Description
After reading the assigned readings from Massacre of the Dreamers, Borderlands/La Frontera, When God Was a Woman, the ending of Erased Faces, and watching the documentaries, how do these readings and visual sources change or reaffirm your view of women as spiritual figures that are strong and capable? As Catholics and Christians and in the Judeo-Christian tradition, “God” has always been male and women are either non-existent or marginalized? How do these sources shift this viewpoint? Cite each source from Weeks 4-7 at least once. 750 words minimum. Use standard essay format (MLA or APA), your choice.
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erased faces
erased faces
A Novel
By
Graciela Limón
This volume is made possible through grants from the City of Houston
through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Recovering the past, creating the future
University of Houston
Arte Público Press
452 Cullen Performance Hall
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover design by James Brisson
Photo courtesy of Eduardo Vera, “Mayor insurgente Maribel,
EZLN, October 1994”
http://evera.home.ige.org
Limón, Graciela.
Erased Faces / by Graciela Limón.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-55885-342-3
1. Women photographers—Fiction. 2. Women revolutionaries—
Fiction. 3. Americans—Mexico—Fiction. 4. Indian women—Fiction. 5.
Mexico—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3562.I464 E7 2001
813?.54—dc21
2001035543
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
© 2001 by Graciela Limón
Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 14 15
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
In memory of those who perished in the
massacre of Acteal, Chiapas
22 December 1997
Although set against a background of conflict in Chiapas, this work is a
novel. Places and people portrayed have been fictionalized.
G. L.
She meets with her face erased, and her name hidden. With her come
thousands of women. More and more arrive. Dozens, hundreds,
thousands, millions of women who remember all over the world that there
is much to be done and remember that there is still much to fight for.
EZLN communiqué:
Twelve Women in the Twelfth Year
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
1996
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 She didn’t look like me.
Chapter 2 Adriana decided never to speak again.
Chapter 3 We repeat ourselves.
Chapter 4 She wondered if white things felt pain and sadness.
Chapter 5 The mountain spoke to us.
Chapter 6 You have already been among us.
Chapter 7 Our people built that church.
Chapter 8 The soil was gray; it had no color.
Chapter 9 She felt that floating would turn to flying.
Chapter 10 The gods made men and women of maize.
Chapter 11 Why don’t you come and see?
Chapter 12 In the end, los patrones are severe and unforgiving.
Chapter 13 He even owns a mule.
Chapter 14 Kap jol, the anger of the people.
Chapter 15 I’ll see that he’s taken care of.
Chapter 16 There was only emptiness.
Chapter 17 The night in Tlatelolco had shaken him.
Chapter 18 We call him Tatic, Little Father.
Chapter 19 They crush us but we also crush ourselves.
Chapter 20 There cannot be equality in a false peace!
Chapter 21 He wondered if he would ever see her again.
Chapter 22 It was quick. It was merciful.
Chapter 23 In these parts the only thing that matters is a signature.
Chapter 24 They were innocent!
Chapter 25 Why is the day moving in reverse?
Chapter 26 What about me?
Chapter 27 Emboldened, Juana mingled with the crowd.
Chapter 28 You are my blessing.
Chapter 29 The leash snapped!
Chapter 30 In lak’ech. You are my other self.
Chapter 31 The anguish, too, was the same.
Chapter 32 She asked me to be the lips through which their silenced voices
will speak.
Books by Graciela Limón
About the Author
Acknowledgments
I’m sincerely grateful to Letitia Soto, my dearest cousin, as well as to
Andy Soto, who accompanied me to Chiapas during the month of June
1999. Circumstances were intimidating to travelers at the time, especially
since we had to travel through the mountains between Palenque and San
Cristóbal de las Casas, a region filled with armed military checkpoints. I
know that I would not have had the courage to do it on my own. Letitia and
Andy’s company, their courage, their chistes and cariño of what we saw
and experienced, made that journey unforgettable and rich in information.
Roberto Flores, valued colleague, shared remarkable photographs and
documentation on the Zapatista War, and for that I’m indebted to him. I
thank him most especially. I’m very grateful to Mary Wilbur, one of the
first readers of Erased Faces. Her input, suggestions and research enhanced
the work beyond my initial concept of it. Also, much gratitude to Toni
Zepeda for her numerous readings of the manuscript and for her helpful
input. Finally, but not least of all, is Acción Zapatista which has been so
helpful to me in gathering information.
G. L.
Chapter 1
She didn’t look like me.
The Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, Mexico, 1993.
Her ankle-length dress caught in the thick undergrowth. Her legs and
bare feet were bleeding from cuts inflicted by roots and branches matting
the muddy ground. She ran, plunging headlong into a snare of decaying
plants, oblivious to the pain that shot up her ankles, through the calves of
her legs, lodging deep in her thighs. She ran because she knew the dogs
were gaining on her; she could hear their baying, and in seconds she began
to sense their clumsy paws pounding the darkened jungle floor. Terrified,
she ran, lunging forward, panting, her body covered with sweat and her face
smeared with tears of dread.
She could not be sure, but she thought that there were others running
alongside her. In the thick gloom of the forest, she caught sight of women
running, desperately clinging to babies, tugging at children trying not to
lose their way in the darkness. Long cotton dresses pulled at them as they
plunged through the growth; straight, tangled hair stuck to their shoulders.
She saw that those women were also afraid that the snarling dogs would
catch them and tear them to pieces. Men were running, and they, too, were
terrified—their brown, sinewy bodies pressed through the dense foliage,
their loincloths snagged and ripped by gigantic ferns that reached out with
deadly tentacles.
The Lacandón women and men ran because they understood that soon
they would be overcome and devoured by the ravenous pursuers. She ran
with them, but suddenly she stopped; her feet dug deep into the jungle slime
as she halted abruptly. She began to turn in circles, arms rigidly
outstretched, but she could see nothing; she was blinded by fear, and she
darted in different directions. She had lost something, but she could not
remember what it was that had slipped through her fingers. She dropped to
her knees, groveling in the mud, digging, trying to find what it was that she
had lost. Her fingers began to bleed when her nails ripped from her flesh,
and her desperation grew, looming larger than even her pain, greater even
than the terror of being overcome by the dogs.
She was on her knees when she felt her long straight hair wrap itself
around her neck. It got tighter and tighter. It began to strangle her.
Frantically, her fingers dug into the taut coils that were cutting off her
breath. Nearly drained of air, she felt that her lungs were about to collapse.
With each second, the hungry dogs got closer, but she was paralyzed
because the pain of having lost something that was precious to her nailed
itself into her heart.
Adriana Mora awoke startled, panting and covered with perspiration.
She sat up choking, out of breath and in the grip of an asthma attack. In the
darkness she fumbled, trying to reach the inhaler that she had placed on the
rickety crate next to her cot, but her groping hand got tangled in the
mosquito net. She struggled with the mesh, knocking her dark glasses to the
ground, almost spilling a cup half-filled with water. When she finally
reached the device, she pressed it into her mouth and plunged once, twice,
relieved to feel air clearing her throat and reaching her lungs.
When Adriana’s heart returned to its normal rhythm and her lungs
readjusted, she sat with her back to the wall, still shaken and breathing
heavily. Making out the palm ceiling as well as the earthen floor, she looked
around the tiny hut, a palapa. Through the ridges between the cane stilts,
moonlight seeped casting elongated shadows on the dirt. Trying to gain a
hold on herself, she stared at the small table where she had propped her
equipment: cameras, tripod, note pad, canvas jacket with its pockets stuffed
with lenses she used to capture the faces and bodies of Lacandón women.
Adriana drew her legs up until her knees pressed against her breasts.
Wrapping her arms around the calves of her legs, she leaned her head
against her knees; she stayed that way, thinking of the nightmare from
which she had awakened. She was listening to the jungle sounds that filled
the night: the jumble of insect chirping that scraped against the heavy
breathing of iguanas and other reptiles. Howling monkeys barked,
chattering angrily as they swung from branch to branch. Screeching parrots
complained because of the hooting of owls and other nocturnal birds.
Adriana tried to decipher each sound. She wanted to identify what animal,
which insect had made what noise, but it was impossible because it all
melted into an indistinguishable cacophony of murmur, hissing, and
howling. The night vibrations of the jungle fused with the sad groaning of
the muddy waters of the river that coiled around the tiny village of
Pichucalco.
She thought of the dream, trying to discern its meaning. She had
experienced it before, but never had it been as vivid, as terrifying. The other
times, the woman had been remote, someone else. This time, however, she
had no doubt: It had been she who was being hunted, she who was running
in the forest along with other natives. It had been she who had lost
something precious, something loved and so riveted onto her heart that
reliving the dream made her feel pain beneath the nipple of her left breast.
With outstretched fingers, she rubbed the palm of her hand over her chest;
she was thinking, concentrating, trying to recognize what she had lost. But
it was useless, because she could not remember anything that had ever
meant so much to her, not even the distant memory of her mother and
father.
Unable to find the answer, Adriana straightened her head and cocked it
to one side, this time listening to her dream. She stayed that way for a while
until she realized that she heard only the sound of menacing dogs. Her
searching mind then focused on the woman in the dream.
“She didn’t look like me!”
Mumbling out loud, Adriana flung aside the net and slid off the cot. She
went to the stand where she kept a basin and water jug that she used to
wash her face and hands; above it, she had nailed a small mirror. She
unhooked it and made her way past the gunny sack that covered the
entrance of the palapa. Once outside, Adriana found herself in moonlight
that was bright enough to see her reflection.
“It couldn’t have been me.”
She studied her face: brown angular features, high cheekbones. Adriana
concentrated, turning her gaze on her mouth and head: thick lips; short,
curled hair. Then she went back into the hut, stretched out on the cot and
stared at the palm-frond ceiling. She reflected on her nightmare, the baying
of dogs still echoed in her memory as did the sensation of pain. She brought
her hands close to her eyes, turning them palms up, then down. There were
no cuts, no bruises.
She touched her forearms, searching, but her fingertips found only the
scar tissue inflicted on her left forearm by scalding water when she was a
child; she had been seven years old when that happened. Adriana’s mind
halted for a few seconds, remembering that day. Then she returned her
attention to the dream, to any traces it might have left on her. She went on
feeling her body, pausing, searching for signs of pain, or even a slight
indication of having been hurt, but she discovered nothing.
A nagging sense of loss forced Adriana to shut her eyes because she felt
the sting of tears burning behind her eyeballs. She flung her arm across her
face and remembered her life, how ever since she could remember, she had
felt lost, separated, alone, always filled with fear. She was twenty-four years
old, but sometimes she still felt as she had when she was a child; nothing in
her life seemed to change—not inside of her. She was now a woman, on her
own, making a living as a photographer. Wanting to be accomplished in her
profession, to publish her work, she had chosen to come to the jungle to
create a photo history of the women of the Lacandona.
Adriana stared at the thatched ceiling, her eyes wide open and vacant.
She was remembering that when she had finished college in Los Angeles,
she had drifted to New Mexico, where she stayed a short while. After that
she decided to go south to Chiapas, so she made her way to the border, and
from that point down to Mexico City, and from there she traveled to
Mérida, Yucatán, where she stayed only a few days. Then she pushed on to
Palenque, attracted by the prospect of capturing on film what was left of
Mayan civilization, but once there, she realized that it was for living faces
that she searched. So she put her things on a dilapidated bus that had
Pueblos Indígenas painted in large letters on its windshield. When she got
off the vehicle, she was in Pichucalco, on the edge of the Lacandona Jungle.
Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood, probing incidents in her life,
trying to explain why she had always felt such deep isolation. Then she
relaxed her body, allowing her memory to return to the past.
Chapter 2
Adriana decided never to speak again.
Adriana was barely four years old the night she was awakened by loud
voices. She sat up, hugging her raggedy stuffed rabbit, listening, turning her
head toward the door, trying to make out who was screaming. Her eyes
were beginning to adjust to the darkness of the room when a blast silenced
the voices. The girl was struggling to make out the noise, when a second
detonation shook the walls. Time passed but nothing happened. Then a
smoky stench seeped into her room from beneath the closed door. There
was no more yelling, no more explosions, so she slipped back onto her
pillow.
Everything was quiet again; she could not hear or see anything, not even
when she peeked out from under the covers. The girl listened for her
mother’s voice, or the sound of her father’s heavy footsteps, but all she
heard were cars driving by their apartment. She wanted her mother to come
and wrap her arms around her, but there was only silence. Adriana drifted
back to sleep.
She opened her eyes again, but this time it was the sun that had
awakened her. With the frayed rabbit still in her arms and her legs cramped
from being rolled in against her body, she stretched and looked around the
room. In one corner were her toys and on the other side was the small
closet. She could see her dresses hanging neatly, one next to the other.
“Mamá?”
Adriana called her mother just as she did every morning. She waited,
hugging her toy to her chest, but nothing happened. Her mother did not
open the door and peek around it to smile at her. Trying to see the sky, she
looked out the window. There was nothing there except the bare branches of
a tree.
“Mamá?”
This time Adriana’s voice was edged with tears because she was
remembering the noises she had heard the night before. She began to shiver,
thinking that her mother and father had gone away, leaving her alone. She
had never before heard the house that quiet. She decided to go out to the
kitchen to find them.
Adriana, with her rabbit dangling from one hand, shuffled down the
hallway to the bathroom, where she struggled onto the toilet. After that she
went to the kitchen. When she walked in, she felt happy all of a sudden
because she saw her father taking a nap at the table. She looked carefully,
taking in how he was sitting in his favorite chair, leaning his head in his
cradled arms. She was relieved to see him, although she had never seen him
sleep that way.
She tiptoed across the kitchen to the stove, where she expected to find
her breakfast. At that moment, she wondered why her mother was not there.
She looked first in the service porch, thinking her mother might be putting
laundry into the washer. When she did not find her there, Adriana searched
the small front room, where she found the television set turned on. That was
all. From there she made her way to her parent’s bedroom.
“Mamá? Mamá?”
She found her mother lying on the bed; she was taking a nap, too.
Adriana decided not to go near her; she might awaken her. Still clinging to
the dingy stuffed rabbit, Adriana returned to the kitchen because she was
hungry. Trying not to make noise, she opened the cupboard and looked for
her favorite cookies, but when she saw that the package was on a shelf too
high for her to reach, she put down the toy and struggled to edge a chair
into position. She was able to do this quietly up until the last pull, when one
of the legs stuck in a crack in the linoleum. She yanked, then flinched at the
loud, grinding noise that filled the kitchen. She shut her eyes and hunched
her shoulders, expecting her father to wake up and scold her, but nothing
happened. When she opened her eyes to look at him, she saw that he was
still asleep. Relieved, she climbed up and lowered the box. Then she went
to the refrigerator, where she found a small carton of milk. Again she could
not reach a glass, so she took the cookies and the container to the front
room, where she munched as she watched cartoons until late into the
afternoon.
When she needed to go to the bathroom again, she decided to awaken
her mother. As she neared the bed, Adriana saw that the sheets and
bedspread were stained red, and that her mother held her father’s gun in one
hand. She saw also that there was a big bump on one side of her mother’s
forehead, and that, too, was dripping with a red mess.
Adriana was so frightened that she felt pee dripping between her legs;
she could not help it, and she did not know what to do. She reached out and
grabbed one of her mother’s shoulders and shook her, trying to awaken her,
but she felt that her mother was stiff and cold. Crying, she ran to where her
father was still sleeping, and she tugged at his shirt, hoping that he would
wake up to help with her mother. Instead, her pulling pried loose one of his
arms; it fell inertly and dangled from his shoulder.
She understood that something awful had happened to her mother and
father. She ran to the front door. Doña Elvira would know what to do; she
always did. When Adriana tried to open the door, however, she realized that
the dead bolt was engaged and that it was too high up for her to reach, even
if she stood on a chair. She screamed and pounded on the door, but no one
heard her cries for help; no one heard her frail fists beating on the door.
Night was falling, and the gloom inside the apartment terrified Adriana
so much that she ran to her room, where she hid under the bed, clutching
her stuffed rabbit. She came out only to nibble on crackers or to drink water
that was in a container by the sink. She banged on the front door several
times during the days that followed, but gave up when no one heard her.
Each time, she returned to the hideaway under her bed; its narrowness gave
her comfort and lessened her fear. But the tiny space began to lose its
protection for Adriana; its confines seemed to close in on her, taking away
her breath, making her heart race and pound until she lost consciousness.
She did not know how many times this happened to her.
Finally, it was the stench, not Adriana’s weak pounding, that alerted
Doña Elvira Luna. When that happened, the elderly neighbor stood outside
the Mora apartment wearing an apron and still clutching a wooden cooking
spoon in her hand. She twitched her nose, sniffing around the edges and
hinges of the locked door, then banging on it as she stuck her nose up into
the air, wiggling her nostrils and upper lip, her wide open mouth gasping
because of the foulness that was polluting the air. When she realized what it
was that she was smelling, she ran down to the manager’s office.
“Don Luis, come with me! Now! Something is terribly wrong in the
Mora apartment.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t talk! Come!”
The man and woman ran up the stairs and when they turned the corner
going in the direction of Adriana’s apartment, Don Luis came to a sudden
halt. He, too, smelled the vile stench.
“¡Santo Dios!”
His hands were shaking so much that he could not insert the master key
into its slot, so Doña Elvira snatched the ring, slid the key into place,
disengaged the latch and opened the door. The manager flung himself
backward as if he had been struck with a blunt weapon; he gagged and
reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief, which he nearly stuffed
into his mouth.
Doña Elvira was just as shaken, but she regained her balance after a few
seconds. Taking off her apron, she tied it around her nostrils and mouth, and
entered the gloomy pestilent place, going first to the kitchen. When she saw
Mario Mora slouched over the table, one arm stiff and dangling, she knew
he was dead.
“¡Marisa! ¡Adriana! ¿Dónde están?”
Shouting for the girl and her mother, Doña Elvira ran from the kitchen to
the front room, where the television set was on but inaudible. Then she
staggered to the larger bedroom; there she discovered Marisa Mora’s
decomposing body.
“¡Virgen Santísima!”
She spun around looking for the child’s room, but when she finally
found it, the door was closed. She flung it open and looked around; it was
empty. She was about to leave when something told her to search, so she
went to the closet and began poking and pulling at hanging dresses and
playsuits, but she found nothing. Then she glanced at the unmade bed. With
difficulty, Doña Elvira got down on her hands and knees to peer under it;
there she discovered Adriana, who at first also looked dead. Doña Elvira let
out a wail so loud that even the cringing Don Luis forced himself into the
apartment.
By that time, Doña Elvira had recuperated enough to drag Adriana out
from under the bed. As she did this, she realized that the girl was not dead
but unconscious. With the manager’s assistance, the elderly woman got to
her feet with Adriana in her arms, and with unexpected energy, she ran past
Mario Mora’s body, past the room where Marisa Mora lay; nothing stopped
her until she reached her apartment. There, she put Adriana on the front
room sofa. Adriana lay there for hours before she could be awakened from
her trance, despite the ambulances, patrol cars, coroners, television
reporters, investigators, and curious neighbors swarming through the
apartment complex.
The girl finally sat up; she was groggy, hair disheveled, confused, but
aware of two men speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen. She felt Doña
Elvira hugging her at one moment, then gently nudging her out of sleep.
“Adriana, you have to wake up. Open your eyes!”
The girl struggled with confusion, trying to focus her blurred eyes on
Doña Elvira. Suddenly, one of the men came and plucked her off the sofa
and carried her to the kitchen, where the light bulb hanging from a cord
made her blink even more. She thought she overheard Doña Elvira
whispering to her husband, and she was almost sure she could make out the
woman’s words.
“No le digas ahorita.”
“But we must tell her now. Later will be worse. You have to remember
that the police want to talk to her. She has to know before then.”
Doña Elvira’s husband spoke loudly, clearly. He was opposing his wife’s
warning not to tell the girl what had happened.
“¡No!”
“¡Sí!”
Adriana was now fully awake and she knew something terrible was
happening. Whatever had occurred was so bad that Doña Elvira and her
husband were almost arguing over it. The man carrying Adriana intervened.
“Your husband is right, Doña Elvira. The child must be told. If you wait
until later, it will only hurt her more.”
Adriana looked at Doña Elvira and at her husband, then at the man who
held her. They were neighbors, and although very old in her eyes, they were
kind. They often looked after her while her mother and father were at work
or out of the house.
“M’ijita… “
Doña Elvira’s voice quivered, then broke off, leaving her unable to
speak. She turned away and put her hands on the side of the kitchen sink.
Her husband picked up where Doña Elvira had stopped.
“Adrianita. Listen to me very carefully. Something has happened to your
mamá and papá. They were in a bad car accident. And now… now… they
are in heaven. Now you must stay with us.”
Adriana knew. She had lost her mother and father. They were dead, and
she knew that it had not been in a car accident. Adriana was only four years
old, but she knew that her mother had killed her father. She knew because
she had been there when it had happened. What she did not understand was
the reason why her mother had done such a thing, or why her mother had
abandoned her. Knowing, in conflict with understanding, collided in the
girl’s mind, causing her to lose her breath, strangling the air out of her
lungs, and it was there, in Doña Elvira’s kitchen, that Adriana experienced
her first asthma attack.
After that, when Doña Elvira Luna took her in, Adriana decided never to
speak again, because she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, the
breathing attacks would recur. But despite her not speaking, the attacks did
return to torture her. Years passed, and because she was always silent,
people became convinced that she was incapable of speaking. Only Doña
Elvira knew the truth; only she understood the enormity of Adriana’s
anguish and confusion. That old woman was the only one who realized that
Adriana’s soul had withered during the days in which she was a prisoner in
her mother and father’s tomb.
In the palapa, surrounded by the murmur and hissing of the jungle,
Adriana felt her recollections so vividly that her nose twitched because the
memory of stench surrounded her, as did the isolation of self-imposed
silence. Her heart beat wildly against her ribcage, just as it had done that
night long ago, just as it did whenever she remembered.
Struggling to control her racing heart because she feared another
breathing attack, Adriana conjured her mother’s image in her mind: brown
complexion, willowy body, black straight hair that hung to her waist. As a
young woman, she had migrated with her family from Campeche in Mexico
to Los Angeles. In that city she met Adriana’s father, loved him, married
him. Yet, she had shot him dead, taking her own life at the same time and
leaving her daughter alone. Now Adriana’s heart struggled with anger and
longing to know what had compelled her mother to do such a terrible thing.
Then the image of Adriana’s father rose from the rubble of her little-girl
memory. She saw the skin of his African ancestors, the muscular body
inherited from a mix of races, the nappy hair of his family. This picture
blurred, giving way to the form of a man slumped over a kitchen table, one
arm hanging inertly by his side. She was able to tolerate the image only a
few seconds before her mind shut down, fatigued by the memory of hurt
and abandonment. She drifted back to sleep until sunlight awoke her.
Chapter 3
We repeat ourselves.
“¿Qué soñaste anoche?”
The toothless Lacandón native Chan K’in asked Adriana this question
every morning. In the beginning she found it strange that he never greeted
her with a simple buenos días but always asked what she had dreamed the
night before. After a few days in the village, however, she discovered that
dreams were so important to the people that the question took the place of a
greeting. At night, instead of buenas noches, she was told, Be careful of
what you dream tonight.
“What did you dream last night, niña?”
Chan K’in repeated the question. Despite the humid, warm air of the
jungle, Adriana felt a shiver as she recalled her dream. She had decided to
put it behind her, to disregard it, not to try to find meaning in what she had
experienced. It was too frightening because it brought back the pain of
inexplicable loss. But now, as she stood looking at the old man, she felt
compelled to tell him.
She was dressed in khaki pants and shirt, and she wore hiking boots.
This was her usual way of dressing, and although it was different from the
garments worn by the native women, no one seemed to mind. They knew
why she dwelled among them, and they trusted her enough to allow her to
take photographs of them as they toiled in the jungle or fished in the river.
“I dreamed many things, viejo. A dream that I’ve dreamed before, but
never so vividly.”
Adriana spoke to Chan K’in in Spanish because she did not know his
native tongue. She liked conversing with him, asking questions about the
tribe’s traditions, its history, its culture. It was Chan K’in who explained
meanings to her when she did not understand. As she gazed at the old man,
she studied his frail face, and body. She did not know his age, but as she
scrutinized him she gauged that he was very old; the skin of his brown face
was leathery and cracked. His nose was a beak, and his eyes were those of
an Asian nomad, or an eagle, she thought. Chan K’in wore his hair in the
tradition of the men of his tribe: shoulder-length with straight bangs that
hung covering his eyebrows. But unlike the younger men of the village, his
hair was completely white. Since he sat on the ground cross-legged,
Adriana joined him, sitting down in the same fashion and facing him.
“It was very strange, viejo. At the end, I dreamed that I was being
pursued by hungry dogs and that I ran because my heart was filled with
terror. There were other people running along with me. I don’t know who
they were, but they were dressed like your people. The strangest part of the
dream, what I really cannot understand, is that suddenly I stopped, even
though I could hear the dogs, even though I knew that I would be torn apart
by them. I stopped because I had lost something precious, more precious
than my life. I began to choke and I awoke.”
Chan K’in looked at Adriana. He seemed to be studying her face, and he
was silent for a while as he gazed at her. Then he began to trace an image
on the soft earth with his finger, seemingly lost in thought until he returned
his eyes to Adriana.
“You know that the Lacandón people place meaning in dreams, don’t
you?”
“Yes.”
“A dream, though imperfect, is a mirror in which we see our past lives.
Centuries ago we were driven from our towns and villages into these
jungles. We were hounded by white men who ran after us with fire weapons
and dogs. We were forced to abandon what we had built and planted
because the hunger of those men was without limit.”
Adriana remained silent. She had lived with the tribe only a few months,
but she knew already that there was much discontent. She was aware of
voices that murmured, whispered, repeated stories passed down through
generations. But she found little to connect her story with what resonated in
those voices. Facing the old Lacandón, Adriana tilted her head, trying to
understand, to find a similarity that would link her dream with what he was
saying. Chan K’in closed his eyes as he spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“It happened in Itza Canac, land of the Maya, in the Year of the Rabbit,
as the Mexica people still tell. The woman had been wandering for days,
perhaps longer, separated from her people by the soldiers. She was lost. She
was not the only one. Most roads and pathways were clogged with roaming,
uprooted people aimlessly searching. Some traveled alone, but others were
in small bands; most of them were looking for someone they might
recognize.
“The woman was thin, nearly emaciated, tired and thirsty, when she
stumbled onto an army of Spaniards heading south. She discovered that
their leader was a man by the name of Captain General Hernán Cortés. She
saw that part of the entourage was made up of men and women like her, yet
of a different tribe, people she did not recognize by their clothes or
language. The woman noticed, also, that one of those natives must have
been important, since he was always guarded by soldiers. That man, she
observed, limped grotesquely, as if his feet had been mutilated.
“There was something about those people that alarmed her, but the
woman was more afraid of being alone, so she attached herself to the group.
No one asked her questions. She stayed with them as they hacked their way
through the jungle, crossing rivers, making camp at nightfall. During those
days she was fed by a woman who, by the signs of her body, was with child.
The woman never spoke; she merely gave out food and then returned to her
silence.
“Finally, the marchers came onto what had once been known as Itza
Canac, now a bleak, deserted and pestilent place. They were all at the end
of their strength; they could walk no farther. As they set up camp next to a
mud-clogged stream, the Spaniards filled the air with cursing and loud
words; the natives responded with morose silence.
“The woman thought that she was the most fatigued of them all. Her
dress was torn and soiled
