“You always imagine the worst!”
“I really don’t like the idea of traversing New York State in a stolen car.”
“Neither do I, but we’ve got no alternative.”
“Look, Lucia, has it occurred to you that it could have been Evelyn who killed that woman?”
“No, Richard, it hasn’t occurred to me, because it’s a stupid idea. Do you think that poor girl is capable of killing a fly? And why would she bring the victim to your house?”
On the map Richard showed her the two routes to the lake. One was shorter but had tollbooths where there might be checks; the other involved secondary roads that were full of bends. They chose the latter route, and could only hope the roads had been cleared by the snowplows.
Evelyn
Mexico, 2008
Berto Cabrera, the Mexican coyote hired to take Evelyn to the north, called his clients to the bakery at eight in the morning. When they were all assembled, they formed a tight circle holding hands and he raised a prayer to the heavens. “We are pilgrims in a church without borders. Grant us, Lord, that we travel with your divine protection against both attackers and guards. We ask this in the name of your son, Jesus of Nazareth.” All the travelers said amen, except for Evelyn, who was still sobbing and unable to speak. “Keep your tears, Pilar Saravia, you’re going to need them later on,” Cabrera advised her. He gave each of them their bus ticket, told them it was forbidden to look at or talk to each other, to make friends with other passengers, or to sit in window seats, because first-timers always did that, and the border guards paid special attention to them. “And you, my girl, are coming with me. From now on, I’m your uncle. Stay silent and with that moron’s face of yours no one is going to be suspicious. Agreed?” Evelyn nodded.
A bakery delivery truck took them on the first stage of their journey, to Tecun Uman, a border town separated from Mexico by the Suchiate River. There was a constant flow of people and goods across the river and the bridge linking the two banks. It was a porous frontier. The Mexican federal police tried half--heartedly to intercept drugs, weapons, and other contraband but ignored the migrants as long as they did not attract attention to themselves. Scared by the busy throng of people, the chaos of bicycles and tricycles, and the roar of motorbikes, Evelyn clung to the coyote’s arm. He had told the others to make their way separately to the Hotel Cervantes. He and Evelyn boarded one of the local pedicabs, a bicycle with a covered trailer for passengers that was the commonest form of transport. They soon met up with the rest of the group in the run-down hotel, where they rested overnight.
The next morning, Berto Cabrera took them down to the river, where there was a line of boats and rafts made from truck tires and a few planks. They were used to transport all kinds of goods, animals, and people. Cabrera hired two of these rafts, each pulled by a young man with a rope tied around his waist and propelled with a long pole by another man standing on it. In less than ten minutes they were in Mexico, where a bus took them to the center of Tapachula.
Cabrera explained to his clients that they were now in the state of Chiapas, the most dangerous area for migrants not protected by a coyote, because they were at the mercy of bandits, robbers, and police who could strip them of all they possessed, from their money to their sneakers. It was impossible to fool them, because they knew every hiding place, and even inspected people’s private orifices. As for police extortion, anyone who could not pay was thrown into a cell, beaten up, and deported. The greatest risk, the coyote told them, was the “godmothers,” volunteers who claimed to be assisting the authorities as an excuse to rape and torture; they were savages. People disappeared in Chiapas. They were not to trust anyone, civilians or officials.
They passed a cemetery, where solitude and the silence of death hung in the air. Then suddenly they heard the hiss of a train getting ready to set off, and the burial ground came to life as dozens of migrants who had been hiding there emerged. Adults and children appeared from among the tombs and bushes and started to run, jumping on stepping stones across the filthy water of a sewage canal, desperate to reach the railcars. Berto explained that the train was known as the Beast, the Iron Worm, or the Train of Death, and that some migrants would have to ride thirty or more such trains to cross Mexico.
“I won’t tell you how many fall off and are crushed by the wheels,” Cabrera warned them. “My cousin Olga Sanchez converted an abandoned tortilla factory into a shelter for people brought to her with arms or legs amputated by the train. She’s saved a lot of lives in her Hostel of Jesus the Good Shepherd. My cousin Olga is a saint. If we had more time we could go and see her. But you are traveling in luxury, you won’t be clinging onto trains, although we can’t catch a bus here. Can you see those guys with dogs checking documents and luggage? They’re from the federal police. The dogs can sniff out drugs and people’s fear.”