Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement

small room above Ruth’s beauty parlor.
    I watched him as he moved trying to avoid stepping on the big red ants in his black leather lace-up city shoes. He looked down at his feet and up to the trees, back and forth. As the day turned to dusk dozens of mosquitoes lit on his neck and arms. He tried to wave them away. The jungle knew this city man was among us.
    At the highway I told him I was not allowed to cross and had to go back home.
    You know not to go out at night, right? I said. Someone did tell you this?
    The night belongs to the drug traffickers, the army, and the police just like it belongs to the scorpions, I said.
    José Rosa nodded his head.
    No matter what, you don’t leave your house, not even if you hear the sound of gunfire or someone screaming for help, okay?
    Thank you, he said as he took my hand and leaned over and kissed my cheek.
    No one in the jungle holds anyone’s hand or kisses anyone’s cheek. This is a city custom, or a custom that can only exist in a cool climate. In our hot land touching is just more heat.
    When I returned to my house my mother was still passed out. It took me a few seconds to recognize her form in the bed. I’d forgotten that she’d bleached her hair. The blond mop covered her small pillow.
    My mother’s hands were lying across her stomach. As I approached I could see she was holding something shiny gripped between her fingers.
    The next morning my mother seemed upset. She would not even look at me.
    So when did José Rosa leave? I didn’t notice when he left, she said.
    You just passed out, Mother. What were you thinking? He’s my teacher!
    My mother paced and pulled at her bleached blond hair. I didn’t know if she was angry or sad.
    Finally she said, I was just turning inside out, turning inside out so that my bones were on the outside and my heart was hanging here in the middle of my chest like a medallion. It was just too much and so I had to lie down. Ladydi, I knew that man could see my liver and my spleen. He could’ve just leaned over and plucked my eye off of my face like a grape.
    What are you doing with a gun, Mama?
    My mother sat and was quiet for a moment.
    What gun?
    What are you doing with a gun, Mama?
    Some men need killing, my mother answered.
    I sat down beside her and began to rub her back gently.
    I have to go to school now, Mama, or I’m going to be late, I said.
    Why the hell can’t this place have a bar full of men so that you can get drunk and get yourself kissed?
    I’m going to school by myself. I have to go, Mama.
    I left her there on the floor and walked out of the house.
    As I moved down the hill an army of ants was marching in several lines down the mountain toward the highway. Lizards were moving in the same direction, moving very quickly. The birds above me were also disturbed and flying away.
    That morning everything on the mountain seemed to be pushing down toward the black asphalt river.
    And then I knew why.
    Way off, far off, I heard a helicopter.
    I ran toward the school as fast as I could.
    At the schoolroom everyone was already inside and the small door was closed.
    Let me in, I cried.
    José Rosa opened the door. I pushed past him and ran over to Maria and Estefani who stood at the window looking up.
    Where’s Paula? I asked.
    My friends shook their heads.
    José Rosa was confused and bewildered. Maria explained that the helicopter meant the army was coming to dump Paraquat on the poppy fields.
    Everyone is running for cover, she explained. You never know where the herbicide might be sprayed.
    We could hear the helicopter getting closer until it finally passed over our little one-room school and moved away.
    Do you smell anything? Estefani asked.
    I don’t, Maria said. No.
    José Rosa sat down and took out a small box of white chalk from his leather briefcase and walked toward the blackboard. He wrote out four columns with the subject headings History, Geography, Mathematics, and Spanish Language.
    We took out our copybooks