The Things They Didn't Bury

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  After another half an hour of searching I finally decided to turn back, running until I spotted the house and then launching myself into a sprint. I came to a stop in the middle of the drive leading down to the house, hunched over, fingernails cutting into my knees. I looked in both directions again and again and again—waiting.

  Then I fell to my knees, numb to the tiny stones breaking through my skin and I placed my palms down in front of me, grinding them into the ground until I was sure I was bleeding. But still I couldn’t feel a thing.

  Chapter 32

  Liliana

  Liliana was forearms deep in a box of articles. Ben was a journalist and Liliana hoped that some of the articles he wrote about the war had somehow ended up with the Montoneros and that maybe some had ended up here. The room was much more crowded than the last time they were there. Jo and a few new faces were delegating boxes to everyone while Liliana and Diego were crouched in a corner, each surrounded by a small wall of loose articles.

  The night Liliana’s mother waited for Ben, the night he disappeared, Liliana knew her mother had thought it was the last time she would ever see him. But somehow, years later, they had been reunited. Diego told Liliana that escaping the military prisons was next to impossible. And yet they did and they did it together. Liliana knew what Diego was wondering but she just couldn’t let herself be consumed by the hope that her mother could still be alive—at least not until she had proof. There was still so much to learn about her; so much to learn about the war and maybe the first step in finding out the truth about what happened to her was getting to know Ben—the man she loved before she married Manuel, and apparently the man she still loved after. They managed to make a dent in the club’s project but after two hours of sorting through articles, they hadn’t found any written by Ben.

  “What if he used another name when he was writing about the war?” Diego’s voice cut through her.

  “What?” she stopped, just staring at him.

  Diego was right. She felt something sharp twisting in her stomach and her fingers fell limp, a stack of articles spilling onto the floor. A deep ache began to throb behind her left eye—every part of her exhausted from squinting at those faint block letters beneath the dim fluorescent lights. The thought that they could be at another dead end was just too much and she folded into her lap.

  “This is pointless isn’t it?” she mumbled into her jeans.

  “No it’s not,” Diego tried to reassure her. “There are thousands of articles in here. We’re going to find something.”

  Jo was making her way around the room collecting the articles everyone had found and Diego handed her both his and Liliana’s piles.

  “Found any missing person’s photos?” she asked,

  “No, I haven’t seen anything like that,” Diego answered. “Have you Liliana?”

  Liliana’s head was still in her lap and she rolled it back and forth.

  “Is she ok?” Jo asked.

  “She’s fine,” Diego said. “We’ll tell you if we find any.”

  Once Jo walked away Liliana finally sat up, watching her as she crossed the room and began tacking up a series of black and white images. A grey patchwork of small pale faces began to fill up the wall by the door—ghosts bleeding into one another until they were one phantom, one flesh. These are the faces of the disappeared, Liliana thought as she crossed the room, trying to get a closer look. It reminded her of the wall they had seen in Palermo Viejo only these weren’t just silhouettes, they were actual people with names and faces. Liliana scanned each one and the name beneath it searching for Ben or maybe even her mother when Jo came up behind her.

  “Looking for someone?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Liliana started, “he was a journalist. His name was Binyamin. But I don’t see him anywhere up here.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Jo said.

  “Thanks.”

  Liliana felt her limbs growing stiff as she made her way back to Diego. She was so tired. Her eyes were red from the dust lining the boxes and her fingertips were stained with ink. She had already gone through seven boxes and Diego had gone through five and still nothing.

  “Want to call it a day?” Diego asked, his voice low and unassuming.

  Liliana nodded, though guilt settled in the back of her throat. Back in the truck, Liliana looked down at her hands and tried to rub the ink off on her jeans but it had sunk too deep, words of the disappeared staining her bones. It was then that she realized the bracelet she had been wearing since that day in Palermo Viejo was gone. It must have slipped off her wrist when she was digging through the boxes.

  “I think I lost my bracelet.”

  “Do you think it’s back inside?”

  “Maybe, I have to go look for it,” she said as she opened the passenger door.

  “Wait. I’ll go look,” Diego offered.

  Liliana relented, resting her head back on the seat.

  ***

  “This hers?” Jo asked when she saw Diego slipping back inside. She was dangling the small bracelet between her fingers.

  “Yeah, thanks.” Diego turned to leave.

  “Wait, I think I found that photo Liliana was looking for,” Jo said as she held out the scrap of paper to him.

  “You did?” Diego took the coarse page between his fingers, splaying it over his palm as he examined the face.

  “That him?”

  His hand began to tremble a bit, giving life to the face staring back at him—as if it were in motion. Diego nodded and quickly folded it up before placing it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  Diego slid into the truck, Liliana’s bracelet hanging limp from his thumb. He unhooked the latch and she held out her wrist.

  “Thank you,” she said. She crawled over to him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She pressed her lips to the scruff along his jawbone. “I mean it,” she said, “thank you for everything.”

  Chapter 33

  Diego

  Diego held the thin sheet between his hands, the corners damp from his fingertips and rippling in the wind blowing off of the ocean. He folded it into a small square and tucked it behind the strings on his guitar just as he heard the faint rustle of footsteps behind the trees. From his spot on the overhang he was in the perfect position to see her without her being able to see him and he watched her wind her way through the trees, her steps careful as she avoided mud and exposed roots. He was glad to have a moment to watch her like this. Something in the pit of his stomach began to stir and he lost his breath—he knew once he showed her the photo of Ben, the Liliana that was walking towards him now, would never be again. When she saw him she smiled but before his lips could curl in reply, he spoke.

  “I need to show you something,” he said.

  “What is it?” she breathed.

  Diego grabbed the square from behind the strings, the wind tearing at the edges as he began to unfold it.

  “When I went back inside to get your bracelet Jo handed me this.” He was still clutching it, not ready to give it to her. “She found it when she was going through the missing person’s photos.”

  “Why didn’t you give it to me last night?”

  There was a sharp ripple in her voice and Diego felt an ache rising in his throat.

  “I don’t know.” He stopped, staring at his hands. “I thought it would upset you.”

  “But we were looking for something, anything about him all day. I could barely sleep last night thinking that we would never find him. You should have given it to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words fell in a flurry from his lips. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being angry with him. “I’m sorry, I should have given it to you.”

  Liliana held out her hand. “Well, can I see it?” she said.

  Diego handed her the photo and watched as she stepped into the sunlight, flipping it over. He watched the shapes swell within her gaze—the thick hair that fell into Ben’s eyes, tips curled against his dark brows framing his long face�
�cut by a harsh jaw line and high cheekbones, sharp beneath his pale skin. He was smiling at something or someone in the distance, their dark reflection floating in his iris’ core. Liliana stared at the face, still and without blinking, a moist trail glinting across her cheek.

  Diego wanted to reach for her, but he suddenly grew heavy as something cold and sharp settled at the base of his stomach, and he didn’t move. But he knew what she was thinking. This was the man her mother had loved. These were his lips cutting into a smile—the smile that set her mother’s heart on fire. And these were his eyes—dark almonds fluxing with life. These were his eyes. And they were the same eyes that Diego had been drowning in all summer, the same eyes Manuel had been haunted by for seventeen years, the same eyes that Liliana saw every time she looked in a mirror.

  Chapter 34

  Liliana

  Manuel, of all people, was the one to find me, the one to rip me from the gravel of that dark, empty road. He carried me to the house and sat next to me all night and all morning until I woke up. When I opened my eyes I saw that his were red, irises strained and tired and filing with tears. I love you, he said. There was no pleading or desperation in the way he said it. It slipped through his lips quiet and controlled. I know, I said and he nodded.

  I never want to leave the house so Manuel has been coming to visit me. He comes in quietly like a ghost just passing through, making sure I’m still alive and maybe that our relationship is still dead. For the past few days I haven’t been feeling well. My mother says I need some sunlight and my father says I need to eat. I try but I have no motivation to nourish a body that Ben will never again touch or hold or make love to. His hands on me was the only thing that ever made me feel alive and knowing I will never feel him again is worse than being dead. I wish I was.

  I’ve heard about the kinds of things the military do to the people they pick up. They torture them—beat them, rape them, shock them with electric cattle prods, all in an attempt to force information out of them, information they have no knowledge of in the first place. Thoughts of Ben lying on his back on top of a steel table crawl into my thoughts and I think about how much more his torturers are enjoying their job just because he’s Jewish. I find myself in a constant race to the bathroom, emptying my stomach in hopes that it will also empty my mind. The helplessness I feel paralyzes me and I lay in bed all day waiting for sleep.

  My father never cared too much for the fact that Ben was Jewish but he said he has been doing his best to find out any information about Ben and his well-being. So far I know nothing and it’s too dangerous to keep asking questions. Trini offered to drive me to the doctor after my mother insisted that not only was I dehydrated but I was also depressed and needed to see someone immediately.

  On the way home from the doctor Trini and I rode in complete silence and we took the long way so my parents wouldn’t see that I had been crying. Back at the house Manuel was waiting to speak with me. My father’s face looked pale as he led my mother upstairs to their room to give us some privacy. I have to tell you something, Manuel said. I clutched my stomach and sank into the couch. Ben, I whispered. Manuel knelt down on the floor in front of me. Raul heard something from one of the soldiers we went to school with, he said. Ben is dead.

  I slid to the floor, hands trembling over my ears as I screamed into the carpet—rage tearing from my throat until my voice was cracked and hoarse. I was shaking and Manuel braced my shoulders trying to steady me. I cried until I was choking on my own sobs, until I couldn’t breathe and then I curled up on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, lying there with my knees tucked into my chin until my spine was burning and everything went black. I came to as Manuel was carrying me up the stairs to my room. He looked down at me and pressed his cheek to my forehead. My lips began to tremble and I squeezed my eyes shut. He was warm and I felt safe. I parted my lips and whispered to him, I’m pregnant.

  ***

  Liliana felt the cool wood of the dock on the pads of her feet, the grain rough against her skin. The sky above the ocean was so clear Liliana felt her hand being pulled toward the stars as if they were something she could reach out and touch. She stepped to the end of the dock, toes poised over the edge as the wind gently pushed her from side to side mirroring the sensation inside her skull. She closed her eyes as the wind twisted through her limbs, gentle and lithe like hands nudging her toward the waves. The tide licked at her toes, the cold pricking at her. She inhaled a deep breath and then she took a step forward, letting the night swallow her whole.

  The sting of the cold water sent a shock through her skin—her limbs burning and numb. The tide slammed against her on all sides, twisting her in its folds until she couldn’t find the surface. She kicked, paddling blindly for air as the current tore at her, salt slipping between her lips and into her nose. Then she felt a pair of warm hands wedge themselves under her arms, thumbs cutting into her ribcage, and she was pulled to the surface. She fell limp against the tide letting it and Diego pull her back to shore—his dark skin taut and rippling as he fought the current. When she finally felt the sand’s thick folds beneath her feet, she sunk to her knees, crawling up the beach until the sea finally let go of her, and her fingers were curling into the dry earth. Then she twisted onto her back, chest arched as she fought for air.

  Diego slumped next to her, arms flung over his knees, body heaving. But he didn’t look at her. His gaze was cold and hard as it tore through the darkness—so still that for a moment Liliana wondered if she was dreaming, if he was really there at all. But then he exhaled—a long deep breath cutting between his lips. Diego’s muscles began to tremble, but as the sea poured off of him in long black drips, Liliana knew it wasn’t from the cold. They sat there, silent, until their clothes began to grow stiff.

  “Why would you do that?” he finally said, jaw tight.

  Liliana shuddered as the wind twisted through her wet hair and shook her head. “I wasn’t…”

  “I saw you. His voice cut through the rushing tide. “What were you thinking?”

  He turned to look at her, thumbs brushing past her cheeks as he took her face in his hands. But she was afraid to meet his eyes.

  “Look at me,” he pleaded. “What happened?”

  But she didn’t speak, not yet. Instead she led him back to the house, the two of them scaling the narrow trellis to her bedroom window, the glass still ajar. Diego sat against the window seat while Liliana locked the door and then she pulled the journal out from underneath her pillow, flipped to the page marked by the faint imprint of her fingernails and handed it to Diego. She sat down next to him, letting her head fall against his shoulder as he started to read.

  She’d already scanned every word a hundred times, absorbing every nuance in gradation and every stray mark of her mother’s pen—from the depth of the tip’s indentions to the way she strung entire sentences together as if she’d written them in a fury, every letter deep and dark and manic. And the end—she’d examined that last word so many times that the ink, dry for more than a decade, was beginning to fade, traces of it bled into the soft pad of her thumb or smeared along her jeans, the p so fervent and somehow still lingering against her skin despite the ocean stripping her of everything else. She couldn’t look at it anymore so she closed her eyes, maneuvering the story of her creation by way of Diego’s lungs, relating every stilted breath or shallow sigh with the words she’d unintentionally committed to more than memory but to her very bones. Then the journal fell in his lap, pages splayed, and he pulled Liliana into his chest. She buried her face there, absorbing his fresh grief until the tears pricked at her skin in a silent torrent.

  But before they could subdue her she stood, shivering as she walked to the bathroom. She slid behind the door, peeling off her wet clothes and flinging them into the bathtub before tying her hair into a bun and using a towel to dry herself off. Then she pulled on a loose t-shirt, the hem barely skimming her knees as she made her way to the bed. She curled against the mattress, the
sheets cold against her legs and watched how the moon spilled red over Diego’s skin.

  “Will you stay with me?” she asked.

  She watched his eyes, trailing from her face to the place where her bare legs were hidden beneath the blankets. He slid, slowly, to the edge of the bed.

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Just for a little while. I don’t think I can sleep.”

  He glanced down at his clothes and the damp bloom bleeding across the mattress beneath his wet jeans. He peeled of his shirt, his hands hesitating over the small copper button at his waist before sliding off his wet pants too and curling in next to her. He lay on his back, stiff against the cold sheets as she slipped into the curve of his ribcage, face tucked against his chest as his arm curled around her shoulder. Diego’s warm breath trailed across Liliana’s collarbone and she met his eyes.

  “I love you,” he said, the words warm against her scalp. “Promise me you won’t ever do something like that again.”

  Liliana nodded, tears burning against the back of her throat.

  “No matter how hard things get. No matter what, just don’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, the words tangible and slipping into his mouth.

  He grabbed her face and kissed her—fingers twisting in her hair as the first hint of a tear began to well along her lash line. But before they could bloom he caught them on the edge of his thumbnail and wiped them away.