The Dead Women of Juarez

“What did you do? What did you do?” Paloma ripped the sheet from the bed and threw it at Kelly. He knocked it away. He saw Paloma’s eyes tearing. “I cook you food every week, Kelly. I fuck you. I bring you money. I don’t say nothing when you want to get your face bashed in over and over… why isn’t that enough for you? I’m not ready, Kelly! ?Tu no entiende? I’m not ready for that!”

Tears came. Paloma battered them with her knuckles.

“I just want you to say you love me,” Kelly said. He hated the sound of helplessness in his voice.

“Of course I love you, retresado! Why do you got to make me say it?”

Kelly got up. He felt strange, naked in front of Paloma fully dressed, and he embraced her awkwardly. She hit his arms with her fists, but the blows were soft and he barely felt them. She cried against his chest until her whole body heaved.

“Don’t say it,” Kelly whispered to her. “You don’t have to say it. Don’t say it.”

Paloma held him tighter and they said nothing after that.

SIXTEEN

THE SUNDAY WAS LIKE THE OTHERS: the same prayers, the same church, and the same conversations. Paloma didn’t see the black pick-up this time, but she imagined it had been there while she was at mass, or just around the corner.

Their group had a new member and Paloma walked beside her to the Sunday gathering. The woman, Senora Munoz, was the youngest of all the mothers, though still older than Paloma. A black veil framed her face. The visible strain of hard work and sorrow would turn her into an artifact like the others, a monument to loss and pain.

Senora Munoz’s daughter cleaned and vacuumed floors in the offices of a maquiladora called Electrocomponentes de Mexico. The Munoz family lived in a home made of cinder blocks with no water or power. Belita Munoz Castillo was thirteen years old, pretended to be older, and took a company bus to work at three o’clock in the morning alone.

Paloma preferred to talk about other things with new women in black, but the subject could never be changed, as the first question was always have you heard anything?

“We have new flyers with Belita’s picture on them,” Paloma told Senora Munoz. “We’ll put them all over the city. All around the maquiladora.”

Senora Munoz nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

“Someone will recognize her.”

In the beginning Paloma always said more, but she learned differently and now it was best to let simplicity be her guide. She could not say whether Belita would be found, or whether she would be alive. Sometimes a disappearance was just a disappearance. Sometimes girls found a boyfriend and vanished over the border and if la migra didn’t catch them, they might never return. Sometimes girls found a place in the bordellos where the money was better, but the shame too much.

Senora Munoz’s mouth was so tight that speaking seemed to cause her pain. “Have you lost someone?” she asked.

“No,” Paloma said.

“God bless you anyway,” Senora Munoz replied.

They walked along in silence, though the other women in black talked among themselves. Being together would not bring the dead or missing back, but sometimes even a little friendship was better than days and nights alone without cease.

“My husband,” Senora Munoz said, “he died when Belita was only six. My oldest, Manuel, he said we should come to the city for the work. He was the man for our family.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead,” Senora Munoz said, and offered no explanation.

“Someone will recognize Belita,” Paloma said.

“She is dead, too,” Senora Munoz said.

The other women in black perked up. No, no, no, they said. She’s still out there. Don’t give up hope. Paloma let them mother Senora Munoz in the way only they could.

The lines on Senora Munoz’s face grew deeper and deeper. She shook her head violently. They stopped in the street under the leaning face of an abandoned house, the spine of its roof broken and the ceiling collapsed. Weeds shot up through the cracked foundation. “I had a dream that she was dead,” Senora Munoz declared. “They took her from the bus… they violated her and strangled her to death. She could not even cry for her mama!”

The women in black closed around Senora Munoz. She pushed them back. Paloma stood away from them, helpless. No, no, no. Never say that.

“They raped mi hija! They are animals! Butchers!”

Senora Munoz grabbed at her clothes and the women in black took hold of her arms. Paloma felt something on her cheek. She touched her face and her fingers came away wet. She shivered all over.

“Why did God take my children? I say confession! I leave money for the offering! Where is my Belita’s body? What did they do with her body?!?”

Hysterical tears stained Senora Munoz’s face. She collapsed in the middle of the women in black, vanishing into a sea of lined faces and dark cloth. Words became wails and wails became lung-heavy noises filled with anguish. Paloma felt weak in the legs and steadied herself against the rough stone face of the dead house.

“Give her air,” Senora Guzman said. “She’ll faint.”

The women parted. Senora Munoz lay crumpled in the street with white dust soiling her Sunday clothes. Senora Guzman was the eldest. She cradled Senora Munoz like the Pieta. Instead of blood there were tears, and all the women in black cried.

“What did you say to her?” Senora Guzman asked Paloma.

Paloma shook her head dumbly.

“It’s not her,” Senora Delgado said. “Paloma is a good girl.”

Senora Munoz looked asleep, her face wrought by tears, but her body still jerked, also twisted within. Paloma sobbed for her.

“Hush,” Senora Guzman told Senora Munoz. She touched the woman’s forehead, but the wrinkles refused to vanish. “We can’t carry you; you must walk on your own. Hush now.”

The women in black urged Senora Munoz to her feet little by little. She swayed when she stood, but they were there for her. Paloma ventured closer and put her hand on Senora Munoz’s arm. The woman didn’t shrink away.

“Every woman must walk on her own,” Senora Guzman said.

They went on. Paloma looked back one time. She still didn’t see the black truck.

SEVENTEEN

KELLY STRETCHED OUT, JUMPED rope until his calves burned and then shadowboxed in the corner of Urvano’s gym. Other fighters were there – some Kelly knew by name now, and more that didn’t have any words for the white boy – sparring or tossing the medicine ball or pummeling bags. Urvano stayed on his stool most of the time; though occasionally he stepped down to offer a few words of instruction to this fighter or that fighter on something he spotted.

Managers and trainers cruised through the gym at odd intervals. Some stopped to watch Kelly and he did his best to put them out of his mind. He wasn’t a prospect anymore, not an up-and-comer; he was too old, too slow and just too damned white to make an impact anywhere south of the border. Still, just the sensation of being considered made him feel ten years younger, like he was in back in the gym on Zarzamora in San Antonio, still a white boy among the brown kids, but with fast hands and quick feet.

Urvano’s only had one mirror, cracked at the corners and fogging with age. Kelly shifted his workout to a battered, duct-taped mat before this stretch of silvered glass and watched his body move. For this he didn’t rely on speed or power; instead, he shadowboxed like an old Chinese man doing t’ai chi, deliberating every punch and every