Bolivia's saviours

Mateo sighed to himself as he settled into his seat. He felt like he was betraying his community by leaving but it was for the best really. The last revolution had taken his brother in law, he dreaded to think who the upcoming revolution would take. By leaving, he was avoiding that discovery and he could find a way to send money home. He was clever and resourceful, always meant for more than mining tin or growing vegetables on his family’s tiny patch of land. He could make money in Chile. Sure, it wouldn’t be money taken legally, but it would be money all the same and he could send what he didn’t need for himself back home. ‘In a way’ Mateo thought, ‘I’m doing my family a favour. They’ll be one less flesh and bone machine to feed, and soon, hopefully, they’ll have more money than they’ve ever had before’. He glanced out of the window at the hilly, monotonous countryside, boredom already beginning to freeze his insides. ‘No! Dangerous. Don’t let the boredom freeze you or you’ll die’ he told himself sternly, shivering slightly. Out of the many killers of Bolivians, it was boredom that frightened Mateo the most. He had seen it claim strong men and resourceful women for its own, turning them first into shadows of what they had been, then, into corpses.

He turned away from the window and stared around him at the microcosm of South America. He knew every single person in his carriage, every tired set of eyes, every set or slumped pair of shoulders, every, ever so slightly down turned mouth. He knew them like he knew himself, because they were all like him. Runaways trying to escape Bolivia even if only until the next revolution had come and gone. Except, there was a stranger among them. ‘Hmm, that’s odd. That man has a leather belt and a silver buckle. People around here can barely afford a leather belt never mind a nice buckle like that. He must be a foreigner. I wonder where he is from. He is a European, or at least has European ancestry, his skin is too light for anything else. Oh I hope he’s not Spanish, he’ll get his ass kicked in these parts,’ Mateo thought as he eyed the curly haired man rocking and swaying in his seat to the rhythm of the train fleeing Bolivia. “Uncle Mateo. Why are you staring at that man?” a small voice piped up. Mateo looked around alarmed. ‘It can’t be’ he panicked, not his nephew. He was supposed to stay home. ‘But it is’ he sighed to himself as he eyed the impish child. “Pedro what the hell are you doing here?” Mateo growled.

“I’m coming with you. Wherever it is your going. There’s no sense in me staying at home Uncle. I have no future there. I’m just another mouth to feed” Pedro replied stubbornly, lifting his chin in defiance. “Jesus, Mary…” a few of Mateo’s fellow passengers turned to stare at him accusingly. “Sorry. Pedro come here!”

“I’m not a dog” the whelp snapped as he shimmed and squeezed his way towards his uncle.

“No you’re another pair of feet and hands to work the land. You shouldn’t have run away. Your mother needs you.”

“No she doesn’t. I’m not old enough to be of any real use” Pedro pointed out candidly.

‘Ouch. He’s right there’. Mateo had seen his tiny nine year old nephew struggle and toil in the vegetable field and tin mines, determined to help his community but only getting in the way of the machines and big men with no patience for little boys with more stubbornness than sense. “So what do you intend to do when we reach Chile?” Mateo asked as he returned his gaze to the foreigner.

Pedro shrugged. “Whatever it is you do. Or want me to do. Hey! Can I go to school”?

“Maybe. If I don’t drop you off at the nearest orphanage” Mateo retorted. Pedro pouted.

“Meanie” he muttered sullenly. The man and boy sat in silence for a moment, Mateo determinedly avoiding Pedro’s puppy eyes. Now he was concentrating, Mateo could see that the man he had been observing was remarkably well fed and, what was that in his left hand? The man was twiddling with it, occasionally tapping it against the back of the seat in front of him. Was it an instrument? No, it was a pen. He had only seen a pen a few times. Mostly in the hands of soldiers who came to make a census of all the people living in Mateo’s village but once, in the hands of a person called a journalist.

“Alright Pedro, I’ll make you a deal” he murmured to his nephew. “If you help me, with my work. I’ll let you live with me and get you into a good school”.

“Yes!” Pedro cheered, raising a pair of stubby hands in to the air in jubilation.

“Shut up! Shut up! There may be off duty soldiers listening. Do you want to be tossed into jail?” Mateo snarled, his adenoidal voice hissing like a snake with a cold. Pedro froze, his mouth wide in a comical ‘oops’ as tears welled in his eyes. Mateo had frightened him. Good. “Get off your seat and go and ask one of the waiters for some water for both of us. But first” Mateo added, seizing hold of the collar of Pedro’s ragged shirt as he was about to take off from his chair, “do you see that man two seats away from us? The one with pale skin”?

“Yes” Pedro said, eyeballing Bolivia’s potential saviour.

“I want you to get as close to him as you can and see what kind of eyes he has. No questions, just do it.”

“Yes Uncle” Pedro replied obediently, hopping of his seat and vanishing into the crowd.

‘If the man is what I think he is. He could be Bolivia’s salvation. But how do I communicate with him? Talking to him’, he glanced around uneasily, ‘will be too risky’. If any of the newest dictator’s supporters suspected that Mateo was trying to stir up trouble…he gulped. Mateo didn’t fancy dying, but he’d rather be dead than….other far less pleasant things. “His eyes are alive”. Mateo jumped as Pedro popped up by his side like an annoying ghost. “His eyes are alive” Pedro repeated joyously as he handed Mateo his drink. “There’s a kind of fire in them.” Mateo’s breath caught in his throat. “But it’s… I don’t know, almost a nice flame. Like a fire that’s meant to keep you warm.”

‘Instead of a fire that wants to burn everything. Like the fire in the eyes of the dictator and his top dogs. The man’s eyes are alive. He’s not a soldier or someone apathetic to life like so many Bolivian’s, and they have a warm fire blazing within them. He’s safe. He’s….oh Jesus I need….’

“I got some napkins for you to write on and I stole this” Pedro told him proudly as he produced several napkins and, “a pencil. Oh well done Pedro. These are just what I need.”

‘And I think I know how I’m going to make money’ he added to himself. He might not have much experience in pick-pocketing but Pedro had talent. All he needed was to convince the boy that stealing is not, in fact, wrong when the alternative is starving to death. But first he had to write a letter to the man who could be Bolivia’s saviour.

Señor, I think you are a journalist yes? It would please me gratefully if you could publish what I am about to tell you. In Bolivia, where I come from, one in every four children do not reach their eighth birthday. Food is scarce and safety even more. Many people in Bolivia are not educated and so they are doomed to manual jobs which, if they are lucky, will not kill them for at least ten years, long enough time for them to be beaten, raped, starved and exploited by dictators. I do not believe in God Señor, but I think that if there were a hell, it would be Bolivia. Every day there is a new order. Every day there is a promise of change, of peace, of stability, of a positive future and every day that promise is broken by the very people who made them. This is wrong Señor. But I think, if you publish what I have told you, perhaps there can be change. Perhaps outsiders will pay more attention to us, as people, instead of tools to mine the tin that our country relies upon. And perhaps, perhaps finally we may have what I have heard some outsiders talk of in such reverent tones. Perhaps we will have democracy. Please publish this Señor. The people of Bolivia will be most grateful. Mateo paused, signing the napkin that he had written on was tempting. If he helped to save Bolivia, well, he’d love to take the credit. But no, even if he escaped dictatorships there were still those who would have no qualms about hunting for him and hurting him or hurting Pedro to get to him.

Huffing softly he folded the napkin up and gave it to Pedro. “Put this in the man’s pocket. Don’t let anyone see you. And Pedro….when you come back I have an offer for you. If you don’t take it you can still go to school”.

“Okay” the boy smiled before vanishing, the innocuous little napkin - the tiny, pale thing that Mateo, without even realising it, had pinned half his hopes on - clutched tightly in his right hand. “Good luck Pedro. If this works, you’ll go far. I’ll make sure of it” he murmured grimly, trying to ignore the harsh truth, that he, Mateo, was going nowhere. Oh sure, he was going away, but Bolivia’s tragic tales were already written into his heart and mind and there was no getting away from them, no getting away from the history that was bound to him like a great weight. He would just have to grin and bear it. For Pedro and the millions of other young Bolivians who’s future would perhaps, be brighter than his.

Published 7th December 2017