tugged and tugged at her bindings, scrappy rags that she couldn’t break loose from.
Again, black letters on the wall of the cesspit imprisoning her. They shifted about, refused to be read. I crouched, but there was no earth to hold on to. I tried to curl my body into a ball, but my head, upraised, stared at María and at the wall behind her, black letters in darkness. She no longer struggled against her bindings. CARRY YOUR CROSS, I read, as though it was a photo.
The door by the bed swung open, the sound sheer terror to our ears. María’s huge eyes were the only part of her not tied down, and they spoke to mine of fear, of being beaten, of the need to flee. I could barely make out the man entering the room. The light shot through the door like fire to our eyes. But I had to see him. I fought the light and, though it stung, glimpsed him: an old man, forehead outlined with sparse white hair, withered arms still strong. An elderly man, like one of those grandpas that hang around public squares, shaking María and saying: “Quiet, woman!”
I couldn’t stand to see her cry. I had the urge to bite him. But I couldn’t. I clasped my knees with my arms and the letters shifted then fluttered off the wall, black moths swooping down on me. The old man made toward me, too. Had he seen me? No. It was just the icy touch of fear, that same shock and pain in my belly.
I had to go.
Though I didn’t want to, I left. Black as night, head thick with a black moth’s borrowed flapping: CARRY YOUR CROSS.
The money in my pocket couldn’t make me happy. I had tried with all my might and still failed. María might die that very night. Her mother had said only “come back” and, pulling my body to hers, placed a wad of money into hands dirty with her earth.
We drove in silence. Ezequiel looked sad too. Neither of us opened our mouths. I glanced at my hands. I hadn’t washed them in the rush to leave. The strain not to cry had driven me out of the house. I took out the roll of notes fastened with a rubber band, studied it, and thought of how mad my old lady used to get whenever we handled money before a meal. “Wash that smut off your hands,” she’d say, “it’s full of germs.”
My hands were filthier now than all the money in the world. I spread them so wide the pesos almost slipped between my legs. Ezequiel looked at me and said:
“Buy yourself something.”
I didn’t answer.
“You’ve earned it,” he insisted. “Buy yourself something you’ve always wanted. Something just for you.”
I replied by turning my head to stare out the window, as though doing so might sweep me away from that car and from that day, away from my dirty hands, my body, and the earth’s spell.
Something for me, I thought. I thought of Walter’s girl’s jacket. The stuff we had at home was just there; we used it, period. I’d never had anything all my own.
A little later, we passed a street corner with a shop that sold towels and sheets.
“Stop here,” I drawled when I saw it, but Ezequiel went on driving. “Stop here,” I said, louder.
I got out of the car and strode to the store. It was nearly noon. The sun was clouded over and a chill was setting in. Though pretty, the jacket was flimsy and not the least bit warm. It was just for show. I reached the store, pushed open the door, and walked in.
The girl standing behind the counter didn’t seem keen to help me.
“See something in the window you like?”
I hadn’t seen the window.
“I want a big towel, just for me.”
She eyed me like I was an alien, then snuck into the back. She came out carrying a whole stack.
“Towels,” she said.
She set on the counter a pink one I didn’t touch, then an earthy one—nuh-uh. The last towel was the dark purple color of a bottle of wine. I ran my hand along it, fingering it. Now that was a quality towel. I picked it up; it felt heavy. I tried it out, wrapped it around my body. I loved it.
I don’t know what left the clerk colder, my hands grimy with dirt or the wad of money I pulled out of my pant pocket. Skeeved, she said, “It comes with this hand towel.” I didn’t give a damn about the hand towel but I said “all right” and the girl named a price that sounded fair. I unrolled the wad of money and started counting. Though she could see my soiled hands, I wasn’t ashamed. I was focused on paying and leaving. Done, I handed the money to the girl. She hauled everything inside again. When she came back out, she was carrying a huge bag with a pink bow. I hated the bag at first, but then I thought to myself, it’s a gift, first gift I’ve bought myself with my own money, and I liked that. I had a sudden urge to be home, to take a scalding hot shower and wash the muck and sadness off my body, then bundle it in that towel, a towel all my own.