The Jaguar's Children Read online

  You change, you know, in such a situation. Who would want to be deaf and blind? But that is what I wished for today. Some of them went quietly—in the dark you don’t even notice. But others threw away their beads and medallions, and I’m telling you, for a Mexicano that is the true sign of despair. They became angry, crazy, they hurt themselves and tore their clothes. I could not recognize their voices anymore. It sounded like animals in here attacking them, but they were attacking themselves. Because they saw things that weren’t there. Because their skin stopped feeling like something that belonged to them. Because the pain you make upon yourself is easier to bear than the pain from the world outside. Some hit their heads on the tank again and again until there was only silence. Others clawed at the walls until the skin of their fingers came away—until I came to understand the sound I was hearing was not the sound of fingernails but the sound of their own bones against the metal.

  The human soul was not made to know such things and live.

  Most of the people in this truck believed in God when they got to Altar. Even after the coyotes abandoned us they believed in Him and His mysterious plan. I know it because I heard their prayers. But now? If they could speak, I think they would raise their hands and say to you—to the pope himself, “¿Qué plan? God has no fucking plan!”

  Unless it is to suffer.

  24

  Sat Apr 7—18:02

  César—still he breathes, even with so little water. He is the strongest of us all. He is the only sound in here now. Listen . . .

  Sat Apr 7—18:07

  Are you still listening, AnniMac? Can you hear what I must tell you? When we were in Altar, César asked me for something and I would not give it. All this time I’ve had his phone I tried to make it up to him, tried to carry it and keep it safe. But I can’t anymore. César’s water is almost gone and I am out of time. This is César’s confession, but it is my confession also. I will speak for him because he cannot. It’s all I can do for him now.

  This is how we came to the third part on that page of the Oaxaca Codex. If you walk along the wall there, past the beautiful corn growing and the men in masks with their needles and special plans, you will come to another figure. This one is a campesina—una Zapoteca como mi mamá, and César’s also—no shoes, long braids, heavy skirt and huipil, a rebozo around her shoulders and another on her head. But this campesina’s got a carabina, a .30-30, and she’s pointing it at those men in the masks like she’s going to blow those chingados away.

  Midnight came and went past Lupo’s garage and still we waited for the truck to be ready. All this time César talked to me, talking without stopping. “It’s getting so late,” I said. “Maybe we should rest for a while.”

  “No, hermano. You are from the Sierra and these are your people. You need to know what is happening.”

  Well, what am I going to say? It’s hard to say no to César.

  “Last summer,” he said, “I went down to Oaxaca to ask people about their seed, what they were using and where they got it, and I discovered that yes, there is SantaMaize corn growing in the Sierra Juárez, right in my own pueblo. You could spot it from far away because the ears were so much bigger and, inside, the kernels were almost white. We were told this wasn’t going to happen. We were told they were importing this corn for food only, not for planting, and that the government had promised to control it. So how did a truckload of this seed find its way into the Sierra? No one could explain this to me.

  “And there was something else I learned from my father who had bought some of this corn himself. He grows two crops in the summer and after he harvested the first one he tried to replant some of the seed, but not a single one came up. He showed me and there was nothing in that milpa but weeds and beans with nowhere to climb. When I saw this I got scared because my father knows what he’s doing and unless there’s no rain his crops don’t fail. So I took some of his new seed back to UNAM and when I studied the gene sequence I found the RIP, the cell toxin for Kortez400. I was in shock. What more do they want from us, Tito? Already we accepted their language, their government, their god. Must we beg them for food also?”

  I didn’t know what to say, and César didn’t wait.

  “So I have this data,” he said, “but it’s like finding a bomb and it’s ticking and I don’t know where to put it. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Development doesn’t want to hear about it because it will make them look bad, and SantaMaize doesn’t want people knowing they have an unregulated product loose in the campo.”

  The beer was gone and I was feeling it along with the cold. “Cheche,” I said, “I can see this is bad, but isn’t it always like this? Already we buy water—at home even. If you don’t make it yourself, you have to buy it, right?”

  “¡Cabrón!” he said. “The corn is ours already! And the water is too. Can’t you see the problem here?” César was quiet then. I thought he was waiting for me to say something, but he wasn’t. “About a month ago,” he said, “I had a dream. I was back in the pueblo, stripping and sorting a basket of corn just like when I was a kid. Everything was normal until I got to this one ear that was bigger than the others. In the dream I’m thinking, What’s this? And when I pull the husk down, instead of kernels there are rows and rows of tiny white skulls.”

  A shiver came through me, and I knew the cold I felt was from César. In the Sierra, in almost every pueblo, there are certain people who can see things before they happen, who can feel things others cannot, and I understood then that César was such a one. In that moment, César—who I looked up to since I was fourteen—was asking me for something, something more than a favor. Always I wanted to have something he wanted—not so I could keep it from him, but so I could give it. Now he wanted me to see what he saw—to help him carry it. But the truck was going in an hour and I was so afraid, not only of the future in el Norte but also of the future César saw in Oaxaca. “OK,” I said, “but what am I supposed to do? Why are you telling me?”

  Well, AnniMac, his answer was a surprise. He said, “Because something might happen.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  César rubbed his face with both hands and looked up at the sky. He took a big breath and I could hear his chest shaking. “Last night,” he said, “I had it again, that same dream. Listen to me now. Please. When I got back to D.F., I wanted so much to tell my colleagues what I had found, but my position there—the whole department—is funded by SantaMaize. I’m the only researcher from south of Puebla. Except for the janitors, I’m the only indio in that entire building. If I do anything or say anything that could discredit them, they’ll send my ass right back to Oaxaca. For months I sat on this information wondering who I can trust. Maybe I am weak, but this was hard for me and finally, in January, I told my girlfriend who is here from the States. She’s been in D.F. only six months and she says I must go to the press right away. I said to her, ‘Do you know how much money is involved here? Do you know what happens to informants in Mexico? How many journalists are killed?’ Then she tells me I should go to the foreign press, they will protect my identity. But how can I be sure of that? So I called my father. There is nothing but the radiophone in our pueblo so I reach the village office and they call his name over the loudspeakers. About five minutes later, my father comes to the phone. ‘I am eating,’ he says. ‘Why aren’t you?’”

  “He’s just like my abuelo,” I say, but César wasn’t listening—

  “I don’t want to give my father a lot of detail because he is standing there in the office, so I describe the situation in simple words. He reminds me that it is the Mexican government who gave me the scholarships and it is because of them I have knowledge to study these things. Then he says to me in Zapotec, ‘César, you are a Mexicano and you are a scientist, but before this you are a Zapoteco from the Sierra Juárez. We fought the Aztecs. We gave this country Benito Juárez, and we still have our language. These are not accidents. You are the first one of us to study these things about the
corn, and this is not an accident either. There is a reason you are speaking for us and for the corn. So don’t forget—that is what you are doing. Now, la comida is getting cold already. Cuídate.’

  “My father does not explain exactly what this ‘reason’ is, but I think he is saying I have a duty. I decide then that this is my country and if I have no faith in my power to protect it, then what am I doing here anyway? I made a plan to go to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture where I know people and I meet with the guy I trust the most. He’s interested and asks to see my data, and I’m not sure what to do then. I have never been in such a situation. I decide to give him a copy because we came through university together and without the cooperation of the Ministry it will be impossible to fix this problem. What else could I do?

  “I don’t hear anything for a week and I am about to call when the Ministry calls me first. But it is not my friend on the phone—it is a man who says he is working with BioSeguridad, a new sister agency to the Ministry. He mentions my friend’s name, tells me he is very impressed with my work and that he wants to speak with me. Well, I am suspicious about this, but I can see his phone number on the display and it has the same prefix as the Ministry so I am thinking it is probably OK. He asks me to meet him that afternoon in front of the Ministry building. This sounds safe enough, and—it seems ridiculous now, but it is a beautiful day that day, so I agree. I am still a bit suspicious so I call my friend to be sure, but he’s not in his office. I call his cell, but there is only a message. What do I do? I decide to go anyway. What can happen in front of the Ministry? When I get there I realize I don’t know this man’s name or what he looks like, but a man there recognizes me immediately. ‘Dr. Ramírez!’ he says. ‘Mucho gusto. I am Raúl López with BioSeguridad.’ He shakes my hand and offers his card.

  “I’m thinking his voice is not the same as the man on the phone, but I’m not sure. This guy is in his fifties and his chest and neck are thick like a bull’s. He isn’t tall but his hand swallows mine. He nods toward the street and a cab pulls up right away. ‘We’ll take this one,’ he says. His arm is around me now and we are moving—or he is moving me, talking and talking. ‘Do you know Café Verde in Coyoacán? Just opened. Fantastic coffee.’ He is so close his head is touching mine. ‘There’s a waitress there. Incredible tits. Maybe you get lucky, get some extra sugar with your coffee today.’

  “He is laughing and I am getting a bad feeling, but also a feeling like this is some kind of destiny, like this is a choice I made the moment I showed my data. For some reason I am afraid to resist him, afraid to make a scene in this public place, and all the time he is talking and moving toward the taxi. ‘You know, my mother’s family is from Oaxaca—from the Mixteca Alta, not so far from you—now those are some farmers! If you can grow corn up there with all that cactus, you can grow it anywhere. Don’t you agree? Get in.’

  “And then we are in the taxi. It was so quick, and I notice the doors locking as we pull into the traffic. Raúl opens his phone and sends what looks like a message of one letter, then he puts the phone away again. ‘My boss is looking forward to meeting you.’

  “I ask him if his boss is at Café Verde. It is so pathetic when I think about it now. ‘We will go there after,’ he says. Raúl never speaks to the taxista because the taxista already knows where we’re going. And you know the traffic in D.F., well, this guy is a fucking magician, he is moving us through the city like there is no such thing as traffic, turning and turning so that I am not even sure where I am. Now Raúl isn’t talking anymore. He only looks out the window like I don’t exist, like his job is finished. I’m thinking about what can happen and what I can do. The door handle is there, easy to put my hand on, so I do it. Raúl is still looking out the window. I push on the lock, but it is on the children’s setting and will not move. Whoever invented these did not think about all the situations. After maybe thirty minutes we arrive at a new office park. There is a gate there with an intercom and the taxista types in a code and says, ‘Chaco.’ The gate opens and we drive into a parking lot that has only one other car in it. The building is maybe ten floors, but it looks empty. I ask Raúl if this is the office of BioSeguridad and he says, ‘Temporarily.’

  “Now I am terrified. But I am more terrified to object, to try to run, because then the illusion of Raúl and Café Verde and the mother from the Mixteca will be completely broken and something much worse—some kind of truth—will replace it. The taxista parks away from the other car and Raúl is back now with his friendly voice. ‘He’s waiting for us,’ he says. ‘De acuerdo.’

  “We all get out and this is the first time I get a good look at the taxista. He is not Danny Trejo, but he is a hard-looking guy with a lump under his coat and this is when I admit to myself what I was afraid of admitting before—‘Pendejo, you let yourself be kidnapped.’ You hear about it all the time in D.F., but usually it’s some businessman or his kid, you never think it’s going to happen to you. But now it is, and I’m telling you, it’s not like I imagined. It’s like being caught in a powerful river, it has its own momentum and we are all in it together, floating along toward the door of the building which the taxista opens with a fob and then we’re through it and into a stairwell, climbing up and up—the taxista in front, Raúl behind and me in the middle. I’m thinking now I’m going to be thrown off the roof and my legs are shaking under me so bad I must hold the railing, and when I do this I can feel both men noticing, bracing themselves for whatever I might do. All this time, I’m holding on to this tiny hope—as long as no one speaks there is still a chance it can go some other way—because this is a door I cannot bear to see closed.

  “Somewhere around the eighth floor, the taxista opens a fire door and we go into an empty hall with no lights only a window at one end. The window is broken and there is a wind blowing so I have to cover my eyes because of the dust. There are doorways along the hall but no doors in them and, as we pass, I can see they all lead into empty concrete rooms with wires hanging from the ceiling. It is the same with the room we enter, only there is a man in there and he is sitting on a folding chair—the kind you take to the beach. It is the only chair in the room. Behind him is a big window, but it looks like the kind that can’t open. The man is sitting next to a large spool of electric wire and he is using it for a table. On it is a cell phone, a bottle of Coke and my data—ten pages held together with a clip. I can see it’s mine by the cover letter.

  “I can tell you, when you think you are about to die, you notice the details and these are burned into my mind now. This man in the chair is maybe forty-five years old. He is dark—mestizo, but not from the south—with a forehead round like a pot. His hair is going and what is left is combed straight across. He is wearing a pink shirt with French cuffs but no jacket. His mouth is full and wide and crooked and when we get close I see his eyes are different shades of brown. Somehow this makes it seem like there are—not exactly two people there, but more than one. Raúl and the taxista are behind me now, I can feel them there between me and the door. The man in the chair picks up my data by the clip and, with his elbow resting on the arm of the chair, he swings it in a careless way. ‘This is your work, Dr. Ramírez?’

  “I am so relieved not to be on the roof that it makes me bolder. ‘I think I have a right to know who I’m speaking to,’ I say.

  “‘Do you know this building is state of the art?’ The man looks at the ceiling. ‘They’re even installing a green roof—a milpa. And in this milpa they will grow corn and beans, and the people in the building will eat the corn and beans because that is all a Mexican needs.’

  “‘Who are you?’ I ask again.

  “‘If it mattered, do you think we would be meeting here?’ He stops swinging my data and holds it in the air. ‘This is yours.’

  “My strength is gone again and I nod my head.

  “He drops it back on the spool table. ‘Are you a terrorist?’ he asks. He’s looking at me very calm, and he picks up his Coke, slowly breaking the s
eal which sounds like whip cracks in that empty room. ‘Is this your manifesto?’ He nods toward my data. ‘Your argument for sabotaging the future of agriculture in this country?’

  “‘What?’

  “‘You went to UNAM on government scholarships—master’s, PhD—all paid for by us. That is an honor, and very expensive. So why do you hate Mexico so much? Why bite her tit like this?’ He looks up at me like he really wants to know. ‘Your father is a campesino, yes? Maybe he’s in the milpa right now. Well, we have something in common, you and me. My father was a campesino too. I grew up in Morelos and there we use horses for the plowing, but it is all the same in the milpa and that is where I found my father. I was nine years old and he was younger than I am now, and I found him there one afternoon, dead in the dirt from a heart attack. The horses were just standing there like they would wait forever for him to get up. After that day, I went behind the plow with my brothers and sisters. We had to do everything because my mother wasn’t herself anymore.’

  “The man’s arms are on the armrests of the beach chair and he opens his hands to me. ‘And how long have we been doing this? Five hundred years? A thousand? The animals will do it for another thousand—forever—but we are men, no? Maybe you hate Mexico, but do you hate your father too? How can a young man given so much be so selfish?’

  “He stands up then, walks to the big window and waves me over. I don’t want to go near that window. ‘Come,’ he says. I turn to look at Raúl and the taxista, but they are both looking at their phones. I walk over to the man and stand sideways to the window so I can keep an eye on everyone. The man is looking out at the city, which looks from there like a rolling carpet of gray boxes. ‘Twenty years ago,’ he says, ‘this was all forest and milpas, but don’t those people still need to eat?’ He turns back to me. ‘What UNAM has done for you is the same thing we are doing for the corn—maximizing its potential. When we signed NAFTA you were still a boy, but this was my generation’s gift to you. Not since Porfirio Díaz built the railroads and industrialized the sugar cane has a Mexican leader made such a strong commitment to progress. Thanks to Carlos Salinas, Mexico is becoming a modern country—and we are becoming a modern people. Tell me, how old were you when you got your first pair of shoes?’