by Ellen Keith
“Good. So you can translate? We can’t afford any sloppy mistakes.”
“I’m a journalism student, sir.” He tried to keep his voice steady. “But I’ve studied English literature for years.”
“Consider this your test.” The man placed a paper-clipped booklet and pen on the table before moving to his desk in the corner.
The others shuffled through their documents. Some fed paper into typewriters, and the room filled with the clicking of keys and a series of chiming dings. Their supervisor sipped a cup of coffee while flipping through a newspaper. Luciano grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and uncapped his pen. The lid bore an anchor with a Phrygian cap and the Sun of May, the emblem of the Argentine navy. At the sight of this, the weight that had lifted when the guard removed his handcuffs returned as a heavy yoke. He realized the orders for these assignments, their very imprisonment, must have been sanctioned by those people working right at the top of the Casa Rosada. As he reached for the booklet, he imagined his hands and feet dangling from strings, flapping in the air as General Videla peered down and grinned beneath his thick moustache. And there, in the audience in front of him, his parents and grandparents and Fabián all watching with shame and disappointment. Luciano hesitated, but the long lesions on his forearms, green with infection, reminded him that collaboration could save his life.
He scanned the letter in front of him. The words slipped away as he stared at the page, wishing he were back in his favourite café, where he composed essays while the candlesticks beside him tapered into waterfalls of congealed wax. The name at the bottom of the letter was John Baxter, the address a street in Washington, DC. Luciano had heard rumours that the American government channelled money to Argentina, blind to the evil of the military junta, but this document contained perfect Spanish. For the purposes of official business . . . authorized visit . . . United States of America. . . . He read it over twice before understanding that they needed a translation to create a forgery so they could filter more of their contacts into the United States. Next to him, Gabriel adhered a set of matching photos to various passports: one Uruguayan, one Spanish, one Brazilian. Luciano recognized the person in the photo from the news, a prominent navy commander.
A guard came in with a medialuna and a fresh cup of coffee for the supervisor. The two men conversed in low voices, and Luciano took the chance to get a good look at the guard. The hooked curl of the guard’s hands and his thin fingers told him it was Hawk. When he turned around, their eyes met. He was probably only eighteen, the type of guy Luciano might run into at the cinema or a rock show. Hawk cocked his head and left the room.
Luciano tapped the pen to get the ink flowing and started on the first sentence of the letter. The language looped itself into knots, and the sentences took time to untangle. Based on the information submitted by the petitioner, Dr. R. L. London, on December 21, 1976, I take pleasure in informing you that the beneficiary, Mr. Jorge Emanuel Castrol, has been granted a multiple-entry visa for business purposes, effective April 19, 1977. He skipped over the few words he didn’t know in English and was finishing off the second paragraph when music picked up in the hall. A soothing recording of something classical, piano and woodwinds. Luciano pushed aside his surprise and tried to let the music settle his nerves, imagining himself writing a report at the kitchen table to his father’s favourite sonata.
The scream came like the glowing tip of a hot poker. A woman’s anguished cry followed by another, this one a deep, bellowing moan. “God, no.”
The others stayed bowed over their work, pasting and scribbling away while the balding man watched them in amusement. Luciano tried to catch their eyes, but their faces were blank, unreceptive, like he was watching them on a television screen. He lowered his head and stared at his translation. The word “travel” blurred into a fog of blue ink as the woman’s screams filled the air, growing louder, more desperate, until at once they cut off, leaving only the sound of the classical recording playing on.
FIFTEEN hours of daily labour, without breaks. On his first day, Luciano learned to estimate time by the television on the other side of the wall partition, which the guards used to muffle the sounds of the tortured if they didn’t turn on the music. They raised the volume for the soccer matches and lowered it for the evening news, and so, at certain hours, it served as a clock.
For three days, Luciano threw all his energy into the translations, hoping diligence would distract him from the persistent screams. Three letters of invitation, two visa approvals, and one long-winded article destined for the Associated Press, which boasted about the great strides Argentina had made in extinguishing “the abomination of communism.” The article let him practice his journalism skills, and he took some liberties with the translation in order to create what he hoped was elegant, self-assured prose. Once or twice, the tapping of typewriters and the scratching of pencils managed to trick his mind into believing he was back in the university library working on a paper. Between tasks, he dwelled on the meaning of the work he was doing and stole peeks at Gabriel, hoping for reassurance or some acknowledgement of their shared guilt, but Gabriel concentrated on the passports, dabbing a stamp in ink and carefully applying the American seal to visa after visa. Luciano tried to cut through the brambles of guilt, tried to convince himself that translating propaganda wouldn’t cause any pain, that a few English sentences couldn’t kill anyone, not directly.
When he returned to his cell on the third night, he couldn’t sleep. Gabriel’s soft snores came from his right and silence from the girl to the left. The footsteps of the guard drifted across the floor, along with the sweet smoke of his menthol cigarette. Luciano took shallow breaths to keep his hood cool. After every shift, he felt like he was entering a sticky Amazon night, where poisonous insects and yellow-eyed creatures hid in the canopy. He felt trapped, unable to run or move at all.
A nearby prisoner called out to the guard, whose strides echoed back down the corridor. A cell opened and something hollow landed on the ground—probably a bottle to piss in—before the door closed again. He rolled onto his back to catch the muted ball of light above him, glowing like a far-off sun. He could still feel the grooves he made on the paper while transcribing the government’s lies. With the clench of his jaw, he pushed beyond those thoughts, fumbled around the corners of his mind for something else. A ladder appeared. After propping it up against the basement wall, he unscrewed the cover of a vent, slithered through the hole, across the grass, over the flower beds, down the road, through the city until he reached the steps of his apartment. Standing up, he withdrew the key from his pocket and walked through the front door.
A whimper from the right snapped him from the haze. His muscles tensed again, and he pounded his fists against the mattress, handcuffs rattling. No matter how he tried to lose himself again in memories of Fabián, of his friends and his mother and father, everything hovered around him like those swarming insects.
The night before, he’d rapped on the partition and asked Gabriel if he knew where they were being held. ESMA, Gabriel told him, the Naval School of Mechanics. Luciano had ridden past it on the bus before. The academy formed an enormous complex of white stucco buildings with red-tile roofs, surrounded by a perimeter fence.
Focus. The instructors at journalism school stressed the importance of reporters channelling their ideas. Already, he felt things slipping, memories obstructed by those yellow eyes and shifting shapes. If he couldn’t hold on to his own thoughts, he would go crazy. He needed focus.
Long before enrolling in his program, he’d sought his father’s approval on one of his early attempts at reporting, a piece about a neighbourhood park overrun with petty crime: bike theft and a vandal who kept painting swastikas on the trash cans. For almost a week, he carried the article around in his book bag, hoping to catch his father in a good mood. That Thursday, his mother took a night shift at the hospital, leaving him and his father to their own devices. Of course, this meant asado at the steakhouse a few blocks ov
er. Luciano drummed his fingers anxiously against his chair until the waiter brought out the bread bowl. Then he slid the article across the table. “It’s just something I’ve been working on. I thought you might like to read it.”
His father took it without comment and scanned the first paragraph before he stopped, removed his reading glasses and held out the article. “Fascist brainwashing and baby carriages? What are you trying to say here? You can’t write anything coherent if you don’t know your audience.”
Luciano nodded and stuffed the pages back into his bag. They ate the rest of the meal in silence, until his father mumbled some excuse about needing to hurry home to finish checking over his factory reports. Shamed by his father’s apparent lack of interest, Luciano had sulked for days and vowed never again to show his writing to his father, who in turn had never asked.
Luciano lay still in his cell as he considered his father’s remark. He imagined the weight of his favourite jade-coloured fountain pen between his fingers, a pad of lined paper in front of him. In his mind, he began to write.
Dear Father,
How could you . . . Dear Father, honestly, what were you thinking? Dear Father, when they came to take me away, you, you just sat there. Your eyes were so cold, like glaciers. Dear Father, when they came for me, why didn’t you try to bribe them, or lie and say I’d spent the night at home? Why didn’t you do anything, anything at all? You coward.
The evening of the rally, Mamá had worn her nursing shoes under her skirt as she set the table, making sure to arrange the silverware exactly perpendicular to the table’s edge, as Papá liked it. Her hair was tied back the way Papá liked, everything just as he liked it. She kept checking the clock, and when he finally came home from his job at the Opel factory, he pecked her on the cheek and nodded at Luciano before sitting down to eat. Tuesday meant pasta, his nonna’s special recipe, which she’d learned to cook as a child in Italy. The aroma of olive oil and thyme filled the kitchen while Mamá prayed, but Papá was fixated on the soccer match on the living room television. It distracted him for most of dinner, so he probably hadn’t noticed how little Luciano ate. When Mamá had asked Luciano about his plans for the evening, Papá had interrupted by slamming his fork down on the table—Boca Juniors had gotten a penalty.
Always caught up in your own world, aren’t you? You never . . . I debated telling you about the rally. But that would have just, you would have sworn and called me an idiot for sticking out my neck. “Getting involved will bring nothing but trouble,” you would have said, or “Reckless protestors are asking to be killed.” You would have reminded me of people you’d known in Germany, the fate of those politicians and artists who tried to defy Hitler. That might have been enough to make me hesitate, convince me to stay home. Instead, I left right before the match ended, but you didn’t notice. You didn’t even fucking look up as I headed out the door. I wish I could say that was unusual.
Did his father think Luciano had brought this fate upon himself? He wouldn’t be wrong. When Luciano joined the Peronist University Youth—the JUP—he hadn’t understood what they were all about. The members treated each other like family, a type of unity and respect he’d never felt at home. They called each other by nicknames—he became “Liebre,” because they said he ran like a hare on the soccer field. It was Fabián who had talked him into everything. Luciano knew as much as anyone that Argentina needed change, but he’d seen enough headlines about the Montoneros—parkade bombings, assassinations, gunfights—to be wary of the JUP’s tactics.
Dangerous business, taking a stand. You’ve said it a dozen times. But, Father, these students have such a strong message. They promise that, they claim we can initiate change, starting with students, that universities can serve as a platform to engage the masses. Instead of just sitting back in fear, watching the country fall apart, we can act.
Some students organized weapons, just in case, but Luciano had limited himself to the occasional rally. The evening of his capture, they had chanted and marched outside the Congressional Palace until their voices grew ragged. “No more fear!” Sparklers waved around them as Fabián moved to the head of the group to deliver his speech, calling on the military to give the power back to the people. The night had crackled with energy; everyone believed they were on the brink of change.
Father, you don’t want to know what . . . Father, I’ll spare you the details of what they’ve done to me. But I bet you’d be surprised to hear where they’re keeping us—and I say “us” because there seem to be hundreds of us here, but I couldn’t guess the exact number. It’s crazy how many thousands of people must pass this building each day unaware. The student in the next cell says we’re being held in the officers’ quarters, at ESMA. Apparently, there’s another floor of people imprisoned above us in the attic. But I don’t get how these officers live on the floor below us. Some have their wives and children with them. It just doesn’t—how can they go about their daily lives knowing what surrounds them? Father, you once said that nobody in this world is truly evil, that it’s all a matter of circumstance. I wonder if you tell yourself that so you don’t have to come to terms with what happened in your own country. Because how can anyone hear the screams of tortured women and still sleep at night? How can anyone eat steak and drink Champagne while we starve overhead in soiled clothes? If that’s not evil, what is?
Father, they call our floor La Capucha, probably because of these damn hoods. Yesterday, when I called out to go to the toilet, a guard kicked me, fucking kicked me in the head! “You’re nobody,” he said. “No one is looking for you; nobody cares if you’re alive.”
Now, tell me: How many times can you hear something like that before you start to believe it?
Chapter Ten
MARIJKE
AUGUST 21, 1943
BUCHENWALD
ON HIS SEVENTH VISIT, KARL ASKED IF I ENJOYED sex with him.
I stared at his bare feet as we lay on the bed. “Yes, sir.” It was only a half lie.
“Sir?” He trailed a finger across my back. “Why won’t you ever say my name?”
At first, I didn’t understand. I was showing him the respect he believed he’d earned. But then I thought of the prisoners, so many of whom just wanted to be touched, to feel the warmth of a woman’s embrace. Perhaps the life of a Nazi was also lonely. Karl always entered the koberzimmer with a flinty stare and rigid movements, but within minutes, something in him would soften, the warmth returning to his eyes. The gentleness that followed felt like it belonged to a different man, someone he’d buried within. Even if that were the case, no one who could tear apart a family or kill the innocent deserved to be treated as an ordinary man.
Karl cleared his throat. “There’s a reason I keep coming here. I’m not visiting any of the other girls, not here or in the SS . . . facilities.”
“Whorehouse.”
“Marijke.”
“That’s what it is, whether or not you’re paying for it.”
He turned my chin to meet his. “Do you think of me as the sort of man who’s chasing a piece of meat?”
“Do you want me to answer that honestly?”
With a sharp sigh, he dropped his hand from my cheek. “I don’t know why I even care what you think.”
On the floor across the room, his pistol lay on a pile of clothes, the barrel pointed right at me. How would it feel to pick it up, to line up all the guards, the top SS men, and avenge the innocent one by one? The idea was as tantalizing as it was unnerving. Karl got up, but I watched the angry motions of his wrists as he fastened his boots, as he turned the doorknob. “Next time, you might not be so lucky. There are a lot of wolves out there.”
TWO weeks later, I awoke to faint music playing over the loudspeakers. Roll call. But it wasn’t Zarah Leander. That day, they were playing Schubert. I smiled despite myself. Surely, it was no coincidence but a gesture from Karl. At breakfast, a package arrived, wrapped in brown paper and marked with my name. In it was a violin.
Never before had I seen such a beautiful instrument. I refused to play on my own accord. My fingers glided over the varnished spruce and I even went so far as to raise the violin to my chin, but the bow stayed at my side. I was afraid of what it could unleash. Tilting it sideways revealed the inscription on the inside and my breath faltered the first time I read and reread it. Made in Naples in 1761 by the renowned luthier Nicolò Gagliano. A priceless instrument, one every violinist would have dreamed of playing. Yet it had slid into my lap, likely ransacked from the home of a Jewish heiress or a flamboyant opera singer, and this realization made me tuck it away out of sight.
KARL made a habit of appearing late at night, after I’d made my way through a line of prisoners, each thinner and more pallid than the last, and none of whom had heard of a quiet history professor named Theo de Graaf. Each passing night weakened my hope of finding my husband, but I never stopped asking. Only privileged prisoners received permission to visit the brothel, meaning our clients had somewhat better health and hygiene than most, which we counted as a small blessing. The other girls had grown used to the brothel routine: the primping, the faked pleasure, the endless swabs for venereal disease. Sophia acquired a sort of beau, a fellow communist named Friedrich, who requested her by koberzimmer number and who smuggled her sausages and flasks of gin. She gushed about him to anyone who would listen. However, the brothel supervisor had caught on and began shifting around our assigned koberzimmers with the hope of stopping such relationships from developing any further.
Karl’s visits no longer frightened me. Sober, he acted civil, and there was something that intrigued me in his austere manner, a hidden vulnerability. But he was still the enemy.
I waited for him in the koberzimmer in a lavender silk robe that had arrived the day after the violin, more an expectation than a gift. When he came in, he no longer rushed at me as he had in the beginning. He would tilt my chin, drawing my gaze to his, and kiss me.