A Scarcity of Condors

by Suanne Laqueur

  “I’m… It’s so hard not knowing where he is.” Penny’s voice was different. Younger. A few levels up from girlish, a few down from matronly. Filled with a panic that made Jude clench his fingers hard.

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “All the time. My baby’s going to be born afraid.”

  “What day is he born?”

  “November twenty-fifth.”

  “I want you to take me to the night before.”

  “All right.”

  “Where are we?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Who is with you?”

  Uncle Louis was at the table. His face grim and stoic, Penny said. No doubt re-living things he’d already survived in Europe. Perhaps wondering if he’d failed to read signs he of all people should’ve seen coming.

  Ysidro Sepúlveda at another chair. Estranged and disowned from his people, all his love and allegiance was now heaped on the Tholets. Especially Penny. They were close in age but she was a mother figure to him. With Cleon detained, Ysidro silently declared himself the man of the house and followed Penny everywhere, her safety now his ultimate concern.

  “And Tatán,” Penny said. “God, he’s so upset tonight. The government is sending him to odd locations around the city.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “He’s an undertaker. But he also works for the city coroner. And he’s being sent to places…” Her hand cupped her mouth and she drew a long slow breath.

  “Take your time,” Rachel said.

  “He’s picking up people at the Estadio Chile and the Estadio Nacional. He’s picking up the dead. People who’ve been tortured and killed. Bodies in horrible shape. Things he can’t un-see. And tonight…”

  The hand lowered from her mouth and rested on the pillow in a fist.

  “What happened tonight?” Rachel asked.

  “Tatán picked up two dead children. And a baby. A newborn.”

  “From where?”

  “One of the stadiums. And it’s not the first time.”

  “It’s happened before?”

  “Yes. It’s the third time since September he’s collected the bodies of dead children. They were tortured to death in front of their parents. Tonight is the second time he’s been given a newborn baby.”

  “Alive?”

  “Yes. Both times he took it to the orphanage. La Casa de Huérfanos. He’s crying into his hands, saying it’s only going to happen more. More dead children. How many pregnant women are being detained? If they survive, how will they know what happened to their babies?”

  Her breath grew short and choppy in her throat, the distress evident in every line of her face.

  “My baby is going to be born so afraid.” Her voice was thinner than a razor’s edge, honed and keen, slicing the quiet of the room until it bled.

  “Penny, I want you to get up from the kitchen table and go out to the garden,” Rachel said. “Take me with you. Narrate your steps.”

  Back into the sunshine and safety. Noting sights and sounds and smells.

  Back to the here and now.

  Penny opened her eyes. “Goodness,” she said in her normal voice. “I forgot I remembered that night.”

  The third session.

  Induction into the haven of the garden. Then sensory narration into the house.

  “I’d like you to take me to November twenty-fifth,” Rachel said. “Nineteen seventy-three.”

  “The day the soldiers come,” Penny said.

  Jude had been dreading this, but in contrast to the second session, Penny rather calmly narrated the events that took place in the street. The account was brisk and matter of fact. Almost journalistic.

  Because she’s told this story before, Jude realized. This wasn’t recollection of something forgotten but a history recitation. He himself could practically tell it along with her, word for word.

  “And then,” Penny said, a hand going to the back of her head. “Something hits me. Right here. I feel like my eyeballs fly right out of my face. I fall forward and…” Her hands flew out in front of her, bent sharply at the wrist. “The gravel in the road digs all into the heels of my hands. I collapse straight down on my stomach. This tiny pop inside. Like a balloon. And then all… Is that water rushing down my legs? Oh my God, I’ve peed myself. No. Wait…”

  Her outstretched hands went to her nape again. Then slowly dropped to the pillow in her lap. She went intensely, eerily still.

  “My head,” she said. “God, my head…”

  Cleon’s hands tightened around the curve of his cane. Jude’s hands steepled over his mouth and nose.

  I’m being born now.

  No, he’s being born. Her baby. Her and Papi’s first child.

  “Penny, can you hear me?” Rachel said.

  “Mm.” Her body pitched from side to side on the couch. Head turning this way and that. Licking her lips. Clenching her fists.

  “Penny, where are you?”

  “On the floor.” A long pause. “By the couch. My water’s broken and…”

  She sucked in a sharp gasp through her nose.

  “What’s happening?” Rachel said.

  “The baby’s coming.” Her voice teetered on a precarious edge. “It’s happening so fast. I can’t stop it.” Her head whipped up and to the left. “The lights.”

  “What about the lights?”

  “The power’s out again. We have no light.”

  “Who is with you?”

  “Ysidro and Tatán. The lights are out and… The phone’s dead. The soldiers cut the lines.”

  “What’s happening now?”

  Penny’s mouth opened but she didn’t speak. Jude felt the first rumblings of panic and later he would look back with admiration at Rachel’s professional skill. Her voice never faltered. If anything, it only grew more assured as she tried one prompt after another, never showing the slightest frustration or sign of giving up.

  Recollection came in stuttering bursts, from the oddest of places. Rachel asked for a scent memory and Penny answered, “Wet leather.”

  “Leather?”

  “Tatán is holding my hands. He’s wearing a leather wristwatch. I bite it when the contractions hit.”

  Penny’s arms folded back, a hand at each shoulder, twined with invisible fingers. “I’m holding onto him. I keep biting on the band of his watch. Oh my God, I bit him that time. I’m so sorry.”

  A long interlude of restless quiet when Penny didn’t respond. Jude’s shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. Cleon looked like a piece of sculpture, he was so rapt and focused on his wife. His hands never relaxing their grip on his cane, as if he’d bludgeon anything that dared disturb this moment.

  “Anything you can hear or see or feel, you tell me,” Rachel said. Her tone was pure pleasantness. None of this was a concern or a bother.

  “Ysidro wants more towels,” Penny said. “He can’t find them.”

  Time stretched like taffy as she threaded fragments of memory like beads on a string.

  “I hung the towels on the line.”

  “It’s too much.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  A long silence then. When she spoke again, it was in her present-day voice. “All my life, I’ve been in awe how brave Jude is. He’s such a courageous soul and it’s miraculous, because he was born into such terror.”

  And like a switch being thrown, she was in the past again. Back in the terror.

  “Can you hear anything?” Rachel said.

  “I think I’m going to die.”

  “Can you hear anything, Penny?”

  No answer.

  “Can you feel anything?”

  “I’m so thirsty.” Penny’s reclined body seemed to soften into the couch cushions. “It’s over?” she whispered.

  Rac
hel leaned forward a little. “Is the baby born?”

  Jude went cold all over.

  Penny licked her lips. “My head hurts so bad.”

  “Can you hear anything, Penny?”

  “Es un niño.”

  “Who tells you?”

  “Ysidro says it. Tatán says it right by my ear. Es un niño.”

  “Do you see it’s a boy?”

  “Oh.” The tiniest sigh under her breath. “It’s a boy all right.”

  “What else can you see?”

  Penny didn’t speak, but her arms slowly rose. They extended, ready to receive, then they moved toward her body. One crossed above her chest, hovering. The other at her shoulder, cupped.

  “Ese pobre bebé.”

  Her body trembled, breathing hard. She was exhausted. Her voice whispered a mother’s soothing croon: “Pobrecito.”

  “Is he crying?” Rachel asked.

  No answer. All glances exchanged when a little laughter filled the space between Penny’s long, labored breaths.

  “What’s happening now, Penny?”

  “The boys can’t find the scissors,” she said, shaking her head. “What is it with scissors? They never want to be found. They sit right under your nose until they’re needed, then they disappear.”

  Silence.

  “Is the baby crying?” Rachel asked.

  No answer.

  “Is the baby breathing?”

  Silence.

  “Can you feel anything, Penny?”

  “He’s so warm,” she whispered. “Goodness.”

  “He?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Is he alive?”

  Silence.

  “Where are you now?”

  “Nowhere.”

  Silence.

  “Penny, where are you now?”

  “The hospital.”

  “What’s happening?”

  Penny’s hands went to her head. “Oh my God, I’m going to die.”

  Cleon made a little sound in his chest, like the involuntary yelp of a puppy whose tail had been trod upon. Rachel’s eyes flicked to him and blinked.

  “Penny, let’s get up out of bed and go into the garden.”

  They returned to the sunshine, hummingbirds, Beatles songs and honeysuckle.

  Penny opened her eyes and exhaled.

  “How do you feel?” Rachel asked.

  “Fine. I feel fine now, but… I don’t think I’ve ever been as terrified as I was that night.”

  She leaned her head on Cleon’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  “Te amo,” he said, letting go his cane to take her hands. “Te amo tanto, querida. Lo siento mucho.”

  I’d kill for them, Jude thought. Give me the chance, I’ll go back in time and kill every fucking person who did this to my parents.

  Penny had two more sessions with Dr. Mezeritz, but nothing new fell from the folds of her memory.

  “The head injury could have erased them,” Rachel said. “And then your subconscious came in to finish the job, simply to protect you.”

  Penny nodded, still reclined on the chaise. A cup of water in one hand, the other holding tight to Cleon’s. His eyes were closed, his mouth buried in her hair.

  “It may be you never have a satisfying answer to this,” Rachel said. “You probably won’t have a Hollywood resolution moment. The proverbial Perry Mason courtroom gasp.”

  “You mean our plot device problem won’t get a plot device solution?” Jude said. “How dare it?”

  Rachel laughed. “Well, what you may get, and what I suggest you prepare yourself for, is the most satisfying narrative constructed from the pieces of information you know. A narrative you can believe in. A narrative that’s the closest thing to the truth. A truth you can accept in your heart and say, ‘This is probably what happened. This I can believe happened.’”

  “And,” Cleon said. “Dot-dot-dot. Who are we going to be now?” He smiled at Rachel’s puzzled expression. “Family motto.”

  “Personally,” the doctor said, “I hope you do get the Hollywood moment that puts all of this to rest. Fatalistically speaking, if you don’t, perhaps there’s a reason. Perhaps it would be more devastation than resolution. Perhaps a greater divine order is protecting you.”

  “I can believe in that,” Penny said. “I think I have to.”

  Rachel looked at each family member with eyes that were unprofessionally bright. “Realistically…I am so moved by your story. And I’m truly sorry for what happened.”

  That afternoon, Jude, Cleon and Penny got on a Skype call with Isabella Eberhoff from the Medical-Legal Institute in Santiago.

  “This is certainly an unusual case,” she said. “We’ve been working a decade to compile a database from the DNA of human remains, but this will be the first time I hope we don’t match someone to it. Meaning I want your biological child and Juleón’s biological parents to be alive somewhere.”

  Isabella would send the Tholets new collection kits to submit to the database, along with forms authorizing release of their contact information, in the event a match was made. She was patient and competent with their questions and expressed a genuine fascination in the story.

  “Your friend who worked for the city coroner would have unbelievable tales to tell,” she said. “Within days of the coup, the morgues of Santiago were overwhelmed with the dead. Hundreds of them unidentified.”

  Bodies piled up in offices and corridors of the morgue, eventually spilling into the streets outside. Family and friends wandered the horrifying stacks of humanity, by now in varied stages of decomposition. Desperate to find their loved ones in the growing charnel.

  “The workers within Santiago’s Civil Registry and the Medical-Legal Institute were working under indescribable pressure,” Isabella said. “Any examination of the dead was frantic and sloppy. Doctors called them ‘economic autopsies,’ doing the bare minimum. The Civil Registry took no fingerprints of the deceased. As a result, important details that could’ve helped with identification were lost forever. This is why the discovery and exhumation of Patio Twenty-Nine was so important.”

  The Patio was located in a back lot of Santiago’s General Cemetery, she explained. Here the cemetery workers were ordered to bury over two hundred bodies. Yet unlike the mass graves of other genocides, where a large number of bodies were dumped together, the corpses of Patio 29 were buried in twos and threes, in individual graves.

  “And they were marked,” Isabella said. “Which is another peculiarity. Most of the cemetery workers were Catholic. They were compelled to mark each grave with a cross made of metal, inscribed N.N. No name.”

  What should we name our boy, Penny thought.

  It had been a long day. Jude went home. Cleon wanted to go out on the Sound and clear his head. Penny took to her bed, holding a pillow to her breast.

  He’s so warm.

  My goodness.

  She cradled both the pillow and the memory of the precious, damp skull nestled in her palm. The little face in her neck.

  Is he crying?

  Is he alive?

  What should we name our boy?

  Hey, Jude…

  Her arms held the pillow tight. Tears stung her eyes as she whispered, “Don’t be afraid.”

  You were made to go out and get it.

  Her face crumpled. She buried it in the pillow and wept.

  The newspaper taxis are fun. You fold them like origami and if you find an article with your byline, you affix it to the car door like an advertisement. The cabs are carefully placed on the shore, beyond the bridge by the fountain.

  You paint smiling human faces on rocking horses before the timer ding
s on the oven. The pies are set out to cool, each topped with a golden-edged swirl of melted marshmallows. You scoop up the excess to make clouds, shading them with the newsprint ink collected on your fingertips.

  They’re calling you.

  It’s time to go.

  …

  …

  …

  And you’re gone.

  On the last day of June, Tej’s mother died in California.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jude said when Tej hung up the phone.

  His shoulders flicked up and down. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s… Yeah.”

  Jude put arms around him, but Tej half-twisted away.

  “Sorry, I need to…just be alone in my head right now.”

  “All right.”

  “Think I’ll go for a run.”

  “Good idea.”

  Tej went to change and Jude cleaned up the kitchen.

  “Do you want me to look at flights for you?” he called.

  Tej emerged from the bedroom, untangling his ear buds. “What?”

  “I’ll look at flights for you. I have a ton of miles I can transfer if you need them.”

  “Flights to where?”

  “California”

  Tej’s voice raised. “Why the fuck would I be going there?”

  “For the funeral?” Jude said slowly.

  “I can’t go to the funeral, you moron,” Tej yelled.

  “Dude, what the—”

  “Christ, do you even get it? My father, my sisters, my aunts, uncles, cousins—they don’t want to see me. When I say I’m disowned, I’m not being fucking romantic. It means my presence isn’t wanted. I’m dead to them. Mireille is all I got.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jude said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “I have no family. You have two. Jesus, if I found out my parents weren’t my own, I’d be tearing the world apart looking for the real ones. I’m kicked out of my mother’s funeral and I get to watch you feel sorry for yourself. I’m fucking sick of it.”

  Jude stared as Tej stormed out of the townhouse, letting the door slam behind him, hard enough to make the floor rumble under Jude’s feet.

  “Okay then,” he said. He went back to cleaning up, oddly unfazed. The outburst wasn’t aimed at him. He was just the convenient target standing between Tej and a craptastic situation filled with a world of pain.