La Llorona - Excerpt - Fiction

Literary Review, Fall, 1999 by Alcina Lubitch Domecq

This rendition of the mythic tale of La Llorona takes place in Ciudad Juarez.

She was, as everyone knows, a betrayed woman. After her husband left her without a single centavo, La Llorona and her three children tried to cross the border to the United States. She sold all her belongings in the town not far from Chetumal, the capital of Quintana Roo, where poverty reigns. A distant relative in Arizona (a nephew of her stepfather), to whom she had sent a desperate word, replied several months later saying he wasn't wealthy enough to provide her with the tickets but if she moved to el otro lado, the other side, he knew of a ninera always helpful to Mexican immigrants where she could place the kids during the day while she herself worked as a cleaning maid. He offered her the name and phone number of a coyote who could help her in the task of deceiving the U. S. border police.

The prospect of cleaning other people's dirt didn't appeal to La Llorona, but she was very hungry and so were the kids. She decided to be at the mercy of strangers by traveling to Ciudad Juarez in whichever way she could.

Along the way people were helpful, but to a certain degree. They offered an occasional tortilla con frijoles and gave them a ride on the back of a truck. The journey was extremely difficult. By the time they arrived, the second child, only three years old, had contracted diphtheria. La Llorona buried him in an unnamed pit somewhere in northeastern Nuevo Leon.

She decided not to give up, though. She contacted the coyote from a public phone, but he wanted to charge her $750. It was an astronomical amount; she didn't even have a small fraction of it. She begged him by telling the whole truth: that she had not even a roof where to stay overnight and that her children were dying of malnutrition. But the coyote hung up the phone. Many people came to him with the same litany.

On the street La Llorona's children were crying out loud. She began to ask for una lumoznita, a small charity. After a while a passer-by gave her a few pesos. He whispered to her ear that she could get a few more by selling herself once or twice that night. She sobbed in desperation.

Then she saw a feria, a town fair. An idea crossed her mind. She would use the remaining money on amusement rides for her children, and while they were on them, she would run away. The thought overwhelmed her with remorse, but she had no other alternative.

And thus, when the kids were at la rueda de la fortuna, the Ferris wheel, La Llorona escaped without looking back. She had seen some Mexican peasants being taken in the morning in the direction of the border and she followed that same road. When she reached a fence, she jumped it and moved toward a nearby river. Soon after she heard dogs barking and saw a helicopter.

A day later La Llorona was returned to Ciudad Juarez. In punishment for abandoning her children, the Almighty condemned her to wandering eternally in search of them.

Her shrieks are still heard at dawn in the city.

Translated from the Spanish by Ilan Stavans

Alcina Lubitch Domencq describes her life and career in the essay "Resume Raisonne in this issue.