El Lobo

• Tammy Luong, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2022

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The last droplet dribbed down the mildewed tap into the sink. Its sides were stained like a smoker’s teeth. Stains like the taints of a past that had led her to this moment, this place. If only she could wash away her troubles and dry her hands clean of her past… She knew she couldn’t... Her back was hunched over the edge of the sink in the bathroom opposite to the elevator on the third level of the Santos Dumont Airport. New York was her final destination, promising the seductive prospect of starting over in a city where no-one knew her. No one would know about the deadly jaws of El Lobo which held her within its vise-like grip - the one she could not evade.

Her mother wasn’t here to comfort her from the Lobisomem.

El Lobo. The wolf in sheep’s skin. He planned her first flight from Marau, organised a driver to pick her up and gave her the wired phone that was in the pocket of her coat. His final message was: "Do not fail me”. She recalled how her mother told her stories before bed, shielding their bodies from the night chill. In the moonlit shadow, her mother rubbed their hands together and mumbled: “Minha filha, this world is cruel, bringing drought upon our crops and death upon our chickens…”. The crickets did not chirp that night, the only sounds were of the rattling of the plastic rosary beads in her mother’s spindly fingers and her raspy breathing. Her hollow eyes peered into the starless sky, sighing “I saw El Lobo today. He says he’s recruiting young girls like you. He will get you a passport and worry with all the details… One job and that’s done. You deserve to be away from here with the chance to restart. Quem não arrisca não petisca. Promise me, you’ll go.” She struggled to discern her mother’s blank face. What was my poor mother gotten into, she thought as the mysterious glint of El Lobo’s golden eyes, long protrusive nose, sallow skin and veneered teeth gleaming from his smirk, penetrated her mind.

She shivered in the cold bathroom, whether it was from the chills of the cold tiles or from the realisation of what was to come. The innards of her suitcase was sprawled open on the ground. She dared not to touch what was in the mummified packages, secreted in empty shampoo bottles. No matter how desperately she wanted to get rid of it, she couldn’t leave it. A far cry rung in her head: Quem não arrisca não petisca. She swallowed the bitter bile down her throat, bitter as the agony of her mother’s dying hope. Wordlessly, she picked up her suitcase.

She grasped her mother’s rosary beads. The plastic red rubies gleamed momentarily in the mirror, but no light could lead her out of the dark alleyway that she was caught in. She loosened her grip and let the beads fell.

Clink.Clink.Clink.