A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ.

There were two strong tremors that really made Latina nervous. She was scurrying about the house, sweeping the patio, and making Lluvia hurry to clean up the leaves in the asoleadero. Keeping busy like that made her forget her fear of dying--always a living terror for her. The mother is anxious for her daughter to get home. That's why, when she hears Chocolate barking, her heart returns to her chest. A sign that Crista is almost at the corner.

Chocolate senses her a hundred meters away before she reaches the house and hurries to greet her, and to help carry the basket. Just knowing Crista got home alive is reason enough to be happy. Lluvia also goes to greet the younger daughter, glancing back at the grandmother and Juan Bautista.

Squeals of protest. The boy doesn't know how to break his grandmother's grip; she's holding him tight and has his head resting in her lap. Both are sitting in the asoleadero on the meteor-like boulders, under the branch of the nance tree. He has been subjected for more than an hour to the torture of his grandmother picking the lice out of his hair.

Crista no sooner arrives than she touches Lluvia's head. "What happened to your butterflies?"

"I set them free."

"What for? They looked so beautiful in your hair."

Latina would be able to explain it better.

The daughter asks if anything serious happened, if the children are all right, if the tremors caused any cracks in the walls. Ever since she felt maternal again, Crista's mood has been different, although some degree of anxiety still makes her feel inclined to hide her emotions in front of Juan Bautista and Latina.

"The poor little things nearly died of fright, but they're all right now," the mother reassures her.

Crista frowns as if to ask, Don't you see how sad you look?

I don't look sad; I am sad, Latina thinks.

"They don't know about fear." Latina explains to her that they'll feel safer now that there are three grown women in the house. "There's a few good things in this world."

Latina knows they always run the risk of death being so close to the volcano, but that's life. Explosions everywhere under the earth. She ponders the situation and makes an effort to put Crista more at ease: "We have to accept the fact that we can't escape God's judgment." It was implacable. Then, almost with a sigh: "Don't worry; all the volcano does is roar; the dog that barks doesn't bite." As for los seres desconocidos and the evil spirits, that was another matter even though they hadn't come around for a long time "as if they knew we'd be here to greet them with clubs." Then: "Nobody knows what can happen. Besides that damn volcano, I have other things on my mind."

They hope for a miracle: that death will stop dogging their footsteps.

"Don't go insulting the volcano, mama; we have to show it respect," Crista says. After a brief pause: "Anyway, I know evil spirits are the devil's work." After another pause, she reflects: When will these evil spirits stop hanging over us?

The mother says nothing. She too has been thinking about something, that they can defend themselves against the volcano, but not against wicked men who disguise themselves as animals. She knows this much: they're dealing with real men who no one can identify. There's no spirit water that will protect them against men of flesh and blood, men who can think. Latina always built her defenses against unreal enemies: phantoms, coyotes that can make themselves invisible, Satan, souls in purgatory. In those instances, her prayers worked; her saints had always protected her: El Salvadorcito del Mundo and the Anima Sola. But when it involved real beings, it was a different story. Latina: They don't care if we live or don't live, if we sleep next to trash dumps, if we eat or don't eat, if we suffer or die. Their life had consisted of long, hostile nights, filled with the footsteps of some strange animal and the simple hope that one day all those nights would come to an end. They weren't going to disappear. Nothing's going to happen to us. But they had to rely on their own resources; they couldn't count on getting help from some compassionate stranger. And on top of everything else, a wave of tremors had been unleashed. We have to choose how we'll die.

And from the birds and the leaves, nothing but silence.

An excerpt from A Place Called Milagro de la Paz, [C] Manlio Argueta, [C] Adelina Editores, 1996. Translation copyright [C] 2000 by Michael B. Miller. Reprinted with permission from Curbstone Press.