Behind the Hands That Kill

“Is she going to be OK?” I asked. They were the first words I’d spoken since I was brought to this room.

Marisol looked up from the girl on her lap; her fingers never stopped moving through her hair. Then she glanced at another girl—Carmen—sitting against the wall underneath the window. It became evident to me that Marisol didn’t speak English, and she relied on Carmen to translate. Or at least to do the talking.

Carmen leaned away from the wall, pushing her face out of the shadow and into view.

“No we ever be OK here,” Carmen said in broken English. “You see this, no?” she added, scornfully.

I began to shrink away from her, back into my corner, but she stopped me.

“Lo siento,” she apologized. “I’m just worried about Huevito.” She glanced around the room at the other girls. “We all are.”

She pushed farther away from the wall and very slowly came toward me on her hands and knees; I wondered why none of them ever stood fully upright and walked through the room, but I didn’t ask.

Marisol watched from her spot on the floor, steadily combing her fingers through the wounded girl’s hair. The other girls who were still awake also watched, but only Carmen ever spoke. I know some of the others spoke perfect English—some were American—because I’d heard them on occasion, so I figured they were all just too afraid. And I didn’t blame them. I was afraid, too.

Carmen sat down next to me. She smelled bad, like sweat and body odor and menstruation. But all of us stank; even I was beginning to smell less like the privileged girl I was when I first came to Mexico, and more like the girls who were now my only company.

“Me saw you before,” she said quietly. “Me saw you with Javier. And another white woman. She is palillo; looks like she no eat.”

I swallowed, trying to push down the memory of my mother, but this time I couldn’t. It had only been two days ago that I…well, since I—

“The woman was my mom,” I told Carmen, but I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “She was Javier’s girlfriend, I guess.”

Carmen smiled, but there was no harm in it. “Javier no have girlfriends,” she kindly corrected me. “He has sheep.”

“He doesn’t seem like the shepherding type,” I said.

Carmen shook her head. “No, he’s the wolf that mutilates the shepherd, and then eats the sheep.”

I thought about it for only a second before nodding in agreement. She was right about Javier, and I had known that since the day my mother brought him into our trailer in Arizona and he first laid eyes on me. They were not kind eyes. Javier had the eyes of a predator.

“And if that woman was your mom,” Carmen said, and then she pointed at me, “that mean you are sheep he after all along.” She gestured at the other girls in the room, and added, “Welcome to the flock.”

My stomach sank.

To my left, I heard another girl whisper harshly in Spanish, “Callate Carmen! Por que te pueden escuchar!”

Carmen ignored her.

“So you said was.” She waited for a response, studying my face, and at first I didn’t understand what she was talking about. But then she added, “Javier kill your mama?” and then I understood perfectly.

I lowered my eyes, shook my head. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. My mother was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

Then I looked up, making the wounded girl with her head on Marisol’s lap, my only interest.

“Why did they beat her?” I asked.

Carmen glanced back at the girl.

“No they,” she said, and looked right at me again, “Izel. Javier’s sister. Puta gets off on it.”

“Carmen!” the same girl from before hissed. “Por favor! Por favor! Solo cierra la boca!” Her eyes darted back and forth from Carmen and the wooden door. Admittedly, I was as worried as she was about those men coming in here again.

This time, Carmen lowered her voice so that no one could hear her but me. She peered in closer. “And Huevito beaten because she tried escape. Como te llamas?”

“Sarai,” I answered, understanding her probably accidental Spanish there at the end. She had introduced herself, and the rest of the girls, when I was brought to the room yesterday, but I had been too traumatized to talk before now. Traumatized by what was happening to me. And by what I did to my mother.

Carmen reached out and touched my wrist; the look she regarded me with could only be described as motherly, even though she was as young me. “No ever try escape, Sarai,” she warned, and then crawled on her hands and knees back to her spot underneath the window.

Suddenly, I felt in danger just thinking about it—escaping—as if Izel, who I was already quite familiar with having had several unpleasant run-ins with her before, could hear my thoughts. But this—I looked across at the wounded girl again; the deeply-cut gashes on her back glistened in the eerie moonlight and were the most colorful thing in the room—this was so very different from a few unpleasant run-ins.

Just then the wounded girl they called Huevito, began to stir.

Marisol tried to help her adjust her position on her lap, but we all knew there was nothing any of us could do to ease her pain. I felt terrible for her. And I became angry. At the woman who did this. At Javier for allowing it to happen. At my mother for bringing me here.

I stood up, to the gasps and Spanish whispers of the other girls, and I walked quietly across the room, and crouched in front of Huevito. Her eyes were open, though just barely. Marisol stared at me, a terrified look spread all over her pretty features—had it been because I stood up? It’s what I assumed.