Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,28
they say it differently in Mexico? When is the baby due? She gestures a round belly, then turns her palms out.
The girl shrugs. Could it be she doesn’t know? Has no one taught her the science of her own body? But then, why does she look so worried? Perhaps she does understand but is afraid of giving a wrong answer.
It’s going to be soon enough, that much Antonia can tell. She’ll have to call the Open Door Clinic for an appointment as well as check on the hospital’s policy if the girl goes into labor. Would Admissions have to notify the authorities? Would Estela be rushed back across the border before the baby drops anchor stateside? How does that all work?
That’s for Mario to figure out, she reminds herself.
But he doesn’t have the language or know-how to negotiate the medical bureaucracy, which has eluded Antonia herself since she went on Medicare. The entrails of the health care system, a phrase she has come to associate with the whole dysfunctional federal government, a stinky coil of stomach, small intestine, bowel (the three branches), none of them working properly.
There’s always Mama Terry, though Mario would have to come up with some cash to pay for her services.
Recently, several ad hoc migrant groups have sprung up around the state with a phone tree of volunteers who can translate, offer rides. Antonia somehow got put on that list. Just because she’s Latina doesn’t automatically confer on her the personality or inclinations of a Mother Teresa. It irritates her, this moral profiling based on her ethnicity. Forget The Odyssey and the tradition of harboring strangers. When is Mario coming by? Antonia blurts out.
Estela winces. Antonia has touched a sore spot. I don’t know, Estela says in a whisper.
How can she not know? Don’t parting lovers always arrange for their next rendezvous? Unless, of course, those parting lovers don’t have the luxury of controlling their lives. Or thinking they can.
Little by little the girl explains the fix she is in. She was not evicted by el patrón. It’s Mario who wants nothing to do with her. It turns out Mario has been gone almost two years, first Tejas, then Carolina del Norte, finally settling in Vermont this past January. No way el bebé is his. (So, she does know her science.) When Estela arrived with that big belly of hers, he was as surprised as Antonia. Furious Estela had not told him.
But he wouldn’t have let me come if I had told him, the girl is quick to add. He says so himself: he is not going to raise another man’s bastard.
But it’s not your fault, Antonia defends the girl. Antonia has been following reports on the news: girls traveling to the border, raped by coyotes, by those who run the so-called safe houses, by thieves, thugs, even by other migrants. But when Estela doesn’t jump to her own defense, Antonia asks as delicately as possible, not wanting, God knows, to stir up any dragons. ?Te violaron?
Estela bows her head in shame.
Dímelo. Tell me your story.
Sobbing, Estela confesses. She was not sure Mario was ever coming back. She was lonely. There was a man in her village, un hombre importante. He paid her attention, bought her pretty things, gave her money for her mother and younger siblings. We are seven sisters, she explains. No brothers.
Seven sisters! We are—Antonia stops herself. Is it still four sisters? She shakes away the horrible thought. It’s been a respite from that horror to have to attend to someone else’s horror.
Estela goes on to recount that when she became pregnant, the important man wanted her gone. He had a wife, his honor to protect. He found a coyote and paid for Estela’s journey.
But wait, I thought Mario paid for the trip? He borrowed a bunch of money.
That was after the robbery. The first coyote abandoned Estela’s group in the desert, after stealing from them all they carried; Estela ended up in the hands of a second coyote, and that’s when Mario stepped in to help. He only knew that Estela was en route to him. Had she told Mario then about her condition, what would have become of her, of her baby?
This is telenovela material—in fact, some critics would say, Too much, ratchet it down a notch. But it isn’t a telenovela to the people it happens to. Another way to dismiss their plight. Ratchet it down a notch.
I will talk with Mario, Antonia promises.
The girl’s face lights up. Tell him