Human Solutions

by Avi Silberstein

  “There!” Uncle Peter said. “Now for your swim.”

  He walked over to Marta S., slowly. Then he picked up a bowl of soup from a neighboring table and dumped it over her head. She shrieked–more from surprise, I hoped. I dipped a finger into my own soup to see how hot it was. I was relieved to find it was merely warm by this point.

  “I need some help here,” Uncle Peter said.

  Nobody moved.

  “Anyone who doesn’t help Marta S. with her swim might enjoy taking a swim WITH HER!”

  There was a flurry of movement, and every colonist in the room lurched forward to pour their soup on Marta S. She shut her eyes tightly and held her arms stiffly at her sides. I looked around until I found Claudio. He was staring at his bowl of soup in abject horror, being pulled along by a group of boys. His face was ashen, and he looked like he had taken a turn for the worse since I had last seen him. I tried to catch his eye to reassure him but did not succeed.

  I noticed then that many of the colonists were opting to take their water glasses with them—whether they were being kind or had simply run out of soup, I didn’t know. I picked up my water glass and walked over to Marta S. Bits of food were tangled in her hair. I did not know what was said at a baptism. I poured the water gently onto her head.

  “God help you,” I said under my breath.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Uncle Peter announced that Marta S. would be tied to a chair (in her current state of undress) and left to sit outside the dining hall for the next 24 hours. Anyone spotted talking to her or giving her food would join her. After the colonists had filed out of the dining hall, I grabbed a mop and helped the clean-up crew with the daunting task ahead of them. We were almost done when I was approached by a guard. He gestured with his head for me to follow him. I was feeling obstinate and tired of people who tried to get away with not speaking.

  “Yes?” I said. I squeezed the mop into the bucket and then slowly swirled it around the pool of liquid at our feet. By not looking at him, I was forcing him to speak.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m supposed to help Uncle Peter with an important and delicate task.”

  “We need to go this minute.”

  He followed me closely as I returned the mop to the kitchen.

  “We’ll be stopping at the library,” said the guard. “Uncle Peter has asked that you bring something to write on and your tape recorder.”

  “Of course.”

  After a quick stopover in the library, we were back on the road. When we reached the blueberry fields, the guard stopped abruptly. He cursed under his breath.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I forgot,” he said. “I was supposed to blindfold you at the library.”

  I looked around. There was not a person in sight.

  “I won’t tell Uncle Peter,” I said generously.

  He looked relieved. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a thick black strip of cloth. He came up behind me and tied it over my eyes.

  “It’s a bit tight,” I said. It wasn’t really—I was just trying to remind him that I was a human, like him. People are less likely to harm someone if they see them as a fellow human. The guard loosened the blindfold.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m Javier, by the way.”

  “Leonardo,” said the guard. “No more talking now.”

  Then we were on our way again. I tried to keep track of where we were going—32 steps straight, then a sharp right turn and 26 steps, etc.—but it’s hard enough to walk while blindfolded, let alone keep track of where one is going. It seemed like we were going around in circles. Perhaps the guard was trying to compensate for having forgotten the blindfold. Finally, we stopped, and I heard the creak of a door being pushed open. Leonardo led me up three large steps and into a building of some sort. I gave a cough, and it echoed well. I thought of the old wooden church I had come across the other day. Leonardo spoke briefly to someone, and then we began a sharp descent down a staircase. When we reached the bottom, Leonardo pulled my blindfold off. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. We were in a concrete bunker, empty except for two hard wooden chairs facing each other in the middle of the room.

  “Sit,” Leonardo said, pointing at one of the chairs. “Uncle Peter will be here soon.” He left the room, closing the door firmly.

  I sat and listened. Leonardo seemed to be just outside the door, talking to someone in low whispers. Then there was much shuffling of feet, and the door swung open. Uncle Peter gave me a nod and sat down opposite me.

  “We have apprehended a group of men,” he began. “They were plotting to assassinate General Augusto Pinochet. I will be questioning these men myself, but I need someone to take down the information they give us—someone who has a tape recorder and can then transcribe the tapes into readable documents.”

  “Of course.”

  I didn’t want to have anything to do with this “questioning” process, but, now that I was here, I did not think Uncle Peter would let me turn back.

  “I’d be happy to help you out.”

  Uncle Peter got up abruptly. “I will call you into the questioning room when we are ready for you. And a word of warning: some of the men might need to be encouraged to speak.”

  My mouth was dry. I was afraid of how my voice would come out if I tried to say something, so I simply nodded. Uncle Peter left, and, once again, I was alone in the room. My legs needed to be moving, so I got up and began pacing around the room.

  The door swung open, and Leonardo poked his head into the room. “Time to go,” he said. He led me down a narrow corridor, stopping just in front of an unmarked door. I stood there, unsure of what to do.

  “It’s soundproof,” Leonardo said. He pointed at a small, latched slot at the base of the door, the kind used to deliver food to those who were inside. It could be opened only from the outside. Then he began a hasty retreat.

  “Wait,” I said, but he was already halfway down the corridor.

  I took three long breaths and tried to think of a mantra that I could repeat to myself. Yolks and whites was all I could think of. I knelt down and unlatched the slot and then slid it aside.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Well, look at that,” I heard Uncle Peter say cheerfully. “Sounds like we have a visitor. COME IN!”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The room was dimly lit and not very large. The walls were covered in egg cartons. There was a hospital bed and a man tied down onto it. He looked like he had not eaten or slept in days—his cheeks drawn back, his eyes glazed over. Next to the bed, there was a large machine, host to all sorts of gauges and levers. A series of wires were leading out from the machine and onto a small leather cap. The cap was on the man’s head. The other wires were connected to electrodes on the man’s arms, legs, and chest. All except for three of the wires. These led onto what looked like a smaller version of the leather cap.

  “Oh, yes,” Uncle Peter said, following my gaze, “that machine is called Schnapps.”

  I turned my head to look at him, but my eyes stayed riveted to the machine.

  “Because,” Uncle Peter said, “there’s nothing like some schnapps to get a man talking!” He laughed heartily at his joke.

  “See this one?” he asked, picking up the smaller leather cap. “Can you guess where this one will go?” He raised his eyebrows at the man and shrugged.

  “But I’m being quite rude,” he said. “I haven’t done proper introductions. Javier, meet my new friend, 146.”

  I looked over at the man and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring look. Uncle Peter began a long sermon about how he wanted 146 to have as easy a time as possible and that he was going to offer him the opportunity to speak before turning to Schnapps for help. 146 fixed his eyes on one of the concrete walls and thoroughly ignored the proceedings.

  “This is your last chance,” Uncle Peter said, walking over to the machine. He put his hand over one of the levers and looked at 14
6. Then he pulled the lever down gently, just a fraction of an inch. The lights flickered off and then on again—once, twice, three times. I kept my eyes trained on the machine, watching the gauges f lail around, unsuccessfully trying to block out 146’s convulsions. Uncle Peter turned the machine off and waited until 146 had settled down.

  “That was one single shot of schnapps,” he said. “This machine can dish out six shots of schnapps at a time. Do you understand?”

  146 closed his eyes. I was sure he was letting his mind wander to some happy memory—maybe a swim in the river with his brother when he was a boy or his first fumbling attempts at making love behind a dilapidated garden shed. Uncle Peter reached over and unbuckled 146’s belt. He undid the fly on his pants and pulled until his pants and underwear were halfway down his thighs.

  “Now this little thing,” he said, holding up the smaller leather cap, “is going to go on that little thing.” He looked up at me—the first time since I had come into the room—and then fastened the cap to the man’s genitals. 146 began crying—quietly, in as dignified a manner as I could have imagined—and it was then that I looked at him closely and understood he was more a boy than a man. I jumped up from my chair. I walked over to Uncle Peter and tilted my head next to his ear.

  “If you leave now, he might talk to me,” I said. “He looks like he’s ready.”

  “You are not here to tell me what to do!” he whispered furiously. “You are here to take note of his confession—and nothing more.”

  We were in a church, and I was to listen to a man’s confession. I wanted to tell him to recite a few dozen Hail Marys and he would be fine—but I knew there was no amount of praying that would help him at this point. If he refused to confess, he would be tortured and then killed. If, on the other hand, he chose to confess, he would also be killed.

  Uncle Peter turned to 146. “Ready or not,” he said, putting a hand on the lever. This time, 146’s screams were accompanied by the nauseating smell of burning hair and flesh.

  146 breathed in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. Uncle Peter looked at me. He ran his hand down the machine lovingly and put his hand on the lever. “What’s that?” he said. “Did someone order three shots?”

  “Turn on the tape recorder,” 146 said.

  “He speaks!” Uncle Peter said.

  “Turn it on.”

  I pressed Record. The machine began its quiet whirring.

  “Why don’t you start out by telling us your name,” Uncle Peter said.

  “My name is Lautaro Sánchez, and I was born in Santiago in 1968,” he said. “When I was a kid, my father was taken away from me by the Dictator because he had told a friend of his that he thought the Dictator wasn’t doing a good job of running the country. Turns out the friend wasn’t a friend after all. I never saw my father again, and my mother faded away until there was hardly anything left of her. Someone told me about a meeting I should attend if I wanted to fight the Dictator, and one thing led to another.”

  “One thing led to another,” Uncle Peter repeated, shaking his head.

  It was the mention of the Dictator that finally led me to understand that this was the relationship between Uncle Peter and General Pinochet that Julio had been searching for—Uncle Peter tortured General Pinochet’s political prisoners to extract information from them, and, in return, he was given license to do anything he wanted at the Colony.

  Uncle Peter began asking 146 a long string of rapid-fire questions—names of fellow revolutionaries, meeting places, future plans, etc. I took notes when necessary but mostly relied on the tape recorder. It didn’t matter much anyway—I would be making slight alterations to all of the information 146 was divulging. When Uncle Peter seemed satisfied with the answers he had obtained, he asked me to go summon the guards and to ask one of them to walk me back to my room. Several minutes later, blindfolded and being led home by Leonardo, I was stopped in my tracks by a gunshot.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Leonardo said.

  “That gunshot.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” he repeated.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I woke up the next morning with stomach cramps and a sore jaw. I had not slept much—and the few hours that I did manage to sleep were haunted by nightmares of torture and murder. The second time I awoke from one of these nightmares, I snuck out to retrieve the rope and hammer that I had left outside the garden shed. When I returned, I tried unsuccessfully to salvage another hour or two of sleep. I took a cold shower in hopes that it would wake me up, but all it did was send me into a bout of shivering.

  At breakfast, I asked someone to take my spot at the oatmeal—I couldn’t bring myself to face too many people just yet—and I went to slice some apples. A boy came into the kitchen.

  “Uncle Peter wants to see you,” he said. “Follow me.”

  I got up reluctantly and followed the boy out into the dining hall. Uncle Peter was sitting at a table, tidily sawing away at a sausage link.

  “You did good last night,” he said. “You’ll need to come help out again tonight.”

  I could feel my stomach clenching. “I have a rehearsal for the play tonight.” I did not, but I would gladly schedule one.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Uncle Peter said. “You can just go ahead and reschedule the rehearsal.”

  I nodded.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  “I need to get back to the kitchen to clean up,” I said.

  “They’ll manage.”

  I sat down across from him.

  “I trust the play is coming along?”

  “I think you’ll enjoy it,” I said.

  “Of course. Come by after lunch today, and we’ll continue with the interview.”

  I was starting to get a headache. I returned to the warm safety of the kitchen, where I tried to eat but found I couldn’t. I needed some air. I hurried out of the dining hall and almost tripped over Marta S. She was slumped over in her chair, her wrists and ankles tightly bound, her head tilted down to hide her face behind a curtain of hair. She was shivering and sniffling loudly. I couldn’t quite understand what would compel a man to do this to someone—there lay the problem with trying to manipulate Uncle Peter. It’s hard to figure out what makes a clock tick if you can’t open it up and have a look inside.

  I continued towards the library. Ernesto was reading a book on the front porch. He glanced up at me and immediately prescribed a nap in the pillowed children’s area. We would go on our daily chicken walk when I awoke, he said. I didn’t resist—gratefully heading inside, laying out a chain of pillows and falling down onto them.

  I awoke to the sound of Ernesto blowing his nose into a handkerchief. He folded it neatly and tucked it into his pocket.

  “You’re awake,” he said brightly.

  I groaned and draped an arm over my face to shield out the glaring sunlight.

  “You slept for more than an hour. Now it’s time to think of those chickens and their need for exercise.”

  “Just give me a second,” I said. I got up slowly, stretching while on the pillows and then again when I was on my feet. I went to the washroom and splashed cold water on my face. I did something I hadn’t done since I was young: I cupped a hand under the faucet and ducked my head to drink. Ernesto was waiting for me outside, talking to the chickens as he cleaned out their coop.

  “Who wants to go for a walk?” he said. “Which of my ladies wants to go for a lovely little stroll?”

  We set out at a slower-than-usual pace. I was still groggy, and Ernesto seemed to be in a pensive mood.

  “You were going to tell me the church story,” I said. “The real story of how the Colony annexed the church.”

  Ernesto kept his eyes on his chickens. “There’s something you should know about Uncle Peter,” he said. “He has a favorite saying: ‘Every man has his price.’ Well, it turns out the nuns that used to lived in that church did not have their pri
ce. They didn’t want to sell their land—and Uncle Peter is not one to take ‘No’ for an answer.”

  We walked for a little while longer. I wanted Ernesto to continue—I stayed silent and waited. Soon, we reached the fields. A distant figure pushing a wheelbarrow down a path raised a hand in greeting. The sun was behind them, and all I could see was a silhouette. I shielded my eyes from the sun and saw that it was Victor. I waved back.

  “This is where the edge of the church land was,” Ernesto said. “There were thirty or so nuns that lived here. They had a tidy garden plot and access to the river. They didn’t bother anyone—they just kept to themselves and didn’t make any trouble. Uncle Peter bought out a farmer on the far side of the church, and he decided that he wanted to buy the church land. But the nuns weren’t interested in selling. Their order had lived there for decades, and they hoped to live there for decades more. He offered them lots of money, but they were happy here—this was their home, and they declined his offers.”

  “He should have tricked them,” I said. “Set up some kind of situation to make them want to leave. A faked Anti-Christ or a letter written from some distant locale that desperately needed their help.”

  Ernesto looked over at me. “I suppose,” he said. “Or he could have just let them be. We can’t control everything. What he ended up doing was launching a vicious attack on them. He started out by cutting off their water supply and waking them up every night with a series of loud noises and bright lights that he shined into their rooms. When that wasn’t enough, he circulated a fake video of the nuns and priests at an orgy.”

  I stopped walking. One of my chickens looked down and noticed that it was standing in a patch of dry earth. It lowered itself down and shook its feathers.

  “Dust baths,” Ernesto said. “They do that so they don’t get mites.”

  I scratched the back of my neck.