When Dad got sick in the nights his eyes would ignite and he’d yell,
—Where is she?
He’d prop himself up by the elbows, his head a searchlight.
—Too long, too long, too long,
he’d say, as the blind clacked against the open window. In the mornings he wanted Weetbix sprinkled with sugar and softened with boiling water. A mist of fine sugar first. I watched the crystals dissolve. Gone. No milk. His stomach could not take milk. That morning he dug his spoon in but did not eat one bit. The aroma of scalded wheat intensified and he said,
—I know you know.
He heaved my sister’s doll, Raggedy-Ann, out from under his pillow. His lips were trembling and I could not look.
—Go. Find ... out.
I shook my head, tears heating.
—I’m not like her.
—Yes, you are.
...
Up before the birds on Saturday mornings my sister Elisa and I watched Aerobics Oz Style religiously. Half-asleep, hair-matted, pyjamas staticky and settling into the cracks we were primed for criticism. On the floor close to the TV I inspected the lithe bodies and strained muscles.
—Oh, she can’t hold that for much longer.
—Look at her face!
Elisa made her body liquid, oozing it into the couch. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, lizard-like, every so often she’d jolt her Raggedy-Ann doll into the air and shake it emphasizing her words.
—Effie’s putting on weight.
— She won’t be happy with that.
— She’s out of time.
Her eyes would slide to meet mine, their look both sorry and disappointed, as if she were Effie’s coach. I just want so much for her, she’d whisper on the side lines.
—Ye Gods! That colour really doesn’t suit her.
—She looks shocking.
—Can’t keep up.
— Late night fight with her boyfriend.
And Elisa would raise her brows and the doll—its red, string hair quivering and settling.
At Christmas dinner one look between us was enough. A hint of a chance of a look, and our eyes widened at the mound of minted peas Uncle Rod was attempting to shovel in. One pea toppled. Two. Three green balls rolling. A plop into the gravy boat—quick sand. My sister snorted lemonade out her nose and I fell off my chair.
Elisa told other kids that she had a horse called Maple Towers and that the only person Maple would let ride her was Elisa.
—You’ve got to hear them. Horses. Get up close and listen.
By then kids had gathered round wondering if it were true. I’d nod along, and exaggerate, which was my job and I was pretty good too.
That was the old days when it was easier to understand what was required of you. Plus, there weren’t consequences, or if there were, you could talk your way out. Why couldn’t she talk her way out?
On the phone she said,
—It’s ok. I’m a foreigner. They don’t want attention. They leave foreigners alone.
...
On the plane I sat Raggedy-Ann in the spare middle seat. I looked at her but she couldn’t look back because her eyes were black woollen crosses. Raggedy-Ann could speak in my sister’s voice and she said,
—Anything I can do, you can too.
I almost believed her.
When my flight came in we flew low over the city for a long, long time. I couldn’t believe the city was everywhere; its white haze of houses stretched beyond the horizon in all directions. Above, a veil of cloud was so thin in places that I could peek through. Stacks of bleached houses crawled up mountainsides. From the blue of the air, and the way it hovered I knew straight away that everything was ancient and half-between. The worlds had mingled and it was hard to tell what belonged to this world or that. In a place like this you did not assume anything. Entire hillsides were slotted with rectangular orange houses, on the next slope the houses were pink then blue. They grew like fungi or black mold smothering an organism. Ghosts could’ve danced from one rooftop to the other for weeks and weeks and never leave the city.
From the city I took the bus. In the middle of nowhere a dust cloud got up and out of it emerged an army truck. Soldiers in camo, guns first, boarded. One poked an assault rifle into my red backpack, barking something. The passengers swivelled to point me out. The soldier took one step toward me, his chin bucked and he turned and disembarked. I clutched Raggedy-Ann tight in my fist. Maybe my sister was right about them not messing with foreigners.
An hour later we lurched into town. What I would say about this place is that it was not old. It was temporary, tattered, coated in dust as if a tornado had just whirled it together. The hills kneeled in, looking down on it, sorry for it. From the moment I stepped off the bus I thought of getting out of there.
That night I slept with Raggedy-Ann tucked under my pillow despite the fact that the lump of her hurt my neck. In the morning I walked to find coffee and on the corner a woman sold some from a huge aluminium pot atop a cart. Before I could stop her, she squeezed in a plop of condensed milk.
Certainly, it’s a strange thing to walk the streets of the city in which your sister died, disappeared, well ... died. I know she’s dead. I hate getting to that point in explaining because I do NOT know which word to pick and then I have to go on and explain the official report and agreed upon fact is missing and then also, do I mention the thousands of local girls? Gone. Dead, too. All the while my heart is holding her, because she was mine, MY sister. Then I have to go on too much with my heart already torn out, and this tissue thing in its place that can’t absorb anything and I’m afraid I’ll whimper instead of a word. So I do NOT mention her.
...
It’s two in the afternoon and Raggedy-Ann feels like she knows these streets. I tuck her and a bottle of water into my red backpack and walk. I wander the miraged avenues under buzzing power lines and suddenly, HERE: a pink ribbon and a wreath of cloth petals, lavender, pink and blue, framing a photo of a girl just like my sister. My howl comes out a whimper. HERE! On a street corner, at a crossroads, where no one goes. A shrine. Lucky I can squeeze Raggedy-Ann. Lucky despair does not rise in my throat. No, it is a cinder of anger, glowing. I choke it down into my gut. Scorching. My fucking sister; quick of limb and swift of wit. My fucking sister with her no one’s going to tell me what to do.
Across the road a kid on a bike rides side on so he can stare at me. A rooster emerges in a pod of dust from a gap under a house. He struts, looks behind and darts around the house leaving a streak of gold. I’ve got to focus, but I can’t.
—Stay with me here.
That’s what Elisa said the last time I spoke to her. Her voice was very clear and quiet. I heard the dread in it and I heard the traffic far away and music closer.
—Where? Where? For God’s sake!
But she would not say and if I yelled I knew she would hang up. I imagined the countryside: flat plains, threatened by distant blue sierras, gangs of dusty dogs and mounds of stones gathered. The air was high up here, dissolving with every breath. Fuck, I wish I could keep on track.
Elisa went away to school. She worked nights cleaning office buildings and sometimes slept there with the light of the copier a robot in her dreams. She became a journalist. We argued about it sometimes, especially when she wanted to investigate what happened to the girls. She said she’d sworn to tell the truth. An oath, she said. Bullshit. There is no truth. In a booth at the pub we had a screaming argument. Elisa stood on the booth seat, tapping her toe on the table shouting,
—This here’s reality. This table right here.
Tap tap. I showed my teeth and gave my derisive laugh.
—Reality doesn’t exist. FUCK ...
—Out!
The barman pointed to the door.
—Reality.
I finished, real quiet, because something in me could never leave things undone.
Two years back when Elisa arrived in this town she messaged me the name of the hotel. La Garbancera Internacional. WTF. Neither of us spoke Spanish but Google translate said it meant The International Chickpea Farmer and brought up etchings of La Catrina. I looked into those black orbits for eyes and I knew nothing good would come of it. But would she listen, of course not. I was the dreamer; my curse a too vivid imagination. She was the practical one.
Now, two years after, it is my imagination getting me by. The wondering I did led me here. I want to know what happened, to imagine what it was like for her. I bought practical shoes and a camera. I restrain myself from taking photos of weird, beautiful things like the shiny skins of gaping pumpkins on the roadsides. Instead, I record landmarks and business names. I take photos of girls. Most of them are factory workers wearing grey marl track pants, sneakers and long hair in plaits or rolled into dollops on their napes. If no one ever sees them again, I have them here, in a photo.
Back in my hotel room a woven cloth covers a glass table. The cloth’s tasselled ends are scribbles of sky blue, pink and orange thread. Beside the TV a brown plastic tray holds sachets of international roast and powdered creamer. Two amber glass lamps guard a thatched seat which comes from a particular town where the main road is workshop after workshop full of men with machetes whacking and weaving wood and flax into a seat of comfort. Maybe one of them had been a resting place for my sister.
My idea is to take a taxi at 8pm. This is the same time Elisa called me from her taxi.
——Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.
Oh God! I am thinking. Very quiet now ...
—It’s always the same taxi. North.
How does she know? She hums as if to cover what she’s saying.
—out of town, past the storehouses, past the calzada, the old train station ...
I hear the voice of the taxi driver.
—My daughter, hija, work there.
—Where?
She never speaks to me again.
—Ok,
she says after a long while. Car doors slam. That’s it.
Out the window the night is a blue haze, decorated by distant lights. I have no idea what I will say to the taxi driver. I know you know. What happened? At ten minutes to eight I take Raggedy-Ann and go downstairs. Her dress is now a line of purple at her navel and she has threads for hair.
The foyer of the hotel is dim and loud from the TV behind the reception desk where a man in a crisp white shirt bounces his leg from the knee and does not look at me. Out front, three yellow cabs are spaced evenly. What if I get the wrong one? I squeeze Raggedy-Ann’s waist and I get the sense that I should wait. I go to the 7-Eleven and come away with two packs of gansitos that feel fleshy under their orange wrapper.
One of the taxi drivers is eating. He sets aside his red plastic basket of tacos and wipes his moustache with the back of his hand. Before he’s done I’m in.
—North, I say. I’m meeting a friend at a hotel.
He watches me through the mirror. He spreads his hands wider than his head.
—Big hotel?
I nod. I’m not nervous. I swear to God I’m not.
The taxi moves silently through dark streets. Street vendors wheel carts home. Dogs lay on the curb sides. Kids kick grubby balls high into the air. Soon there are long warehouses with tin roofs, and fewer houses. A field of agave, blue under the moon. No people now. I’m frightened already and Raggedy-Ann is no help. I spy a white arch that marks the entrance to the calzada and swivel to watch its retreat. I could push the door open, roll out and run. I’ll tell Dad we were wrong; this is not the town. Here’s a grove of dark trees, oranges, I think. A factory and beside it a shop and more houses now.
—Mi hija. Work there.
The driver stretches an arm out indicating the factory. I hug Raggedy-Ann to my wild, running heart. My fingers are so tight on her that I can feel my blood move in them.
I see lights now. White stairs. Pillars. Two palms either side. A grand hotel. We’re slowing, nearing the entrance. We wait while a woman and her daughter cross. The little girl looks back at me with big, sad eyes.
—Embarazada, mi hija. Daughter.
The taxi driver moves a hand in a semi-circle in front of his belly. Pregnant, he means. His eyes go all big and darty. I feel him tighten. He turns right around, looking me up and down. I can tell he wants to hate me but his eyes turn to jelly and his face crumbles.
—Ayyyy,
he cries.
Two men wait at the top of the hotel steps. One wears a soft, brown bomber jacket. He races down. There’s a gun on his belt. Raggedy-Ann knows. The taxi driver’s body has gone limp. His neck shakes. He yanks the wheel and squeals away as I reach to lock the door. I am thrown across the seat. I lever up. We are back on the highway, heading straight into lights. Brakes screech. I scream too late. We skid away. Side on, the truck slides towards us. It’s one of those with wooden side rails, stacked high with water melons. Bang. Thunder. God, it’s loud. I yell, but I can’t anymore. Darkness rises quick in my head. My eyes. Glass flies. Melons leap and splatter. Raggedy-Ann flings away.
When the silence gets up, the little girl breaks from her mother. She snatches up Raggedy-Ann, and coos at her,
—Eliiiiisa. Shh-shh, Elisa.
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