Open Pit Read online

  OPEN

  PIT

  A NOVEL

  MARGUERITE PIGEON

  NEWEST PRESS

  COPYRIGHT © Marguerite Pigeon 2013

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Pigeon, Marguerite

  Open pit / Marguerite Pigeon.

  Also issued in electronic format. ISBN 978-1-927063-32-3

  I. Title.

  PS8631.I4769O64 2013 C813’.6 C2012-906588-9

  Editor for the Board: Douglas Barbour

  Cover and interior design: Natalie Olsen, Kisscut Design

  Cover image: coal mining facility © Jan Hyrman / Shutterstock.com

  Author photo: Edward Pond

  NeWest Press acknowledges the financial support of the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund and the Edmonton Arts Council for our publishing program. We further acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $ 24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

  #201, 8540-109 Street

  Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1E6

  780.432.9427

  www.newestpress.com

  No bison were harmed in the making of this book.

  printed and bound in Canada 1 2 3 4 5 14 13

  For Mirna Perla, Carlos Amador, Berta Caceres

  and the groups they serve in El Salvador and Honduras

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Los Pampanos and the Mil Sueños mine, while based on real places, are fictional.

  CONTENTS

  2005

  SUNDAY APRIL 3

  MONDAY APRIL 4

  TUESDAY APRIL 5

  WEDNESDAY APRIL 6

  THURSDAY APRIL 7

  FRIDAY APRIL 8

  SATURDAY APRIL 9

  SUNDAY APRIL 10

  MONDAY APRIL 11

  TUESDAY APRIL 12

  WEDNESDAY APRIL 13

  THURSDAY APRIL 14

  2008

  JUNE 14

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  2005

  SUNDAY

  APRIL 3

  11:50 AM. Hwy 18, Morazán province, El Salvador

  The bus passes yet another struggling 4×4. On the truck’s open flatbed a half dozen passengers bump knees and press hats and scarves to their heads against the wind. One man briefly lifts his frayed Stetson and smiles, no front teeth. Danielle forces herself to smile back. Ahead of her, Antoine waves and grabs a shot with his phone as the man falls from view. The hard green school bus seat squeaks as he turns to show her.

  “They used to call them ‘peek-ups,’ ” Danielle says, remembering, but she doesn’t like what’s happening here. The bus driver, Ramón, is going way too fast, overtaking peek-ups, sedans, motorcycles — everything chugging upwards on the narrow highway. The others seem oblivious, enjoying the foreignness, but Danielle can’t concentrate on her schedule for intrusive fantasies of crawling from the wreckage of the bus to check for their pulses. She’s had it with Ramón’s music too, going BOOM da-da-dah. Sí, ma-mi, sí! BOOM da-da-da-da-dah.

  “Reggaeton,” Tina said earlier, the end of the word sucked out the open upper half of her window with a few stray hairs from her tidy ponytail. “It’s like Latin American hip hop. Pretty raunchy.” Tina rightly assumed Danielle hadn’t identified the style. Tina has all kinds of pop culture references at her fingertips. She drops them like crumbs, letting you know where she’s been and you have not. She also looks like a yoga instructor, which is fine, because she is one. But her stretch-fit top is a distraction. After she sat down at breakfast no one in the group heard a word of Danielle’s review of drinking water safety.

  Danielle looks back at her page. Six days’ worth of meetings, tours, talks and sleeping in hammocks. Six days between her and getting what she needs. She checks her watch. At least Ramón is making up time. They left San Salvador late thanks to Martin, the chubby-faced stock analyst two rows up. Danielle has no idea why he’s on this delegation, never mind what could’ve taken him so long to get ready. Let it not have been prayers. Neela did mention that he’s a serious Christian.

  Now Ramón gestures to Danielle to come forward. She hesitates. The road, straight and smooth all the way from the capital city, is winding and bumpy as they head north into the foothills. She would prefer not to fall on her ass on her first day. But Ramón cranks his arm more insistently and Danielle cautiously gets up, putting a hand on Antoine’s seat back.

  “We close?” he asks.

  “Very.”

  “Then what he want?” says Pierre, seated directly across from Antoine. The francophones joined the delegation together while travelling in Nicaragua. Grew up neighbours in Quebec City. Best friends for life. So said Neela. Danielle has a hard time seeing it. Antoine is sweet, Pierre imperious. He could pass for a cult leader in training this morning, all intensity, curly hair and bony bod. A tan abdomen and the nub of an outie show where his t-shirt has drawn up above his drawstring pants.

  “I’m going up to find out,” says Danielle, a bit terse.

  Arriving alongside Ramón she is disconcerted to see that he is sweating profusely, looking wound up. “We’ll stop soon,” he says, nodding at the shoulder of the highway. The familiar sound of his quick singsong Spanish pulls Danielle back through time.

  “I don’t know. . . . We’re already late.”

  Ramón’s hands curl more tightly around the steering wheel, his knuckles blanching. “This is special. A stand for cane juice.”

  “I’m sure we can get something similar at the market in Los Pampanos. Our host is —”

  “You can’t get this,” Ramón interrupts, freeing a hand and flapping it at her, shooing.

  Danielle wants to object, but she won’t be that foreigner. The one who assumes everyone in the developing world has an agenda, steering you to their cousin’s restaurant. Not in front of these kids. She hears the voice of her friend Neela, who organized the delegation. “Whatever happens afterwards, enjoy the first week. Relax. Be open. Learn something about yourself.” This was her final pep talk as she dropped Danielle at Departures yesterday morning with a folderful of papers, flight information for the others, directions to their hostel and the neatly typed schedule. Everything Danielle needed to take over. Except Neela’s confidence.

  “Alright,” says Danielle to Ramón. “As long as it’s quick.”

  Without waiting for her to sit down, he speeds up even more, cruising past a truck stacked high with water bottles, then a tragic, stuttering moped coughing blue exhaust. The music goes on, BOOM dah-dah. O Mami! BOOM BOOM BOOM.

  Teetering back towards the others, Danielle hollers over it. “Ramón says we can get fresh cane sugar juice up ahead, a local delicacy. Stretch our legs a bit.”

  Everyone but Pierre nods.

  “My doctor of Chinese medicine says it’s awesome for digestion,” says Tina, searching the highway for such a wondrous place.

  A few minutes later Ramón pulls into a semicircular dirt driveway and parks behind a rickety wooden structure encrusted along its bottom half with dried mud.

  “Is that it?” Tina asks.

  Martin has his wallet out. “How much do they charge?”

  “Eets closed,” Pierre says to him, his accent thickening with irritation. He rolls his eyes towards Danielle like s
he should have known.

  She’s about to tell him to back off, there’s been some mistake, but she’s distracted by Ramón. He pulls the keys from the ignition, but instead of turning to offer an explanation, he levers the creaky folding door open and gets out. The group is silent as he disappears without looking back. Danielle thinks of an actor leaving a stage. Something about it makes her rise in her seat. She tries to hide her concern, to look like she can manage. Nothing’s wrong here.

  But stepping outside, she isn’t so sure. Ramón is gone.

  11:57 AM. Los Pampanos, Morazán

  A thin honk. Pedro is early, as usual, and Marta Ramos hurries to gather her things. She shuts the office door, testing the lock with a few hard tugs. Ever since the mine’s goons forced their way in last year she wishes the Committee could afford an alarm. No one was charged, of course. But Marta has no doubt. If she weren’t so loca about backing up data, the water sampling numbers would have vanished with her laptop.

  She stands on the threshold until Pedro has thoroughly checked the area, then steps into the car. Pedro closes her door. “They haven’t called,” she says, perplexed, as he takes the wheel and backs them out. “Neela was very clear that they would call. I better see if I can reach the one in charge — Neela’s friend from Toronto. Is it possible I met her once?” Pedro is not a talker, and Marta long ago stopped waiting for answers from him. “Red hair,” she adds, fumbling for her cell, noticing that she’s missed two callers. “Díos mío!” she says, reviewing her messages. “Members. . . trying to get out of tomorrow’s meeting.” She snaps the phone shut. “Do they think El Pico will be magically spared while they’re out dancing?”

  Pedro shakes his head in shared dismay at the weak links in the fight against the Mil Sueños gold mine. He keeps a steady speed as they cruise along the main highway that cuts through Los Pampanos, past Clic-Clic, the Internet café and ice cream joint, then the steep driveway leading to the crumbling community radio station, after which comes the cinderblock former office of decommissioned guerrillas, now meeting place for AA, NA, Alateen. Opposite that is the giant new evangelical church where, if the windows were open, Marta can guarantee she would hear determinedly cheery singing. Finally, the market comes into view. It’s silly, really. The whole distance would take fifteen minutes on foot. But Pedro doesn’t like her to walk, and anyway, Marta prefers air conditioning. They park and head to the main doors, where Marta speed dials one of her delinquent committee members. “We can’t give up now,” she tells him, though she’s said this too many times, to too many supporters.

  “Licenciada Ramos!” shouts a man near the market doors, smiling broadly. “Adios! Adios!”

  Marta waves, acknowledging the salutation even as she continues her call. One last stab at convincing the member to show up to the meeting. “It will be short — just one hour.”

  Pedro taps his watch face and gives her a look.

  “I know,” she mouths. She hangs up to dial Neela’s replacement — Daniela something — but someone else has just stepped out of the market: a former nurse and mother of four, now unemployed and sick, who lives downriver from the mine. Marta has been meaning to get a statement from her for months. She hustles over and hugs the woman, asking after her family. Then, as she does every time she comes to her home town, Marta completely loses track of time.

  12:05 PM. Roadside stop, Hwy 18

  “Ramón?”

  Danielle waits for an answer. Long enough to become conscious of the specific feel of the air, remembering it with sudden clarity, its fragrance and weight, the way it once made her feel enclosed, like she was trapped in a zoo. “Ramón!”

  She rounds the bus to face the homemade-looking juice stand. “Ramón!” she yells, feeling stupid.

  “Go check the front,” says Martin.

  Danielle turns to see him pointing out a window of the bus towards the highway beyond the wooden structure. The other three delegates are looking out with the same concerned expression he wears. Danielle inspects the stand. Several boards are missing from the back wall. The inside is in deep shadow. “It looks abandoned,” she calls back. Still, to be thorough, she starts walking towards the far side.

  A loud crash to her right makes her glance in that direction. Two men appear from the trees beyond where the bus is parked. For half a second Danielle thinks: oh, they work here. But the men, one tall, one short, are carrying weapons. Each has his head covered in dark material. Their shoulders bend forward as they eat up the distance between the trees and the bus.

  “Danielle!” someone shrieks from inside. Then Tina screams, “What going on? What’s going on?”

  The short man is within a foot of Danielle before she can form a thought. He sticks the tip of his gun to her chest. Danielle steps backwards, dumfounded, trips, ends up on her side. The man’s black ski mask juts towards her as he reaches down to grip her upper arm. Behind two small holes in the material, his eyes are steady.

  Danielle recoils. She scrambles, hands and feet forming a wall. The man is silent as he works to stay clear of her kicking boots. “No no no no,” she yells, aiming for him. But he simply releases her arm and grabs her by the hair. Danielle comes to standing in a split second, the pain leading her up like a winch. The man switches his hold, locking a forearm around her shoulders so that she faces away. Danielle looks over that big arm, down at her feet, which are still jerking. Her hiking boots appear idiotically new. The man walks her around the front of the bus, the engine tick-tick-ticking as it cools.

  Up the steps, banging loudly. Everyone on the bus screaming, Danielle joining in. “Stop this, please! Stop!”

  BOOM-da-BOOM BOOM. Dah-da-dah-dah. BOOM-da-BOOM. Ramón’s reggaeton, pounding.

  “Help!” Martin pleads. “Help!”

  “Non!” cries Antoine.

  The second, taller masked man is already aboard, yelling “Callense! Callense!” in a high-pitched tone. The one holding Danielle edges past him, repeating “Abajo!” His voice is a counter to the other’s: deep, rumbling with an emotion Danielle can’t name. “Abajo!” he says, over and over, his gun aimed at each of the delegates in turn. He doesn’t seem angry. The voice is too even. More like certain. The way a doctor tells you how to treat your disease: if you want to live, just shut up and do it.

  “Abajo!”

  But Martin is upright, doesn’t understand the Spanish. Still holding Danielle like a rag doll, the compact man rushes him. “ABAJO, PUTO !” he yells, shoving the butt of his gun into Martin’s midsection. Martin folds in half with a sharp exhalation and collapses onto the floor, his shaking hands covering the back of his head. The taller man comes and pulls him up onto one of the seats.

  Danielle screams. The man holding her backs up and forces her into a row nearer the front then joins his partner at the centre of the aisle. She hears the delegates breathing hard into their laps behind her, Tina making a squeaking sound, maybe hyperventilating.

  A strong smell pervades the space. Piss. Danielle looks back. As she does, Pierre glances up the aisle towards her, sees her see him, sees her smell it, his face turning a deep red. Danielle looks away.

  The music is shut off with a small click, and Danielle, bending, glimpses Ramón. He’s back. He starts the bus and puts it in gear, pulls onto the highway, drives ten, maybe twenty minutes. Upwards. Up and around a lot of corners, then more slowly, as Danielle watches a handful of two-storey buildings cross through the windows above her. Los Pampanos. Then trees, a near stop, a sharp right — off the highway? Yes. Danielle hears gravel being dispersed, the road getting rougher, dust coming through the windows, everyone bouncing on their seats like freight. She has time to consider the irony of something this bad happening to her here, and now. She thinks of Neela, then of Aida.

  The bus stops. “Afuera!” says the compact one, and the confusion starts up again as his tall partner starts seizing people’s arms, forcing them to stand. They’re marched off and lined up along the side, where the tall one searches their
pockets, removing Danielle’s papers, her phone, some loose change. When he gets to Ramón, he completely ignores him. Danielle swears she sees her driver smile.

  5:30 PM (EST). East End, Toronto

  Aida puts down her bag. The smell of her own childhood nearly overwhelms her. She turns on the hall light, takes off her coat and boots, makes enough room in the musty, overstuffed closet so nothing in there will touch them, loosens her scarf and goes into the kitchen. A blue sticky note curls on the stove: REAR BURNERS OUT. As if Aida is about to cook. She folds the note in half and puts it on the counter.

  Nothing has changed. Even the same arrangement of fridge magnets Aida saw last time she was in the house, several months ago. Her grandfather’s research books are still rotting on the built-in shelves under the stairs. She runs her hand along their weakening spines as she walks back down the hall, hoping she’ll feel him. Nothing. It’s been too long.

  She wanders upstairs and sits on the bed in her old room. Hard as ever. She quickly gets up and checks her phone. André said he’d check in when he left the university. She goes into the bathroom, touches up her makeup, decides she could use a manicure, then pees. She lifts a book from the bin beside the toilet. Excavating Your Authentic Self. Is that what Danielle’s doing? The book is pristine. Aida lets it drop back to where she expects it will remain, exactly that way, forever.

  Back downstairs she searches the kitchen for the plant food her mother asked her to use. Opening the cupboard she locates the bag, which contains about a tablespoon of powder. Aida slams the door and sighs. The three-bar melody of her text notification chimes. She smiles, relieved. It’s André.

  STILL THERE?

  Aida detects annoyance. TRAFFIC. BACK SOON, PROMISE.

  KEEP YOUR PROMISE AND I’LL COOK FOR YOU. AT STORE NOW. SUPERB FIDDLEHEADS.

  Aida prefers asparagus, but she loves when André makes a fuss for her. PERFECT, she replies. BUT ONE FAVOUR FIRST? Aida hates favours and feels strange texting for one, especially from André, who generally prefers to guess what she needs and offer it rather than to have her ask. But Danielle’s plants should not pay the price for her mother’s neglect. Aida asks him to buy some of the plant food, typing in the brand name.