Erased Faces (10 page)

At that time their city was named Ciudad Real. That had been so many generations before Juana that all she knew was that it had been during the first reign of the white masters. It was a time when women who had been her ancestors trudged up and down the mountain to mine stones for the church. Her mother told her that there was among them a special woman, singled out by her resistance to the bosses, as well as by the scar that marred the skin above her left eyebrow. Every day, that woman staggered down the steep, narrow path, bent low under the burden of a stone-filled basket. Its handles were strapped around her forehead; its weight pressed against her curved spine.

On a certain day, the woman's hands reached backward, clinging to the load so that it would not shift from one side to the other. She moved slowly, deliberately, knowing that a false step would send her headlong down into a ravine. She turned and looked upward to the pinnacle of the mountain, toward the long line of women: brown, bent, sweating, intense on accomplishing the same task. In the rarefied air of the high altitude, the human snake gingerly coiled its way down, stooped and breathing slowly through its opened mouth.

After a few moments, she swiveled her head forward, concentrating on her next step. When she reached the bottom of the trail, she dumped the rocks onto the growing mound, then she turned around and began a fresh ascent to the mouth of the stone quarry.

She and other women of her tribe had been doing this for years. Each day, they wearily climbed the mountain, then returned down the slopes, ridding the cavern of the stones loosened by men who dug with picks as well as fingernails. Here stones were produced for the new city named Ciudad Real.

“¡Más rápido, indios perezosos!”

The foreman barked out his offensive demand for more speed, more efficiency. The woman, however, did not heed his words; she
had heard them for too many years. They had been uttered in different forms, by different lips, at different times, but the meaning never changed. She instead focused her thoughts on the load under which she struggled.

It was dark by the time the shift was halted. Wordlessly, the men and women took knapsacks and other possessions, and headed for town. There they were forced to attend evening mass. She walked slowly, her back still bent because it had forgotten how to become straight even without a load. As she made her way to the Church of Santo Domingo, she chewed on a piece of
yuca
. She held each pulpy bite in her mouth to soften it because her teeth were decaying and loose.

Soon she and the others entered the high vaulted church, where the heavy odor of incense and burning candles curled itself into her nostrils. She felt nauseous, but she ignored her churning stomach as she joined the women and men of her tribe, squatting on the stone floor, backs bent, eyes drooping under the weight of fatigue.

She nailed her vision to the floor as she rubbed her fingers first on the scar over her eyebrow, then on the floor's surface, wondering if that stone was one of many she had carted down the mountain. She remained that way, hunched over her crossed legs, not looking toward the high altar. She was too tired to lift her eyes.

The woman's stooped, haggard silhouette suddenly melted into the vaporous air, vanishing from Juana's eyes, which had become bright with tears of pity and admiration for that woman. Although she desired to be with that distant ancestor, she realized that she had fallen behind, so she snapped out of her trance and picked up her pace in an attempt to reach her mother.

As she neared the marketplace, the charred maize aroma of
elotes asados
was the first to coil itself through Juana's nostrils, and soon this blended with the smell of
panuchos
being served to a merchant who made his way to his store. Fragrant scents collided with the pungent, acrid odors of spoiled vegetables, moldy corncobs, rancid fruit,
muddy corners. Everywhere there was noise, a clamor made up of vendors hawking wares, buyers driving a bargain, babies crying, dogs barking, bells clanging, dirty-faced children playing and shouting at one another.

When Juana finally caught up with her mother, she found her already sitting on her heels, unfolding shawls and placing them on mats. Juana's father, who had gone ahead of them, was securing a corner of the canvas that hung overhead, protecting them from the glare of the sun. She got down on her knees where she, too, sat on her heels as she began to put out the garments she had carted. They were silent.

Hours passed. People came to examine certain pieces, to ask prices, then tried to lower them. Some women bought blouses, or belts; others merely looked and walked away. Juana felt drowsy and hungry, but she knew that her mother would soon bring out the bag that held their tortillas and beans. The thought of food made the girl's mouth water.

Juana looked at her mother, letting her know that she was hungry, but her mother ignored her. Juana was about to ask if something was wrong, when a man stepped under the canvas and stood in silence holding a straw hat in his hands. Juana stared at him; she had seen him before in the village. She remembered that at times he would follow her and would not take his eyes off of her.

“Juana, ven acá.”

Her face snapped toward the side of the stall from where her father was calling her. He was sitting cross-legged, with his back rigid, and he held his hands, palms down, on his knees. Her mother sat behind him, as usual, on her heels. Juana obeyed and moved toward him. She, too, got down on her knees and sat on her heels. He spoke in the Tzeltal tongue, as they always did when they were alone.

“Do you know this man?”

“No, Tata.”

“His name is Cruz Ochoa. You may greet him.”

Juana knew that this was not a permission that her father was granting; it was a command. Juana felt her stomach begin to ache, knowing that something terrible was about to happen. She nevertheless turned to the man and nodded. He returned her gesture.

She continued to look at Cruz Ochoa, taking in his face and his body. He was not old, yet older than she. He was not handsome, yet not ugly. She saw by his dress that he was not a Tzeltal man but a Lacandón. He wore the white cotton tunic of those people, and he wore his hair in their fashion: straight, covering the forehead down to the eyebrows, and long enough to reach the shoulders.

Juana stretched her neck and looked behind her father to where her mother crouched. She saw that her eyes were cast down, but she could see by the frown pasted on her face that she was feeling sadness for her daughter. Juana returned her gaze to her father's face, but his eyes were riveted on a point somewhere above her head. She could hear people coming and going by their stall, but she knew that they were stragglers, because it was not the time of day to market; that hour had passed. She turned her head toward the man, who stood without saying anything.

“Buenas tardes.”
Juana spoke in Spanish, since she did not know the Lacandón tongue.

“Buenas tardes, niña.”

The brief greeting was followed by more silence because no one could speak until Juana's father gave permission. Finally, he spoke.

“This man will be your husband. He is willing to take you as his wife, to live in the Lacandona, where you will have his children. He is a man of influence. He even owns a mule, which he has offered to sell in exchange for you. I have accepted his offer.”

Juana felt as if a hand had gripped her throat, cutting off the air that her lungs needed to breathe. Vivid pictures of her three older sisters flashed in her brain. One by one, they, too, had been married by her father and at an age even younger than hers. She saw them as they grew thin and sickly with each pregnancy. She saw them losing their teeth after being battered by drunken husbands. She saw them become sullen women, worn out before their time.

She looked at her mother, and for the first time in her life, Juana realized that she, too, had undergone the same brutal treatment as had her sisters, as well as the other women of the tribe. Juana saw that although her mother was not more than thirty-five years old, she was toothless, her breasts sagged, her hair was ragged and gray, and her
skin was blotched. This realization made her shiver because she knew now that this would also be her fate, and she did not want this for herself. She did not want to marry Cruz Ochoa, or anyone else.

At that instant, the image of the woman stooped under an intolerable burden of stones again came to Juana. The picture was vivid, stark, haunting, and she was so shaken by the turmoil she was experiencing that she sprang to her feet in an attempt to run away. Her father, however, moved faster than she, and he was able to grab one of her ankles as she lunged toward the street. She tripped, lost her balance and fell on her face, splitting her upper lip on the cobblestones. When she rolled over, her face was covered with blood.

The hammock swayed slowly, responding to the motion of Juana's hands. She moved her arms upward to her face, where her fingers touched her lips, her nose, her cheeks. She massaged the scar over her eye, reminding herself that it had not been caused by her fall in the marketplace, but by something that happened later on. This thought moved her mind to take flight again, back towards the years that had launched her on the path that led her to this encampment, to the struggle for which she was now a leader, and to the mystery of what she was feeling for Adriana Mora.

Two weeks after meeting him, Juana stood by Cruz Ochoa on a side altar at the rear of the Church of Santo Domingo. The mass and marriage ritual were over and the altar boy was snuffing out the candles. The family members and friends who had attended began to leave without saying anything; they only patted the couple on the shoulders or on the arms. Juana's mother was the only one to approach the couple to offer a blessing. After that, everyone dispersed, and Juana followed Cruz Ochoa as he led the way to the second-class bus station. She carried her belongings in a small cardboard box.

Juana was glad that Cruz was silent because she did not want to speak. She felt dejected and would not have known what to say to him if he did attempt a conversation. She knew, however, that sooner or later he would approach her. In the meantime, she distracted herself by looking around at the crowds of people waiting their turn to board buses. She looked in one direction and saw people elbowing and shoving one another to get to the front of the line. She turned her gaze in the opposite direction and saw a woman, a little older than she, with a child hanging on to her skirt, another one wrapped in her rebozo, and another in her womb. A man, who Juana was certain was the husband, stood apart with his straw hat pulled low over his brow. Everywhere Juana looked she saw people from different tribes, each wearing their native garments. She saw some like her, the Tzeltales, but there were Chol, Tzotzil, Zoque, Lacandón; there were even poor mestizos in the crowd.

Juana shut her eyes and mopped her forehead with the back of her hand. It had not rained in several days and the air was sweltering, oppressive. Most of the passengers were irritable and impatient to leave the city, hoping to find relief from the heat once in the countryside.

“Ruta número cinco dirección Huixtán, Oxchue, Chol, Ocosingo. ¡Pasajeros abordo!”

The shrill voice over the loudspeaker bleated out the route that would take Juana and Cruz Ochoa to the point of their first transfer. From Ocosingo, they would take another bus to their final destination, El Caribal. As soon as people were able to make out the muffled announcement they had just heard, the shoving became intense. Juana was barely able to hang on to her box as the flood of travelers pressed toward the front entrance of the vehicle. Since the men pushed the hardest, they were the first to find seats, leaving most of the women and children standing in the middle aisle, or sitting there on their bundles and boxes.

Seeing that Cruz had secured a place for himself at the front, Juana was glad that she had been shoved all the way to the rear. She edged back as far as possible, placed her box on the floor, sat on it and leaned her body back. When she looked down the aisle, she saw that most of the women would have to stand in uncomfortable postures until they got off the bus, making her even more grateful for her place. From where she sat, she could see Cruz's square head and flinty eyes as he turned to stare at her from time to time.