Tarnished Beauty (4 page)

“I received it yesterday, Mama.”

“Should we find someone to read it for us? Maybe if we call Rolando's son Pepe, down the road…”

Jamilet takes up the envelope, unfolds the letter, and begins to read in a loud, clear voice. She reads about an appointment next week with a well-known doctor in the north who is certain he can remove the mark in a matter of hours, or three days at the most. The procedure will be painless and the cost can be paid off over time.

Tears are streaming down Lorena's face. “Jamilet, I have never heard such wonderful news. And when did you learn to read? I had no idea.”

“I just figured it out one day while I was waiting for you to wake up. I had that little book in my lap and I prayed like Abuela told me, and suddenly all the lines on the pages began to speak to me with their own voices. They came together like pictures and it all made sense to me, just like that.”

“It's a miracle.”

“The world is full of miracles, Mama. All we have to do is find the ones that belong to us.”

 

Jamilet was awakened by the sound of weeping, and her beautiful vision vanished all at once. Gabriela was on her knees by Lorena's bed, her hands clasping a rosary and her forehead pressed against them. “Keep her near you always, sweet merciful Father. Grant her the rest and peace she never knew here on Earth. She was beautiful and not meant for such suffering.” Sensing that Jamilet had awakened, she turned and scowled through her tears. “Get on your knees and pray, child. Your mother is dead.”

J
AMILET DECIDED
it would be best to cut her hair to just above the ears. She performed this task with little ceremony, as she did when trimming the stems from the tomatoes when they were ripe and ready for the table. Next, she flattened her breasts by wrapping her torso with the fine white fabric she found under her mother's bed. Gabriela told her it was sacrilegious to use fabric intended for her mother's wedding dress in such a manner. But Jamilet paid no attention, and noted that although it was uncomfortable, she could still breathe, and the layers under her shirt would provide her with additional warmth during the night. She appraised herself critically, using the only mirror in the house. Wearing a pair of loose slacks and a broad-rimmed hat low on her brow, she appeared to be an underfed adolescent boy with weak shoulders and smallish feet. And if she lowered the pitch of her voice a bit when she spoke, the transformation was complete.

Gabriela tried to discourage Jamilet from leaving as she swept up thick tendrils of black hair from the kitchen floor, but she chose a different argument from the one she'd employed with Carmen years earlier. “Who's going to look after my garden?” she wailed into her hands, careful to leave enough space between her fingers to peek through. “Relying on charity is a slow death in these parts.”

Jamilet's expression remained smooth and unyielding. “Tía Carmen sends you money every month and I will too. Everybody knows that money is easy to earn in the north. And remember, I speak English.”

Gabriela lowered her hands and stared at her granddaughter through eyes weakened by cataracts. Even with her hair chopped off above the ears, she was lovely. “Life isn't like one of your stories you can twist around in your head so the endings are always happy. There's no cure for your mark, not even in the north. I've known this is true since the day I walked on my knees to God's holy altar after you were born. I never told your mother about it because I knew she would only suffer more, but if I can prevent you from making this horrible mistake, I'll tell you now.” She leaned on her broom, and her face softened with the memory. “I was praying for a miracle, looking up at our Lord as He hung on the cross, when a beam of light entered through the window above and illuminated His crown. At first I didn't know what it meant, but then He spoke to me.” She closed her milky eyes, and swayed a bit on her feet. “He told me that you must bear your mark bravely and give your suffering to the Lord. It is your very own crown of thorns, and one day it will bring you glory.” She opened her eyes, as clear as the desert night. “So you see, if you go north you'll be disappointed as always and this time you'll be alone…”

“I'll be with Tía Carmen,”

“That's even worse!” Gabriela began sweeping again with such a fury that dust clouds rose up all around them. “God alone knows what kind of life that girl's made for herself. She tells me she goes to church every Sunday, but I don't believe her, and I'm sure she's drinking more than ever. It's a miracle she's able to send any money at all.”

Jamilet captured her grandmother's broom and set it aside. She took hold of her hands, pressing them into her own. “I never told you this before,
Abuela
, but God spoke to me too. When I was deep in prayer as Mama was dying, He told me I should go north and there I would find the cure.” Jamilet waited for her revelation to take effect.

“How did He sound?” Gabriela asked, intrigued and moved that her granddaughter could have had a religious experience when she usually couldn't be bothered to say Grace before a meal.

Jamilet looked directly into her grandmother's eyes with some regret, for she wasn't comfortable telling tales about that which her grandmother held so dear. “It wasn't like the voice of a person. It was more like soft thunder, holding back its strength so you'll listen and know that it's God without feeling afraid.”

“Soft thunder,” Gabriela repeated twice. “That's how he sounded for me too.”

 

The twelve-hour bus ride was the only rest Jamilet would get for several days. She tried her best to sleep, but was so exhilarated that she couldn't keep her eyes closed for more than a minute or two. She studied the words on the paper that she knew to be her aunt's address in Los Angeles, and tried to recall the woman she'd last seen, over ten years ago. Everyone always said that they'd never known two sisters to be more different. Jamilet pictured her mother sitting quietly in the corner, observing the world through large dark eyes and offering a hesitant smile if circumstances required. Carmen liked to laugh out loud at her own jokes, and she was always looking for a reason to fill her enormous lungs with air and bellow out her good humor or anger—whichever the case might be, as if breathing like everybody else wasn't interesting enough.

Jamilet watched the Mexican desert sweep past her window, smudges of tan and green layering over each other and blurring into the panorama of endless horizons as the rhythmic sounds of the engine and wheels became an anxious lullaby, more appropriate to bouncing than rocking, but soothing nonetheless. In this hypnotic repose she clearly remembered her aunt sitting at the kitchen table, feet propped up like the man of the house, unconcerned that her broad thighs and buttocks were partially visible to whoever was present.

“Lower your legs,” Gabriela would say. “Do you have to show all the world your business?”

“The world? Do you see the world in here, Jami?”

Jamilet looked around the room, eager to demonstrate how well she was able to follow directions, and then shook her head in agreement. But if the world should happen to appear in the form of Pepe from down the road, offering a plate of his mother's tamales in exchange for a bag of chilies, or the milkman with his weekly delivery, Carmen didn't lower her legs, or adjust her skirt, not even an inch. Instead, she'd smile wickedly and watch to see if they stole a glance at her generous behind, which they always did. Then she'd laugh, as if she'd just proven something very important to herself, although Jamilet couldn't imagine what it was, but she laughed along just the same, and returned her aunt's triumphant wink when the show was over.

The truth was that Jamilet agreed to most things her aunt proposed, and Carmen was prone to sharing her opinion on a wide variety of topics: the need for a cold beer first thing in the morning to clear the mind; the energy wasted on too much courtesy; the secret arrogance that lived in the hearts of the overly modest, just to name a few. But for Jamilet, the important thing was to be in Tía Carmen's good graces, and to bask in her laughter when it filled the house like a party of twenty or more.

When Lorena turned up her nose at her sister's foul language or when Gabriela gave up an irritable plea for the Lord to guide her lost soul, Jamilet was quiet, and in the stillness of her thoughts, at the very center of her cautious admiration, she cheered. How could she harbor criticism in her heart for Tía Carmen, the only person she knew who wasn't afraid of the mark? In fact, Carmen didn't pay it much attention at all and wasn't spooked or bothered by the idea of curses and punishments from God. Jamilet knew that Carmen would teach her how to be strong and how to face the world with her chin up and shoulders back. She'd undoubtedly approve of Jamilet's manly disguise and they'd laugh until they were rolling on the floor like drunken horse hands. She could imagine every detail of their exchange, and clearly heard her aunt's voice booming above the droning motor of the bus…

 

“And you can forget about all those dainty rules your mother and grandmother fed you since you were a baby. They won't do you a damn bit of good here.”

“I'll forget everything, Tía,” Jamilet says, smiling. “I'll even forget my own name if you want me to.”

Carmen stares at her quizzically. “Don't get ahead of yourself,” she says.

Together, they walk out into the city. The ground beneath their feet is polished marble, like the floor leading to the altar at church. The buildings surrounding them are a multitude of angular shapes and colors that reach beyond the clouds. Tía looks around, and even she, who's never been too impressed by anything other than a good-looking man's backside, is momentarily reverent.

“There's no dirt on the ground here,” she says. “And look up.” She points to the uppermost edge of the city, where concrete and glass give way to open sky as blue as any ever seen. “These are the kinds of miracles you can believe in here.”

 

In less than two days, Jamilet was crossing the desert, her path illuminated only by the light of the stars because flashlights might attract unwanted attention. It was more dangerous to attempt crossing without an experienced coyote to guide them, since coyotes knew the passes through the canyons, and the bandits who roamed the border looking for Mexicans to rob. But Jamilet had joined six others near the border who, like her, had no way of securing the money for such a luxury. They'd decided to brave the crossing on their own. They'd be safer, and traverse many more miles walking through the desert during the cooler nights. In three days' time, if all went according to plan, they'd cross the Rio Grande at a calm, shallow stretch of river and emerge on the other side where all was prosperity and hope—the North.

Jamilet felt a nervous kind of elation at the prospect of being so close to her goal. The journey had been easier than expected. She had been prepared to devote days, and even weeks, to the crossing, well aware that many were caught and returned to the border only to attempt it again the very next day. This could go on for weeks, and often the more stubborn were detained and incarcerated for months. But here she was, taking part in a plan as simple for her to understand and execute as any of her household chores.

Juan, a soft-spoken man with an easy smile, was the only member of the group Jamilet trusted. When some complained that the scrawny boy was slowing them down, or not collecting his share of the firewood when it was time to set up camp, Juan reminded them that they'd be wise to conserve their energy for the Rio Grande, and that the bandits were always on the prowl, so bright, burning fires were a bad idea anyway. Jamilet made certain to walk no more than a few paces away from him, and when it came time to rest, she always lay as near him as she could.

Juan appraised his young traveling companion with increasing suspicion. He was familiar with the degradations of the north, of the open prostitution and of the men who dressed like women and danced nearly naked in the clubs located in the seedier parts of the big cities. Surely Jaime was headed for such a place. In Juan's village, his sort were hung from trees and flogged until the priest could be assured that the evil had been beaten out of them. Juan took note of Jaime's delicate wrists. This one had never been hung from a tree, and such tender skin wouldn't survive too many lashings of the whip. Feeling more pity than disgust, he prodded Jamilet on the shoulder, more roughly than necessary, aware that the others were watching, and told her that his brother was to meet him across the border and take him on to Los Angeles. With his fair share of money for gas, Jaime was welcome to join them, he said.

Incredulous and tearful when confronted with such good fortune, Jamilet reached for the money she kept stuffed in her sock, and gave it all to him before he could change his mind. She was now penniless, but she trusted her skill at discerning character, and she had no doubt that Juan was a good man who wouldn't harm or deceive her.

The night before they were due to cross the river, it was so close that they could hear the thundering chorus of water that passed swiftly between the land of the north and the land of the south. Jamilet imagined the sound to be the voice of God, not so different from the false description she'd given her grandmother days before, although it felt like a lifetime ago. She closed her eyes, and tried to decipher the meaning of it all. Was the message an ominous or a hopeful one? She couldn't be sure, but she had no doubt that there was a message for her there. Before sleep claimed her thoughts, she lifted her eyes to the night sky, and promised upon the light of every star in the heavens that if she wasn't rid of the mark in two years time, she would end her life. She wouldn't wait for God to take it from her as her mother had done. She'd simply climb to the top of the tallest building in the city and jump to her death. She found comfort in the thought that it would be impossible to distinguish the mark from the bloody mess that would be left of her. Anyone who jumped from such a high place would look exactly the same, and in this way at least, she would have succeeded.

 

The next morning, Jamilet awoke to see the dusty boots of her companions at eye level, as they stood over her. One or two were laughing nervously, and the others drifted off to begin packing their meager provisions. When she turned to do the same, she was unable to move her hands and feet, and realized they had been tied while she slept.

Juan, who had been watching and waiting for her to wake, sat near her on his haunches in order to address her privately. “I'm sorry, Jaime,” he said, “If you'd known what else they were planning, you'd thank me. These boys don't understand your kind, and I guess I don't either, but that's no excuse for cruelty, I know…”