Free Stranger by David Bergen Page A

and short. They were quite a sight walking side by side. Her father had come from Catalonia, in Spain, and he had fallen in love with the people of the country, and of course he had fallen in love with his bride. The civil war had gone on for many years and her father was very political and very strong in his views and he spoke out against the taking of land and the killings and the disappearances. He didn’t carry a gun, he wasn’t violent, but he was known to have fervent opinions, and for this reason he wasn’t liked by those in power. And her father was killed. And her mother was killed. And then her brother, Íso’s uncle, left to fight with the rebels. He was gone, and so she was alone.
    One day a boy came to the village and told her that her brother was dead. The army had killed him. They had taken out his eyes and cut out his tongue and then shot him and hanged him from a ceiba tree. The boy told her to leave. And so she put some clothes into her bag and she left.
    I was eighteen years old, she said.
    Because the army was everywhere, and she had no one to trust, she walked around the lake rather than taking the public boat. In Sololá she took a bus north, and two days later she crossed over into Mexico at Tapachula. For three weeks she travelled upthrough Mexico by foot and by bus and entered the United States at Laredo. She said that in those days the border was not yet sealed, and so those without papers were able to find a way across. At first she felt lost in the United States of America, but what was the point of feeling lost? Or lonely? She was safe. Her father had visited San Francisco and he had talked of its beauty, and not knowing where else to go, she asked a man how to get to San Francisco. He told her about Greyhound, and so she rode a bus called Greyhound and arrived in San Francisco. She walked the streets. She learned that there was food in the garbage bins behind the supermarkets. She slept in parks and discovered the outdoor children’s pools, where she could wash herself. One afternoon, in a park, a man introduced himself. He spoke some Spanish, but not very well, and so he spoke English and she spoke Spanish, and this was how they talked. Henry was a good man in some ways, but he wasn’t good in other ways. He was generous with ideas and conversation, but he was also greedy and jealous. Like all men, he offered one thing in order to take something else. And that something else was usually the soul of the woman. And so, Henry took her by the arm and said, Come. He bought her breakfast at a small café.
    This was the first time she ate a waffle, which was like a pancake, but not the same. Two days later, or maybe it was longer, he found her a job washing dishes at a hotel. So now she had a little money. She was sleeping on the streets at the time, in a cardboard house under a bridge, and Henry said that was far too dangerous and he said she could move in with him. Señora Perdido said she was happy enough under the bridge. Which wasn’t completelytrue, but she knew that she hadn’t run all this way to America to end up in the arms of a man she did not love. She was also aware of her mother and father and brother and how they would see her if they were still living. She knew a girl, called Lan, who worked at the hotel and was always smoking on her breaks. Her voice was like a ringing bell. Lan had some space in her apartment, and invited her to live there. On Saturdays, when they were not working, they walked along the wharf and watched the boats and talked about which boat they would buy.
    She still saw Henry and on Sundays they walked over the Golden Gate Bridge and sat on a wooden dock and Henry fished while she read. She was learning to read English and Henry had many westerns. She liked them. She wanted to ride a horse. Meet a cowboy. Henry was not a cowboy. He painted houses for a living. She washed dishes at a hotel. Life was very different, but she was