Across A Hundred Mountains

Adelina remembers when she first met Diana begging on the streets on Christmas Eve. Adelina convinced Diana to come with her to the shelter. Later, Adelina remembers her first date with Sebastian at a seafood restaurant, where it is revealed that she attended college at Cal State.

Juana’s mother used to keep an altar to La Virgen de Guadalupe in their home, but lately she has stopped maintaining it. One day, in mid-March, Amá says cryptically, “‘I must try to offer something more powerful than prayers or tears’” (128). Juana remembers that the town’s annual reenactment of the passion of Christ—when Jesus carried the cross to his crucifixion—is in just a few weeks. Juana only attended the reenactment once as a child, and was horrified by the flagelantes, men and women who self-flagellated to show their penitence. Amá has stopped drinking, and spends her nights making something that she won’t allow Juana to see. One day, Juana finds a paper bag filled with small metal nails and realizes her mother is participating in the flagelantes. At the reenactment, Juana wants to stop her mother, but Doña Martina insists, “‘Let her finish, Juana. Perhaps her sin will be absolved. It might be her salvation, and yours’” (133).

Juana discovers that Don Elías and his wife intend to have Miguel baptized. The day of the baptism, Juana asks Doña Martina to keep Amá busy, but Amá makes her way to the church anyway. By the time Juana arrives at the church, Amá is being arrested. Amá tried to take Miguel away from Don Elías’s wife, but when Don Elías wouldn’t let her, Amá stabbed Don Elías, murdering him. That night, her mother in jail, Juana picks up her mother’s whip and brings it down on her back, thinking, “the saints wanted her blood, too. Maybe then they would finally listen to her prayers” (140).

Two weeks later, Juana takes the train to Cuernavaca, beginning her journey to cross the border and find her father. In Cuernavaca, she transfers to a bus. On the bus, Juana sees a woman holding a baby on her lap. She also sees a father and daughter, speaking of their plans to cross the border. She overhears the father talking about how they don’t have papers. Later, Juana notices that the baby boy will not wake up. The father tells the baby’s mother not to cause a scene in case the bus driver kicks her off. When the bus reaches Mexico City, Juana wants to ask the father and daughter if she can join them, but she decides to help the mother holding her dead son find her bus instead.

Juana eventually buys her ticket to Tijuana, a three-day journey. At the first stop, in Guadalajara, Juana gets off the bus to buy food and stops to help a beggar whose coins were knocked over, causing her to miss the bus to Tijuana. Juana tries to fall asleep in the bus station while she waits for the next bus, which leaves the next morning.