Mañana Means Heaven

Chapter 1.

7 1 When Bea was just an impressionable and melancholic ten-year-old,her first real memory—that is, the kind that lingers all years down the track no matter where or in what condition you find yourself—was brought about by an important delineation in the dirt.It began at a train station in Indio,California,and the year was 1930. The memory itself was of a thousand brown faces crowded onto the platform of the station,each one clutching a meager and most prized belonging. Some toted flour sacks woven shut with clothes, bursting at the seams, while others had boxes slung with rope across their shoulders.The men fumbled their dusty bowler hats, and the women clinched their ill-fitted dresses and lined up, or tried to, but the line turned into a frenzy of bodies once the steam engine came roaring into sight at the far end of the tracks. From the open mouth of each boxcar door emerged two armed immigration officers. They were carrying clipboards with important matters pinned down.Their brown suits were pressed to blades, and their moustaches were made of golden tufts of hay. They stood above the people so that the tips of their slick boots gleamed at the blunt noses of the men and at the sunburnt foreheads of the women. From their high roost they consulted their clipboards and began calling out names.Quickly,the people who belonged to those names were ushered aboard, family by family. Even then, as a shy yet somewhat defiant ten-year-old, Bea thought it curious that most of these people, these Mexicanos with proud faces and humble rags, had managed to shape their mouths into something that resembled a smile. They wore these peculiar masks as they boarded and took their spots inside the boxcar. Even when one of the officers swiped a piece of luggage from a husband’s clutches and flung it onto the dirt, Bea found it unusual that the husband did not jump up and punch the man on the mouth. He only nodded politely and went with his family and was thankful. Of course, how could she know that the reason that husband did not rise up was because he had been promised, guaranteed, five hundred greenbacks for voluntary deportation, so whatever they did to him, to them, was okay, for now. The names went down alphabetically, and Bea 8 knew they did because if there was one thing Ascot Elementary prided itself in, it was teaching little brown children early on about the English language, so she had memorized her alphabet. When a family of Quevedos and then Quintanas and then Ramoses were called, she watched her father Jesus take his hat off and knew it was their turn to move forward. He looked back at the oldest two, Epi and Maggie, and then at Bea’s mother Jessie, and saw that her face was a statue of disdain, but nothing could be done about it. When one of the golden moustaches called out “Renteria,”a block of bodies crowded up to the foot of the boxcar and angled their heads up at the officers. They called out the name Ignacio Renteria, and Ignacio and his three kids climbed aboard, except that Ignacio, with his stubby legs and round body had to be helped on, so they yanked him up by his overall straps. Once on the boxcar Ignacio turned his back to the people and quickly disappeared into the shadows. The next name called was Jesus Renteria. Jesus stepped up and reached back for Jessie, and she took her husband’s hand and rose up onto the boxcar. All seven kids went on up after her, and together they found a spot inside, but not before Jesus managed to get a kick in the seat of his pants by one of the officers. When he fell forward he said nothing and could not look in the faces of his family, especially not Jessie. Of course, she said nothing about it, just looked away. Bea noticed this too. When all the people were on board and the floors and walls were cluttered with bodies,sweating profusely each of them,right down to the few infants who were suckling from their mamas’wilted breasts, Bea wondered why all the mahogany faces had the same wary and complacent look, like they were all going home after a long and disappointing vacation.Truth was, some were going home...