A Scarcity of Condors

by Suanne Laqueur

  “No way. That’s how your dick ends up in my mouth.”

  “C’mon. You know if I’m going to put that in your mouth, I want you watching.”

  Jude did know. With a blush and a sigh, he tilted his head toward Tej, eyes closed and mouth open.

  A cold spoonful. Vanilla ice cream, followed by a warm, spiced chewiness that filled his mouth like a glug of heavy port. Heated with ginger, heady with cinnamon, syrupy through the clean vanilla.

  He opened his eyes. “Wow, what is that?”

  “That?” Tej said, sitting down. “Is a stewed prune. A la mode.”

  “No way.”

  Tej ate a spoonful, eyes fixed on the TV.

  Jude ran his tongue along his teeth, looking for the last drops of syrup. “That’s amazing.”

  “Mm.”

  “Let me have another bite.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You don’t deserve prunes. You hurt their feelings.”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  Jude rolled off the couch to kneel between Tej’s feet. “Please?”

  Tej leaned to look around Jude’s body, eating deliberately. Deftly he held the bowl and spoon out of reach as Jude made a grab for the dessert. “No, you don’t get any more.”

  “I was wrong,” Jude said.

  “Mm.”

  “Utterly misinformed. I made a snap judgment and I apologize unreservedly. To you and the prunes. May I have another taste?”

  Leaning back, knees wide, Tej slowly pulled the spoon along his tongue. “What’s in it for me?”

  “You get to be the plate.”

  Tej’s brows flicked upward as he scooped a bit of dessert and held it out. “Set the table.”

  Tej fed him. He fed on Tej. Sweet and rich. Cold and warm. Spice and skin.

  “Wow, I love prunes,” Jude said, filling his mouth again and again.

  “I love you,” Tej said softly.

  Jude’s phone rang.

  “Swallow before you answer that,” Tej said, still breathing hard, eyes closed.

  “I’m not answering it,” Jude said, pulling his shirt over his head.

  “Could be the theater. Needing you to go on.”

  He unbuttoned his jeans. “Don’t care.”

  Tej’s eyes glanced sideways, then he sat up a little. “Dude, it’s a Chilean number.”

  Jude scowled, took the phone and swiped at the screen. “Diga.”

  “¿Juleón Tholet?”

  “Sí.”

  “It’s Isabella Eberhoff with the Medical-Legal Institute. I have some news.”

  Jude sat back on his heels. “News?”

  “About your lab results.”

  Both his head and body were trying to exit the scene simultaneously. He licked his lips. “All right.”

  “So the lab matched your—“

  “Wait,” he said, putting a hand on Tej’s leg. “Do you speak English?”

  “Of course.”

  Jude switched. “I want my partner to hear this, I’m putting it on speaker.”

  “No problem,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  “Hi,” Tej said, smiling as he tucked himself away and zipped his jeans. “We can hear you.”

  “So, Juleón, the lab team matched your DNA sample to human remains found at Patio Twenty-Nine.”

  “You mean the lot in Santiago’s General Cemetery?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you mean, matched?”

  She spoke slowly. “Your DNA markers match with two other profiles in our database. Both were taken from remains found at Patio Twenty-Nine. Indicating you are related.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you breathing?”

  “I think so. Related how, who are these other profiles?”

  “Jude,” she said. “They’re your parents.”

  Tej clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide.

  Jude sat on the floor. “Say again?”

  “Your biological parents were among the remains recovered from Patio Twenty-Nine.”

  His heart turned sideways. He looked down, expecting to see his chest bulging. “Are you sure?”

  She laughed. “Yes. Ninety-nine-point-six percent sure, to be precise.”

  “You mean… This is real?”

  “It’s real. Markers on your Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA conclude you are the biological son of Eduardo Gabriel Penda and—

  “Oh my God, wait,” Jude said, scrambling to his feet, spinning in circles, looking for a piece of paper.

  “—and María Clementina Vilaró,” Isabella said. “Take a breath.”

  “Oh my God,” Jude said. “Wait, say that again. Say those names again. Wait, let me get a pen. Wait.”

  “Take your time.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Breathe, honey.” Tej handed him pen and paper and turned around so Jude could write against his back.

  Eduardo Gabriel Penda, Jude wrote. María Clementina Vilaró.

  “Women traditionally keep their maiden names in Chile,” Isabella said. “She would’ve gone by Vilaró. Or perhaps Vilaró de Penda.”

  Jude stared at the names, his heartbeat at his temples, peripheral sparkling with yellow glitter. “Is there any other information about her? I mean, about them?”

  “Yes. But perhaps you’d like to hear it all from your brother?”

  Prunes and ice cream churned in Jude’s stomach. “My… What?”

  Tej’s mouth slowly shaped “Oh my fucking God.”

  “These remains were identified last year by the Pendas’ son, Alejandro, who escaped to the United States. His profile with us includes a statement of release.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning if you still have that pen, I have permission to give you his contact information.”

  “Jude, this is just unbelievable,” Penny heard herself say. Her face was numb and her lips tingled. As if she’d been slapped.

  Cleon leaned on his elbows, hovering over the phone on the kitchen table. “It’s a miracle,” he said slowly.

  “I can’t take it in,” Jude said. “I’m shaking.”

  “Did you call him? Did you talk to him?”

  “No, I called you first.”

  To say goodbye, Penny thought.

  A harsh scrape as she pushed back from the kitchen table and walked to the sink, trying to get away from herself. Backed into a corner of the countertop, arms crossed tight over her middle. Cleon’s hands had slid on either side of his head, fingers in his white hair. He lifted his head with a deep breath, face wet and shining. He reached a hand to her, beckoning.

  “Are you there?” Jude’s voice called.

  “We’re right here,” Cleon said, his hand reaching further. He drew Penny tight to his side and put both arms around her waist. He was trembling.

  “I don’t know how this makes you feel,” Jude said. “I don’t even know how I feel right now.”

  Penny forced herself to say something. “It’s unbelievable.”

  All the while thinking, It’s over.

  It’s over.

  It’s official.

  He’s not our child.

  She didn’t think it would really turn out this way. The odds were stacked against them. The thread of Jude’s DNA would never slip through the eye of the needle hidden in Chile’s database. Not this easily and not this soon.

  “Can I tell you their names?” Jude asked, sounding so small and tentative.

  Penny put a hand beneath her collarbones.

  Her name?

  The question hit dead center of her chest and her heart closed around it, cradling it close like a treasure. Her head cleared, she could feel her face aga
in.

  She has a name.

  For months she’d been contemplating a woman at a kitchen counter, staring at papers and pictures spread before her. Or perhaps staring at nothing, because she had nothing to go on in her endless, answer-less quest to find out what happened to her baby.

  That woman had a name.

  That woman was dead. She and her husband murdered. Their bodies interred in a mass grave, marked with crude metal crosses reading “N.N.” No name. It was a defiant act of resistance by Catholic cemetery workers. Literally forced to bury their government’s atrocities, they refused to accept anything was normal about it. They marked the graves, hoping for a time when the bodies could be reunited with the names.

  The time was now.

  And. Dot-dot-dot. Who are you going to be?

  Penny moved from the circle of Cleon’s arms and sat again.

  She has a name.

  You’ve held her image in your head all this time. Now hold her name. Hold it tight. This is your compañera. Your sister-compatriot. Your she-wolf in arms. You are her surrogate.

  She drew the phone closer to her. Pulled Jude closer to her.

  None of this is your fault. You’re not responsible. But you can honor the responsibility of knowing her name.

  “Yes,” she said. “Tell us.”

  Umberto Alva slumps against your shoulder. He’s only nineteen years old. He’s afraid he won’t live to see twenty. His weight pains you—you’re sure your ribs are broken and the other day you coughed up blood. You can barely lift your arms after yesterday’s session when you were hung by your wrists. Umberto lifts them himself and drapes them across his shoulders. Thus you hold him, humming John Lennon’s “Imagine” like a lullaby. Umberto can’t hear you—his interrogators beat his ears with their open hands so often, he’s gone deaf. But his head rests above your heart and he can feel the vibration of your voice as you warble Uncle Louis’s lazy version.

  “Imagínate la la…”

  Your other compañeros slump around the cell. Out of the original six, four are left, so everyone can sit. Everyone still wears the clothes they came in, but no shoes. Footwear serves a different purpose in here: you shit and piss in your shoes and throw the waste out the window. You’re lucky you were wearing good, solid shoes the day you were arrested. You’re lucky you have a window.

  The Villa Grimaldi is never silent. Weeping, moaning, shouting, shrieking. You didn’t know a human voice had such a range. You never guessed agony and terror could manifest in so many sounds. If a man is electrocuted hard enough, he screams like a woman. If a woman is raped long enough, she bellows like a man. And children…they don’t sound human anymore.

  They’re calling you.

  It’s time to go.

  …

  …

  …

  And you’re gone.

  Jude called Serena and Giosué, who fell out of their chairs. He called Hewan and Bert, who screamed at the news. He texted Aiden, who replied: Wow. Cool!

  “Wow, cool?” Tej said. “That’s it?”

  “Cool with an exclamation point,” Jude said. “Which means it was sent with a world of heightened emotion and excitement behind it.”

  Tej laughed. “You know him best.”

  Which made Jude pause and think, then dial his brother’s number to talk personally. But, as expected, he got voicemail. Aiden didn’t like answering the phone.

  Jude knew these things.

  “Hey, it’s me,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you. I need to hear your voice. Call me when you can, po? I miss you. ¿Vale, hueón? Hasta luego.”

  He hung up and resumed pacing with his scrap of paper. It was ten o’clock at night on the east coast, where Alejandro Penda lived. Jude couldn’t call him now.

  Could he?

  “Uh, yeah,” Tej said. “Shit doesn’t start happening until ten.”

  But Jude didn’t. Not right away. He paced around, staring at the names.

  Eduardo Gabriel Penda.

  María Clementina Vilaró.

  He read them again and again but couldn’t connect. He sat at the computer and entered the names carefully into the blank boxes of his family tree. Making a little grouping of four. Mother. Father. Two sons.

  “Penda,” he said under his breath, trying it on.

  My last name is Penda. This is my DNA. This is my family.

  What would they have named me? Who was I supposed to be?

  He touched his brother’s box. Alejandro Penda. He imagined himself at a party, introducing his sibling.

  Hi, I’d like you to meet my brother, Alejandro.

  Ten-thirty and he still hadn’t called. He kept whirling the name around his mouth. The same way he got fixated on Giosué all those months ago.

  Did his brother go by Alejo? Alé? The Americanized Alex?

  What did he look like?

  He paced, mumbling, “I can’t believe it” over and over.

  “Dude,” Tej said. “Call and you’ll believe it.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Introduce yourself. Say, ‘This sounds crazy but I think I’m your brother.’ If he hangs up on you, call Isabella back and get her to call him and verify everything. Or hell, I’ll call him. Give me the phone.”

  “You are so fucking brave, man.”

  “You want me to? I will. Give it.”

  “Yeah. No.” Jude picked up his cell. “No, I’ll call.” His finger literally shook as he punched in the number. “Christ, look at me.”

  “I can’t take my eyes off you.”

  Jude squeezed his eyes shut as he held the phone to his ear. A little bit away, as if it were on fire.

  “Holy shit,” he mouthed without a sound.

  One ring.

  Two.

  Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god…

  The third ring broke in half. “Alex Penda.”

  He’s real, Jude thought.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Jude said. “Alex, this is…” His voice stopped, swiftly as if his vocal chords were sliced. His mouth moved but nothing came out.

  I am going to pass the fuck out.

  “I’m sorry, I think you got cut off,” Alex said. “Who is this?”

  “My name is Juleón Tholet. I got your number from Isabella Eberhoff at the Medical-Legal Institute in Santiago.”

  Silence.

  “Chile,” Jude added, stupidly. “She called me because… Because you and I…”

  The silence continued on the other end of the line. It was so quiet it was dead.

  “I mean,” Jude said. “She said our DNA is…the same?”

  “The same,” Alex said.

  “Our DNA matches.”

  “Okay.” A beat. “Wow.”

  “I know. She gave me your number. I mean, she had permission to.”

  “I signed the release.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So. Wait. Are you a cousin?”

  “No, I think I’m your brother.”

  Tej grabbed his hand hard. The silence on the line was deader than dead now and through it, Jude’s heart pounded like a cannon.

  “Are you there?” he said.

  “Oh my God,” Alex said.

  “I submitted my DNA. She called me a little while ago saying I had a match.”

  “Oh my God, wait. Wait. You’re saying that... Wait, what did she say?”

  “She said my DNA showed I was… I mean, I don’t understand all the technical words but it’s the Y-chromosome that matches. You and me, our Y-chromosomes match. And both of ours match the male bone fragments you identified as your father.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Which means your father is my father.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

&nb
sp; “Isabella said you identified the bones last year.”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are your parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “So…that means I’m your brother?”

  Alex’s voice cracked open. “Yes.”

  “I’m your brother? This is real?”

  “Oh my God…”

  “This is happening?” Jude stood up. Then sat again.

  “Wait,” Alex said. “Oh my God, I don’t believe this. Wait. Jesus Christ, what’s your name?”

  “Juleón. Jude. I’m called Jude.”

  “Jude.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Seattle.”

  “I mean, where were you?”

  “With my parents.”

  His voice raised. “How did they get you?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out. They think I was switched.”

  “What do you mean, switched?” Open hostility in the voice now, making Jude panic and scramble to his feet again. Tej was scribbling on a sheet of paper and holding it up.

  KEEP IT SIMPLE.

  “Listen, let me start from the beginning,” Jude said, pacing. “My father is a Chilean citizen. His parents were Austrian Jews and they fled Hitler in the late thirties. He was born in Santiago. My mother is Canadian. Her father was a civil engineer and he worked on designing Santiago’s metro system, so she ended up living there and working at the Canadian embassy. She met my father, they married in seventy-two and my mother was seven months pregnant when Pinochet took over.”

  “Mine too,” Alex said, his voice still tight.

  “My father was arrested during the coup and… Wait, do you speak Spanish?”

  With a bark of laughter, Alex cried, “¡Hueón, por supuesto que hablo español!”

  Of course I speak Spanish, you moron.

  Feeling a little hysterical, Jude switched. “My dad was in the Estadio de Chile, then he was transferred to the Villa Grimaldi for six weeks. My mother got roughed up by soldiers and one of them rifle-butted her in the head. She went into labor and gave birth to me on the floor of her living room. Wait, not me. The baby we thought was me. I’m sorry, my brain is reeling. I still can’t extricate myself out of this story. She gave birth in her house and then was taken to the hospital. Her skull was fractured and she had a severe concussion. When she was finally conscious and lucid again, they brought the baby in to her. But it was me.”