A Scarcity of Condors

by Suanne Laqueur

  …Amnesty International has documented numerous cases of the disappearance of mothers and children, where the child was either born in prison or abducted with the mother. In Argentina, the greatest number of pregnant women and mothers of infants and schoolchildren were disappeared between 1976 and 1980.

  “Seventy-six is too late, Papi,” Jude murmured. “What about earlier accounts? In Chile?”

  During this period, pregnant women were taken to the Naval Training College in Buenos Aires, earmarked as the maternity unit of the region’s secret detention camps. All pregnant women were attended by a doctor from the naval hospital. After giving birth, mothers were usually “transferred” (a known euphemism for assassination) while infants were sent to clandestine orphanages for adoption by childless couples in the armed forces.

  Evidence and documentation concerning the sale of some of these children is just surfacing.

  The hair on Jude’s nape bristled. If it happened in Argentina, it could happen in Chile. Shit, maybe Argentina took lessons from Chile.

  Hundreds of Argentinian babies have been reported as missing by grandparents and surviving relatives. The toddlers and older children abducted with their mothers have never been seen again. The grandmothers of these missing babies and children have formed an association, The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo…

  Jude’s eyes stopped, widening. Not from the impact of the words, but from a most familiar combination of aftershave and skin tickling his nose.

  “We meet again.”

  He looked up. It took him half a minute to finish chewing his last mouthful before replying, “We do.”

  Tej looked around the café. “I never come in here.”

  “This is my usual joint.”

  “Imagine that.”

  Jude closed the book and slid the glasses on his head back on his nose. “How are you?”

  “At what?”

  Oh my fucking Lord, here we go again.

  “Apparently I’m really good at making you blush,” Tej said.

  “And I’m not a blusher.”

  “Well, they say to accomplish something every day, so thanks for helping me fill the quota.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They stared. The shared gaze immutable while beneath, each mouth rolled over and around and through a smile.

  “See, this is where you invite me to sit down,” Tej finally said.

  “You want to sit down?”

  “No, I just wanted you to ask.”

  “I think I like you better with my dick in your mouth. You’re less of a smartass.”

  Tej blushed. He actually fucking blushed. “Now I will sit down.”

  Jude’s eyes slid appreciatively against the grey sweater over a collar and tie. “You scrub up nice.”

  “I’m commando.”

  “Thanks for the visual.”

  “You’re welcome.” He turned the book toward him to see the title. “Well, this must be an uplifting read.”

  Jude turned it back. “Yeah. I mean, no. It’s for… Nothing, never mind.”

  “Sounds engrossing.” He took a chip off Jude’s plate. “You do remember my name?”

  “Tej. Rhymes with page. Do you remember mine?”

  “Jude. Rhymes with one of the best fucks I ever had in my life.”

  Jude’s neck and ears flamed up. “Liar.”

  “Hand to God.”

  “That wasn’t even my A-game.”

  The gold flecks in Tej’s brown eyes flared. “Challenge accepted.”

  Jude eased past flustered and approached hot mess.

  Tej laughed. “I think it’s my new life’s mission to make you blush.”

  Jude could only shake his head, thinking, You are nothing I like. I shouldn’t like you. I have no business liking you.

  Tej’s eyebrows knitted together. “Now what are you brooding about?”

  “I don’t know,” Jude said. “You’re making me blush, you’re making me giggle. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

  “Me neither. But it feels good.”

  “Yeah, you have a knack for making me feel better.”

  “It’s my alternate life mission.”

  He held Tej’s gaze, trying to be serious. “We just met.”

  Tej didn’t look away but his wicked expression calmed down. “I know. Weird, right?”

  “You’re not even my type.”

  “Bullshit. C’mon, what’s your type? Twinky bottoms who let you boss them around?”

  “As opposed to bossy twinks who bottom from the top?”

  “You loved it.”

  “I did.”

  They held eyes through one inhale and exhale.

  “I kind of can’t stop thinking about it,” Jude said.

  “And here I am.”

  “Here you are.”

  “I kind of can’t stop thinking about it either. To the point where I staked out your place of employ and discovered you came here for lunch every day.”

  “Oh, so this was planned.”

  “Yeah. Kind of. Entirely. Yes.”

  “So you’re a stalker as well as a smartass.”

  “I prefer to think that I go after the things I want. Aggressively and with smart humor.”

  “What if those things don’t want you? Hypothetical question.”

  Tej leaned on his crossed forearms. “I’m bold but I’m not stupid. I know when to fold my cards and walk away.”

  Jude stared at Tej’s wrist. A stripe of tanned skin emerging from the cuff of his sweater. A knob of bone next to his watch. The veins and tendons fluttering on the back of his hand. A small tattoo of a cross next to the name Raymond.

  Was Raymond your Feño?

  Tej took another chip. “In all seriousness, I do recognize you were in a bad way the other night. And I hope you’re all right. Or a little righter than before.”

  “Thanks.” Something about Tej eating off his plate touched him deeply. “I went back and saw my parents. They say I’m not adopted.”

  “What made you think you were?”

  “We did one of those DNA spit kit things. I’m unquestionably not their kid. But they swear I’m not adopted.”

  “And you… I ask this respectfully, you believe them?”

  Jude nodded. “I do.”

  “So what the fuck happened?”

  “Dude, we have no idea.”

  “Sounds like you were switched in the hospital.”

  “Which sounds like a bad plot device.”

  “And yet here you are,” Tej said.

  “Here I am. With no idea who I am.”

  “Well, let me be first to say that is fucked.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t share it on our first date.”

  Jude smiled. “Are we on a date?”

  “Not yet. And why do you keep staring at my wrist like that, you coveting my watch or something?”

  “The watch is nice, I’m just being nosy about Raymond.”

  “My brother. He died when I was four.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jude hesitated, then turned the book over and tapped his finger on Cleon’s photograph. “That’s my father. Or should I say, the artist formerly known as my father?”

  Tej leaned, studying the black and white photograph. “Huh.”

  “This is where you say I look nothing like him.”

  He looked up at Jude, then down at the cover. “I like his face.” The gaze came up again, soft and shy. “And I like yours. And I need to get to work.”

  “Do all nine-one-one dispatchers dress as nice as you?”

  “No. I made an effort because I was stalking you on your lunch hour.”

  Jude leaned hard on his arms, stretched across the table and ki
ssed Tej’s mouth. “A for effort.”

  “I did not see that coming.”

  Jude picked up his sandwich. “You’re blushing.”

  “I am,” Tej said, standing up. “Well done.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll never let you do it again.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  Stage rehearsal that afternoon was for Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, set to eighteen pieces by Chopin. Dae-Hyun Cho played onstage for the whole ballet. In performance, Jude would be next to him, turning pages. Right now, he sat in one of the orchestra seats with his copy of the score, fingers playing along and taking last minute notes.

  His muted phone vibrated on the armrest. It was Tej.

  When am I going to see you again?

  Jude smiled as he texted back: You know where I eat lunch.

  You’re going to make me wait?

  LOL, I get the feeling nobody can make you do anything.

  You made me blush.

  This is true.

  I won’t beg. (I’m totally begging)

  I want to see you too. Soon.

  Soon? Does soon mean like tonight? Or as soon as you break up with your boyfriend who’s not half as good in the sack as me?

  LOL. No boyfriend.

  Girlfriend?

  Dude, WTF?

  My track record with bisexual men is abysmal, I always lose out to the chick. If you’re bi, please let’s part as friends. I’m an arrogant ass, but a fragile arrogant ass.

  With a jolt, Jude caught up to the music. He’d texted through three pages. He shoved the phone down in his bag and tried to be attentive, but now he was hornier than hell. Which was making it difficult to hold the score open on his lap.

  Christ, who is this guy?

  He was trouble. No question. An excellent temporary diversion, but not long-term material.

  So why not embrace temporary? Have a fuck buddy to take the edge off all the shit going on?

  He couldn’t think of a good reason why not. Except Jude the Prude was clutching his pearls and fainting onto a couch. And Tej was crawling up to the chaise, eyes wicked and expression intent as he reached for Jude’s belt buckle. Saying, “You’re so fucking stressed, baby. Why don’t you blow that load…”

  Goddammit, he was behind two pages again.

  He mentally slapped himself out of it and focused on the music. All the while his toes curled tight in his shoes and a little fold in his brain stared into space, imagining Tej calling him baby.

  “I’m sorry I got emotional yesterday,” Penny said. “I’ve been so tired la—”

  “Mami, it’s an emotional situation.”

  A hollowness in Jude’s voice made Penny guess he was wearing his earbuds, probably driving home.

  “A Benedictine monk would’ve freaked out,” he said.

  “I love you,” she said. “I need you to know I love you and this changes nothing in terms of loving you.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re a gift.” It was an effort to keep her tone simple and honest. Not go overboard into maudlin and embarrass the both of them. “You were a gift to us from the beginning. It’s not that we love you more than Serena and Aiden, but…”

  “Ma, I know,” Jude said. “I’m your firstborn. You fled a coup with me. It’s kind of a bond. And I had you and Papi to myself almost five years before Serena was born. I understand.”

  Penny exhaled, sinking her forehead into the palm of her hand. Her rings were cool against her brow. She’d been running a low-grade fever the past twenty-four hours.

  “They broke Papi’s legs,” Jude was saying. “And then they broke my leg. It was traumatizing. You had to flee twice. It makes sense, all right? You’re entitled to some strong emotion here.”

  “I just need you to know I love you and you’re no less my son than before.”

  “I love you too, Mami. And you are my mother.”

  “But if you want to go looking—”

  “God, I don’t know.”

  “—I support you. If you look or don’t look, Papi and I will respect your decision. In fact, he thinks we might want to talk to a lawyer.”

  Cleon came into the kitchen. “Is that Serena?”

  “Jude.”

  “Put it on speaker. ¿Qué onda, cariño?”

  “¿Qué onda, Papi? You think we need a lawyer?”

  “God, I don’t know if we need one. I just want to explain the situation to one and see what they think. Cachai?”

  “What kind of lawyer?”

  “That’s the thing,” Cleon said. “I don’t know. An international lawyer?”

  “Family lawyer?” Penny said.

  “Adoption lawyer?” Jude said.

  At least we’re laughing, Penny thought.

  “You heading home?” Cleon asked. “No date tonight or anything?”

  The tiniest beat of hesitation before Jude answered. “No, no date.”

  “Well, then rest well, cariño.”

  “I love you,” Penny said, and hung up.

  “He’s such a good boy,” Cleon said.

  Her voice cracked open like an egg. “But who is he?”

  She was crying again. Rotten, sulfurous tears she tried to stuff back into her mouth and stifle against the wall of Cleon’s chest.

  “Don’t do this,” he said, rocking her. A hand in her hair, caressing the scar behind her ear. “Don’t do this to yourself. He’s still our son. He’ll always be our son.”

  She dragged a rough hand across her face. “But if I took another woman’s baby—”

  “You didn’t take anyone. This is none of your doing.”

  “But what do I do now?” She flung a hand up, gesturing to the kitchen. “Is another woman sitting at a table, weeping and wondering? Is there a couple in Chile desperate to know what happened to their child?”

  “I know. I know, honey. We’ll figure this out.”

  “I feel responsible. Not for what happened but for what happens now. Don’t you?”

  “Pen, I don’t know what to feel.”

  And of course, he was medicated to be that way. His attention was focused on her, his eyes burned with intensity. The hands in her hair trembled. He was upset. He was rattled. He was feeling this.

  But he wasn’t feeling this. Meanwhile Penny was flayed wide open, half expecting to see her intestines spilled in a writhing mess on the floor.

  “If another mother, another couple has spent nearly four decades in pain, wondering what happened to their baby… If we have the means to stop it. To end the wondering. Let them know, he’s here, he’s alive, he’s safe… How can we not?”

  “I know.”

  “And I need to know where our child is. All our children. I want to know. I need to know. Don’t you?”

  “We should find out,” he said, which wasn’t quite the answer to her question. “We’ll try to find out, querida. We’ll do what we can. But we may never know.”

  “We have to try.”

  “We will.”

  She pushed at his steady strength, trying to get it to crack. He was supportive but she wanted him to be dire. To mirror her upset. At the same time, she relied on him not to splinter open. She needed him to be her complement, her polar opposite in temperament.

  They couldn’t both go crazy. It was the rule ever since they left Chile.

  Because Cleon was broken in pieces and had to be moved carefully, the Canadian embassy in Santiago first handed the Tholets off to their sister diplomats in Lima. There, Cleon had the first of his eleven surgeries and was stabilized for the journey by ship to Vancouver. Penny’s father, Walter Cambie, hired two private nurses and flew them to Peru to accompany the family home.

  When the ship arrived in Vancouver harbor, Walter was waiting at the pi
er. He brought his secretaries and his lawyer. In his pocket he had business cards of doctors, diplomats and real estate agents. He had an ambulance for Cleon and a carriage for the baby. Like Mary Poppins’ older brother, he scooped up Penny’s fragile family and placed it in the stroller of his pragmatism and fierce organizational skills, bashing them through customs and formalities. Terse commands scything a path from harbor to hospital to home.

  For the first year, home was Penny’s childhood house on Balfour Avenue. It was a geographical necessity—Vancouver General Hospital was blocks away, a straight shot up Oak Street—as well as a financial one. They were flat broke. Broke. Penny had bribed every cent she had to get Cleon out of the Villa Grimaldi, leaving only a few shekels within the web of Walter’s investment portfolio. Cleon’s money was in the Banco de Chile and Walter’s legal team was trying to get it out. Meanwhile, the hospital bills multiplied and the baby was hungry. It galled Penny’s work ethic to be under her father’s aegis, unable to earn her own living because every hour was devoted to her husband, and the minutes between to her son. But she had no choice. She’d have to wait to unpack her pride.

  Cleon spoke only rudimentary English but that was the least of his problems. He was a broken, sick man. And a hairless one: so infested with lice and fleas after his imprisonment, the hospital in Lima had shorn him to the skin. For a month, Jude had more hair than his father.

  The humor in that would have to wait to be unpacked, too.

  Cleon’s leg bones were set and pinned, leaving him immobilized in traction, where the fluid could happily collect in his lungs and become pneumonia. His susceptibility to infection worsened by the removal of his spleen. The shock and trauma gave him only the slimmest chances of survival, and nobody even addressed the mental repercussions if he lived.

  Bombarded with antibiotics, painkillers and sedatives, he slept long, motionless hours. Doctors said it was the best thing for him, but Penny watched her slumbering husband anxiously, afraid his rest was too deep, too peaceful, too much of a relief after the ordeal and he’d choose not to come back to her.

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered. “We have a deal, remember? We need and feed until we’re sixty-four. You do not contemplate checking out until then.”