MONA was so busy with other work, she didn’t manage to get out to Paradise again until almost three weeks after Carmen’s arraignment. Mona didn’t need to go, but she felt close to Carmen. She wanted to show her a friendly face.
She set off early, with a mug of coffee and a pack of doughnut holes. She had the radio playing. A few miles outside Paradise, the hourly news bulletin came on. The big story that day was that the president had nominated Michael Marvin, the CEO of the Border Security Corporation of America, to head the Department of Homeland Security. The news bulletin carried a sound bite of the president: “Michael’s a businessman, like me. He’s someone who knows how to get things done. We need someone in charge of Homeland Security who knows how to deal with these people.”
Mona switched off the radio. These people. It was getting hot, so she turned on the AC. The vent started rattling. She reminded herself to get it checked out. The car was long overdue for a service.
Finally, she pulled into the detention center lot. Although she hadn’t seen a snake, she still checked the ground before opening the car door. Once she was sure it was all clear, she grabbed her briefcase and a Nordstrom bag from the passenger seat and made her way to the entrance.
Thanks to Operation No Return, the private-prison business was booming. Yet more people had arrived at PDC since Mona’s last visit, and to accommodate them, the center had erected a hangar-sized tent in the yard. When Mona asked the guard if the tent was heated—in the desert, the temperature dropped to thirty degrees at night—he shrugged. “We give them blankets,” he said.
She sat down and waited at the table where she’d first interviewed Carmen.
When Carmen appeared, Mona barely recognized her. She’d put on more weight than Mona thought possible in three weeks. Her skin was blotchy, her hair dirty and unkempt, her eyes devoid of the river-stone gleam that had struck Mona the first time they’d met. After just a month in detention, her features had coarsened; her nose and ears seemed larger, and her eyes farther apart, as though she’d aged a decade. She reminded Mona of a drug addict nearing bottom—the dead look in the eyes, the bad skin. Incarceration ought to come with a health warning, she thought. Not only was prison food disgusting, it was unhealthy; Mona had pulled up next to a man unloading catering supplies from a truck. She’d seen him forklift off a fifty-five-gallon drum of cooking oil and had pictured the giant fry cookers inside the detention center kitchens, all the lumps of cheap, preprepared foods sputtering through them. No wonder Carmen looked the way she did. I should’ve brought her some fruit, Mona thought.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” said Carmen, as though reading Mona’s thoughts. “The toilets overflowed again. Everybody’s getting sick.”
“Did you ask to see the doctor?” said Mona.
Carmen hesitated. “Yes. He gave me some medicine.” Then, changing the subject, she pointed at the tent and said, “Did you see that? Fifty more people arrived. They told me 150 more are coming. But they didn’t build any new toilets. Two hundred more people using toilets that are already overflowing? No es posible.”
It was depressing to hear the emptiness in Carmen’s voice. Mona tried to sound cheery.
“I brought you a present,” she said. She placed the Nordstrom bag on the picnic table, hoping its contents wouldn’t be too small. “It’s to wear in court. The first impression you make on the jury is vital. I thought this might be appropriate.”
Carmen opened the package and unfolded the dress it contained. It was a conservative long-sleeve number that fell below the knee. Mona had told the sales assistant she wanted something she could wear in church.
“Americans like women who don’t threaten them,” she told Carmen. “Hopefully, you’ll feel comfortable in it, too.”
There was also a navy cardigan in the package, which Mona said was to guard against the courtroom air-conditioning, as well as a pair of sensible flats.
“Do you need some shampoo or conditioner?” said Mona in what she hoped was a neutral tone. “I can give you more credit at the commissary.”
Carmen smiled. “Está bien,” she said. “I got a job washing dishes in the canteen. It earns a few cents. They pay it into my commissary account.”
But there was still nothing in her voice. No hope, no sense of nervous anticipation about her trial. Like she’d been vacated.
“Carmen, I am very confident about your case. Remember how I told you la migra made a terrible mistake in San Ysidro? Well, the judge made an even worse one when he denied you bail. Once I show the jury what they did, the law says that they’re going to have to let you go. And they can’t force you to go back. You understand? You’ll be able to stay in America until your application for asylum is processed.”
Carmen smiled distractedly. “He knows I’m here.”
Mona furrowed her brow. “Who?”
“Soto. He has found me.”
Mona shook her head. “No. That’s impossible.”
Carmen hugged herself. “Do you know why snakes stick out their tongues?” she said. “To smell. They use their tongues.”
She’s depressed, thought Mona. I need to get a psychiatrist in here to assess her mental health, maybe get her on some medication.
“Last night I had a dream,” said Carmen. “He came to me and flicked out his tongue. He said, ‘I can smell you, puta. I know where you are.’”
Mona glanced at the guard. He was the same one she’d met the first time. He was looking the other way. Mona took the girl’s hands in hers. They were trembling.
“Carmen, listen to me,” she said. “It’s the stress of being in here. It makes you dream crazy things. It’s natural; it happens to everyone. Try not to think about it.”
Carmen shook her head. She was adamant. “No. I’m not crazy. He’s here. I can feel him.”
Carmen bit her lower lip, trying to stop the tears. For a brief moment, Mona felt an unkind impulse to tell Carmen to pull herself together. Mona could control the administrative stuff, and she was a brilliant legal scholar, but there was little she could do when people behaved irrationally, and that annoyed her. She tried to hide it by nodding sympathetically and pressing the girl’s hands while she cried.
“I miss my parents,” said Carmen. “I miss my sister.”
It was the first time she’d ever said she missed them.
“Do you want to call them?” said Mona.
“No. Absolutely not,” said Carmen. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and made an attempt to pull herself together. “I’m fine. You’re right; it’s just a bad feeling. I’m better now.”
Mona gave her a warm smile. “Tell me about home,” she said.
She smiled. “My mother is probably cooking. My father is probably watching football on TV. My sister, Clara, is probably at school. The same middle school I went to, near the stadium. We could hear the crowd roar whenever our team scored. I knew before I got home whether we’d won or not and what kind of mood my father would be in.”
“What team does he support?”
“Los Cementeros, of course.”
Mona knew she was talking about Cruz Azul, a storied Mexico City soccer team founded by a cement company.
Carmen looked at the label of the dress Mona had brought. “Oyé, mujer, what size do you think I am? I’ll have to go on a diet,” she said with a put-on frown. That’s when Mona noticed her nails. She’d chewed them back to the flesh. Mona fished a bottle of neutral nail polish out of her handbag. “Here,” she said. “We have the same skin tone. It’ll look good on you.”
“Beige. Perfect for court,” said Carmen with a little smile.
“Exactly. In court, you’ll be like Dolores Romero before she finds…” Mona was about to say, “The snake charmer who gives Dolores the antidote.” But Mona knew there was no remedy for the scars Soto had left on Carmen. Not even in Hollywood. “Before she finds love,” she said simply.