After Miriam, Evelyn’s mother, left to head north, that indomitable grandmother had looked after her and her two older brothers. Evelyn was still a newborn when her father emigrated in search of work. They had no news about him for several years, until they heard rumors he had settled in California and had another family, although nobody could confirm it. Evelyn was six when her mother also disappeared without saying goodbye. Miriam fled the village very early one morning, afraid her determination would not survive a last embrace with her children. That was what their grandmother explained to them whenever they asked, and she added that thanks to their mother’s sacrifice they could eat every day, go to school, and receive parcels from Chicago, containing toys, Nike sneakers, and sweets.
The day Miriam left was marked on the faded Coca-Cola calendar for 1998 still nailed to the wall of Concepcion’s hut. Her elder two children, Gregorio, age ten, and Andres, who was eight, grew tired of waiting for Miriam to return and made do with her postcards and with hearing her choked-up voice on the post office telephone at Christmas or on their birthdays as she apologized yet again for not keeping her promise of coming back to see them. Evelyn continued believing that one day her mother would return with enough money to build her grandma a decent house. All three children had idolized their mother, but none as much as Evelyn, who could not clearly recall either her appearance or her voice, but constantly imagined them. Miriam sent photographs, but she had changed a lot over the years, put on weight, dyed her hair with yellow streaks, shaved off her eyebrows and painted new ones higher on her forehead, which made her look constantly surprised or scared.
The Ortegas were not the only ones without a father or mother: two-thirds of the children in their school were in the same situation. In the past it had been only the men who emigrated in search of work, but in recent years the women had been leaving as well. According to Father Benito, the emigrants sent back billions of dollars each year to maintain their families, and in so doing ended up contributing to the stability of the government and the indifference of the rich. Few of the village children finished school: the boys left to look for work or ended up in gangs or on drugs, while the girls got pregnant, moved away for work, or were recruited as prostitutes. The school had very few resources and were it not for the evangelical missionaries who competed unfairly with Father Benito thanks to funds from abroad, it would not even have had workbooks or pencils.
Father Benito was in the habit of installing himself in the village’s only bar with a beer that lasted all night and talking to the locals about the ruthless repression launched against the indigenous peoples, which had lasted for thirty years and sowed the seeds of disaster. “Everyone has to be bribed, from the topmost politicians to the lowest policeman, not to mention all the delinquency and crime,” complained the priest, who was prone to exaggerate. There was always somebody there to suggest that if he did not like Guatemala he should go back to his own country. “What are you saying, you wretch, haven’t I told you a thousand times that this is my country?”
AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN, Gregorio Ortega, Evelyn’s eldest brother, quit school for good. Left to his own devices, he wandered the streets with other boys, his eyes glassy and his brain befuddled from sniffing glue, gasoline, paint stripper, or anything else he could get hold of. He spent his time stealing, fighting, and pestering girls. When he grew bored he stood by the roadside and asked a truck driver for a lift. They took him to other towns where no one knew him, and when he returned he brought ill-gotten money. If she caught him, Concepcion Montoya gave him a good hiding, which her grandson accepted because he still depended on her to feed him. From time to time the police picked him up in a roundup of young drug users, gave him an even worse thrashing, and put him in a cell on bread and water, until he was rescued by Father Benito when he happened to pass by on his rounds. The priest was an incurable optimist who against all evidence to the contrary kept his faith in the capacity of human beings to reform. The police would give the boy one last kick in the backside and hand him over, scared, covered in bruises, and riddled with lice. The Basque threw him into his pickup with a volley of insults and took him to the only taco stall in the village to fill his stomach, all the while prophesying in his doom-laden Jesuit manner that the boy would have a terrible life and an early death if he continued with his aberrant behavior.
Neither his grandmother’s beatings, his time in jail, nor the priest’s dire warnings served as a lesson to Gregorio. He went on drifting. The neighbors who had known him all his life avoided him. If he had no quetzales in his pocket, he would turn up at his grandmother’s looking sheepish, feigning humility, and eat the same beans, chilies, and corn that were on offer every day in her home. Concepcion had more common sense than Father Benito and soon gave up trying to preach about impossible virtues to her grandson. He had no head for learning and no wish to take up a trade; there was no honest work anywhere for boys like him. She had to confess to Miriam that her son had abandoned his studies but avoided wounding her with the whole truth, since there was very little his mother could do from afar. Every night Concepcion prayed on her knees with her two other grandchildren, Andres and Evelyn, that Gregorio would survive until he was eighteen, when he would be called up for compulsory military service. Although she had a deep loathing of the armed forces, she thought that perhaps conscription could set him back on the right path.