The Things They Didn't Bury

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Diego spotted the truck, dark and solitary, surrounded by fading white lines and a foreboding emptiness that made him grab tight to Liliana’s hand before breaking into a run. Liliana slid into the cab, her face halting inches from the window as she searched the shallow pools beneath the streetlights for the car they had just seen. But the shadows were too dense, the buildings and street signs, trees and parked vehicles all bleeding into one another. She looked for motion, for something stoic to suddenly shift like an animal shaking free from its skin. But there was nothing.

  “Hey,” Diego said, thumb gently nudging the underside of her palm. “It’s ok. I think they’re gone.”

  Liliana turned to him, slowly sinking into her seat. She could still smell the harsh stench of chemicals rising from her skin from where she had grazed her uncle’s nightgown, from where her fingers had sunk deep in his skin. She felt sick. Her hand, shaking, reached for the window release, twisting and turning until the smell of the oil stained parking lot and the dry smog of the city began to fill the cab.

  “You ok?”

  Diego placed a hand on her shoulder and Liliana could feel his fingers slipping as she lurched toward the open window, the glass biting into her abdomen as she heaved over the side.

  She felt his hand shudder, moving to her lower back as the mess hit the pavement.

  “Liliana?”

  She hung there over the side, head down, chin grazing the doorknob. She wiped her mouth and waited for the assault to be over, for the smells to dissipate, for the rolling pain in her stomach to slow. She slipped back through the window, her body almost missing the seat and Diego caught her, righting her against the door. He wiped the hair from her brow and reached for some paper towels in the glove compartment, dabbing her neck and behind her ears, along her jaw. She kept her eyes closed, teeth clamped tight as tears burned hot down her face. Diego grabbed another towel and wiped those away too, drawing her into his lap.

  “What…” He stopped, took a breath. “What did he tell you?”

  Her lips began to part against the skin of his arm.

  “Everything.”

  She lifted her head and then something fierce and burning began to grow in them. Diego looked over his shoulder.

  The car was barreling towards them, cutting over mediums, the headlights now shining on them. He twisted the key in the ignition, not waiting for the truck to crack to life before pressing down hard on the gas. The tires caught in a spitting whirr against the gravel, sending loose stones dinking against the underbelly of the truck and then they lurched forward and they were rolling over the sidewalk and out onto the empty street.

  But the car was gaining speed, cutting them off at the intersection. Diego slammed on the breaks trying to avoid the collision, his arms working to turn them in another direction.

  Liliana stared at the face hovering within the driver’s side window. It was dark and nothing seemed to be moving save for his eyes and the glint careening off the barrel of the gun. The small plastic radio dials ripped into Liliana’s palms as she flew forward. They grated across the car’s grill as Diego tried to lead them down a narrow alleyway but his hands suddenly fell away from the wheel, shooting to his ears and then he was pulling Liliana into the foot space.

  Bullets cut in a torrent through the windows, casings falling deafly against their skin as they tore into the cushions and across the plastic interior. The door was thrown open and Liliana felt hands gripping her ankles. He pulled her out in one painful jerk, her stomach raking over broken glass. Diego reached for her hands, screaming her name but then he disappeared below the door, another man dragging him across the pavement. One of the men slapped his hand over Liliana’s mouth and dragged her into the car while the other two kicked Diego in the stomach until he collapsed onto the gravel and then they pulled him up by his arms and threw him in next to Liliana.

  Isabella

  My fingers are firmly pressed between the shoulder and crook of the neck of the girl in front of me. Her pulse drums along against my sweaty fingers and I feel it quicken. When I hear the shuffling of pant legs my own pulse absorbs her pace and my slick fingers slip from her skin. I struggle to tighten my grip but she’s pulled forward and the tip of my fingers slide across the strap of her bra before falling, the dead weight of my arm swinging like a pendulum at my side.

  Screams tear through cracked doorways and corridors I can’t see and I know I am next. Eventually, just as my legs are growing numb, the screaming stops, though the sound of a steel pipe striking flesh is incessant. My lips begin to tremble and I think I’m going to be sick. But before I collapse, a pair of arms takes hold of me, dragging me forward. The blindfold I am wearing is ripped off, the knot catching on my ear, and I see three men in military uniforms. I am standing in a small room in nothing but my underwear. To my left is a table, dark brown blood coating the steel top and drying like rust where it has pooled on the floor. In front of me is another table, this one lower and lined with small tools that remind me of a dentist’s office—harsh lines and sharp edges glinting at me.

  I try to swallow, bile thick at the back of my throat but the smell of blood is too strong and my knees buckle. One of the men catches me by the arm and twists me into a metal chair, the cold seat burning my skin. I fold my arms in front of me, hands covering my breasts as I stare down at my feet.

  “What do you think,” one of them says.

  “I could…”

  “No. General Rossi doesn’t want any more damaged merchandise.”

  I wait for one of them to grab me, to throw me face down on the table, some other girl’s blood slick against my skin. But they don’t. Instead they re-fasten the blindfold over my eyes, and I wince as he pulls it tight, the knot digging into my skull.

  “Take her to the truck.”

  My foot skirts across the slick floor, ankle twisting as one of the men pulls me upright by the arm and drags me forward. It throbs, a sharp pain cutting up into my calf and past my knee. I feel the blindfold sinking against my lashes, sticking to the moisture there and I set my jaw. I stumble against a step as I'm led outside, the wind so fierce as it shudders against me and I almost lose my balance again but then I feel the steel door beneath my feet and I follow the incline into the back of the truck. I'm pushed down, someone's palm leading my head through a narrow space and I feel my skin grate across something rough and jagged like wood. Something warm trails down my arm. Something passes over me, a shadow bleeding across the blindfold and then I hear the low ding of a hammer and the walls of the crate tremble against my skin.

  Finally we’re moving and I hear the other crates, sliding across the metal floor of the truck and knocking against the walls as girls try to tear free. But beneath the faint splintering of wood and stilted exhales trembling with defeat I hear a low quick panting like someone crying.

  “Hello?” I whisper.

  No one answers.

  “Hello,” I say again, this time a little louder.

  “Shut the fuck up,” a man yells as he kicks the side of my crate.

  My head slams into the wood and I hear it splintering in my direction and then I see their shadows—four of them rising and swaying in the darkness. I hold my breath, trying not to make a sound when I notice the crying has stopped too.

  Time is a false thing, meaningless when it’s not attached to colors and people and light because in the dark there is nothing—only the stilted shadows of life as they wait for the sun. And in this limbo, with my eyes already painted shut I wade through the only things I still know for sure—that there are pieces of me far away from here, small and beautiful and safe. I think of Liliana’s head resting on my shoulder as I rock her to sleep and Nita playing with a tube of my lipstick before biting off the soft red end. Then the sweet smell of my father’s pipe tobacco is swirling in my lungs, and I can see Ben—his hands, his eyes, his voice, his laugh.

  I feel the blindfold, wet again and sinking against my face, tears filling that small hollow space along t
he bridge of my nose. But I don’t make a sound. I am silent, listening. The truck rolls to a stop and I hear soldiers’ boots making their way to the back door. The lock grinds open and the door slams against the ground. I hear the faint spray of dust as it settles and then one by one I hear the wooden crates scraping across the metal floor, down the ramp, and into the dirt. I try to count them—one, three, six. Six crates, six girls.

  I press my back against the crate, feeling blindly for the shadows as the first piece of wood begins to splinter. The sounds rise up at once—lids being snapped off in a cracking cacophony that threatens to split me in two. But low and quavering beneath the soldiers’ voices is a frantic howl, the echo of girl’s being dragged away igniting the rest of us—fear slipping quietly from our lips. I hear the shuffling of boots in time with a low grunting as a soldier struggles with one of the girls. I hear the sharp slap of his flesh across hers and then my hands are clamped over my ears as gunshots ring out. Something like laughter trickles in on the wind and I can feel the darkness then, lithe and slipping over me as the door is pulled closed. The breeze lingers, trapped and swirling above me. It finally settles against my skin and I imagine it being blown off of the bay at my father’s vineyard. I close my eyes and I’m sitting on the dock, tide lapping against my toes as I look out over the horizon and then I see it—a tiny speck out of the corner of my eye and then it vanishes into the water.

  I curl against my knees, burying my face before the image of Ben with his hands and feet bound becomes more than static. I can see his face, the cold blooming in his cheeks and beneath his eyes like a dark bruise and a sob rips at me, sharp and burning in the back of my throat. It lingers there, a bitter sulfur thing, so thick I can taste it.

  And I did this.

  I killed him.

  But holding that letter in my hands, being able to press the deep etchings of his pen to my face, I didn’t care—I couldn’t think. All that mattered was that he wasn’t dead. And so I wrote to him, careful from the moment my pen first bled on the page to the morning I’d slipped it into the mailbox outside the post office. I’d been so careful. But it didn’t matter.

  My dearest Isabella,

  As I write to you, I’m imagining the pen perched between my fingers is a strand of your hair—one of the dark curls that was always falling in your face. I’m an ocean away from you, my home, and some days my heart aches so, that I think one day it will just leap from my chest and swim the hundreds of miles to your shore. Maybe you will be walking along the beach and see it there, red and pulsating in the tide like a fish. I imagine you kneeling down and cupping that piece of me between your palms before placing it in a bowl of water for safekeeping. You would put it on your bookshelf between your copy of My Antonia and the locked jewelry box where you keep all of your pictures of us. You would watch over it and it would watch over you. I’ve been writing you letters every day since I was taken. For weeks I was forced to just trace the words along my skin or chant them until I knew they couldn’t be forgotten. But from the moment I was able to write something down I haven’t stopped. I’ve written page after page of every detail of my life without you, hoping that one day when you read them you would somehow become a part of them. Like we were never separated. Like the past four years never happened. I arranged to have copies of a few of the newspapers in Buenos Aires sent to me in France. That’s how I found out about you and Manuel. I wasn’t sure how I should do this, how I should tell you that I’m okay and that I’m alive. I know you and I couldn’t let you mourn me every day for the rest of your life but it is not my intention to disrupt it either. I pray that knowing I escaped will bring you relief and not regret. I have to believe that you are living the life you were meant to and you have to believe it to. Please don’t regret a single decision you’ve made in my absence. I want you to know that I’m not angry. I could never be angry with you. I’m just happy you’re safe. I was so scared. I made myself sick with worry but then I was flipping through the pages of The Buenos Aires Herald and my eyes were drawn to the most beautiful face. I recognized the curve of your cheekbones and that smile, your smile, immediately. I took my first deep breath in months. I used the edge of my pocketknife to carve out your image and after spending a week just staring at it…at you, I finally had the strength to slide it into one of the leather pockets of my wallet. It took a few moments for me to realize who was standing next to you in the picture, but once I did, I knew. I didn’t even have to read the accompanying announcement. But as much as I wish I was the person standing next to you in the photo, with my arms wrapped around your waist, and as much as I wish I was the person taking care of you, all that matters to me is that you are being taken care of. I love you, Isabella, I will always love you and I will always long for you but the time we spent together, the time you were mine, is enough to last me the rest of this life. Even though I can’t be with you, it is enough just to know that you will have the chance to have everything you ever wanted. Know that every minute of every day I am thinking of you and know that even though I’m not with you, my mind, my heart, and my soul will always be yours, and only yours to possess.

  Yours,

  Ben

  Escaping from the junta is more difficult than cheating fate. Death isn’t an idea or a state of mind, it’s a place; it’s a prison. No one is supposed to escape death and yet Ben had. I’d thought it was a dream. I was used to his voice, slipping in when I least expected it, memories of him my only defense against the war he’d abandoned me to, against the war that had taken him from me. But suddenly he was tangible again, his words rippling up from between the lips of a faded envelope that had travelled a thousand miles to reach me and I couldn’t breathe. The words had passed in a stilted hum between my lips as I read them over and over and over again—each one dropping like a small lead weight until I wasn’t just sinking in the revelation that Ben was alive, but I was drowning in it.

  Suddenly everything—my apartment with Manuel, Liliana and Nita’s toys strung across the floor, the new living room furniture we’d just bought and carried, just the two of us, up three flights of stairs, the boutique bags full of buttoned blouses and pencil skirts for my new job as one of the emissary’s secretaries, all of it began to fold in on itself, on me until I was buried in the manufactured moments of a life I was supposed to want but couldn’t. Because Ben was alive.

  He was alive and I couldn’t be with him. And after months, the aberration of it, of not being with Ben, began to disassemble me. So I replied to his letter, though his implication not to had been clear. But I had to. He had to know that in all of that time I’d thought he was dead I still had a piece of him, the best piece of him. I had Liliana. He needed to know she belonged to him too. And no matter where he was, because of her, he would always be with me.

  ***

  I’m unaware that we’ve stopped moving until I feel my crate being dragged out of the truck. My hands feel for the wooden walls and my fingertips catch on a piece of splintering wood. I slip them through the wide holes, tightening them each time I feel a corner of the crate being yanked up. I feel a calloused hand dig into the nape of my neck and I’m pulled out of the crate, silent and twisting like a dog before being hurled into the dirt, a current of sand slipping in through my nose. I choke on it, spitting until it’s thick and dribbling down my neck, until it turns to mud. And then I feel their shadows, circling, and I hold my breath. I wait. But the silence fades fast and I’m folded in half as someone’s boot drives into me. I sink, curling into a ball. I can’t breathe.

  “What the fuck? What did I tell you?”

  “Oh come on, I didn’t touch her face.”

  “Yeah well no one wants to fuck a bitch the color of an eggplant.”

  Then there is silence as I lie on the ground, breathing in the damp soil until the heat, from the sun I can’t see, paints my brow and I’m spinning. I feel someone lift me, my legs, still numb, limp and cutting through tall dry grass. Then I’m pushed into another car and I sli
de against the door, pinned there by the weight of a stranger. I can smell her skin, dank and sticking to me, her long hair curling and wet against my shoulder. I try to move but she just inches closer to me, her breaths warm and quick.

  We finally pull to a stop and are led out in a single file line. I reach for the girl in front of me like I did on my way to the interrogation room, fingers pressing into her bare shoulders as we walk down a narrow flight of stairs. I feel a dampness coming off of the walls, the musk clawing at us as we continue our descent. Finally we’re backed against a wall, the cinderblock cold against my skin and then one by one our blindfolds are ripped off.

  I see that we are standing at the mouth of a long narrow hallway—dim lights cutting across the walls and I try to count the row of empty doorways. I hear the faint hum of a television mixed with metal scraping across a cement floor—the sound setting my jaw trembling and I cringe. A man pushes me forward, open palm leading me as I stumble toward a small square room. There is a pile of dirty clothes on the floor to my right and the man points at them.

  “Put those on,” he says.

  I stare at the clothes, examining the scant pile—the seams, feathered and fraying between the translucent squares of fabric. When I hesitate, he pushes me and my knees ring against the cement floor. He kicks one of the pieces of fabric into my lap and I reach for it, slowly, keeping my head down as I slip out of my clothes. After I change the man grabs me by the arm and drags me back up the stairs where music and low voices waft in from the landing.

  I’m led into a darkly lit room with carpeted walls, a small three-man band in the corner, and men in work clothes. They turn to me, eyes flitting across my bare skin, and I feel sick. Cigarette smoke dances toward the rafters, painting every face a phantom’s as they peer at me through ashen veils. I cross my arms and stare at my feet, trying to quell the panic and the nausea and the fear. One of the men approaches me, his hand grazing my bra strap as I stumble toward the wall. I close my eyes and he grabs my wrists, fingernails cutting into my pulse. Then the same man who led me up those stairs leads us back down them to one of the empty rooms.