The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [35]
Patrik winced every time she dabbed at the cut with disinfecting solution. He smelled of sweat. His hair was sticky and his face pale.
Hugo had put out mugs. At the center of the table on a small plate were three tea bags, all with different flavors. Now he was standing at the window in his robe, looking out.
“Do you think he’s coming here?” Hugo asked.
“Who?”
“Zero.”
“I don’t think so, and we don’t know what’s happened. Are you afraid of him?”
Hugo shook his head while Patrik sat at the kitchen table.
Eva poured out the water.
“Tell us about it,” she said.
Fourteen
Manuel’s grandfather had been a bracero, one of those who traveled around the United States in the 1940s in order to fill the gaps left by the men who had been called up to war. Most of them had done well for themselves, returning from Idaho and Washington with colored shirts, leather shoes, and cash.
This created an impression that life in the United States was easy, that one could quickly amass a fortune there. Many followed the pioneers. Manuel’s father was one of these. He returned, thin and worked to the bone after three long years, and with a gaze that alternated between an expression of desperation and optimism. Two years later he died. One day his carotid artery burst and he was dead within minutes.
In 1998, two days before he turned twenty-two, Manuel made his first trip.
It was easy to be impressed by the land in the north. What Manuel noticed first were all the cars, then he saw how he, as a Mexican, was not regarded as fully human. He worked for a year, saved four hundred dollars, and returned to the village.
Patricio worked out that if all three brothers worked for two years in the fields to the north, they would be able to rebuild the house and buy a mule, and so they set off together.
Those who went to the border rivers had three to choose from: Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, and Rio Tijuana, all different, but out of whose waters thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children crawled.
Manuel, who had heard of people drowning, chose the highway. The first time he crossed the border near San Ysidro, south of San Diego, and everything was simple. He understood that the terrifying descriptions of all the Mexicans who had died in their attempts to cross over—people spoke of numbers in the thousands—were exaggerated, perhaps these were rumors spread by the Border Patrol or the vigilantes, volunteers who helped to patrol the border.
But four years later it was significantly worse. A wall, that did not appear to have an end, had been erected. There was something absurd and frightening about this construction that cut through the desert landscape.
Angel and Patricio stood silently by his side. A few other men from Veracruz, whom they had met in Lechería and had joined up with, laughed in exhaustion and nervousness. Angel, who was severely rundown, glanced at Manuel. Patricio stared east.
“I guess we just have to walk,” he said.
“Walk?” Angel repeated.
He had been suffering. He had misplaced his cap and the sun had beaten down on him relentlessly. He scratched his forehead and large strips of skin came off.
“We can cross over by Tecate,” one of the men from Veracruz said, and pointed east. “This wall can’t go on forever.”
Patricio had already started to walk. They arrived late in the evening. The men from Veracruz, who had the experience of several border crossings, led the group to a dried up riverbed and across a godforsaken stony slope where only cacti were able to survive. Signs that warned them they were approaching the border made them shrink reflexively. The only thing to be heard was the sound of feet stumbling over rocks. Suddenly the light from a mobile watchtower was turned on and caught the men in a circular dip in the landscape.
In the distance they heard the frantic barking of dogs. The brothers ran, tripping their way across the stony ground. Angel fell and was helped up by Patricio. Manuel urged them on. He had read about dogs and the new ammunition that the border