***
I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. But I feel myself shrinking, slowly, though I can’t disappear fast enough. I don’t want to feel it anymore. I can’t.
I slowly make my way up the stairs and see the guard waiting by the door. He grabs me by the arm, even though I’m not putting up a fight, and he pulls me into the room. There is a small crowd of men huddled together by the bar and the rest have pulled up chairs next to the stage. They are watching one of the other girls, shimmying along to an old love song from before the war. Our eyes meet, just for a second and then she looks away, something like pain blooming in her cheeks. I haven’t seen myself in a mirror in months, but looking at her, at her hollow cheeks, her dark eyes, and limp body, I know I must look as much like death as she does.
I reach a hand to my neck, fingers curling into my hair as I wait for someone to approach me. I can feel that my nails need to be trimmed and they catch on a few strands of my hair, pulling them free. I hold the thin dark wisps out in front of my face, watching them flutter with a spindly transparency until I feel my eyes beginning to water. And then I see a man walking towards me, his eyes low, and I let the hairs float to the floor. Beneath the brim of his bowler hat, he finally meets my eyes; they linger there, intent on my face, never straying the way I’m used to. He opens his mouth, about to speak, when the man standing behind me cuts him off.
“Cash,” he spits.
The man in the bowler hat fumbles in his back pocket for his wallet. He hands the man a roll of bills and then we are led back to my room. I bend down and sit on the edge of the mattress, waiting as the guard’s footsteps fade down the corridor. When they’ve disappeared up the stairs the man in the hat kneels down next to me.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispers.
A cry rises up from one of the other rooms, low and sharp, and I’m just staring at his lips—unsure if he’s really just spoken.
“Look,” he lowers his voice even more. “Ben sent me. I will be back in a couple of days.”
“What? Ben?”
“Shhh.”
The word brushes past my skin and I’m silent.
“I will be back for you, I promise.”
He stands to leave and my fingers catch on his wrist.
“Stop, they’ll see you.”
I let go, hands falling limp in my lap as he places his hat back on his head and turns to go.
The days become a fluid ceaseless thing, each one spilling into the next and I don’t sleep. It’s the waiting that sets me buzzing—every sound pricking at my senses. One moment I can’t sit still and the next I can’t move. I stare at that empty doorway, inventing the sound of his footsteps coming down the hall until their so tactile, echoes cutting across the walls, that I’m forced to check and see if he’s there. But all I see are shadows playing at the bottom of the staircase and swelling along the walls as the familiar face of the guard manifests at the base of the landing.
Something like hope begins to burn in me and I try to snuff it out. I don’t think of Ben coming for me. I don’t think of Manuel or even my girls. Because what if he doesn’t come back? Still though, in sleep, when my will isn’t my own I dream of them—of how much their faces must have changed since I’ve been away, about the lilt of their voices as they stumble over new words. And I just want to hold them, to feel their curls on my face, to breathe them. But I can’t.
I’m crouched in the corner next to the doorway, pressed to the wall and invisible to the people walking by. It’s been too quiet and I know the guard will come for me soon. And I know no matter how far I sink into the shadows that he will still be able to reach me. But I sink there anyway, quiet and still—slowly retreating from my body before it’s broken again. I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to see it. Then in the quiet, I hear the guard and the grunt of his heavy gait beneath the slow rustle of his pant legs. And though I haven’t cried in weeks, though I’ve resolved to never cry again, the tears come anyway, burning as they slip past my lips and spill onto my hands, flat against the cold concrete floor. I feel his shadow as it moves into the doorway. But when I look up the man with the hat is hovering over me.
“Take her,” a voice says from behind him.
The man in the hat grabs me by the arm, twisting it until I’m on my feet and I can’t tell if it’s for the guard or for me. I struggle, an unfeigned fear twisting inside me as I think of Raul and whether or not it could be him and not Ben waiting for me outside. I stare at the guard, his eyes cold on mine for just a second before I’m led upstairs and out of the club. The man in the hat leads me to a dark town car with tinted windows and I slide in, my hands still knotted in his fists behind my back. But the second the door slams closed, he lets go of me, fingers recoiling against his chest.
He stares out the window, silent until the dilapidated factory building is no longer in view. And then he speaks.
“He’s waiting for you at a hotel in Garza.”
“Ben,” I breathe.
He nods.
“We’ll be there in a couple of hours. You should rest.”
I hesitate, instinct still regulating everything. I want to sleep, to close my eyes, but I can still see the faint blush along my skin where his fingers just were and I know I shouldn’t. Not yet, not until I’m with Ben. But he’s watching me, eyes weary as they wait for me to sink into the seat and sleep. So I lean my head against the side of the car door, eyes flitting closed until I hear him drift off next to me. His long deep breaths work to lull me, a calm slipping under my skin, but I fight it off. It’s still dark outside, shadows and silhouettes bleeding into one another—the familiar contours of the landscape winding into some new dark beast. And all I can think about is the day I was taken, that day in the plaza.
I remember the silence, spilling like a torrential wave into every street corner and down every crowded sidewalk. It was that collective hush that reached me first, back to the street as I waited in line outside Manuel’s favorite sweet shop. He was waiting for me across the plaza with his brother Raul, who we’d happened to run into just in time for lunch, and the girls, one tucked under each arm. Between the mother’s slow, unyielding carousel I could still see them, huddled together there on the cobblestone steps of the restaurant. But then the air went out, bodies pushing me and pinning me as people tried to slip into the shops or wade, undetected, through the bustling crowd to their cars.
But at the far end of the plaza, cinched within the crowded doorway of the sweet’s shop I had nowhere to go but forward, my steps heavy and deliberate as I pushed against the grain. I could see the tanks, metal tops splitting open like some kind of mechanical insect, and I could see the guns, barrels wavering over the crowd, and fingers lain recklessly over the triggers. But I had to get across that street.
As I neared the sidewalk, people clawing passed me to get inside, I found Manuel’s eyes. They stared at me, dark and pleading, and then he called out, my name cutting through the silence. And that’s when I felt the arms tight around my neck, another pair of hands twisting my arms, steeling me as I stumbled backward. I threw myself onto my knees, writhing against their feet as I tried not to let them tear me from the ground and I could see Manuel, a sliver of him just for a second, fighting his way through the crowd, arms and shoulders working to clear through the mass of people. And then he vanished, swallowed into the folds of moving bodies, and I vanished, dragged into the back of an unmarked falcon.
Despite the fear in Manuel’s eyes that day, its flame stalling me, and despite Liliana’s hands kneading into his shoulder as she searched for her mother who’d just stepped across the street, the thing I remember most was the slow riven of the crowd—like the tide as it sinks back into the sea, their faces still and silent as they stumbled back onto the sidewalk, obediently parting for the soldiers as they watched them drag me away.
I twisted in the backseat of that car, limbs thrashing and lungs screaming, clawing at them like an animal as they tried to h
old me down. But it was the city giving way to torrid emptiness that finally subdued me. I remember watching the sun as it glinted off the glass, heat washing it the color of pearl as if it were melting within the frame. We finally came to a stop in front of a warehouse, cracked and dark and jutting up from the sand and we idled there. Then after almost an hour of waiting alone in that seething car, within the sun’s relentless glare I saw Raul—face pressed to the glass, watching me.
As they dragged me out of the car I saw a sliver of something blush between his fingers, long and flat and then I realized it was an envelope. He used it to point out some steaming patch of grass—the sun beating down on it completely uninhibited and they threw me there. The hot sand bit into my skin, dusting my knees and palms until I thought they might blister and I tried to crawl onto my feet. That’s when Raul hit me, the back of his hand grating across my cheek and I rolled onto my stomach, covering my face. But then he leaned in close, driving his foot into my side and I cried out—my voice sharp and stilted as I fought for breath. He knelt then, holding the envelope out in front of me.
I glared down at the address, recognizing the delicate scroll and I knew it was from Ben. Then I saw the seam and the rippled edge and I didn’t dare move.
I felt the stiff corner of the envelope as Raul traced it along my throat.
“I always told him you were going to run,” he said, as he curled the letter into his fist.
And after one slight nod, the guards took me inside.
The sun seethes up along the horizon—fierce and red and rippling there like the tide. I stare into it for the first time in months letting it burn me until it’s flushed behind tears and all I can see is light. It cuts into the night and it cuts into me and I tremble. I have never seen a sunrise like this, spilling blood over the terrain, the horizon pulsating like an open wound. But then I think of the relentless way it burned that morning that Ben never came—tearing through the night despite my pleas for it to slow, to stop completely as I lay curled on the side of the road. I blink, eyes strained against the harsh familiarity of the morning’s flame and I finally look away.
That’s when I see the train tracks cutting across the horizon, giving way to streetlights and storefronts and then there’s the motel. We turn in, the slant of the drive jostling the man in the bowler hat awake and then I see Ben, lingering near an open door, his hands shielding his eyes as he watches the car. And then he’s running and the door falls open and I fall into him.
His hands slip past my shoulders as he drapes his coat over me and it’s the first time I’m aware of my appearance—of the sheer fabric cutting into my skin, the lines protruding where there were once curves and my arms retreat, covering myself. He leads me into the room, careful as he locks the door behind us and then he ushers me toward the bed, pulling back the blankets before folding me inside. I don’t realize how cold I am until he slips in next to me and then I’m shaking—face buried in his chest as I try to get warm. He runs his palms along my arms and back, kneading the skin until it’s flushed and vibrant, my pulse drumming again.
And then his lips find my ear and he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
I curl into him, flesh conforming to his own, and wrapped in the warm validity of his presence, for the first time in months, for the first time since he left, I close my eyes and sleep.
***
“Tell me about her?”
I wake to Ben’s voice, warm and setting a blush to my skin. The sun still pours in through the window and I wonder how long I’ve slept. When I look up at him his eyes are dark and moist—the words he’s just said finally taking shape. A faint smile cuts his lips and I feel mine curling in reply—the sensation so foreign that my hands search my face, fingertips mapping the curve of my mouth.
“She has my lips,” I say, “but she has your eyes.”
Ben blinks and I run my thumbnail across his eyebrow.
“She’s a little shy, also like you. She loves it when I read to her. But she doesn’t like picture books. Something about them just doesn’t seem to hold her interest. We were reading Huckleberry Finn…”
I stop then, remembering. I think about Manuel and Nita and though I want to tell Ben everything, suddenly I feel this caution rising up inside me. Like I shouldn’t speak of Liliana with the anticipation of a future we can never have, not with Ben, not with anyone. Because I know that I can’t go back. Not yet, not with Raul still there. Ben presses his lips to my forehead and I lay there, silent.
“Does he know?” he finally asks.
I look down at my hands—pale against Ben’s dark brown trousers and a knot forms in my stomach.
“Yes.” I stare down at my ring finger, empty save for Ben’s shadow as he leans over me. “He loves her,” I say.
“Good,” Ben’s voice trembles, “and she loves him?”
“She does.” I lay my head on Ben’s shoulder. “They’re both reserved; too serious for their own good. They have a special bond in that way.” I think of Manuel taking care of our girls, on his own, all this time. “He’s good to us,” I say.
I see the glint in his eyes then, the pain, and his face pales. I slide to the edge of the bed, turning from him, tears slipping over my lips and down my throat. He slips an arm around my waist and I still.
“Listen, we can’t stay here, we…”
But then there is a knock at the door and Ben glances through the peephole before unlatching the chain.
“We’re leaving?” I ask.
“Yes. We have to get out of Buenos Aires.”
“Now? But,”
He hands me a set of his clothes—a long t-shirt and a pair of his pants, and I slip them on. I hear the car, its rumble dull behind the closed door and I feel something heavy and taut twisting in my stomach. Ben pulls me toward the door but I stop.
“Are you sure?” I say.
But he just slides a hand behind my ear, fingers curling into my hair and says, “Please, just trust me.”
The drive is long and the night quickly slips over us, concealing our path through the dark. And though I slept all day, a weariness still clings to me, roused by the darkness spilling thick in all directions. We finally pull to a stop, nothing and no one flickering there to let us know we’ve reached our destination. But Ben leads me out of the car anyway and then I see it—the narrow slit in the earth, something even darker than night churning just beneath our feet. I peer down into the hole as something peels from the emptiness, a man climbing to the surface. There’s a sharp click and then a flame manifests at his hip within the glass belly of an old lantern.
“How long?” Ben says.
“We’re not far.”
The man disappears then and all I can see is the flame, setting the russet tunnel aglow and then we’re following him, Ben slipping down first before pulling me in after him. The man leaves us then, his steps quick as we chase after his shadow, winding our way through narrow pathways and over makeshift steps and loose stones.
I hold tight to Ben’s hand as I trail behind him, my feet skirting over his heels as I race toward the light. When the path grows too narrow and we’re forced to wind through it shoulder to shoulder I close my eyes, imagining instead that we’re safe, that we’re nearing the other side. But then I feel the stones grating across my back, pinning me, and I forget how to breathe.
But in the dark, I can hear the faintest rhythm trembling within the stone, the vibrations swelling into one low thrum and I keep moving, shuffling close behind Ben, one step after the other. Something shifts then, sliding past me, cold and lithe and I tremble. I feel the air, feel it tugging at my lungs and then there are stars, just a handful of them pulsing right above me as we climb into a hollow dome, the walls covered in scrolling shadows.
The old man lingers near the opening before abandoning his lantern on the bottom step and making his ascent. I can see now that almost every inch of the walls are filled with the faint etchings and as Ben presses his palm to one of the stones I can see some
thing swelling in his gaze. Then he pulls a knife from the back pocket of his jeans and hands it to me.
I press the blade to the stone at my feet, brushing away the sharp flecks as I carve into it. Ben lingers over my shoulder watching as my name takes shape and then he kneels down next to me, cutting his own name into the steps, the intent scroll followed by a shallow incantation, one of his favorite psalms from the Tanakh.
He traces the letters with his thumbnail, reading them aloud, “I shall not be...”
Moved.
He looks up at me, the last word poised on the edge his lips. I wait for him to say it, to make this declaration not just for him but for the both of us. But he is silent. I turn, following the shadow spilling down the steps and I see Raul. I reach for Ben, trying to stand, to run, but I stumble past the lantern, the flame wild and tumbling as the glass lands against the stone floor. And then everything is dark.
***
I am cold. I feel it licking at me like a frozen flame, pressing me down, strangling me. It’s so hard to breathe, to move, to open my eyes. But I finally do. I blink. And I see Ben. His arms and legs are bound, the skin beneath the ropes pallid and rough. I try to scream, to say his name, but my jaw is locked shut, my tongue a thick dry thing at the back of my throat. But then his eyes flutter open, just for a second and he looks right at me. And though I am already dead I feel something warm slip into the corner of my eye, the tear lingering there against my skin, just for a second, before being blown across my cheek and out of the open door of the plane.
The Things They Didn't Bury Page 19