Carmen Alava is Commonweal’s first person of welcome, a presence willing and helpful—on the phone, to each one who crosses our office threshold, and to those of us who work with her. At 3 A.M. New Year’s morning, she and her husband Freddy were awakened by an emergency call asking them to rush across the Hudson to Newark, where Freddy’s brother, Ivan, had been shot while driving his cab. Carmen doesn’t recall how the two of them made their way to the hospital; they drove in a daze. But when they arrived at the emergency room, the faces of family and Ivan’s fellow taxi drivers told them what they feared most: Ivan F. Alava, thirty-five and the father of four, was dead, fallecio tragicamente en la ciudad de Newark, el primero de enero, the first murder victim of 1998.
We at the office did not know Ivan. But we knew other family members, and had heard of Ivan’s efforts to create a life for his family. Two years ago he and his wife Socorro had begun to buy a house in Bloomfield, near Newark. Their children range in age from nine to six months. Six years earlier, Ivan and Socorro had made the long journey to el norte from their native Ecuador, to recreate the American Dream. They would work hard and eventually spend blood to prove again that opportunity has its rewards.
At first they lived with Carmen and her family in cramped quarters in Manhattan’s Washington Heights. In Carmen’s words, Ivan was the “charismatic one” of the three Alava brothers: outgoing, energetic, inventive, concerned for others. He was soon known on the streets for his winning way in retailing laminated articles, particularly watches that sport the face of a loved one beneath the hands of the timepiece. Soon it was on to Newark, and work among the strong Ecuadoran community there.
Coming from a family of mechanics, well-versed in the resuscitation of rundown cars, Ivan found working for a taxi company a natural. But with the job came the harsh experience that this land of the Dream is also a place of exploitation. Never one to be intimidated, Ivan often appeared at Newark’s City Hall, speaking before the taxi commission or defending some fellow immigrant’s rights. Finally, disenchanted by the hacks for whom he drove, he led his fellow drivers in a walkout, and together they formed their own cooperative livery company: a twenty-four hour service, of which Ivan was elected the first president. The rest was work, work, driving work, from 6 in the morning until 2 or 3 the following day. Socorro would tell of Ivan waking the children at 3 A.M., just to see them. She begged him to slow down. He gave up the presidency, but was still called at all hours for advice. Why had he even resigned, she wondered.
On weekends, Carmen and Freddy worked for the cooperative. Carmen’s father even took to accompanying passengers, just to make their trip more hospitable. It is that sort of service, where good conversation and stories from home make for a better time. Would that Ivan had bad such a companion accompanying him on New Year’s Eve. Two young men have been charged in the robbery-murder, one eighteen years old.
At the wake, the grief of the widow was restrained but immeasurable and searing. The funeral home, but a soccer punt from the taxi station Ivan had established, was overheated and packed. When it opened its doors, the mourners stretched for two blocks in the January cold. Inside, the family sat in an ashen line, bent beneath condolences and the onslaught of the local media, for whom they had become the first victim-family of the year. A number of churches had sent their representatives to bring solace, spiritual and material. Small envelopes were proffered to the widow. At one point she was forced to stand and pose for a photograph that would be flashed back to Ecuador, she holding a recent photograph of Ivan and the family. It was like seeing Veronica holding up the veil.
Then a young evangelical preacher arrived. He asked to speak and was accorded the privilege. All stood in the moldering hall as he read from the Gospel of John, and then sat respectfully as he declaimed on the remarkable impact of Christ’s saving act. In the face of violence, he said, it is the only answer.
I don’t know how consoling his message was to the family, but it moved me. The young man’s sincerity was exercised with unassuming conviction. Even without the benefit of priestly office, he manifested a gentle authority. Ivan had had a personal devotion to Nuestra Segora de El Cisne, the patroness of Loja, Ecuador. He was buried the next day from Saint Michael’s Church, where there is a special shrine to her. Her visage graces his laminated funeral card on one side, Ivan’s serious, now eternally young face on the other. It is the sort of card one sees hanging from the rearview mirrors in some Gypsy cabs: a prayer in plastic, made to endure and to shield from tears.
Now the new year is very old. Life continues. The widow has four small orphans to cherish but only her husband’s ashes and broken dreams to console her. What endures is the senselessness of the murder and the longing for Ivan to rouse them all at 3 A.M. For the rest of us—who never rode with Ivan—there is a yearning for the young preacher’s assurance: for an understanding of forgiveness, and some release from outrage.
