Behold Things Beautiful

by Cora Siré

  A few blocks into the port, he entered a building with shuttered windows. Alma waited a few seconds, then approached the entrance. Through the glass doors, she made out a porter sitting behind a desk. A brass plaque on the wall indicated that the building housed the social club of Luscano’s armed forces. Alma could imagine Carlos Cruz greeting his former compañeros with warm handshakes and abrazos before joining them at the table where they drank, played cards and traded war stories. “We fixed them, didn’t we?” Smug satisfaction curling with the smoke from his cigar.

  A ship’s horn sounded from a wharf. There was shouting in the distance and a car drove by. Alma stood in the dark outside the stone building, built in the nineteenth century by the look of it, just another in a row of edifices housing brokers, shipping companies, marine suppliers. What could she do? If she stormed inside to confront him, his cronies would overpower her, throw her out of the building, call the police, have her arrested and she’d be back to where she’d once been, in a jail cell, helpless.

  Inside the lobby, two men approached the porter and he picked up the phone, calling for a taxi perhaps. Alma scrambled into the doorway of an adjacent building. The men came outside and waited on the street. One of them glanced her way, elbowed the other, the two men leering. Alma hurried down the street. It curved into another and she reached a dead end. A huddle crouched by a wall, bottles on the pavement. Someone called out, “¡Puta! Show us what you’ve got.” Alma backed away into an alley and soon she was lost in the labyrinth of streets purposely designed to disorient, the old caudillo strategy for protecting the port from attack.

  She walked in circles, couldn’t find the club again, didn’t recognize a landmark, and the night deepened. To steady herself, she thought of Delmira Agustini and the next fragment she would type on her laptop. Blood on the mirror of the rented room, blood on the purse with the hand mirror, the death scene on the floor, a mirror held up to Montevideo. Nobody forced the poet to attend her own murder. With all her duplicity and secrecy, Agustini never gave up her free will.

  Alma was limping from a blister that had formed on her heel. A group of sailors swaggered across the street ahead of her. She realized she was walking southward to the wharves and turned back until she found the slight incline that began the ascent into the city centre. She kept snaking uphill until she reached the river. The beacon on the cathedral spire flashed in the distant skyline.

  Squatters’ fires burned along the banks. Here was another barrio to be avoided. Alma took the unlit road running parallel to El Rio Pequeño. The blister on her heel burned but she didn’t dare stop walking, not here. A pickup truck drove by. And for a moment, its headlights illuminated the prison. Alma could not distinguish the second floor, could not locate her lookout, six vertical bars on the opening in her cell. She wouldn’t call it a window, not without a glass pane to protect from hot winds and mosquitoes. At that moment, Alma understood that she had access to something powerful neither Flaco nor Gabriel possessed: specificity.

  Revenge could be hellish, but choosing the alternative, doing nothing, she’d wind up an aging academic with degenerate thoughts and negated memories, alone with her neatly arranged books. Or she’d end things the way Ernesto had. Giving up, the final manifestation of free will, then nothingness.

  Alma approached the lights of cars crossing the bridge on Primero de Abríl and flagged a taxi home.

  Part III

  Today from the great path, under the bright and mighty sun,

  Silent like a tear I have looked back,

  And your voice from far away, with a scent of death,

  Came to howl to my ear a sad “Never again!”

  From “Sweet Elegies” by Delmira Agustini, Cantos de la mañana (1910)

  17

  January 6

  It’s an intensely humid night. I’m at my desk studying, the pages of my books sticking to the sweat on my hands and arms, the pen sliding between my fingers. A horrendous racket shakes the house. Fists pound the front door, maybe boots as well. I rush out of my bedroom and down the hall. Two men are already inside. Our muchacha is striking them with a broom. The younger one restrains her. The other lunges towards me. I run towards the kitchen, to the phone, to get a knife, to hurry out the back door, I don’t know. He grabs my arm and drags me down the hall. His arms lock around me. He carries me down the front stairs and shoves me into the back seat of a car. My face smacks the headrest. I’m screaming. He starts the car and the younger one gets in beside him, reaches back and pushes my head down.

  On January 6, 1991, about 8:45 at night, I’m kidnapped from my parents’ home, 24 Calle Buenos Aires in Barrio Norte. There are no witnesses to verify this account other than me and my abductors. My parents, not home at the time of my removal, are deceased and our muchacha now lives in Bolivia. Neighbours later questioned by my mother claim to have seen and heard nothing, not even my screaming.

  At the time of my imprisonment, I’m twenty-four years old, a master’s student at the University of Luscano. I’ve never committed a criminal act. My abductors do not verify my name nor do they provide a reason for my kidnapping. I never see any documents or a warrant, am never provided access to a lawyer.

  The younger one plays with the radio dial. The corporal orders him to turn it off. “Bueno, mi cabo.” I ask where they’re taking me. “¡Callate!” The brakes squeal and the car swerves.

  The car — American, black, dark green or navy — accelerates. Crouching on the floor, my face on my knees, I’m wearing sweatpants, sandals and a sleeveless top and remain in those clothes until my release. The corporal driving the car is aged forty to fifty, has brown eyes, a prominent nose and thick greying hair. He wears a blue shirt, jeans and a leather belt with a holster and a gun. The lieutenant has black eyes, short hair and a scar on his chin. He is wearing jeans, a blue polo shirt. Both men smell of cigarettes and beer.

  We stop at a checkpoint. Light sweeps the car. I lift my head and see a uniformed guard in a booth. The car drives on to the entrance of the prison. The lieutenant pulls me out by the waistband of my pants. I stagger. The lieutenant grabs my arm. The floodlit yard is crowded with military vehicles, trucks and jeeps. The corporal takes my other arm and they march me into the building, through a series of doors and into an office with two uniformed men. My kidnappers leave. I never see them again.

  One of the guards sits behind a desk. “Your name?” I consider lying, but decide not to. He asks me to spell out my name as he prints the letters in a book. The other guard demands that I remove my wristwatch and jewellery. I find out later that they sell these valuables for their own gain.

  They’re wearing navy blue uniforms, caps pulled low on their foreheads. I cannot recall distinguishing features. I remember asking, “Why am I here?”

  “¡Callate!” The guard standing pats me down, searches the pockets of my sweatpants. “We should keep this one down here,” he says, and they laugh. They walk me down a corridor of cells and stop in front of a metal door. They slide it open, shove me inside and lock the door behind me.

  I stand there for a few minutes rubbing my cheek where it slammed the headrest in the car. A fluorescent light fixture in the cell gives off a faint bluish light. There are a number of men, six, I believe, sitting on the ground, leaning their backs against the walls. One of them offers his jacket. “Sit on this.” The cell is hot but I am shivering. I take the jacket and find a place near the door. A grille above the metal door does not provide adequate ventilation against the stench from a bucket in a corner of the cell.

  The man who gave me his jacket introduces himself as Díaz. He is muscular, about my height and age. He has black hair, almost shoulder length, dark skin and high cheekbones. Later I find out he’s a law student. Díaz introduces the others but I don’t remember their names. Most are under thirty and students. Three are bleeding from cuts to their faces and arms. An older man vomits into the bucket. A medical
student staunches a wound on this man’s forearm.

  At some point, Díaz speaks through the stunned disbelief. “We’re being held in La Cuarenta.” He’s the only one who fully grasps that his detention is not some bureaucratic foul-up that will soon be straightened out. The rest of us are bewildered.

  In what feels like an eternity but has probably been less than one hour, I’ve been kidnapped and brought to a prison across the river from the university. I’ve passed this building my entire life. I know that in the last year, people have been brought here without habeas corpus and that they are never seen again. Díaz says, “La Cuarenta’s crowded. We’re more than they can handle and that might work in our favour. If we’re lucky, we’ll be transferred to a prison in the countryside. Think clearly and stay calm. You’ll be interrogated.”

  The medical student, the older man and I do not speak. Someone asks Díaz questions as if he’s his lawyer. This person claims to have solid connections, uncles in the military, friends in government positions, contacts who have helped him obtain dispensations in the past — from military service, fines and speeding tickets. He is convinced they’ll come to his rescue. First thing in the morning. A man next to Díaz promises we’ll be released in a few hours and, as the night progresses, first thing in the morning. Others repeat the phrase like a mantra, first thing in the morning, although none of us has a watch. I have no sense of time passing.

  “Of course we’re all innocent,” Díaz says. “And once that’s established, we’ll be released. The military doesn’t make mistakes.” I understand then that one or more of my cellmates might be plants, put in the cell with us to extract information.

  From time to time I discern noise from somewhere in the prison but can’t pinpoint the source or the cause. I’m unable to prepare my mind for questioning. I breathe through my mouth to avoid the smell and contain my nausea, the impulse to urinate. I cannot use the bucket in the presence of six men.

  January 7

  A guard opens the door and calls out two names. The men leave as ordered and the door clangs shut. An hour or so later, the process is repeated. Díaz requests food and water. “You’ll get that later,” the guard says.

  When Díaz and I are alone in the cell, he says, “Remember this: my name is Díaz Velásquez of 62 Calle San Martín. If you get out, contact my wife Mirabel and tell her I love her. I didn’t have the chance.” He repeats this several times, then asks, “And you? Any messages?” His words are terrifying. I cannot speak. The door opens and the guard waves me out. I hand Díaz his jacket and he whispers, “Be strong.”

  The guard slides a hood over my head and leads me down the hallway. We turn into a stairwell and I trip on the first steps. He pushes me up the stairway. I stumble down a corridor, hear voices, footsteps and a radio. The guard unlocks a door and shoves me into a cell. He takes the hood off my head. I ask for water. “Later,” he says and leaves me in the cell. The door slides shut.

  I am alone in the cell. It has a bunk bed with mattresses covered by thin blankets and an empty bucket. I walk to the small opening uncovered except for a grille of iron bars. I can’t see the roads from this angle but I hear traffic, deduce it’s early morning from the light and colour of the sky. I stand and breathe the cool air. The concrete walls are mottled. The floor slants towards the metal sliding door. It has two slots that open from the outside, one at eye level and the other near the floor.

  An hour or so later, a hand slides a tray with tea and a package of biscuits through the bottom slot. I use the bucket and drink the tea. I save the biscuit for later when the sun appears, descending westward. Most of the day I stand by the window. I see the small figures of people by the river but they’re too far away to call out to. I lie down on the bunk. The mattress stinks. Three or four times, a guard looks through the slot. I see his eyes. The slot slides shut. The heat of the direct sun has me sweating. I’m still thirsty. The next time the guard looks in, I request water. “Callate.” The silencing curse of my imprisonment.

  After sunset, the lower slot opens. A hand in a rubber glove leaves a tray with soup and bread. I call out for water. Ten minutes later, the hand slides a bottle through the slot and a male voice demands the tray. The cell quickly cools off. I wrap myself in the two smelly blankets. I’m exhausted but cannot sleep. The cell is constantly lit by a fluorescent light. I pace the floor — eight steps wide, eleven steps long. Six bars over the window. Seventy-five indentations in the walls, as if someone hacked at the concrete with a penknife. At some point during the night I hear heavy vehicles on the road. It sounds like a convoy but I can’t see the lights from my window.

  January 8

  I’m prone on the lower bunk bed when I hear the bells ringing from the cathedral. Tea and biscuits arrive on the tray. I’m left alone until late afternoon when the sun is blazing into the cell. The door slides open and a guard pushes a woman into the cell. She goes to the lower bunk and lies face down on the mattress.

  After sunset, the slot opens to a tray with two bowls of soup, two spoons, two bottles of water and two hard rolls. I carry the tray to the bed. The woman pushes herself upright. We sit on the bed, crouching under the overhead bunk, the tray between us. She manages to eat slowly. Her hands shake. She stinks of vomit. I tell her my name and ask how long she’s been here.

  “What day is it?”

  I tell her it’s Tuesday.

  “Four nights then. My name is Isabel and I’ve been here since Friday.” She’s older, thirty or so, has long black hair, deep-set eyes and a prominent nose. She tells me that she was abducted with her husband from the clinic where they both work as psychologists. They were separated as soon as they arrived in La Cuarenta. She too spent the first night in a holding cell on the ground floor. Then she was brought to a cell crowded with women on this floor. I ask her why I’ve been alone if the prison is so full.

  Isabel gets up from the bed and walks to the window. “Two days ago, before dawn, they came to our cell and took everyone except me. They marched them down the stairs to the entrance. From my cell, I saw them being loaded onto the backs of trucks, each of them carrying a shovel, no hoods. There were at least fifty prisoners and ten soldiers with machine guns. They drove up the hill, disappeared down the other side of it. I stood by the window and watched light fill the sky. I swear I heard the shots. Ta-ta-ta. Ta-ta-ta. Black birds circled the sky beyond the hill.”

  Isabel holds the bars of the window, her long black hair rippling down to her waist. “The trucks returned, empty, just the drivers and guards.”

  I ask what happened to her today. At first she says nothing. I climb into the top bunk and lie down. Later, I listen to her voice telling how they tortured her husband in front of her. Interrogations, she says, occur during the day, three hours before lunch, three hours before sundown, always with a doctor in a white lab coat nearby. “They asked Federico questions about certain friends. He refused to answer. They burned him with a cattle prod, first on his chest. Then they asked me the same questions. When I refused, they burned him on his genitals. Federico fainted. They called the doctor. He entered the room and checked my husband’s pulse, listened to his heart with a stethoscope. The doctor pronounced Federico fit for further questioning. They burned his feet and hands, his body convulsing with each electric shock. There was nothing I could do but vomit and weep. I told them what they wanted, names and addresses of our friends.”

  The bunk bed shakes with her sobbing. I cannot find words to console her. Isabel finally tells me Federico was carried out on a stretcher at the end of the day. She does not believe her husband will survive the night.

  I doze off occasionally but Isabel wakes me up. “Please, I need to hear your voice. Tell me a story, a novel you once read or a film you saw.” And so I tell her the stories of Todos Santos, a faraway village in Bolivia. Then I recite a monologue from a play. I talk until my voice is hoarse.

  January 9

 
; Two guards come for Isabel in the morning. I spend the day pacing and counting. My footsteps, holes in the walls, rocks in the river, birds in the willow trees. I sense new arrivals being locked into the cells on either side of me. I begin to work out the layout of the prison, partly from Isabel’s description. The ground floor contains offices, holding cells, supply rooms and the kitchen. The second floor consists of rows of cells like mine flanking the exterior walls of the prison. The guards’ room and the place where they torture the prisoners are located in the interior block. During the day and at night I hear boot-steps entering and leaving the guards’ room, a radio or cards slapping a table when the door opens. I smell their food.

  I am filthy. My head itches. A rash develops on my inner arms and shins. The trays continue to deliver two portions of food. I save Isabel’s shares on top of my bed. Just before sundown, the cell door slides open and she stumbles in. Her lips are swollen and her arms are punctured with black sores. Her shirt sticks to her back. She slurs something I cannot understand. She sits on the lower bunk and peels her shirt off. I soak a corner of my blanket in tea and apply this to the wounds on her back. It is raw with welts, burns and strafing as if she’s been rolling in barbed wire. I try to make her eat some bread but she refuses.

  “Hunger strike,” she slurs. “Federico’s dead.”

  Her nose bleeds for a long time. She can’t stand up so I hold her head back. She lies down on her stomach, unable to bear the blanket touching her skin.