La Selva: An Immigrant Love Story

By Alban Pepa

Maria and Carlos are lovers in their beautiful village in Guatemala. In order to make a better life for their unborn child, the two make the treacherous journey to the United States. But when disaster and tragedy strikes, can they make it to their American Dream?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alban Pepa
• Release date: Mar 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869256812

Book preview

1

SOLITUDE

Maria was in her bed and watching outside the window. It was a rainy night, and a soft and slow rain kept falling without stopping. The sky was cloudy and dark. Her sight was lost watching the sky, and her mind drifted to thinking about her life. She slowly turned her head and looked at the end of the room where her daughter was sleeping in an angelic sleep. That was her life, her love, and the only valuable thing she had. She got up and walked close to her daughter, touched her face, and gave her a kiss. She was alone with her daughter in the room. She continued thinking about her life. Her life was a mixed cocktail of beautiful memories and very bad ones.

Maria was a strong indigenous woman, born in the jungle. Her memories slowly went back to Guatemala, her beautiful homeland. She remembered the village where she was born, confined by the Amazon. She always liked to say, soy una selvaja, which meant that she was a wild woman from the Amazon in Spanish. The forest of Amazon was everything to her. The forest was marvelous. It was beautiful and bountiful. She would enter the forest and amaze herself with the beauty of it. The tall, innumerable trees with their streaks and the rivers, with the colorful birds and exotic animals and sun shining all year long. It was the best playground for a native. It would rain and then the sky would become clear; so clear. All these memories were filling her head tonight.

She was born and raised in the Izabal region of Guatemala. It was a beautiful area with a lot of rivers and lakes that pierced the thick rainforest as they went through them, creating life. That was the nature that surrounded her and her village. The people were happy and warm. That would make life and the place so beautiful. She used to laugh so much. In reality it was a harsh life, and the people were poor but happy. Everyone tried to laugh so much as if trying to push away and kick out their bad daily experiences by laughing all the time at them. The air was fresh and moist, and she would play and dance in circles when she was young. She loved these old memories. That was the best part of her life, and they were sweet memories.

Her thoughts went to her father Fernando, who was an agricultural worker. He worked all day, and he would come back late at night. She wanted to wait to see him and jumped into his arms whenever he returned from his work. A kiss was always what she would get from him and then he would go on to play with her. He loved playing with her. He loved to kiss her and that made her laugh because sometimes she hated it. When she was small, she used to cry when he kissed her because his unshaven beard would touch her face and hurt her cheeks.

Her mother was an indigenous woman called Marta. She was missing Marta a lot tonight. Maria loved her mother. Her mother had been so nice and caring. They had a beautiful connection. She especially missed her mother's laugh, her tenderness and caring she did for her. That was such a long time ago.

Memories kept coming into her head and she waded through them. They had a beautiful life then, until the day she left the country, and now she was in the United States living in a rented room with her daughter Nora without help, work, or papers. She was tired and annoyed by her current life. These memories helped keep her calm and cheered her up, especially on a depressing night like this. Sometimes her depression would be so big that she would feel like she was living in a bad dream. What kept her going was hope and her daughter Nora.

Maria was very pretty, and she was aware of that. She had a beautiful, nice sexy body with gorgeous long legs. Her face was pretty, with a lot of black hair standing around her broad shoulders. Her eyes were brown, on a beautiful face whose skin was smooth and clear. She had soft lips.

She smiled thinking about her past, but everything changed after she left Guatemala. One misfortune after another. It seemed that she was condemned to get hit by tragic waves, to compensate for the good life she had had in Guatemala.

Gone were the days when she used to work with her parents in the fields. She always liked working and helping them. Sometimes she would grow tired, but she never complained. As she grew up, she started like a sunflower to become a full grown and beautiful woman. Word in the village was that Maria was very pretty. People respected her a lot: besides being pretty, she was good-mannered and gentle. A lot of boys would approach her, but she declined all of them.

In her mind she wanted to wait for the right one. She knew that she had a precious treasure and wanted to show it to the right one, the one that would hold and love her forever. She wanted to live forever with her future husband. Her dream was to have a family. A big family. She was a pretty and a good woman also. These thoughts were in her head tonight. It was silent and she felt like she needed to relax. Outside the rain kept falling and the night was dark.

The whole day she did not have time to sit down. She was free to think while sitting. Her daughter was sleeping, and her mind kept traveling back in time again.

2

CARLOS

That beautiful moment came, and she smiled. The encounter she had been waiting for finally arrived. She met Carlos one night at fiesta. She had heard that it was going to be a big celebration, and a lot of people from her village were going there. She was curious, and went by herself. She never saw him coming.

He came out of nowhere and asked her to dance. She reluctantly agreed to it in the beginning. She had never seen him before because he lived in the next village. With his black hair, broad shoulders and blue eyes and his tall walk he was so different from other boys. He was prominent in the crowd and looked quite handsome. While dancing she asked him about his name. Carlos, he replied.

What about you? he asked. What is your name? He watched her, eager to get more information about her.

Maria, she said.

Well Maria, you are very pretty, he added right away.

She felt a warm flash going through her body. Her heart was pounding fast suddenly. She wanted to say something, but she could not. It felt like she had a big burden on talking and lost her train of thought in front of his presence. He kept talking and she vaguely heard him because the music became louder.

But she started to get a clear idea in her head that this could be him, the man she had been waiting for. She liked his appearance and felt so good in his arms. Her feminine instinct fed her thoughts that maybe that moment had arrived, and she should do something and talk back to him.

But insecure about what to say, she stayed silent. She felt tense and unfocused dancing with him but also smitten and curious by him.

Suddenly, the music stopped but they kept moving as their bodies did not want to get separated and by inertia, they kept dancing while everybody else had stopped. They both realized that at the same time, she remembered. Embarrassed, they laughed lightly after.

You are wonderful, Carlos said as he let her go, smiling.

She walked back to the edge of the crowd, and he went back to stay with some guys that looked like they were his friends. She felt him watching her all the time. That made her feel so good.

The music started again, and more people started to dance again. He didn’t come back to ask her to dance. A bad feeling went through her heart. Why is this happening, she thought. Maybe I misjudged him or perhaps he is too shy to come over again or he does not like to come again.

Her confusion became desperation from not dancing and talking to him anymore. She started hating herself for not staying with him longer. She missed him already and her anxiety grew stronger. She did not want to go and ask him out. She had never had a boyfriend before, but she would not sell herself so low as to go and ask a man for a dance. But again, she wanted him, and she was suffering. This was a small village and people knew each other. Some people would comment after, and she was shy. She did not have the courage.

La fiesta began to end, and the crowd followed, dispersing. Everyone was going leisurely in different directions under the shade of a warm summer night. She did not want to leave before seeing him one more time. The desire to see him again was burning her. She looked around but he was nowhere. Suddenly, he had disappeared.

She turned her head to where he had been and watched the group of the