“What is it?” Cayetano asked. His eyes skimmed over the headline –
VALENCIA’S NOT-SO PRIVATE PAIN:
‘I JUST WANT TO FIND MY BABY’
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“I was reading another one of these articles a few months ago. It’s about babies being stolen from hospitals by doctors and nuns and then sold.”
“That’s an ugly story. Who would do such a thing?”
“It’s scary to think the practice only stopped twenty years ago. I mean, look what happened at Paco’s birth. They tried to steal him, and his mother died in the process. These gruesome people here stole babies from the womb and denied the parents the right to raise their own children. I read about hospitals that had dead babies in the freezer. If a distraught mother wanted to see her child, they brought her a frozen baby. All the while, her still-alive child got smuggled away to new buyers.”
“Well, the people stealing babies are cruel, but the people who paid the money for a baby are just as guilty. They are the ones who gave the churches and the doctors a market to exploit.”
Luna’s eyes ran over the heart-breaking article of a woman, still searching for the son stolen from her 43 years ago. “This woman never saw her child. The nuns took the child from his mother at birth, and they said he had died. She never even got to hold him. Now, somewhere out there, some buyer is listed as the biological parents.”
“How can they do that? What about adoption records?”
“No, the law stated that the adoptive parents could be listed as the biological parents. There is no way of matching mothers to babies. There is no paper trail. No one is held accountable. Mothers have no way of tracking their babies, and there are fully grown adults of all ages out there, unaware that their parents stole them from innocent women.”
“You need to wonder why there isn’t an outcry about all this.”
“There are around 50,000 babies displaced in Valencia alone. But one estimate says 300,000 babies have been stolen in Spain. The doctors and nuns who did this, some are still alive and are free. They got to pick who was ideologically preferable to be a parent. They liked to steal one child of twins, a mother who gave birth to two wouldn’t complain so much. At least she got one ‘live’ baby. Imagine if I had gone to hospital with my boys, and they took the babies away and only brought Enzo back, and said Giacomo had died? While I would be in tears, Giacomo would be whisked away to a paying customer, and the boys would never know each other. It’s sick.”
“At least DNA tests can match people now.”
“Yes… if the now-grown babies know they need to be tested. Mothers are lining up, getting tested and waiting. This woman in the article here, she has had no matches so far. Some babies got sold to overseas buyers. It happened over a fifty-year period.”
“It makes being broke seem easy. Not knowing your family is a cruel fate indeed.”
“Sure is.” Luna closed the paper and looked up at Cayetano. “However, one person’s pain cannot undo another person’s. But we will be okay. You will be okay. And for the record, you don’t look like a bull jammed into a costume. That was just mean and unnecessary.”
“Still, I will be at the gym more often now. Every day; no excuses.”
“I have the feeling I am offside with the Morales clan for having an opinion. Why was I being kept out of the picture?”
“Male pride. Everyone is in denial about how lousy things are right now.”
“Let’s hope that I can keep these Fabrizio lies out of the news, to limit how much more they dislike me. The pressure to pop out a baby Beltrán and become popular continues to increase.”
“At least we can have a child, if we like, and not have a psychopath steal it.”
“Amen.”
10
Valencia, España ~ Agosto de 1957
“That was the best night out,” Fermín slurred as he stumbled along Calle Xativa in the fading light.
José looked at his friend as they wandered in the direction of home. The streets were full of others who had just left the bullring, all with their bloodlust satisfied for another summer evening. He could feel sweat on his skin underneath his dark green Guardia Civil uniform. “You say that every night we go out.”
“But tonight, it was grand,” Fermín said and waved the flyer in his hand. “The bullfighters they brought out were the best I’ve seen. The new kid, Paco Beltrán, he is so young but so talented.”
“That might be because all the beer you had impaired your judgment.”
“Hey, hey, we’re off duty now,” Fermín replied, and leaned against his friend. “One day, when you’re a rich landowner, you will be selling bulls to these great artists.”
“It’s nice to see you have planned my life for me.”
“Can I come?”
“Where? To the future? How much beer did you drink?”
“I mean to this mythical Morales farm of yours. Why can’t I leave my job and move to the country? We could combine our money and create a dynasty.”
“Well,” José paused and glanced over his shoulder. As they walked, the crowd had continued to thin out, and now they are almost alone on the hot streets of Valencia. “We haven’t earned any money yet. I spend my Guardia Civil income on feeding my daughter. You spend yours on beer and girls. At this rate, we will never create anything.”
“But we can. We will. It’s like López said, he knows a doctor who can help us.”
“A dirty rojo.”
“Who cares?”
“If we set up this hospital of ours, the doctors will want a cut. And who will care for the girls? You and me? We won’t have nurses, just a doctor, and where will we put all these willing patients?”
“We get ourselves a building and a bed. I have a plan.”
“You do, or does the beer have a plan?”
“Do you know the Porta Coeli monastery, outside the city?”
“The one they used as a concentration camp for all the rojos that got rounded up after the war?”
“Yes. It’s shut now. They had a hospital there. Now the place is abandoned.”
“So what? We walk into an abandoned concentration camp and ask if we can have the hospital and its equipment? That’s insane.”
“Not that insane. We say we want to set up a hospital for young mothers who need help, and we have a doctor to help us. We need a priest to funnel all these babies through to owners, and I’m sure he can tell us how to get our hands on some nuns.”
“Not literally, I hope.”
“I would have sex with a nun. Who knows what is under those habits.”
José shook his head. “Fermín, you make me sick sometimes.”
“Why is this plan so crazy? A doctor asks to set up a private clinic, in a building already purpose-built. It’s out of the city so no one will be paying any attention. The concentration camp has been doing nothing but gathering dust for a year now. All the left-wing nutters may be in prisons or dead, but we can still take their offspring and save our country from them.”
“The profits would need to be split with the church and the doctor.”
Fermín shrugged. “But there are so many profits to be had. People buy babies as if they’re candy. You and me, we get a cut to run the place, we pay the doctor to sign off on the illegal paperwork, and the priest lines up the buyers. It will work.”
“That’s mad.”
“It’s working all over Spain. I hear Malaga is selling vast amounts of children on the black market.”
“What? Did you do some research?”
“Yes, I did. Do you want to live in your one bedroom rented apartment with Consuela and Inés for the rest of your life? Or do you want to be rich, and run that farm you dream about all the time?”
José stopped on the dark street and looked his drunk friend. They could make money and save Spain from the offspring of Godless socialists who didn’t deserve babies. His wife deserved another child. Not a Franco-hating pig. “Is it wort
h it?”
“Babies are going for thousands. American dollars. Even split between us, the church, the doctor and the costs involved, we make a profit off every single child.”
“Your plan is too elaborate. There needs to be a simpler way than setting up our own hospital. Plus, won’t it be suspicious if every child born in our hospital ends up ‘dead’?”
“Some will need to survive, I suppose. We need a mix of respectable families with dirty mothers who we can manipulate.”
“Ruthless.”
“If we don’t, the church will do it anyway. Don’t think we’re the evil ones here. This happens everywhere. We are just offering another service. What are these women going to do? Say two Guardia Civil members took me to a private hospital and stole my baby? They will be locked up for such lies. No one will believe them over us.” Fermín’s drunk eyes sparkled as he spoke.
“For this to work, we need to prey on women who have no one to come to their aid. We take the baby, lie to them about the death, and make them believe it’s all their fault.”
“We find these women, take them to our location, steal the baby and then shove the girl back out onto the street, baby-free but guilt ridden.” Fermín snapped his fingers as he had an idea. “We threaten these women, tell them that if they talk about what happened, we will kill them. The countryside is littered with the bodies of dirty reds from the war, so a few more won’t hurt.”
“I don’t want to start killing women.”
“Fine. We will come up with something. We are the law, José, we can do whatever we want.”
“It sounds too complicated. Legitimate public hospitals are stealing babies. They have it easy. An underground hospital for underground babies? It’s getting too hard.”
Fermín shook his head in disagreement. “The law allows us to steal babies and fake the paperwork for the buyers of these children. The law is on our side. Franco made this practice easy for men like us. Did you get the details of the doctor that López talked about last week?”
José nodded. “I got it in case I needed a doctor for my wife or daughter.”
“Then let’s go and pay him a visit. Two Guardia Civil officers on his doorstep will scare the shit out of the dirty anarchist. He will do whatever we want.”
“Why would he help us? López says he is an anarchist who has spent time in prison for his beliefs. He won’t help us or the church in these practices.”
“López has information on the guy. The doctor may not want a bullet in the mouths of his family members. We should threaten him.”
“If we do this, Fermín, there’s no going back.”
“Go back to what? We have nothing to lose.”
~~~
Doctor Adán Lugo Gil had an office in his home on the tiny alleyway of Calle del Sagrario Compañia, where his private patients would come to see him. Hard to get drugs were no problem for Dr. Lugo. Anyone with the right amount of cash could get anything they wanted. He was exploiting the system, to pay for the care of his wife and five daughters. Black market drugs were his game, and José worried the doctor may not want any more illegal activity in his life.
The pair stood at the small wooden door of the rough apartment building, and Fermín pounded his fist on the door. José watched Fermín blink few times to get the beer out of his system. Fermín was unpredictable enough while sober, and José had seen him finger his gun under his coat at the bullfight. Anything could happen.
The door opened, and a middle-aged woman peered through the gap. “¿Qué quieres?”
“We want to see Doctor Lugo.”
“It is late,” she mumbled. Her eyes wandered, and the officers could see her worry.
“I’m afraid patients become ill at all hours, señora,” José said. “Are you the doctor’s wife?”
“Sí.”
“Then I suggest that you go and fetch him before I jam my cock into your mouth!” Fermín cried.
José shook his head in disgust. “Fermín, calm down.”
“As I have said, we are the law. I do what I want.”
“The law exists to keep everyday people safe. You sometimes sound more like a schoolyard bully who got a uniform and a gun.”
“Franco bombed my family and childhood into dust. I shall now do whatever I like with whatever Spain provides me. In this case, it’s power over regular people. Besides, she married a rojo. I’m sure she is used to having a hairy pair of cojones in her mouth.”
“How are we even friends?” José asked into the darkness around him.
“Officers,” came the low voice of Adán Lugo through the just-open door. He pulled the door open a little further, which lit up the darkness due to a small lamp in the hallway. “Can I ask why you’re harassing my wife at this late hour?”
“Look, you cock-sucking…”
“Doctor Lugo,” José interrupted his partner, “we got your details from a colleague, Teniente López.”
“Ah, sí,” the small man said. He ran his hand through his short grey hair. José could see his fingers shake with nerves. “Can I be of some assistance? Are you unwell?”
“We would like to talk you about something medical.”
“Can we come in, or do I need to pull out my gun?” Fermín asked.
The doctor gestured for them to come in, and they followed him down the dim hallway to his office. As he went in, José caught sight of the face of a young girl at the end of the hallway in another room. He smiled, but the girl darted from sight.
Doctor Lugo sat at his desk and flicked on the lamp. The windowless room lit up, and José took a look around the place. It was sparse at best; a small bed lined one wall, and next to it was a wooden cabinet with a sturdy padlock. That must have been home to the black market drugs.
“How can I help you… Officers…?”
“I’m Teniente Morales, and this is Teniente Belasco,” José said. “Teniente López was telling us all about your practices, and we would like to ask you a few questions.”
Doctor Lugo smoothed his dressing gown over his pyjamas as he thought of an answer. “How much?” he asked.
“How much what?”
“How much do you want this time? I warn you, I don’t have much cash on me.”
“We’re not here to extort anything from you,” José replied.
“Aren’t we?” Fermín scoffed. “Doctor, if you indeed are a certified doctor… we need you to do something for us, and we can do something for you.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Doctor, you need to stay out of jail, so your daughters don’t turn to prostitution.”
“My practice gives private care for those who can’t get what they need from the local hospital where I work during the day,” Doctor Lugo said with an air of indignance. “I provide a service.”
“What about those who can’t afford it?” José asked.
“I don’t charge that much. I’m aware of Valencia’s financial hardship, as I’m sure you are.”
“The medications you provide, where do you get them? They come into Spain, to be used in public hospitals. Franco’s government pays for those, and you steal them.”
“I paid for everything I have.”
“And then sell them at a profit.”
“What is your point, Teniente Morales?”
“The point is that your dick in a vice, in the legal sense. We’re offering to leave you alone in return for your expertise.”
“What?”
“We want to aid unwed mothers with the births of their babies.”
“That is very noble.”
“And then we want to steal the babies and sell them for a profit to foreign buyers,” Fermín added.
Doctor Lugo frowned. “That puts you in direct competition with the public hospitals. The hospital where I work, we select babies to be re-housed on a regular basis.”
“We don’t intend to hurt their business interests,” José said. “We just want to take a little slice, make money, and do good for o
ur city.”
The doctor paused as he thought about it. “This is no simple process. The baby ‘replacement’ programme is a complex system. Mother and babies are targeted. The doctors allow a certain number of reputable, married, Catholic mothers to keep their babies, with just a fine selection of babies to be taken away. That way, suspicion is low.”
“Everyone knows what happens,” José replied.
“Indeed, but by targeting people with no voice, like unmarried mothers, poor couples, or those deemed suitable by their religious or political beliefs, no one can be caught. The church rules this country. No one can argue with them.”
“Except people like you. Doctors are as close to God as the clergy.”
“That is true. People do trust me. Should I then use that trust to betray people and hurt them for the rest of their lives?”
“You already do it at the hospital, so why not in private?” José asked.
“If you don’t use your powers for evil then you can’t be very Spanish,” Fermín quipped.
José just wished Fermín would shut his mouth. “We have been wondering how we avoid suspicion.”
“I don’t know,” the doctor replied. “It’s not something I have thought about until now. If you wanted to open your own hospital, you would need staff, and there would be considerable costs. If these women are not paying to enter your care, and they wouldn’t pay because everyone is broke at the moment, how could you afford it? You would need to start small, take a baby or two per month, to avoid suspicion. How would your bosses feel if they knew two of their officers were stealing babies to order? That’s organised crime, the exact thing that gentlemen like you are supposed to be prosecuting.”
“We’re going to get ourselves rich,” Fermín said. “If you don’t want to help….”
“I think that every woman should be given the chance to raise her own child. I hate what happens in the hospitals.”
“Because you are a left-wing pig who deserves a night in the cells with the whores, gays and Godless animals we love beating when the sun goes down.”
Secrets of Spain Trilogy Page 51
