The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos

by Margaret Mascarenhas

  Ismael crouched down. He slipped between his wife’s straining arms, facing her. She spat in his face. He slid his hands under her, and she could feel a wriggling bundle, like a giant misguided mojón, moving wetly through her. Her stomach rippled, sending a searing jagged knife of white heat to her brain.

  “Get it out of me,” Consuelo yelled, falling back, and supporting herself with her elbows on the floor.

  “Empuja,” he whispered, leaning forward, his hands ready. Consuelo pushed so hard she thought her head would explode. She felt her bones unlock, separate in a massive rush of indescribable pain and pleasure. Then she was free.

  “It’s a girl!” yelled Ismael exultantly a moment later.

  Ismael expertly severed and tied the umbilical cord, blew into the baby’s mouth, and swabbed her with a damp towel. He swaddled her in a clean one and handed her to Nathifa, who had tears in her eyes. Kneeling in front of Consuelo, whose legs were still splayed open, Ismael waited for the afterbirth, which he placed in a bucket for disposal, then he gently removed his wife’s blood-soaked nightgown. He washed her with another wet towel, helped her back into bed, covered her with a fresh sheet. Nathifa placed the baby against Consuelo’s breast, and stood by, smiling. And when Consuelo looked into her child’s eyes, her heart began to dance.

  “Happy birthday, mi amor,” said Ismael.

  “I want to call her Lily,” said Consuelo. “Lily Nathifa Martinez.”

  “Amparo is going to be furious that she missed the birth,” said Ismael. “Are you sure you want to deprive her of being present for the naming as well?”

  “We’ll make her the godmother, as consolation. And Alejandro can be the godfather,” said Consuelo with finality.

  “Lily Nathifa Amparo Martinez? Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what consolation does your husband receive for all the curses he had to endure?” asked Ismael, smiling.

  At that moment Consuelo couldn’t remember cursing her husband. She couldn’t remember the pain. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time before the moment she held her baby in her arms.

  “You mean Papi is the one who delivered me?” says Lily incredulously. “I never knew that.”

  “No,” says Consuelo, “I delivered you, my darling. But it turned out your father knew a great deal about assisting, having once participated in a delivery in the jungle along with his friend Lucrecia, who was a midwife. Anyway, Amparo was so furious that your father forgot to call her, she demanded that he make it up to her. Which, of course, he finally did, by introducing her to Lucrecia. And that’s how Amparo became a midwife.”

  Consuelo wants her daughter to understand the endurance and sacrifices love demands in return for the joy and ecstasies. There is another story that would illustrate her point. A story she has never spoken in words, though there have been hints of it in some of her early painting—a period Ismael calls her “brooding period.”

  Nine years before Lily was born was a time of unrest and trouble for the nation, and as far as the government was concerned, Ismael had become part of the trouble and unrest. When he disappeared in Tamanaco on the day of her birthday, Consuelo felt a terrible soul-shrinking foreboding. Every morning for three weeks, she left at eight and returned only at night. All day long, she scoured the city, searching in hospitals, police lockups, and, finally, the morgues. What she saw in the morgues made her blood run cold—grey, naked corpses, some without hands, or feet, or heads. Other bodies dark with bruises and burns. Sometimes the bodies were children. With haunted eyes she would tell what she had seen, while Amparo covered her shaking shoulders with a shawl and Amparo’s husband, Alejandro, poured her a stiff drink. Finally, Alejandro learned through his secretary, Lily Percomo, that Ismael was being held in detention without charge at the Ministerio de Defensa.

  Consuelo sought and received an appointment with Pedro Lanz at the Department of Security and Classified Information. She went to the Palacio Miraflores, signed her name in a registry, sat down in the designated area, and folded her hands firmly in her lap, expecting a long wait. She watched as, across the marbled hallway, a woman in a dark blue dress begged for an appointment and was denied. When the woman refused to leave, she was escorted off the premises by two soldiers, screaming, “I want to see El Mago, I want to see El Mago.” Consuelo remembered with a chill in her spine that Pedro Lanz was morbidly known as the Colonel’s magician for his ability to make men disappear. A few minutes later, another soldier approached her and asked her to follow him up an imposing stairway and down a long, wide hallway. When she entered the office of Pedro Lanz, he stood, looked directly into her eyes, and greeted her cordially, “Ah, Señora Consuelo, I must say that marriage has only enhanced your beauty. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Dizzy with guilty gratitude that she had not met the fate of the woman in the blue dress, Consuelo thanked Pedro Lanz profusely for seeing her on such short notice.

  “I’ve always held you and your husband in the highest regard, Señora,” he said, maintaining eye contact. “I am a great admirer of Ismael’s musical and poetic talent. He is a genius—a true renaissance man.” Pedro Lanz walked from behind his enormous desk to where she was standing, and, taking her solicitously by the elbow, drew her toward a red velvet upholstered sofa to one side of the room, saying, “I can never forget his role as one of the compadres who helped pave the road to power for this government, and indeed my own position in it. I assure you that I am not a man who ignores such debts. So, tell me, how may I be of service?”

  “Señor Director, my husband is missing. He simply vanished nearly three weeks ago in Tamanaco, where we were houseguests of Alejandro and Amparo Aguilar. Since then, I have looked everywhere and contacted everyone I can think of. I don’t know where else to turn,” said Consuelo, moving ever so slightly away from him on the sofa, and turning toward him earnestly, in order to make it appear as though her intention was to have a better view of his face, rather than to alleviate her revulsion at his proximity.

  “Claro, I understand,” he replied, patting her hand. “After all, who can we turn to in times of need, if not to our friends? And I speak frankly to you now as your friend and not as a government official. As you know, I grew up with Ismael, who, like so many creative persons, was restless and never could stay in one place, or, for that matter, with one woman, ha ha, for long, until, of course, you came along, my dear. I don’t want to appear indelicate, but even the best of men will stray from time to time and it is wise to give them a little extra rope.” His tone implied that he knew this to be the case with Ismael and was breaking the news to her gently.

  Consuelo could feel the blood flooding her cheeks at his reference to her husband’s well-known and colorful history as a lady’s man. It was difficult to keep her poise. “I am well aware of my husband’s past, Señor Director. And though he is my husband, I have never curtailed his freedoms. During the year we have been married, he has had no reason, nor shown any inclination, to...stray, as you put it. He went to buy flowers for my birthday and never made it to the flower shop. This is why I am certain he has been hurt or detained against his will.” By you, she wanted to shout, but stopped short just in time. Whatever you do, Alejandro and Amparo had warned, don’t say you know he is being held at the Ministerio de Defensa. But of course Pedro Lanz knew what she meant even though she had not said it. For they lived under a dictatorship, and what was a dictatorship but a country without habeas corpus?

  “My dear Consuelo, if he has been detained, as you put it, it is not by my order, though his political activities and affiliations are known to me,” he said, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. “Nevertheless, I assure you, I will make inquiries and do my best to get to the bottom of this matter.” He rose, offering her his hand, signaling the end of the interview.

  Consuelo leapt to her feet, the blood flooding her cheeks with crimson. “Excuse me, Señor Director, but I do not believe you.”

  As soon as the words esca
ped her lips, she regretted them. The reputation of Pedro Lanz was of a man who could inspire fear in the hearts of strong men using only his mirada, whose displeasure could have life-or-death consequences. Her knees began to tremble and her mouth went dry, but her eyes were blazing. To her surprise, he laughed.

  “Caramba! I’ve always said that Ismael Martinez knows a high-spirited thoroughbred when he sees one, and you, my dear, are magnificent. I recognized this the moment I saw you that night in the home of Amparo and Alejandro Aguilar, and you scolded me for behavior unbecoming to a gentleman.”

  Consuelo’s relief at the unexpected acquittal was so great that she absorbed the comparison between herself and a racehorse without offence. She went so far as to express her regret for having treated him so rudely at their first meeting. But Lanz waved off her apology with his hand and leaned so close she could feel his hot, stale cigar breath on her face. He was no longer laughing. A fat bead of sweat from just above his left eyebrow dropped into her lap as he whispered, “Instability in the country is growing as we sit here, you and I. Even among those in my own department, I cannot be sure whom to trust. I should be out doing something about that, yet I am here, listening attentively to your concerns. In the grand scheme of things, the absence of one man, while regrettable, is not a matter of such, shall we say, gravitas. So tell me, presuming I were able to help you, what would you give me in return?”

  She would have given anything. She would have given her life.

  Many days later, she sat in a hut in the forest and watched the door, willing it to open. When it did, and Ismael walked through it, her heart performed a soubresaut. She stood and walked to him, trembling. Without a word, they embraced. She did not know how long they stood there, pressed together, bone to bone. It was nearly dark when, reluctantly, she pulled herself away to put a pot of water on the wood stove to boil. While the room filled with steam, she gently removed her husband’s clothing, wincing as she observed the bruises, welts, and burns on his back and buttocks, kissing each one with reverence. She could not bring herself then, or ever, to ask what he had endured in detention anymore than he could ask her what she had endured waiting for his release. Instead, she said to him: “You will never sing in public again. You must promise me.”

  Ismael had not argued that the danger was over, that under a new and democratic government, they would have little to fear, and political debate would become a matter of common public discourse. He had simply buried his face in her hair and said, “I promise you.”

  And so, gradually and tenderly, they moved beyond the unmentionable. Ismael continued to document his experiences and ideas through music and lyrics, work he gifted anonymously to musicians around the country, who would sing them as if they were their own. But the musicians all knew from whom the gift had come, for the words and music of Ismael Martinez could not be confused with those of any other artist. And without exception, those who performed his music would send him a portion of their profits.

  After they left the Western provinces, Consuelo and Ismael had lived for a time on nothing but love, relying mostly on the kindness and hospitality of strangers. And, after his release from prison until the day Lily was born, whenever Ismael sang his compositions, it was for Consuelo’s ears alone.

  No, she decides, she will never tell anyone, not even her daughter, of the lengths she was willing to go to purchase her husband’s life. It was a love sacrifice, yes. But it is not a happy memory.

  In the afternoon, Consuelo pats her hair into place and smoothes the front of her dress, feeling more herself because Amparo has finally arrived. She had been addressing a midwife’s conference in Miami on the day Lily had fallen. It took two days to reach her on the telephone, but as soon as she heard, she had cancelled her last lecture and taken the first flight back. That she has brought a nurse in tow is a miracle, since it is almost impossible to find live-in nurses in the city these days. And besides, who can afford them?

  From the rattling of pots and pans in the kitchen, Consuelo deduces that Marta is not entirely pleased with this population invasion, with the extra mouths to feed, with the possible siphoning off of her authority. Consuelo can hear her grumbling to herself. She considers offering to help in the kitchen, if only to take her own mind off Lily and the baby. Cooking, the rhythm of preparing a meal for those she loves, has always been a source of joy for her, a creative act, like painting. She considers moving her easel outside into the garden. But the anxiety of the past four days appears to have stolen her inspiration as well as her appetite.

  To her relief, Amparo’s assistant, Alegra Montemar, has turned out to be a woman of cheerful disposition, with no residue of airs from her former life as a celebrity. Seamlessly, she has established herself as part of the household, coming forward when her services are required, melting into the background when they are not. Consuelo watches her as she enters the kitchen, instinctively deferring to Marta, only speaking when spoken to, offering to help with the washing. And Marta begins to thaw incrementally, to stop muttering under her breath.

  After breakfast, with Alegra’s help, Consuelo gives Lily a sponge bath and dresses her in a luminous sky-blue nightgown from her bridal trousseau. Luz applies a slight dash of rouge to Lily’s chalk-white cheeks, which have never before known or needed the transformative powers of makeup.

  “You look beautiful,” says Carlos Alberto afterward. “Nobody would ever imagine you were sick.”

  “That’s because she is not sick,” says Amparo. “Pregnancy is a celebration of life.”

  Thank all the gods and goddesses of the universe for Amparo, thinks Consuelo. She can always turn any situation into a good time.

  Indeed, Amparo’s congenital happiness has flooded the house in a bubble bath of optimism and good cheer. Luz has turned on the radio and is dancing merengue with Ismael. Lily is watching and smiling. Carlos Alberto looks reassured, though he has yet to smile; Consuelo believes it is the sight of Alegra in her white nurse’s uniform that reassures him. Earlier, she heard him on the phone, talking to his department at the University, saying that he had found a substitute to teach his classes for two weeks. She thinks he must be worried about money, and whether his employers will hold his job for him. These days, jobs of any kind are hard to come by. But if such are the thoughts on his mind, he is making a heroic effort to evict them. He asks to borrow Consuelo’s sewing kit. Then, spreading the contents on the dining table, he sits and constructs a red satin pillow in the shape of a heart, which he stuffs to the brim with fragrant heads of honeysuckle—Lily’s favorite flowers. He places the pillow next to her bulging stomach, as close to the baby as possible, as though the strength of his ardor might seep into the womb by a process of osmosis.

  In the evening, Consuelo hears the ancient Lancer backing out of the driveway, and calls out to Marta, “Ask my husband where he thinks he is going.” But Marta cannot hear her over the roar of the engine.

  Concerned that he may feel he is no longer needed, that he may be planning some new jungle expedition, that it will be another impossible six months before she presses her deprived flesh to his, she hurries to the door and signals him to wait. Then she sends Carlos Alberto to accompany him. One hour later they return, their arms full of paper bags, and Consuelo’s heart jumps with joy, as if it is her wedding day.

  Of course love is enough; how could it be otherwise? For the first time since he carried Lily out of the hospital, she speaks to her husband without interpreters.

  “I thought you might be planning to return to the Gran Sabana,” she says.

  Ismael looks at her in a way she has missed every day since they were separated by their daughter’s decree, in a way that still makes her legs quiver and her knees go weak, in a way that starts a rumba in her womb.

  “You, my darling, are my Gran Sabana,” he says, taking her into his arms.

  The fruit of the passiflora edulis is used as a heart tonic and an aphrodisiac, its flower as a sedative, and its leaves to control muscl
e spasms and cramps.

  Amparo

  Amparo always felt her life lacked dimension until she became a midwife. Until then, she had defined herself as an adult in terms of her two primary roles: wife of the powerful and influential Alejandro Aguilar, and mother of rambunctious twins, Alex and Isabel. The fact is, Amparo had been fascinated with the business of birth ever since, at the age of nine, she had watched the birth of her bull terrier’s puppies. As a child, so great was her desire to witness the miracle over and over again, she had rescued every pregnant stray she found on the road, creating a doggie birth center in her parents’ garden shed, soothing her canine patients when they went into labor, squealing with delight each time a wet mongrel squeezed from its mother’s womb. When her parents had had enough of being woken in the night by the cries of puppies, they told her sternly that she was not to bring any more pregnant bitches into the garden. But she had cried more noisily, and in a way more disturbing, than her charges until her parents surrendered on the condition that she agree to find homes for all the puppies and their mothers. Amparo diligently kept her end of the bargain.

  Becoming proficient at delivering puppies was a stepping stone toward her ultimate ambition, which, she informed her parents, was to assist human babies into the world. But her science grades were so poor that not even her parents’ considerable wealth and influence could procure admittance to any medical school, and her hopes in this regard were irrevocably dashed by the time she was seventeen. In any case, by then she had discovered boys—a passion that seemed to cure her of her disappointment in her own grades and, for a time, even of her obsession with birth. But it returned with a vengeance while she was pregnant with Alex and Isabel, and when they were born, despite the wracking convulsions of her womb, her screams were more of frustration than pain, because she could not have a bird’s-eye view of their emergence. Afterward, she made her friend Consuelo promise that she could be in the room when Lily entered the world. But even here she had been thwarted, for Lily was born two months premature while she was out of town.