1
Carmen kept an eye on Luna’s bright orange backpack, almost larger than the eleven-year-old herself, as it bounced between stands in the market. Luna stopped to talk to almost every fruit and vegetable vendor she could find. Asking for samples and counting her pocket change out loud in Spanish, she’d retrace her steps to buy trinkets and produce from this and that vendor after being sure she found a good price. She would come back to her mother, Carmen, and older sister, Izel, and breathlessly report on which vendor had the nicest produce, and what price she’d gotten on a pepper that another vendor wanted to charge her ten pesos more for, and why she chose the papaya in her hands over another, before stuffing the haul into her bag and running ahead. Luna would spare no detail as to who was the kindest vendor, the one with the most reasonable prices, the one with the highest quality products, how to know if a mamey was sweet and tender, and which mangos to choose.
Carmen knew her youngest daughter had been anticipating this trip for months—improving her Spanish and learning about Tulancingo from her room back in New York through Wikipedia pages and Google Street View tours of the town—but was shocked to see her little girl so seemingly acclimated. Looking around, even the vendors of the market were entertained by the excitable little girl attempting to haggle in slightly American-accented Spanish. They didn’t even seem to mind how harsh of a lowballer she was.
Behind them though, Izel dragged her feet, avoiding the eyes of men, children, and women alike, but mostly the men. As a sixteen-year-old, feeling like everyone was staring at her was hard enough, but knowing they actually were was almost hellish. A couple of the men sitting on produce boxes around the market even dared to wink or blow her a kiss when Carmen wasn’t looking.
“Son unos brutos todos,” she said, her Spanish dripping with her American accent, hoping to be heard, thinking it would discourage them. The effect was quite the opposite: the men felt seen, recognized, as if they’d achieved something by eliciting a reaction; they persisted and grew bolder, shouting at her back in Spanish to come over and chat.
“Just ignore them, Izel,” Carmen said, turning her head without taking her eyes off Luna, “You know how men in the cities are. They’re the same here as they are in New York—maybe a little bolder at the markets around here, but the same. You can’t give them a reaction.”
“But they’re so fucking annoying.”
“Hey! Language! Believe me, Izel, I understand how it feels, but don’t let them ruin your time. That’s letting them win, you know?”
“Men are pigs no matter what language they squeal in, huh?”
Carmen laughed a little bit, “Unfortunately, yes. I know you’re in a bad mood, but at least don’t swear like that around Luna too much, alright?”
Luna, young enough and too far from earshot to be a part of the conversation, was simply thrilled to be in charge of the groceries, piling onions, green tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, and serrano peppers into her backpack. That night they were planning on having dinner with Father Verón. He was the caretaker of the abbey Carmen was renovating for an architectural project and had been the one to welcome them at the airport. For a man of the cloth, he was a surprisingly fun guest to have around the house. A competent chef as well, he’d taught Luna how to make Mexican dishes and lent her some books about Mexican culture and history.
Even though Carmen told Izel to ignore the men, she watched everyone around them in her peripheral vision. As much as she wanted her advice to be all a woman needed in the world, Carmen was acutely aware of the humming, imminent danger that lurked in the background for a woman and two girls in a foreign land. She knew Hidalgo was one of the safer states in Mexico, but living in America for so long had unavoidably altered her perception of the country. So often the only headlines to make it across the border were the horror stories: exchange students ransomed, people found beheaded, the police and the army colluding with cartels, unmarked mass graves—stories of a lawless and brutal land. Even when she tried to think of Tulancingo’s relative safety, it reminded her it was only relatively safe.
On their way down to the municipal market they had passed through a busy plaza where Carmen had seen all the flyers. Covering nearly every surface were the same DIY advertisements found anywhere. People were offering English tutoring, rooms and apartments for rent, music lessons. But among them she began to notice the faces. Pictures of women and girls, pulled from their social media pages and family photo albums, stapled or taped among the cacophony of ads. Eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch pleas for help stapled to every telephone pole. Appeals to God glued to electrical boxes; appeals to the authorities were long abandoned. At first, Carmen didn’t give them a second glance, but there were so many: on the streets, inside the market, on the light posts. Finally, she relented to her morbid curiosity and began to read them.
Mariana Saldívar Escobar, sixteen years old, medium skin, black hair, disappeared on July 8 in Progreso district. She was wearing a white blouse and black skirt. She’s a student at Preparatoria Técnica 21. Call if you have any leads.
Esther Ángulo Sáenz, left her home on December 5. She’s fourteen years old and a student at Santa María. She was last seen wearing a yellow dress. Help us find her.
María del Refugio Ramos. Light skin, black, straight, long hair. She has a beauty mark on her right cheek. Last seen wearing a black Adidas sweatshirt and jeans. She works at the fabric shop, Esponda. Reward: 50,000 pesos.
Her eyes began to look straight through the ads and shot from one faded face poking through the clutter to the next. There was a nauseating curiosity that made her unable to keep herself from scanning every post for the same faces. She continually checked ahead of her to make sure her girls hadn’t noticed the posters and that, more important, they were still where she could see them. There were so many—she could tell by the worn paper that several of them had been there for a long time, while others couldn’t be more than a few days old. Carmen wondered whether the yellowed, rain-smeared, sun-bleached ones had been left up because their subjects were found, or the families had finally given up. She almost jumped when she noticed Luna looking at her and tried to feign interest in a traditional dress on the other side of the window a flyer had been taped to.
“Those girls are lost, huh?” Luna asked.
“Um,” she hesitated, unsure of how much a girl Luna’s age should know about the world and its dangers, “I’m not sure, maybe they’re the graduating class from their high school,” she replied. Heat rose in her chest at how stupid a deflection that had been.
“I can read.”
“I know.” Carmen realized there was no question of how much Luna should know. She was clearly old enough to understand, even if not entirely conscious, what it meant for a girl to be missing, the inherent risks of womanhood. The terribly uncomfortable time was dawning when Carmen would have to tell her how to avoid those risks.
Carmen tried to the push it all from her mind—the flyers, Luna’s comment—but now, in the market, she kept a hawk’s eye on her youngest daughter as she walked on ahead of her and Izel. Knowing Luna’s curiosity often led her to rush off on her own, Carmen was greatly comforted by her purchase of the gaudy, safety orange backpack flagging Luna’s presence in the crowds.
Every now and then, as they walked through the stalls, a vendor interrupted and cut them off, showcasing some mamey, apple, or peach.
“Here, try this!”
“No, thank you, no,” Izel replied, recoiling from the offered produce and its seller. Even when they had lived in New York City she’d never experienced such aggressive salesmanship from street vendors. She had difficulty grasping how people in a market dared to invade her personal bubble, wasting her time to offer her products she had no interest in. A smile crept across Carmen’s face as she watched her daughter grapple with the social conventions of a new place. She’d been excited to expose her daughters to the culture she’d grown up in, even if it made them a bit uncomfortable at times.
“Don’t be rude, try it. It doesn’t bite,” Carmen said.
“What? I don’t know what that is! What if I’m allergic or something? Is it even washed properly? The knife looks so dirty.”
“When did you become such a hypochondriac?”
“Okay, I have everything on Father Verón’s list,” said Luna, adjusting her backpack on her shoulder and rejoining her family. “I’m only missing the huitlacoche. I know it has to be around here somewhere.”
“I don’t know. You’re the little expert, Luna,” Izel replied without taking her eyes off the phone in her hands and, within nearly the same breath, asked, “Mom, do you have a portable charger? My phone is dying.”
Carmen gave her a look and said, “You know I don’t. Maybe you can let it die for a whole hour or so, though. I know you miss your friends back home and all, but you could at least try experiencing your first time in Mexico with the rest of us.”
Izel sighed and looked up into the sky, pointing her nose to the sun as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. It dinged and she immediately took it back out and looked at the notification.
“Father Verón comes for dinner all the time. I guess he doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Izel said quietly.
“That’s not nice. He’s fond of us, he likes having dinner with us and, yes, I imagine he leads a lonely life. That’s the life of a priest,” said Carmen. “At least I think it is.”
“My phone is at seven percent. I need a charger.”
“Let it die. It’ll be for the best, for all of us.”
“There it is!” yelled Luna, running ahead toward another stall.
“What?” answered Carmen, startled. “Luna don’t run off so far ahead!”
“Huitlacoche,” she called back from in front of a stand that had basketfuls of the corn fungus. Carmen pulled Izel along to keep up.
“What are we going to do with that?” asked Izel, grimacing with disgust.
“Tamales! But we can make them into quesadillas, tacos, or stuffing for some chicken breasts. So many possibilities!”
“I’ll eat something else. Not interested in deformed, rotten corn,” and upon seeing a basket full of reddish crickets, Izel stepped back, more fearful than nauseated. “What the fuck is that?”
“Language!” Carmen yelled.
“Mom, look at those things. Are they alive?”
The old vendor standing behind the baskets laughed, “They’re fried chapulines. They’re not alive. They’re snacks to some around here!”
“What? Snacks? For whom? For the toads and lizards?”
While Luna was having an actual fit of laughter, the old lady working the stand pinched a couple of crickets with her bony fingers and offered them to her, so she put on a brave face and crunched into them with little hesitation. Her scrunched-up face soon broke into a big smile and she turned to Carmen and Izel.
“You guys should try them too! They’re tasty!”
The old woman held another pinch of chapulines out to them.
“No thank you, señora,” said Carmen, as Izel pushed her hands forward as to protect herself from the fried creatures while she looked somewhere else.
“I thought you told me to be polite. Try them, Mom, come on,” said Izel with a sly grin.
“Yeah, Mom, try one!”
“No, thank you. Not today,” said Carmen with a nervous smile.
Meanwhile, Luna was still laughing and asking the vendor where the chapulines came from and how to cook them.
“How did I end up with a bug-eating alien for a sister?” Izel asked her mom.
“Sometimes I wonder how the two of you ended up so different from each other too.”
They watched Luna discuss the prices of the chapulines and the huitlacoche with the old woman, holding out bills and coins and stuffing the fungus and bugs into her bag.
“We’ve got everything,” Luna announced, proud.
“Thank God. Can we just leave now?” said Izel.
“Maybe we could buy a portable charger for your beloved phone,” suggested Luna.
“That would make this agony worth it.”
“They have electronics and stuff in that aisle, I think.”
They looked through one of the aisles and reached a stand selling toys and piñatas. The three of them stopped to look at the dizzying variety of piñatas of different shapes and sizes.
“Come on in, come on in. We have Frozen, Spider-Man, and Trump. We also have donkeys and all the classics.”
“Thanks, but we’re just browsing,” said Carmen.
“For your birthday, for your party, for your name day, for any celebration.”
“No, thank you.”
Luna looked at them in wonder, one by one, from the rudimentary reproductions of Disney characters and Pokémon to the classic round colorful piñatas with seven spiky cones.
“Mom, I didn’t know piñatas came in so many different shapes,” said Luna.
“They sure do. These are the traditional Spanish-Catholic ones,” Carmen drew upon the depths of her early Catholic childhood and the memories of her mother, “If I’m remembering correctly, the seven points are supposed to be the seven deadly sins, so it’s like you’re smashing apart your sin or something like that. Some of them are still made with a clay pot inside.”
“Why?” asked Izel. “That sounds dangerous. Shards of ceramic flying everywhere, mixed in with the candy and stuff.”
“That’s just the way it was around here. Nothing more normal than having one or two kids end up slightly concussed when you break a piñata at a party, huh? Barbarous Mexico, right?” she said, deepening her voice and raising her eyebrows.
Copyright © 2023 by Leopoldo & Co.
