Tree Girl (17 page)

When Alicia and I arrived at the machichi tree, I
opened my shawl and spread the worn blanket on the ground beneath the broad-reaching branches. Angry thoughts smoldered inside of me. Leaving the camp had been so much harder than I imagined, but I kept telling myself that leaving was the right thing to do, especially since Mario had left.

I lowered myself onto the blanket. “Come lie down beside me,” I told Alicia, my voice demanding.

Alicia disobeyed my words. She walked to the tree and sat on the hard ground apart from me, looking up through the branches of the machichi tree into the gathering darkness. Already a few stars tried to peek down at us.

“Come sleep with me,” I told Alicia once again, speaking more sharply. “Tomorrow we begin a long and dangerous journey. We need to get sleep.”

Still Alicia ignored me, sitting alone and staring up.

I stood angrily to bring Alicia to my side, but then stopped myself. Tonight Alicia had isolated herself from the world with more than silence, and her distance left me feeling even more alone myself. I didn’t want to
admit that I needed companionship. Back in camp I would have been surrounded by those I knew, but I wanted more than a refugee camp for a home. I wanted more for my future than sleeping under a tarp, searching and scrounging each day for handouts. Alicia feared life, but I was not afraid to try and find us a better one.

I removed the brush from under my huipil and sat quietly behind Alicia. Gently I began stroking her long black hair. “Let’s have a talk,” I said quietly.

Alicia’s silence left plenty of space for my words.

“I know you’re scared,” I said. “But you can’t run from what’s happened by not speaking. If you don’t speak, you’ll trap all of those bad memories inside of you forever.”

Alicia looked down at her lap and started picking at her fingernails.

“You can’t hide from what I’m saying by pretending not to listen,” I added, finding it difficult to speak, as if I, too, were hiding from something. I kept brushing her long hair. “Can’t you see?” I pleaded. “If you don’t speak, you’ll never heal. Some people run with their feet when they’re scared, but if you don’t speak,
your silence will keep you running forever.” My voice trembled as I spoke. Suddenly, my own words made me feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Alicia looked back up at the branches. Slowly she stood, pulling her hair away from my stroking brush. She reached out deliberately and touched the tree. Without looking back, she stepped up on an exposed root and reached her little arms toward a branch above her head.

“Don’t climb the tree,” I said, my voice sounding sharply again. “It’s dangerous.” But even as I spoke, I was ashamed of my words. I sounded like a worried grandmother.

Alicia turned to me in the dim light of dusk, her accusing eyes asking me why she shouldn’t climb the machichi tree.

My mind struggled with unexplainable emotions as I studied her. I looked away toward the last shade of light on the horizon. I didn’t want Alicia to see the tears filling my eyes. I, too, was afraid, more afraid then I had yet admitted. I had asked Alicia not to run from her fear, but this very evening I also ran from myself.

We were both trying to escape the past.

Slowly I stood and looked back at the camp. Darkness was settling fast, and already dim flames flickered in the distance. Yes, I, too, had been running, not by refusing to speak but by occupying every waking moment and never letting my mind be still. I also ran by trying to avoid getting too close to others and by always blaming myself for what happened. But I ran the most by refusing to ever again be a Tree Girl. That was my greatest betrayal.

Hesitantly I stepped to where Alicia stood looking up at the branch. My fear almost stopped me. What I thought of doing tested my courage more than facing any soldier’s gun. I kneeled beside Alicia and pulled her to my chest and hugged her. “Do you want to be a Tree Girl?” I asked.

Alicia pushed away from me, her eyes showing her puzzlement.

“Here,” I said, lifting her in my arms. “Do you want to sit in the tree?”

She nodded.

Carefully I lifted Alicia so that she could sit on the
lowest branch. “My little Tree Girl,” I said, holding her with my arms as I remained firmly on the ground. I spoke quietly to my little sister. “When you climb a tree, it takes you closer to …” I stopped myself from finishing the sentence.

Alicia’s small hand pulled up on mine, and my breath caught in my throat. My heart beat faster. If I resisted, how could I ever again face Alicia or forgive myself? No one but I would appreciate the consequence of my simply not moving. No one else would know my betrayal.

Again Alicia pulled up on my hand. I think that simple act made all the difference. Imperceptibly at first, I reached up, my heart pounding, my body trembling as if from fever. Then I gripped the branch. Deliberately I lifted my feet off the ground and pulled myself up beside Alicia. Emotions flooded through me, and I saw with tearful clearness Mamí and Papí and everyone I had ever loved and lost. I wept for my past, the past of the ancients and that of my ancestors, and for one brief moment I glimpsed the future, a future that held hope depending on what path I chose for myself that night.

Alicia looked over at my tears with haunting, innocent eyes.

“Tree Girls,” I whispered to Alicia, “are very special. They’re not cowards. They don’t blame themselves for things they can’t control. Tree Girls know that when they climb they might fall. But they know also that climbing lets them visit the birds. They’re strong enough to face the bad in life in order to know the good. They’re strong enough to face pain so that they can also know hope. They’re willing to risk the ugliness of life in return for the beauty they find. Tree Girls find beauty when nobody else dares.”

Alicia sat quietly on the branch, listening to me.

“Yes,” I continued. “A Tree Girl is very special. But you can’t be a Tree Girl if you run from what scares you. You’re a Tree Girl only if you face the things that frighten you, and you must start by letting yourself speak.”

Alicia stared at me, as if asking with her eyes, if I was also a Tree Girl. I ignored her gaze and kept speaking. I spoke words I had never spoken before. And even as I spoke, I knew I would be returning to the San Miguel
refugee camp that night. I had survived the massacre not because I was a coward but because I was strong, and so that I could help others survive.

I once promised my parents that the education they had worked so hard to provide for me would be shared. I promised them that someday I would return and share my knowledge with other Quiché.

I needed to return to camp in order to keep that promise. Yes, before we slept that night I would return to the camp, and someday I would return to Guatemala to find the beauty that a young girl had left behind. The beauty I found would be a reflection of the beauty that already existed inside of me. Someday I would return to Guatemala and search for a special teacher named Mario. I would return to tell of the massacres, and I would return to find the songs of my people, songs left by the ancients, songs heard late at night when my soul was quiet and dared listen to the wind.

“A Tree Girl is someone who’s willing to go home,” I whispered to Alicia. “Not to someplace far away with running water and machines that keep food cold, but home to where we’re needed and loved. You and I can
be Tree Girls,” I whispered to Alicia. “There are still ways for us to help others back in camp. Always there will be ways to help our people.

“Please help me, Alicia,” I pleaded. “Antonio didn’t sacrifice his life so that you could remain silent all of yours. Manuel didn’t die so that I could leave my people and go to someplace where life is easy.”

Alicia began pulling and twisting at her long hair, the way she often did when her thoughts grew troubled. But still her silence filled the night. I knew she didn’t understand all of my words, but I think she understood when I said, “Alicia, we need to go back to María, Carmen, and Milagro, and to all the children. They’re our family now. Wherever they are, that’s where our home is. Here is where we belong.”

I sat a long time on the branch, letting my mind and my heart accept this decision. Then I drew in a deep breath. “Yes, this is where we belong,” I said, speaking to myself, to Alicia, and to the night sky that now bathed us in a warm darkness.

My little sister nodded, and then she also drew in a deep breath and looked up into the branches. “Can
we climb higher?” she asked, her scratchy voice barely loud enough to be heard.

I gasped, and all of the world stopped at the sound of my sister’s voice. Turning on the branch, I hugged Alicia hard, and in the peaceful silence that followed her words, I whispered in her ear, “Yes, we’ll climb higher. Climbing a tree takes you closer to heaven.”

R
ESCUE
J
OSH
M
C
G
UIRE
S
PARROW
H
AWK
R
ED
S
TRANDED
C
OUNTDOWN
P
ETEY
T
OUCHING
S
PIRIT
B
EAR
R
ED
M
IDNIGHT

The brutal military massacres that happened in Central America during the early 1980s are a matter of historical record. Tens of thousands of indigenous people were raped, tortured, and killed during the genocide that occurred in Guatemala alone. More than four hundred fifty villages were destroyed, their homes burned to the ground. Few children escaped to tell their stories. I had the opportunity to meet a young girl who survived the tragedy when I visited Guatemala in 2000.
Tree Girl
is based on her personal account of the Guatemalan massacres.

I thank the real Tree Girl for the chilling memories she shared with me late one night in a safe house in northern Guatemala. This book is part of my promise to her, that the rivers of tears she wept when telling me her story would not be wasted. Her identity must never be known because she still works with the resistance movement in Mexico, but her story is one that all people should hear. The real Tree Girl vowed never to climb a tree again, but I realized that climbing a tree is
a metaphor for life. We cannot live life to its fullest, breathing the clouds, without risking the climb. That is why I knew that Gabriela, the Tree Girl in my story, needed to find the strength to climb again.

The U.S. government was aware of the conflict in Guatemala and did, in fact, provide training and weapons that enabled soldiers to attack Guatemalan villages. During the congressional hearings that followed, U.S. military leaders defended the massacres as an effort to fight communism, but the fact remains that the majority of those killed had never heard of communism or raised a finger against either America or the Guatemalan military. They were indigenous people living simple lives, wanting only to be left alone. Thousands of women, children, and grandparents were forced to defend themselves with little more than machetes, sticks, and the will to protect their families and homes. That same will exists in each of us when all that we know and love is threatened. Many Americans dismissed the Guatemalan massacres as tragic without speaking out against them, and in so doing became unwitting accomplices.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, left the
United States with scars of its own. As a result, it may be easier for some to justify any action taken by America in the name of patriotism. My hope is that talking about the mistakes of our past will remind our great country that no human need fear indiscriminate killing supported and condoned by the United States ever again. This was Gabriela’s prayer, as well.