Illegal Read online

  “I don’t think Sara had a choice,” I said. “She went out looking for help to save a man’s life. Sandy, the park ranger, rescued her.” Then, after a moment, “And what would your plan have been for getting both of us across the Border Patrol checkpoint?” I regretted the angry tone in my voice. It was a long ride to Chicago. I needed it to be as peaceful as possible.

  “I know,” my father said in a softer tone. “I know you guys had a rough time out there. Sara told me about how you two were attacked. I still don’t understand how the people who were after Sara found out where you were crossing.”

  So my father did not know it was my fault. I wondered if he knew about the cell phone inside my backpack.

  “And why were they after you anyway?”

  He did not know about the cell phone, now I was sure. But I decided to test my assumption anyway. “Revenge,” I said. “Hinojosa wanted to kill Sara for exposing him and all his corruption.”

  My father shook his head.

  “At least she’s safe now,” I said quietly, mostly to myself.

  “Yes, at least you are both safe.”

  That was a lie. I wasn’t safe. I was in this country illegally. There could be more checkpoints up ahead. It was also a lie to say that the only motive for the attack was revenge. The cell phone I had with me was the motive. It occurred to me that my father and his happy family in Aurora were not safe as long as that cell phone was with me. I was tempted to tell him the truth: that Sara and I were attacked because of my actions, that danger followed Sara and me into the United States. But I didn’t say anything. I looked at my father, at this man who called himself Bob Gropper, and I was not sure I could trust him. I was no longer absolutely certain that he would put Sara’s and my welfare and safety above everything else. Where were Sara and I in the hierarchy of Bob Gropper’s heart? It seemed to me that we were below Nancy and Trevor and Abe and his position as director of sales and marketing at Able Abe’s. And when you think about it, that’s pretty far down. I felt guilty for lying to my father about the cell phone, but I could not deny what I felt. I realized that the main thing that had been lost when my father decided not to come back to Mexico was trust—the trust I once had in him. Maybe that trust would come back someday, I didn’t know. I was willing to give it a chance and hope that it would. But at that moment, all I could feel was its gaping absence.

  My father fiddled with the air-conditioner knob. “It was just hard to see Sara dressed in a blue jumpsuit like a criminal. Anyway, it won’t be for too long. Mr. Morgan is appealing the denial of bond to an immigration judge.”

  “And if she is let out with the bond?”

  “Sara has decided to stay with Sandy Morgan and her father in Alpine until her asylum hearing. If the hearing is in El Paso, she can bring witnesses from Juárez who will testify to the persecution she went through and will go through if she returns. I checked with Nancy and Abe and they both think that’s the right decision.”

  My father checked with Nancy and Abe about Sara’s decision? Why? What’s it to them what Sara does? I was glad I hadn’t said anything about the cell phone. It also made me wonder if the only reason I was going to Chicago was because Nancy and Abe had approved my coming. I tried to open the window, but the switch did not respond. Where were the mountains? There were no mountains anywhere. When Sara and I walked across Big Bend National Park, the Sierra Madre mountains were always visible. Here the world was flat. I leaned my head against the windows and shut my eyes. I hugged the backpack closer to me.

  Out there, in the desert, I forgave my father. I had to remember what that was like. It felt right and good and peaceful. Maybe I was already in another reality when that happened, a reality where forgiveness was easy.

  In this world, forgiveness is hard, I said to myself.

  The gym where children played basketball and volleyball and climbed to the rafters using thick ropes now held ninety bunk beds. The beds were so close together that from my top bunk I could reach over and touch the head of Lucila on the adjoining bunk. It took about two hours after the lights went out for the room to get quiet enough for sleep. First there was conversation, then whispers, and then later the muted sounds of women sobbing. But at 2:00 a.m., all you could hear was the sound of your own thoughts.

  Sandy had left a message for me to call, and when I did, she told me that her father came by in the afternoon but was not allowed to see me. Wes Morgan was so outraged that he was driving to El Paso first thing tomorrow morning to file a complaint with the commissioner of ICE in charge of detention facilities. That was the bad news. But the good news was that Emiliano had made it past the Border Patrol checkpoint and was now on his way to Chicago. Gustaf Larsson snuck him across the checkpoint in the back of a horse trailer. I laughed when Sandy told me that, and then I was filled with love and gratitude for my brother. I knew he was doing something that he did not want to do and that he was doing it, in part, for me.

  I was sure that Emiliano had Hinojosa’s cell phone with him. I only hoped that he was able to call Yoya while he was with Mr. Larsson and that he made arrangements to give her the phone. In the daytime, it is easier to believe that bringing that cell phone was the right decision. But at 2:00 a.m., fear outweighed my initial act of courage. I had to reach out in the dark and borrow Linda’s courage, the courage that prompted her to steal the phone from Hinojosa and send it to me. I had to remember Linda’s suffering. It was up to me and now up to my brother to make sure that what she went through was not in vain. I had to remember that people were willing to kill for that phone for a reason. There were more girls out there in captivity and the phone could mean their freedom.

  Lucila next to me was crying in her sleep. I reached over and placed my hand on her shoulder. I didn’t want to wake her up, but I also wanted her to know that she was not alone. I touched her very gently until the crying stopped. I turned around and saw the woman on the other side of me smiling. She was an older woman from Guatemala named Colel. She spoke a mixture of Spanish and a Mayan dialect. No one understood what she said. She came with her son and her two grandsons. The son was sent to the men’s detention center in Sierra Blanca. She doesn’t know where the grandsons went. She had a picture of the two boys that she showed to everyone.

  “Dónde están?”

  That was the question she asked every person she met.

  Then this evening, La Treinta Y Cuatro took the picture from her. It was too much to bear. I had to speak out.

  “How does it hurt anyone to let her have that picture?” I’d demanded to know from La Treinta Y Cuatro, full of anger.

  La Treinta Y Cuatro turned and smirked. It was as if she had been waiting for me to lose my cool.

  “What business is this of yours?” La Treinta Y Cuatro took two steps forward. I felt drops of her saliva on my face.

  I cocked my arm and was ready to strike her.

  “No, no.” Colel was crying and grabbing my arm. “Sólo una foto. Ma’ importa. Ma’ importa.”

  “There is no need for your meaness” is all I ended up saying. Colel was right. Violence was what La Treinta Y Cuatro wanted. I let Colel pull me away.

  “You think you’re special?” La Treinta Y Cuatro shouted after me.

  “No,” I answered.

  “No? You’re right. You’re not special. You’re nothing.”

  I went over the meaning of those words over and over again, for hours it seemed. You are not special. You are nothing. I realized there was a part of me that thought I was more deserving of asylum than women like Colel or Lucila. I spoke English. I could write articles for newspapers. As a reporter, I was persecuted because of membership in a particular social group, one of the specific categories for asylum under United States law. La Treinta Y Cuatro was right. I thought I was special.

  Colel’s missing-tooth smile on the bunk next to me brought tears to my eyes. What made her travel so many thousands of incredibly difficult miles to the United States? When I asked her about her son and
grandsons, she made a waving gesture with her hand as if to say that they simply flew away. How could she smile at me with so much love even after so much loss and so much yet to lose?

  Mami used to say that every day brings a new message from God if we but listen. Every day is a new lesson.

  What were the lessons to be learned from Colel and from Lucila and from all the world’s poor?

  That I was not special was one lesson, I was sure.

  But the other one was that we all were.

  At 11:00 p.m., my father, or Bob, as I decided to call him somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, pulled into a motel outside Springfield, Missouri.

  The room had two beds larger than I had ever seen before. Bob sat on the orange bedspread of one of them and dug his cell phone out of his pocket. “Do you want to take a shower first?” It was his way of asking me for some privacy.

  Inside the bathroom, I heard isolated words from Bob: unexpected delay, Border Patrol, trouble. Words like that. Then there was a long pause and Bob’s tone became softer. I turned on the shower after the word sweetie. I let the warm water hit my back and closed my eyes.

  When it was Bob’s turn to take a shower, I opened my backpack and took out the disposable phone I’d bought at a gas station with the money that Gustaf gave me. I could have told my father that I needed my own phone to call Sara or Mami, but instead, I listened to the lack of trust I felt inside me and bought it while he was in the restroom. Now I took the phone out of its plastic package and then took out the slip of paper where I had written Yoya’s phone number. I remembered Yoya’s words to call day or night and I was about to punch in her number, when I heard the water in the shower stop.

  I placed the plastic wrapping and the burner phone at the very bottom of my backpack, under all my clothes. It was then that I noticed the envelope for the first time. The envelope was from a tractor company and was addressed to Gustaf. It was open and had a green rubber band around it. I removed the rubber band and opened the envelope just enough to see what was in there. It was a Greyhound Bus gift card for two hundred dollars and a yellow sticky note with Gustaf’s scribbling. I unpeeled the note from the card and read the shaky writing:

  Gustaf Larsson’s phone: 432-555-1699

  In case you get lost.

  I smiled. In case you get lost. Gustaf wasn’t talking about geography. I folded the note and stuck it and the gift card in my wallet. I reached over to the lamp next to the bed and clicked it off. I turned on my side with my back to Bob’s bed. He came out and I heard him searching in his suitcase. The smell of the now familiar cologne filled the room.

  “Emiliano, you asleep?”

  I didn’t move.

  “I’m really glad you’re coming with me. I know you don’t think I’m a good father. But it doesn’t matter to me. I want what’s best for you now. I talked to Nancy while you were taking a shower. She’s looking forward to meeting you and to having Trevor get to know you.”

  “I am not going to Chicago to babysit your son.” I was polite, but firm.

  There was a long pause. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, as they say in America. It’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”

  I heard Bob pull the bedspread back and get in bed. The last light in the room went off.

  “You’re going to like our house,” Bob’s voice came from the dark. “We fixed a bed in the basement for you. Trevor plays down there, but he goes to bed early. You’ll have your own TV. Your own bathroom. We want you to feel at home. Be part of the family. But no one is rushing you. You take all the time you need.” A pause. “I apologize for any mistakes I made. I’m sorry. What more can I tell you?”

  I waited a long time before speaking.

  “There’s no need to say anything else. Let’s move on.”

  “Agreed. Let’s just move on. Good night, Emiliano.”

  Good night, Bob Gropper, I said to myself.

  * * *

  I opened my eyes, startled. The digital clock next to the bed read 3:00 a.m. What woke me up was a dream of Sara crying. She was in a ship, trying to pull up women and children who were drowning, but the current was too strong, and she could not hold on to them and there were just too many women and children. I sat up gasping for air and then I lay down again, grabbed the edges of the pillow, and pushed them against my ears as if to keep out the sound of Sara’s sobs.

  After a few minutes I knew that sleep would not return. I sat up and looked at the room’s air-conditioner unit. It was silent. I bent over the unit and pushed buttons until I heard a rattling. The air coming out was warm, but it was air. I touched the perspiration on the back of my head. I stretched out on the bed again and listened to Bob’s snores. Now and then he whimpered, as if he was running from someone, Able Abe probably, I joked to myself. Only it wasn’t funny.

  I put on my pants, grabbed my backpack, and stepped outside. There was a metal chair outside our room. I sat there under a yellow light bulb and dug out the burner phone. Day or night, I repeated Yoya’s words.

  Yoya answered on the second ring.

  “It’s me. Emiliano. Is it too late to call?”

  “No,” Yoya said calmly. There was no annoyance in her voice. She sounded fully awake. “You got a burner phone. Good.”

  “Any news?”

  “Some. Hold on one second. I took some notes.” There was a sound of someone tapping words on a laptop. “Okay. So. Your sister’s name came up in a criminal incident report from the sheriff’s office in Alpine. According to the report filed by one Sandy Morgan, your sister was attacked by two men at Big Bend National Park. One of the men, Lester Mannix, was flown by helicopter to Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. That’s where he was arrested pursuant to a complaint filed by Sandy Morgan. Sara Zapata is listed as the victim of the attack. The report states that the victim is in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Fort Stockton Detention Center, where she is waiting resolution of her asylum petition.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, concerned.

  “Well, there’s nothing in the incident report about you. So that’s good.”

  “But what does it mean for Sara? If you could find out where she is, then so could Hinojosa’s men.”

  “That’s the other thing I found out since we last talked. This is from our Jacquero friends in Mexico. Hinojosa was killed soon after he was arrested—probably by someone in his organization who was afraid he would talk. It’s not Hinojosa or his men who are after you and your sister.”

  Yoya paused. It was one of those pauses that implied that the worst was yet to come.

  “Then who …”

  “Hinojosa was on the Mexican side of a human trafficking scheme between Mexico and the United States. Some of the women were kept in Mexico to be abused by people like Hinojosa, but others were sent to the United States. We have our share of pigs here as well. If anyone is going to come after the cell phone, it would be these U.S. pigs. Their identities are probably in that phone you are carrying. That’s what I think, and it corresponds with the chatter on the Internet that my Jaquero friends have picked up. I’ll start looking into this as well tomorrow.”

  I was silent. I had hoped that maybe I could get away from Hinojosa. Every day, I was farther away from Ciudad Juárez and his reach. But where could I or Sara hide if the evil was American?

  “Is Sara safe?” I was afraid of the answer, but I had to ask.

  “Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that right now. I’m going to try to hack into the detention center tomorrow … I mean later today. I’ll know more next time you call. But these criminal incident reports from the sheriff’s office are easy to obtain. So it is possible that the pigs know where Sara is being held.”

  I felt my heart sink into quicksand deep and dark.

  Yoya continued quickly, as if sensing where I had gone. “On the other hand, if the pigs know where Sara is being detained, then they will most likely also know that Sara does not have the cell phone with her.
All personal items are confiscated at admittance to a detention center, and it is very easy for someone to find out what personal property is being held for a particular prisoner.”

  “Then they will only be after me.”

  It was a relief to know that I would be the target and not Sara.

  “You don’t seem to be on anyone’s radar so far. But the other man who attacked you probably told whoever is calling the shots that you were there. They are probably looking for you. No one knows that you were staying with Gustaf Larsson, right?”

  I thought about it. “My father. There was a nurse who treated me when Mr. Larsson found me. My sister’s attorney, Mr. Morgan. Sandy Morgan.”

  “Who knows that your father lives in Chicago?”

  “Tons of people back in Juárez. But my father doesn’t exactly live in Chicago. He lives in a place called Aurora. No one knows that. And he changed his name from Roberto Zapata to Bob Gropper. That is also a new development that no one back home, other than my mother or Sara, knows about.”

  I heard a small laugh on the other line. I laughed too. How could anyone not laugh a very soft laugh when they heard that Roberto Zapata had become Bob Gropper?

  “Well, that helps,” Yoya said. “Let’s hope your father is very discreet.”

  The image that immediately came to mind was the aerodynamic van with the big ABLE ABE lettering on the side. Also, my father handing out business cards to everyone he met. How many people in Sanderson had his director of sales and marketing cards?

  “Call me tomorrow,” Yoya was saying. “I have some ideas about how we can narrow down the identity of the U.S. pigs. Oh, and, Emiliano. I would not call your sister or even write to her right now. Don’t take any chances that someone may be listening to her calls and I know for sure that detainees’ mail gets read. You want to be invisible and stay invisible. Okay?”