by Ellen Keith
But now, extraordinary as it was to see the inner clockwork of the economy, the camp felt dreary. A place where officers never smiled, where zoo animals and labourers wore the same glazed look. He was determined to cheer up and hoped he’d find the Dutch girl on duty.
When he inquired about the SS brothel, a bunch of officers responded with hungry grins. So, he arrived there with two men who were practically salivating. It was his first time in a whorehouse, but he kept that quiet and let the others do the talking.
“Ingeborg, now she’s a fox. She can’t get enough of me.”
“That brunette? Haven’t you seen the size of her teeth?”
“The breasts on her and that’s what you stare at?”
“What about that girl from Frankfurt? She’s tighter than a Jew’s wallet.”
“I heard she gave Bauer crabs.”
Karl stepped in. “I’m certain she would have been dealt with if she had.”
The officers paused in agreement. Then the girls paraded in front of them one by one. As the most senior officer, Karl got first pick. These weren’t the ones he’d seen outside earlier and not one grabbed his attention. He’d always imagined prostitutes as sirens. The few he’d seen on the street in Berlin wore perfume and fake pearls. They beckoned with sultry words. But the women before him were thin and flat. Barely an ass on any of them and drab lingerie seemed to hide what curves they did have. At least Himmler knew to spend his budget outfitting his men, not his whores.
He hesitated before choosing the fairest of the bunch. She had pinned up her hair in fat rolls. With that hairstyle and her long neck, she reminded him of Else.
The staff gave them injections to ward off venereal disease before showing them to the rooms. Karl watched the girl undress before doing the same. Her ass sagged and stretch marks covered her stomach, but it had been too long since he’d seen a naked woman, and he was hard instantly. But just as he entered her, the groans of the other officers picked up. The slap of skin against skin. He couldn’t escape it. The girl lay there, not doing a thing or making any noise. When he did manage to finish, any pleasure he should have felt was dulled by her indifference. She rolled off the bed and began fastening her dress. While the other officers left the brothel just as they’d come in, bragging about their conquests, he left disappointed, the sourness of her breath lingering in his mouth.
Chapter Six
LUCIANO
MAY 2, 1977
BUENOS AIRES
DESPITE LUCIANO’S ATTEMPT TO CONSTRUCT A mental map of the car’s route through the streets of Buenos Aires, the twists and turns had grown far too many to count and he had no idea if they even remained within city limits. After twenty minutes—or was it an hour?—the car slowed to a halt. A window rolled down, followed by the crunch of approaching footsteps.
Someone outside asked a low, muffled question, and the man in the passenger seat responded with, “Luciano Wagner.”
At the mention of his name, Luciano stiffened. He lay on the back seat, his skin chafed from the gag, his limbs aching in their contorted positions: knees curled against his torso, arms pinned behind his back. Sticky sweat gathered along the waistband of his jeans.
The person outside instructed the driver to proceed, but the vehicle stopped again a minute later. As the doors opened, Luciano sucked in the cool air. Hands snatched at him. He thrashed and kicked in panic, but his legs tingled and he struggled to stand as they pulled him to his feet.
A jab in the back sent him forward along a paved road. Ahead, the sound of creaking metal, like a door opening. His shins hit something that made him trip against a body.
“Watch it.” The man struck Luciano and tugged him forward.
A different surface, hard under his feet. Before he had time to get his bearings, he was led down a staircase into a room with the cold dampness of a basement. His captors removed his gag and their footsteps faded away, but a prickling instinct told him he was being watched, so he ground his tongue against his molars until this distraction quelled his trembling.
A deep voice in front of him broke the silence. “Your name?”
“Luciano Wagner.” This came out cracked. Why were they asking what they already knew? Did they have so many prisoners to keep track of at once?
“From now on you’re number five-seven-four—remember that. Rank and nom de guerre?”
“I don’t understand.”
Another man interrupted. “Just answer.”
“I don’t have one.”
A sigh and the rustling of papers. His heart beat with such madness that the others must have noticed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted. “My name is Luciano. I’m a student at the UBA; I’ve done nothing.”
“You’re involved in terrorist activities. Opposing the government and provoking student disobedience. Now, if you’ll give us the information we’re looking for, we’ll make this easy for you.”
These were military men, pawns of the government. He grew dizzy, and his muscles cramped, already anticipating what was to come. Students at school, many of them more involved than he, had spread rumours of these kidnappings. Of young men and women, beaten up in their homes, electrocuted with the torn end of a lamp cord while their parents were forced to watch. Rumours of a Ford Falcon that had pulled up at a church in broad daylight, and the plainclothes officers who kidnapped the outspoken minister while the congregation watched. At the time, he’d dismissed the accusations as outrageous, telling Fabián that fear mongering was just another means to draw support for their cause.
But now he understood it was all true. His captors would demand a list of accomplices for his concocted crimes. There might be torture. It made no sense to fight back; the building probably contained dozens of armed men. He clasped his cuffed hands together and looked in the direction of the voice. “My parents have savings, a watch, gold necklaces—my grandparents own sheep and cattle. They’ll give you all of it!”
A pause followed, and Luciano imagined one man signalling to another.
“What do you want? What can I give you? Please, I’ll do anything.”
“We have no tolerance for your petty revolts.” Someone approached and pushed him into another room. Behind him, the voice called out, “Number five-seven-four, don’t forget.”
Heavy footsteps came at Luciano. Hands grabbed his clothes. He wrenched free and lunged back the way he’d entered, but ended up shoved against a bumpy wall lined with what felt like egg cartons. Without warning, something long and hard smacked his shoulders and calves, a pain that sent neon starbursts—green, orange, yellow—across his vision. He cried out and tucked down. Strikes against his neck, arms, an arc of spasms down his back. A loud tear, his shirt ripped along the seam. Then his binds came off. They ordered him to remove his clothes. Once he was naked, someone came over and restrained him. A blow to the groin stopped his squirming. “Mierda!” he cursed, doubling over at the waist. He was lowered onto a metal bed frame.
“Time for you to meet the grill.”
Luciano shook as his legs and arms were splayed and tied down. He couldn’t remember the Lord’s Prayer, but Pablo Neruda’s poetry spilled out in urgent whispers.
“What was your rank with the organization?”
“I’m not a Montonero. I’m innocent.”
“Who’s behind these student protests? We want names, first and last.”
The past week flashed before him: brainstorming slogans after class for the rally for freedom of speech, Fabián’s tousled hair as he addressed the crowd of students, his full lips glistening with spit as he delivered a passionate call to action. Had they nabbed him, too?
“I don’t know anything!”
They fastened something sharp to his hands, feet and stomach, cold like metal. A switch and an electric buzz filled the room, magnifying and concentrating overhead. Rank breath like curdled milk, warm against his face. The blindfold had shifted to let in some light, so he could just make out what was suspended abo
ve him: a rod as wide as a broomstick. He tried to make up some names, but not fast enough.
“Let’s see if Caroline can loosen your tongue.”
Then came searing pain. The electric prod sent waves of shock from head to toe. Loud, shrill screams rose up over the buzzing, and he only half-realized they were his own. It felt like his arms and legs were being ripped away, blinding, hot-red pain. Muscles contracted and his bowels loosened, the stench of shit mixing with that of roasting skin, of rotting pork and burning mouldy leather.
The begging cries that formed at his lips gave way to screams. He felt himself float toward the ceiling, and his yells grew distant as he looked down to see himself lying naked on the bed frame. Convulsions sent his body flying up, writhing against his restraints, but he didn’t feel any more pain. The torture stopped and, for the first time, he heard loud music blasting, muffling his screams. Suddenly, he understood the purpose of the egg cartons.
“Are you ready to talk?”
He started to retch, almost choking on the vomit. His jaw felt numb.
“Doctor?” the man asked.
Another voice responded. “He can take it.”
They removed the clips from his body and hooked something different to his teeth, a claw that scraped his gums. He tried to move his hand, to form words through the clumps of vomit.
“Names,” he said. “Montoneros: Carlos Esteban Alarcón, Daniel Corbo, Miguel Angel Herrera.” No response except the pain, those coloured shapes spinning faster and faster, plunging a rainbow of daggers toward him.
The voltage hit his teeth like a meteor, burning, exploding across his head until he was sure his skull would split down the middle. “Daniel Herrera,” he cried. “Carlos Corbo!” He screamed until he couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything, until he hovered over the bed frame looking down on the singed body that twisted and jerked on the grill.
A cold splash of water brought him back. He heard a hiss and crackle. Something dribbled from his gums, his tongue, hot and metallic. For a few minutes, nothing happened and he drifted in and out of consciousness. Shadows and pillars of light passed in front of his eyes. A cool metal object pressed against his chest, causing him to piss himself, but he heard a voice again, the doctor measuring his pulse. Muffled orders and the loosening of the ties at his wrists and ankles, then darkness.
WHEN Luciano awoke, his eardrums hummed. Something still covered his head, but this new fabric itched and dug into his skin where it was fastened. A putrid taste filled his mouth: iron and earthy decay. It felt like his skin had been peeled from his bones with a scalpel. Heavy shackles bound his ankles, and his wrists were cuffed again, his clothes back on, but it felt too warm for the basement, and he lay on a thin, soggy mattress. The air smelled like urine and stale sweat. Tilting his head back, he sensed a bright light high above him and the longer he stared at it, the more his senses returned. The pain sharpened to a point, and he saw Fabián hopping the gate at the Subte station; his mother’s chiming laughter as she twirled to show off a burgundy jumpsuit; his father driving a borrowed car down the coast, humming along to the classical station on the radio.
He cursed himself for going out that night, for getting his parents involved. His mother’s shattered expression, his father’s cold and unreadable one. But if these men worked with the police, his parents wouldn’t be able to do anything to help. He’d recently seen a crowd of women gathering near the Casa Rosada, the pink presidential building that sprawled across one end of the Plaza de Mayo like a great wall of coral. Mothers, grandmothers, all of them wearing white kerchiefs over their hair. Some held photos of their children or signs and banners. They had started to march, circling the Pirámide de Mayo while they chanted, demanding that the government, the police, give them information about their missing sons and daughters. Some of their children had been missing for weeks, some for months. Now, Luciano understood that he had become another one of the desaparecidos, the disappeared.
He shuffled to the right until he came in contact with a wall. Its rough texture and the almost hollow sound it made against his knuckles gave the impression of particleboard. He inched himself upward. Once he managed to sit, he leaned against the wall, which gave slightly under his weight.
Then the tread of boots across the floor behind him, slow, deliberate steps, interrupted by a click, a noise he knew from years of Clint Eastwood films—the sound of a pistol being cocked. Luciano stayed very still. A cold sweat formed on the back of his neck as he anticipated a guard taking aim, but the footsteps retreated.
Over the next several hours, he calculated that it took the guard an average of one minute and ten seconds to pace what must have been a long passageway and that the man paused every twenty minutes for a cigarette. The soothing smoke drifted over to Luciano, making him itch for a cigarette of his own. Later, he decided he was still in the city, probably near the airport, as planes passed overhead with the low rumble of takeoffs and landings. But there was something more surprising: on all sides, voices let out muted cries and chains clinked, marking the presence of other prisoners. He tried to picture them suffering alongside him and wished they all shared a cell so they could talk. His throat burned, and when nobody responded to his cries for food or the toilet, he soiled himself on the mattress. The effort of sitting had grown unbearable, so he reclined again, slipping in and out of a restless sleep. Later, he jolted awake, alert, but with a blank mind. He was left to run his swollen tongue over his tender gums, counting the passing seconds.
At 4,532 seconds, he lost count. A door close to his cell clanged and a guard barked out a command: “Get up.”
“No, please,” a girl responded, “not again!” Her pleas made Luciano shiver. Something told him she’d been through far worse than he had. Shackles clanked, and the guard pulled her from her cell. Once they were gone, Luciano perceived nothing around him but darkness and felt very alone, but when she was brought back much later, he had to listen to her soft, broken whimpers, which made him long for the silence again.
The space must have lacked windows as the quality of light stayed constant, and the absence of planes told him it was late at night. Pangs gnawed at his stomach, but he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He saw himself grilling midnight steaks with chimichurri on a family camping trip, savouring the last bites of his nonna’s baking.
The incident at the student rally came back to him. The expression on Fabián’s face when Luciano had reached for his hand after misreading a tight embrace. For a second, Fabián let his hand linger, but his eyes widened and then hardened as he broke away. The rest of the evening, Fabián kept his distance, his only remarks centred on the lettering of the protest banners, the need for a proper audio system. He had left without saying goodbye.
Luciano brought his bound hands to his head, willing the image to disappear. He tried to picture his friend in the safety of his own bed, the sheets cast to the side in the midst of a dream, but found himself wondering if Fabián wasn’t trapped somewhere nearby, with nobody to comfort him. The possibility took over like a migraine.
Later, faint noises woke him: honking cars and the squeal of brakes. Enough traffic to be a major street. Then something else, something that seemed impossible amid it all: the ring of children’s laughter.
He cocked his head, waited for it to stop. But there it was again. A group of children, laughing and playing. There had to be a school close by. He sat up to get a better sense of its location but felt himself go faint, and by the time he came to, the students had disappeared. He pictured them in their classrooms, busy with spelling tests, oblivious to what was unfolding metres away.
All day, he cowered in the corner of his cell. His eyes gummed shut from lack of use. The blindness haunted him, conjuring demonic creatures that circled him, drawing closer and closer and baring bloody fangs. Later, he saw cannonballs shooting in slow motion from all directions. They never hit, but the anticipation made him claw at his exposed skin, twist his wrists against th
e handcuffs until they bled.
Each time the guard came by, he prayed for the door to open, for a bullet to the head. A quick death. Or perhaps he would just starve. Time had vanished in the black nothingness of his cell, and for all he knew, it could have been days or entire weeks since his capture. He had no recollection of eating. Long hours dripped into one another, and he grew so light-headed and weak that he could no longer raise his face from the mattress.
When the door did open, he was ready. “Just shoot me,” he said, but a garbled mumble came out, and instead of the release of a trigger, he heard something drop onto the mattress. The door clanged shut. When he reached out, his hands closed around a stale bun.
AT first, he’d had no way of relieving himself, but he had so little in his stomach that it seldom mattered. Later, a guard brought him an empty cola bottle, but in his fumbled attempts to use it, he spilled it across the mattress. Before the fabric dried, he had to go again, but this time he needed more than a bottle.
He waited until the guard came back down the hall and then whacked the door as hard as he could. When he got no response, he repeated this and pointed to the bottle that rolled between his feet on the off chance the guard was looking.
“Wait.”
By the time the guard returned, Luciano’s gut had cramped up, and he was so surprised to hear the door open that he didn’t move.
“Hurry up, you piece of shit.”
He struggled to lift himself, his legs flimsy and useless. The guard hauled him out of the cell and positioned him so he was standing; his hands were placed on the shoulders of someone in front of him. Another door opened and a few seconds later, Luciano felt a pair of hands grasp his shoulders. A heavy grip, with long, wide fingers and rough palms. The guard ordered them forward, making two more stops farther ahead. Luciano estimated that the chain must have included at least six or seven prisoners, based on its slow, caterpillar movement. They slugged on: right at a corner, forward again, the shackles around their ankles jangling. There was a downward step that he could feel coming from the dip in the prisoner before him. The bathroom was on the right. The guard guided them into the room. Countless footsteps echoed across the tiles. He felt his way through the open space, the jostling bodies, until he hit a wall. When he found a toilet, he tugged at his pants, which fell down without unfastening the button. A few days earlier, he would have balked at the idea of using the bathroom so publicly, but now he took his time, savouring the comfort of human presence. The pad of feet against the floor, the unzipping of zippers, the sniffles and dry coughs. At one point, there came a loud smack, a cry, and a thud against the floor. “No talking,” the guard said.