She thought the best thing she could do for her former compañera was to take her daughter to the house of a friend who’d also joined up but had left the ranks of the guerrillas very early on, when the war hadn’t yet turned into the war which the both of them, and many others, had known. Back then, the army didn’t look for boot marks on the feet of young city women, but instead for muddied shoes, the smell of the hills in their hair, and fleas on their bodies.
They’d never caught that friend because she followed every precaution to the letter and always rolled her socks up to her knees, even though she hated it. Also, she was so skinny that no one imagined she could be part of anything and, what’s more, her innocent little face got her past every checkpoint without question, and without the film she brought down from the mountain for the foreign press ever being found, or being forced to expose each roll before being taken or disappeared.
They’d gone to the same private school. She was all but a legend there because once, when a group of girls had claimed a pencil case was missing and demanded their teacher, a nun, check the rucksacks of every student in the classroom, they’d found ammunition in hers. She was also carrying a gun, which she managed to get out of the way before her turn came to be inspected, with help from her compañeras in the student organization she was a member of: when they noticed the kids weren’t leaving the classroom at the usual time, they peeked through the window to check everything was all right and were passed a small gun inside a man’s bag that she carried with her. She asked them to please put it in the toilet cistern they called number three—whose water level they’d tampered with—in a way that meant it wouldn’t get wet. She’d collect it after she left the headmistress’s office.
The ammunition was usually in the same bag, but she was in such a rush to get rid of the gun that the ammunition fell out of its usual place and was spotted by the nun who opened the girl’s cloth rucksack, which was too cheap and shoddy for the girls who taunted her daily during recess and bullied her for being from an area that bore no resemblance to theirs and for participating in activities that weren’t to their liking, and that certainly wouldn’t be to their parents’ liking either.
That day, the girls had thought they’d find some propaganda tucked among her belongings, a book connecting her to an insurgent group; some reason to have her expelled at last, or to keep her out of the schoolyard for a few days. They thought she ought to go back to the state school where her mother taught and from which she’d transferred to this one. She agreed. She’d already told her mom she wasn’t comfortable there. She knew she was just trying to give her a better future, but she’d rather that future were elsewhere. Her compañeras from the clandestine organization thought so, too. When she’d told them her mother had gotten her a place there, they’d laughed. She’d be taught to talk like a rich girl, they said. Till then, she hadn’t met anyone from that social class, but had always, ever since she was a little girl, had a negative impression of it. She didn’t know why or what it meant to talk like a rich girl until she arrived at that school.
To be fair, not everyone there was rich, though a lot of them were. Her mother had gotten her a place after taking her older sister, introducing her to the nuns as a girl of enormous intelligence, and asking them to test her outside the normal schedule. She’d explained that her widowhood and the three shifts she was currently working made it difficult for her to save up money for tuition. She managed to convince the nuns to allow an exception—the classes hadn’t been filled that year—and even made them happy they’d done so when the girl scored highly on a series of tests they put her through.
After the older daughter made every possible honor roll in a single year, the nuns decided to give her a scholarship. Then the mother told them she had three other daughters just like her. The nuns agreed to extend the same arrangement to the other girls, on the condition she allowed them to represent the school in competitions and attend the relevant training sessions.
As soon as she signed the paperwork, the girls were made to keep their uniforms perfectly white, their socks rolled up to their knees, and their afternoons free. The girl informed her superior so that her shifts and missions could be adjusted accordingly. Though he didn’t enjoy taking instructions from her, he understood it was the only thing they could do if they wanted to keep her in their cell.
They’d meet at six in the evening. She in her uniform. At her side, he—a strange man, far older than she was—looked like a pedophile. Some of the girls were excited by the prospect of someone from their school being in a relationship with an older man. Others thought it was inappropriate, and so, after a while, reported it to the headmistress, who dismissed their claim but felt obliged to summon the girl to her office after finding ammunition in her rucksack.
She didn’t scold her. She asked the girl and her friends, who’d helped her hide the gun, what they were up to and whether they thought it was the best thing for their future. The girl who served as their leader at school defended their position to the best of her abilities and even accused the headmistress of being a reactionary. The headmistress asked if she knew what the word meant. The girl repeated what they’d been told in their meetings: reactionaries were those who opposed the revolution. The nun smiled: she wasn’t opposed. In fact, she was close to members of the church known to support the changes, allowed the groups to organize within their walls, and covered for them however she could. But right then, she had to fulfill her role as headmistress and youth counselor, so she shared some reflections on the current time and their age, all of which fell on deaf ears: every single one of the girls in her office ended up leaving for the mountains to fight.
She was the first to go. She said that, unlike the others, she couldn’t wait until she finished school: their country’s circumstances called for immediate action. And she left. First to join groups acting in the city, then underground, and finally to the battlefront. There, she was a little like a rich schoolgirl who’d once taken a typing class. At school, she’d been a rebel, and to those other schoolgirls who joined the group operating there, she was a sort of symbol and idol. To the ex-compañera from the demobilization camp, she was a complete role model, and also a mentor. She said she’d always felt inspired and supported by her. She praised her spirit while extolling her energy and devotion to the cause.
To the girl, however, she seemed like a very calm woman, and too soft for combat. She would never have suspected that she had been part of it. This woman wasn’t like her mother or her neighbors, or like her mother’s former compañera who was hosting her, or like the ex-combatants on TV, or those who now held government positions and appeared in the papers. Maybe it was because she’d left very early on, as the friend said. But she still had her conscience and solidarity. She assured her that only a few had them like she did.
When the war ended, before going back to her own home, the ex-compañera called in to see this friend of hers to ask what she should do going forward. After asking a few questions, her friend gave her some guidance. She thought that she could now do the same for this girl. That’s why she was taking her there. She knew it would’ve been best if she’d gone of her own free will, but she also knew there could be no free will in ignorance. She thought they had nothing to lose by trying and that the woman wouldn’t turn down the chance to help a former compañera-in-combat, even if they’d never been on the same front or fought at the same time. Because, at the end of the day, she wouldn’t be helping the girl but her mother. And in any case, if it were a matter of helping the girl, she knew she wouldn’t say no. She’d seen her lend a hand to people who had nothing to do with the movement they had been part of. She even knew of cases in which she made men who refused to accept fatherhood and its responsibilities snap out of it and become proud dads and good friends to their kids. If she could have done, she’d have taken her own daughter to get guidance from her, but the girl always refused to do anything she suggested. The other girl, however, immediately accepted.
In a modest bedroom on their own, she told the woman that she didn’t understand how her first year’s troubles could be happening again, even though she’d studied, tried hard, and done everything asked of her, at home and at university. She didn’t want to believe she was cursed or that it was a matter of fate, like people from her village kept insinuating to her sisters, or that it was as her mother’s friend’s daughter had said: that university wasn’t for everyone, that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for it, and that her best option was to start working at a bakery or somewhere like that. The girl had even suggested she ask for a job at her grandparents’ shop. They wouldn’t be able to pay her much, but she could keep on living with them. Maybe later she could find work as a companion for the elderly.
Though she wasn’t averse to working or being a companion to people who were terribly nice to her, it wasn’t part of her life plan. The kind woman asked her a series of questions. She was so soft-spoken, the girl sometimes felt as if she were listening to the sea at low tide. And as if, at the end of her journey, she’d reached the shore. She had a destination. For the first time in a long while, she felt calm.
When she left the room, her mother’s ex-compañera-in-arms felt it, too. She thanked her former compañera-in-school and in-struggle. She said what she’d said before: that she wished she’d never left combat. With her in their troop, they’d have done many great things. Though the friend disagreed, she was grateful for the thought. Now all she asked was that she continue to support the girl as best she could, while the girl made the decisions necessary to allow her to carry on doing what she wanted. The woman promised, and after they got home she spoke with the girl one-on-one, and realized she couldn’t keep her promise without breaking the promise she’d made her mother to look after the girl. The girl had decided not to take the class she’d failed at university a third time. At least, not for now. First, she’d get hold of the money she needed, and only then would she return to complete it.
The plan didn’t sound all that bad—that is, until she said she was going to look for work overseas.
News of the city she’d chosen wouldn’t please her mom one bit.