“They’re files that I want to burn: papers and old documents that I don’t need anymore.”
“And we had to come here to do it? You couldn’t have simply bought a paper shredder?”
“Give me a hand instead of complaining.”
Isabel moves the carton a little way from them and then removes from her backpack a small shovel and a bottle of denatured alcohol as Ana watches in astonishment. Two CNI agents are looking on from a distance and wondering too why Isabel has led them there. After checking that the hole is deep enough, she pushes the box in and pours the alcohol over it. Then she lights a cigarette, takes a few drags, and throws it in the hole. The box goes up in a blaze of orange flames. The two women watch it burn. For the twenty minutes it takes for the fire to extinguish itself, Isabel tells Ana about her grandmother and what happened to her, about her grandfather too, why Isabel left France to come to Madrid, and why she became involved with the NASB. Crying now as ashes from the fire blow around them, she finishes her story.
“I’m leaving.”
“What? Where?”
Ana listens to Isabel’s story, expecting Isabel at any moment to tell her something that would confirm or disprove Diego’s theory, but she never does. Nothing. And Ana is stupefied by the last thing she hears Isabel say.
“Don’t ask me anything, please. I’ll tell you everything, but I want Diego to be there when I do. I owe you both an explanation, and I’m going to give it to you. I’m a little afraid of how you’ll take it, and, above all, I’m not sure if I should tell you in front of David—”
“Dammit, you’re scaring the shit out of me! Go on, tell me what this is all about!”
“Let’s go back to the car. If you drive, I’ll see if I can find the words to tell you.”
Ana drives, and Isabel talks. About the nun. And the notary. Ana can’t believe what she is hearing. Diego was right. She has to pull over in the emergency lane of Madrid’s beltway to take it all in. She is having difficulty breathing. She calms down, tries to think clearly. But she can’t control her reaction. It’s impossible to be angry with Isabel. True, she killed five people, but Ana cannot bring herself to judge her and doesn’t want to either. Instead, she understands what Isabel did and realizes that she, too, could have done the same thing. And that frightens Ana. Doesn’t she always say that if she ever crossed paths with the man who tortured her in an Argentine prison that she would kill him with her bare hands? Another worry is Diego. She has no idea how he is going to take the news. As for David, Isabel is right: he can’t know anything. The ex-judge has too much respect for justice and seeing it carried out. He wouldn’t do anything or denounce Isabel, of course, but he would refuse to have anything more to do with her. Or with Ana either, for that matter. When they get back to Isabel’s building, the two go upstairs to wash up and make themselves more presentable. They still have thirty minutes until they have to meet the men. Ana could also use a stiff drink.
When they knock on the roll-down gate at Casa Pepe, Diego and David are already there. The journalist and the ex-judge are in high spirits and have already opened a bottle. They are celebrating the demise of those raving lunatics, the Crusaders for Christ, and they are pleased to see the detective and the lawyer. Ana is as white as a sheet, and Isabel can only manage a forced smile. They make a brave show of gaiety and don’t let on to the two men that their mood is far gloomier than theirs. Ponce immediately plants a kiss on Isabel with the express intention of provoking her.
“We don’t have to be so formal anymore now that we’re colleagues!”
He also announces that he’ll probably have to leave early since he is on duty tonight. As for Diego, he is trying to hide his delight at seeing Isabel again.
“So tell us, you really didn’t want to see us or what?” he asks, pouring Isabel a glass of red wine. “How are you doing after everything that’s happened?”
“OK, I’m holding up. I’ve had so much work that I haven’t had a minute to myself. I’m happy to see you all again, and I’ve wanted to thank you for everything you did for the association and for me.”
“Sounds like a eulogy,” David exclaims, still teasing Isabel when his phone rings. “Yeah, it’s me. OK, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He lets out a long sigh. “Well, I’m going to have to leave you; I’ve got a client waiting for me. A small-time dealer in the neighborhood.”
Isabel shoots a look at Ana, who gets her meaning and answers with a discreet nod. She already persuaded Isabel not to say anything to David about her five victims; only to let him know that she will be leaving for her safety. The lawyer has something else to tell him, though.
“David, before you go, I have something to tell the three of you. It’s just that … I’m going away, I’m leaving the country. The threats have become too serious. They want to kill me, and they’ll succeed if I stay here. I don’t want to live my life like Saviano** or like those people who have to have permanent police protection, a cop at my back all the time. I could never put up with that. The CNI has taken care of everything. They’re going to exfiltrate me, sort of, and make sure I leave the country while I can still walk and I’m in good health.”
Complete silence. Isabel’s announcement has taken the wind out of the men’s sails. No more kidding around. The journalist feels completely let down. The ex-judge doesn’t know what to say. David’s expected any minute at the police station, but he doesn’t really want to leave anymore. Still, he has to. As he’s getting ready to go, the lawyer stops him.
“Wait!”
She walks over to him and hands him a key and a tiny piece of paper.
“Here, take this. This is for the storage unit where I’ve left all of the files on the families in the NASB. Keep them for me. I trust you. I’m sure you’ll know what to do with them.”
“I promise. Take good care of yourself. And let us know how you’re doing. Well, I have to go, or my client’s not going to be happy!”
Seated on a bar stool, Diego still hasn’t said a word. He thinks Isabel’s running away, and he wants an explanation. He is trying to calm himself before his anger gets the better of him. One thing is for sure: no one feels like eating the tapas that the owner left for them. The bottles of wine, on the other hand, aren’t going to last long. Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t hear Isabel sit down next to him. She puts her hand on his arm. He jumps. Ana is watching them out of the corner of her eye from where she has slumped onto a banquette.
“When are you leaving?” Diego asks.
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Far. Far from Madrid. Far from Spain. Far from France.”
“Yes, but where?”
“I’m not able to tell you that now.”
Irritated by what he interprets as a lack of trust in him, Diego removes his arm, gets up, and pours himself another glass of wine. Then he begins.
“Do you plan to come back someday?”
“I have no idea right now. I hope so. It’s a forced exile, but it isn’t permanent. Or at least I hope not.”
“So this is a goodbye dinner that you’ve planned?”
“Yes, in a way. It’s also something that I have been dreading because I have some things to tell you. It’s a story that I started to tell Ana on our way here, but I’d like to start over from the beginning. Before I do, just promise to hear me out: no questions or interruptions.”
No answer from Diego. He passes one hand across his face. He feels trapped, betrayed almost, by someone he trusted, someone he respected, whose determination and courage he admired. And the first woman for whom he has felt something besides sympathy since the death of his beloved Carolina.
“Promise me,” Isabel repeats.
“All right, if you insist. Go on, I’m listening.”
They sit down next to Ana, who now draws herself up straight and pushes the plates of chorizo and ham out of the way. She fills everyone’s glasses. Isabel takes a long drink, then dives in. She confess
es everything, speaking slowly, sometimes searching for the right words, occasionally stopping to take a sip of some of that red liquid that she loves so much. She tells them everything, right down to the last detail. It takes a whole hour. Diego is champing at the bit and sometimes expels deep breaths of air like a bull about to enter the ring.
As she describes the murders, she relives every moment of them. The APM official the night of the elections, who was the first. The terror of being caught. The fear that she could miss and lose her shot at him. The notary: she talked to him, he replied, and then a second later, she took his life with no remorse. The doctor: that one was quicker, and no words were exchanged. The banker: more complicated, and with a long wait; it seemed almost surreal to her because he was so far away when he fell. And the nun finally: the riskiest one of all, a woman in a religious sanctuary in the middle of a street festival. As she continues to talk, Ana and Diego find it increasingly difficult to contain their shock and to remain seated and not interrupt her with a thousand questions. But every time, as if she could read their thoughts, she stays one step ahead of them. The journalist can barely contain himself. He smokes cigarette after cigarette, clenches his fists, and clamps his teeth so hard his gums start to bleed. Finally, she explains why.
“When my grandfather died, my grandmother, Emilia, was inconsolable. For weeks, she never stopped crying. I went to see her every day, anytime I could get away. One evening, it was just the two of us, and we were looking at old photos. I don’t know why I thought of it, but I asked her if she ever regretted that they never went back to Spain after living so long in France. I was telling her that the dictatorship was over, that the country had changed, and the past was in the past, but her answer was ‘Never!’ And then she told me the whole story. She explained what their lives were like as anti-Franco militants: the deprivation, the repression, and friends imprisoned and murdered. But despite all that, they loved each other, and they decided to start a family. The story of her delivery and the loss of her baby devastated me. One thing led to another, and we got onto the subject of forgiveness, and then revenge. We stayed up all night talking. Early in the morning, I went out to get some croissants for breakfast. When I came back, she was still in her chair. She hadn’t moved, but she looked different, as if a weight had been taken from her. I made us some coffee, and we ate, and then she told me about her idea, her plan. She was so convinced that she would never have justice, nor would any of the other families who lost their children. She knew there were other families, other women who had known the same wrenching pain of having their babies taken from them by people with no morals or scruples. She asked me to put her plan for revenge into action. But she didn’t just want revenge, she wanted me, as a lawyer, to get behind the cause and help victims like herself. I started to look into it, discreetly. I found quite a lot of information that confirmed what she told me. I started to realize that a whole system, the scope of which I didn’t quite grasp back then, had been created to abduct the children of families in the political opposition and sell them to families who might not have been open Franco supporters yet who shared in any case a certain number of the regime’s ideas. I had the name of the nun. From there, I worked backwards and found the names of everyone else involved. The doctor, the nun, the banker, the politician, the notary. Each of them was a link in the chain. I had to eliminate them all, one after the other. To be free of the past. That’s it. Now you know everything.”
Ana has been crying for some time. It’s even worse than she imagined. Ana and Diego had figured out the connection between two of the murders, but there were five in all. Despite everything Isabel did, Ana can’t bring herself to hate her. Isabel’s story is deeply moving. Of course, Ana knows that no one has the right to take justice into their own hands, that Isabel went too far, and she is a murderer. Still, Ana doesn’t give a damn. She can understand where Isabel’s coming from. Diego has not said a word. Isabel is waiting for a reaction. Afraid of what it might be. With good reason. He looks at her with daggers in his eyes, then picks up his empty glass and throws it against the wall. He stands up, grabs his chair, and hurls it to the floor. Then he leaves without another word. Outside, he begins walking wherever the streets take him. He walks. He walks all night. He cries, too. Franco is dead, but not the evil he brought into the world.
**Italian investigative journalist and author who wrote about the Naples mafia and who lives under police protection.
EPILOGUE
IT HAS BEEN nine months since Isabel left. Nine months since Diego has had any contact with her. After his sudden departure from the bar that night, and after having accepted, for good or bad, what she told them, it still took him weeks to get over it. He still feels like he was played by the lawyer. Above all, he can’t understand her or find any excuse that would justify what she did. She killed five people in cold blood. She pulled the trigger on human lives. Premeditated, deliberate, planned murders. Certainly, her victims did not have clean consciences themselves. But even if they inflicted the worst suffering that anyone can on a woman who has just given birth, they didn’t deserve to die. And two of them paid for the actions of others: they were targets by default. The APM councilman and the banker were murdered as the “sons of.” The bullets that ripped through their skulls were destined for their fathers. But since they were already dead, she punished the sons. They paid with their lives for the sins of their fathers. No matter what happened to her grandmother, Diego can’t bear the idea that Isabel became a vigilante and that she debased herself to commit an irreparable crime, five times.
Isabel is gone, but the scandal is not over. On the contrary, her departure only heightened the drama. And Diego is still following the story assiduously. Every month, he dedicates one episode of Radio Confidential to the stolen babies scandal. An unprecedented wave of protests rocked the country, but the government is still standing. It even used the current context to pass legislation to crack down on public demonstrations and gatherings, which says it all. Also, the investigation was dropped, of course, but with the help of David Ponce as its new legal counsel, the NASB has taken its case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered the Ministry of Justice to reopen an investigation. A victory for the former magistrate, who could hardly refuse to take up Isabel’s mantle. When he opened the storage locker with the key she gave him, David felt sick to his stomach. All of her archives were there. Dozens and dozens of files. He read them all. An entire month was spent that way, and he hardly ever left his apartment except to return to the storage locker for more. One morning, he showed up at the NASB’s offices.
“Hi, I’m your new lawyer.”
Since that day, David has spared no effort to help families get answers to their questions. That much, at least. As for who should bear the blame, that’s a more complicated question. This system of child trafficking that began under the dictatorship lasted for years; just bringing all the facts to light won’t be easy. Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that the case will ever come to trial. So he makes it his fight, every day, to speak out so that all of these horrific stories are told.
David’s regular appearances on Diego’s radio show have proved an effective platform for ensuring that this part of Spain’s recent history will not be forgotten. Diego, too, has thrown himself into the cause. He has just published a book, ¿Donde están? (Where are they?), which jumped immediately to number one on the best-seller list. In it, he connects the dots between the stolen babies and the five assassinations, but he never exposes Isabel’s involvement. He argues that it is highly probable that one and the same person committed all five murders, but he also makes it clear that he does not know who pulled the trigger or who ordered the killings. It’s a lie by omission that he decided on after lengthy discussions with Ana. The detective convinced him to write a book on the subject. She encouraged him and supported him throughout the writing process. She also pushed him to change his initial course, which was to name Isabel as the murderer, so that he finally b
acked down. Ana won the argument by invoking the question of vengeance. “When Carolina was murdered, you swore to me right away that you wanted to find her assassins and kill them yourself, so they’d end up the same way,” she reminded him. He still doesn’t have an explanation for why Isabel did what she did, but he decided finally not to add fire to the flame by doing her more harm than she has already done to herself. In any case, she is paying dearly for it now. A forced exile, with no date on the horizon for her eventual return.
It was Ana who drove Isabel to the airport the day after their tumultuous goodbye dinner. Before Isabel passed through security on the way to her gate, she gave Ana a letter to deliver to Diego. He never opened it. It sits on his desk; he looks at it every day, without knowing if he will ever have the courage to read it.
As if she were defying history itself, Isabel went to Argentina. Another country that has survived its own years of dictatorship, abductions, and stolen babies. She chose to go to Buenos Aires, the most European of Latin American cities. She felt at home as soon as she arrived. She got settled discreetly. The two CNI agents were seated not far from her during the fourteen-hour trip and followed her wherever she went. That is until she found an apartment in the Palermo district and they were sure she was no longer in any danger. During those first weeks, she walked everywhere, soaking up the atmosphere of her adopted city, its streets, its odors, its lifestyle, and its music, too. She visited its museums and spent time in its bars and its milongas, learning to dance the tango. She read a lot and thought a lot. About what she did, the consequences of her actions, and what she planned to do next. She waited for a response from Diego, but none ever came. A sign from him. A message. A call. And then she gave up hoping he would contact her, that they would be able to talk, that she could explain her motivations and her reasons. She had to look for work too. She didn’t have much difficulty finding a job. A phone call and an appointment were enough. For the last three months, she has been working as a legal advisor for the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They are also looking for their children and grandchildren who “disappeared” under a dictatorship.
Mala Vida Page 17