Beto is afraid of turning eleven, because it feels like a treachery to his brother. ‘But I guess it would be worse to not turn eleven, right?’ He laughs, and Lydia and the sisters attempt to join him in that sound.
Luca does not laugh but feels compelled to give the boy something in return for his story. He unzips the side pocket of his backpack, which is sitting in his lap, and fishes out his tube of Orange Mango Blast Blistex. He hands it to Beto, who takes it without saying anything, removes the cap, smears it across his lips, and then makes a loud ah sound. He hands it back to Luca, and doesn’t say thank you, but Luca knows the ah was an expression of gratitude.
‘So wait,’ Soledad says, finally turning her whole body toward him instead of just her head. ‘Isn’t Tijuana right at the border?’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Luca says, looking at Soledad with approval.
She intercepts the look. ‘You’re not the only one who can read a map around here,’ she says, and then back to the newcomer, ‘So then what are you doing here if you were already right at the border? Why were you traveling south? And all those other migrants, too, traveling south?’
‘Oh, those guys are all deportados.’
Soledad cringes. ‘All of them?’
‘Sure.’ Beto shrugs. ‘TJ is full of deportados. There’s more people going south than north in Tijuana. You can tell them apart from the regular migrants because of their uniforms.’
‘Uniforms?’ Luca asks.
‘Yeah, all the migrants wear the same uniforms, right? Dirty jeans, busted shoes, baseball hats.’
‘You don’t have a hat,’ Luca observes.
Beto shrugs. ‘I’m not a real migrant. I’m just a poser.’
‘So what’s different about the deportados then?’ Soledad prompts him back to the subject.
‘They are haunted by the cries of their absent children in el norte.’
They all stare at him.
‘I’m just messing,’ he says. ‘It’s that they don’t have backpacks.’
Lydia snaps her fingers. ‘The backpacks,’ she says. ‘Yes, that’s what they were missing. The backpacks.’
‘Why don’t they have backpacks?’ Luca asks.
‘Because they’re deportados. They live in the United States, güey. Like forever. Like, for ten years maybe. Since they were babies, maybe. And then they’re on their way to work one morning, or coming home from school one day, or playing fútbol in the park, or shopping at the mall for some fresh new kicks, and then bam! They get deported with whatever they happen to be carrying when they’re picked up. So unless they happen to be carrying a backpack when la migra gets them, they usually come empty-handed. Sometimes the women have their purse with them or whatever. They don’t get to go home and pack a bag. But they usually have nice clothes, at least. Clean shoes.’
Lydia clutches her pack in front of her. She doesn’t want to think about this. The dream of getting to Estados Unidos is the only thing sustaining them right now. She’s not prepared to begin considering all the horrible things that might happen after, if they’re lucky enough to achieve that first, most fundamental goal.
Soledad sits back and bites her lip. ‘So when they get deported they just give up and go home?’ she asks. ‘Why don’t they try to cross back over?’
‘I mean, some of them try,’ Beto explains. ‘But it’s impossible to cross at Tijuana now. Unless you have, like, tons of money or you’re working with one of the cartels. They got tunnels. A few years ago it was easy. I even knew some guys from el dompe who would make extra money taking migrants across. The fence was full of holes, plus ladders, boats – there were a thousand ways to get across.’
‘And now?’
‘Now it’s like a war zone, all drones and cameras and la migra just waiting over there like a gang of overpaid goalkeepers. Plus, los deportados got money. They are all rich from working in el norte. So they can afford a vacation before they go back. They go home to visit.’
Soledad bites nervously at the inside of her lip.
‘But don’t worry,’ Beto says. ‘Nogales is supposed to be better. I mean, it’s supposed to be easier to get across, because nobody wants to cross in the desert and stuff, so there’s not as much Border Patrol. That’s why I didn’t try to cross at TJ. I’m going to Nogales to get across.’
Beto presses his lips together, and Luca can smell the orange and mango of the Blistex. It gives him a feeling of gladness.
‘That’s where this train is going, right? Nogales?’ Beto asks, leaning back on his elbows and stretching his legs in front of him.
‘We hope so,’ Luca says.
‘There’s one more major junction,’ Beto says. ‘At Benjamín Hill, the tracks split. Straight north to Nogales, or west to Baja. When I was coming down, I was supposed to get off there and change trains, but we didn’t stop, so I just kept rolling south until we hit that lay-by.’ He sighs. ‘I hope we don’t end up back in Tijuana. Imagine if I just did a Bestia sightseeing tour of the countryside and wound up back in el dompe?’
Soledad groans. ‘So you mean we might have to change again?’ she says. ‘When we’re this close?’
‘I guess we’ll see,’ Beto says, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a fistful of sunflower seeds. He munches them and spits the shells over the edge of the train without sitting up. He offers to share them with the others, but his hands are sweaty, and no one takes him up on his generosity.
‘How long you been traveling?’ Soledad asks him.
‘Only a few days,’ he says. ‘I guess this is my third or fourth day. That your sister?’
He points at Rebeca with his chin. She’s only half facing them, watching the passage of the impossible landscape: scrubby welters of green growing from the powdery earth, the arc of hot blue above them, the serrated brown of the distant mountains, the increasingly rare sight of a vehicle on the parallel highway.
‘Yes, that’s Rebeca,’ she says. ‘And I’m Soledad.’
‘How come she’s so quiet?’ Beto asks. ‘She doesn’t talk?’
Rebeca turns her face but not her eyes toward him. ‘I used to talk,’ she says. ‘Now I don’t talk anymore.’
Beto sits up and brushes the salt and the sunflower-seed dust from his fingertips. ‘Fair enough,’ he says.
Two hours later they slow but do not stop as they pass through the small town of Benjamín Hill, and Luca feels encouraged by the fact that, after the tangle of tracks recedes back to a single line, they’ve emerged on the easternmost route, which continues due north toward Nogales.
Santa Ana, Los Janos, Bambuto, check, check, check. By early afternoon, Luca spots an airplane low in the sky. It becomes larger and flies lower until it seems like it will collide with their train. They all duck, pinning themselves flat to the top of the train as they pass the runway of Nogales International Airport.