For days after Jack left my apartment he’d tried calling me and I didn’t pick up. He texted me and I didn’t reply. He wanted to see me and he wanted to know more. Could I blame him? We hadn’t even got to the good bits of the story yet.
The taste of terror lingered in my mouth. I trusted him, but I couldn’t help feeling as though somebody else knew what I was doing. I always felt like I was being watched.
By the fifth day I got tired of ignoring him. I was resigned. It was unavoidable now. I’d already gone too far.
I sat down and mulled over my options. If I was going to tell him everything I didn’t want to do it at my apartment. And I didn’t want to do it anywhere that anyone could overhear. I wanted to be away, far away, somewhere isolated.
I wanted to be in the mountains. In the mountains you can be alone, and you know when you are alone, because you can see all around. I hadn’t been in the mountains for years.
Meet me at the entrance to the Paso Picacho campground at 11am on Tuesday. I finally sent him a text message. The Paso Picacho campground is the place to start for the Cuyamaca Peak hike. I’d never been before but, according to my research, it looked like a good place, and on a weekday the route was bound to be less crowded. We were more likely to be alone. I hoped my phone wasn’t being tapped.
*
I thought I’d be waiting for him, but as the taxi pulled up I saw him, already there, waiting in the shade. I paid the driver, and as I opened the door was overwhelmed by the smell of pine.
‘Hey,’ I said.
I got my notes out – directions to the trailhead – and asked if he was happy for us to go for a walk.
‘The Cuyamaca Peak?’
I nodded.
‘Glad I’m wearing comfortable shoes.’
We walked to the trailhead in silence. We’d abandoned my notes because he already knew the way. It was a perfectly clear, warm summer’s day and the smell of earth and wood felt so fresh. Light zapped through the trees and as branches swayed in the breeze, their shadows danced along the trail. Twigs crunched beneath our feet. A woodpecker drummed on a tree somewhere nearby. I asked myself why I hadn’t been there before.
We engaged in a bit of small talk, which we both knew was utterly pointless and stupid. He asked me how I’d been, and hinted at the unanswered calls and messages. I turned to him.
‘Look,’ I whispered, even though there was no one around, ‘do you have any idea how strange all this is for me? I should never have told you a thing.’ Then I shut up because I didn’t want to talk until we were out of the trees and I knew for absolute certain that we were alone. I told him this and he nodded. I think at that point he finally realised just how frightened I was.
After two hours hiking I finally felt like I was calming down. He must think I’m insane. I thought. He must be wondering why on earth I’ve taken him all the way up here. And even I don’t know the exact answer to that. Fear and paranoia primarily, but also a deep urge to get out of the city. A longing for open space and new horizons. Perhaps it all sounds very poetic now, but I needed those mountains that day.
‘Should we rest?’ I pointed to a group of boulders a few metres off the trail.
‘Sure.’
I looked around as we sat down. We were totally alone. We hadn’t seen a single person for over an hour. It was almost eerie.
My lungs were full of new air and my head full of new perspective. High up there in those mountains I finally felt I had a voice. I was ready to speak. I was ready to let him in again.
*
Silvia: Tuesday 4 November 1997
I don’t know who that naughty boy is and what he said when he came into our house like that without even knocking on our door but whatever it was Mami did not look happy. She spilled her coffee all over the table and now she is gone. I pick up my pastels and papers and I follow her because I want to know why she is gone and where she is going and what is happening but she is so much faster than me and I can barely keep up. She sees me and she says go back Silvia but I don’t go back because I want to be with her and I want to know what is happening.
And now I’m tired of running and we are in a room that looks like a classroom except instead of children the room is full of all sorts of other people and I don’t like it because I don’t know anybody and I feel really small. It looks like people are serious and like everything is important, but I don’t feel very important, and I don’t want to make anyone angry so I go and I sit down in a corner and stay out of the way. I sit there for a really long time and more and more people are coming into the room and I am just waiting and wondering what is happening. Mami is talking one by one to everyone in the room but I don’t want to go and ask her anything because I feel like if I do someone might get angry or trample on me. Then the room goes silent and Mami and some other people are saying things at the front of the room and the other people are listening and they are sighing and I even see that there is a lady who is crying and then people start to talk louder and a man is shouting and there is a lot of angriness and sadness because the bad people are going to destroy our forest.
After a while I get tired of listening and the people’s voices all merge into one hum hum hummm and their heads turn into the squawking heads of birds. And there are some children and they turn into all sorts of animals, running around the room. And then there are some babies too and they are clinging to their mamis except they don’t look like babies anymore because they are now sloths hanging from trees. And I can see a mist dancing around us all and I smile to myself as I fall asleep.
Alma: Tuesday 4 November 1997
The biggest problem with the forest is that beneath the magical swirl of mist and birds, the canopy’s orchestra of sounds and the rich damp soil that gives life to it all, there lives a reservoir of oil. For millions of years it’s been there, living peacefully, secretly and undiscovered, and its existence has never been a problem. But now, they say, the forest is an unnecessary luxury. In the words of a close friend of certain US government officials, our forest has, up until now, been ‘an unprofitable waste of space’. According to him it has a wealth of potential (what he actually means is a potential for wealth) and it should be exploited… by none other than his company.
No consultation is made with the people who live in the forest – neither by the oil company nor the Mexican government – who have signed away the forest so quickly and secretively that nobody even knew it was under threat. No information has been given about how much of the forest will be affected. In fact, nobody knows anything at all, except that it now belongs to someone, and that someone doesn’t see the forest in quite the same way as we do.
Drilling will begin soon. If history is anything to go by, the indigenous communities living in the forest will be disregarded and removed. We discuss everything in our emergency meeting in the classroom: complex biodiverse ecosystems, the media, protest, compensation. I’m amazed at how many people have turned up at such short notice; it’s a positive sign, but today is a sad day for us all.
As I walk back home with Silvia I feel grief-stricken. I’m already planning my next article. I have a title and an idea swirling round in my head. Mexico: The US’s Back Garden will be about our forest and the US’s involvement in the environmental destruction of Mexico over the years. I’m going to send it to every newspaper here, in the US, the UK, all over the world. This story needs to reach an international audience.
I am ready to fight.
*
And so my mother’s devastation turned her into a woman of non-stop action. She was the busiest I had ever seen her. She would do anything for ‘our forest’, we all knew it. Even the governments knew it.
But how careful you have to be if the things you passionately care about are at odds with those with money and power.