The coyote took them to a truck-driver friend, who for a suitable price installed them among crates of electrical goods. At the back of the container was a narrow space where they could sit huddled together, although they could not stretch their legs or stand up. There was no light and little air, and the heat was stifling. The truck threw them around so much they were afraid the crates would fall on top of them. The coyote, who was comfortably seated up in the cabin, had forgotten to tell them they would be kept prisoner in the back for hours, though he did warn them to ration the water and refrain from urinating, as there would be no relief stop. The men and Evelyn took turns to fan Maria Ines with a piece of cardboard and gave her some of their water rations, since she had to breastfeed her baby.
The truck took them safely as far as Fortin de las Flores in Veracruz, where Berto Cabrera placed them in a derelict house on the outskirts of the town. He left them jugs of water, bread, mortadella, soft cheese, and crackers. “Wait here, I’ll be back soon,” he said, and disappeared. Two days later, when they had run out of provisions and there was still no news of him, the group became split, with the men convinced they’d been abandoned, while Maria Ines argued they should give Cabrera more time because he had been so strongly recommended by the evangelicals. Evelyn had no opinion, but none of them asked her anyway. In the few days they had been together, the four men had become protective toward the young mother, her child, and the strange skinny girl who always seemed to be in a world of her own. They knew she was not really deaf and mute because they had heard her say a few stray words, but they respected her silence since it could be a religious promise or her final refuge. The women ate first and were given the best places to sleep in the only room that still had a roof. At night the men took turns to make sure one stayed on guard while the others rested.
AT DUSK ON THE SECOND DAY, three of the men left to buy food, and to scout around to determine how they could continue the journey without Cabrera. The other man stayed to look after the women. Since the day before, Maria Ines’s baby had refused to take any milk, and had cried and coughed so hard he could scarcely breathe. Unable to calm him, his mother grew increasingly anxious. Remembering her grandmother’s remedies in such cases, Evelyn soaked a couple of T-shirts in water and wrapped them around the baby until his fever had abated; Maria Ines meanwhile could do no more than weep and talk of returning to Guatemala. Evelyn walked up and down with the boy in her arms, cradling him with a lullaby she invented with no real words but full of the noises of birds and the wind, which eventually sent him to sleep.
Later that night the others returned with sausages, tortillas, beans and rice, beers for the men, and soft drinks for the women. After this feast they all felt more cheerful and started making plans to continue on to the north. They had discovered there were migrants’ houses along the route, and some churches that offered aid. They could also count on the Beta Groups, Mexican National Institute of Migration employees whose job was not to impose the law but to help travelers with humanitarian advice, and to rescue them and supply first aid in case of accidents. Most curious of all, said the men, was the fact that they did all this for free and did not take bribes. So the group was not completely unprotected. They had their meager funds, which they were prepared to share, and promised to go on together.
The following day they found that the baby had recovered his appetite even though he still had difficulty breathing and decided they would move on as soon as the heat dropped. There was no way they could take the bus, because it was very expensive, but they could ask truck drivers for a lift and as a last resort climb on board the freight trains.
They had already gathered their belongings and what was left of the food into their backpacks when Berto Cabrera appeared in a rented van, wreathed in smiles and loaded down with bags. They greeted him with a string of reproaches, which he countered in a friendly way, explaining he had to change the original plans because there was more surveillance on the buses and because some of his contacts had failed. In other words, they would have to hand out more bribes. He knew people at all the checkpoints along the route, who were paid a certain amount for each migrant. Their boss kept half, and the rest was distributed among his men, and so everyone was a winner in this squalid trade. Berto had to be very careful during the process, for if he came across an uncooperative patrol they would end up deported. There was a much greater risk of this with guards he did not know.
They could have made the journey to the border in a couple of days, but the baby’s fever returned and they had to take him to a hospital in San Luis Potosi. They lined up, took a number, and waited for hours in a room crammed with patients until finally Maria Ines was called. By this time the child was limp. He was attended by a doctor with dark fatigue lines under his eyes and wrinkled clothes, who diagnosed whooping cough and kept the baby there on a course of antibiotics. The coyote was furious, because this was ruining his plans, but the doctor was insistent: the baby had a very serious infection in the respiratory tract. Cabrera had to back down. He assured the disconsolate mother that he would return within a week and that she would not lose the money she had paid in advance. Maria Ines sobbed and accepted, but the rest of the group refused to go on without her. “May God grant the little one doesn’t die, but if he does, Maria Ines is going to need company in her grief,” they unanimously decided.
They spent a night in a run-down hotel, but the coyote complained so much about the extra cost that they ended up sleeping in a churchyard together with dozens of other migrants in the same situation. There they were given a plate of food, and were able to shower and wash clothes, but at eight in the morning they had to leave and were only allowed to return after sundown. The days seemed very long as they wandered around the town, always on the alert, ready to run. The men tried to earn some cash washing cars or on building sites without attracting the attention of the police, who were everywhere. According to Cabrera, the North Americans were providing the Mexican government with millions of dollars to stop the migrants before they reached the border. Every year more than a hundred thousand people were deported from Mexico on the aptly named Bus of Tears.