Seven miles into the ride today, I saw her.
She began as just a small speck in the corner of my eye, far ahead in the distance. I wondered at the blot on the horizon, in the midst of a landscape that looks so often the same. My curiosity rose as I approached, still more than a mile off, and I saw the form of human person. It looked at though she was engaged in some great struggle, and I pedalled faster to reach her. A scream echoed through the air, and I feared for her safety. As I came closer, I saw that she held in one hand a basket full of tomatoes. One by one, she took them out, screamed to the heavens, and tossed them forcefully at the ground. No one appeared to be around her, so I slowed down to watch.
Her back was turned to me, and I could tell little more than that she was a short woman with dark brown hair. Her faded blue skirt went down to her ankles, and she wore just a thin jacket on this cold winter morning. The basket in her hand was about half full of bright red tomatoes, which looked uncharacteristically ripe for a winter in central Texas. In fact, everything about her seemed to be out of place, as if she didn’t quite belong here.
She screamed once more as I came up beside her, and my tire nearly became the unintended victim of a flying tomato. She suddenly turned and saw me, and we both stopped as if terrified of one another. She looked me over quickly, trying to determine if I was friend or foe. I looked back, trying to smile, but afraid to become the victim of a fruit-based assault. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears evidently having recently passed by. After a few moments, she seemed to decide I was not a threat, and turned away from me once more.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying my best to sound friendly. She stayed quiet, taking steps away that appeared quite determined. “Are you okay?” I asked again, louder, hoping I had just been too quiet the first time.
Now, she turned to me with renewed tears in her eyes. She asked me something in another language I could not at first identify. “Que?” I asked back, hoping it was Spanish. She repeated herself, and this time I understood only the word “Italiano.”
I turn back in my mind to all the Italian my best friend in high school had taught me. Deciding that “ciao” was probably not an acceptable way to continue the conversation, I struggled with a few other words. “Par-lo po-co Spag-no-lo...” I said slowly and painfully, sensing my failure immediately. At least one of those words is not Italian, I thought to myself, and they’re probably not all words...
She turned away again, presumably upset at being unable to communicate. I jumped off the bike and began to walk beside her. I’m not sure what compelled me to do so, but somehow, I felt obligated to do it. As if I had to rescue her in some way. As if I had the power to rescue.
We walked beside one another in silence for a little ways, and then she turned down a side road, away from my path towards home. I turned between the two options, trying to decide whether or not I ought to follow this hurting woman or continue on my journey. There are only so many hours in the day, I thought. But, then again, there are so many.
I followed the young woman down this new path. I glanced at her from time to time, at a face in pain and in need of comfort. Hers was a face that, if it had not been sad, would have been beautiful. She had soft dimples lightly pecked on her cheeks that could provide the frame for a warm smile. Her jaw was firm, almost masculine, but soft enough to move back and forth with her occasional sobs. She was a stubborn woman, but that it augmented rather than detracted her beauty.
At some point, she seemed to grow tired. She sat down on the dirt, and looked up at me, expectantly. She gestured to the ground near her, and I took my appointed place. I laid down my bike and backpack, leaving Rosie in her case among my things. The woman did not seem interested in anything about me, or really anything at all. Her face had gone stoic, yet angry, with her large jaw set in a look of utter betrayal.
Her hurt was obvious. She sat on the ground, and threw tomatoes as hard as she could against the ground near her. I was on more than one occasion splashed by the red remnants of a fruit carcass, and more than the sweat or dust on my brow, it made me feel... dirty.
I noticed on the woman’s arms a number of bruises. You couldn’t see them until she raised up her hand to smash down a tomato, but once you saw them, you really couldn’t unsee them. One was a deep purple with a thin mark, all along the bottom of her wrist, like a pair of handcuffs pressed down too tightly. On her inner calf was a lash mark, from a belt, I hoped. I shudder now to imagine what else it might have been.
I glanced at them a few too many times, and she readjusted her clothing to cover up her wounds. She looked at me for a moment as if I was the one who had done these to her, and I was taken aback. I put my hands up, and whispered “Lo siento, lo siento,” time and time again. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but in some incommunicable way, I had.
My apology seemed to be accepted, and she went back to sitting in silence beside me. As we sat there, my mind raced as to how I could go about fixing whatever the problem was. The cops have to see this. It’ll be a big scandal when some American is found out to be beating his immigrant girlfriend. But maybe she’ll get deported... Well, then, we have to fight against that injustice as well. But the system is so powerful, do you really want to get involved in that fight? Well, then, maybe I should just marry her so that she can stay in the States. That’s what Christian love would require, right? Should I give up my happiness and enter a loveless, sexless, childless marriage in order to bring about her good? Maybe that’s what is meant to be. This whole wild adventure, all this pain, has just been to meet this woman in the desert so that we can get married, and maybe fall in love, and everything will work out.
But what obligation do I have to this hurting woman? And why am I trying so hard to fix it?
Wait, what did I just say to myself? Marry this woman?
I shook my head to try and figure out how I had lost my mind, and how I might get it back. I looked over at her, and the tears in her eyes had ceased. For some reason, in sitting there, she found a reason to stop crying. She grabbed a tomato, and handed it to me. I took it in my hand, trying to figure out what she intended. She lurched her arm, as if to throw it on the pavement. Her face was very serious, demanding compliance as necessary. I looked at her, smirked, and opened my mouth wide. I bit off a huge chunk of the tomato.
Her face went from one of seriousness to a look of amazed amusement. She covered her mouth, and let out a small laugh. The juice of the fruit ran down my face a little, as I pretended to greatly enjoy the taste. I rubbed my belly and exclaimed, “Yummmm,” encouraged by her smile. There was a new life that spread over her face in that moment. It was not as if my little joke had somehow healed her. Nor did it really cover her present sadness. But there was a new twinkle in her eye as she smiled at me, even through her brokenness. Perhaps she had realized there was light at the end of the tunnel, beyond angrily smashing tomatoes.
We sat together after that, largely in silence. But the tears no longer streamed down her face. I spent the time trying to figure out how to effectively love her in the short time we would have as friends together. We watched as the sun moved overhead, and when it was just a few hours from setting, she began to get up. I arose quickly, and helped her stand. She handed me the basket of tomatoes and smiled. She took one, bit into it, and munched it with a sort of contentedness that I often seem to miss. I chuckled back at her, genuinely enjoying the turn of play.
We walked down the path a little ways longer, before I decided that I really ought to get back to the road. I didn’t know how to say that it was time for me to go, so I simply stopped. The young woman turned back and looked at me, seeming to understand how far from the road I was. I handed the basket of tomatoes back to her, and she looked at them, and then at me. She opened her arms wide, and embraced me in a warm hug. We held one another for a bit too long, and when we separated, she lightly kissed my cheek. She looked sad as I turned around, but it wasn’t the sadness of betrayal and hurt. This was now a sadness of a lost friend.
I do not know now if I really helped that unnamed woman. But I do hope that in my silence, I loved her. And I hope that in that love, she found God’s healing.
The only words that she said to me and that I understood was when I got on my bike and began to ride off. She shouted out to me, “Ciao, Angelo.” That sound rang in my ears for hours, and inspired me to ride far past my three remaining miles. I stopped when I had gone another seven, as if there, I knew my journey was complete.
Day 4: Nineteen hundred and forty-nine miles to home. But maybe only a few more to me.
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