The Crystal Frontier (30 page)

Romero began to gather all of them together—no way. He wouldn't charge them, he only charged when he delivered the worker to the boss. That's why he was respected on the border. He kept his word, he was a professional. Listen, he told them, I'm even teaching my kids how to be guides when they grow up—coyotes, as we're called in California—that's how honorable I think my miserable job is …

It was then that the desert night filled with the echo of a storm that Gonzalo Romero tried to locate in the sky; but the sky was clear, starry, outlining the black silhouettes of the poplars, perfumed by the incense of the piñons. Was the tremor coming from deep within the earth? Gonzalo Romero thought for an instant that the crust of mesquite and creosote was the armor plating of this plain of the Río Grande and that no earthquake could break it up; no, the roar, the tremor, the echo arose from another armor plate, one of asphalt and tar, the straight line of the highways of the plain, the wheels of the motorcycles calcifying the desert, motors ablaze, as if the bikes' lights were fire and their riders warriors in an unmentionable horde. Gonzalo Romero and the group of workers saw the arms tattooed with Nazi insignia, the shaved heads, the sweatshirts proclaiming white supremacy, the hands raised in the Fascist salute, the fists clutching cans of beer, twenty, thirty men, sweating beer and pickles and onion, who suddenly surrounded them. They formed a circle of motorcycles, screaming, White supremacy, Death to the Mexicans, Let's invade Mexico, might as well begin now, we came to kill Mexicans. And at point-blank range each fired his high-powered rifle at Gonzalo Romero, at the twenty-three workers. Then, when they were all dead, one of the skinheads got off his bike and checked the bleeding head of each body with the tip of his boot. They'd aimed well, at the Mexicans' heads, and one of them put his cap back on his bare head and said to no one in particular, to his comrades, to the dead, to the desert, to the night: “Today I really had the death faucet wide open!”

He showed his teeth. On the inside of his lower lip was tattooed
WE ARE EVERYWHERE.

*   *   *

and then disguised as a French lawyer, Benito Juárez sent Santa Anna packing, was attacked by the French, and took refuge in El Paso del Norte because the French left him nothing but that bend in the río bravo, río grande, to defend his Mexican republic:

he arrived with his black coach and his wagons filled with papers, letters, laws, he arrived with his black cape, his black suit, his black top hat, he himself as dark as the most ancient language, like the forgotten Indian language of Oaxaca, he himself as dark as the most ancient time, when there was no yesterday or tomorrow,

but he didn't know that: he was a liberal Mexican lawyer, an admirer of Europe betrayed by Europe who had now taken refuge in the bend of the río bravo, río grande, with no other relics for his exodus than the papers, the laws he'd signed, identical to the laws of Europe,

Juárez looks at the other side of the river, at Texas and its growing prosperity, there where Spain left only the footprints of Cabeza de Vaca in the sand and Mexico, translating that name word for word, was only a cow's head buried in the sand,

gringo Texas founded commercial towns, attracted immigrants from all over the world, crisscrossed its territory with railroads, increased its wheat and cattle, and received the gift of the devil, oil wells, with no need to make the sign of the cross:

“Texas is so rich that anyone who wants to live poorly will have to go elsewhere, Texas is so vigorous that anyone who wants to die will have to go elsewhere”:

look at me, Juárez says from the other side of the river, I have nothing and I even forgot what my grandparents had, but I want to be like you, prosperous, rich, democratic, look at me, understand me, my responsibility is different, I want us to be governed by laws, not tyrants, but I have to create a state that will see to it that laws are respected but that won't succumb to despotism:

and Texas did not look at Juárez, it only looked at Texas, and Texas only saw two presidents cross the bridge to visit and congratulate each other, William Howard Taft, fat as an elephant, seeing him walk on the bridge made everyone fearful the bridge wouldn't hold, immense, smiling, with roguish eyes and ringmaster moustaches, Porfirio Díaz light and thin under the weight of his myriad medals, an Indian from Oaxaca, sinewy at the age of eighty, with a white moustache, furrowed brow, wide nostrils, and the sad eyes of an aged guerrilla fighter, the two of them congratulating themselves that Mexico was buying merchandise and that Texas was selling it, that Mexico was selling land and that Texas was buying it,

Jennings and Blocker more than a million acres of Coahuila, the Texas Company almost five million acres in Tamaulipas, William Randolph Hearst almost eight million acres in Chihuahua,

they didn't see the Mexicans who wanted to see Mexico whole, wounded, dark, stained with silver, and cloaked in mud, her belly petrified like that of some prehistoric animal, her bells as fragile as glass, her mountains chained to one another in a vast orographic prison,

her memory tremulous: Mexico

her smile facing the firing squad: Mexico

her genealogy of smoke: Mexico

her roots so old they decided to show themselves without shame

her fruit bursting like stars

her songs breaking apart like piñatas,

the men and women of the revolution reached this point,

from here they departed, on the bank of the río grande, río bravo, but before marching south to fight

they stopped, showing the gringos the wounds we wanted to close, the dreams we needed to dream, the lies we had to expel, the nightmares we had to assume:

we showed ourselves and they saw us,

once again we were the strangers, the inferiors, the incomprehensible, the ones in love with death, the siesta, and rags, they threatened, disdained, didn't understand that to the south of the río grande, río bravo, for one moment, during the revolution, the truth we wanted to be and share with them shone, different from them, before the plagues of Mexico returned, the corruption, the abuse, the misery of many, the opulence of a few, disdain as a rule, compassion the exception, equal to them:

will there be time? will there be time? will there be time?

will there be time for us to see each other and accept each other as we really are, gringos and Mexicans, destined to live together at the border of the river until the world gets tired, closes its eyes, and shoots itself, confusing death with sleep?

LEONARDO BARROSO

What had Leonardo Barroso been talking about a minute before? He was almost spitting into the cellular phone, demanding compensation for the losses these gangs of thieves—these end-of-the-millennium Pancho Villas!—attacking trains were causing him, piling up debris outside the terminals, robbing shipments from the assembly plants, smuggling in workers: did Murchinson know what it cost to stop a train, investigate if there were illegals on it, fuck up the schedules, replace stolen merchandise, get the orders to their destinations on time—in a word, to fulfill contracts? What had Leonardo Barroso been thinking about a minute before? The threat had been repeated that morning. Over the cellular phone. Territories had to be respected. Responsibilities as well. In matters related to drug trafficking, Mr. Barroso, only Latin Americans are guilty, Mexicans and Colombians, never Americans: that was the crux of the system. In the United States there can never be a drug king like Escobar or Caro Quintero; the guilty parties are those who sell drugs, not those who buy them. In the United States there are no corrupt judges—they're your monopoly. There are no secret landing strips here, we don't launder money here, Mr. Barroso, and if you think you can blackmail us in order to save your skin and be proclaimed a national hero in the process, it's going to cost you plenty because there's millions and millions involved here—you know that. Your whole way of operating is to invade territories that aren't yours, Mr. Barroso; instead of being content with the crumbs, you want the whole feast, Mr. Barroso … and that just cannot happen …

What did Leonardo Barroso feel a moment before? Michelina's hand in his as he feverishly sought the girl's familiar heat without finding it, as if a bird, long caressed and consoled, had suffocated, dead from so much tenderness, tired of so much attention …

Where was Leonardo Barroso a minute before?

In his Cadillac Coupe de Ville, being driven by a chauffeur supplied by his partner Murchinson, he and Michelina sitting in back, the chauffeur driving slowly to get past the booths and obstacles U.S. Immigration had set up so immigrants couldn't run through and cause a stampede, Michelina making who knows what small talk about the Mexican chauffeur Leandro Reyes who crashed in that tunnel in Spain, crashed into that foolish nineteen-year-old boy driving in the other direction …

Where was Leonardo Barroso a minute later?

Riddled with bullets, shot five times by a high-powered weapon, the driver dead at the wheel, Michelina miraculously alive, screaming hysterically, clutching her hands to her throat, as if she wanted to strangle her shouts, immediately remembering her tears, wiping them in the crook of her elbow, staining the sleeve of her Moschino jacket with mascara.

Where was Juan Zamora two minutes later?

At Leonardo Barroso's side, answering the urgent call—Doctor! Doctor!—he'd heard as he crossed the international bridge. He looked for vital signs in the pulse, the heart, the mouth—nothing. There was nothing to do. It was Juan Zamora's first case in American territory. He didn't recognize in that man with his brains blown out the benefactor of his family, the protector of his father, the powerful man who sent him to study at Cornell …

What did Rolando Rozas do three minutes later?

He spoke into his cellular phone to transmit the bare news—job done, no complications, zero errors—then passed his sweaty hand over his airplane-colored suit, as Marina called it, adjusted his tie, and began to stroll, as he did every night, through his favorite restaurants, through the bars and streets of El Paso, to see what new girl might turn up.

*   *   *

now Marina of the Maquilas crosses the bridge over the río grande, río bravo, and she's holding the arm of a tiny old lady wrapped in shawls, protecting her, an unreadable old woman under the palimpsest of infinite wrinkles that cross a face like the map of a country lost forever,

Dinorah asked her this favor, take my grandma to the other side of the bridge, Marina, deliver her to my uncle Ricardo on the other side, he doesn't want to come back to Mexico ever again, it makes him sad, makes him afraid, too, that they might not let him back in,

take my grandma to the other side of the río grande, río bravo, so my uncle can take her back to Chicago,

she only came to comfort me on the death of the kid,

she can't do it alone, and not just because she's almost a hundred years old

but because she's spent so much time living as a Mexican in Chicago that she forgot Spanish a long time ago and never learned English,

she can't communicate with anyone

(except with time, except with the night, except with oblivion, except with mongrels and parrots, except with the papayas she touches in the market and the coyotes that visit her at dawn, except with the dreams she can't tell anyone, except with the immense reserve of that which is not spoken today so it can be said tomorrow)

but on the other side, trying to cross the bridge amid great confusion, two naked men approach the immigration kiosks, a fifty-year-old, silvery hair, athletic physique but well-fed, dragging a scrawny simpleton by the arm, the simpleton screwed up beyond all screwing up, just skin and bones, dark, but the two of them together, pleading, they seem like lunatics, they didn't let us leave through San Diego and come in through Tijuana, or leave through Caléxico and come in through Mexicali, or leave through Nogales Arizona and come in through Nogales Sonora,

where are they going to send us?

to the sea?

are we going to swim our way to Mexico?

with nothing on, stripped, cleaned out?

give us a place to rest, in the name of heaven!

don't you realize that behind us, pursuing us, armed garbage, death with deodorant, is approaching and that toward us is advancing once again the dead earth, the unjust earth, the law that says: Shoot fugitives in the back!

we want to enter to tell the story of the crystal frontier before it's too late,

let everyone speak,

speak, Juan Zamora, bent over, attending a corpse,

speak, Margarita Barroso, showing your uncertain identity so as to cross the border,

speak, Michelina Laborde, stop screaming, think about your husband, the abandoned boy, Don Leonardo Barroso's heir, imagine yourself, Gonzalo Romero, that the skinheads didn't murder you but instead the coyotes that now surround your corpse and the corpses of the twenty-three workers in a circle of inseparable hunger and astonishment,

get pissed off, Serafín Romero, and tell yourself you're going to attack as many damn trains as cross your path so that war can return to the frontier again, so that it's not only the gringos who attack,

adjust your night-vision glasses, Dan Polonsky, hoping that the strikers dare to take a step forward,

pretend you're stupid, Mario Islas, so that your godson Eloíno can run inland, wetback, young, breathless, intending never to return,