The Things They Didn't Bury

by Laekan Zea Kemp

“It’s like the whole world’s upside down,” she said.

  Her voice flitted amongst the rustling leaves and Diego followed it, winding through trembling vines and over mangled roots until he peeled her blush form from the dark jade of the landscape. His fingers slipped through the branches, parting them until he could see her. And at the sound of his steps, shoes slipping over the exposed roots, she turned, Diego’s face inches from her lips.

  She leaned in, wind spiraling her hair into a tangle between them. “Play for me?”

  Diego slung his guitar over his back and they climbed to a high branch so thick that Liliana could sit on it with her legs crossed. Diego plucked a few strings, adjusting the sound by ear before giving it shape. Then a low thrum unfurled against the wind, the cadence wrangling with it until every other sound grew faint and Diego began to strum.

  “When did you learn to play?” Liliana asked.

  “My dad started teaching me before I could talk. I guess you could say music was the first language I ever learned.”

  “But that day, when I heard you playing, you said he couldn’t know.”

  Diego’s hands stilled.

  “He can’t. He doesn’t play anymore and I’m not supposed to either.”

  “But why?”

  He flung an arm over the curved shoulder of the guitar.

  “My mother,” he finally breathed. Diego pulled a wisp of a branch down and then let it go, sending a shower of leaves and wild burrs fluttering down over their heads. “My father played Flamenco and my mother was his dancer. When she left, he couldn’t play anymore.”

  “That’s so…”

  “Pathetic?”

  “I was going to say romantic…and heartbreaking.”

  “The day she left, the day he stopped playing, he lost the two loves of his life in the same second. He was so broken.”

  Liliana picked at the rough bark between them, not meeting his eyes as she spoke.

  “Why did she leave?” she asked.

  “For another man. Another life.”

  “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “It’s ok. I barely remember her anymore. Sometimes I barely remember him either. I’ve grown up with pieces of him, but never the whole thing.”

  “But you kept playing.”

  Diego nodded. “I tried to stop, for my dad, but I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t let go of that freedom. It was the only thing I had left.”

  His fingers found the strings again, trembling against them as he coaxed out another low riff.

  “Would you teach me?” she said.

  And something in her voice set a flame to Diego’s skin. He looked down at his hands, grinding his knuckles into his palm until they cracked. She winced at the sound and he let out a small laugh.

  “Yeah, if you want. Here.” Diego lifted the strap and placed it over Liliana’s shoulder. “Like this,” he said, gently placing one of her hands on the frets and the other on the strings.

  They were small and he could barely spread her fingers along the neck of the guitar. He settled on a modified G before taking her wrist and guiding it down the strings until she started strumming on her own.

  She looked up at him. “Ok?”

  “Yeah, now move these fingers here,” Diego said, moving her fingers down the frets. “Now move your fingers back to where they were.”

  Liliana slid her fingers back up the neck and a sharp, shrill sound escaped from the guitar.

  “I can’t,” she laughed.

  “It’s ok, just keep the strings pushed flat against the wood.”

  Diego moved Liliana’s fingers again. “Try this.”

  He watched the strings cutting into her, fingers splayed and trembling as she tried to hold tight to a note.

  “My hands are too small, my fingers just can’t reach,” she said.

  “Try keeping your hand up like this.” Diego arched her wrist around the neck and she started to strum again but it only made the same grating sound.

  “Hold on,” Diego said pulling himself up onto his feet. He grabbed hold of a branch and used it to steady himself as he moved to sit behind her, his legs straddling the branch, as his fingers found the neck of the guitar.

  “You strum, I’ll do the hard part,” he said.

  She leaned into him, twisting her hair over one shoulder so he could see their hands. He exhaled, the air tripping over his lips as it settled in the crook of Liliana’s neck, igniting a faint bloom along her skin. He felt the thumb on his free hand slip past her arm, fingers lingering against her skin as her body grew still—her hands abandoning the strings for his wrist as she led it around her waist.

  His chin fell against her cheek, his lips catching on her skin as he tried to breathe. And then she leaned into him, a slight shiver crawling up his chest as she turned to face him. Her fingers crawled to the faint stubble along his jaw line and then to the soft hairs behind his ears—her skin against him cold like the night slipping down over the horizon. Twinkling blooms flitted across the sky, tangled with the plum remnants of daylight—now just a thin red line pulsing like an ethereal vein. Diego slid his fingers into her hair, twisting the curls at the nape of her neck as he pulled her to him. Then he kissed her without breathing, without thinking. He kissed her until his entire body was tingling just from the taste of her.

  Chapter 30

  Liliana

  On the way home, Diego had let it slip about the tunnels and once he’d said the words, they’re real, Liliana wouldn’t let it go. And now they were standing with an old Gypsy man with a bum leg and a bandana wrapped tight over one eye out in the middle of nowhere.

  “Over there,” the old man said, pointing to nothing.

  He started to head in that direction and they followed him, tiny lizards the color of sand scurrying in a line in front of them. Liliana reached for Diego’s hand and suddenly everything was quiet. The only footsteps they heard were their own and when they scanned the horizon the Gypsy man was gone. Diego called out to him and his scruff beard popped up from the ground about twenty yards ahead of them. He disappeared again and they came to a small hole dug diagonally into the earth.

  “Down here,” he called to them.

  Liliana turned to Diego. The hole looked deep and narrow and it seemed to lead to nothing except darkness. She took a deep breath, knee nudging the back of Diego’s leg.

  “You go first,” she said letting go of his hand.

  He watched as the old man’s shadows slipped back into the dark and then he looked back at Liliana. Her jaw was tight but she gave a small nod and he knelt to the ground, putting both feet in the hole before using his arms to lower himself down. Liliana watched him disappear and then his voice manifested in a shallow hum beneath her feet.

  “It’s ok,” he said, “it gets bigger down here.”

  Liliana inched toward the hole, dangling her feet over the edge as Diego had done. Then she felt Diego’s arms reach up for her and she let him guide her down. He was right. The space suddenly opened into a huge bubble—wide and concave, every step sputtering along the walls as a faint echo. The stone walls were smooth like the inside of a boulder and an invisible current swirled passed them. The old man pulled a lighter from his pocket and squeezed into one of the narrow passageways.

  “Wait,” Diego called to him, “doesn’t there need to be someone on the other end leading us out?”

  The old man stepped beneath the opening, sunlight cutting across his skin as he stared at them both. Then he took his pointer finger and tapped his forehead two times. Liliana remembered what Diego’s father had said about the way out always changing, about them trapping soldiers inside dead ends and she suddenly wished he hadn’t mentioned that part. But the draw to move forward, to take another step was too strong and she took Diego’s hand as they squeezed in behind the old man.

  Underground, sliding between walls of cold stone, the sprawling landscape above their heads was like a beacon—invisible in all but their memories.
And as the draft bit at them, too cold to be natural, it was like it didn’t even exist. The space finally seemed to open up once again, their steps widening as they no longer had to shuffle side by side.

  Liliana glanced back to where the dark walls cinched them in and tried to take a deep breath. But the air was so thin, every inch of her working to inhale. She closed her eyes, one hand gripping Diego’s shoulder while the other hung on the belt loop of his jeans. Jagged rocks jutted out from some of the walls and in the dim light she scraped passed one, the sting crawling through her as a small trickle of blood slid down her calf.

  The longer they walked the deeper into the earth they seemed to be going as winding paths gave way to uneven man-made steps—down somehow being their constant trajectory. But Liliana tried not to think about the time passing. They must have been down there for at least an hour but wedged between the cold walls and with barely any light to guide them it felt like time didn’t exist at all. Liliana held tight to Diego’s arm and tried to mirror his footsteps in the dark, every movement slow and methodical. Diego’s boot caught on something in the dark and he kicked at it, the light glinting off of it revealing a step and then another and then another. They were finally making their way back up. They came to a slow stop, the three of them suddenly faced with a solid wall. Liliana felt her wrists begin to throb, her heartbeat growing fierce as it swelled inside her.

  “Hold this,” the old man said, handing the lighter to Diego.

  Then he took his hands and rubbed them across the surface of the wall, shuffling sideways as he reached into the darkness. Diego moved the flame closer, following the man’s hands, and Liliana watched as her trembling shadow bled against the wall—her limbs twisting and writhing within the backlight of the flame, though she was completely still. The old man let out a grating cough and then he started to push, the wall sliding and shifting—giving way to even more darkness.

  When there was enough room Diego handed the lighter to Liliana, the flame licking at her thumb, as he started pushing behind the old man. The wall slid back into an invisible slit carved within the tunnel and the space opened up into another dome, identical to the one at the entrance.

  Liliana crept forward, letting the draft linger in her lungs—its chill leading her out. But then she stopped, eyes drawn to the tactile shadows flitting along the walls. The stones weren’t smooth like when they’d first entered the tunnel, they were rough and covered in thousands of tiny etches, scribbles and feathered lines that reminded her of the rough grain along the house before they repainted it.

  “What is that? They look like fingerprints.” Diego said.

  Liliana made her way over to one of the walls, flame poised over the stone as she felt along its surface. Within the amber blaze a series of carvings emerged. At first they looked like tiny squiggles or erosions caused by the wind. But upon closer look they weren’t meaningless markings at all, they were names. Thousands of names carved into the walls, all different—fixed within the stone like personal signatures.

  Liliana ran her fingers across the indentions and in the dim light, she felt as if she were trying to read Braille. Some of the letters had already been smoothed over by time, almost invisible to the naked eye until you pressed the tips of your fingers against the cold stone. But the scrolling of other names was still deep and sharp, carved with the intention of never being erased.

  Liliana moved the flame even closer to the wall, setting the red hues trapped inside the stone glowing. The heat glinting between Liliana’s fingers bloomed along her cheek and she reached for Diego’s empty hand, pulling it to her face. His fingers began to tremble and then she placed his hand against the wall, leading his fingers over the carvings as they began to read. Adriano Sosa, Eva Benitez Ortiz, Huenu Arias, Javier Otero, Marcelo Vidal, Pilar Campos Castillo…

  Diego had taken over holding the lighter and his skin was red and numb from the heat of the flame but the look in Liliana’s eyes kept his finger on the thumb wheel. During the war, when someone disappeared, it wasn’t just their physical self that vanished—it was their past, their future, their whole identity. Erasing someone from the face of the earth requires much more than just tossing their body into the ocean, it requires denying that they ever existed in the first place. This was the junta’s method of choice and the most intimidating weapon in their arsenal. But there they were, surrounded by names, by proof. These people had existed, might even still exist, and they had risked everything to leave they’re mark.

  Liliana slid down onto the makeshift stone steps that led back above ground, arms limp between her knees. Something like exhaustion tore through her but it was wonder that pinned her to those steps, her eyes still working to pull every refugee, survivor, and prisoner from those stones. Diego slipped down onto the step below her, dropping the lighter at his feet. The flame seemed to swell over some scrolling on the bottom step before finally shuddering out in a bed of dust, the carving still glinting and red.

  Liliana stared at the writing in the dark and it seemed to emerge from the stone as if it were still covered in the light of the flame. She reached for the lighter and sparked the flame over the carvings to get a better look. The indentions were deep and smooth, but she couldn’t recognize any of the markings. It wasn’t Spanish or English. Most marks seemed to be different variations of a square while others seemed to be just squiggles.

  “What is it?” Diego said.

  Liliana ran her fingers along the etchings and followed them down four lines until she reached another signature. She held the flame to the letters. Binyamin Azor. Something burning and raw crawled into Liliana’s throat.

  “It’s Hebrew,” she said.

  “Hebrew?”

  And then Liliana’s eyes fell just below Ben’s signature—the flame so close to the letter I, that it seemed to be trapped inside the light. Each letter manifested slowly, deftly, as if it were being carved right in front of her—a tremor cutting through her as she placed her fingers on the name, on her mother’s name. The lighter slipped from her grip and the metal casing clanked against the stone, the echo mute within her ears.

  Diego reached for her arms, pulling her to him, her hard, silent sobs shaking them both as he tried to rock them into submission. Diego looked up at the opening above them—the space was so swollen with darkness that it seemed to lead nowhere and Liliana followed his eyes, staring into the nothing hanging over them.

  “Do you think…” Diego started.

  But Liliana shook her head, nails gently biting into his lips.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  In her mind, Isabella was still in Ben’s apartment, the two of them lying next to each other, talking about this possibility, this tragedy that Liliana was now faced with. When Diego told her about the tunnels, about what his father and Adrian had said about people escaping, she knew she had to see them. Not because she thought she would find her mother or even a clue to how she was killed, but because she needed to see that there was hope. That maybe her mother hadn’t been murdered, maybe she hadn’t suffered, or been tortured, or sold into prostitution and imprisoned. Even if she had never been reunited with her daughters, maybe she had been able to start over somewhere else. Maybe she had been able to live.

  Chapter 31

  Liliana

  Ben called me early this morning and asked me to meet him outside of a motel on the edge of the city. I borrowed my father’s car and took the back roads so I could floor it most of the way. When I reached the motel I quickly parked before sliding into the passenger’s seat of Ben’s car. He grabbed my face and kissed me. He kissed my neck and in the hollow of my collarbone. What happened, I said, afraid. Last night I had dinner with my parents, he said, I left late and when I got back to my apartment it had been broken into and everything was destroyed. I didn’t stay long enough to really assess the damage, he went on, I was afraid they might still be nearby so I ran. I placed my hands on his shoulders and crawled into his lap. I couldn’t breathe. We have
to go, I said, we’ll go to Spain or the United States. I’d never make it through the airport, he said. You could stay at the vineyard, I pleaded with him, you could stay there. I couldn’t put your family in danger like that, he said. Please, I said, just come with me somewhere, we can find somewhere to go.

  But he just shook his head, a moist line forming along the edge of his lashes. I love you, he breathed into my ear. People weren’t made for this kind of thing, he said, the way I feel about you, how much I feel, no one ever has or ever will even come close to it. We spent the rest of the day in Ben’s car, kissing, making love, and hiding from a fate that I thought, for a second, we just might be able to escape. Ben said he had a friend he could call who had a connection to the Montoneros. They might be able to help him find a safe place to go. He said he would call him from a payphone and then he would drive out close to the vineyard and stay nearby just in case. He told me to meet him at the edge of our property around three. I knew he’d meant to say goodbye, though he’d avoided those exact words. But I just wasn’t going to let him do that. I couldn’t.

  By the time I got home it was already midnight. My father was waiting for me in the living room so I didn’t even bother sneaking into my room the usual way. I knew he’d want to know I was safe and I wanted him to know too. When he saw me, my eyes were still red and swollen, and my makeup smeared and dribbling down my face. I walked over and fell into his lap. I thought my body was out of tears but somehow I cried for another hour while he just held me.

  At 2:45 I snuck out of my room and ran passed the vineyard to the edge of the road. Clouds gathering above the ocean had blocked the moon and stars from view, shielding their light from falling on me. I stood in the middle of the road, turning to look as far as I could in both directions but my eyes were useless against the dark so I closed them and just listened. Ben said he would stay close by so I walked along the road, heading south.

  When I reached Trini’s house I rested there for a little while, my eyes straining for headlights. Then I thought maybe Ben could have come from another direction so I raced back to the vineyard, faint and out of breath. Maybe he was just running late. Maybe he had to take a longer way to avoid being spotted by the military. I walked quickly to keep my body warm and although I had already been outside for an hour my eyes still couldn’t adjust to the unnatural darkness of the night. I couldn’t stand the silence either so I began to whisper Ben’s name—those three letters against my lips the only thing moving my limbs.