seventeen

I looked around the dormitory. Sheets hanging from two-by-four crossbeams cordoned off the large area into smaller spaces. Several thin mattresses covered the floor nearby. Beside me, a burned candle rested on an altar, where a rosary lay in front of a framed picture of the Virgin Mary. I peeked through the burlap again. The man came closer.

Suddenly, the boy on the bicycle thrust his way in front of the other children.

“Silencio,” he said. He put a finger to his lips. He pointed at the burlap. I held my breath. “Tomás is sick. He’s sleeping inside.”

“Kid, you speak good English,” the man said. “If he’s sleeping, then why are you all yelling outside his window?”

“When he’s well, he’s a bully. Now he’s sick, so the others bully him.”

“Hah,” the man said. “Guess the little shit had it coming.”

Abadi’s man walked away. The other children began chanting again.

“Silencio,” the boy called out.

The chanting stopped. Finally, I got it. I’d been off by a vowel with my Spanish. The boy gestured for me to climb back out the window. The truck with the workers rumbled into camp. Once outside, I leaned over to the boy on the bike. I pointed to the truck.

“I need to find Naida and Miguel Morales before those men do. I must get them away from the camp or they will be hurt.”

The boy with the bike stood tall. He patted his chest. “Not to worry, Señor, Alonzo will help.”

Alonzo huddled with the children like a coach with his team. He spoke in hushed Spanish, pointing to several kids. The truck’s brakes squealed. People filed over a gate at the back of the truck. The children ran toward them. I walked to the edge of the dormitory. Abadi’s men waited by their SUV. Alonzo walked his bike behind the swarm of children. He looked back once in my direction, winking, then subtly patting down the air with his palm.

Farm workers trudged toward the dormitory. Abadi’s men pushed off from the SUV. “Naida and Miguel Morales,” they shouted.

No one responded. The children played in and out of the adults.

“Naida and Miguel Morales,” Abadi’s men called out.

A man and woman just stepping off the truck raised their heads.

“There,” one of Abadi’s men said. He pointed to the couple.

“Naida and Miguel Morales?”

The men drew their guns. The couple climbed back into the truck.

Suddenly, Alonzo shouted in Spanish and the children turned, running toward Abadi’s men, swarming them and jumping on top of them. Alonzo waved me forward. The men fought to throw the children off their backs. Some workers ran to help the children.

“Take the truck, Señor. The truck,” Alonzo said.

I ran for the truck. I yanked open the driver’s door and a man with wide eyes held up his hands and moved out quickly from behind the wheel. In the back, a couple cowered. I cranked the ignition key. The couple moved toward the rear, ready to jump off. I turned to them.

“No, por favor,” I patted my chest. “Eliana is with me. Eliana.”

One of Abadi’s men fired a shot in the air. Miguel had a leg over the rear gate. I started driving. Alonzo rode up on his bike. He shouted to Miguel in Spanish and Miguel pulled his leg in. In the rearview mirror, I saw him wrap his arm around his wife. They hunkered down in a corner. A bullet shattered the passenger’s side window. I rammed the gearshift into second.

Dusk made finding the road a challenge. Abadi’s men needed only to jump into their SUV to catch us in this old rig. I frantically searched the dashboard with my fingers, pulling each lever I came to. The wipers turned on. The defroster whirred. Finally, the headlights lit the dirt road leading away from the camp. I jammed the shifter into third.

When I looked back from my sideview mirror, I saw Abadi’s men jump into their SUV. Then I thrust my head out the window. Alonzo pedaled frantically, in a vain attempt to catch up with the truck. He dangled something from his fingers as he rode.

“The keys,” he yelled. “The keys, Señor.” He patted his chest. “Alonzo has the keys to the SUV.”

I honked my horn twice. Alonzo broke off his pursuit.

When I got to the dirt road, Maria had her car idling. She ran to the back of the truck. After a hurried exchange in Spanish, the Morales couple climbed down. Maria led them to her car, where she opened a rear door and waved them in.

I sprang from the truck. Maria ran to me. “Take them directly to my boat at the marina,” I said.

She sniffed the air. “God, you stink.”

Then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before running back to her car.

 

 

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE MARINA, I called Raven on my cell phone.

“Maria’s here with Miguel and Naida,” he said.

“You want to bring me some soap and a change of clothes?” I said.

Raven chuckled. “Shitty job, but someone had to do it, huh?”

“Just bring them to me,” I said.

After a shower, I walked back to the Noble Lady. Raven opened the back door as I stepped on. He held one hand low and out of sight, behind his back.

“Eliana and her parents are inside,” he said.

I walked through the door. Everyone gathered around the galley table. Naida clutched her daughter. Miguel sat next to his wife with his legs crossed, facing away from his family, a stern look on his face. Maria sat on the other side of Eliana. She said something to Miguel. He didn’t answer. Maria looked at me. Her eyes dropped. She shook her head.

I spoke to Maria. “Tell them they can use the stateroom if they want to be alone with Eliana.”

Maria spoke to Naida then pointed to the stateroom. Naida extended her hand to Eliana but Eliana did not reach back. Instead, she followed her mother into the stateroom like a dutiful daughter. Miguel stood up. I guessed his height at five-foot-eight. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, stained with dirt, jeans frayed at the knees, and dust-covered tennis shoes. He slid from behind the table and stood with his back against the cabin door. He looked down at the floor, then around at the ceiling and the walls.

“Tell him he can have a seat,” I said to Maria.

She spoke a few words to Miguel. He shook his head and refused to move. I slid into the bench behind the galley table, next to Maria. Raven slid in next to me. Murmurs and muted sobbing wafted in from the stateroom. Miguel turned and looked out the window onto the dark rear deck.

I turned to Maria. “What’s going on?”

“Shame. Guilt. Embarrassment. Anger. On everyone’s part,” Maria said. “Miguel and Naida are devout Catholics. Their daughter is living in the worst kind of sin. Eliana knows she’s disgraced her parents.”

“But it’s not her fault,” I said. “They paid coyotes to bring her out of Mexico.”

Maria nodded. “Which only deepens their shame.”

“So they’ll just disown her? She’s their daughter.”

“It’s sad. The few women who do manage to leave forced prostitution aren’t always welcomed home. Like I said, they’re devout Catholics. They feel tainted.”

“If they’re so devout, haven’t they heard about forgiveness?”

“Perhaps her mother could forgive her. But her father has too much pride.”

“Pride? His daughter’s been forced to sell her body, and he’s worried about his pride?”

“I’m not saying it’s right,” Maria said. “But given his life, he doesn’t have much else other than his pride.”

“So what becomes of Eliana?”

“If we can keep her away from the streets, there’s a program she can enter with other young women like her. Education. English. Help with immigration. It’s not easy, but some make it.”

I pounded my fist on the table. Maria and Raven jumped.

“You should tell them to read their Bible more closely,” I said.

Maria frowned. “What?”

“Especially, the part about Mary Magdalene in the New Testament,” I said.

Raven leaned in to our conversation for the first time. “Who?” he asked.

“The prostitute who washed the feet of Jesus,” Maria said.

“Will they at least tell us what happened after they paid the coyotes?” I asked.

Maria touched my thigh softly. “I know you want to help,” she said. “Let me see what I can do.” She slid from the bench and spoke to Miguel. He would not turn to face her. He answered in a voice muted by the cabin door. Maria patted him on the shoulder before walking into the stateroom.

The voices of the three women wove into and out of each other. Maria’s crisp and sharp. Eliana’s and Naida’s flat and dull. After several minutes, Maria emerged with a half smile.

“I told them that truth is the first step to redemption. And I took your advice. I reminded them of Santa Maria Magdalena. Miguel, I’m not sure about. Eliana either. But Naida said she would tell us what she knew.”

Naida and Eliana emerged from the stateroom arm in arm, with tear-strewn faces. Mother and daughter had the same dark eyes. The same angular cheekbones. The same thick, long hair, though Naida’s now had wide strands of gray in it, and she’d wrapped it into a bun. The same beauty shone through their pain and suffering. Eliana still wore the jeans that Maria had given her. Naida wore a blue denim skirt caked with dirt.

Raven and I got up from the table. Naida and Eliana slid into our places. Miguel still refused to turn away from the darkness outside the door. Eliana sat between her mother and Maria. Naida spoke while Maria translated.

“Miguel and I have been married for twenty-five years,” Naida said. “We’ve known each other since we were children.” Naida smiled for the first time. She spoke to me as she talked. Even though I could not understand her words directly, her eye contact conveyed her anguish, her pain.

“Miguel wanted to become an engineer,” Naida said. “I wanted to be a mother and a teacher.” She turned away from me and spoke directly to her husband, who muttered to the window in Spanish.

“She said she will always love him no matter what,” Maria said. “She asked him to come be with his wife and daughter as a family, even if it means overcoming his pride. He said it wasn’t his pride but his honor. Without honor what does a man have? he asked.”

“Tell him that honor in the eyes of others means nothing when compared to honor in the eyes of the person he sees when he looks in the mirror,” I said.

Maria spoke. Miguel mumbled back. “He asks how would you know about such things?”

“Tell him I was an officer in the Coast Guard for twenty years, but I disgraced myself in the eyes of my superior officers because I refused to lie when asked to. Tell him that’s why I’m no longer wearing a coast guard uniform; I wanted to be able to salute the person I saw in the mirror each morning.”

Maria spoke to Miguel again and he answered to the darkness.

“He says that was a very noble thing to do.”

I laughed. So did Raven. Maria frowned. Miguel started to turn around, then caught himself. He spoke to Maria.

“Why do they laugh at my dishonor?”

“Not your dishonor, Señor. We laugh at my last name, which is Noble,” I said.

Miguel laughed before Maria could translate my words. Then he turned to me and said in halting English, “Maybe . . . had . . . no . . . choice.”

“Of course I had a choice,” I said. “Just like you do.” I patted the table. “Aquí, Señor Morales.”

Miguel looked between me and his wife and Eliana. Tears welled in his eyes. Tension mounted uncomfortably in the galley. Finally, he took a step in my direction, then another. Maria slid from the bench and Miguel took her place next to his daughter.

“Papa,” Eliana said.

He pulled her toward him, and kissed her on the forehead. The Morales family sobbed together.

Naida reached for a napkin and dabbed her eyes. She stretched across Eliana and patted her husband’s arm. Then she continued to speak. Maria took a seat beside Miguel on the crowded bench. She continued with her translation.

“We wanted more than what our poor village offered,” Naida said. “So we worked in the fields and nursed our dreams at night in our bed. Then this beautiful child came along. When she was thirteen, Miguel said to me, ‘We must do something with our lives so that Eliana and her children can have a better life.’ That’s when we decided to cross the border. We paid a coyote.”

Miguel broke into the conversation in Spanish. Maria also translated for him.

“But they weren’t as vicious in those days as they are now,” Miguel said. “We paid them to take us across the desert. They were sly and resourceful. They knew which border guards on both sides to bribe. They had water and food prepositioned in the desert. They helped us much like Robin Hood helped the poor people of his day. We made our way as far from Mexico as we could. That’s how we arrived in the Skagit valley. We heard there were jobs for crop pickers here.”

Naida sighed. “But the coyotes would not take children across the desert,” she said. “So we had to leave Eliana with other family members. We promised her we would send money for her to join us. We lived very simply so we could send money back to Mexico.”

Miguel joined the conversation through Maria. “But times changed,” he said. “And the coyotes joined forces with the narcotics traffickers. They wanted upwards of ten thousand U.S. dollars to bring Eliana across the border. We never dealt directly with the coyotes. Always with someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew the coyotes.”

“And they made us a deal,” Naida said. “They said we could pay them two thousand dollars as a down payment. When Eliana arrived she would work for their associates for a certain period of time to repay them for the service of bringing her out of Mexico.”

Miguel pounded the table. “We knew we were taking a risk,” he said. “They never told us they would treat Eliana like a slave. We tried to find out about her. But each time we asked, we were told to be silent because one word to the American immigration authorities would send us back to Mexico and we would never see our daughter again.”

Finally, Eliana spoke. “I made no money,” she said without Maria’s assistance. “All the money went to my clothes, my food, my—how to say it?—my lodge . . . ing.” She continued in Spanish. “No money went even to repay the debt my parents owed to the coyotes.”

“Can we back up?” I asked Eliana. “What happened once the coyotes picked you up in Mexico? How did they bring you here?”

Her head dropped and she started to cry. Eliana gazed at the table. Naida looked lovingly at her daughter. Miguel sighed, before setting his jaw and staring ahead with grim determination. Raven stood in the doorway to the stateroom, his eyes closed but his lips moving as if uttering a prayer. Maria awaited Eliana’s words with her lips poised half open.

I reached an arm out toward Eliana and gently tamped down the air. “Go as slowly as you need to,” I said. “But please don’t leave out any details, no matter how insignificant you think they are.”

Eliana began her story through Maria.