The usual adjectives were deployed when I announced my sudden decision to go to Mexico for the entire month of February. I was so independent, adventurous, energetic. Something unspoken came behind these exclamations, a doubting look in the speakers’ eyes. 'Are you sure it isn’t dangerous?'
As February approached, I saw lurid stories of violence, robbery and extortion every time I opened the guide book or googled my holiday destination. Was I making a stupid mistake?
No, Mexico was a glorious revelation. Magnificence and decay lived as neighbours. I gradually forgot my nerves, grew used to blazing skies, organ grinders in the streets, heavenly beaches, dazzling colours, and everywhere friendly, welcoming people. 'Are you lost? Can I help you?' and the elderly man put aside what he was doing to take me to my address. 'Una cortesia, amiga,' and the complimentary starter was presented with a smile. 'Hasta luego,' wherever I went. Music poured through the air. The swelter of daytime made way for soft, perfumed evenings. I climbed Mayan temples, looking out over the jungle, hearing and never seeing gangs of howler monkeys.
Mexico CIty, Merida, Tulum, Campeche, Palenque and San Cristobal de las Casas cast their enchantment over me. The pueblos magicos lived up to their designation and each parting felt a little bleak and cheerless. I dropped keys in letter boxes and locked them in little safes, embraced and shook hands with hosts, shouldered my rucksack and made my way to the bus station.
Now I was on my way to Oaxaca on a long-distance bus, happy with my double seat at the front, booked well in advance.
The countryside we travelled through grew emptier, dotted with occasional farmhouses and small villages. Fruit stalls and roadside cafes clustered together, then miles of parched highway ribboned through hills, plateaus and valleys. I craned to see round the blinds at the windows and pitied the frequent groups of people walking in the blistering sun, to or from work, I supposed. 'No hats, in this heat!'
In the bus station, a group of passengers lay on the cool floor of the loading bays while others queued, smiling and cheering as we pulled up. They handed over their luggage to the porter, who tagged and stowed it in the belly of the bus, handing counterfoils to the owners.
A young woman paused next to me, consulted her ticket, and took the seat across the aisle. For the next hour or so, she kept up a stream of cheerful chatter with her neighbour. 'Mira!' I heard, and the girl, too excitable and confiding to be thought of as a woman now, pointed to a group of walkers in the dust, turning to her neighbour and telling her something vital and heartfelt, eyes sparkling.
'How many is this?' I wondered at the sight of the next roadblock, and rummaged in my waist pack for my passport. The young soldier boarded the bus and proceeded to the back of the bus. No mirror on a pole this time. Before long, another soldier came aboard. I caught the driver looking in his mirror and, turning, saw the second soldier walking backwards to the front of the bus, filming the passengers with a quiet 'Gracias,' after every row.
One young person after another left the bus and took their place at the side of the road. A forlorn group, they stood silently while we, the remaining passengers, looked on. 'Nineteen, twenty,' I counted. At last, the soldier reached my row. Looking across the aisle, I saw the girl, eyes closed and head tipped back in an imitation of sleep. 'Could it work? Might the soldier’s heart recall a sleeping child and pass on?' No, the girl too was directed off the bus, gently, almost regretfully. 'Inmigracion,' was the only word I caught in the exchange.
My document was the last to be inspected. The soldier flicked through it, interested, and returned it with a kind smile.
It seemed indecent to watch, and callous to look away. I felt the silence around me as the passengers witnessed the scene. A jeep with ten or so soldiers pulled up and all jumped out. The oldest of them took charge, and soon the driver’s assistant was collecting luggage tickets and returning the small rucksacks to their owners. A woman rested her hand on her companion’s shoulder, and, his solemn gaze on the ground, he covered it with his. They all looked tired, beaten and powerless.
One of the group held a sleeping boy in his arms, his own eyes closed, taking deep, troubled breaths. How old was the child? Two, three? Now something was moving, a disturbance of the scene, a change so gradual it didn’t at first register on the consciousness. There it was! The boy’s shoe was slipping, slipping, and eventually fell from his little foot. His father’s face, buried in the child’s shoulder, did not move. The young man beside him stared at it. After several puzzled seconds, he bent down to the dust and retrieved it, returning it to the father with a small, sad smile. I felt a noise rising to my throat, but quelled it.
The bus pulled off and the passengers burst into animated conversation. 'Venezuela … inmigrantes … traficantes,' declared the man behind me to the Spanish tourists. Out of the window, I saw group after group of people, mostly young, walking along the road. Now I noticed the sleeping bags and mats strapped to their rucksacks. 'Oh.'
Home in the Highlands again, I built a fire and dragged a low chair close to it. Balancing my laptop on my knees, I scrolled through images of sunny scenes, houses painted in joyful colours, colonial plazas, pelicans roosting on a fishing boat, carnival parades, dark shimmering dancers, arms aloft.
There was no picture of a slim, grave young man, stooping, lifting a plastic child’s shoe from the ground and looking into a father’s eyes while people in uniform bowed their heads.