WHEN EVELYN MANAGED TO REACT, all she could think of doing was to curl up shivering among the bushes. She tried to pray but could not remember any of her grandmother’s many prayers. One, two, maybe three hours went by; she had lost all sense of time and even the ability to move. Her body was stiff and she could feel a dull ache in her shoulder. Suddenly she sensed a furious beating in the air above her head and guessed it must be bats flying in search of food, as they did back in Guatemala. This made her shrink back still farther into the vegetation, because everyone knew bats sucked human blood. In order not to think about vampires, snakes, or scorpions, she concentrated on a plan to get out of there. Other groups of migrants must have been coming through; it was simply a question of staying awake so that she could join them. She invoked the mother jaguar and the mother of Jesus, as Concepcion had taught her, but neither came to her aid. These holy women must lose their powers in the United States, Evelyn thought, feeling utterly abandoned.
There were only a few hours of darkness left, but they stretched out interminably. Slowly, Evelyn’s eyes grew accustomed to the moonless night that at first had seemed to her impenetrable, and she began to make out the vegetation around her: tall, dry grasses. The night was one long torment for Evelyn, until finally the first light of day came. All this time she had been unaware of either migrants or border guards anywhere near her. As the sky lightened, she plucked up her courage to explore around her. She was so stiff she found it hard to get to her feet and walk a couple of steps. Although she felt hungry and thirsty, at least her shoulder no longer hurt. She got some idea of how hot the day would be from the mist rising from the ground like a bridal veil. The night had been silent, interrupted only by warnings from loudspeakers in the distance, but at dawn the land awoke in a buzzing of insects, the crackle of twigs beneath the tiny paws of rodents, the rustle of reeds in the breeze, and a constant coming and going of sparrows through the air. Here and there she saw splashes of color among the bushes: the vermilion of a flycatcher, a yellow warbler, or a jay with its bright blue feathers. All of these were modest compared with those of her Guatemalan village. She had grown up amidst a profusion of birds, plumages of a thousand colors, seven hundred species: according to Father Benito, it was a bird-watcher’s paradise. She listened for the severe warnings in Spanish from the loudspeakers and tried in vain to calculate the distance to the border posts, the watchtowers, and the road, if there was one. She had no idea where she was. One by one, her mind filled with the stories passed by word of mouth among migrants: the dangers of the north, the merciless desert, ranchers who shot randomly at anyone entering their properties in search of water, guards with heavy weapons, attack dogs trained to detect the smell of fear, prisons where years could go by without anyone hearing of you. If they were like the ones in Guatemala, Evelyn would rather be dead than end up in one of those cells.
The day crept by hour after hour, with awful slowness. The sun climbed in the sky, burning the land with a dry heat like hot coals that was very different from what Evelyn was used to. She was so thirsty that she no longer felt hungry. As there were no trees to provide her with shade, she scraped a hole in the ground among some bushes, using a stick she found to scare off the snakes, and settled there as best she could. Then she drove the stick into the ground so that its moving shadow could show her the passage of time, as she had seen her grandmother do. She heard vehicles going by at regular intervals, as well as low--flying helicopters, but when she realized they always followed the same path she stopped paying attention to them. Confused, her head woozy, she could feel thoughts racing through her brain. Thanks to the stick she guessed it was midday, and that was when the first hallucinations began. They had the shapes and colors of the time she had been given the ayahuasca potion: armadillos, rats, jaguar cubs without their mother, Andres’s black dog that had died years earlier but now came to visit her in perfect health. She dozed off, exhausted by the brutal heat, dizzy from weariness and thirst.
The afternoon passed slowly by without any drop in temperature. A long, thick, black snake crawled over her leg in a ghastly caress. Petrified, she waited without drawing breath as she felt the reptile’s weight on her, the brush of its satiny skin, the undulation of every muscle of the hoselike body that slid lazily across her. It was unlike any snake she had seen back in her village. When the reptile finally moved on, Evelyn jumped to her feet and gulped down mouthfuls of air. Terror made her feel giddy; her heart was pounding. It took hours for her to recover and relax her guard; she no longer had the strength to stay on her feet scanning the ground. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, her tongue was a swollen mollusk in her mouth, her skin burned with fever.
At last night fell and it began to grow cooler. By now Evelyn was exhausted. She no longer cared about snakes, bats, armed guards, or nightmarish monsters; all she felt was the overpowering need to drink water and rest. Curled up on the ground, she gave in to despair and solitude, wishing only to die soon, in her sleep and never have to wake again.
EVELYN DID NOT DIE ON THAT SECOND NIGHT on US territory as she had feared. Awaking at dawn in the same position, she was unable to remember anything about what had happened since she left the camp at Nuevo Laredo. She was dehydrated and it took her several attempts to stretch her legs, get to her feet, put her sore arm in the sling, and totter a few steps like an old woman. Every fiber of her body ached, but what most dominated her was thirst. She had to find water. She could not focus her eyes or think properly, but she had always lived in the midst of nature, and experience taught her water must be nearby: she was surrounded by reeds and undergrowth, which she knew grew on damp soil. Driven on by thirst and anxiety, she set off aimlessly, leaning on the same stick that had previously served as a sundial.
She had only zigzagged some fifty yards when she was halted by the sound of an engine very close by. Instinctively, she threw herself down and lay flat among the tall grasses. As the vehicle passed by she could hear a man’s voice speaking English, and another answering voice, crackling as if it came from a radio or telephone. She stayed without moving for a long while after the sound of the engine had died away, but finally thirst forced her to crawl on through the bushes in search of the river. Thorns scratched her face and neck. A branch tore her T-shirt and jagged stones cut her hands and knees. She stood up but kept low, feeling her way as she did not dare raise her head to find out exactly where she was. It was early morning, but the glare from the sky was already blinding.
Suddenly she heard the rushing of the river as clearly as if it were another hallucination. This encouraged her to speed up and abandon all precaution. First she felt the mud under her feet and then, pushing apart the reeds, she found herself on the bank of the Rio Grande. She cried out and waded into the water up to her waist, drinking desperately from her cupped hands. The cold water trickled inside her like a blessing. She drank mouthful after mouthful, oblivious to the dirt and the dead animals floating in these waters. Where she stood the river was shallow, and so she could bend down and completely submerge her body, feeling an infinite pleasure as the water flowed around her cracked skin, bad arm, and scratched face. Her long black hair floated out around her like seaweed.
She had just clambered out of the river and was slowly recovering on the bank when the patrolmen found her.