Disappeared

by Colin Falconer

  Finally they took her back to her cell. She had crouched there for hours in the darkness, waiting for them to return. She now supposed they had forgotten about her. Perhaps it was all a mistake. She was sure that Stephen, or one of her own family, would soon engineer her release.

  She only saw one of her fellow prisoners.

  He was being held in the cell across the corridor. She believed he must be a priest, she had heard one of the guards call out to him when they had come to fetch him for a torture session; Time to say your prayers, Father.

  Later she pressed her eye against the air vent in the door and saw them dragging him back to his cell. He was a small, wiry man, his body covered with a pelt of black hair. He was naked, and she saw black marks on his skin where they had burned him with electricity. A long rope of saliva hung from his chin and the muscles in his body were still jerking. The guards thought that was funny.

  Their eyes met for a moment. She saw his lips move but she could not hear the words. But she knew what he had said.

  Have faith.

  ***

  Angeli stood at the back of the room smoking a cigarette. Turturro was using the picana. He preferred it, he said it was not as impersonal as the machine.

  Angeli told him to stop. Turturro looked disappointed but he and the doctor silently left the room. Angeli locked the door from the inside.

  He stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete floor. The muscles in the woman's legs and shoulders were still in spasm. Her face was hidden by the hood; he checked her name on Turturro's file. Barrington, an English name. He touched her skin, heard her gasp, expecting another shock. She sighed and relaxed when the expected pain did not come.

  He began to undress. Before he began he took off the woman's hood. He liked them to see him. It was not the same if he could not see their eyes.

  Chapter 32

  FIVE DAYS AFTER Mercedes disappeared, Stephen got a telephone call. A voice on the other end of the line said that he wanted to speak with him about his wife. He would meet him for coffee the next day at La Biela. And then he hung up.

  La Biela faced onto an elegant plaza opposite the entrance to La Recoleta cemetery. It was home to the smart set of Buenos Aires and had been a regular target for bombings. A part of the bar was still cordoned off to allow builders to repair the damage caused by the most recent outrage.

  Stephen arrived promptly at ten o'clock, gave the waiter his name. He led him to a corner table. A man was there, waiting for him.

  He was not the thug he had expected. He had fair hair and ice blue eyes set in a handsome face. He wore tan slacks and a green Pierre Cardin polo shirt. He could have been a film star. Stephen himself had not eaten or slept for five days, and was aware of his own haggard appearance. He felt clumsy and overdressed in his charcoal woollen suit.

  The man stood up and held out his hand. Stephen hesitated, wondered whether to take it. He decided it was pointless to refuse.

  The man had a grip that could break bone.

  “Señor Barrington. I am delighted you could come. Please, sit down. Would you like a drink?”

  Stephen shook his head.

  “I didn't catch your name.”

  “I didn't give it,” Angeli said, and smiled.

  “Where's my wife?”

  Angeli picked up the menu and pretended to study it. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “What do you know about Mercedes?”

  “You have to eat.”

  “I'm not hungry.”

  Angeli summoned a waiter with a movement of his eyebrow. He ordered three media lunas and a café con leche. Then he took out his cigarettes and lit one. He did not ask Stephen's permisision and he did not offer to share from the pack.

  Stephen waited. This man was in charge of the situation. Getting angry would gain him nothing. If he offended him he might never see his wife again. Who was he? Police? Military? Was it possible that she was already dead and this was some brutal game?

  The man began a long monologue, a comparitive study on the cafés and confiterías of Buenos Airies. Perhaps he is trying to impress me with his cosmopolitan tastes, Stephen thought. Finally Stephen could bear it no longer.

  “Please,” he said, interrupting him, 'if you know anything about my wife, you have to tell me.”

  At that moment the waiter brought Angeli's breakfast. “You do not want some coffee?”

  Stephen shook his head.

  “Not hungry, not thirsty. What would please you, Señor Barrington?”

  “Just having my wife back.”

  Angeli tore one of the croissants in half and dipped it in his coffee. “You are English, am I correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your wife. Mercedes Devereux. A very distinguished name.”

  “Her grandfather came here from London in 1913.”

  “Yes, I know.” He smiled again.

  “How much do you know?”

  “I know many things about many people. It is my job.”

  “That must be very rewarding work.”

  Angeli sipped his coffee. “I am a professional, señor, as you are. You sell information. I collect it. But, unlike you, my talents are used in the service of my country. Yours are employed in the service of yourself. Is that not so?”

  “What exactly is your position?”

  ' I cannot tell you that. All I may say is that I am committed to defending your way of life. Many people would rather not think about that. They accuse the present government of certain crimes but when the comunista are planting bombs on the trains, who do they look to for help?”

  “Where's my wife?”

  Angeli ignored the question. “You have an apartment in La Recoleta. It is a very pleasant district. You also have a home in Great Britain. In Oxfordshire.” He said the last word slowly and carefully, struggling with the foreign word.

  “It was my father's. I'm keeping it as an investment.”

  “That is good. A man should have investments. He should provide for himself and his family. You are a wealthy man.”

  “My father inherited some money from his uncle. We are not millionaires.”

  “But you do very well for a bookseller.”

  “What is all this about? Do you know where my wife is being held?”

  “Your wife. She is the psychiatrist?”

  “She has a practice on Paraguay. The last few months she has been working part time. We have young children.”

  Angeli nodded. “She teaches Freud.”

  Stephen felt himself coming apart. Where was this leading? “What has Freud got to do with her disappearance?”

  “Freud,” Angeli said, 'is a Zionist.”

  Stephen blinked. “I don't understand.”

  “There is a Zionist conspiracy to overthrow Christianity in Argentina, Señor Barrington. Freud was a Jew and one of the ways this subversion is spread is through psychiatry.”

  If the situation was not so dire, Stephen would have laughed in his face. Was he serious? “My wife ... has no interest in politics.”

  Angeli sat back, delicately wiped his mouth with a napkin. He lit another cigarette. “I know where your wife is.”

  Stephen held his breath.

  “I might be able to help you get her back.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.

  Chapter 33

  “WHAT?”

  “You may have to sell your apartment in Recoleta but you can afford it. As you say, you have a large inheritance. But I already knew this.” He paused, to allow this information to sink in. “I imagine whether you choose to pay my fee depends on how you feel about your wife. Some men, of course, would like to see their wives disappear.” He smiled at his joke.

  “Where is she?”

  “That I cannot tell you. But once I have the money I can arrange to have her returned to you within twenty four hours. In good condition.”

  “Has she been ... hurt?”

  Angeli drew on his cigar
ette and said nothing.

  “I swear to God ...” Stephen breathed, but the empty threat died stillborn. If he said it he would just look a fool.

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “How do I know that if I pay you this ridiculous sum of money I will see my wife again?”

  “You must trust me.”

  “Trust you?”

  “You have no choice.”

  Stephen put his head in his hands. Angeli reached across the table and snatched them away. “Please, no dramatics. This is a public place. I thought you British believed in controlling such displays? I will call you in three days. We can make the arrangements to transfer the money then.”

  Stephen lurched to his feet. He felt so utterly powerless.

  Angeli held out his hand. “Be careful, señor. These are dangerous times.”

  Stephen hurried out of the restaurant. Fifty thousand dollars! How could he raise such a huge sum of money in three days?

  ***

  Three men came into her cell and hauled her to her feet. They cuffed her wrists behind her back. She was dragged outside, but this time in a different direction, away from the torture cells.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Don't worry,” one of the men said. “No one's going to hurt you.”

  And that was when she knew she was going to die.

  ***

  She felt hot gravel under her bare feet and she could smell airplane fuel. She was pushed forward onto her face, and something slammed shut close to her ear. She smelled tyre rubber leather and petrol. She guessed she had been thrown in the boot of a car.

  She said a final prayer, enumerating her sins, and silently whispered a farewell to her husband, and to Luca. She thought of little Diana. This was her punishment for stealing another woman's child. May God forgive me ...

  She began to cry.

  Impossible to tell how far they drove her. Finally the car came to a halt, she heard the men get out of the car and walk around. Light flooded through the thin black material of the capuchin as they threw open the boot.

  They hauled her out by her arms. One of the men unlocked the cuffs on her wrist. She didn't struggle, there was no point. She stood there, waiting, knowing it was useless to run, wondering if it was possible for the brain to hear the sound of the pistol shot that ended her life.

  Chapter 34

  DOORS SLAMMED, she heard the car drive away. She waited.

  She heard dogs barking, children shouting and laughing. She put her hands up to her face. They were shaking so much it took her some moments to finally tear the hood off her head.

  She was standing in front of the park in Recoleta; it was the same park where she brought Luca and Diana on Saturday mornings. Across the road she saw two of her neighbours drinking espressos by the window of La Biel. A paseadoro with a dozen yapping charges on the end of long leads, stared at her in surprise as he went past.

  She slumped down on the kerbstone and started to cry. She rocked slowly back and forward on her haunches, her hands clasped around her knees. Two mothers with strollers stared at her but did not stop.

  “Pobrecito,” one of them whispered. “Poor thing.”

  Poor thing.

  Chapter 35

  STEPHEN STOOD BY the window, staring into the street. So, what was he to do now? For months he had tried to carry on despite everything they had read and heard. Even after the Altmans were taken he had tried to convince himself that it was an aberration, that things could not get any worse. He did, after all, have friends who were Peronists, others had connections to the Army and the far right. They never discussed such things with them. It was easier that way.

  He had somehow persuaded himself that he was immune. After all, they both had British heritage, they were not political. What happened to the Altmans might have been a terrible shock, but it was the price you paid in this country for getting mixed up in things you shouldn't.

  What had happened to his wife had left him numb with terror. They had to get out of here.

  Mercedes arrived home, loaded down with designer shopping bags from the elegant boutiques on Florida; Calvin Klein, Yves St Laurent, Christian Dior. She was still trying to behave as if nothing had happened.

  She had made her dramatic return just over a week ago, dressed in rags and mute with shock. He had put her to bed and called the family doctor. He had prescribed her sedatives and also treated her for electrical burns. The next day, when she woke from a fourteen hour sleep, she refused even to talk about her experience. And that was the way it had been ever since.

  And now this morning she had gone shopping.

  Stephen wanted to seek out professional advice. But almost every psychiatrist in the city had disappeared or fled, the latest victims of the proceso. Before the junta had taken power Buenos Aires had more trained psychiatrists per head of population than New York. Now the man who sold you your morning newspaper at the kiosco could be regarded as one of the city's intelligentsia. To be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher in Argentine these days was virtual suicide.

  “Come and see what I bought!' Mercedes said, eager as a child. She paraded her purchases in front of him. Stephen let her chatter on but his gaze never left the windo. She did not even seem to notice that he wasn't listening.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “Stephen?”

  “Just stop it. Stop.”

  Her new Dior slipped out of her fingers and onto the floor. “What's wrong?”

  Look at her. She was like a child in a fantasy game. What had they done to her? When he undressed her and out her in the bath that afternoon he had found black scorch marks all over her. He supposed they had raped her as well. He had to get her professional help. “I have made arrangements for us to fly to London. We leave within the week.”

  “Leave?”

  “We cannot stay here. It is too dangerous. It is too dangerous for anyone to live here. I want the children to grow up somewhere they can feel safe.”

  Mercedes spread out her arms.. “But this apartment.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you this? This apartment was mortgaged to buy back your freedom. I have listed it for sale. When we find a purchaser there will hopefully be enough to pay off the bank. The company has arranged for me to transfer back to our head office in Oxford.”

  “My family are here.”

  “I have spoken to your family. They are as eager as I am that I take you somewhere where you will be safe.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What I am saying is that we cannot stay in Argentine. Not until this madness is over.”

  Mercedes sat down on the sofa. She seemed unable to understand what he was telling her.

  He sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You must trust me,” he said.

  “Well, all right. But I still can't see why we have to go. What's wrong, Stephen? Don't you like it here?”

  PART TWO

  MEXICO & ARGENTINA

  Chapter 36

  Mexico City

  December 1983

  THE POLICE WERE crashing up the stairs.

  They kicked down the door. It splintered on its hinges, and they burst in. But it was not the police, it was Gabriella; she stood in the doorway, holding something in her arms, wrapped in a blanket. It was sodden with blood.

  He backed away. The bundle she was holding fell onto the floor. Inside were two babies, smeared with blood, as they had been the day they were born.

  She stepped towards him, her bloody hands outstretched. He backed away. “No,” he said. He felt himself falling ...

  He sat up, lathered in sweat. He groped in the dark for the bedside lamp, sent it crashing to the floor. He scrambled out of bed and stumbled across the room, fumbling for the light switch.

  Isabella sat up, bewildered. “Reuben? What's wrong?”

  He stood panting and naked by the bedroom door. The digital numbers on the bedside clock pulsed red: 3:13. That was about the ti
me he got the call that night at Carmen's apartment. He slid down the wall.

  “Por Dios! The sheets are soaking. Are you ill?”

  He felt the oily sweat cooling quickly on his skin shivered in the mortuary chill of the air conditioning. His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.

  Isabel jumped out of bed. “Reuben?” She knelt down beside him. He wanted her to hold him but she kept her arms folded across her chest, as if she were afraid to touch him.”You were screaming again.”

  Reuben blinked at her, clawing his way out of the dream.

  “Same dream?”

  He nodded slowly. “Same dream.”

  “Come back to bed.”

  He shook his head.

  “You can't sit here all night.”

  “Just give me a moment.”

  “Does this happen a lot?”

  A lot? His last sound sleep was eight years ago, in Carmen's bed. He lived on sleeping tablets, they were the only things that kept him sane. But they were very strong, and every morning he woke up, hungover and irritable. Many times he had thought about taking the whole bottle and be done with it all.

  He stood up, found a pair of track pants and an old sweatshirt on a chair next to the bed. He padded downstairs in his bare feet. There was a bottle of Bushmills in the kitchen cabinet and he splashed some into a tumbler, drank it neat. He turned on the radio: a Mariachi band was playing on an all night AM station, battling against the static of a distant electric storm.

  He heard a sound behind him. Isabel had followed him downstairs and was watching him from the kitchen doorway. She was wearing one of his old shirts.

  “Are you sure you're okay?”