The Guardians
By Ana Castillo
Random House, 211 pages, $24.95
Strong, sexy women rule Ana Castillo’s literary cosmos by virtue of their resiliency, tart humor, sensuality, righteous indignation and spirituality. Steeped in Mexican culture, Castillo’s vital, imaginative and provocative poetry and fiction illuminate the complex and personal consequences of racism, sexism, economic injustice, the pillaging of the earth and the tragically dysfunctional symbiotic relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.
After her stunning novel-in-verse, “Watercolor Women Opaque Men” (2005), and the Chicago-based “Peel My Love Like an Onion” (1999), Castillo, in “The Guardians,” creates a mise-en-scene similar to that of “So Far From God” (1993), which is set in rural New Mexico during the Persian Gulf War. In this pared-down and suspenseful novel-in-four-voices anchored to the “unmerciful desert” that once belonged to Mexico, the second President Bush is in office, a far worse war is raging in Iraq, and tension is escalating at the border.
Regina, “a fifty-plus-year-old woman,” and her 15-year-old nephew, Gabriel, are waiting for Rafael, her brother and his father, at Regina’s small house on a mesa outside Cabuche, N.M. Even though Rafael is a seasoned border crosser — traveling under the cover of darkness to the U.S. to work, then returning to his new wife in Mexico — Regina is on edge because Gabriel’s mother was murdered along the border, her body mutilated by organ harvesters. A middle-school teacher’s aide living legally in the U.S., Regina was able to buy her home thanks to the Army benefits she received after her husband was killed in Vietnam. Now she wishes her brother would stay with her. At least she has been able to give Gabriel sanctuary. Even though he has no papers, he’s attending high school and proving to be not only exceptionally bright but also extremely pious.
After a threatening phone call from a woman demanding money for the coyote Rafael apparently had to hire for safe passage, Regina seeks help from Miguel, a history teacher. She trusts him because he identifies himself as Chicano, proudly asserting his Mexican heritage rather than using the more generic term Hispanic, and because he “wears a long ponytail and while he obliges the system with a nice shirt and tie, he always has on jeans.” It doesn’t hurt that he’s also “tall and very strong-looking.”
As for Miguel, he is quite taken with red-haired Regina and happy to have an excuse to spend time with her, however grim their mission may turn out to be. He brings her along on his regular visit to his grandfather, Milton, who is nearly blind but doesn’t miss a trick. The fearless old gent, who turns out to be quite a hero, is delighted to have a queen in his humble home. And like his courtly grandson, he is also prepared to be her loyal servant.
For all the vividness of her endearing characters and the accuracy of her descriptions, Castillo doesn’t write realistic or even naturalistic fiction, the sort of novels one loses oneself in. No, she is a storyteller, and the reader remains aware that this book is a made thing, a deliberately crafted work of art.
Not that the novel isn’t fluid and transporting, mysterious and affecting. It is. But it does call attention to itself as a performance in words, and that is part of the novel’s pleasure and strategy. And what an ear Castillo has. Each of her four narrators possesses a distinct and musical voice. Each casually intermixes Spanish and English to forge a language that embodies the duality of the borderland. Each has a different take on the crushing events that transpire, and a specific mode of expression.
Regina narrates with irreverence, self-deprecation and a sneaky, scorpionlike wit. When earnest and preoccupied Miguel isn’t ruminating over his children and his failed marriage to born-again Crucita, he’s fretting that he’ll never be able to muscle all the materials he’s collected on the dirty wars the U.S. has conducted in Latin America into a book. Eloquent and shrewd Milton reminisces about his wild times as the long-time proprietor of a cantina. And Gabriel? The straight-A student seemingly destined for a life in the church? He writes letters to saints as envoys to God, confessing his spiritual struggles and revealing his risky plans to befriend gang members in the hope they can tell him what happened to his father.
The question of Rafael’s fate casts a chilling shadow, yet for all the headline-intensity of the plot, Castillo dispenses peppery comedy, sweet romance and a stealthy sense of the miraculous. Beneath charming interludes (Regina’s perfect birthday), mystical moments (Gabriel’s transformation) and harrowing scenes (run-ins with the police, glimpses into the miserable lives of gang members, including Tiny Tears, a teen mother and killer) lies a spiritual design. Because her hasty marriage to Junior before he shipped out to Vietnam was never consummated, and because she never fell in love again, Regina (which means queen of heaven) is “a virgin widow.” She even describes herself as “a woman who has been living alone so long I may as well become beatified.” Indeed. As time goes by without any sign of her brother, she is for all intents and purposes a virgin with a son who is clearly “with God.” Milton detects Gabriel’s holiness right away, declaring, “That boy, without a doubt, has un halo.”
Furthermore, one can’t help but loosely associate the blind seer Milton with John Milton, the blind author of the epic poem “Paradise Lost,” a tale with some relevance to this besieged borderland. Add to that the fact that four archangels are present – – Raphael, Gabriel (God’s messenger), Michael (Miguel, as Regina’s “guardian angel in boot-cut Wranglers”) and Uriel (an angel associated with the sun and the arts who takes female form here as Regina’s zestful friend and creative spiritual adviser) – – and one can’t help but see this as more than a topical tale.
As resonant as these allusions are, however, they are not conspicuous. They do not dominate the book, but rather serve as bright threads in a boldly patterned weaving. Every element — from musings on Mexican history, to stories of family conflict, to appreciation for the bounty of the earth — adds texture and dimension to this dramatic tale of desperation, violence, empathy and sacrifice.
But Castillo’s sacred narrative architecture does presage tragedy and redemption, and it does transform the contested borderland into an archetypal desert arena for yet another battle in the endless war between good and evil. As Castillo’s characters struggle not only to survive but also to find the courage to open their hearts, we are moved to consider the borders we encounter in our daily lives, those thin lines between us and them, fear and compassion, right and wrong. Forthright and captivating, Castillo draws and crosses many lines of conscience in this dark yet affirming novel that, like the cactus, puts forth both flowers and thorns.
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Donna Seaman is an editor for Booklist, creator of the anthology “In Our Nature” and host for the radio program “Open Books” on WLUW 88.7 FM and at www.openbooksradio.org. Her author interviews are collected in “Writers on the Air.”
