The baby cried with such a loud voice that I feared soldiers would hear us. Using the jagged magüey leaf, I sliced through the cord. Blood leaked from both cut ends, so I pinched the mother’s end while I tried to knot the baby’s cord. It was hard, because the cord kept slipping from my shaking fingers, but finally I made a knot and reached down with my mouth to bite onto the bloody end to pull it even tighter.
After I had knotted the mother’s cord the same way, I picked up the baby and laid it against the mother’s chest. The tired woman opened her eyes and stared weakly but couldn’t lift her arms to hold her baby. Her face was pale and she looked ill. The baby still screamed, so I opened the mother’s huipil and placed the baby’s mouth against the nipple of her swollen breast. The baby wanted to keep crying, but when it felt the nipple against its lips, it caught its breath and began to suck.
I sat beside the exhausted mother and held the uncleaned baby as it nursed. The child was all wrinkled and smeared with blood, birth fluids, and white sticky paste, but still she was beautiful. The magic of what I had witnessed robbed me of my breath. It both frightened and thrilled me. At a time of so much death, new life had been born.
The baby nursed briefly but then cried loudly once again. I forced her mouth back against the mother’s swollen breast, but she turned stubbornly away from the nipple and screamed even louder, her piercing wails like a squealing rabbit alerting a hawk. The hawks that I feared wore uniforms and carried guns.
I wanted to ask the mother what I should do with her baby, but she had fallen unconscious. Her breathing was shallow. I glanced fearfully over my shoulder. There across the valley, crossing a sloping field a kilometer away, walked forty or fifty soldiers in uniform, single file. They couldn’t hear the baby crying yet, but their trail would soon lead them past the mother, who lay still in the grass as if dead.
I dared not think what soldiers might do to a half-naked woman and a baby. “Soldiers are coming,” I whispered loudly, glancing desperately over my shoulder and then back down at the motionless mother. I wanted to panic and hide, but I called Alicia to my side and placed the screaming baby in her arms. “Hold her,” I ordered. “I need to hide the mother.”
Obediently Alicia held the baby and watched as I grabbed the mother’s wrists and dragged her deeper into the trees to where the brush would hide her body from the trail. Alicia followed us, holding the crying baby.
I shook the woman. “What should I do with your baby?” I begged.
The woman’s head fell to the side. I shook her again but she refused to wake up. Frantically I looked around. I couldn’t just leave the crying baby beside her. The soldiers would soon arrive.
I pulled off the woman’s huipil and wrapped it around the baby as a blanket. I spread her dark corte over her to help hide her and to protect her from the mosquitoes and flies that swarmed around us in the morning air. I feared she was dying, but I could do nothing more to help her. There was no water or food to leave with her, and the soldiers walked closer with each second that passed. I needed to escape.
I took the crying infant from Alicia, glanced one last time at the unconscious mother, then rushed into the forest away from the approaching soldiers. I ran as fast as I could, carrying the baby and holding Alicia’s hand. In some places I crossed trails but dared not follow them. At times the trees thinned and we were forced to walk out into the open. Those times terrified me. Finally I stopped to catch my breath with the baby still screaming urgently in my arms.
I held the crying baby up to look into its eyes. “Be quiet, little baby!” I said loudly. “I’m trying to save your life. If you want to live, then help me. I’m not your mother, and life isn’t always kind.”
I knew the baby didn’t understand my words, but it hiccuped and stopped crying to look at me. It seemed impossible to me, as I stared at the baby, to think that soldiers had begun their lives so small, vulnerable, and innocent. What was it that corrupted humans so?
I brought the baby gently to my chest and rocked it and quietly sang a song Mamí once sang to me.
Hush baby,
Don’t cry now.
Birds sing,
Church bells ring.
Hush baby,
Don’t be sad.
Never fear.
Mamí’s near.
As I sang, the baby’s urgent screams faded into fitful whimpers and she fell asleep on my shoulder. I held my breath; the soldiers could have been anywhere. Slowly I walked, cradling the baby in my arms and humming quietly. Alicia held to my corte and followed me.
The morning sun had climbed high above us, heating the air and bringing thick swarms of mosquitoes. I shooed them from the baby’s face. When she woke again, the baby didn’t look well. She weighed heavy in my arms, listless and too weak to cry. I walked in circles, tracing my finger gently over the infant’s tiny cheeks and wondering what I should do. The baby needed to nurse from its mother, but I doubted the mother still lived, and soldiers most likely surrounded her.
We walked on until we came to a small stream, where I wet the edge of my huipil. Carefully I dripped water into the baby’s mouth. She spit the water out and turned her head stubbornly to the side. Again I tried. Finally I lifted the baby and looked into her face again, saying, “Listen to me, little baby. If you love us, you’ll live. If you don’t, you’ll die. Do what you want, but decide quickly, because my sister, Alicia, she needs help, too.”
Well, the baby must have loved us. She started sucking on my knuckle and let me squeeze water down my finger into her mouth. Again and again I dipped the edge of my huipil into the stream and squeezed more water until the baby slept once again.
I knew the baby needed more than water to survive, but it was all I had to offer her. I continued walking until the forest opened onto a bare hillside overlooking a big open valley. Spread out below me was a large pueblo I had never seen before. This pueblo was much like the one I had walked to for market. The central plaza looked like the middle of a big nest from the hillside. Surrounding the plaza were a big municipal building, a school, a Catholic church, an outdoor marketplace, and the many tiendas, which were small stores containing little more than tables protected by plastic tarps or makeshift wooden roofs. Rows of brown adobe homes spread in every direction, red tile or rusted steel roofing protecting each of them from the weather.
It was market day. People crowded the streets, and the market stalls were piled high with fruit and other goods. Bells rang out from the Catholic Church, announcing the beginning of mass to the many people in the plaza. The sight of the pueblo surprised me. These people went about life as if there were no danger. Was this pueblo somehow different from our cantón? Alicia cowered and pulled away from me at the sight of the buildings.
I had thought of entering the pueblo with Alicia and the baby, but perhaps that wasn’t wise. I was a stranger. If there were soldiers, what would they think of a strange girl entering the pueblo with a scared little girl and a newborn, nearly dead baby? Maybe some soldier would recognize me.
I stood on the hill above the pueblo, my stomach churning with indecision. The baby needed help and so did her mother. Maybe in the market I could find some goat’s milk for the baby. She slept too soundly in my arms. I thought of something that Manuel had told me once. He said, “Gabriela, decisions aren’t right or wrong when you make them. It’s what you do with your decisions that make them right or wrong.”
At the edge of the pueblo I decided to leave Alicia alone with the baby for a short time so that I could enter the market. Quickly I would find milk for the baby and help for the mother, then immediately return before the baby woke up.
We walked until only a stand of trees separated us from the nearest homes. I found a thick clump of shrubs for Alicia to hide beneath. “If the baby cries, rock her gently,” I told Alicia. “Don’t leave this hiding place for any reason.”
Alicia refused to answer or nod, but she held the sleeping baby tightly in her arms.
“I’ll be ri
ght back,” I promised. Then I turned and ran into the pueblo.
As I neared the plaza, the sound of music and marimbas filled the air. Papí had always played marimbas, and those familiar sounds flooded my mind with memories. All around me were families, animals, the sounds of children playing, and the smell of cooking. For a moment I wanted to forget everything that had happened. I wanted to begin life over as if no one had died. But even as I daydreamed, I knew Alicia held the sick baby and waited for me.
I rushed across the plaza to the market where I found row after row of vendors bartering their goods. Never had I seen so much food. Carts of colorful fruits and vegetables were piled high near bins bursting with coffee beans, rice, or corn. Fresh meats hung from hooks, and one stand even sold bottled drinks and chocolates. Some vendors sold live animals: chickens, rabbits, goats, and squawking parrots. I headed toward the goats. Back in our cantón I had seen grandmothers feed goat’s milk to babies when their mothers fell ill.
As I approached, the vendors stared with surprise at the dirty ghost that walked toward them with tangled hair, a soiled and bloody huipil, and a dirty corte. I knew it was curiosity and not unkindness that made them stare. One vendor motioned for me to come closer.
Hesitantly I approached, and he treated me respectfully, offering me some tortillas and a piece of chicken. Another vendor handed me a bottle of Coca-Cola. I stuffed the food into my mouth and drank faster than a girl should. One man gave me two oranges, and I hid them inside my huipil for Alicia. As I chewed, I explained in Quiché to the man with the goats, “I lost my mother, and my baby sister needs milk.” That was the nearest I dared come to the truth.
The man gave me a puzzled look, and when he spoke I realized that he was Ixil and didn’t speak Quiché. Hesitantly, I spoke a little Spanish, but he didn’t understand that either, so I pointed to a small gourd he had filled with milk. He hesitated, but then handed me the milk with a kind smile. I nodded my thanks and carried the gourd carefully back across the plaza.
Still I trusted no one. Suddenly a soft touch on my shoulder made me jump. I turned to find an old nun looking at me. Deep wrinkles creased the woman’s face. Her skin was shriveled like a dried orange, and her shoulders sagged as if under some invisible load. She smiled at me, her squinting eyes glowing with curiosity and kindness. “Hello, I’m Mother Lopez,” she said in Spanish.
I had seen soldiers dress as priests, but never as nuns. No soldier could have faked such a look of kindness. Cautiously I spoke in Spanish. “My name is Gabriela,” I said.
“You speak Spanish well for an India,” the nun said.
“You must help me,” I said. “This morning my little sister and I found a mother giving birth alone in the countryside. I helped her, but then because there were soldiers nearby, I had to hide the mother and we brought the baby here. My little sister is outside the pueblo, hiding with the baby.”
The nun nodded. “Show me where they are.”
As the nun began to follow me, gunshots echoed loudly in the air. Then we heard screaming and looked around. From the narrow side streets, soldiers suddenly appeared, firing their rifles into the air and herding people toward the center of the plaza. As we watched, an Ixil husband and wife ignored the soldier’s commands and ran past them, trying to escape. Two soldiers aimed their rifles and fired. The couple stumbled and then fell lifeless to the ground, their bodies suddenly still.
“Come with me,” the nun shouted, grabbing my hand and spilling the gourd of milk on the ground. “Let’s go to the church.”
“I must go to my sister,” I shouted back, twisting my hand free and running back down an empty alley.
Suddenly more soldiers appeared ahead of me, firing their rifles recklessly as they came. I wanted only to escape, so I returned to the plaza and ran in a different direction, but the soldiers were everywhere, completely surrounding us.
Without thinking, I ran across the plaza to a single large machichi tree thick with branches and leaves. I ignored all that happened around me as I reached up and began climbing.
Below me, people ran in every direction like scared cattle. Soldiers surrounded everyone. I climbed faster. In a forest it was easy to hide in a tree surrounded by other trees, but the machichi tree in the plaza stood alone, a single tree surrounded by buildings, streets, frightened people, and dangerous soldiers. When I reached the upper branches, I peeked down through the thick leaves and saw soldiers. They shouted and cursed and fired their rifles as they herded the terrified people. I feared that some of the bullets they fired recklessly into the air might hit me.
Soon the ugly and dangerous men surrounded not only the people of the pueblo but also the tree I had climbed. I, too, was a prisoner.
CHAPTER NINE
Fear froze my muscles. With soldiers less than ten meters below me, it was as if a big fist pinched my throat and squeezed the air from my chest. The soldiers could have seen me through the leaves of the machichi tree if they had looked straight up, but they were too busy shouting and waving their rifles at the scared people who churned frantically about the plaza.
I peeked out from between the leaves at the vendors across the plaza who tried to hide, crouching behind their stands. The soldiers spotted them and opened fire. From my tree I watched men and women falling dead across their stands, spilling fruit, coffee, and vegetables onto the dirt. Goats and sheep bawled and twisted frantically at the ends of their tethers.
Many people ran toward the church near the tree where I hid. Inside, a priest called loudly for everyone to be quiet and not to be afraid. “This is a place of God,” he shouted. “God will care for us. If the soldiers hurt us here, we’ll all go to Heaven together.”
I don’t think God heard our prayers that day. A small band of soldiers burst into the church. Muffled shots quieted the priest’s voice, then people from the church spilled out through the large double doors, only to be met by other soldiers who herded them like cattle across the plaza, where all the other villagers waited. I spotted Mother Lopez among them.
The soldiers shoved everybody into the center of the plaza and separated them. They shouted loudly, “All men—into the church! Leave your knives and machetes outside by the tree. All women go to the municipal building. Children, go to the schoolhouse.”
“We’re taking a census,” shouted one soldier. “This is only for administrative purposes.”
I wanted to scream down from the tree, “Don’t believe them! They lie!” But I dared not move or make a sound.
Most obeyed the soldiers quickly, fear glistening in their eyes, but a few of the men refused to leave their families. The soldiers approached those men, clubbed them down with the butts of their rifles, and dragged them unconscious or struggling into the church. After three men were clubbed down, the rest left their wives and children without argument.
Some children clung to their mothers and were forcefully pulled away and dragged screaming into the schoolhouse with the rest. One mother held desperately to her baby, but the swing of a rifle broke her arm and a soldier carried her crying baby away, upside down by a single leg.
When the plaza had been cleared of all campesinos and Indios, guards positioned themselves outside each building. Other soldiers brought wood from people’s homes and built a big fire in the plaza. I didn’t understand at first why they had started such a big fire on a warm day. They separated themselves into three groups. Some soldiers went to the schoolhouse, some to the church, and some to the municipal building. These men joined guards who were already stationed outside each structure.
The goats and sheep kept bawling and twisting against their ropes, trying to escape. Dogs cowered in corners and against walls. The soldiers laughed and shot the animals one at a time, as if for practice. When that shooting ended and every creature lay dead, all was quiet for a few minutes. The only sounds I heard came from the church, where men pleaded to be released and returned to their families. But soon their begging turned to cries of fear, and before long, terrible s
creams of pain echoed from inside the church. I covered my ears, but nothing could mute the sounds of torture.
I imagined these same sounds echoing through my own cantón when my family was killed. I thought also of Alicia and the baby. Could they hear this shooting? I had promised Papí that I would care for our family, but I had failed everyone, even Alicia. It hurt to imagine her totally alone under the bush, frightened, holding a sick baby and depending on my return.
A new kind of scream made me look toward the municipal building, where all the women had been taken. The soldiers had dragged a young woman outside. They shoved her into the plaza, ripping off her corte, her huipil, and then her undergarments. She fought and struggled, but the soldiers held her naked. She bit one of them, and he slapped her so hard that even from up in the tree I saw blood flow from her mouth. I will never forget how the soldiers laughed as they lined up and waited their turn to rape that woman.
It was terrifying to watch what that woman endured. She was so brave. Never once did she scream or cry out from the pain as each new soldier pummeled her on the ground. Some soldiers struck her as they raped her. Her only escape was to close her eyes and turn her head away from the animals who grunted and laughed as they violated her body and her dignity.
Louder than the soldiers’ sadistic laughs were the screams of torture echoing from inside the church. The screams would grow louder and louder, then suddenly fall quiet. Then the door of the church opened again and soldiers dragged another body out across the plaza and dumped it onto the flames. The corpses were bloody, with ears and noses and fingers missing.
I felt relief when the last soldier finished raping the woman. Maybe now she would be released or allowed to return to the other women. Instead, a soldier walked up to her as casually as if he were lighting his cigarette. He pulled out his pistol. I looked quickly away as a loud shot echoed up from the plaza. When I peeked again, two soldiers had dragged her body to the fire.