Evelyn
Chicago–New York, 2008–2011
It was ten years since Evelyn Ortega’s mother, Miriam, had seen the three children she had left with their grandmother in Guatemala, but she recognized her daughter the moment she arrived in Chicago thanks to photos and because she looked so much like Concepcion Montoya. Thankfully she doesn’t take after me, Miriam thought as Evelyn climbed out of Galileo Leon’s pickup. The grandmother was of mixed blood: she had the best of both the Maya and white races, and had been a beauty in her youth before she was captured by the soldiers. Evelyn had inherited her fine features, which had skipped a generation. Miriam on the other hand was coarser looking, stocky and with short legs, as her father had probably been, that “rapist straight down from the mountains,” as Concepcion always called him. Miriam’s daughter seemed still a child, with her thick black braid hanging down to her waist and her delicate face. Miriam ran toward her and hugged her tight, repeating her name over and over, weeping with joy at having Evelyn at last and with sadness for her other two murdered children. Evelyn allowed herself to be embraced without making any move to return her mother’s effusive greeting: this plump woman with yellow hair was a stranger to her.
That initial encounter set the tone for the relationship between mother and daughter. In order to avoid the embarrassment of getting her words entangled, Evelyn spoke as little as possible, and Miriam took this silence as a reproach. Although Evelyn never brought the matter up, Miriam used every excuse she could find to make it plain that she had not chosen to abandon her children but had been forced to. They would all have gone hungry if she had stayed in Monja Blanca del Valle making tamales with Evelyn’s grandmother. Couldn’t Evelyn see that? When she herself was a mother she would understand what a huge sacrifice Miriam had made for her family’s sake.
Another matter floating in the air was the fate of Gregorio and Andres. Miriam thought that if she had been in Guatemala, she would have brought up the boys with a firm hand. Gregorio would not have strayed onto the path of criminality and Andres would not have died through his brother’s fault. Whenever this came up, Evelyn did find the words to defend her grandma, who she insisted had taught them how to behave. Her brother had gone bad because of his own weakness, not because his grandmother had spared him the back of her hand.
The Leon family lived in a trailer park. There were about twenty similar trailers, each with a small yard, in their case shared with a parrot and a big, harmless dog. Evelyn was given a foam mattress that at night she put down on the kitchen floor. They had a tiny bathroom and a sink out in the yard. Despite the cramped conditions, they all got along well, partly because they worked different shifts. Miriam cleaned offices at night and houses in the morning. She was away from midnight until the following noon. Galileo had no fixed hours for his painting contracts, and when he was at home he was as quiet as if he had done something wrong, so as to avoid his wife’s flaring bad temper. A neighbor had looked after the children without overcharging, but when Evelyn arrived she was given that responsibility. Miriam was at home in the afternoon, which meant that for the first year Evelyn could attend English classes for immigrants that were offered by a local church and later finish high school. After that she began working with her mother. Miriam and Galileo were Pentecostals; their lives revolved around their church’s services and social activities.
Galileo explained to Evelyn that he had found redemption in the Lord and a family in his brothers and sisters in faith. “I led the life of a sinner until I went to the church and there the Holy Spirit descended on me. That was nine years ago.” Evelyn found it hard to believe that such a meek man could have done a great deal of sinning. According to Galileo, a bolt from the heavens threw him to the floor during a religious service and as he writhed in a trance Satan was driven out of his body while the enthusiastic congregation sang and prayed for him at the tops of their lungs. Ever since then, his life had taken a new direction, he said. He had met Miriam, who shouted a lot but was a good woman who helped keep him on a righteous path. God had given him two children. The Almighty was like family to him, and he spoke to him like son to father; it was enough for him to ask for something with all his heart for it to be granted. He had made public witness of his faith and been baptized by immersion in a local swimming pool. He was hoping Evelyn would do the same, but she kept postponing the moment out of loyalty to Father Benito and her grandmother, who would be offended if she changed religion.
The harmony that reigned among the trailer’s inhabitants was endangered during the rare visits made by Doreen, Galileo’s daughter born of a fleeting youthful romance with an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lived by smuggling and fortune-telling. Miriam said that not only had Doreen inherited her mother’s knack for hoodwinking fools but she was an addict who went about enveloped in a fateful dark cloud that made everything she touched turn to dog shit. Although twenty-six, she looked fifty, and had never done an honest day’s work in her life but boasted of handling vast amounts of money. No one dared ask where she got it from—they suspected her methods were unlawful—but apparently the cash slipped through her fingers as quickly as it had come. This meant she often came to her father to demand a loan without any intention of ever paying it back. Miriam loathed her and Galileo was afraid of her. In her presence he squirmed like a worm and gave her whatever he could, which was always less than what she wanted. Miriam did not have the courage to stand up to her either, saying Doreen had bad blood, without specifying what she meant by that, and looking down on her because she was black. Nothing in Doreen’s appearance seemed capable of inspiring fear: she was skinny, wasted, with rat’s eyes and yellow teeth and fingernails, permanently hunched due to her weak bones. Yet she gave off a frightening, barely contained rage, like a pressure cooker about to explode. Miriam ordered her daughter to stay off that woman’s radar; nothing good could come from her.
Her mother’s warning was unnecessary, because Evelyn found it impossible even to breathe whenever Doreen came near. Out in the yard the dog would begin to howl a warning several minutes before she appeared. This alerted Evelyn to the fact she should make herself scarce, but she did not always manage to do so in time. Doreen would catch her: “Where are you going so fast, you stuttering retard?” She was the only one who insulted Evelyn in this way: all the others had become accustomed to figuring out the meaning of Evelyn’s stumbling sentences before she finished them. Galileo Leon was quick to give his daughter money so that she would leave, and each time he begged her to accompany him to church, even if only once. He still lived in hope that the Holy Spirit would graciously descend to save her from herself, as it had done with him.
MORE THAN TWO YEARS went by without Evelyn’s receiving the notification from the court that she had been informed about at the detention center. Miriam lived in fear of the mail, although she thought that by now her daughter’s file had probably gotten lost in the dusty recesses of the immigration service and she would be able to live without documents for the rest of her days without being bothered. Evelyn had finished her last year at high school and had graduated in her cap and gown like all the rest of her class, without anyone asking to see any proof of who she was.
The recent economic crisis had stirred up old resentments against Latinos in the United States. Thousands of Americans, swindled by finance companies and banks, lost their houses or jobs and made immigrants their scapegoats. “I’d like to see an American of whatever color work for the little they pay us,” Miriam used to say. She earned less than the legal minimum wage and had increased her hours to cover her household expenses, because prices always rose while wages stayed the same. At night, Evelyn went with her and two other women to clean offices. A formidable team, they would arrive in a Honda Accord with their cleaning equipment and a transistor radio to listen to evangelical preachers and Mexican songs. They made a point of working together to protect themselves from any nocturnal danger: attacks in the street or sexual harassment in the locked buildings. They earned themselves a reputation as Amazons one night when they used their brooms and buckets to give a hiding to an office worker who had stayed on late and tried to take advantage of Evelyn in a restroom. The security guard, another Latino, turned a deaf ear to the noises for a while, and by the time he eventually intervened, the Don Juan looked as if he had been hit by a truck. Even so, he did not report his assailants to the police, preferring to accept his humiliation in silence.
Miriam and Evelyn worked side by side. They shared the domestic chores, the rearing of the smaller children, looking after the parrot and the dog, doing the shopping and the rest of the daily tasks, and yet they lacked the easy intimacy of mother and daughter; they seemed always to be on a visit with each other. Miriam did not know how to treat her silent daughter oscillating between ignoring her and showing her affection through gifts. Evelyn was a lonely soul and had made no friends either at school or in church. Miriam thought no boy would be interested in her, because she still looked like an underfed urchin. Many immigrants arrived with their bones poking out but within a few months that changed due to a diet of mainly fast food. Evelyn though was uninterested in food by nature. She detested fat and sugar, and missed her grandmother’s beans. Miriam was unaware that Evelyn froze whenever anyone came within a yard of her; the trauma of her rape was seared in her memory and body. She associated physical contact with violence, blood, and above all with her brother Andres and his slit throat. Her mother knew what had happened, but no one had told her the full details and Evelyn could never bring herself to talk about it. She was content to be left alone, because it saved her the effort of speaking.
Miriam had no complaints: her daughter fulfilled her duties on time and never stood around idle. In this she was following the example of her grandmother, for whom laziness was the mother of all vices. Evelyn only relaxed when she was with her two siblings and the children at the church, who did not judge her. While her parents attended the service, she minded a group of twenty children in an adjoining room. This saved her from having to listen to the lengthy sermons given by the pastor, a fervent Mexican who succeeded in whipping up the congregation to the point of hysteria. Evelyn invented games to keep the children amused. She sang to them, got them to dance with the aid of a tambourine, and was able to tell them stories without too much of a stutter, provided no adults were around. The pastor suggested she should study to become an elementary school teacher; it was obvious the Lord had given her that talent, and to waste it would be spitting in the face of heaven. He promised to help her get residence papers, but although he had such a powerful influence in celestial affairs, these counted for nothing in the arid offices of the immigration service.
Evelyn’s court hearing would have been postponed indefinitely had it not been for Doreen. For the past few years, Galileo Leon’s daughter had been going downhill until little was left of her former arrogance, and yet her rage was undiminished. She usually turned up covered in bruises that bore witness to her ferocious character: the slightest provocation was an excuse to start a fight. She had a pirate’s scar on her back that was the result of a knife attack. She showed it to the children as a badge of honor, boasting that she had been left for dead, bleeding on the ground among garbage cans in an alleyway. Evelyn only seldom had to face her, because her strategy of flight normally succeeded. If she was on her own with the younger children she would rush them away with her as soon as the dog began to howl. On this particular day however her plan failed, because the two children had scarlet fever. Their illness had begun three days earlier with sore throats, and now they were covered in a rash. It was impossible to force them out of bed on a cold day in early October. Doreen entered kicking the door and threatening to poison the goddamned dog. Evelyn prepared herself for the string of insults that would rain down on her as soon as Doreen found out her father was not in and there was no money in the house.
From the small children’s bedroom Evelyn could not make out what Doreen was up to but could hear her rummaging and cursing impatiently. Fearing her reaction if she did not find what she was looking for, Evelyn plucked up courage and went into the kitchen to intercept her before she burst in on the children. To disguise her intention, she started making a sandwich, but Doreen did not give her time. She charged like a fighting bull and, before Evelyn could even see what was going on, grabbed her by the throat, shaking her with all the strength of an addict. “Where’s the money? Tell me, you retard, or I’ll kill you!” Evelyn struggled helplessly to free herself from her fierce claws. When they heard Doreen shouting, the terrified little ones came running. They burst into tears at the very moment that the dog, who rarely came into the trailer, seized the attacker by the jacket and began to growl and tug at it. Doreen pushed Evelyn away and turned to kick the animal. Evelyn slipped and fell backward, hitting her head on the corner of the kitchen table. Doreen kicked out at her and the dog, but in the midst of her fury she had a flash of lucidity and, realizing what she had done, ran out of the house, still cursing. Drawn by the commotion, a woman neighbor came in to find Evelyn on the floor and the two children weeping inconsolably. She called Miriam, Galileo, and the police, in that order.
Galileo Leon arrived minutes after the police and found Evelyn trying to stand, helped by a woman in uniform. The world was whirling round. She could hardly see because of black streaks clouding her eyes, and her skull was throbbing so much she found it hard to explain what had happened. However, as they sniveled and sobbed, the younger children kept repeating the name Doreen. Galileo could not prevent them from taking Evelyn to the hospital in an ambulance and the police from writing a report.
In the emergency room they put several stitches in Evelyn’s scalp, kept her in for observation for a few hours, then sent her home with a bottle of analgesics and the recommendation to rest. Unfortunately, because of the police report, that was not the end of the matter. The following day, the police came looking for her, and questioned Evelyn for two hours about her relationship with Doreen. They returned a couple of days later and took her away again, but this time the questions were about her entry into the United States and her reasons for leaving her own country. Terrified and hesitant, Evelyn tried to explain what had happened to her family but made little sense, and so the police officers began to lose patience. In a corner of the room was a man in civilian clothes who took notes but did not open his mouth even to say his name.
Because Doreen had a police record for drugs and other offenses, three policemen came to the trailer with a sniffer dog and searched every corner without finding anything of interest. Since Galileo Leon managed to make himself scarce, Miriam was left to endure the shame of watching the police tear up the linoleum from the floor and rip open her mattresses in search of drugs. Several neighbors gathered to get a good look, and after the police left they stayed around waiting for the second act in the drama. As expected, when Galileo reappeared, his wife launched into a furious tirade. It was all his fault and his whore daughter’s. How many times had she told him she didn’t want to see her in her house? He was a poor good-for-nothing with no backbone and of course no one had the slightest respect for him. On and on she went with her epic litany, which began in the house, continued in the yard and then the street, and ended up in the church, where the couple was escorted by a crowd of witnesses to ask the pastor’s advice. Within a few hours Miriam had run out of steam. Her anger subsided once Galileo timidly promised he would keep his daughter well away from the house.
THAT SAME DAY, at about eight o’clock in the evening, when Miriam was still red in the face from her outburst, there was a knock on the trailer door. It was the man who had been taking notes at the police station. He presented himself as coming from the immigration service. The atmosphere froze, but they could not prevent him from entering. Accustomed to the effect he caused, the official tried to lessen the tension by speaking in Spanish. He said he had been brought up by Mexican grandparents, that he was proud of his origins and navigated easily between the two cultures. They listened to him stupefied, because he was whiter than white, had blue fish eyes, and mercilessly mangled the Spanish language. When he saw that none of them appreciated his attempt to win them over, he came to the real point of his visit. He knew that Miriam and Galileo had residency in the United States, but Evelyn Ortega’s situation was not so clear. He had the detention center file with the date of her arrest at the border, and since she had no birth certificate he concluded she was eighteen and therefore eligible for deportation.
There was a deathly silence while Miriam tried to calculate whether the man had come simply to uphold the law or was fishing for a bribe. All of a sudden the normally reticent Galileo spoke out in a firm voice none of them had heard from him before.
“This girl is a refugee. No one is illegal in this life, we all have the right to live in this world. Money and crime do not respect borders. I ask you, sir, why we human beings should do so?”
“I don’t make the laws. My job is to see that they are followed,” replied the other man, taken aback.
“Take a good look at her. How old do you think she is?” said Galileo, pointing to Evelyn.
“She looks very young, but I need the birth certificate to prove it. In her file it says the water swept away all her documents when she was crossing the river. That was three years ago: you could have obtained a copy by now.”
“Who was going to do that? My mother is an illiterate old woman, and in Guatemala that kind of thing takes a long time and costs money,” said Miriam, once she had recovered from her shock at her husband arguing like a legal expert.
“What the girl says about gangs and her murdered brothers is common, I’ve heard it many times. There are lots of similar stories from immigrants. The judges have heard them as well. Some of them believe them, others don’t. Asylum or deportation will depend on which judge you get,” was the man’s parting shot.
Reverting to his usual docile attitude, Galileo Leon favored waiting for the law to run its course: it may be slow, but it gets there, he said. Miriam, however, was of the opinion that if the law does get there, it never favors the weakest, and so immediately launched a campaign to have her daughter disappear. She did not ask Evelyn’s opinion when she contacted her acquaintances in the subterranean network of undocumented immigrants or when she agreed to send her to work in the house of some people in Brooklyn. She had been tipped off by another woman member of the church, whose sister knew someone who had been a maid with that family and said they did not care about papers or any other details of that kind. As long as the girl performed her duties, no one was going to inquire about her legal status. When Evelyn wanted to know what those duties would be, she was told she would have to look after a sick child, nothing more.
Miriam showed her daughter New York on a map, helped her pack her belongings in a small suitcase, gave her an address in Manhattan, and put her on a Greyhound bus. Nineteen hours later, Evelyn presented herself at the Latin American Pentecostal Church, a two-story building that from outside had little of the dignity of a temple. She was received by a volunteer from the congregation, who read the letter of introduction from the Chicago pastor, offered to put her up for a night in her own apartment, and the next day explained how she could travel by subway to the Church of the Tabernacle of the New Life in Brooklyn. There another woman almost identical to the first gave her a soft drink and a leaflet outlining the church’s religious services and social activities, as well as instructions on how to reach her new employers’ address.
At three in the afternoon on an autumn day in 2011, when the trees were starting to grow bare and the street was strewn with a rustling, short-lived covering of fallen leaves, Evelyn Ortega rang the bell of a three-story corner house with a garden full of broken statues of Greek heroes. And that was where she ended up working peacefully for the following years with her fake documents.