Ramifications

that new identity, if I became Úlrich González of Villahermosa, I’d do things differently. To start with, I’d try to play soccer properly, take more interest in sports, be one of the group of students everyone wanted to be friends with, the celebrities of my school. In the afternoons, I’d return home smiling and excited, bursting with stories to tell my adoptive mother, Mariconchi. Úlrich González would be the most popular boy in Villahermosa, perhaps even in the whole of Tabasco State. I’d finally have a girlfriend, and it would be to her alone, in a moment of blind passion following our first kiss, that I would reveal the truth about my past: that I wasn’t Úlrich, that I’d assumed that name at the age of ten in the shit-strewn restroom of a service station, after running away from my home in Colonia Educación, Mexico City, on a secret mission to rescue my mother, who was trapped in a cruel, bloody war that she had joined from pure, unadulterated heroism. My girlfriend would gaze at me incredulously for a few seconds, but then she’d put her arms around my neck and say that she’d always known, or suspected it; said that beneath the personality of the likeable, sporty Úlrich González of Villahermosa lay a dark, indecipherable secret that had captivated her from the instant we’d met.

Mariconchi’s voice broke into my daydreams: “Here you are. I don’t know if you like spicy food, but I bought you a tamal with green chili sauce.” I didn’t in those days eat spicy food, couldn’t stand it, and disliked the color green. At mealtimes, Teresa always used to say that adding sauce to food was a bad habit as it masked the taste of everything else. It was, fundamentally, another of the ways she drew a line between herself and my father, who used to smother any dish from eggs to rice in industrial quantities of habanero chili sauce. I, of course, used that disagreement to take Teresa’s side, the side I always took. But maybe Úlrich González could stand or even positively liked spicy food, and that was a good moment to start to behave the way Úlrich would. “Thanks,” I said, and tried to grasp Mariconchi’s hand, but she drew it away as if she was beginning to weary of taking responsibility for me, or was frightened by that unexpected familiarity.

Her snub didn’t really bother me. Quite the reverse: the fact that my traveling companion was displaying a degree of hostility made her much more interesting. Suddenly Mariconchi had ceased to be the soft-hearted, chatty mother who goes around calling everyone “sweetie” and had become a woman of moods and nuances, a brave woman—like my mother, like Mariana—who had challenged the irrational violence of the adolescent soldier in order to care for a strange child, some unknown Úlrich.

We boarded the bus again and took our seats. The shawl Mariconchi had lent me at the checkpoint lay screwed up in a ball on my seat, like a reminder that everything that had occurred at the checkpoint had been real, not a nightmare.

We ate our tamales in silence, picking away at them with plastic forks and scattering crumbs around us. I found it almost impossible to eat the chili. It felt as if my tongue were being scalded, but in some way that self-inflicted pain seemed purifying, redemptive, soothing. My nose was streaming and I began to hyperventilate. Mariconchi seemed to be aware of my distress but said nothing. I noticed that she was even making a conscious effort not to look at me, to stare across the aisle at the obese couple on the other side who had bought enormous quantities of snacks, cookies, and sodas.

The bus advanced more rapidly, as if the sun and the imminence of our arrival had raised its spirits. The reality of my situation began to hem me in on all sides: it wasn’t now viable to change my identity: Mariconchi wouldn’t accept me into her life as Úlrich González, and I would never have a good, empathetic girlfriend in Villahermosa, Tabasco State.

And I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to continue my journey to Chiapas. The episode with the soldiers had changed everything. The adult world was more brutal and terrifying than I’d supposed in Taxqueña, before embarking on the most perilous adventure of my short life. If I continued to Chiapas, new checkpoints would await me, new humiliations. I was unready for any of that. Deceived by a rather portable conception of Mexican geography, I’d undertaken that journey without the necessary preparations. I hadn’t even brought my backpack. I hadn’t even brought my Choose Your Own Adventure book or my water bottle.

“Your mom’s not going to be there to meet you in Chiapas, is she?” asked Mariconchi out of the blue when she’d finished her tamal. It was a rhetorical question: she knew I’d lied to her. Mothers know these things. I shook my head in shame. “Have you run away from home?” she asked in the same wary tone. I said I had. I tried to explain that my mom was in fact in Chiapas, but Mariconchi gestured me to be silent. She stared again at the obese couple on the other side of the aisle, weighing up her options. Finally she came to a conclusion: “When we get to Villahermosa we’re going to talk to your mommy and daddy, sweetie. Let’s see if they can come to collect you.”

I imagined the scolding my father would give me: he’d look grave, attempt to reason with me, speak very slowly and clearly, explain the risks I’d run in going off like that. But the longer he spoke, the more fired up he’d get; he always did. From explaining, he’d quickly progress to shouting. The patient, carefully thought-out language would warp into an explosion of uncontrolled emotion. I knew his tones of voice well, the registers of his language. They were mine too: