Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
Authors: Yuri Herrera
Tags: spanish, Mexico, USA, Latin America, Contemporary Fiction, translation, Literary Fiction, Novel, trafficking, gender, Violence, Brother, Border crossing, Kafka, underworld, immigration, Translated fiction, Rite of passage, Rio Grande, Yuri Herrera, Juan Rulfo, Roberto Bolaño, Jesse Ball, Italo Calvino, Kafkaesque, Makina, People-smuggling, Illegal Immigrants, Undocumented workers, Machismo, Coyote, Coyotaje, Discrimination, Borderlands, Frontiers, Jobs in the US, Trabajos del Reino, Señales que precederán al fin del mundo, Signs Preceding the End of the World, La transmigración de los cuerpos, The Transmigration of Bodies
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I’m dead, Makina said to herself when everything lurched: a man with a cane was crossing the street, a dull groan suddenly surged through the asphalt, the man stood still as if waiting for someone to repeat the question and then the earth opened up beneath his feet: it swallowed the man, and with him a car and a dog, all the oxygen around and even the screams of passers-by. I’m dead, Makina said to herself, and hardly had she said it than her whole body began to contest that verdict and she flailed her feet frantically backward, each step mere inches from the sinkhole, until the precipice settled into a perfect circle and Makina was saved.
Slippery bitch of a city, she said to herself. Always about to sink back into the cellar.
This was the first time the earth’s insanity had affected her. The Little Town was riddled with bullet holes and tunnels bored by five centuries of voracious silver lust, and from time to time some poor soul accidentally discovered just what a half-assed job they’d done of covering them over. A few houses had already been sent packing to the underworld, as had a soccer pitch and half an empty school. These things always happen to someone else, until they happen to you, she thought. She had a quick peek over the precipice, empathized with the poor soul on his way to hell. Happy trails, she said without irony, and then muttered Best be on with my errand.
Her mother, Cora, had called her and said Go and take this paper to your brother. I don’t like to send you, child, but who else can I trust it to, a man? Then she hugged her and held her there on her lap, without drama or tears, simply because that’s what Cora did: even if you were two steps away it was always as if you were on her lap, snuggled between her brown bosoms, in the shade of her fat, wide neck; she only had to speak to you for you to feel completely safe. And she’d said Go to the Little Town, talk to the top dogs, make nice and they’ll lend a hand with the trip.
She had no reason to go see Mr. Double-U first, but a longing for water led her to the steam where he spent his time. She could feel the earth all the way under her nails as though she’d been the one to go down the hole.
The sentry was a proud, sanguine boy who Makina had once shucked. It had happened in the awkward way those things so often do, but since men, all of them, are convinced that they’re such straight shooters, and since it was clear that with her he’d misfired, from then on the boy hung his head whenever he ran into her. Makina strolled past him and he came out of his booth as if to say No one gets through, or rather Not you, you’re not getting through, but his impulse lasted all of three seconds, because she didn’t stop and he didn’t dare say any of those things and could only raise his eyes authoritatively once she’d already gone by and was entering the Turkish baths.
Mr. Double-U was a joyful sight to see, all pale roundness furrowed with tiny blue veins; Mr. Double-U stayed in the steam room. The pages of the morning paper were plastered to the tiles and Mr. Double-U peeled them back one by one as he progressed in his reading. He looked at Makina, unsurprised. What’s up, he said. Beer? Yeah, Makina said. Mr. Double-U grabbed a beer from a bucket of ice at his feet, popped the top with his hand and passed it to her. They each uptipped the bottle and drank it all down, as if it were a contest. Then in silence they enjoyed the scuffle between the water inside and the water outside.
So how’s the old lady? Mr. Double-U inquired.
A long time ago, Cora had helped Mr. Double-U out; Makina didn’t know what had happened exactly, just that at the time Mr. Double-U was on the run and Cora had hidden him till the storm blew over. Ever since then, whatever Cora said was law.
Oh, you know. Alive, as she likes to say.
Mr. Double-U nodded, and then Makina added She’s sending me on an assignment, and indicated a cardinal point.
Off
I’m dead, Makina said to herself when everything lurched: a man with a cane was crossing the street, a dull groan suddenly surged through the asphalt, the man stood still as if waiting for someone to repeat the question and then the earth opened up beneath his feet: it swallowed the man, and with him a car and a dog, all the oxygen around and even the screams of passers-by. I’m dead, Makina said to herself, and hardly had she said it than her whole body began to contest that verdict and she flailed her feet frantically backward, each step mere inches from the sinkhole, until the precipice settled into a perfect circle and Makina was saved.
Slippery bitch of a city, she said to herself. Always about to sink back into the cellar.
This was the first time the earth’s insanity had affected her. The Little Town was riddled with bullet holes and tunnels bored by five centuries of voracious silver lust, and from time to time some poor soul accidentally discovered just what a half-assed job they’d done of covering them over. A few houses had already been sent packing to the underworld, as had a soccer pitch and half an empty school. These things always happen to someone else, until they happen to you, she thought. She had a quick peek over the precipice, empathized with the poor soul on his way to hell. Happy trails, she said without irony, and then muttered Best be on with my errand.
Her mother, Cora, had called her and said Go and take this paper to your brother. I don’t like to send you, child, but who else can I trust it to, a man? Then she hugged her and held her there on her lap, without drama or tears, simply because that’s what Cora did: even if you were two steps away it was always as if you were on her lap, snuggled between her brown bosoms, in the shade of her fat, wide neck; she only had to speak to you for you to feel completely safe. And she’d said Go to the Little Town, talk to the top dogs, make nice and they’ll lend a hand with the trip.
She had no reason to go see Mr. Double-U first, but a longing for water led her to the steam where he spent his time. She could feel the earth all the way under her nails as though she’d been the one to go down the hole.
The sentry was a proud, sanguine boy who Makina had once shucked. It had happened in the awkward way those things so often do, but since men, all of them, are convinced that they’re such straight shooters, and since it was clear that with her he’d misfired, from then on the boy hung his head whenever he ran into her. Makina strolled past him and he came out of his booth as if to say No one gets through, or rather Not you, you’re not getting through, but his impulse lasted all of three seconds, because she didn’t stop and he didn’t dare say any of those things and could only raise his eyes authoritatively once she’d already gone by and was entering the Turkish baths.
Mr. Double-U was a joyful sight to see, all pale roundness furrowed with tiny blue veins; Mr. Double-U stayed in the steam room. The pages of the morning paper were plastered to the tiles and Mr. Double-U peeled them back one by one as he progressed in his reading. He looked at Makina, unsurprised. What’s up, he said. Beer? Yeah, Makina said. Mr. Double-U grabbed a beer from a bucket of ice at his feet, popped the top with his hand and passed it to her. They each uptipped the bottle and drank it all down, as if it were a contest. Then in silence they enjoyed the scuffle between the water inside and the water outside.
So how’s the old lady? Mr. Double-U inquired.
A long time ago, Cora had helped Mr. Double-U out; Makina didn’t know what had happened exactly, just that at the time Mr. Double-U was on the run and Cora had hidden him till the storm blew over. Ever since then, whatever Cora said was law.
Oh, you know. Alive, as she likes to say.
Mr. Double-U nodded, and then Makina added She’s sending me on an assignment, and indicated a cardinal point.
Off
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