The women of the water

I am the river. I was the river. I am the river. My waters run. They flow down from the mountains. From the high Popocatépetl, from the white woman, from the sleeping woman, from the woman who mediates. The waters reach Tlaxcala, near the Zahuapan, and flow, and flow, and run through me completely. The volcanic earth accompanies me, and I fill with minerals. And then the fish and algae fill themselves and swim.

They swam in other times and flowed through me completely. The fish would come and caress me day and night.

I am the river. I was the river. I am the river. My dirty, foul-smelling waters no longer flow; they stagnate. Tlaxcala and Puebla, Tlahuapan and Huejotzingo fill me with things, they throw disgusting liquids at me. And I flood, I grow, I grow, I grow to break. And the men, with their machines and decrees, try to silence me. Their massive machines pour into me their rubble, all that they no longer want to see, and they want me to swallow it and disappear.

When my love rains, it fills me and refreshes me, and I flow a little. It gives me energy, and I push the debris aside. I leave it beneath me. It stays at my feet, where nothing grows anymore. Where fish no longer live, nor algae, nor plants, only the stones remain.

Remedios kept urging her parents to take the trash somewhere else, anywhere but the river. —Plastic never decomposes —she told them— it will remain there for thousands and thousands of years. She explained that the particles do not degrade and stay in the earth and in the bodies of fish and birds. Her grandmother also told them to take care of the river, her mother’s mother, for whom they had made a large altar in November with the things she loved most: bread, chocolate, and Coca-Cola, fragrant flowers, Gamesa cookies, mole tamales, and her copal, which, she whispered to her father’s ear in secret, she would use to cleanse other houses.

She didn’t really understand what particles were or why they stayed in animals’ bodies, but she repeated what the new teacher, Mrs. Lucía, had explained during Environment Week. With this information, perhaps her parents would finally understand her. In front of the chalkboard, the teacher waved her hands describing the great problem in which they lived: garbage islands in the ocean, turtles and dolphins trapped in industrial fishing nets, rivers channeled into pipes that explode in Azcapotzalco during the rainy season. Then they made crafts in class: a mask reusing the bags and wrappers collected from the playground bins; they rehydrated used paper from assignments to make pulp and recreate paper; they planted seeds in small pots brought by classmates: sunflower, thyme, and pumpkin. Other days they spent time looking at the large photography books the teacher brought, showing waterfalls and crystal-clear lakes. “It was like this before!”, she said. “Now look how filthy everything is.” And she pointed outside the classroom.

For months, Remedios had been asking her parents not to throw trash on the hill near the river. She didn’t say it just because her grandmother had insisted until she died, but because she knew it was that which had killed her. At the end of her life, her grandmother’s whole body ached, perhaps from those toxic particles the teacher had mentioned, which remain in the brain and flow through the blood, or because that water was no longer drinkable for anyone —not humans, not plants, not trees.

We are the river. The mother of all. Those of us who do not sleep. We flow through all mouths and all bodies. From within, we make the earth live. We make it green, abundant, we make it grow. To the earth and to the body. To the heart and the livers.

Her grandmother, with her soft, wet hands, tucked her in and covered her while whispering in her ears stories: —We are the river, Remedios, she would say. Since her grandmother’s voice was gone, it was the whisper of the river speaking to her.

—But what do we do with the trash then? —her father asked when the girl’s tears came. —It piles up here, she said, pointing at the overflowing trash bin. The man saw the child’s distress and wanted her not to cry. —Are you going to keep believing what your grandmother said? —he said. —Your grandmother believed in strange things. Who knows what she’s planted in your head! —he added, already upset, turning to look at his wife to express with his eyes that the child had turned out like the women in their family.

Remedios had spent much time under her grandmother’s care while her parents worked at the textile factory, her father on guard and her mother in the communal kitchen. It was her grandmother who welcomed her home from school, fed her, and helped with her homework. Many afternoons, when overtime was requested at work, she also bathed her and tucked her in. And it was during those nights that her grandmother taught her to braid her hair, chew mint, and clean her shoes. She would lull her to sleep singing in her ear: let yourself be rained upon, woman, as the stream lets itself fill with the paths of the hill.

After months without her grandmother, the girl had sought companionship in the new teacher at school. Something about her reminded her of her grandmother, perhaps her immaculate appearance, always clean and fresh, as if she too bathed in the temazcal with herbs. She had seen her grandmother go into the woods countless times to gather firewood and light it inside the clay igloo, then spend hours “letting herself be rained upon and purified.” "So the water woman consumes the filth". Mrs. Lucía arrived smelling of lavender oils, her clothes always ironed. There was no trace of disgust in her.

During Environment Week, the new teacher conducted activities for the students to care for the planet; each day she seemed more worried about the situation: use the car less, reduce shower time, and don’t throw trash in rivers and forests. In the village, only Doña Ofelia had a car, because her son had sent her to buy it last year with money sent from the U.S., so she could move more easily between the city and here. The truck was almost always parked, except when Doña Ofelia used it just to drive through the streets, leaving clouds of dust behind for the neighbors.

The habit of leaving the taps running with water flowing was a city thing. Here, the water didn’t flow like that. Remedios bathed using jugs of boiled water every two or three days, and sometimes in the steam bath her mother now prepared. When her grandmother was alive, she took the most delicious baths with the herbs she grew behind the house. Before putting her in, she would say many times: water woman. Inside, it smelled of roots and herbs, of flowers. Remedios refreshed herself in the strong, fresh scent, inhaling deeply, and when the heat became suffocating, she listened to her grandmother sing softly: rain, river, rain. These baths became less frequent after her grandmother was gone, and it was as if, without the rain, she filled up like a pond.

She left the house without having convinced her father and dragged the bin, which was the same size as her body, once again. Along the way, dust from the earth coated her black school shoes, which she had cleaned upon arriving home. A habit taught by her grandmother, obsessed with cleanliness, who said that the earth should stay outside the house, that everything inside had to be swept, purified.

On the way, she met Gus (as she had named him), the dog who lived near Clementina’s convenience store, and he followed her. —Gus —she said—come with me. We’re going to the river.

The dog, who slept on the streets of the village, had been scratching himself with his claws, leaving his fur even more tangled, yet he was, as always, in a good mood, and followed her happily. Perhaps the girl would give him something to eat along the way. That encouraged him. They went together, the girl in front dragging the bin, step by step, and the dog behind, taking every chance to sniff the sidewalks.

The girl spoke out loud to the dog and told him, as usual, about her grandmother, who had cared for her so much but had also been strict. She never dared ask her anything, much less contradict her. She had also seen those soft, wet hands give slaps.

She told the dog the stories her grandmother had told her since she could remember, about witches that come once a year to scare people, the opossum that brings corn, and the river mermaids. This kept the dog entertained so he wouldn’t get bored, and because he also had to beware of those women who come to frighten. —On those days don’t go out, Gus, or they might take you and never return you —she said. The dog stayed close to the girl, listening, wagging his tail as they drew closer to the river.

—A mermaid lived here. My grandmother said that a little stream passed through here where she swam. A mermaid lived here when water flowed from the mountains above. —She told the dog and paused to remember the stories. Her grandmother, who, they said, came down from the mountains to marry her grandfather, or rather, the grandfather came up to kidnap her one night up there, would speak while preparing coffee and masa for tortillas with her thick, golden hands, turning the corn dough with her calloused fingers, which no longer felt the heat of the comal.

—Now there are houses and places to work, huge textile warehouses, cement factories, and brick factories. There’s almost no land left for farming, no land for chili, corn, pumpkin, or beans. It’s all gone. My grandmother said that when she was my age, she would go with her parents up to the fields to work the land, to let the water fall, it would rain, she said, and they worked all day, from dawn until sunset. She let her whole body fall into the river. Everyone turned black from the sun, but she kept her golden color, because it had rained, she said. And her hands never dried.

The mermaids come from the mountains. There were three or four, but the city people arrived and took them with a fishing net, because in the city, the water ran out. These women, half fish, half human, shone like the sun, their hands wet. They were very beautiful, which is why they were also stolen.

The river saw them arrive and struggled to keep her pace. Little remained of her, the river’s waters. With more force, she dragged the thousands of kilos of trash she already carried. No matter how hard she tried to bear the heavy load that fell upon her, it kept increasing. Decades ago, they began dumping things into her, and she remembered feeling curious and excited when interesting things fell, like those old TVs with huge antennas and brightly colored armchairs. Then came the toxic liquids from fabric factories, fertilizers that entered the soil of the fields, bags rolling endlessly from the municipal landfill. Until the trash became massive in volume, with materials that wounded her waters: mercury and lithium batteries, killing the few fish that lived in her currents; plastic bottles floating, and no matter how much she stirred and tossed them, they remained intact on the surface; liquid waste painting her in electrifying colors.

—Sometimes I hear the songs —the girl told the dog, who was already exploring the distant trash mounds—. They tell me things. But I don’t understand it all, because they speak another language, my grandmother’s language.

On the other side of the river, one of the last trucks arrived from the city to unload the trash. It opened its rear gates and dropped into the landfill everything it had collected that day: white, green, and black bags rolling and tumbling until they fell into the river.

The river was barely visible now. It was a serpent of many colors. But it roared, moving the creature on top of her with a force that came from the center of the earth.

She continued telling the dog: All rivers came from somewhere high in the mountains, because inside the mountains is water. Sometimes they swell as if carrying life, and one day their waters burst forth like a waterfall from high above.

I will fill the cities with my waters, destroy everything in my path. I will cry and cry until it all floods. The water will rise so high that they will speak of me. They will fear my whirlpools, my storms, my water winds. I will sicken everyone with my repulsiveness, and only we will remain, the women of the water.

She heard the whispering voices, like a wind turning into song. A call every time she reached the river, and soon her body wanted to turn to liquid. At the riverbank, she felt an urgent need to pee; tears ran from her eyes and saliva from her lips; her fingers and armpits sweated. She tried not to be scared, as always, but streams fell from her legs, eyes, and nose. How could she ignore it! She would tell Mrs. Lucía next time, who had said a few days before: “Remedios, it’s all superstition. The river has no voice, no creatures live in it. Your grandmother was ignorant because she didn’t go to school, but you did, and you should be grateful for that opportunity your parents give you.”

—Come on, Gus, don’t stay there! —she shouted, scared, at the dog, who had gone to inspect the bags, curious about the smells of tortillas and chicken, rice and eggs. He managed to open one with his teeth, and a piece of an open diaper fell out. He buried his snout once and for all before running back to the girl, who walked faster now with the empty bin, leaving wet footprints in the earth behind her.

—Am I the river? You are the river. We are the river.

Photography by Josué Mondragón.