A Far Country (32 page)

They came from all directions. They crossed the road and followed her down the shoulder, passing as she slowed. They walked in groups or they came alone. They were women and men of all ages and children who chased one another down the slope. They pulled carts and dragged burlap sacks behind them.

At the gate, she paused. He was already halfway up the hill, winding up a long and narrow path. She wanted to go on, but she couldn’t. She remembered the story of the scavengers, who made beauty from things that others had discarded. She felt then that she was standing at the edge of a sacred place, like the silent shade of a cathedral or an offering in the middle of a backlands road. So she stopped, and watched the shadows of the people rise up the mountain. She remained below, stroking the baby’s hair, and she waited for her brother to come down.

S
ummer came and then another winter of rain. In Saint Michael, the cane blossomed again. When the harvest was over, her father found a job laying pavement at the edge of Prince Leopold. He spent the week there and came home on the weekends, to see her mother, who refused to leave their village.

In the city, families continued to arrive. The Settlements spread into the forest. Cinder-block houses went up in place of shacks, and a clinic was built on the hill. In the windows of the houses, hanging sheets changed like changing leaves. Manuela constructed a second story and rented it to a migrant family with four children and a brindled dog that came with them on the trip down south.

The evening he came down from the hill, Isaias returned with Isabel to New Eden. They walked in silence on the shoulder of the highway until they reached an empty bus pavilion. He held the baby until the bus came. When they
reached the hill, a group of women was gathered in the road. They grew quiet when they saw the two of them coming, and parted to let them pass.

That night, he said, ‘I’ve been working there almost since I arrived. Manuela doesn’t know. I came here, to the door, but I couldn’t—’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know all of it.’

She knew he wouldn’t say more. He called the north, but he turned from Isabel as he spoke, and she couldn’t hear what he said. Two days later, when Manuela came home, he told her he had been working in a gold mine in the interior.

‘There aren’t any phones,’ said Isabel. ‘He sent letters, but they didn’t arrive. It’s very far.’

They strung a hammock for him to sleep. He began to go down to the highways to wait for pickups trolling for day laborers. Weeks passed without work, and he spoke about returning to the mountain. Then he found a job setting pylons for a bridge, and later as an assistant gardener with the city. He was promoted quickly. He laughed and told Isabel, ‘Rich black soil and still these people can’t grow anything.’ In New Eden, he met a man with a fiddle, and at night, while the man worked as a watchman, he borrowed it and played with an accordionist who lived down the hill.

Elections came, and Isabel’s candidate lost. New Eden filled with a victory celebration. Josiane told her about a factory in the East Zone making plush toys for fairground prizes. They sat together for an interview with a foreman who erased her questionnaire and rewrote her age as ‘18.’

In the mornings, she descended the hill alongside the day maids and the construction workers and the other day-shifters. The buses were full, and the fare collectors packed the
aisles as tight as possible. They stood shoulder to shoulder and clung to the handrails. Sometimes the ride took two hours, but she didn’t mind. She could watch the people and imagine their lives. She learned that because she was silent, they told her stories she couldn’t imagine. In a barren industrial neighborhood she joined a long file that passed through the doors of the factory, punched in, donned a light pink bonnet and a mask with the black letters
ISABEL
and took up her spot on an assembly line, where she sewed and stuffed and snipped until the lunch bell rang. In the factory cafeteria, she sat with Josiane. Then the bell rang again and she sewed and stuffed and snipped until the end of her shift, punched out and took the bus home. Alin returned from the north. Some evenings she helped him with his work. Her job was to look through a pile of scavenged magazines and cut out images for his portraits. On Saturdays she walked with him to deliver them. On Sundays, after church, Isaias took her to the park. She remembered their old walks, and in those memories she was very young and small.

They left Hugo with the woman who used to watch him. It cost a quarter of a day’s wage, so in the spring, Manuela’s youngest sister came down from Saint Michael. She was thirteen. Her name was Theresa. When she opened her bag, Isabel could smell the dry earth from the north. The smell remained for a week, and then it was gone. They strung a second hammock next to Isaias, and Isabel explained how everything would be.

Daniel Mason is also the author of
The Piano Tuner
.
He lives in California.