La Linea

(The Line)

J. Malcolm Garcia

Sister Magdalena Pasquel stands on a street corner in downtown Guatemala City. Her black hair falls to her wide shoulders. Floral and animal-shaped designs decorate her blue blouse and catch the sun as she crosses the street and walks toward row houses. The humid afternoon fogs her glasses, and every so often she makes a face to prevent them from sliding. Grime and diesel exhaust stain the pink, red and green buildings she passes. These colors may have once indicated a bright, active neighborhood, but unrelenting sunlight and neglect have paled the colors, and the diluted expressions of vendors sitting on the sidewalk without hawking their wares, just sitting silently, limply, perspiration dripping off their creased faces, while prostitutes shift and slouch restlessly against the open doors of their rooms, weary, resigned, waiting for the next trick, contributes to the neighborhood’s sense of hopelessness. Sister Magdalena notices a skinny girl, the leader of a group of young prostitutes huddled around her.

Photo by J. Malcolm Garcia
intentionally blurred

Sister Magdalena: Hello, how are you?
Skinny Girl: Hi.
Skinny Girl hurries away. The other girls speak at once: Why are you visiting us? What do you want? Are you going to preach? Why don’t you preach?
Sister Magdalena: It’s in the small gestures we preach our beliefs.

Many years ago, Sister Magdalena sat on a bus with her mother.
          When the bus stopped near midtown Guatemala City, they stepped off and walked to a bazaar. On the way, Sister Magdalena looked down a street and saw women in doorways and men clustered around them. A railroad track ran through the center of the street, and men crossed the tracks to speak with the women. Sister Magdalena’s mother saw where her daughter stared and hurried her along.
          Sister Magdalena smiles now recalling this moment. The ignorance and curiosity of a child. The discomfort of a mother shielding her daughter from the unpleasantness of life. What would her mother say now that she was working with those very women on that same street? La Linea, as it’s known, the line, or the strip, a two-block area where prostitutes rent small rooms and offer their bodies for sex.
          An online sex guide to Central America describes La Linea this way:
          La Linea is in Zona 1 of Guatemala City and runs along the railroad track north of 10a Calle between 13/14 Avenida and 15 Avenida. It’s considered as Guatemala City’s Red-light district. For a landmark, it is just across the street at the east end of the Edeficio Central de la PNC (the national civil police central building) on 10a Calle. Prices are very cheap: Q25-100. Best hours on brothels in this area are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Be careful in this area, especially when it’s dark.
          Followers of the site offer their brutal assessment:
Guest Red Light Area Guatemala:
      My friend told me the hookers in La Linea want something like 50 Guatemalan quetzals for sex. This is about $6 US. Still very cheap I think.
Goodguy1:
      I went there like in 2004 and it was so dirty that I could never fuck a whore there. It was so nasty, burning garbage, weird guys walking around, no real windows at all hooker rooms. Price was only like 5 USD but NO! It was still great experience to see the worst Red Light District in my life. I’m tired of the whores in Tijuana.
Guest john monger:
      I like dirty.
          Sister Magdalena wonders,Who are these men? No different from the men milling around the row houses now. What happened to them? Perhaps they are angry at women for inexplicable reasons. Perhaps they seek thrills, power. Perhaps they see women only as an appliance for their pleasure. She can pray for them but not speak for them. Are they like the man who recently demanded more time from a La Linea prostitute and when she refused he tried to stab her with a pair of scissors? Another client stole her cell phone. He used it to threaten and harass her and other women.
          Sister Magdalena watches Guatemalan soldiers she assumes are on leave walk past her and peer at the girls. Dogs run on the train tracks alongside them, snapping at one another over garbage. Dark clouds hold in the clamminess of the sweltering afternoon. Young men on motorcycles drive in circles on the street, even on the sidewalk. Some of them are trying to see the women having sex, others want to know who they have solicited. They ride throughout the day without stopping. Sister Magdalena doesn’t understand why they don’t leave. What can they accomplish driving endlessly back and forth, back and forth? What thoughts course through their minds?
          Everything about La Linea makes her feel lost, unbalanced.

A black, metal door open to the street reveals a dim, nine by twelve room in a pink La Linea row house. There is a cot with one white sheet. A roll of toilet paper and a box of crackers at the foot of the bed. Bare concrete floor, green walls. A light bulb hangs from the ceiling. Above a small table holding perfume bottles, a cracked mirror. The young woman leaning back from the door wears a black miniskirt and a tank top. Strands of her dark hair cling to her sweating shoulders. Her name is Andreas. She has a tough look, a look of no expectation, a life lived with no soft edges. She is thirty years old, married and has two children, ages nine and fifteen. Her unemployed husband stays at home with her mother. She has been a prostitute for eighteen months. When she started, she worked occasionally but when her husband lost his construction job, she put herself out on La Linea six days a week. On Sunday, she stays home with her family.

Sister Magdalena: Hello, how you? I haven’t seen you for a while. I hope you are OK.
Andreas: I’ve been working another place one block away.
Sister Magdalena: I’m giving you this.
She offers Andreas a card. She reads it aloud: Make your best effort and be brave. A man walks past and checks out Andreas.
Sister Magdalena: Study the phrase, apply it to your life.
Andreas: I try to be brave. When I am with my husband he’s rough. He wants to reclaim me from the men I have been with.
A man whistles.
Sister Magdalena: What other work can you do?
Andreas: I don’t know.
Sister Magdalena: Think of something. Have a dream and pursue it. We can discuss it when I see you again. Where is Margarita? I haven’t seen her for a while. How is she?
Andreas: She had a problem and is no longer working because she got into a fight with some of the other girls. She was in the purple house across the street and had had a poor month, no clients, so she had witchcraft done to bring in clients and the other girls didn’t like that and told her to leave. That’s when they fought. I had a dream about her and looked for her to tell her the dream so it would come true because it was a nice dream in which she had stopped working but I did not find her.
Sister Magdalena: Life here is difficult and you’ve been lucky nothing happened to you. You don’t know what her story is. It is nice of you to have nice dreams about her.
Andreas: Yes.
Sister Magdalena: I am not asking you to change, only you can do that. But I am here for anything you may need. If you see your friend, tell her we don’t want anything bad to happen to her.
Andreas: Yes.
Sister Magdalena: I don’t see you as a soul going to hell. I just care about you and your well-being.

          Sister Magdalena had not expected to see Andreas. Normally, she hustles for clients farther down the street. Andreas had her guard up. Perhaps she had a bad client. Perhaps business was slow. Sister Magdalena knows not to pry. She chose instead to ask Andreas about her children to show she was interested in her family, to show Andreas she had value no matter her work.
          Sister Magdalena may not see Andreas again for weeks. Disappearances happen. The girls argue with one another and leave, or, they get sick and stay with family and when they return their room has been taken over by another girl. Almost all of them have children. The children stay with grandparents or live nearby watched by a neighbor.
          She is reminded of a forty-five-year-old prostitute, Angelica. One afternoon, Angelica stood outside a row house in a gray dress, white blouse and a gray vest, and if Sister Magdalena had not known she was a prostitute, she would have assumed she worked as a secretary. She cautioned Angelica not to stay out in the sun too long but Angelica told her not to worry, she used face cream. Angelica was sad that day because she hadn’t earned much money. She hoped to attract one more customer. If not, she would go home to her children. They lived with her mother at the top of a hill. When they see her walking toward the house, they run and hug her.
          At her age, Angelica told Sister Magdalena, she did not think she could find other work. She had applied to be a cook in a fast-food restaurant but the restaurant owner had asked for her high school diploma and letters of reference. She had neither and wasn’t hired. And even if she found a job, what then? She would always face the risk that a former client would see her. Even now she worries that someone will recognize her and say something in front of her children.
          Sister Magdalena listened but said nothing. Sometimes she can think of nothing to say. She has crossed paths with prostitutes and their families. The women glance at her and turn hurriedly away. She keeps walking staring straight ahead as if she had not noticed them, respectful of their privacy, a silent prayer for them on her lips.

          A colleague, Sister Maria Enriqueta Valdes, introduced Sister Magdalena to La Linea in 2014. Sister Maria had worked with prostitutes in Mexico and El Salvador for twenty-nine years before she transferred to Guatemala in 2012. In that time, she had learned to earn their trust by not acting like a social worker. She didn’t attempt to convert them, either. Instead, she asked what they needed and offered them inspirational sayings. She knew when to talk and when to walk away. Sister Magdalena followed her example.
          That first day on La Linea, she smelled the stink of trash in the streets and the putrid, muddy pools of water mange-ridden dogs drank from and the air felt as thick as bad breath. When she met with prostitutes, the odor of perfume and the smell of chlorine the women washed their bodies with after sex overwhelmed her and made her nauseous and she tried to keep a straight face as her stomach churned. She felt bad for the women living as they did. Some of them, she saw, were indigenous Mayans like herself.
          Sister Magdalena grew up in the province of Santa Cruz Chinautla. Her family identified as Mam, one of many Mayan nations that make up rural Guatemala. The people of Santa Cruz, Chinautla, molded clay pots and farmed. It was a town almost insignificant in size. A river ran through it, and the black water carried waste from Guatemala City. Still, Sister Magdalena recalls a happy, cheerful childhood, the dirty river just part of life’s struggle.
          She was thirteen when nuns from the order of Saint Francis came to Santa Cruz Chinautla and approached her and other girls. The nuns quoted the apostle Paul: Show me your faith and I will show you my work. Sister Magdalena had never thought about becoming a nun, but she was intrigued by the sister’s belief in a spiritual world beyond the mortal one she knew. The nuns told her that as a novice she would receive an education and the opportunity to leave Santa Cruz Chinautla.
          However, when she decided to devote herself to a religious life, Sister Magdalena did not choose the order of Saint Francis. Instead she took her vows with Oblate Sisters of the Most Holy Redeemer. The order’s mission, to work with women involved in prostitution, attracted her. She knew how poor women struggled to support their families in Santa Cruz Chinautla. Oftentimes they left, and rumors abounded about what they were doing to make money. If they returned, villagers shunned them. Sister Magdalena felt sorry for them and as a small girl began her practice of saying “Hello. How are you?” to let them know she was not ashamed of them.

          Of the women Sister Magdalena meets on La Linea, the indigenous prostitutes leave the deepest, saddest impression. Some can only speak a Mayan language. One girl, Maria, no longer wears Mam clothing. Sister Magdalena pulls her aside to remind her that traditional dress means everything. The patterns on a dress, the colors, celebrate the power of earth and water, sun and sky. Clothes identify one’s Mayan nation. For Maria to replace her clothes with hot pants and skimpy blouses and platform shoes means she has abandoned her roots, her identity.
Sister Magdalena: You’ve changed. I didn’t recognize you. Your look, especially the way you dress.
Maria: Yes, it is a huge change.
Sister Magdalena: I didn’t recognize you.
Maria: Men like me this way better. I get more clients. The first day I dressed this way, I felt naked. Now I’m used to it. I pray to God to help me get through this.

          Sometimes Sister Magdalena sees women from La Linea working Sixth Avenue, a commercial district and pedestrian walkway in midtown. They are older women, fifty- something. On La Linea, they work at the end of the train tracks with other women their age. Younger prostitutes solicit at the head of the tracks. As a result, the older women complain to Sister Magdalena, they see fewer clients.
          On the avenue, however, the women do not face age discrimination. They move about wherever they like. Most often they sit on benches near bus shelters and wait for men to approach them. Sister Magdalena has suggested they consider other work but the women say that to do that would mean taking time off the street and sinking deeper into debt. Every day they need money. Their grandchildren don’t ask them what they do. They just want to eat.
          One woman, Monsita, ,a fifty-year-old prostitute, stands between an eyeglass store and a pharmacy. She leans on her left leg and thrusts her hip out as a few men glance her way. After they pass, she sighs, her face expressionless, and shifts to her right leg.
Monsita: I have four children to baptize.
Sister Magdalena: Come by and we will discuss when and where.
Monsita: They are not my kids but my grandchildren. My daughter abandoned them and I don’t know if the infant has a birth certificate.
Sister Magdalena: OK.
Monsita: A guy beat me. He pushed me down some stairs. For six weeks I couldn’t work. I still can’t move my arm. I got an X-ray. The doctor said I need physical therapy.
Sister Magdalena: Go back and get therapy or find a doctor to tell you what to do. I’m glad you’re OK. I’m glad to see you.
Monsita: A woman said I should wrap my arm in leaves, hot water and alcohol.
Sister Magdalena: See a doctor.

          Sister Magdalena leaves the avenue and returns to La Linea. Some of the women she spoke to earlier watch her. Behind each woman a complex, sad story. She cannot look at them through her own eyes. She must imagine taking off her shoes and putting on their shoes.

In this room, a soccer poster hangs on one wall. Beside it another poster shows how to use a condom. A third poster depicts a woman with her fist in the air: Sex Workers You Have Rights! Bottles of hand cream and perfume clutter a folding table. A can of Red Bull, too. Silver shoes with heels lie on their side beneath the table. The woman renting this room, twenty-seven-year-old Margarita, sits in a chair reading a newspaper.

Sister Magdalena: Hello, how are you?
Margarita: Good morning. I have no time. I have no day off. I have to make fifteen hundred quetzales [about $200 U.S.] to pay for this room. Plus, money I give my family. I pray to God to help me get through this.
Sister Magdalena: Take care and have time for yourself.
Margarita: Yes. Someday I wish I could run from here to a faraway place. But I can’t do that. I am trapped in this life.
Sister Magdalena: I can’t help you economically, but I can help you find other ways to live when you are ready to learn them. You can trust me. Who else can you trust?
Margarita: Only God.
Sister Magdalena: Yes, of course. But he works through people, friends and family. He will not come down and help you directly. He will have friends and family to help you directly. Start with me.
Margarita: I am trapped.
Sister Magdalena offers her an inspiration card similar to the one she gave Andreas.
Sister Magdalena (reading from the card): Be brave.

          Every so often, Sister Maria Enriqueta Valdes still accompanies Sister Magdalena to La Linea. More often than not, however, she works alone. She considers La Linea a sacred place. Few people see it that way, she knows. Other nuns are scared for her. They would not dare come into La Linea. A very old church and a major tourist attraction, Our Lady of the Rosary, stands not far from La Linea but the priests don’t care about the prostitutes. They choose not to see them. Sister Maria invites prostitutes to celebrate Mother’s Day and special holidays at the church. She meets them in the parish but the priests restrict her to an area separate from the rest of the parishioners. She takes small comfort in that. At least they are allowed into the church.
          Sister Maria knows several La Linea prostitutes who have been murdered. In one instance, she learned about a death on television. A news report showed a photo of the girl’s room and an inspiration card with a quotation from the Book of Matthew Sister Maria had given to her: The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you. For John the Baptist came to you showing you the right path to take, and you would not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. The killer had strangled the girl and stuffed her under a bed. Another girl found her three days later. The dead girl was very pretty. In her twenties. Short. A single mother from El Salvador or Honduras, Sister Maria doesn’t remember which. Kimberly was her street name. Her real name Sister Maria never knew. The other girls said she cried between customers.

A red and black dress thrown across a bed. The sheet rumpled. One chair. A calendar peeling off a wall patchy with yellow paint. A small swivel fan turning back and forth beside a green, leafy plant taking up one corner and gathering dust. An empty table with a thin cloth covering it. The woman in the door wears black leather hot pants, a T-shirt and a leather vest.

Sister Magdalena: Hello, how are you? I am Sister Magdalena. I’ve never seen you here.
Woman: My name is Miriam.
Sister Magdalena: Is that your real name?
Miriam: Yes. I have two children, girls. Eleven and six. Both are in school. Fifth and first grade. I live near the border with El Salvador.
Sister Magdalena: Does your family know you’re here?
Miriam: No, I told them I’m a waitress. I go home every two weeks to bring them money.
Sister Magdalena: You are brave and strong to keep going. How old are you?
Miriam: Twenty-eight. I have worked here a year and a half. You are a nun.
Sister Magdalena: Yes.
Miriam: God is good to me. I don’t deserve it. But he comes through.
Sister Magdalena: You may not think you deserve it but we all do. Make an effort.
Miriam: In what?
Sister Magdalena: Fighting for your life.
Miriam: I’m getting off the street soon. The younger girls earn more money but spend it. I save it. What they are doing is not the way to leave the street. This one girl saved to go to a concert. She spent a ridiculous amount of money for her and a boy. I told her, Listen to me. If you saved the money you spent on the concert you would not have to work for a long time. Don’t spend it on things like that.
Sister Magdalena: You have more experience. Use this wisdom and give it to others. Tell them what your experiences are.
Miriam: I do. Some are not receptive. I have a lot of bad experiences to share with other girls.
Sister Magdalena: Let’s keep in touch. I’m glad to see you doing well.

          Why this life? Sister Magdalena asks herself. Why me? She could be doing other, more uplifting work. Helping old people, for instance, or, children. She has many excuses to leave La Linea for something more inspiring.
          Why this?
          She can’t say. She knows only that starting that moment long ago when as a young girl she stared at the women on La Linea and her mother pulled her away, her life has led her back here. For reasons she will never fully understand and never question, these women have given her purpose. She can’t explain it any other way. If even an explanation were warranted. Faith is believing without reason.

Sister Magdalena
Photo by J. Malcolm Garcia

A mop in a corner, the concrete floor damp. A table strewn with perfume bottles. A bare mattress. The woman inside wears a black bra, blue jean shorts and black, high-heeled shoes. Her name is Angelica. She looks out at the street and faces Sister Magdalena. Her expression, youthful but hard, changes to curiosity.

Sister Magdalena: Hello. How are you?