13

The girl talked in a quiet voice, her hands fluttering in her lap, her eyes staring down at the table unless they had nervously flicked up to the entrance. Caterina took notes. Leon sat and listened.

“I moved to Juárez from Guadalajara for a job,” she said. “It was in one of the maquiladoras, on the banks of the river. Making electrical components for an American corporation. Fans for computers. Heat sinks and capacitors. I started work there when I was fourteen years old. A year ago. They paid me fifty-five dollars a week, and I sent all of it back to my mother and father. Occasionally, I would keep a dollar or two so that I could go out with my friends — soda, something to eat. It was hard work. Very hard. Long hours, no air conditioning and so it got hot even by nine or ten in the morning, complicated pieces to put together, sometimes the parts would be sharp and when you got tired — and you always got tired — then they would cut your fingers. I worked from seven in the morning until eight at night. Everything was monitored: how fast you were working, the time you spent on your lunch, the time you spent in the bathroom. They would dock your pay if they thought you were taking too long. None of us liked the job but it was money, better money than I could get anywhere else, and so I knew I had to work hard to make sure they didn’t replace me.

“It wasn’t just the work itself, though. There were problems with the bosses — there are more women than men in the factories, and they think it is alright for them to hit on us, and that we should be flattered by it, give them what they want. The bosses have cars and the women never do. Some girls go with the bosses so that they can get rides to work. It’s safer than the busses. I never did that.”

“They hit on you?”

“Of course.”

“But you were fourteen.”

“You think they care about that?” Delores smiled a bitter smile. “I was old enough.” She sipped at the glass of diet Coke that Caterina had bought for her. “They have those busses, the old American ones, the yellow and black ones they use to take their children to school. They were hot and smelly and they broke down all the time, but it was better than walking and safer, too, once the girls started to disappear. I had a place in Lomas de Poleo — you know it?”

“I do.” It was shanty of dwellings spread in high desert, a few miles west of Juárez. Caterina had been there plenty with the Voces sin Echo.

“It was just a bed, sharing with six other girls who worked in the same maquiladora as I did. The bus picked us up at six in the morning and took us up to the river, then, when we were finished at eight or nine, then they would take us back again.”

Caterina’s pen flashed across her pad. She looked at the recorder, checking that it was working properly. “What happened to you?”

“This was a Friday. The other girls were going out but I was tired and I had no money and so I told them I would go home. The bus usually dropped us off in Anapra. The place I was staying was a mile from there, down an unlit dirt track, and it was dark that night, lots of clouds and no moon, darker than it usually was. I was always nervous, and there were usually six of us, but I was on my own and it was worse. I got off the bus and watched it drive up the hill and then walked quickly. There was a car on the same side of the street as me. I remember the lights were on and the engine was still running. I crossed to the other side of the street to avoid it, but before I could get there a man came up from behind me, put his hand over my mouth and dragged me into the car. He was much stronger than I am. There was nothing I could do.”

“Where did they take you?”

“There is a bar in Altavista with a very cheap hotel behind it where the men take the women that they have paid for. They took me there. They put me in a room, tied my hands and my feet and left me on the bed. There was another girl there, too, on the other bed. She had been taken the night before, I think. She was tied down, like me. There was blood. Her eyes were open but they did not focus on anything. She just stared at the ceiling. I tried to speak to her but she did not respond. I tried again but it was no use — she would not speak, let alone tell me her name or where she was from or what had happened to her. So I screamed and screamed until my throat was dry but no-one came. I could hear the music from the bar, and then, when that was quiet, I could hear noises from the other rooms that made me want to be quiet. There were other girls, I think. I never saw any of them, but I heard them. I must have been there for two or three hours before he came in.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. I don’t know if it was the same one who took me. I can remember him and yet not remember him, if you know what I mean. He was nothing special, by which I mean there was nothing about him that you would find particularly memorable. Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Normal looking. Normal clothes. He reminded me of the father of a girl I went to school with when I was younger. He was a nice man, the father of my friend. I hoped that maybe this man would be nice, too, or at least not as bad as I had expected. But he was not like him at all. He was not nice.”

“You don’t have to tell me what happened.”

But she did. She drew a breath and explained, looking down at the table all the time. She was a little vague, relying on euphemism, but Caterina was able to complete the details that she left out. Delores’ bravery filled her with fury. She gripped her pen tighter and tighter until her knuckles were pale against the tanned skin on the back of her right hand. A fourteen year old girl. Fourteen. She vowed, for the hundredth time, the thousandth, that she would expose the men who were responsible for this. She did not care about her own safety. The only thing that mattered was that they were shamed and punished. Now that she had her blog, and the thousands of readers who came to read about the disintegration of Juárez, now she was not just another protester. She had influence and power. People paid attention when she wrote things. This would be the biggest story yet.

Femicide.

The City of Lost Girls.

She would make them listen and things would be done.

“How did you get away?”

“He untied my hands while he — you know — and then he did not tie them again when he went to use the bathroom. I suppose he was confident in himself, and he had made it plain that they would kill me if I tried to run. I knew that my prayers had been answered then and that I had been given a chance to escape, but, at first, I did not think that my body would allow me to take advantage of it. It was as if all of the strength in my legs had been taken away. I think it was because I was frightened of what they would do to me if they caught me. I know that is not rational, and I know that they would have killed me if I had stayed — I knew about the missing girls, of course, like everyone does — but despite that it was as much as I could do to take my clothes and get off the bed.”

“But you did.”

“Eventually, yes. I tried to get the other girl to get up too, but she told me to leave her alone. It was the first thing she had said to me all that time. She looked at me as if I had done something terribly wrong. She was still tied, too, and I am not sure I would have been able to free her, but it would not have mattered — she did not want to leave. I opened the door — he had not locked it — and I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I ran all the way to the Avenue Azucenas and I found a policeman. I did not know if I could trust him but I had no other choice. I was lucky. He was a good man. One of the few. He took me to the police station, away from there.”

“Do you know his name?”