54 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / MARCH 2020
abandoned construction site in the
middle of a cornfield, a motorist stopped
on the side of the road discovered a
woman with her pants around her an-
kles, missing an arm. Her hair had been
burned off.
Most of the women in these cases
have not been identified. No one knows
their names, where they came from, or
why they were killed. El Río de los Re-
medios has become emblematic of a
plague of unsolved murders—more
than a thousand in the past year—that
is being described as a feminicidio, or
femicide. This is happening not just in
Ecatepec but throughout the State of
Mexico, a smoggy and mountainous
region that borders Mexico City on
three sides. The causes of the epidemic
are not well understood, and its rela-
tionship to organized crime is ambigu-
ous. The government is disinclined to
acknowledge its existence.
Reyna and I hiked downstream,
walking along a path through yellow-
flowering weeds, with dandelion seeds
blowing over us. The afternoon sky was
overcast but luminous. Underfoot were
shampoo bottles, nylon backpacks,
phone cords, razor blades, paint rollers,
and discarded blister packs. The ground
was spongy and uneven where the
earth had healed over earlier deposits
of garbage. A light rain began to fall,
mercifully suppressing the fumes.
At a bend in the channel, Reyna
stopped to photograph a beach made up
entirely of trash. Reyna describes herself
as a “post-punk lesbian dominatrix.” She
doesn’t shave her armpits, and she keeps
her jet-black hair in a vamp bob that
looks like a wig. I’d met her the week
before at a feminist rally in the capital,
held to protest the government’s inac-
tion in the face of rising violence against
women. She said then that she was plan-
ning to go to the river to take photos,
and I suggested that I go with her. Our
plan was to leave well before dark, and
it was nearly five o’clock. Reyna de-
scended to a lower level of the embank-
ment to get a better shot, and came back
gagging. “I’m going back to the car,” she
said. “I can’t stand the smell.”
We hiked up the hillside, which was
strewn with busted appliances. Wait-
ing for us up top, patiently smoking,
was the man who had driven us here,a native of Ecatepec whom I’ll call
Joaquín— a friend of a friend who was
doing this favor for little more than gas
money. In his early twenties he had
been a dreadlocked pothead and a
volunteer at a turtle refuge. Now
thirty- one, he was a maintenance man
for Ecatepec’s cable- car company, Mex-
icable. He wore a mustache, a khaki
work shirt, thick plastic eyeglasses, and
a screen-printed trucker hat that com-
memorated two deceased friends. He
kept the cord of his headphones draped
over one ear at all times.
We got into his car, a battered little
four-banger, one fender of which was
painted in gold glitter. On the drive
back, Joaquín, who was something of a
joker—twice he’d made cracks about
having me kidnapped—asked Reyna if
she considered herself a “feminazi.”
“How can you compare us to Na-
zis?” she said. “Have we killed people?”
“No, just set fire to the metro,”
he replied.
“If we march peacefully, you all
just make fun of us.”
The grin on Joaquín’s face amounted
to an admission of this. Having yieldedEl Río de los Remedios © Reyna Leynez