Something Fierce (17 page)

It was mid-June, winter break, and Lorena had invited us to her family home in this jungle village, where a band played in the plaza every night and the kerosene street lamps were lit by torch. Leaving La Paz before dawn, we'd settled in the back of the bus and sung along to Radio Chuquisaca, which played all the number-one hits: the Police's “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” Loverboy's “Everybody's Working for the Weekend.” My assertion that Loverboy was from Vancouver had been met with sidelong glances among my friends. My school friends in Canada had reacted the same way when I talked about stadiums being used as concentration camps in Chile and Bolivia. No matter where I went, my friends thought I was a liar. That was true, though not in the way they believed. But Lorena and Fátima also came from homes where secret things happened, and this recognition, never spoken, made us fiercely loyal to each other.

Tiny brick-and-cobblestone Coroico was one of a bunch of towns in Los Yungas, a stretch of forest that was basically a paradise on earth. Butterflies the size of your hand, flocks of bright yellow and red birds, bursts of fuchsia flowers, the jungle so green that it made your eyes hurt. To get there, our bus had had to navigate the Highway of Death, a dirt road so dangerous that one wrong move would send you careening into the abyss below. We'd been covered in sweat like the rest of the passengers when we arrived, having come from the freezing highland dawn to the tropics, the scenery changing from snow-covered purple peaks to banana-tree forests and coca-leaf plantations within the span of three hours.

The passengers had inexplicably started running as soon as they got off the bus, leaving their bundles on the roof. The four of us followed. After a few blocks, winding passageways had opened up to a valley that blinded us with its beauty: an explosion of green and cobalt blue. At the bottom of the valley was a dirt field with basketball hoops at either end. Everyone had gathered around the edges, craning to get a glimpse. Led by Lorena, we'd elbowed our way to the front.

A man carrying a machete stood at the centre of the field. Young and muscular, he wore a white undershirt that exposed his powerful arms. He'd walked in a circle, taking us all in, then raised his machete to the sky. My heart pounded in my eardrums. Clearly, basketball was not the name of this game. A sound broke the silence, and a furious bull came running out, raising a cloud of dust. Another man with a machete had appeared behind the bull. Just like that, he grabbed its tail and cut it off. As he spun it in the air like a lasso, blood gushed from the wound, turning the dust into crimson mud. In one swift move the first guy slit the bull's throat, then stuck his hand deep inside the animal's chest to pull out the heart. He'd held it high, like an offering, blood dripping down his arm. People gasped in admiration as the bull lay down to die. Once the trance was broken, the spectators had started talking and stretching, yawning and kissing friends on the cheek while they formed a line, old newspapers tucked under their arms, waiting for their ration of meat.

We'd trudged back up to the bus, pale as ghosts. Lorena nodded her head at the villagers sitting out on their stoops. A lot of them were black. It was confusing, because they were dressed like Aymara Indians and they spoke in Aymara, but Lorena explained that their ancestors had been slaves. I'd had no clue there had been African slaves in Bolivia.

I'd heard Lorena speak so much about the Coroico dwelling where her mother was born and raised that I was taken aback when I saw it. After the butchering of the bull, we'd retrieved our bags and walked down narrow passageways just off the main square, stopping at a makeshift door hanging off a frame and bordered on both sides by dense foliage. Lorena had knocked once, then let herself in, and we'd followed. A girl about eighteen was baking bread in a clay oven. The large cement floor was sheltered by a tin roof held up by four posts, but there were no walls. Way at the back I could see an outhouse. To our right there was a sink. In the open air stood a long wooden slab that served as a table, and some stumps and old chairs. A dozen barracks-style cots had been lined up in two rows under the tin roof, some bare, the rusty metal uninviting, others topped by burlap mattresses stuffed with hay. I heard a voice in my head say, “Not up to your middle-class standards?” It belonged to Bob, and it cut me to the quick.

The freckle-faced bread-baking girl came running with kisses and hugs. In her straw hat and dungarees, she was a dead ringer for Mary Ann from
Gilligan's Island
, her smile all dimples. She was Lorena's cousin Dunia, who'd lived here all her life. We dropped our bags on our cots and used the outhouse and the sink; an hour later we were eating fresh bread from the oven with slabs of cheese. Before falling into a deep siesta, I'd watched Dunia wash her hair in the sink, rebraid it, then pack her bag with books of poetry by Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, reaching the door just as her boyfriend arrived. Over lunch, she'd explained that she was a poet who had great admiration for other women writers. She was also one of the village schoolteachers. She planned to finish writing her third book of poetry over the holidays.

By now, halfway through our visit, I was an old pro at washing in a basin carried out behind the outhouse. You had to pray that nobody was watching, because there was only the foliage to shield you. Anyway, the neighbours were too busy tending to their coca-leaf plants—watering them, trimming them, laying the leaves out to dry in the sun—to care about some city girls learning their way around personal hygiene without showers. For grooming, we made do with a minuscule hand mirror nailed to a tree. Ironing, a must in Bolivia, was done on the wood-slab table using a hundred-year-old iron filled with hot coals.

A torrential storm that night had us huddled three to a cot in our highland ponchos, the house full to bursting now with the arrival of Lorena's parents and younger siblings. We pulled all the cots to the centre of the room, which was lit by a couple of kerosene lamps. Two five-litre bottles of chicha were being passed around. I didn't drink any, faithful to the vow I'd made back in Canada. The rain pelting the tin roof sounded like ancient drumming in this magical place.

Dunia regaled us with the story of a mermaid she'd once seen. It took me a moment to realize she was referring to a woman who'd been able to swim; the roaring white rivers there were used only for laundry, which we did every few days, laying out our jeans to dry on the rocks. Lorena's father recreated the night he'd danced with the devil. I knew he was talking about the carnival devil dance. And Lorena's mother recounted the Second Coming of Christ.

It had happened in a remote village to the east, where she'd gone to visit relatives. She was still a teenager, innocent as could be.

A couple of her male cousins had taken her to hear Him speak in a secret jungle location. She'd noticed His followers first, men who'd walked with Him for many miles, with their long hair and beards, rifles slung over their shoulders. And then she'd seen Him, mane of black hair framing his pale face, tall, strong, eyes on fire as he spoke in a soft but powerful voice. Goosebumps had risen on her skin and her heart had sped up, for His presence was like a light.

“What did he say?” Liliana asked, eyes wide like saucers, jaw slack.

“He spoke of freedom and independence. He spoke of the brotherhood of this continent.”

“Aaahh...” Liliana nodded, a little puzzled.

“They killed him later, because they said he was a terrorist, but I know he wasn't. No terrorist could have had that aura.”

With that, she got up from the cot and poured some chicha right onto the earth, where it mixed with the pounding rain.

“For the pachamama, our Mother Earth. Amen.”

Nobody said aloud that the man in the jungle had been Ché Guevara, who was killed in Bolivia in 1967. Lorena's mother had probably seen him when he'd first arrived in 1966.

Unexpectedly, we got to stay on in Coroico for an extra week. The storms had washed out the Highway of Death and torn down the telephone lines, cutting off Los Yungas from the outside world. I secretly wished it would stay that way forever. It was incredible to feel happy-go-lucky for a change, far away from the compartmentalized life of the underground. Mami and Bob would be beside themselves with worry, I knew, but now maybe they'd understand what it felt like for Ale and me to have our parents disappear for days or weeks on end, with no clue about when they were coming back, scared they might be dead or were being tortured somewhere.

My last night in Coroico was spent in the arms of Raymundo, a handsome private-school boy vacationing in Los Yungas with three buddies. It was Saint John the Baptist Day, and Coroico was overrun by La Paz teenagers. Free of parents and schoolwork, the teenagers rambled around town all day and met up at the plaza at night. Bonfires burned everywhere in the village, and the chicha flowed freely. Music played constantly, and the party went on all night. My friends and I had spent our last day at the river washing our clothes, drying them in the sun, breathing in the clean air that came with the passing of the storms. After the moon rose, we made our way to the plaza, for tonight was goodbye. Strolling arm in arm, we saw them after a couple of circuits: four La Paz boys in tight jeans. There was no time to waste.

As dawn broke, we girls set off for home, surrounded by revellers and small children. Lorena's parents and siblings were still sitting around the bonfire at their door. When they saw us, lips swollen, collars turned up to cover the hickeys, they elbowed each other and giggled.

Our bus left from the plaza an hour later. Our new beaux ran after us as the bus pulled away from the curb. I revealed Raymundo's gift to me for the journey: a Snickers bar, imported from the North, a rare, coveted gem in Bolivia. The four of us shared it, making it last all the way back to La Paz.

13

A
COUPLE OF WEEKS after winter break, Mami made an announcement over lunch.

“Bob, Lalito and I are going away for a week,” she said. “We're not at liberty to say where we're going, but Adriana's going to come stay with you girls. It'll be fun!”

A fellow teacher at the American English Centre, Adriana was my mother's friend. She was also, I'd gathered by now, a “helper.” She hailed from Santa Cruz, and I'd heard Mami tell Bob one night there were whispers at work about Adriana having been held and tortured as a political prisoner during the Banzer dictatorship. I assumed that's why my mother had felt safe in approaching her. I loved Adriana, because she never talked down to us. I'd noticed she treated everyone with the same respect. The first night of her stay, we lingered at the table after Ale went to bed, chatting over tea.

“I did my master's in Boston, and I almost died of homesickness while I was there,” Adriana confided. “I cannot imagine being expelled from my country and never being able to return. I cannot imagine being raised in exile.”

We both had a little cry after that. Adriana had cut through the facade so swiftly that I was split open, guts hanging out, knowing that if I didn't gather up my insides and stuff them back in I'd cry so long and hard there'd be nothing left of me.

There were other helpers too, like Deirdre, who also worked at the American English Centre. I knew Deirdre was a helper because she'd drop by to “visit” sometimes when Mami and Bob were out. She'd pretend to be marking papers, but she'd twitch whenever there was a sound at the door. She'd agreed to be at home with us three kids at certain times, I figured, in case the shit hit the fan. I'd caught the tail end of a conversation once, when I'd walked into the kitchen while Deirdre and my mother were standing at the stove. Conversations at the stove happened a lot between foreigners in La Paz, what with having to boil water for half an hour every time you wanted a cup of tea. “You know I'm Chilean,” my mother was saying. “You know I'm in exile. I'm sure you wonder what we're doing.”

Deirdre's eyes had held fast to my mother's until the penny dropped, causing a little sound to come out of her mouth.

“If anything happens to us, will you look out for my kids?” my mother whispered. Her voice cracked.

“It would be an honour,” Deirdre responded.

Deirdre was from Northern Ireland, she'd told Ale and me. She had brilliant blue eyes and round cheeks. She always wore jeans and woven Aymara tops. The last time she'd just happened to be in the neighbourhood (that was her standard line), she and I had drunk coca-leaf tea together, to ward off the altitude sickness that still hit her sometimes, and talked for hours about love and life. Mami had shown up a few hours later, covered in sweat, carrying a guitar case that obviously weighed a ton.

Then there was Mario, Bob's ex-boss at the computer company, who'd resigned to start a company of his own. Bob had not only taken over Mario's position after he left; he'd recruited him in the first place. Mario had a Harvard education, and he liked to tell stories of his boyhood visits to his grandfather in rural Bolivia. The old man had owned half a province, and thousands of peons would line up at the end of each month to receive their pay in food stamps from their master, who sat on a throne made of carved wood. Mario had vowed at that age to support the revolution, he said. I understood from the hushed conversations he had with Bob that he was involved in revolutionary activity in Bolivia and beyond, and that his connections in high places had allowed him to help us out when it came to certain paperwork. Mario had spent a lot of time around Sunnyland whenever the car was getting loaded for deliveries.