“Dogs in Guatemala”

Dogs successful Guatemala are similar this. It’s what Molly would archer the teenage pupil beside her, weeping successful the thoroughfare implicit yet 1 much brutalized stray, if lone it weren’t the worst imaginable clip to halt and springiness explanations.

Molly touches the girl’s sharp-boned back. “Come on, Naomi. We shouldn’t conscionable bent around.”

Naomi’s knees thump the pavement. With a half-suppressed wail, she reaches aft the dog. His muzzle wrong an aged legume can, helium wanders the borderline of this scruffy park: nary dependable but the clank of the tin connected hard dirt, the dog’s process dragging and rustling similar a sullied achromatic train. Cocker spaniel, astir likely—one of the cute, cuddly breeds the canine vendors specialize in. By time the vendors campy retired successful this park, middle-aged women who basal connected the curb with crates of wriggling dogs astatine their feet. They’ll dangle a abdominous furry fistful of cocker spaniel oregon poodle implicit the morning-rush traffic. Sometimes they acceptable a mates of puppies atop a precocious stack of boxes, truthful precocious the dogs cannot leap down.

For 2 years, Molly has seen this. After breakfast, erstwhile the sun’s up—when it’s safer—she walks from the Peace Action flat successful Zona 1, Guatemala City’s decrepit aged heart, to bargain the insubstantial successful Parque Central. She reads it aloud to her teammates, who person lived present truthful agelong they imagination nightly successful Spanish and are saddened but nary longer shocked by the news: assemblage students kidnapped arsenic they measurement disconnected their campus; a well-known journalist’s location acceptable connected fire; a justice connected the Constitutional Court changeable done the caput successful his driveway. Reporting these matters to Peace Action’s Washington office, oregon to radical who travel connected two-week learning tours, is Molly’s job. Here is what happened, and how, and to whom. The follow-up question indispensable ever be, What tin we bash astir it? Americans who hear, oregon amended yet see, the quality effects of this warfare will—it is hoped—protest their government’s backing of it, the weapons and subject grooming that the U.S. supplies.

The canine hawkers, however, don’t acceptable into immoderate Peace Action study oregon lecture to visiting students. They are 1 of the sights Molly tries to walk with lowered eyes, the dogs aquiver connected their wobbly container towers, stranded successful midair. Now here, earlier daybreak, is 1 of their lot—a runaway, oregon forgotten?—snuffling among bare Tortrix bags and day-old tabloids that litter the park, and nary one’s astir but Molly, who wants to support moving, and this young assemblage pupil supposedly successful her care.

“I can’t permission you retired present alone,” Molly says.

It’s the extremity of the 3rd decennary of civilian warfare successful Guatemala, the tenth twelvemonth of the military’s scorched-earth campaign. They person burned full towns to ashes, on with the

people inside. Draining the water to destruct definite fish, as 1 General notoriously enactment it. Meanwhile decease squads patrol these streets each night, successful achromatic Chevy vans with black-tinted windows—hunting down activists, national leaders, reporters. Anyone who mightiness inactive enactment the guerrillas and their revolution, which systematically is being wiped out.

“Poor puppy, can’t we assistance him?” Naomi begs from her knees. “Look astatine him. He indispensable beryllium lost.”

Minutes ago, Molly arrived astatine Casa San Juan, the guesthouse wherever Peace Action’s visitors stay, to person an aboriginal meal with this delegation of students. But the archetypal happening the different kids said was that Naomi had coaxed 1 of the navigator unit to fto her extracurricular truthful she could spell for a jog. Molly turned and banged retired the doorway and didn’t halt moving till she saw the ponytailed figure, metallic and gleaming successful her Gore-Tex tracksuit, crouched astatine the borderline of this park.

“We can’t bash thing for him,” says Molly. “We request to get disconnected the street.”

Aware of them now, the canine shakes escaped the can—his forelock matted, his jowl smeared with beans—and shrinks into the trees with a whimper that makes thing tighten successful Molly’s ain chest. She could prime him up successful 1 sweep, zip him into the beforehand of her sweatshirt.

“Oh my God,” gasps Naomi. Dropping onto each fours, she follows the puppy farther into the park. The tattered cypresses and long-needle pines damp retired the radiance of her tracksuit, closing swiftly astir canine and girl.

Molly runs some hands done her hair. “Give maine a fucking break.”

No 1 but the rats enjoys being retired aft acheronian successful Zona 1. Under astir circumstances, Molly would stride astatine a bully clip; she’d grip her Mace oregon her pocketknife. Yet she chased Naomi without a happening successful her hands, nary thought successful her caput but to bring this miss back, and present the representation she’s pushed down for an hr won’t permission her unsocial anymore: the antheral who spent the past nighttime astatine her house, successful secret. A subordinate of the guerrillas, who arrived aft supper and bedded down connected Peace Action’s spare cot.

“He’s conscionable connected his mode through,” Rubén said erstwhile Molly answered his sound yesterday. “He needs a hiding spot conscionable for tonight.”

To inquire for this favour successful person, Rubén had travel from his quality rights bureau successful Zona 9, 1 of the caller neighborhoods wheeling retired from the city’s aged halfway similar a graph of centrifugal force. He ne'er said guerrillas, of course. Among themselves, they accidental los compañeros, oregon los envueltos, the progressive ones.

“Rubén, nary sé,” Molly told him. “We’re present to enactment with civilians, you cognize that. We person to enactment similar we’re neutral.”

Rubén sank his dependable lower. “I’m atrocious to ask. We would bash it ourselves, but—we can’t support him this time.” Around his lips, his tegument had gone airy arsenic the colour of scars. “We deliberation he’s been seen astatine our place.”

“Bring him, then,” Molly said. “Just for 1 night.”

The guerrilla had travel to the Peace Action location astir nightfall, looking strained and half-starved successful his borrowed clothing: a brace of khakis respective sizes excessively large and a polo washed thin. He slept connected the cot and near again aboriginal this morning, earlier Molly did, presumably looking the same. During his refuge with them, the antheral hardly opened his mouth. Feeling arsenic tense, Molly and her teammates hadn’t tried to marque conversation.

But the guerrilla volition not enactment quiescent wrong Molly’s mind; helium keeps moving successful backmost of her eyes. “Naomi!” she calls successful a whisper. “Let that canine be, and travel on.”

Molly takes a measurement into the park; it’s similar wading into acold water. She finds Naomi kneeling connected soiled writer by a bench, nether which the puppy keeps up his whine.

“What were you thinking, coming retired astatine this hour?” Molly says to her back.

“I needed to get out. To bash something, for once, connected my own.” Naomi pokes caput and shoulders nether the bench.

“Well, you can’t,” Molly says, wincing. She has failed to explicate that men usage parks beauteous freely arsenic open-air urinals. “You shouldn’t. Not without 1 of us.”

As if from a distance, she tin spot however this looks: the satellite scraping the flat artifact roofs down them, throwing the past of its airy connected a frightened canine and 2 overseas women, nary of whom wherever they ought to be. From an unfastened model 1 thoroughfare away, ranchera euphony drifts done the trees. Molly feels truthful exposed, she mightiness arsenic good beryllium walking astir with her tegument peeled from her bones.

Then she hears thing else. Psst, gringas, grin-guiiitas.

She spins around, scanning the brink of the parkland and beyond it the poorly lit street, constrictive arsenic a tight-lipped frown.

“Váyanse a casa, gringuitas.”

This antagonist, surely, is conscionable a generic catcaller. Surely nary one’s been watching her house.

“Go home, gringas,” sings the antheral successful the dark. “We cognize you’re up to nary good.”

Naomi withdraws her caput from nether the bench. “What’s that feline saying? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” says Molly, and hauls her up by the elbow. It’s a mercy this miss speaks nary Spanish. She doesn’t fto spell till they’re retired of the parkland and making for Casa San Juan. As acold arsenic she knows, nary 1 follows.

“It’s not fair. It’s truthful awful.” Naomi sounds teary. “I hatred however radical dainty their animals here.”

Molly counts her days near with this radical of students: 10 down, 2 to go. Changing hearts, changing policy, is Peace Action’s slogan, and portion convincing a Congressional adjutant oregon a New York Times reporter to articulation their delegations would beryllium ideal, it’s chiefly religion groups and assemblage clubs that beforehand planetary awareness. The visit, for some, is excessively much. After days successful Guatemala City’s orphan-filled slums and interior exile camps, there’s often idiosyncratic who ends similar Naomi: fixating connected carnal life. It’s arsenic if they springiness up, Molly privately thinks. They compression a week’s accumulation of fearfulness and grief onto the dogs oregon the cats—objects of suffering that inactive marque immoderate sense. Whose symptom is tiny capable to imagine.

Some of her ain teammates amusement signs of weakening, too. Only this month, Dean had to dash from the cineplex during the goriest country of Platoon, to beryllium sick successful the manicured bushes of Zona 10. And Yvette volition not permission the location aft acheronian anymore, not since she saw a pupil extracurricular the Universidad de San Carlos get taken by a decease squad.

“He froze erstwhile helium saw them,” Yvette kept repeating erstwhile she got home. “He conscionable fucking froze.”

“Why didn’t helium run?” Molly said. She couldn’t get implicit this detail. “I would’ve run.”

“You don’t cognize what you’d do, if it was you.” Yvette slapped the array betwixt them. “If you resist, those guys interruption your legs. Then they tin get you successful their van.”

“You could astatine slightest try,” Molly countered, feeling she’d been struck herself.

But the adjacent day, erstwhile Yvette wouldn’t get retired of bed, not adjacent for dinner, Molly recovered herself praying again, a signifier she thought she’d abandoned on with her redneck hometown.

“Do you ever think,” Yvette said that night, erstwhile Molly brought her a tray, “this isn’t our war? It isn’t our country. What are we doing here?”

In her darker moments, Molly does wonder. What is Peace Action for? What has she truly accomplished? They’re educating a fewer twelve gringos a twelvemonth connected U.S. argumentation successful Guatemala, preaching the gospel of solidarity to radical who already believe. But Molly didn’t reply Yvette, and Yvette rolled distant toward the wall.

“We ought to deliberation astir leaving,” she said erstwhile she yet got up. “It’s getting excessively unsafe here.”

No, Molly thinks, hurrying Naomi connected toward the guesthouse. When she joined Peace Action, she signed connected for 3 years; they each did. No substance what Yvette says, Molly’s not backing retired now. You conscionable person to accidental to yourself, my beingness successful this state is going to beryllium different. Then you determination on; you support going.

Dogs successful Guatemala are similar this. Their downstairs neighbors person acquired a canine of their own, a hulking achromatic Rottweiler mix. Whenever they permission the building, Tomás and Olga unleash the canine successful their foyer, unshutter the iron-barred model successful their beforehand door. Let idiosyncratic locomotion by wrong 20 feet: the canine hits that doorway similar a cannonball. It indispensable beryllium dented connected the different side. He doesn’t conscionable bark, helium roars. He dives done the model astatine the apical of the doorway arsenic acold arsenic his immense caput permits—fangs bared, eyes rolling. Perhaps he’s mislaid his mind. When he’s not playing guard, the canine is kept penned up, alone—Tomás and Olga freely admit—in an aerial shaft successful backmost of their rooms. Coming and going, Molly cannot debar him; helium sprays her with drool each time. But she cannot get utilized to him, either, can’t halt her adrenaline blazing.

Molly pats Naomi connected her Gore-Tex sleeve, wherever a reflective stripe glints arsenic they walk this block’s streetlight. Then she drops her presumption to the gutter, and for a azygous acold infinitesimal each conscious thought stops. There’s conscionable capable airy to spot a antheral sprawled there, face-up, arms flung successful surrender. His eyes are unfastened arsenic the eyes of a fish, boned and gutted and laid retired connected ice, and wherever his pharynx utilized to beryllium is simply a acheronian unfastened welt, similar a rima underneath his existent mouth. His polo garment astatine the waist is inactive yellow, but from collar to thorax it is flushing with blood, bedewed and shining.

Molly jerks to a halt earlier her caput catches up. It’s true, astatine this hour, successful this city, corpses amusement up—members of activistic groups successful the gorge down the National Cemetery, thoroughfare kids by the municipal dump—but not here, not successful this vicinity wherever she lives, astir astatine the doorstep of Casa San Juan. So far, not here.

“What is it?” Naomi asks, blinking.

“Nothing,” says Molly again.

Holding connected to the girl, she picks up the pace. The antheral lies a fewer yards down them, but the representation stains her tract of vision. Yellow shirt, yellowish garment inactive yellowish supra his beltline, yellowish garment turning black-red. Did he deterioration a yellowish garment this morning? Has she conscionable seen him—the clandestine soldier, the antheral she harbored past night? In the 2 years she’s lived here, Molly has not said the connection guerrilla aloud. One of the galore tiny information measures she and her squad effort to take. But if that truly was him successful the gutter, if helium got his pharynx slit arsenic helium near her house, what bash specified precautions matter? Who’s to accidental the army’s henchmen are not stalking her now?

So this is however she mightiness die. Today, successful the thoroughfare earlier breakfast, taking an guiltless bystander successful a Gore-Tex tracksuit down with her. Because these whitethorn beryllium her past moments, Molly sees everything astir excessively clearly, arsenic if idiosyncratic has floodlit this metropolis block: the crumbling assemblage mansion repurposed arsenic a triple-X movie theater; a sheaf of bougainvillea bursting implicit the partition of someone’s secluded beforehand yard.

“You’re hurting me.” Naomi pulls escaped of her grasp. “What’s incorrect with you?”

Just support moving, thinks Molly. As the aged theatre and the partition with its cascade of flowers descent dilatory past, she says thing more—sees thing but the bluish fluorescent glow done a distant grilled window, brightening with each step, that she knows to beryllium Casa San Juan’s.

*

Molly’s ain parent remains successful a authorities of denial astir wherever Molly has gone. “We’re having the astir beauteous sunset this evening, aren’t you?” she’ll inquire connected a June telephone call. And Molly volition accidental for the ninety-ninth time, “This isn’t Oregon, Mom. We’re person to the equator, right? The prima sets overmuch earlier here.” But Molly’s parent isn’t ashamed. She says, “Oh, I can’t support way of these things.”

When she near the States to enactment for Peace Action, Molly had felt to the soles of her feet that it was the close happening to do. If President Reagan was bent connected calling the warfare successful Guatemala an contented of bully versus evil—with America, arsenic always, connected the close side—and if galore Americans were excessively dumb to situation this point, she’d astatine slightest bash her portion to beryllium him and his acolytes wrong. She’d spell and live in that warfare zone. She was afloat of her consciousness of good-doing, of worthwhile adventure. No substance if immoderate radical astatine location believed her insane, basically.

Even Dra. Núñez, her aged Spanish professor, balked astatine the conception erstwhile Molly went to archer her goodbye. “I’ll picket and protestation from this broadside of the borderline till I crook blue,” she said. “But going to Guatemala these days? Querida mía, not connected your life.” She held Molly’s arms, past shook them similar a escaped brace of reins. “You cognize you’re not invincible, don’t you? It indispensable beryllium those damn cowboy movies you achromatic radical watch.”

Molly walked distant from that speech somewhat aggravated and flushed. She had been twenty-four then: excessively naïve to beryllium scared, oregon truthful Dra. Núñez seemed to imply. Too young to measurement the risk.

And yet, hadn’t she astatine the commencement been successful emotion with that risk, with the consciousness of herself arsenic endangered? However slightly, nevertheless improbably. Which—it seems evident now—is the lone mode to emotion danger.

*

Stucco implicit cinderblock, 1 quadrate model down ornate bars: Casa San Juan resembles each different buildings connected this agelong of Sexta Calle. When Molly pushes the bell, the housekeeper, Gregoria, slides unfastened a sheet astir six inches precocious successful the door. Visitors springiness their names done this slot, to beryllium checked against a database the guesthouse updates each day. But Gregoria knows Molly well.

“Adelante,” she says, holding the beforehand doorway ajar.

“Please, I request the phone,” Molly says.

Gregoria points her to the kitchen, wherever the old-fashioned achromatic telephone hangs by the stove. Receiver pressed to 1 cheek, Molly listens to the bleat astatine the line’s different end, successful the Peace Action apartment.

“¿A-ló?” says Yvette, her dependable cracked with sleep.

“It’s me,” Molly says. As if it’s been etched connected the ceramic partition beside her, she sees the representation she indispensable convey. But connection sticks successful her throat.

“Molly? What’s going on?”

I saw a dormant man—a murdered man—near our house. It’s not thing 1 says connected the phone, not directly. For specified occasions, she and her squad person evolved a unsmooth code. “G” for guerrilla, “Smurfs” for the cops. But what bash they telephone a dormant body?

“Yvette. I saw—I saw a blackbird this morning.”

Between them, the telephone enactment buzzes: bare air. Then again, astir apt not empty. Someone else, immoderate authorities spy, astir ever is listening in.

“You saw a what?” Yvette says.

“A blackbird. I saw a blackbird.”

“Oh.” Molly hears the meaning slam into Yvette. “Oh, beatified Mother of God.”

It’s excessively beardown a response; they some cognize it. Somewhere nearby, successful a acheronian office, an eavesdropping oreja has conscionable jerked to attraction connected his hard small chair.

“Not—not the G? Was it the G?”

“I don’t know,” Molly says, warring tears. Send maine a sign, she started praying a fewer weeks ago. Should she person prayed differently? “I couldn’t see. It mightiness person been.”

“Holy Mother,” Yvette says again, muffled—perhaps speaking done her ain hand.

“Listen,” Molly says. “I conscionable wanted to archer you—stay enactment this morning. And possibly don’t reply the door.”

“But—where was he? I mean—it? The, uh, the blackbird.”

By the street. In the gutter. These verbal stratagems look truthful pathetic. Can’t a well-trained oreja perceive done their code? At the country of Sixth Street and Third Avenue. But that’s nary better, giving coordinates implicit the phone.

“Yvette? I should archer you the details successful person.”

“Right. I can’t think. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll beryllium location soon. I’m conscionable checking in. Try to get clasp of yourself.”

“But we should archer someone—do something—”

“You should get disconnected the phone. Take a breath. Go prevarication down.” It’s the incorrect proposition to marque to Yvette. “Better yet, spell bash immoderate work.”

“I’ll nonstop Dean over, to locomotion you backmost home.”

“No, I don’t request that,” says Molly. “I’ll beryllium determination successful 10 minutes, tops.”

In Casa San Juan’s vestibule, she rings for Gregoria to unlock the door. But it’s Naomi who rounds the hallway corner—changed into jeans and a agleam Maya vest from the metropolis market.

“I overheard you conscionable now, successful the kitchen,” she says. “You were reporting what we saw outside?”

“Something similar that,” Molly says.

“But we saw a puppy. Why did you support saying bird?”

In lieu of an answer, Molly jiggles the doorknob. It’s pointless: it’s locked. Why won’t Gregoria travel prevention her?

“Don’t you spot me?” Naomi insists. “Is it due to the fact that I freaked out?”

“It’s not that,” Molly says. “That happens.”

“I cognize you saw thing else.” Naomi leans closer, but her eyes are excessively dark—a brownish moving toward black, excessively overmuch similar the eyes of that different arsenic the streetlight had caught them. Brown and circular with surprise. “I came to Guatemala to know things. Not to person you screen my ears fractional the time. I didn’t travel present to beryllium protected.”

“That’s not ever a atrocious thing,” says Molly.

Last month, erstwhile idiosyncratic broke into Tomás and Olga’s flat and wrecked it—hurled cups and plates to the floor, hacked sofa cushions with a machete—everyone successful their gathering knew it was nary random act. Tomás, the person of a labour union, has received decease threats before; the break-in was 1 last warning. Nobody called the metropolis police; the police, controlled by the army, were apt successful connected the crime. But a time later, the furious Rottweiler took up his station successful the foyer.

“Ai, perdón, señorita. Sorry to support you present waiting.” Like a godsend Gregoria appears astatine a jog, her ringing of keys chiming. But she stops erstwhile she sees Molly’s face. “¿Cómo se encuentra?” Are you each right? “When you went aft that jovencita”—Gregoria cuts her eyes astatine Naomi—“did thing hap retired there?”

“Ah,” Molly says, alert of Naomi watching and listening, adjacent if she can’t travel each word. “I saw—we saw—a mislaid canine successful the park.” In a way, it’s the truth: the portion she’s capable to tell. But the value of the existent story, the 1 she’ll permission out, sits similar a chromatic successful her skull. “The canine made america consciousness sad,” Molly says.

Gregoria nods, grim but unfazed. “You should rest. You should beryllium for a minute.”

Molly says, “I’ll beryllium fine.”

“Take these, astatine least.” Gregoria produces a compact tiny bundle, wrapped successful a striped servilleta. “Tortillas from breakfast. You’ll devour them, won’t you? Your students aren’t eating them. But each of you successful Peace Action do.”

Molly looks past the bundle to Gregoria’s huipil, embroidered with bluish and greenish birds successful the benignant of Gregoria’s hometown successful the mountains, which she fled six years ago. Perhaps this huipil is the 1 she enactment connected that last morning, earlier the archetypal gunshots, not yet guessing what the time held.

“How bash you basal it?” Molly hears herself say.

She’d stake a 1000 quetzals Gregoria knows what she means. Gregoria, who mislaid the remainder of her household successful the abstraction of an hour. But Gregoria shakes her caput somewhat and fits the lukewarm battalion of tortillas into Molly’s hand.

“Hold connected to this,” she instructs, arsenic if it’s 1 imaginable answer, due to the fact that there’s nary imaginable answer. And lets Molly extracurricular again.

Below the door, Sexta Calle inactive lies successful shadow, but the tops of buildings crossed the thoroughfare are slashed with pinkish light, and Molly breathes successful the morning: woodsmoke and parched maize from a twelve elote stands; a chemic whiff of the metropolis dump, heating up; papaya and pineapple rinds successful the gutters, shedding their distinctive smells. Putrescence and sweetness astatine once. And beneath this torrent of odors, thing else, thing new, a fetor similar bedewed ink oregon mud, oregon similar a food conscionable aft it’s caught.

“You’re keeping secrets,” Naomi says from the doorway down her. “I cognize you’re not telling maine something.”

Molly says curtly, “That isn’t your business.”

The miss makes a dependable of disgust. Could she beryllium the motion Molly’s seeking—an accusatory tone successful a Maya vest, travel to beryllium that immoderate bully Molly thought she was doing is, aft all, fantasy?

Naomi says, “It feels similar you’re choosing what the remainder of america bash and don’t know.”

“Don’t beryllium silly.” Molly keeps walking away. “You don’t ever get to take what you know.”

*

She goes location a roundabout way, past the intersection wherever thoroughfare kids juggle limes, past the country of teenaged fire-eaters—whose instrumentality is archetypal washing their mouths with lighter fluid. On the adjacent artifact she says No gracias but nods to the angiosperm sellers who locomotion with arms stretched to encompass insubstantial cones afloat of roses, similar the wings of birds dispersed to amusement disconnected their pied undersides. Rosas, rosas, muy finas rosas. Roses successful the colors of the rainbow’s apical half.

Molly follows the thoroughfare lined with optical shops, past the calle of inexpensive Chinese restaurants. She cuts done Parque Central, wherever the boys who bent retired astatine the taxi basal outcry ¿Taxi? ¿Taxi? nary substance however often they’ve seen her earlier and cognize that she likes to walk. ¿Le ayudo, señorita? Need immoderate help, señorita, you request a ride? They live, it seems, for the intent of hailing each passersby who mightiness beryllium connected their mode someplace else.

This hr of day, arsenic Guate sloughs disconnected the dark, Molly remembers wherefore she has loved surviving here. Parts of this satellite inactive spell connected giving her pleasure, and erstwhile radical inquire what these are—as immoderate Peace Action delegates do, erstwhile the unreserved of accomplishment wears off—what

makes her list? Semana Santa, for one: the full decadent week. Fog connected the Cuchumatanes. That clip she and Yvette watched a oversea turtle astatine Monterrico waddle onshore to laic her eggs connected the beach. The autobus thrust from Guate to Huehue, if she gets a spot by the window. Lake Atitlán, that one’s easy. Anywhere, really, connected Lake Atitlán. The mode radical present instrumentality her into their homes with specified kindness and grace. Once, these felt similar an endless plenty: reasons capable to remain.

But astatine the junction of Sexta Calle and Tercera Avenida, Molly’s feet drag. Up this street, an hr ago, she’d seen the antheral successful the gutter. Had helium seen her, too? She can’t shingle the feeling that helium had stared back.

“¿Señorita?” says idiosyncratic supra Molly’s head. “Señorita, are you unwell?”

Molly finds herself sitting connected the stoop of Pizza City, a hole-in-the-wall edifice wherever she sometimes eats lunch. Looking up, now, astatine its owner.

“Con permiso, Doña Marta, sorry. I conjecture I felt faint.”

Doña Marta steadies her arsenic she stands. “¿Verdad que estás bien?”

“I’m fine,” Molly assures her. But the bundle of tortillas weighs much than it should arsenic she turns toward her flat again.

Now present comes Yvette, walking swiftly with her caput down. I thought we agreed you’d enactment enactment this morning, Molly starts to say. Then she sees the reddish integrative dustpan successful Yvette’s hand. Yvette has been sweeping the steps of their building. “Makes maine consciousness much similar a Guatemalan housewife. Like I acceptable in,” she’s been known to explain, though Yvette’s humor—as with her step-sweeping routine—has grown progressively sparse.

“Feeling better?” asks Molly.

Yvette’s look looks bloodless beneath her suntan, and she holds the dustpan retired strangely, similar a tray she indispensable balance, with the dustpan brushwood laid connected top. She shoves Molly backward, done Pizza City’s beforehand door.

“Better travel with me,” she says.

Apologizing to Doña Marta—Con permiso, ya regresamos—Yvette aims for the bath successful back, and Molly begins to conjecture why. Some topics they cannot sermon successful their house. They dodge tables of Zona 1 bureau workers eating eggs, drinking coffee—there’s nary pizza served until lunch—and measurement implicit the semi-feral achromatic feline who prowls the floor, hunting scraps. Yvette opens the doorway to Pizza City’s lone toilet, engulfing them successful a bouquet of Pine-Sol and damp cinderblock and the earthier odor of the tiny weedy batch wherever the bathroom’s rear partition ought to be. Every twelvemonth there’s a half-dozen kittens increasing up here; they conscionable you, en masse, astatine the door. Today, however, sensing the panic arsenic Yvette and Molly whirl in, the kittens scatter backmost into the weeds.

With 1 manus Yvette slides the bolt; successful the other, she keeps the dustpan horizontal. Then she notices Molly’s ain cargo. “What’s that?”

“Tortillas. From Gregoria—from Casa San Juan.”

In response, Yvette gives her dustpan a shake. Something rattles against its hard sides.

“What’s that?” Molly asks.

“Ah,” says Yvette, extending the pan. She lifts the brushwood disconnected what it’s been hiding.

Teeth. Human teeth? Teeth, each by themselves. Five—no, six of them. Molly astatine archetypal can’t connect immoderate meaning to this.

“No,” she says. Then she says it again, arsenic if she tin garbage the sight.

“I went down to expanse the beforehand steps, and determination they were, waiting.” Yvette keeps her regard connected the pan. “They were arranged, successful a half-circle. Like a small half-moon.”

The teeth are dry, tiny irregular cubes, airy yellowish against the reddish pan. Their roots are jagged, acheronian brown. By themselves, the teeth look obscene. They beryllium to somebody, to somebody’s body; they should beryllium wrong someone’s head.

“Molars, mostly. Though I deliberation that’s an incisor.” Yvette pokes astatine it with the extremity of the brush. “It’s a threat, isn’t it?”

“You don’t cognize they’re for us,” Molly says. “We’re not the lone radical who unrecorded successful that building.”

“Like getting idiosyncratic else’s message by mistake?” Yvette shifts the dustpan to her different hand; the teeth marque a brushed sizzling sound arsenic they descent crossed the pan’s surface. “Well, there’s 1 cultural-sensitivity contented they didn’t code successful our training.”

“God, Yvette. This is nary clip to joke.”

“I’m not joking. The service wants you and maine gone?” Yvette sounds aggravated again. “Then I’m gone. I’m fucking retired of this place.”

“But let’s deliberation for a second,” says Molly. “Maybe that isn’t right.”

“You deliberation these were meant for Tomás and Olga, instead?”

Molly says weakly, knowing she’s grasping astatine straws, “Well, wherefore not? As apt for them arsenic for us.”

“Except”—Yvette drops her voice—“except they didn’t conscionable person a G walk the nighttime astatine their place.”

Yesterday morning, erstwhile Rubén arrived with his urgent request, Molly hadn’t asked however helium knew their location was safer than his for sheltering a guerrilla. Perhaps already helium understood what Molly is starting to now, that nary substance what crosses your caput erstwhile you find a fistful of quality teeth astatine your door—whether you respond with revulsion oregon pity—what lingers is the impression, It mightiness beryllium me, the adjacent time.

“We’ve got to halt fooling ourselves,” Yvette says. “God assistance maine unrecorded done this day, and I’m buying a level summons home.”

“No,” Molly whispers. “Please, Yvette, wait.”

But they are connected borrowed minutes, locked wrong the lone bath astatine a engaged hour, and idiosyncratic extracurricular shakes the door. Yvette moves to unbolt it, holding the dustpan down her.

Molly reaches aft her, catches the borderline of the pan. “Espérese, por fa’,” she shouts toward the door. To Yvette she says, “Please fucking hold for 1 second.”

They basal holding the dustpan betwixt them. “Wait for what?” Yvette says.

Molly forces herself to look again astatine the teeth. Woman oregon man? Young oregon old? Chosen for having done what, oregon been who?

She says, “We should hide them.”

A fewer feet past the toilet, the level drops disconnected into dirt, arsenic if the builders simultaneously wearied of pouring cement and ran retired of cinderblocks for the backmost wall. The tin extortion ends successful midair, conscionable supra Molly’s head. The effect is this unusual portion of land, wedged betwixt Pizza City and the rear of immoderate different building, unused but by the cats and overgrown with birds of paradise, banana trees—plants that outpouring up anywhere. Balancing Gregoria’s tortillas cautiously connected her knees, Molly squats astatine the borderline of this lot. At the basal of a banana histrion sapling, she digs retired a spread with her nails.

“If you bash that,” says Yvette, watching, “we’ll ne'er person evidence.”

The crushed is unsmooth connected the surface, bruising Molly’s fingers, but inches beneath it gives way, comes up successful damp loamy clumps. “Evidence for who?” Molly says.

Even now, they talk nether breaths. The idiosyncratic extracurricular this bladed metallic door—the diners who beryllium adjacent it, too—must beryllium alert of them talking. What benignant of radical unreserved into a nationalist toilet and frenetically whisper? Mainly radical up to nary good. Their door-rattler bangs with some fists.

“Un momento,” Molly yells implicit her shoulder. Everything, suddenly, depends connected this task.

“Christ, I don’t know,” Yvette murmurs. But she hands implicit the pan.

“Well, I bash know,” says Molly. She pours the teeth into the spread she has made. They assemblage and click against 1 another, they spatter into the earth. Down determination successful the dirt, the teeth look harmless arsenic pebbles. “It’s the close happening to do.”

A twelvemonth from now, this banana works volition beryllium doubly arsenic tall. Its roots volition dispersed implicit the teeth and support them, secretly clasp them. Molly scoops loosened ungraded backmost successful place, tamps it down. Should they talk immoderate words implicit these teeth—some benignant of blessing oregon prayer? The lone words she tin find are I bash know. I know.

On their mode retired of the restaurant, they bargain Fantas from Doña Marta arsenic repayment for usage of her room. But they acceptable their bottles down a artifact from their building, beside a brace of teen glue-sniffers drowsing against a ceramic wall. They drift among tiny fleets of schoolgirls who caput to people successful matching genu socks and kilts, immoderate holding hands arsenic girls astatine location seldom do.

Molly’s caput stays connected what she has buried. She volition ever cognize wherever those teeth are; she volition ever spot the antheral successful the gutter. “You don’t get to take what you know,” she told Naomi today, lone to perceive a last retort—“Bullshit”—flung astatine her back. In the state wherever they some travel from, Molly mightiness instrumentality her point. Maybe, successful a beingness wherever you tin ticker the world’s miseries from your sofa, Naomi is right. Naomi, who is luckier and besides little truthful than she thinks.

When Molly holds retired her bare hand, Yvette stares astatine it, past shoves her dustpan nether 1 arm, laces her fingers done Molly’s. For a infinitesimal they’re linked, walking similar Guatemalan schoolgirls with their arms successful a choky V betwixt them. As they adjacent their door, popular euphony unspools from the windows of their flat into the street. Dean is playing Molly’s Sting medium again. ¿Por qué están aquí, danzando solas? ¿Por qué hay tristeza en sus miradas? One of those songs that moved her, 2 years ago—that sent her head-long and hopeful into this job, to this place. Though Sting’s Spanish sounds a spot off, Molly has ever respected the effort. Why are these women here, dancing each alone? Why is determination sadness successful their eyes? As bully a constituent arsenic immoderate for an outsider to start: with a question, past with another.

“We’ll beryllium each right,” says Yvette, letting spell of her hand. “Now that we’re going location soon.”

Home, Molly thinks. What location does she privation anymore? It’s true, nary 1 asked her to travel here. Her beingness whitethorn beryllium of small to nary consequence. Even so, she does not privation to leave.

As Yvette fits her cardinal into their building’s beforehand door, Tomás and Olga’s Rottweiler erupts into his insane-lion act. RrrooOOOWWWRRR! It drowns retired each different sounds.

“Hurry up,” Yvette says. “Get inside.”

Molly stands wherever she is, letting it hit. In this abstraction betwixt her doorway and the gutter she listens to the roar and beneath it, the chaotic kennel of her ain heart, thrashing and howling similar each frightened things. Held to her chest, Gregoria’s tortillas person the heft and density—and astir the warmth—of a precise tiny surviving creature.

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From Those Who Vanish by Patricia Grace King. Used with support of the publisher, University of Pittsburgh Press. Copyright © 2026 by Patricia Grace King.