by Lewis Shiner
«He doesn’t know Beto was here,» Mateo said.
«He saw Beto in the restaurant,» Jesús said. «Remember?» The word carried a world of blame.
For the first time I wondered if I’d made a mistake. My vote had saved Osvaldo as much as Mateo’s had. I remembered the fierce look on Osvaldo’s face as he charged the restaurant, his haughty dignity under the hood, the things he had done at the Club Atlético. He would be a relentless enemy.
But then I would have condemned the father of the woman I loved.
«He would not go after Beto either,» Elena said. «En absoluto.» Absolutely not.
I wished I had her confidence.
«I’ll get his word that he will not pursue you, or any of your friends,» Mateo said to Elena. «I’ll make it clear that it’s a condition of his release.»
«His word?» Jesús said. His voice was getting louder by the minute. He stood in front of the low table with his arms folded and legs spread wide, his right hand inches away from his gun.
«He will honor it,» Elena said.
«Can you not bring me into it?» I said.
«Don’t worry, Beto,» Mateo said. «We are not complete boludos.»
«How the fuck would he know that?» Jesús said. «Judging by last night’s fiasco and today’s ‘trial’?»
«Let it go!» Mateo shouted at him. «What’s done is done. If you want to go ahead and kill him anyway, if that’s what your idea of justice has become, go ahead and do it, I don’t give a shit.»
The two of them stared at each other, and I wondered if Jesús would get his fistfight after all. Or if one of them would reach for a gun.
Jesús looked away first. «So what do you want to do,» he said, «dump him in the countryside somewhere?»
«No. Wait until late tonight and leave him at his house. If he doesn’t have to ask for help, if he doesn’t have to go around explaining what happened, maybe…?»
«Maybe,» Jesús sneered. «Maybe.»
«I’ll do it myself. None of the rest of you have to be involved.» He looked around the room, staring into each of the faces in turn. Nobody spoke.
«Bueno,» he said. «It’s settled, then.» He turned and gestured to Elena and me to stand up. «Let’s go.»
*
He took us out the way we’d come in. Elena held my hand without speaking, tears still running down her face.
«What happened up there?» I asked Mateo. «What made you change your mind?»
He pointed to Elena. «Seeing how much he loved her. How much he loved her mother. Once you see yourself in your enemy, you’re lost.»
«I can’t forgive him,» Elena said. «I don’t think I ever will. But I kept thinking of something Beto said to me. And I realized that I can’t pass judgment on him. I have to leave that to God.»
«God,» Mateo said. «God is behind in his work.»
*
Mateo left us in the courtyard behind the market. He hugged us both, holding on to Elena for a long time. «Each time I let you go,» he said, «I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.»
«You’ll see me,» she said. «Why wouldn’t you?»
Mateo shook his head and disappeared through the door under the stairs.
When we were on the street, Elena kissed me, a sad, exhausted kiss. «I owe you, Beto. I will never forget this. When you need something from me, you only have to ask. Anything, you understand? Anything.»
I put two fingers to her beautiful mouth. «You talk as if I had a choice. Let’s go home.»
«Yes, please. I want to sleep all day and then go out and dance until the sun comes up again.»
*
Elena slept, but I couldn’t. I should have been grateful to be home and safe, to be no more than an accessory after the fact to a kidnapping rather than an active party to conspiracy and murder. If Elena was right, I had nothing more to worry about.
In fact I felt like there was an icepick in my right eye and my neck had been wrung like a wet towel, twisted into a knotted, lumpy mass.
I untangled myself from her sleeping body and did some yoga in the living room. I ate and then read for a while on the couch. When I did finally doze off I dreamed it was me that was running up Calle Estados Unidos, terrified, footsteps pounding behind me and getting closer by the second.
*
We danced at El Beso until five in the morning, mostly with each other. By the end I was in an altered state of consciousness where the music blew me around and around the dance floor like a paper sailboat on a sun-drenched lake. Only when “La cumparsita” finally played and we changed our shoes and found ourselves in the street did I think to look behind me.
We ate the traditional post-tango breakfast of medialunas and got home as the sun was coming up. We slept all day and only got up to go to Don Güicho’s milonga Sunday night. Afterward we showered and made love for what seemed like hours and when we were both completely spent, she said, «It’s going to be okay now, Beto, wait and see. It’s over.»
*
I ended up at work Monday morning with my internal clock completely confounded, my nerves frazzled, and my head hurting. I was profoundly grateful to have a series of clear, understandable tasks in front of me that no lives depended on.
For lunch I took Bahadur to a tiny café up the street. There, over empanadas, I told him quietly how I’d spent my weekend. I left out specifics about the tunnels and the abandoned building and didn’t describe any of the montoneros.
“You should have called me,” Bahadur said. “I could have been on your jury.”
“Would you have voted to kill him?”
“Since I wasn’t there, it’s hard to know for sure, but probably, yes.”
“You say that so easily.”
“He was a torturer and a murderer. Just because he was one of many, or because he maybe had a soft place for Elena’s mother, does not excuse it. We are each of us responsible for our own actions, we each make our own decisions. Not God, not our commanding officers, nobody but ourselves.”
*
Late that afternoon, Isabel, La Reina, dropped by my cubicle. «I just wanted you to know that I emailed that file to Jim and asked him for an explanation. I haven’t heard back from him yet. As soon as I do, I’ll let you know.»
«Thank you,» I said.
I finished work at seven. Elena had phoned to tell me that she was making a special dinner. I thought I would read for a while afterward and have an early night.
I took the Subte home as usual, and my legs hurt as I climbed up to the street. I remember stopping at the top of the stairs to take it all in: the last, fading light of the day, a cool, traffic-flavored breeze from the direction of el Obelisco, a woman’s laughter from somewhere behind me, a splash of red and yellow from the magazines at the corner kiosk, and I remember thinking that it was truly beginning to feel like home.
*
They were waiting for me as I turned the corner onto Humberto Primo. Four of them stood by the car, a late model Ford, and though it wasn’t a Falcon, it was green and my brain made the connection. I was instantly terrified.
The men wore the kind of pretend-soldier clothes favored by militia types in the US—camo pants and jackets, white or olive-green T-shirts, baseball caps and dark glasses. They had sidearms and automatic weapons and they were all looking at me.
The fifth had apparently followed me from the Subte station. Before I could turn to run, he put the hood over my head and threw me to the sidewalk, skinning the palms of my hands. Somebody kicked me in the ribs and I made myself go limp, knowing I was hopelessly outnumbered, not wanting to show any signs of resistance. No one seemed to care. A hand grabbed me by the back of my shirt and I heard the fabric tear as he yanked me up and threw me into the wall. I hit on my right shoulder and the pain was a white light that paralyzed my brain. I bounced off the wall, flailing, and got punched and kicked again as I fell onto my back on the concrete.
There was laughter and then somebody said, «¡Apurate!» They threw
me onto the floorboards behind the front seat, and the car doors slammed, and the engine fired up. Somebody cuffed my hands behind my back, making me cry out because the cuffs were too tight. The tires squealed as we pulled away and all I could think of was Elena in the apartment waiting for me, watching our special dinner, which I would never taste, slowly grow cold.
It was a rough ride. I was totally disoriented by the hood, as I was meant to be. I tried to count seconds and never got to more than a minute or two before a sharp turn or a sudden stop threw me off. I was lucid enough to notice that even though I was terrified, I hadn’t slipped into a panic attack. I was breathing hard but not hyperventilating, nauseated from the blind turns, but not throwing up. There’s no time for panic when the worst is already happening.
We must have driven for close to an hour, even allowing for the time distortion caused by my state of mind. When the car finally stopped and the engine shut down I was torn between gratitude that the nightmare ride was over and the knowledge that they might be about to kill me. Instead they took me inside a building. I felt thick carpet underfoot and smelled dust and mildew. We passed through a second door, then a third, and then the floor was linoleum.
They began to strip my clothes off and that was when I finally understood what was going to happen.
They made a game of it. They tossed me from one man to the next, tearing pieces of clothing away as they shoved me. Someone had a knife and now and then he would cut something away. They didn’t stop until all that was left was the hood and the handcuffs, and then they threw me in a closet and I heard a padlock close on the door.
The closet had a linoleum floor also, cool at first against my bare skin, warming quickly to my body heat. The air was hot and stale and smelled of industrial disinfectants. I carefully felt my way around the space with my feet. It was empty except for a metal bucket. The chemical smell came from the liquid in the bottom of it. The closet was almost long enough for me to stretch out in, and half as wide. The walls were grooved and I pictured fake wood paneling with a hard plastic finish. A faint glow showed through the fabric of the hood, telling me that a light had been left on.
Working with my hands behind my back, I put the bucket by the door and sat up against the opposite wall and listened. I heard low murmurs and then the sound of doors closing and then silence.
My hands were numb. I could massage one wrist with the other hand and I spent a few minutes trying to work blood back into them. Then I bent forward and moved my chest from side to side to figure out how badly I was hurt. My palms burned from scraping the sidewalk and one of my ribs was either bruised or cracked. Otherwise I was okay.
Not that it mattered, because I knew they were going to torture me.
And there, in the emptiness and silence, the panic finally came.
I managed not to throw up, knowing that even if I didn’t choke on my own vomit and die, I would still be trapped in the hood with it. I focused on my breathing and got it more or less under control. I did the pulse counting trick and it helped a little, then suddenly it was vitally important that I be standing up. I struggled to my feet and paced, as best I could, around the narrow space. I did it past the point that my bare feet hurt, did it until I finally got tired and then I crouched, and sat, and lay on my side.
I remembered the cognitive therapy advice to notice things, to observe, to be scientific. I tried to quantify my hunger, which was eating the lining of my stomach, and my thirst, which was not as bad, though my mouth was dry. I needed to piss, and the more I thought about it the stronger the urge became, until I knelt in front of the bucket and relieved myself, managing not to spill any even though I couldn’t use my hands. I failed to find comfort in that small victory.
I sat against the far wall again. There was no doubt in my mind that Osvaldo had betrayed me. If he’d made any effort at all to keep tabs on Elena he would have known about me and assumed that I knew where to find Mateo. I cursed Mateo and the red-bearded man and the man in the skull cap and the dark haired woman and most of all I cursed myself for not condemning Osvaldo to death.
Eventually I fell into something like sleep. I woke up not much later, knowing at some level where I was. As soon as full awareness returned, the panic came with it. After a minute I began to scream. The screaming felt so good, I kept it up until my throat tasted of blood and no more sound came out.
After that, I thought maybe I could bring the handcuffs around in front of me, and if I could do that, I might be able to get the hood off. I had to pull on the cuffs to bring them around my backside and the pain was terrible, and then I imagined myself getting stuck halfway and the panic started to take me again, so I gave it up.
Eventually I slept some more and woke. The room had gotten cold and I tucked my legs into my chest and slept again, and I woke to voices outside the door.
Maybe they had just been trying to scare me. Maybe they would take me back home now. I tried to think of anything I would not do to make that happen.
I heard keys in the lock and then footsteps. Somebody took me by one arm and turned me on my stomach and took the cuffs off. I rubbed my wrists and felt the first prickles of returning life in my numb and swollen fingers. A foot pressed me into the floor and hands struggled with the binding on the hood, then it came off and light dazzled my eyes.
«Sit up,» said a voice, and the foot went away. I rolled onto my side and then into a sitting position, my back to the wall, using one hand to shield my eyes. Somebody put a paper bag into my lap. I stared at it in confusion for a second before I realized what it was by the smell. It was from McDonald’s. Inside was a hamburger, an order of fries, and a large Coke.
«I’m a vegetarian,» I said.
Someone laughed. My eyes were still watering and I couldn’t make out any faces. There was one man in the closet with me and another in the doorway. A bank of fluorescents in the room behind them put out a glaring backlight that washed out the details.
The man closest to me said, «This is what the boat brought in. Take it or leave it.»
I was half crazy from fear, sick with hunger, and also childish and petulant. This is what they mean, I thought, by adding insult to injury. «Leave it,» I said, and handed the bag back to him.
By that point my eyes had recovered enough to see the rage contort his face. «Fucking ungrateful piece of shit,» he said. I saw his hand coming and succeeded only in deflecting it a little. It knocked me over and he kicked me in the ribs and backside until the other man pulled him off.
They took the food with them and locked the door. They hadn’t put the handcuffs or the hood back on. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.
The floor of the closet, I saw, was bluish-gray. There had been shelves all the way around at one time and they’d left scars in the fake wood paneling where they’d been ripped out.
Outside the door I heard boxes being unpacked, metallic banging, voices cursing. It went on for what must have been more than an hour, long enough for me to drift off again.
I curled up on the floor, head on my arm, but my fear wouldn’t let me sleep. There was only one thing they could be building out there and it was not a home theater system or a recumbent bicycle or a set of monkey bars.
I began to shake.
Eventually they opened the door and two of them came in for me. They each took an arm and when I was slow getting up, they punched and kicked me. My mind emptied. I couldn’t think about what was going to happen next. All I felt was my own lack of control, my complete helplessness. The muscles in my back and neck had twisted tight and I was panting, unable to get my breath.
The closet must have once been a pantry because it opened into an industrial sized kitchen, with stainless steel countertops, now rusted, and a black and white checkered floor. There were no windows, no traces of the world outside. I had no idea of what time it was, or even what day it was.
In the middle of the floor sat a steel table, eight feet long and four feet wide. Wide leather straps emer
ged from slots in the surface, positioned to hold a body spread-eagled.
Two more men stood on the far side of it. One wore a mechanic’s navy blue coveralls, the other a white shirt and yellow tie. The one in the coveralls said, «Bienvenidos a la parilla.» Welcome to the grill.
My knees quit supporting my weight and I stumbled. The two men holding me dragged me to the table and manhandled me onto it. I wasn’t resisting, I was incapacitated by fear and it made me clumsy and difficult. They strapped my arms and wrists down first, then my legs, then they put a final strap around my forehead.
I closed my eyes, then I had to open them again. The darkness and not knowing made the helplessness worse. The assistant thugs went out of the range of my vision. I heard the scrape of a match and smelled a lit cigarette.
The man in coveralls was older than me, in his mid-fifties. His hair was gray and he had a small mustache and black-rimmed glasses. He looked like an accountant who’d had to take a job in a garage.
He was holding a metal box the size of a pack of cigarettes. He had latex gloves on. Two long wires came out of the top of the box, ending in alligator clips, like miniature jumper cables. A heavy gauge wire ran from the other end to a lunchbox-sized transformer that was plugged into the wall. It had a US-style plug and was connected to a converter for Argentine current.
The man in the tie was also in his fifties, tan and clean-shaven, with buzz-cut hair. He touched the shoulder of the man in coveralls and said something into his ear, pointing at parts of my naked body. I made out enough of the words to tell that he was speaking Spanish with a US accent.
CIA, I thought. Stupidly, the idea gave me a half second of comfort. Surely he understood that I was from the US?
The man in the coveralls walked counterclockwise halfway around the table, then back the other way. He poked at the bruises on my ribs and shins, hard enough to make me cry out. My voice was still hoarse from the screaming.
«Bueno,» he said at last. «No questions just now. First we give a demonstration only, to let you know we are serious. Another time we will have questions. No?»
