Searching for Pilar, page 9
But there was still the chain-link fence around the house. How could they get through it? Pilar studied the fence from all of the windows of the house. The people who used to live in the house to the north had owned two large dogs. The guards used to keep a dog at the house where the prisoners were, but it had grown old and died and had not been replaced. Over time, the dogs had dug a hole under the fence where they’d passed from one side to the other. The dogs were gone, but the hole was still there. Pilar and Josefina were petite—small enough, she believed, to lie down and slip under the fence where the dogs had dug. Teresa was another matter, but Pilar didn’t have any other ideas. Since they had been living mostly on dry tortillas and beans since they got on the truck out of Mexico, all of them had lost weight, even Teresa. Pilar had to hope Teresa had lost enough weight to squeeze under the fence.
Since she didn’t know what was going to happen to them or when, Pilar felt pressure to act as soon as her plan was formulated. The only thing she still needed was something to pick the lock on the door with.
She thought of her silver barrette. But she had left it behind as a clue on the off chance someone was looking for her and found the place they had been confined. She asked Josefina and Teresa if they had anything thin and strong she could use to pick a lock. She searched the drawers in the kitchen without luck. Then she quietly went to each of the few female captives, asking them if they had a thin metal object on them. Just as she was about to give up, a woman handed her a safety pin she had used to hold up her bra.
“Perfect,” Pilar said. “Tomorrow after lunch we will make our escape.”
• • •
Pilar estimated that she could run from the back door and slide under the fence, making it to the house next door, in one minute or less. She had noticed that a Mexican family lived there. She would get them to telephone the American police, who would rescue them.
So, on the third day of their confinement, Pilar, Josefina, and Teresa crouched in the kitchen, peered out the window, and waited until both of the guards sitting under an oak tree in the backyard finished their lunch and leaned against the trunk of the tree to take a nap. Their guns lay on the grass beside them. Five long minutes after she saw the guards’ shoulders and heads slump forward, Pilar inserted the safety pin into the lock on the back door and slowly jiggled it until she heard the click that meant it was unlocked. Another minute passed while she waited for her breath to be normal again, and then she slowly opened the door just wide enough to slip outside. She kept her eyes on the guards as Josefina and Teresa followed her.
When they were all outside, she whispered to the others, “Run to the yellow house to the left. Now!” All of them took off, Pilar in the lead. The noise of their feet stirring up the gravel on the driveway between the houses woke the guards, however. The men grabbed their guns and jumped to their feet.
Pilar slipped easily under the fence and reached the back door of the yellow bungalow. She pounded on the door.
“Help! Help us! We are being held captive. Call the police!”
A young boy’s face appeared in the window. “Mama, Mama,” he yelled in Spanish to someone inside the house. “Las señoritas!”
Pilar heard a man’s voice inside yelling in Spanish, “Don’t open the door, Tomás. Get away from the window. It’s none of our business. Come here.” The man sounded scared.
How can these people not help us?
Looking back, Pilar could see that one of the guards had caught up with Teresa, who had not quite made it through the fence. He dragged her to the ground with his gun drawn. Pilar pounded on the door harder. She begged, “Please, please help us.”
“I am going to put a bullet through this one’s head if you two aren’t back inside the house in one minute,” the guard yelled to Pilar and Teresa in a stone-cold voice.
Pilar knew that she could dash around the yellow house and perhaps get away herself. But the sight of Teresa, terrified, with a gun pointed at her head made her stop.
I can’t sacrifice her life for mine, she thought. This was my plan, and she is just a child.
Pilar walked back to the house where they had been confined; she was frustrated and angry. She’d thought the family next door would help them get free. But they had turned her away, probably afraid to get involved with the gunmen next door or the police. Suddenly Pilar felt tired, more tired than she had ever felt in her life. She wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. Any other escape seemed impossible. As Pilar passed the guard who had yelled, he kicked her as hard as he could in the back of her legs, making her stumble. “If you try that stunt again, we will kill all three of you! Understand?”
She didn’t want the guards to see her cry, but once Pilar was back in the house, tears of frustration and hopelessness came. Exhausted, she fell asleep thinking, Maybe escape is impossible.
CHAPTER 10
REUNION
Alejandro strode into Yolanda and José’s house, tired from the drive from San Miguel de Allende. It was almost Christmas 2010. The delicious aroma of warm tamales greeted him. Concepción, almost four years old, was wearing her prettiest dress and sat on the living room floor, playing with a doll. When he lifted her up in his arms, she squealed with delight, as she always did when her father returned from work. Yolanda was like a mother to her during the days when Alejandro was gone, but she loved being with her father most of all.
Without Pilar’s income, Alejandro and Concepción had at first been destitute. His own parents had still had younger children at home and had been too poor to help them. But Yolanda and José had insisted Alejandro and Concepción move in with them. Yolanda took solace in taking care of her granddaughter, who so strongly resembled Pilar.
During the first weeks following Pilar’s disappearance, Alejandro had left Concepción with Yolanda and driven his old truck to Mexico City, where he’d cruised randomly through the busy streets, hoping to catch sight of Pilar.
At the end of a month, José and Yolanda had sat him down and told him that behavior had to stop. He had no money for gas or alcohol, and they were not going to provide it any longer. They told him that he had a daughter who needed him. Alejandro must stop feeling sorry for himself, get sober, and find a way to provide financially for his child. They would help him with her care, but he had to get other work.
Alejandro had then tried working in José’s store, as well as various types of manual labor, but he was an artist and was unhappy doing work he did not consider creative. Eventually he resurrected an old idea.
In the fall of 2008, one year after Pilar disappeared, Alejandro borrowed money for art supplies and began creating paintings of local life and landscapes. When he had more than a dozen paintings that he thought were good, he took them to the markets in the tourist towns to the north, just as he had described to Pilar. Many tourists liked them immediately and bought them as souvenirs of their time in Mexico. Soon he was selling as many as he could create. After a year, during which his customers from the United States told friends how much they enjoyed his paintings, a prominent gallery owner in San Miguel de Allende went to see his work, realized his talent, and offered to carry his art.
By 2010, he was making enough money to rent a small studio in San Miguel, where he began painting portraits. His portraits of beautiful Concepción, in particular, were quite popular with tourists. Eventually, North American and wealthy Mexican families commissioned him to paint portraits of their children. His clients appreciated his handsome face and gentle demeanor, and they referred their friends to him. By December 2010, he was making a more than sufficient living for himself and his daughter, who continued to stay under the daily care of her grandparents. Concepción loved it when Yolanda would tell her stories about her mother, whom she didn’t remember. When she asked why her mother wasn’t there, Yolanda told her she’d had to go away for a while, even though she hadn’t wanted to, but they hoped she would be able to come home one day.
“My apologies for being late for Diego’s going-away party,” Alejandro said to Yolanda, who had entered the room and was drying her hands on her apron.
“Don’t worry, Alejandro,” José told him, watching his granddaughter play from his favorite chair. “Diego isn’t here yet. But I’m glad you are. Maybe now YoYo can drive you crazy with her preparations for the big party instead of me.” He smiled at Yolanda, letting her know he was just teasing. Carlos was doing a good job running the store, and José preferred being part of the happy turmoil in the house.
“Something smells wonderful,” Alejandro said. “What are you making?”
“All of Diego’s favorite dishes, of course,” Yolanda said proudly. “Once he gets to Houston, he will eat nothing but hamburgers and pizza. They say Americans have terrible eating habits—no one cooks anymore. I want my son to remember the good Mexican food he ate growing up. Maybe then he will come home often.”
They heard a car door close. José went to the window. “It’s our son,” he said proudly.
Diego had become a son of whom his parents could be proud. He had achieved celebrity status in Mexico as a fútbol star in only two years’ time. Next season he was going to play for a Major League Soccer team in the United States.
When Diego entered the house, Carlos and José each warmly hugged him. He had not been home after he’d moved to Mexico City. He’d avoided San José because everyone knew his part in Pilar’s disappearance, and he felt ashamed. As Diego had become highly successful on the fútbol pitch, however, friends and neighbors seemed to have forgotten his part in Pilar’s disappearance—although he never did. Señor Marco, their next-door neighbor, no longer sighed when he spoke Diego’s name. Now he was quick to tell strangers that he had known Diego all of his life and never doubted the boy was destined for greatness.
After eating a wonderful dinner, José, Yolanda, Alejandro, and Diego moved to the living room. Carlos took Concepción to her room, where he would read to her and put her to bed.
“I have something to tell you,” Diego said. “Alejandro, I promised you that I would not stop searching until I found Pilar and brought her back to you.”
“I remember,” Alejandro replied, sipping lemonade. He had stopped drinking alcohol after the family intervention.
“That is the main reason I moved to Mexico City. It was always my dream to play fútbol with a professional club. But I also wanted to be where I was more likely to be able to find out what happened to Pilar,” Diego said. “I believe she answered that ad in the Mexico City newspaper for a secretarial job because it paid more money than she was making here. The ad was a fraud, aimed at luring girls to a phony employment agency. Someone kidnapped the girls, and a cartel smuggled them to the United States. Most likely, they took her, at least initially, to Houston. It is the largest hub for sex slavery in the United States.”
Yolanda gave José a sorrowful look, and he put his arm around his wife.
Diego looked at Alejandro to gauge his reaction. Alejandro’s hands were shaking, but his face showed no expression.
Diego continued, “At the end of this season, I received several offers from US clubs to play in their city. I accepted the offer from the Storm, the Houston fútbol club, even though they are a relatively new club, in order to continue my search. I believe if she was taken to the US, she would have at least passed through Houston. I have not given up on finding Pilar. Most girls would have fallen apart by now. But Pilar is strong, and I believe with all my heart that she has survived, and I will find her. It is my fault she got into this situation. I won’t give up.”
Yolanda hung on Diego’s every word. When her son finished, she stifled a tear and asked, “Do you really believe that, Diego? I pray to the Virgin every day that she will come home and see her daughter, even though I know others think I am a deluded old woman.” She looked at her husband.
“Now, YoYo,” José said, “I want to see Pilar again just as much as you do. I love my daughter. But it has been three years, after all, and I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
To Diego’s surprise, he saw his father wipe a tear that had fallen on his cheek. Diego had never seen his strong father cry before. He wasn’t sure what to do.
Just then Carlos entered the room, relieving the tension. He walked to the sofa and sat down beside his father. They had grown close since Diego left and Carlos started taking over the operation of the store. “Diego,” Carlos said, “I know you have never given up on finding our sister. I have faith in you. If anyone can find her, it is you.”
Then Alejandro spoke. “Diego, I have gone over every possible thing that could have happened to Pilar since that day. I know people say I am living in denial and should accept that Pilar is dead and find another woman for my daughter’s sake. I feel in my heart, though, that she is alive.”
Alejandro stood up and walked to the window. He looked at the rising moon, which was full that night. “It would be like Pilar to try to solve our financial problems by herself,” he continued. “I know you think you are to blame for her kidnapping. But I blame myself. I was not a reliable husband. I was selfish. I drank and argued with her about stupid things. I should have gotten off the couch and found a way to take care of my family. Pilar was always stronger than me.”
Yolanda had tears in her eyes, and she got up to fetch a box of tissues from a table across the room. “We all carry some guilt, Diego,” she said. “Just before she left, I told Pilar about all the people who were leaving San José to look for better-paying jobs in Monterrey and Mexico City. So I am also to blame for my careless gossip. When the Jiménez Factory closed down in 2007 and all the other factories and craftsmen started laying off people, things were desperate in San José. People make mistakes when they are under pressure. Only God knows why this happened, but I believe he always knows best, and this is all part of his plan.”
“If God planned for evil people to kidnap Pilar, maybe he’s to blame, Mama,” Diego scoffed.
“Diego!” Yolanda scolded. “Don’t blaspheme God. I brought you up better than that.”
José shook his head at Diego as if to say, “Please don’t provoke your mother.”
Alejandro spoke up: “Diego, I appreciate you continuing to try to find Pilar. I can’t do it myself, although there is nothing I would rather do. But I have to give Concepción a stable home and travel back and forth to San Miguel and Guanajuato to make a living.”
“We all understand that,” Diego said. He looked directly at his brother-in-law.
“I’ve wondered about how each of you will feel toward Pilar when I do find her. She may have been forced to do things some husbands would find unacceptable, Alejandro.” Then he looked at his mother. “She may have been forced into a life that would be sinful in the eyes of your God.”
“He is your God too, Diego. I wish you would remember that,” Yolanda said, crossing herself.
“I don’t care where she has been or what she has done; I love her and I want her back,” Alejandro said. “I have never loved anyone else and never will. When you find her, please tell her that.”
José rose and pulled Diego aside. He whispered so no one else could hear: “We all love Pilar and want her back, Diego. If you find that’s not possible, at least we want to know what happened to her so Alejandro can go on with his life.”
“I understand, Papa,” Diego said. “But maybe I will have better luck finding her after I move to Houston.”
CHAPTER 11
VICTOR
When John Chavez signed in to the desktop computer in his light-filled office on the twenty-fifth floor of One Shell Plaza in Houston, Texas, one morning in February 2011, he opened his inbox. The subject line of the first email contained a question:
RE: ARE YOU RELATED TO VICTOR CHAVEZ, WHO CAME FROM SAN JOSÉ, MEXICO?
The question took John Chavez by surprise. It was the only line in the email, sent to his work account. He didn’t know what to make of it.
The short answer was yes. John’s father was named Victor Chavez. He had passed away two years earlier from lung cancer. He’d never stopped smoking cigars, no matter how much John and his sister, Mary, had begged him to quit. John knew his father had come from Mexico in the 1960s, when he was a teenager. The border between Mexico and the US was pretty much open then, and he did not have papers, but he eventually became a US citizen during the Reagan amnesty program. Their mother, Angela, had had grandparents born in Mexico, but she’d been born in San Antonio, where her father had been a successful contractor. Neither Victor nor Angela had maintained ties with their Mexican heritage, preferring to assimilate in search of the American Dream.
Victor became highly successful in his adopted city and country. He had an entrepreneurial nature and a strong work ethic. Angela was a congenial, ambitious, intelligent woman. She had been well educated in all-girls private schools before she moved to Houston, and she was bilingual. During the 1970s, he and Angela opened a fresh fruit and produce stand in the Houston Heights, where many immigrants from Mexico lived. Over time, the produce stand became a boutique grocery store. One store grew into two and then three. By the time John was in middle school, the Chavez family also owned a dozen high-end specialty grocery stores in the best neighborhoods of southwest and west Houston. They moved to the upscale Tanglewood subdivision, where they lived in a comfortable ranch house on a large tree-shaded lot. English was the only language spoken in their home.
Victor and Angela enrolled John and then Mary, who was five years younger, in the Forest School, an elite private prep school. John and Mary led busy lives, full of sports, summer camps in the Texas hill country, and social events. They were never interested enough to ask their father about his heritage.
