Red Midnight (14 page)

THEY TAKE ANGELINA AND ME
into a room that has two tables. “Angelina,” I say. “Do not cry now. These people will help us.”

“Do not leave me!” she screams. Her cheeks are wet with tears. Fear dances in her eyes.

“I am here,” I say. “I will not leave you.”

Because she believes me, Angelina stops crying.

Beside me, a nurse works on Angelina. Always Angelina watches to make sure I do not leave. She feels much pain, but the worst suffering is in her eyes. I think this pain will take much longer to heal.

The nurses take off our ragged clothes and they wash our bodies. The nurse that knows Spanish, Juana, talks to me while she is working. “I do not understand your sister when she talks,” she says.

“We speak Kekchi,” I say. “That is why my Spanish is
not very good. But Angelina understands some Spanish.”

“How did you get so many sores?”

“We have been on the ocean for twenty-three days,” I say. “Always there was sun and salt water.”

Juana tells me they must put needles with tubes into our arms. I think Angelina is going to cry again, but before they put the needle into her arm, I ask Angelina, “Where is your doll?”

Angelina points across the room to a table. When she looks back at me, the needle is already in her arm. The nurse, Juana, smiles at me.

“Will they help my doll?” Angelina asks me.

“Oh, yes,” I say. “But first they must help you.”

“If you want to help my sister,” I tell Juana quietly, “you must also help her doll.”

“I think we can do that,” Juana says. “And your parents,” she asks. “You say they are dead. How did they die?”

This is a very hard question to answer. Now I am the one who cries. “The soldiers,” I say. “They came in the middle of the night and burned my village. They killed everyone.”

“How did you escape?”

“My mother woke me up and told me the soldiers were coming. She gave me Angelina and told me to run. And so I ran. After I escaped, I looked back and could see the night sky burning red.”

Juana gives us water to drink but tells us we cannot
eat tonight because maybe they will find broken bones and need to operate. She turns and tells the other nurses something in English. They all look at me and they look at Angelina. The look in their eyes is very kind. Juana asks me many more questions. I try to answer all that I can, but I am very tired. Angelina and I fall asleep before the nurses finish putting bandages on all our sores.

When I wake up, I am lying on a bed in a small room. It is dark, but light comes in through the door, and I can see Angelina beside me in the same bed. I think it is a dream that I am here and not in the cayuco, so I close my eyes and sleep again.

But it is not a dream. When I wake up in the morning, the sun shines through the window like a river of light. Angelina is awake and stares around the room with big eyes. She, too, must think that this is a dream. Both of us have bandages all over our bodies. I have a big bandage on the side of my head where the sail pole has hit me.

“Good morning, Angelina,” I say.

She looks at me. Her eyes blink. “Where are we?” she asks.

I smile. “This is the United States of America.”

She stares out the window. “I think I like the…” She stops. “Where is this again?”

“The United States of America.”

She nods. “It is a good place.” She looks around the room. “Did you tip the cayuco over again?”

“Yes, a very big storm made the cayuco tip over.”

A nurse hears us talk and comes into the room. It is not Juana, but this nurse also speaks Spanish. “Did you sleep well?” she asks.

I can only nod.

“They tell me that you two sailed the ocean alone,” she says.

Again, I nod.

“Did you sail during the storm last night?”

“Yes,” I say. “We tipped over.”

“That was the worst tropical storm we have had in years.”

“I am glad it is over,” I say.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

Angelina nods.

“Yes. Yes, very hungry,” I say.

“Well, then, let's get you two something to eat.”

The nurse leaves and comes back soon with two trays. “I only want you to eat bread and pudding this morning,” she says. “Later today, you can have more.”

I do not tell the nurse that bread and pudding will be a feast for us.

“There are some men who want to talk to you after you finish eating, okay?”

“Where is my doll?” asks Angelina.

“The nurses had to work on your doll almost all night because she was hurt so bad,” the nurse says. “Juana will bring her to you soon.”

“My doll did not die, did she?” Angelina asks.

“No, your doll did not die,” says the nurse.

Angelina looks worried, but she does not cry.

We finish eating, and there are two men who come in to visit. They close the door and sit beside our beds in chairs. They speak Spanish, and they say they are from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I do not know what that is, but I think they are from the government, and this makes me scared, because in my country we are always afraid of the government.

The men are not angry, I do not think. But they do not smile when they ask me questions. When I talk, they write many things on paper. Because they keep asking me about my family, I do not know if they believe me. I do not think they believe that we sailed here. “I will show you the cayuco,” I say.

“We have already seen your cayuco,” one of the men says. “Where did you learn to sail?”

“I do not know how to sail very much,” I say. “My uncle Ramos, he taught me a little, and so did his neighbor, Enrique. Also, the ocean has taught me much. But I do not know all of the names of every part of a boat. I do not know how to read a map or tell you where I am with the stars. No, I am not a sailor.”

The man studies me and finally he smiles. “If you sailed from Guatemala in that little canoe, you are one hell of a sailor. And you are either very foolish or very brave.”

“I was very scared,” I say.

When the men finish, they do not tell me why we have talked or what they are thinking. “We will talk more tomorrow,” they say.

When they open the door to leave, there are many more people outside the door. A nurse comes in and tells me the people work for radio and television stations. They want to talk to me about my trip.

I do not care if we talk, but I do not understand why they want to talk to me.

These people also speak to me in Spanish, and again I answer many questions. Angelina is afraid, so she crawls over and sits on my lap. I think everyone likes Angelina, because many times the questions stop and people watch her. They laugh and take pictures of her.

I tell the group the words that Uncle Ramos told me the night he died. “‘Go as far away as you can and tell what has happened this night,'” I say. “That is what he told me. I will never forget those words.”

And so I tell everything that has happened. Again I cry when I tell about my family dying and about Uncle Ramos and about Carlos with his legs cut off and about the red sky at night. I think I will always cry when I think about those things. I also tell about the white butterflies, the mud in the gas tank, and the pigs in the cayuco. Everyone laughs. I finish by telling about the pirates and the fishhook and the storm. And I tell them about our game, staying alive.

“Tell them about the river of garbage where you
found my doll,” Angelina tells me.

And so I tell about the river of garbage and about Angelina's broken doll.

“Where is the doll now?” one of the women asks.

Before I can speak, a nurse that is in the room says, “The doll was broken and had a missing arm and was hurt very badly. So we had to work all night to fix her. But I think she is better now.” The nurse looks at Angelina. “Do you want to see your doll now?”

Angelina nods very hard.

The nurse Juana walks into the room holding something behind her back. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” she tells Angelina.

Angelina closes her eyes and puts out her short bandaged arms. I think she is peeking when a brand-new doll is placed in her arms. The doll has long black hair and a new red dress and dark skin as smooth as glass. On the right arm there is a white bandage.

Angelina can only stare. I think there is a light inside her head because her eyes shine so bright. I know she has never seen anything so beautiful. The group claps, and they take many more pictures with their cameras. Angelina hugs the doll. She smiles, and big silent tears fill her eyes. When I see her tears, I think that with time maybe she will be all right.

Before the group leaves, one man tells me we will be on the television tonight. “Is there anything else you wish to say?” he asks.

The group waits for my next words, but I am finished. I shake my head slowly. I can speak no more. Tears have filled my eyes, and the hurt of my memories squeezes my throat like a strong hand.

After the group leaves, later in the afternoon, the nurses change our bandages, and we eat again. This time they let us eat some bread and hot chicken soup. Angelina eats the bread with both hands. I think she will hurt herself if she tries to put any more into her mouth without swallowing. I do not think they will ever bring enough food to fill our stomachs. Later we ask for food again, and we eat. They bring us more soup, tortillas, and tamales.

After the evening meal, Juana turns on the television. I have seen televisions before when I traveled with my father to Lake Izabal. But Angelina has not, and she stares at the moving picture with big silent eyes. Tonight I cannot believe what I see: pictures of the cayuco sitting on a beach and pictures of Angelina and me in the hospital room. I do not understand the English, but Juana tells me everything that is being said. She says that they are telling our story.

Other nurses and a doctor stop in the room to watch what we are seeing. Angelina keeps staring at the television like it is magic. Every time the camera shows her, she claps and screams, “Look at me! Look at me!”

We smile.

After the television is finished showing pictures of
us, the doctor and the nurses leave. Juana is busy, so she, too, must leave. But she returns after it is dark and talks with me. We talk very late, long after Angelina falls asleep. I tell Juana about Enrique and Silvia. “Without their help, I do not think we would be alive today,” I say. “I wish somehow they could know that we did not die.”

Juana is a very nice lady. She reminds me of my mother. I think that I can trust her, so I ask her something very important. “Will your government send Angelina and me back to Guatemala because we do not have our papers?” I ask.

Juana shakes her head and smiles. “After what has happened to you and all the stories about you that ran tonight on the television, you will never have to go back to Guatemala until you want to.”

“Someday, I want to go back,” I say. “But I do not want to go back until the soldiers stop killing mothers and fathers and children.”

“Someday, that time will come,” Juana says. “And I think that time will come sooner because of your courage. Until then, the United States will be your new home. It will be hard, because there are many things new and different here. You and Angelina will need to learn English, but you are young and you will learn.”

“Thank you for being our friend,” I say.

Juana's smile is very kind. Even with Angelina asleep, she says, “Good night, Santiago and Angelina Cruz. Welcome to America. Now, if I don't get back to
work, they'll think I went home.” Quietly she turns and leaves.

After she leaves, I lie awake and look up into the black night. For a long time, I am afraid to close my eyes. I wish that Juana was still here talking to me, because I know that when I fall asleep, my dreams will bring back the screams and the guns and the fire. Even now I can see the red skies again. These are things that can never be forgotten.

But finally I do let my eyes close because I am tired. I know that the night will be long—this, I cannot change. But I also know that when the morning comes, the red will disappear and the sun will shine and the sky will be blue again. Maybe someday that is how it will always be. Skies should always be blue.

MANY ACCOUNTS
have documented the tragic military massacres in Central America during the 1980s. In Guatemala alone, more than 450 villages were torched, and tens of thousands of people were tortured and killed. Men were killed first, then women, and lastly the children. Because of this, many children witnessed the atrocities, and some escaped to tell of them. Today a generation of children still carries these memories like scars.

Many Americans dismiss these events simply as tragic. But we, too, share much blame. Our government did, in fact, provide training and weapons to those soldiers who attacked the Guatemalan villages during those nights when the sky glowed red.

Fighting communism was the excuse given by our military leaders to defend these massacres during congressional hearings. But the fact will always remain that
most of those killed had never heard of communism and surely were not armed by communists. Most went to their graves armed with only machetes, sticks, and the will to protect their families and homes. This is the will that exists in each of us when all that we know and love is taken away.

My hope is that the mistakes of our past will act as a reminder to our great country that no child, for whatever reason, should ever see a red sky at night.