Page 7 of Spiders in the Grove

The woman circles me a final time, and then stops at my left. “Follow me,” she says with the gesture of her hand; she never answers my question.

I follow her into another room with couches and chairs and tables. I count eight slave girls, younger than me, all tending to separate duties: two are cleaning; three are sitting on a lavish rug against the floor with books and tablets and pencils; one stands near a hallway, her hands folded on her pelvis, her head down, waiting to be given an order; one is sewing; and one follows us wherever we go.

“I thought these were just rumors,” I say.

“What? The girls?”

I nod. “So, Mexico really is as dangerous and…uncivilized as they say it is.”

She smiles as if she’s about to burst my little bubble.

“Oh, honey,” she begins, “you’ve been living with a blindfold over your eyes, like most of the U.S. population. Mexico and the United States are the same. In fact, the slave trade—hell, the gun and drug trade, too—is just as big in the States as it is here—bigger even. The only difference is that we aren’t as good at hiding it, I admit.” She points a finger at me. “But I can assure you, everything you see here, everything you think you know about this place, it all goes on behind closed doors and in rich men’s houses in every single state in that big piece of land you stole and came from.”

Exiting the room through a side door, the woman takes me outside onto a cobblestone patio surrounding an extravagant pool with sparkling purple and red water, lit up by colored underwater lights. She gestures at a chair, and I sit; the slave girl following us already knows what’s expected of her and she walks over to a wet bar and pours two drinks.

“I’m going to get right to it,” the woman begins; she sits elegantly with her long legs crossed, her back straight, resting against the chair. She reaches out and takes a small glass of whiskey from the girl’s hand. “I’m sick of doing this shit myself—”

“Can you at least tell me your name first?” I interrupt.

The woman pulls the glass away from her lips before taking a sip; I can tell she’s still struggling with whether she likes my defiant personality—she’s probably beaten, even killed, girls for much less. But the fact that I’m still alive is proof enough she has no intentions of killing me. She wants something. And I’m prepared to play along for as long as I have to, to make her believe she’s going to get it.

She smiles. “Cesara,” she answers, and puts her lips to the glass; her eyes follow mine with interest and intrigue.

I take the second glass of whiskey from the slave girl and do the same, making sure Cesara sees the same interest and intrigue in my eyes.

She sets her glass on a patio table.

“The man who runs this place,” she continues, and my ears perk up, and my heart pounds, “who owns it and a hundred other compounds in this state, is a cruel, heartless bastard. There’s one just like him in Arizona. White man. Pretends he hates Mexicans—and I guess he does—but like so many Americans, he’s a hypocrite. While he pushes his anti-immigrant agenda in Americas face, behind their backs he’s the one making sure the coyotes get across the border—both ways. Not just getting Mexicans into the United States, but American girls into Mexico, too. It’s a very lucrative business—the girls, the guns, the drug trade—he profits like so many others. And you wouldn’t believe how many compounds there are just like this one, or how many kingpins there are in the United States, like the one who pays me.” She switches legs, crossing the right over the left. “So, just so we’re clear, you’re in a cruel place, yes, but before you judge me, or my people based on stereotypes and devil politicians, you need to get in it your head that your people are just as bad as mine, and where you came from, just as fucking cruel.”

I nod, and take a sip. “I never thought about it that way,” I say, setting the glass down. “But, honestly, I never really thought about it at all.”

“That’s the problem with Americans—they don’t think. Not about anybody but themselves. Certainly not for themselves.”

“Not to be rude,” I say, with a little sarcasm, “but what does that have to do with—”

“I know, I know,” she cuts in. “I do that sometimes—get sidetracked. The truth is, I wanted to hit you in the mouth when you started with the Mexican rumors shit. I needed to get it off my chest; let you know you’re no better than me; your people are no better than mine are.”

She sighs. “Anyway, like I was saying, I’m tired of taking care of this place by myself. The governesses are useless—they only care about breaking the girls, and they think they own everything. They’re old, washed-up hags who like to stick their wrinkled fingers in women’s cunts. They’re sick as fuck—as sick as any of the ‘disgusting’ men, as you put it, there are here. But don’t mistake my loathing for having a heart, or anything like that”—she laughs lightly—“I was given this job because I like it. I beat those girls because they deserve it. And I kill them if I have to because that’s just how the world is, and we’re all better off dead, anyway.”

Wow…OK. Mad at the world much?

“So, by killing them, you think you’re doing them a favor,” I state unemotionally.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Then why didn’t you offer me the same courtesy?”

She smirks, and looks me over with those intrigued brown eyes again.

“Gold, remember?” she says. “You’re a fearless, cocky bitch, ready and willing to die, but only if it’s your time. And most of all, you’re not Mexican—I don’t work well with them. Mexican women are…what’s the word you used earlier?”—she pinches her mouth on one side and squints her eyes—“…uncivilized—hey, I can talk shit about my own people. But it’s true, they’re loud and reckless and I just don’t get along with them. I’d tell you to ask my sister, but I killed her.” She shrugs.

“So, you like me because I’m White?” I say. “I hate to tell you this, but White girls are no less savage.”

Cesara points at me. “True, but again, they’re just better at hiding it.”

“Maybe it’s just me,” I say, “but I’d rather be around people who don’t hide who they are, that way you know exactly what to expect.” The hidden meaning behind my comment is quite satisfying—too bad I’m the only one of us who knows it.

Cesara shrugs. “You’re probably right, but what can I say? I like what I like.”

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