Erased Faces (5 page)

When no one moved, Adriana realized that someone must have made a mistake or taken the wrong seat, but she did not mind; she was not feeling impatient. Instead, she again stared at Raquel's veil, still wondering if it had feelings, and what would happen if she put the flame of her candle close to the fine mesh.

She looked around, trying to forget what had just come into her mind, but her curiosity grew until she decided to test it. At first nothing happened as she neared the flame to the edge of the veil. She put it closer and closer, until a puff of smoke suddenly enveloped her face. She
recoiled in shock as she saw Raquel's head in flames. Adriana thought that she looked longer, taller, as the flames swirled upward and her arms flailed wildly, trying to rip the burning material from her head.

“¡Ay! ¡La niña!”

“¡Raquel! ¡Raquel!
”

An uproar shattered the reverence of the congregation as people rushed toward Raquel in an attempt to help her. In a matter of seconds, a man took off his jacket and wrapped it around the girl's head and shoulders. The other children shrank back in terror, shrieking for a mother, a father, someone, anyone. The priest and two altar boys pressed their way through the milling, screaming crowd until they reached Raquel, whose whimpers became weaker with each second. By the time her mother reached her, the girl had lost consciousness. While all of this was happening, Adriana had fallen against a pew, watching, her eyes bulging.

“¡Hija del diablo! ¡Hija de un diablo negro!”

Raquel's mother, in a hysterical fit, lunged toward Adriana, intending to hurt her. The woman's words, telling her that she was the daughter of a black devil, shocked Adriana even more, transporting her to the apartment where her mother had murdered her father. Again, she smelled the stench that had invaded the place; she felt a tightness in her chest and her stomach turned until she vomited.

Ramona Esquivel disregarded the mess at Adriana's feet and she grabbed the girl by the neck, shaking her with all the strength of her arms. The crowd stood aghast as she thrashed Adriana from one side to the other. Everyone was shouting and babbling.

“¡La policía!”

“¡Pronto!”

“¡Una ambulancia!”

Suddenly, from out of the throng, a pair of hands took hold of Señora Esquivel. The strength of that grip forced the woman from Adriana's throat. The strong hands then took the girl through the crowd out of the church. Still gagging and breathing heavily, her face puffy and smeared with tears, Adriana looked up to see Sister Geraldine.

“Why did you do such a thing, Adriana?”

The nun muttered the question over and again, knowing that the girl would not respond. Nonetheless, she felt compelled to ask because she was baffled by what had happened. She had never before experienced such a tumult in church. Sister Geraldine stood staring down at Adriana; she, too, was breathing heavily.

“I wanted to see if it would hurt the veil.”

The nun began to say something that had nothing to do with what Adriana had said, but cut off her own words abruptly. She blinked in disbelief at what she had heard: not Adriana's words but rather her voice. The girl had spoken, and she did so in clear, correct words. There was no slurring, no incoherent connections. It was a complete, understandable sentence.

“Adriana! You
can
speak!”

The nun, still shaken by the many unexpected happenings, took Adriana by the shoulders as she turned her face up to hers. She looked intently at her face and head.

“Little girl, you
can
speak!”

Repeating her words, Sister Geraldine expressed her joy to Adriana, who in turn was convinced that the nun was the Virgin Mary. If not, then she certainly was an angel, the only one in her short life who had ever shown Adriana that she cared enough for her to protect her from pain.

“She said that I'm the daughter of a black devil!”

“Yes, she did say those words.”

“Is that true, Sister?”

“No! No one is the daughter of the devil. But you have to understand that Señora Esquivel was very upset, and people say strange things when they're frightened. God forbid it, but maybe Raquel will be scarred. You'll have to apologize most sincerely to her and to God, and you must promise never, never to do such a thing again.”

As it turned out, Raquel Esquivel was not severely hurt; she lost most of her hair but that grew back, and there were no scars left on her face. Apparently, the blaze everyone saw was that of the veil only. After counseling and advice from the parish nuns, the family took
Adriana back, but Ramona Esquivel tucked the incident in her heart, and never forgave her.

Not long afterward, when she was nearly eight years old, Ramona told Adriana to heat water to wash the dinner dishes. Adriana did as she was told, even though she could barely reach; she had to prop a chair against the stove to put the pan on top. However, when the water boiled and was ready, she knew that she could not carry it over to the sink, so she called Señora Esquivel and asked her to do it for her. Adriana was standing by the sink when the woman, pot holders in hand, turned to her.

“You want the water,
m'ijita?
”

“Sí, señora.”

“Where do you want it,
mi chula?”

Adriana turned to point her finger toward the kitchen sink when she felt the searing pain of boiling water crash against her left side. She felt heat invade her body, and it was so hot, so intense, that the light coming through the windows began to dim until she could barely see. The dimming soon became blackness, and then there was nothing.

When Adriana regained consciousness, her eyes opened slowly to see a nurse looking down at her. The face was a blur at first, then it began to take shape, until finally it became clear. As the woman scrutinized her, Adriana heard voices somewhere next to her bed.

“Doctor, I tell you this was an accident.”

“Explain how such a thing could happen accidentally if the child was standing by the sink, and the water was boiling on the stove? Remember, I've gone to your place, I've seen the kitchen, and anyone can see that there is at least five feet of separation between the sink and stove.”

“I'm telling you that she tried to pick up the pot and dropped the whole thing on herself.”

“But you've already said that she was standing by the sink.”

“Well, I made a mistake! I didn't mean it that way. Oh, shit! It's all her fault. Look at what her mother did to her own husband. And
look at what the little brat did to my Raquel! She's a monster! I'm afraid of her.”

“What does any child have to do with what her parents do, or don't do? And as far as I'm concerned, what happened at that ceremony was just a childish thing. She had no idea of what could have happened! But this was not a childish prank nor an accident! This, Mrs. Esquivel, is very serious. Adriana will be lucky if she comes out of this without her face being scarred. Her arm will be, that's for sure. This is a terrible thing that's happened to her. I can't prove what really happened, but I can assure you that she will not return to your place.”

“¡Señorita Adriana! ¡Señorita Adriana!
”

The voices of several Lacandón girls yanked Adriana back to the present. It was time for her to join the women to begin the photo shoot. Adriana stood up, but the doctor's voice was still ringing in her ears, as was the memory of pain, which hardly ever left her. She smiled at the girls, grateful that they had retrieved her from her past life. She signaled to them that she would join them as soon as she got her equipment.

The whir of turning film filled the air as Adriana aimed the camera and snapped shot after shot. Surrounding her was a cluster of huts, each with its opening facing a center in which kneeling women ground maize. Others patted
tortillas
into shape, then baked them on a
comal
placed over an open fire. Some women were embroidering
huipiles
, shawls worn by the village women. Yet others were spinning cotton to be dyed and sewn into the full skirts that marked the women of the tribe. These products would be sold in the open markets of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Ocosingo.

Adriana had been part of the village for several months, and in that time the villagers, men as well as women, had come to feel at ease with her. It had been difficult in the beginning; no one would allow her to point a camera at them. Chan K'in explained that to reproduce a person's image on paper was the same as possessing the spirit of that man or woman. She had expected this, however, since many of the old women and men of her barrio in Los Angeles had similar ideas. She knew that trust had to happen before anything could be done, so she lived with them and waited until they understood that she was a friend.

“¡Micaela! ¡Muévete más para acá, por favor!”

Whenever she asked one of the women to move closer, Adriana's request was answered with a shy smile. She could overhear them twittering in their language. She knew they were gossiping about her, but she did not mind. She felt good about whatever they might say. She
also liked the sound of their speaking because it echoed the sweet tones of bird songs filling the air.

As she took each picture, she concentrated on faces while trying to capture the dense jungle background. Sharp profiles with bird-like contours attracted her most of all. Next to side views, Adriana focused on the almond-shaped eyes outlined by long, straight lashes. She zoomed in on smiles curved around small, white teeth, knowing that the black-and-white film she used would capture the dark mahogany tones of the women's skin.

Adriana looked to her left just in time to catch sight of a young mother, and, hoping to capture that image, she rapidly pointed her lens at the girl's hand as it uncovered a full breast. Muttering under her breath, Adriana got closer; she wanted to catch the image of the child as it suckled its mother's milk.

“¡Chispas!
The girl can't be more than thirteen.”

She shot several frames of the mother and child before she lowered the camera. Adriana focused her eyes on the young woman, thinking that she was beautiful. She gazed at her face: an oval covered by brown, smooth skin. The girl's eyes were filled with light; although Adriana knew their color was black, she thought that they appeared to be cast in silver. The girl's hair was raven-colored, caught up in braids, with some escaped strands, clinging to her forehead and neck.

Adriana could not take her eyes off the girl's face. She found the contrast hypnotic: the sight of the mother, still a child, offering the breast of a grown woman to her baby. Adriana sat down by a tree, placed her camera next to her, and leaned against the trunk. She pulled a note pad from her pocket and began jotting down her impressions. As always, Adriana made careful notes, including not only the details of her subjects, but her own feelings as well. Suddenly, a mix of emotions crept over her as she scribbled: love for the young mother, envy because she was not the child sheltered in those arms, sadness at having been robbed of love, fierce desire to discover the reason for her mother having murdered her father. Without warning, the experience transported her thoughts to the beginning of her own adolescence in Los Angeles.

She was eleven years old. She was standing with Mrs. Hazlett on the corner of Whittier and Kern; they were waiting for a bus. The social worker had been Adriana's case supervisor for a number of years, and the girl now felt at ease with her. In the beginning, when Adriana was recuperating from her scalded arm, she had been afraid of Mrs. Hazlett, mostly because she was different. She spoke only English, and she lived in a different part of the city. The woman was tall and lean. Her hair was a faded blond, her blue eyes were tiny, and she tended to squint them when she looked at people. Her looks intimidated the girl for a while, but soon Adriana learned that Mrs. Hazlett was kind, that she wanted to help her.