Luca and Lydia cross the parched road hand in hand and approach the chain link fence that’s been woven through with strips of green plastic so it’s no longer transparent. Three strings of barbed wire cut through the air atop the fence, and two signs hang beneath it. The first is a cloudy, sunstruck blue, and has a painting of Jesus and Mary, so Luca expects it to be a blessing, but it says: Brother Migrant, we will watch over you and protect you from polleros, guides, and coyotes so that you may enjoy a happy stay here with our hospitality. Anyone found to be in transgression of these specifications will be handed over to the appropriate authorities. May God protect you on your journey!
The second sign is much less flowery, a list of rules written in a plain black font, so long that its only decoration, a red banner at the very bottom, sits in direct contact with the dirt below: welcome, brother and sister travelers! Luca reads some of the rules at random.
• Persons requesting admission to the casa must be migrants. From this country or other countries, or deportees from the United States.
• Drugs and alcohol are prohibited. Anyone presenting symptoms of their use will be denied entry.
• Please remember that this is a place of sanctuary. Here you may rest while God restores your strength for the journey yet ahead of you. Your stay here must, therefore, be transitory, and limited to a maximum of three nights.
Before he can finish reading the list, two men greet them from the far side of the fence. Only their heads are visible above the green plastic stripping. One is an older man with dark glasses and gray hair, and he does the talking.
‘¡Bienvenida, hermana!’ he says. He steps closer to the fence so now Luca can see his shoulders as well, between the strings of barbed wire. He’s wearing a dark blue cardigan and he smiles at them. ‘You’re in need of shelter?’
Luca nods.
‘You are migrants?’
Lydia nods, reluctantly claiming the word.
‘Here,’ the man says kindly, gesturing to his stocky younger companion to open a gate a few feet away. ‘Please come in.’
Inside the fence sits an unpainted cinder block building with open-air windows covered in sheets of black tarpaulin. It’s ugly, and its bleak shadow steals into Luca and thieves the relief right out of him.
The older man folds his hands and speaks softly. ‘Are you in any immediate danger?’
Lydia thinks before she answers. ‘No, I don’t think so. Not right now.’
‘Do you have any immediate medical needs?’
‘No, we are healthy.’
‘Gracias a Dios,’ the man says.
‘Thank God,’ Lydia agrees.
‘Are you thirsty?’ He turns to walk, indicating that they should follow.
‘Yes, a little.’
They round the corner of the ugly gray building, and suddenly the space opens around them. Luca’s lungs fill up with the rush he’d been waiting for. The chain link fence that surrounds the entire compound is opaque only at the front, so he can see now, beyond its boundaries in the back, across the bare cornfields to the town of Huehuetoca nearby, its houses clustering merrily up the hillside. Large prickly pear plants gather in clumps just outside the fence, their wide paddles cartoonishly green in the golden afternoon. The compound is much bigger than it looked from the road. There’s one white van, a small house, a chapel, a string of Porta Potties, and two gigantic warehouses.
‘Welcome to the Casa del Migrante, San Marco D’Aviano. I am Padre Rey. This is one of my helpers, Néstor.’
Néstor raises one hand in salute but doesn’t look at them. He keeps his eyes on Padre Rey’s black sandals.
‘We will get you something to drink right away, and you can freshen up for a few minutes.’
Luca tucks his thumbs nervously beneath the straps of his backpack.
‘Hermana Cecilia will get you registered after you’ve had a little rest.’
‘Thank you, Padre,’ Lydia says. ‘God bless you for your kindness.’
They step inside the first of the two warehouse buildings, and even though it’s well lit, it takes Luca’s eyes a few minutes to adjust. It’s the first time he’s been out of the stark sunshine all day. At a table, a boy and a girl, both younger than Luca, are coloring. The girl turns her head this way and that, admiring her artwork. A group of men and women sit at another table, some cleaning and sorting beans, others peeling carrots. Bright orange shreds collect in piles on the table. In the farthest corner of the large room, more men are watching fútbol. Luca and Lydia choose an empty table and sit on lime-green plastic chairs. A lady with a red coverall apron brings them two glasses of cold lemonade. It has an umber tint, but Luca gulps it gratefully anyway.
‘Dinner is at seven,’ the woman explains apologetically. ‘We can’t make any exceptions unless it’s a medical emergency.’
It’s after three o’clock in the afternoon, and they haven’t eaten since the tortillas beside the tracks early this morning. But ‘No, it’s okay, we’re fine,’ Lydia says. ‘Thank you.’
As the woman returns to the kitchen, Lydia is swamped with emotion. She swallows it with the lemonade. She examines the faces of the people at the other tables, but no one looks at her. Hermana Cecilia soon appears and brings them to her small office. She’s a tidy little woman, and her office is papered with children’s artwork. A pot on her desk holds a pink plastic flower. There are green chairs just like the ones in the big room. Hermana Cecilia’s voice is the most soothing sound Luca has ever heard, a peaceful, uninflected hum of determined protection, so that no matter what words she says, the words Luca hears are You are safe here, you are safe here, you are safe. From a shelf behind her desk, she produces a tub of crayons and a small stack of clean, white paper.
‘Would you like to stay here and draw?’ she asks Luca with her hum-voice. ‘Or sit in the big room with the other children?’
Luca’s hand shoots out and grabs Mami’s.
‘It’s okay,’ Hermana Cecilia says. ‘You can stay with your mami.’
Lydia stands to pluck the backpack from his shoulders. She encourages Luca to sit at the other desk, beside the door.
‘This way you can color,’ she says. ‘You won’t have to hold the paper on your lap.’
Luca sits, and Lydia returns to sit across from the nun, who has some paperwork and a file folder in front of her.
‘Before we begin, I want you to know that you don’t have to answer anything that makes you uncomfortable. I ask that you try, because the answers you give will help us assist more people in the future, to prepare for new patterns of arrivals. But all the information we gather here is anonymous. You needn’t give your real name unless you want to.’
Lydia nods her consent, the nun lifts the cap off her pen, and they begin.