Erased Faces (12 page)

When she regained consciousness, she was on her back, where Cruz had thrown her. Her face and nose were bleeding, making it hard for her to see, but after a while, when she was able to make out his
features, she saw that this time he would go beyond just spilling his disdain for her through his eyes. She realized that his fists would pound her with a strength that matched the bitterness that was devouring him.

Juana and Cruz glared at one another for moments before she leaped to her feet and ran, slipping over the muddy banks of the river, regaining her balance by clawing into the soil with her fingers. She did not have a direction or place to go. Her legs simply obeyed the compelling impulse to escape Cruz, who sprinted behind, narrowing the distance between them, until she could feel his fingertips grazing her back.

He latched on to her blouse, ripping it off, leaving her naked except for her skirt. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand, and with the other he spun her around to face him. Juana tried to defend herself by pushing against him, by trying to wiggle loose from his clutch, but it was useless; his grip was as strong as a vise. Then she saw one of his arms rise above his head, fist clenched. When it struck her face above the left eye, intense pain froze her brain, and the day lost its light as blackness again enveloped her.

Juana awakened to find that she was lying in mud. She put her hands to her face. It was puffed, bruised. She realized that she could see with only one eye because the other one, the one that had received the blow, was swollen shut; the gash above it was deep and still bleeding. Then she put her hands to her breasts and felt the nipples hardening under her touch. She shivered, relieved that Cruz had not mutilated her body.

She stayed there until her thoughts cleared, until she could think of what to do next. One thought dominated the others: She had to leave Cruz Ochoa. She had to separate her life from his. She had to escape, even if it meant being devoured by the jungle. When this thought came more clearly into focus, she struggled to her feet, stumbling and tripping again as she made her way toward the river's edge. There she began, with difficulty, to remove the clothing still on her body. Her hands were bloody and her fingers were so bruised that taking off her clothes was painful, but finally she was completely stripped.

Naked, Juana stepped into the water and waded towards its center, where it was deepest and where the current was the strongest. It crossed her mind that surrendering to the rage of the river would be better than submitting to Cruz. When she was at the point where her feet no longer touched the ground, she allowed her body to submerge, covering her breasts, neck and head. Slack and inert, she floated downstream as the force of the current carried her with growing speed. Instead of resisting, she surrendered to its pull, not knowing where it would lead her, but satisfied that it was taking her away from Cruz Ochoa.

Wanting, intending to die, Juana floated with the current of the river, grateful for its energy and speed, thankful for its embrace, which would carry her to oblivion. But as she yielded to its flow, she began to feel an emotion that contradicted her desire to vanish. It was a small sentiment at first, but one that grew with each second, intensifying, possessing her entirely, and in a while she recognized the feeling: it was the desire to live. Eyes closed, arms extended away from her sides, she felt that floating would turn to flying, and that once airborne, she would find liberation. She opened her good eye and saw that day had turned to night. She flipped her body over and began to swim across the current toward land.

Juana walked for hours through the darkened jungle, oblivious of its dangers, never once thinking of the coiled snake or the hiding
jabalí
. She walked, her nakedness and her bruised face forgotten. She moved, not caring in what direction she was going, knowing that sooner or later she would come to a village, where she would be given shelter. She stumbled upon such a place at dawn, when the women were busy preparing breakfast.

“Me llamo Juana Galván. Necesito quedarme aquí.”

“Está bien. Quédate aquí.”

No one seemed surprised. Her nakedness and battered face told them she was escaping, and they took Juana in as one of them. She remained in that village, working with its women, earning the food she ate and the hut where she slept. She did not allow herself to think of Cruz Ochoa, nor of his village. Whenever she was assaulted by those thoughts, she forced herself to erase them from her mind. In that
way, Juana passed several months, aware that although her body had healed, her spirit was shattered.

One evening, three women came to her. They sat down crosslegged on the earthen floor to face each other over the small fire that Juana continually fed with twigs.

“Tu hombre te busca.”

“Vino a la aldea mientras sembrabas maíz.”

“Dice que te llevará con él.”

These words stunned Juana, making her stomach ache. Each woman took her turn uttering what sounded like evil incantations.

“Your man is looking for you.”

“He came to the village while you were planting maize.”

“He says that he will take you with him.”

Cruz Ochoa had stalked her, hunted her, and found her. She put her fingers to the scar over her eye; the skin was still tender, and she winced, feeling pain under the pressure of her finger. Juana's mind, its thoughts scattered and disrupted by what she had been told, soon focused. Cruz had found her, and he had spoken to the villagers. That meant that he had been watching her, waiting to ensnare her. Her back stiffened as she understood that he had been secretly spying on her for a time, perhaps days, or even weeks. While she was unaware of his presence, his disdainful eyes had been riveted on her as she walked, planted, ate, and even as she slept. Her head snapped toward the
palapa's
entrance, expecting to find him standing there.

“¿Dónde está?”

“Afuera.”

Juana had not been wrong. Cruz was waiting outside the hut. Knowing this cast her into a pit of sadness. She could not help or control the tears that welled first in her heart, moved up to lodge behind her eyelids, and finally spilled over her cheeks. She understood that her liberation had been a false one, that it had been a trap that had just slammed shut, catching her inside.

In silence, Juana got to her feet to gather her things, which she then rolled into the
petate
. She lashed it over her shoulder and stepped out of the hut without saying a word to the women. Cruz was standing under a gnarled, stunted
ceiba
tree with his hat pulled down low
over his brow. Juana could not make out his eyes, but she knew the fire that was burning there. Without saying anything, he turned to make his way into the jungle, and with a silence that matched his, Juana followed Cruz Ochoa back to his village.

Not noticing if it was day or night, she lost track of time as they trekked through the jungle. She lost a connection with her body, not caring whether it was tired, or hungry, or needing to relieve itself. She followed Cruz, watching his back and the rear of his sandaled feet, watching as he hacked a way through the dense jungle with a machete.

It was morning when Juana and Cruz made their way though the center of the village, he in front and she several paces behind him. She was aware of the villagers' stares; she felt the impact as those harsh looks pasted themselves onto her body. She could hear the secret thoughts crossing the minds of those women and men.

“Mala mujer.”

“Bad woman.”

“She deserves to be punished.”

“Buen hombre.”

“Good man.”

“He does not deserve such a woman.”

Juana stiffened her back and straightened her shoulders, rejecting the villagers' scornful thoughts. She felt bewildered by the pitiless looks cast on her by the women as she passed by them, so close that she could almost feel the fringes of their
huipiles
. She knew that they suffered similar cruelties from the men in their families, and yet they apparently chose to deny it, refusing to recognize what she was feeling. As Juana walked behind Cruz Ochoa, she wondered if those women secretly felt sympathy for her, if they privately wished that she had escaped, and whether, out of fear, they were hiding it instead.

In the
palapa
, Juana snorted through her nose, remembering. She now knew that the women had indeed wished that she might have escaped. Now she knew that they, too, were waiting for someone like
her to show them the way, that their gossiping and words against her had been a pretense. She now knew this because when she finally left Cruz Ochoa, dozens of women had come to join the army of
compañeras
and
compañeros
. They were women who would never again return to those huts in which misery had encased them.

El Caribal, 1980.

“The gods made men of gold, but those men were hard, arrogant, unbending and ungrateful to their makers.”

Juana Galván sat on her heels, bent over a
metate
. She was grinding corn for
masa
, which she would then pat into tortillas. Most of the women of the village were busy at the same chore; they worked in the clearing around which the
palapas
and other living areas were clustered. The scraping of stone on stone floated in the air. Despite the din a man's voice was clear. He spoke in Spanish, but Juana and the rest of the women could understand every word.

“Seeing this, the gods were dissatisfied with what they had done, and so they made new men. This time they were made of wood. But they, too, were unbending and stupid, so once again the gods repented.”

Juana stopped what she was doing to listen more intently. What the man was saying was not new; it was a common belief among the people of the region. What did capture her attention, however, was the sentiment behind the voice. It seemed to be promising something more.

“Then the gods came upon a new inspiration: They made men and women of maize. Those people were flexible, grateful, diligent and just. Soon, the gods saw that their labor had been good, that those made of maize were the true men and women of this world. So they showered those people with land, fruit, and children, making them rich. After this, the gods were satisfied with their work, and they rested.”

Juana listened, absentmindedly rubbing bits of
masa
from her fingers. She was thinking of the men of gold and wood. She, like all others of those tribes, had been taught that her people were made of maize.

“Then the men of gold and wood rose in anger against the gods because they had been replaced. They conspired and plotted, envious of the men and women of
maíz
who had inherited the richness of the land. Then, four hundred years ago, they transformed themselves into the
Catxul
, false men, taking back what was given to the people of maize. The
Catxul
now govern our lives because they possess war machines to protect their brutal conquest. The servants of the
Catxul
are the
Aluxob
, the liars who make up the false government that rules us, the ones who deceive us and oblige us to forget our past. Together, these evil men have spread death and pain among us.”

Juana by this time was intrigued by the man's words. She looked around and saw that other women were listening as well. She saw that not only women were interested, but also men.

“Do you not long for another life? Would you not like to be educated like the men and women of gold? What about you, the women—would you not want to feed your children better food? Don't you want to give them medicine when they are sick?”

She sat back on her haunches, thinking. Six years had passed since she had been married to Cruz Ochoa, two since she had attempted to escape from her life with him. He had stalked her and found her, and she had followed him to his village, unresisting, knowing that any struggle would be futile. At the time, she had realized that to refuse to return to his hut would mean death. Although she had desired death rather than life with him, something inside of her had compelled her to cling to life.

Juana put her fingers to the scar over her left eye; she stroked it over and over again. The skin layered on the gash was slightly discolored, so that it stood out on her forehead like a reflection of the eyebrow beneath it.

Cruz had shown his disdain for her with more intensity since her attempted escape. He was always sullen, angry with her. This, however, had not kept him from accosting her sexually. He often came to her unexpectedly, as she was preparing a meal, or when she was on the hillsides planting seeds, or even when it was the time of month when she bled. At those times he penetrated her with a heat that seemed to pour out of his skin, but never again did Juana get pregnant.

“Are you not tired of being told whom to marry and when to do it? Would you not want to choose your own partner? Would you not want to say when you are to have children, and how many?”